Don't Worry, Be Happy

There's no doubt about it: worrying is completely illogical.  As the Good Book says, "Which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?" So, why is it so common?  Why is it so hard to stop?  I've contemplated this a lot over the years.  As a Christian I have often been ashamed by how much I worry and fret.  I've confessed it as sin, accepted it as a weakness that God knew about when He chose me, and prayed that He would give me the peace that passes understanding. Along with David, I have prayed,  "Search me O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; see if there be any hurtful way in me and lead me in the everlasting way."  But did I really mean it?

Being tried by God has been like a scourging, in a way. Pain has been involved.  Loss and limitation have come to call.   Having recently re-read the book Hinds Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard, I have appreciated anew this allegorical story that seems uncannily like a telling of my life.  The two sisters "Sorrow" and "Suffering" have been holding my hands, taking me, little Much Afraid, on this journey.  And like Much Afraid, I am regularly harassed and bullied by Craven Fear and Self-Pity.

But in the last couple of months, something surprising has happened.  I came to the end of my worry rope and surrendered it all.  I laid my body on the altar and said, "It's yours - do what you must to make me more like You."  When Craven Fear shows his ugly face and taunts me, I know what to say. When Self-Pity starts whimpering, I choose not to listen.  This does not mean that they no longer harass me; indeed, there are regular skirmishes, and I am still weak and vulnerable.  But to all the dreadful scenarios they parade before me, I say, "It's true, those things could happen.  But my Sovereign Leader is incapable of making mistakes, so if they do, it's all a part of His perfect love for me.  He knows what I need."  And there, at last, is peace.

"But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, 

will he not more clothe you, O you of little faith?"  

Matthew 6:30

Who Made the Lantana?

Is there anything we can create that is half so beautiful as this lovely lantana?  

We fool ourselves if we think any of our art as original.  

We are only imitators at best.

Look, ye, upon this tiny riot of color, and marvel.

Every good thing bestowed
and every perfect gift
comes down from the Father of lights
with whom there is no variation
or shifting shadow.
James 1:17

Lavender

Isn't lavender gorgeous?  I took this photo in Moscow, Idaho, where the stuff was growing carelessly in absolute heaps, as if it were a particularly prolific weed.  I've tried growing it, but it seems to sense my potential for neglect and simply refuses to cooperate.  The difference between reality and what happens in my mind's eye is often quite stark.  I've done the most amazing things in my mind as I've planned extensive herb and flower gardens in which I harvest and dry things, extract essential oils, make home remedies from wildflowers and weeds, create healing tinctures and teas.  Every time I read something about that, it sets my mind in motion, but the motion seems to stop there.  Because I can't grow lavender.  Not only that, but I've discovered that thinking about work is considerably easier than actually working.  And I can't grow lavender.  You know what?  That's absurd.  I'm taking the Lavender Challenge.  This is the year that I shall overcome the blackness of my thumb!  I will have fields of lavender, bushels and bushels of the stuff.  I shall become the Lavender Queen!   I'll start my own business selling lavender essential oil, lavender scented soap (homemade of course), lavender infused hot chocolate, lavender mosquito spray, everything lavender!!

And now you know how my mind's eye works.  It doesn't take much for me to get carried away.  I think I'll stop now, mostly because (forgive me for repeating myself) I just can't grow lavender.  Sigh.

Cool update: I wrote this a year ago but never published it.  Last summer I successfully grew lavender!

These two photos represent pretty much my whole lavender crop, but I consider it a fine start. And here's something else cool;  I did a little research about lavender in the Bible and came up with this:

Lavender is often mentioned in the Bible, not by the name lavender but rather by the name used at that time, spikenard. In the gospel of Luke the writer reports: "Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment."

The name "lavender" is a definite upgrade from "spikenard," in my opinion.  Apparently the Romans had something to do with that:

The Greeks and the Romans bathed in lavender scented water and it was from the Latin word "lavo" meaning "to wash" that the herb took its name.

At any rate,  the Lavender Challenge has been met!  Can lavender infused hot chocolate be far behind?  I'm going to catch up with my mind's eye yet, you'll see...

For the beauty of the earth

For the triumph of the skies

For the love which from our birth

Over and around us lies

Lord of all, to Thee we raise

This our hymn of grateful praise!

Reminiscing

Thinking back...21 years ago I was in the hospital lying flat on my back recovering from a C-section and suffering spinal headaches that were excruciating.  My newborn twins were preemies, so tiny and entangled with tubes and wires that it was a major enterprise to try and hold them.   My other two boys were at home and I wondered if they felt abandoned by me.

I asked my doctor how long the spinal headaches would last and he speculated that they could last up to a year or more.  "But the anesthesiologist told me that they'd probably not last more than a week!"  "That's because it was his needle," was the cold reply. He left and I collapsed in a frenzy of angry tears.  When the nurses came in to figure out what was going on, I told them what the doctor had said.  "Oh," they said, "We call him 'Dr. Doom.'  He's always saying things like that."  "Well, I'd like to punch him in the stomach!" I said with a great deal of feeling. Somehow this made all of us laugh.  It was such an unlikely sentiment coming from someone like me that I'm still rather shocked that I said it.  It tells something about the extremity of my emotions at the time.

