Category: Life

Hearts Breaking Open

God placed this in my path this morning, and I want to pass it along. There is great healing in hearts breaking open at ground zero, and I pray this from Maya Angelou helps open yours as it helped open mine in a beautiful way. I fear 9/11 has become a symbol of closing rather than opening. I pray we will see the love extended and the hearts bared bravely on a day that forever changed us all. I choose to believe that the love shown was what changed us and pray I will open my heart to ground zero today and every day. Thank you Michael Collins for the vivid reminder.

IN MEMORY OF 9/11 :
With out their fierce devotion
We are fragile and forlorn
Stumbling briefly among the stars.
We and our futures belong to them
Exquisitely,our beliefs and our
Breaths are made tangible in their love.

Let us remember all the bravery, “exquisitely tangible,” all the public and anonymous heroes, in a time when “serving and giving for others rose above every other concern. Think about all of the giving. Those uniformed and civilian servants who risked their lives for others on September 11, on the flights, in the Pentagon, at Ground Zero in New York;teachers who comforted children and waited till all were safely accounted for (we lost 47 parents of our Lutheran school children that day);pastors and parishes who kept their doors open and sat with the public,listening to their lament for months;those around the world and throughout our church who sent stuffed animals,cards, letters, money, expressions of prayerful compassion, visits; ironworkers, truck drivers, chaplains, counselors, volunteers, all who worked at ground zero, at the morgues, at the site in Staten Island during the longmonths of rescue, then recovery; military chaplains and those who serve in our armed forces; those who lost loved ones, friends, businesses and worked at the dignity of living every day with sorrow. Walking the streets of Manhattan, going on the subways, a different spirit prevailed. All this heroism and sacrifice and shared sorrow made us open to one another. The open window reminded us that for a time we were one metropolis, not divided by inner city\suburb or race or class;that for a time our synod and national church lived in unity of prayerful purpose, transcending the things which vex us and divide us. We were neighbors, sisters, brothers,friends to one another, almost outside of ourselves and our narrow self interests.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I haveloved you. No one has greater love thanthis, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.” (John 15:12-14)

At Ground Zero when the remains of a child of God would be found something remarkable would happen. All activity would cease. The pile would gentle down to silence. Withbowed, uncovered heads everyone at Ground Zero would show their consummate respect for life as the remains would be lovingly brought out from the rubble. Let us remember, with bowed heads and respectful silence, the heroes, the servants, the extended act of giving which surrounded all of us us.

And let our hearts break open to the ground zeros of today…

Maya Angelou

Maya

Witnessing a Resurrection

Turtle 2

I witnessed a resurrection today on Topsail Island as I watched six healed turtles released into the sea. They all headed in the same direction, toward the point on their way to the Gulf of Mexico. What an amazing sight it was to behold! I marvel when I think of the way it all happened. I told my little granddaughters that I was going to visit the sick turtles while I was with my sister on South Topsail Island and promised to bring shirts and some toy turtles back to them. When I got to Edie’s, she told me the new hospital wasn’t open. She said she thought I could get some shirts at the Quarter Moon, so we biked down to the gift shop.

The store was closing when we got there, so I quickly grabbed five shirts and asked them to hold them for me until the next day. They didn’t take a credit card, and I didn’t have any cash. We were biking back the following day and noticed the door to the old hospital was open. The turtles were still in there so volunteers were busy at work. I asked if they had any shirts or toy turtles for sale. They told me that the new hospital gift shop was open on Monday and Wednesday for a few hours each day. Edie and I decided to go to the new store and went by the Quarter Moon to tell them I didn’t need the shirts.

The lady in front of me was getting a smoothie and telling the woman behind the counter that she was heading out and would smell great when she got back. My sister and I laughed at her remark, and she told us that she was a turtle hospital volunteer. She told us there was going to be a release. We were beside ourselves. It’s very rare to see a release, and Edie had always wanted to witness one. Unfortunately, she had to have carpal tunnel surgery in Chapel Hill today so she didn’t get to see the sweet miracle.

All of the turtles did the same thing as they were brought down to the sea, they flapped their legs as if they were flying. Their excitement was contagious, and the crowd cheered them on as they made their way down the beach. Each turtle had a beautiful resurrection, and I thank God for allowing me to witness each. God has a resurrection in mind for all His children, and He gives us the same joy and excitement I saw in those amazing turtles today.  The turtles have a very unique GPS that allows them to navigate the globe, and I’ve got the Holy Spirit to help me do the same.

