Since my last post, my father-in-law had a stroke and had to be rehospitalized. (He had been in the hospital earlier in the month for surgery and released after 10 days.) I wrote this we learned yesterday that he had had to have emergency surgery.

Rollercoaster, or, The Pain of Another's Pain

Frustrated sadness hearing of the likely stroke;
We are so far apart in geography,
So close in heart.
And prayers were pled for from the continent and
From many others elsewhere as well.

We could not dwell on what might be happening,
Or what might have happened;
Prayer was our dwelling place,
So night and day we would face.

Each day has brought its own news
And attendant emotions--sometimes
Up emotions with relief, other times,
Down emotions with grief;
At all times, prayer.

Now we are on the coaster again
Speeding seemingly down
Yet there may be a curve
Then a straight followed
In yet another direction;
And the best we can do is
Hang on tightly
Prayerfully
Thankfully
Trustingly

Looking Backward, Looking Ahead, a review



While I wrote this two years ago, it continues to be pertinent. Now as then, a women's ministry group at my church is winding down until fall. The final celebration will look back and then ahead this year as it has every year I have been part of it.

"God's Requirement" Micah 6:8 do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with thy God



What two words sum up this year for me? "Toward God"



Toward God my praise, and my repentance, my sorrow and my song.
Toward God my focus of each day's responsibilities, and my future's hopes.
Toward God for direction and for rest, for all things pertaining to my nest.
Toward God for learning to tell what's true from what's not, for each step on my journey, for steps add up to life's length.
Toward God shall I lean and by Him be steadied, knowing He knows and is readied.
Toward God for hope and in disappointment, for with Him I have an ongoing appointment.
Toward God and with God forward, for He is my strength, song, savior, and reward.

Having been "tagged" by my friend Jenn [who I wish I could tag back]:

Seven things you may not know about me [and might wish you never did]

Never got a driver's license; if you were there when I took "driver's ed." you'd understand.

While in 4-H, raised cattle [with Dad's help], learned photography [sort of], and won a ribbon for a casserole at the county fair.

Ought to be trilingual as I took lessons in Spanish [in high school] and in French [in college]--but neither language "took."

Went back for my master's degree 12.5 years after completing my undergraduate work.

Never imagined I'd live in this state on the west coast.

Survived what ought to have been a fatal accident in 1971 shortly after graduating from college [pedestrian vs. city bus]. I've been told that my heart had to be restarted in the ER, but thankfully have no memory of the accident or the immediate aftermath. Remarkably, no bones were broken either.

Have three other blogs [don't ask how that happened unless you really want to know]; that I have one at all can be credited to Marilyn and to Jennifer.

According to the rules, I gather I am to send you to 7 more sites. I'll add those after my official posts, which follow.

Writing

Writing carefully yet diligently, reflectively, plaintively
Avoiding other matters, tasks, commitments however
Flippantly made, made only to myself, made in my sleep,
Or something.
Picking away at the keyboard, bored, rather struggling
To make wise use of my time which is rattling away from me
Much as the boxcars of a freight train pass,
Noisily, irretrevably.
Writing both helps me focus and avoid focus.

A friend and I are working our way through IDOLS OF THE HEART by Elyse Fitzpatrick. The following is in reponse to same.

Idol

Function: noun
Date: 13th century

1: a representative or symbol of an object of worship: broadly: a false god
2: a: a likeness of something. b: obsolete: PRETENDER, IMPOSTER
3: a form or appearance visible but without substance
4: an object of extreme devotion
5: a false conception: FALLACY

Reading painfully through IDOLS OF THE HEART I know what I have to do.

Even the dictionary defines what I find: PRETENDER, IMPOSTER;
a form or appearance visible but without substance.

Ouch!

Visible but without substance.
Pretender.
Imposter.
Fallacy.
Yet set up in the inner court
Where no mortal eye can see
I am the idol of me.

Around that I is clustered all mentions of good given
For that I likes to be well thought of and told so

What a good this or a good that

Not I!

All that is good is God;
All that is bad is me.

Even if no one recognizes that as fact,
It is so; God and I know.

So anything praiseworthy must to Him go,
For He alone is worthy, and that I know.

Now, places to which I would direct you:

www.hipandthigh.blogspot.com
www.fickett.blogspot.com
www.thelifeword.blogspot.com
www.waterlessplaces.blogspot.com
www.pescadothinks.blogspot.com
www.theologica.blogspot.com
www.thearchiver.blogspot.com

Not a tag, but favorite place:

www.teampyro.blogspot.com

serenity


serenity escapes us all
sometimes
and
when it does, it takes
away standard creativity
but from the struggles
within the seeming void
from shadow boxing shadow
come new form, new substance,
new strength
and when one is
in the void
one appreciates
those who support and
encourage
the one who struggles
to become
the one who presses on
to become
the one who comes
through shadow and simile
to substance and serenity.

I wrote the following poem five years ago yesterday, and posted it yesterday on one of my other blogs. It still applies.

April 30, 2002

Let me reflect

Let me reflect
Before I connect
On connections already in place
On the fellowship of His grace
Let me reflect

Let me contemplate

Let me contemplate
How inadequate to call His goodness "great"
For who can such a God rate
Given our human ways to weigh and weight
Let me contemplate

Let me repent

Let me repent
Of time ill-spent
Of expectations wrongly framed
Of not dwelling on Him for whom I'm named
Let me repent

Let me in repentance, contemplation, connection, find
An anchor and a Godward mind,
A mind at peace in focus at rest
Knowing God being known by Him works for true best

Let me rest