Alone in my bed, still fretful and disturbed, I turned my anger on God.  How did He expect me to take care of my four children, including these two little ones, if I couldn't even sit up without having a hammer pounding in my skull.  It was untenable!!  Slowly, His presence infiltrated my overwrought heart and I began to remember His amazing love.  It dawned on me that He wouldn't give me these children without making a way for me to care for them.  "I will never fail you nor forsake you."  "I will never fail you nor forsake you."   Never!!!  Ever!!!  

No wonder the psalmists often reminisced, as it were, about God's faithfulness in the past and His promises for the future.  Sometimes in the midst of the storm, it's good medicine to remember sunny skies and rainbows.  

The headaches disappeared shortly after I left the hospital.  (Coincidence? I think not!).   And now those two babies that got such a shaky start in life are strong and healthy young men who are on their own journey with God and faithful in the assembling together of the saints.    

He did not fail nor forsake me then; He will not do so now; He will not ever fail me or forsake me in the future.  

Reminiscing.

Doodle

When I was young and obliged to sit through church services, I would pass the time during sermons by doodling.  One of my earliest doodles was to draw an outline of my hand and fill it in with hundreds of little jelly bean-type shapes. Hey, it kept my hands busy and my mind focused, often even on the sermon, believe to or not.

Doodling became a habit of mine.  I doodled my way through phone conversations, classes, meetings, seminars...anytime when I was a captive audience, so to speak.  I doodled in the margins of my notes, on napkins, on bulletins, on scraps of paper, sometimes even on my skin.  Naturally, these little meaningless scribblings weren't permanent or noteworthy; they certainly weren't what one could consider art...or were they? 

I just discovered that there's a thriving art form out there based on DOODLING!  Be still, my doodling heart!  It's called Zentangle and I've suddenly found a home for my aimless and wandering pen.  Doodling with a purpose. Ahh...I'm on my home planet on this one. A wild idea just occurred to me. Jesus stooped and wrote something on the ground with his finger in John 8. People love to speculate about what He was writing, but what if He was just doodling?  Doodling while the people chewed over the words, "He who is without sin, cast the first stone."  Doodling while the Holy Spirit did His convicting work on their hearts. Doodling in the dirt while exposing the dirt in people's souls. Don't worry; I'm not going to place a lot of weight on that somewhat absurd speculation, but it makes me smile.

So here are my first two Zentangles.

A Little Bit of Gray Hair...

Yesterday I was raising little children.  Today I qualify for the senior discount at the grocery store.  Yesterday I could tote a young child around with one arm and carry a couple loads of groceries with the other.  Today, a little bit of shoveling causes my arms to ache and I must ask for help with carrying things.  It's breathtaking what can happen in such a short time.  Although many women my age are dying the gray out of their hair, I've decided to embrace it.  I wish I could say that this is symbolic of embracing the aging process, but I have to admit that it's mostly because I'm lazy and cheap.  In truth, I sometimes envy the youthful look of those who turn back time by putting the color back in their hair.  I didn't realize how much I took that youthfulness for granted until I began losing it.  

"But though our outer man is decaying, 

yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.  

For momentary light affliction is producing in us 

an eternal weight of glory far beyond comparison 

while we look not at the things which are seen, 

but at the things which are not seen.  

For the things which are seen are temporal, 

but the things which are unseen are eternal."

1 Corinthians 4:16-18

So it appears that my vision needs adjusting.  I see gray hair, but I need to see instead the daily inner renewal.  When my focus is on aches and pains, I need to put on a different lens and see the eternal weight of glory that those afflictions are producing.  I've always been near-sighted.  It's time to become far-sighted.

Remembrance

This candle was made with flowers from the memorial service after my sister died.  It pains me sometimes to observe how little I think about her now, how I need things like this candle to jog my memory and bring her back to me.  It doesn't seem right that she should pass away not only from this life, but also from my thoughts.  I remember you, my sister!

How quickly we forget.   If only we could remember every single person, every single event, every conversation, every book read, every movie seen, every disturbing image, every harsh word, every rancorous argument, every grief, every pain...sound good to you?  Me neither. Our limited memories are no doubt a blessing from God.  He knows that there are some things that are better forgotten and the sooner, the better.  

Yet, we are to be careful and disciplined about our memories: careful not to forget that which is important, and disciplined in our bringing those things to remembrance.  God had to tell His people over and over and over again not to forget what He did when He brought them out of Egypt.  He memorialized it with food and ritual in the Passover supper.  Memorials were built at his command to commemorate important events.  Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper to observe as a remembrance because we so easily forget those things that should not ever be forgotten.  We need reminders, substantive memorials.  We need the bread and the wine, the ritual food that nourishes our souls and jogs our memories.

I remember You, my Lord!

And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, 

he broke it and gave it to them, saying,

 “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

Luke 22:19