There just aren’t words that describe the sweet feeling of freedom I saw in those majestic creatures today. We all are looking to be released so we can go where we know we belong. God taught me a beautiful lesson today with the help of six turtles and the folks at Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Hospital. There is such great work being done by the folks who work there.  As I watched them working so diligently to get the turtles back into the water, I realized the turtles weren’t the only things that were extremely large. Their hearts were even bigger!!

Turtle 1

Sunrise

Cross at Sunrise

God woke me this morning and bid me to come outside and see His sunrise. I came to the island for a sunrise, and God gave me more than I ever expected. The beaches on South Topsail Island are the most beautiful in the world. God literally took my breath away this morning when I ventured out to see what He had in store for me. I arrived a few moments before the sun peeped over the horizon and saw some beautiful pink skies, but I was not prepared for what happened when the sun appeared.

God placed a beautiful cross in the eastern sky, and I could not take my eyes away until it became too bright for my limited vision. It was a picture of hope and resurrection which was just what I needed. It’s been a difficult year in many ways, but I’ve never been more aware of God’s presence than I was this morning when I saw that amazing pink cross in the sky. This picture does not capture the beauty I witnessed this morning. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but it would take more than a thousand words to describe the picture God graciously painted for me this morning. He knew I was ready for it.

Packed and Ready to Go :)

Every time I pack for a trip, I’m reminded of how the process forces me to make choices I just finished packing for my trip to Topsail Island, and it was not like any other packing experience I’ve ever had. My focus was not on what I needed, but on what I loved and wanted with me. That changes the packing and the journey. I’m usually worried about my car, the traffic, the directions, how much money I’ll need, and a lot of what if’s. This time, I’m looking forward to every mile and every minute of the next eight days. The difference has to do with what I’m not taking with me on this trip. Guilt is not going, and that makes packing a pleasure.

Grace and guilt cannot exist together. Like love, grace cannot breathe in an unforgiving atmosphere. Both will suffocate and die, and that’s exactly what my heart has been doing since 1964. I found myself lost at sea and searching for a shore upon which to land. I heard “Love Lifted Me” being sung as a hymn of invitation and  grabbed the life raft being offered to me.  Like the words in the song promised, I was saved. I didn’t understand completely what that meant, but I knew I was out of the waters and on a life raft. It wasn’t the shore I had in mind, but I was safe and dry.

I’d like to say I was surrounded by love and supported after my decision to accept the love Christ offered me, but I can’t. My family stopped going to church shortly after I was saved, and as far as everyone was concerned I was going to heaven. That’s all that mattered. Once saved, always saved, end of story. That was the theme of my new journey. The problem was the guilt I began to feel about every little thing. I couldn’t do enough or be enough to deserve being pulled out of that water, so the load I carried got heavier and heavier with each passing year. The raft was heavy laden and at the point of sinking last month.

God used a sweet novel and a beautiful lighthouse to get me to His shore. It wasn’t easy to leave the safety of the raft and get back into the water, but God made sure to put love in the water and on the shore to guide me.  The swimming was easy once I let go of the guilt I was carrying. It was like replacing a concrete block with a pair of water wings. I don’t know where my journey will go from here, but I do know that I have everything I love packed and ready to go

Ready to Go

Love is Light Luggage

Today marks my first guilt-free Labor Day since 2002. I left my husband of thirty years on Labor Day eleven years ago, and my heart has been hanging on to a suitcase filled with guilt since then. Letting go of the guilt has been like giving birth in a strange way, but I’m the one coming out of the darkness and on to the shore. I knew better than to enter a marriage based upon guilt, but I did it anyway. The narrow religion of my childhood was an unforgiving birth canal in which I stayed for far too long. It constricted my heart and made me feel guilt going in and coming out of my marriage. There are still many who see divorce as a cardinal sin, and I fell into a pattern of apology and wore my relationship status much like that scarlet letter Hester Prynne donned.

Miserably married folks were particularly irritated by my divorce, and I see now it was simply a case of misery loving company. ‘If I have to stay married, so do you’ was a prevailing attitude. I found myself defined by yet another negative label, and it hurt my heart deeply.  I know now that I put those labels  on my heart, and I found others who agreed with me. It’s been the theme of my heart until this year. I see myself in a new and beautiful light for the first time, and I’ve let go of those hateful labels that weighed down my heart and broke my spirit. Ripping off the labels was a lot like tearing bandages off healing wounds. They didn’t come off easily and took little pieces of my heart with them when they did.

The pieces of my heart that were attached to those labels are gone, and they aren’t coming back. Like skin pulled away with a bandage, they needed to go. It was worth all the pain of the past month to see the beautiful new heart under those labels. God has been creating that heart in me for almost three years, and it’s been a process that brought both amazing love and deep hurt into my path. Last week, God took off the labels when I finally agreed to let them go. He  tossed them in the trash and bid me to look at my new heart through His eyes. I can’t describe how I felt when I saw the new me; I cried cleansing tears of pure joy. Obeying God was the key to my makeover. I listened as never before and heard love. Love changes everything, and that was the lesson my heart so needed to hear in order to heal.

I was stuck in a ridiculous rut for eleven years that took my heart to its lowest level ever. I longed for a way out, but I continued to go deeper into darkness and almost drowned. God had other plans, but those plans could not begin until I agreed to obey Him and Him alone. I let religion define my relationship with God, but He showed me that only love can do that. Love lifted me once again as I found myself drowning in a sea of guilt unable to reach the shore. God put a beautiful lighthouse  on His sweet shore of grace that gave me the courage I needed to fight my way out of the dark waves and find His love and grace waiting for me on the shore.

I’m not sure where my path will go from here, but I know that the luggage I’m carrying now is not the same I carried to this point. Grace, peace, and love are carrying me this time. That terrible load of guilt sank to the bottom of a dark sea and is right where it belongs. I feel like my nineteen-year-old self running in the woods, and that’s just where God wants me to be. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that God put a trip to Topsail Island in my path this week. My heart feels like a Topsail sunrise!

Sunrise on Topsail Island

Grace Flippers

An afternoon of swimming left me beautifully worn out. What a blessing it’s been to watch the girls learn to love the water. I wasn’t sure about having a pool with two little girls who didn’t swim, but seeing them play in the water has been a beautiful blessing. My father got tired of trying to teach me how to swim, so he threw me in the deep end of a very cold pool. I got to the side and only recently stopped swimming as though my life depended up getting to the side. The pool has been such a blessing  as I’ve overcome my fear of the water and swam without panic for the first time in my life. I’ll be sorry to see the pool covered and hope to get in at least another month of swimming in before having to close it.

The key to swimming is the same as the key to loving, letting go. That’s been God’s powerful lesson this month. I’ve let go of fear and kicked guilt out of my heart. What a difference that’s made in the way I feel. Guilt made my heart feel as if it had a concrete block attached to it. I’ve replaced guilt with grace. I noticed that Gina and Tyler were swimming with flippers today, so I donned a pair and couldn’t believe the difference they mde. I think my ankles may be a little sore tomorrow, but I loved the feeling they gave me.

God’s grace has the same effect on my heart as those flippers had on my swimming. God not only gave me an image; He also let me feel His lesson in grace today. It’s so good not to be guilt ridden anymore. God is love, and guilt destroys love faster than anything else in this world. It’s a lesson that’s taken a lifetime to learn, but I’ve finally got it and don’t plan to forget it. I felt like a mermaid in the pool today, and that is a feeling I won’t soon forget. If I ever feel guilt creeping back into my heart, I plan to swim away from it as fast as those grace flippers will carry me.

Flippers

Guilt Ridden or Grace Driven?

This journey to find the love God has for me has been a guilt ridden ride that has drowned my spirt, broken my heart, and withered my soul. I found my heart at a dead end for the third time in my life. Dead ends are always clearly marked so as to warn those who may venture down the path.  The same is true for my heart’s journey. I knew the paths did not lead anywhere, and perhaps that’s why I took them. There is safety in a dead end road; at least I know where it goes.  God puts beautifully open, loving roads all along my path, but I’ve never have the courage to take one.

The recent reminder of such a road not taken reminded me that the decision is always mine to make. I can blame on a bad beginning or a naive spirit, but my heart’s journey is determined by my decisions. I, and I alone, am accountable for my choices. That was God’s powerful message throughout the day yesterday. I decided to take a late-night swim after dinner. As I swam, I looked into that amazing western horizon knowing the sun would soon be setting. I realized in that moment that God has been using those stunning sunsets to show me that an end was near. It was the most painful ending yet, but God’s loving grace put on an amazing show before the light in my heart was completely gone.

My heart came through this most difficult season in one piece for the first time in my life, and God’s promise of a new beginning gave me hope as He put me back on His wheel for reshaping. I almost allowed guilt to carry my heart back into a dark hole, but God had other plans. I listened this time and let His sweet grace flow over my heart and around it in a way that swept away the last remnants of my brokenness. It truly was a rush of living water. I’ve always seen myself as damaged goods, and that does comes from a bad beginning that left my heart adrift. Funny that water should continue to play such a big role in my heart’s journey. I’ve been battling it for so very long, but as I swam in the cool, clean water and looked at the beautiful sun last night, I surrendered and began turning in the water. I could feel myself on His potter’s wheel; His hands turning and pulling my heart nearer to His own.

It was a feeling I can’t put into words, but I hope to put it into my life and my love from now on. God removed the remains of a guilt-ridden ride, took me out of a ridiculous religious rut, and put me in a place filled with more grace, peace, and love than I’ve ever felt in my life. It was a new beginning as I gave my whole heart to God and let go of the guilt that has been a thorn in my heart from the moment I came into this world. The lessons of the past six months have been  the most difficult ones in my life, but they have allowed me to let go of guilt and embrace His grace as never before. What an amazing difference His living water makes. I don’t think I’ll be digging any more cisterns for a while. Thank you Jeremiah for the reminder, and thank you God for Your love, Your Son’s grace, and Your Spirit’s sweet peace. Grace driven is so much better than guilt ridden! My heart feels just like this sunset, and I can’t wait to see what sunrise God has in mind.

Sunshine + Rain = Amazing Sunset

I’m Home

Peace is always present

When I look to God.

He’s there,

Always beside me, 

To comfort and to guide me.

All He wants is my heart,

All and not just part.

I hold on to my way

Unable to let go.

He sits waiting quietly 

For me to come along.

But I keep singing softly

Praying my own song.

Hoping He will join me

And let me lead the way.

My heart is always yearning

I find myself alone.

I turn,

And He is waiting

For me to hear His song.

When I hear Him singing,

My heart bursts out in song.

I’m home,

Nothing is better

Than being in His arms.

Tears give way to singing.

Fear gives way to joy.

I’m home,

Nothing is better

Than being in His ams.

cropped-topsail-island.jpg

A Heart Lift

Photo from baileypottery.com
Photo from baileypottery.com

In the hands of an expert potter, wet clay is molded into a beautiful open vessel. In God’s loving hands, my heart is pushed, squeezed, and pulled upward in the same manner. When the pot isn’t what the potter wants, He throws it back onto the wheel, applies water, and starts over. God has stretched, squeezed, pushed, and pulled my heart as never before this month. He’s caught all of my tears and applied them to my heart in order to get it ready for His loving hands. I’ve been digging my own cisterns instead of depending upon His living water, and those cisterns were as dry as they have ever been this week. God used Jeremiah’s vivid images of pottery, cisterns, and fountains to teach important lessons in faith, peace, love, and hope. God’s Word may tear down, pluck up, and destroy my heart, but God builds it back in a beautiful way bringing me ever closer to His love, His Son’s grace, and His sweet Spirit’s peace. God’s molding leaves my heart, like the potter’s vessel, open and ready to be filled from His life-giving fount. God is love, and love changes everything. Knowing I’m loved gives me the courage to be still and let God have His way with my heart and show me the peace He has planned for my path. The heart lift that results will be worth all the squeezing, pulling, and pushing.

Fountains & Cisterns

Forsaking a filled and flowing fountain for an empty cracked cistern sounds ridiculous, but that’s just what Israel is doing according to Jeremiah 2:13. It is what all of us do at some point in our lives. No matter how big or beautiful the cisterns I dig for myself, they will never hold water or compare to the living water Christ’s love provides.  Jeremiah 2 is referred to as “Judah’s Apostasy.” Apostasy is the renunciation of a religious faith or an abandonment of a previous loyalty, and digging my own cistern amounts to doing just that.

“For My people have committed two evils:
They have forsaken Me,
The fountain of living waters,
To hew for themselves cisterns,
Broken cisterns
That can hold no water.” NASB

Loyalty becomes tricky when a conflict occurs. That’s true in day-to-day life, and it’s true in my relationship with God. Faith in God provides that beautiful flowing fountain that never runs dry. Faith in my own ability or in anything other than God leads to a cracked cistern and a very dry soul. Only God can satisfy my thirsty soul. In verse 12, Jeremiah relays God’s heart, “‘Be appalled, O heavens, at this, And shudder, be very desolate,’ declares the Lord.” 

Appalled and desolate are words that aptly describe the situation in which Israel finds itself, and they also describe the personal idolatry that results when I dig my own cistern.  Digging cisterns is a natural reaction when I think I know what’s best for me. I love Jeremiah’s imagery, but his message is always one that tears the very core of my heart. This week’s scripture hit particularly hard, but his image of living water offers tremendous healing. God lets me continue digging cisterns as I try to find a way to get my way, but He prefers that I stop digging and drink from His fountain. The choice is mine because even the sweetest water would not satisfy if forced down my throat. It is only in the dryness of my broken cistern that I find a thirst for God that nothing else will satisfy. He knows I have to dig a few cisterns before I can appreciate His fountain. There is great peace in realizing I can put down my shovel and relax.

Broken Cistern

Living Water