What the Mourning Dove taught me

April 17, 2013. Two mornings after bombs went off at the Boston marathon, I was sitting in my chair, drinking tea and listening to the rain hit my windows. One lone Mourning dove was singing somewhere just beyond my curtained window. These words came to me as I was thinking about the lonely song of the dove and the fear and sadness our nation was feeling.



mourning dove outside my morning window,
why do you sing?

do you know there are tragedies to mourn,
worries to worry,
tears to cry?

why do you coo outside my rain-soaked window?
don't you know that sun-lovers pine today for sun?

you sing in the rain as the wind rustles the chilled, bare branches
you sing your songs as more thunder rumbles in the distance

why do you sing?

do you dance in the rain?
do you see beauty?
do you know your Creator has fed, watered and clothed you
like the lilies of the field?

mourning dove, your coo is soft and low
your morning song awakens me to beauty,
stirs me to ponder,
reminds me to joy.

mourning dove, keep singing your songs.
and I will keep singing mine.

A ditty on turning fifty

 "Oprah is sixty!", I said, feeling all smug-like. (I know now, I'm one year ahead of myself here.)

To that, my daughter in law scrunched up her face and said, "No way!" 

"Yeah!", I said. "You'd never know that would you! See, people will think that about me, too. They'll say, "No way! she can't be fifty!" And, we laughed.

"Age really is just a number.", I added, not feeling fifty. 

Looking at me with a grin, my twenty five year old son told me, "I think you need to embrace it." 

That really stuck with me, like a gift. Although I'm not sure he knew he was giving a gift. Embrace and accept the age that I'm given. The stage I am in life. This is the surest way to a life of gratitude and joy.

Age really is just a number. I'm gonna leave it at that.

--Anne

God, the Fascinating One

Isaiah 18:4

For thus the Lord has said to me: I will be still and I will look on from My dwelling place, 

like clear and glowing heat in sunshine, like a fine cloud of mist in the heat of harvest.

This verse was a tweet I ran across the other morning. I found it fascinating! I decided to do a little dissecting of this verse since it intrigued me. 

God talks about His 'dwelling place.' Wait! I thought God was everywhere at once! And yet, He talks about His "house" or the place that He is. I love this description He does of Himself.


I've been thinking a lot lately about how God says "Be still" to me. But, it's a new thought for me that God describes Himself as being still. Really? I've usually thought of God in terms of Him moving somehow in my life or in the lives of others. God being still. Hm. That's a new one.

God compares His overseeing of the events on earth to clear heat in sunshine. This sounds weird at first. Heat is something we don't see, but we feel it on our skin. It affects us. Makes us perspire. Comparatively, we don't see God directly, as in His face. We cannot often see Him while He's right there doing his thing in our lives, but afterwards we know that He has been there! He is a most mysterious God and we see the effects His presence has in our lives. 

He also compares how He 'looks on' us to a 'fine cloud of mist in the heat of harvest.' A fine cloud of mist is also not very noticeable, but you can feel it on your skin if you walk through it. It will make you damp.

Heat warms the skin, a mist cools the skin. God compares Himself to both of these effects which He Himself created! He is everything and beyond understanding.

Thank you, Heavenly Father, that even though You are mysterious and beyond understanding, You want to be known by us so you describe your mysterious self to us in words we can grasp. 

Lord, I praise You that You are beyond finding out. You are so big and mighty and I know You are in control, even though I don't understand many times what You are up to. I am comforted knowing You are in charge and I don't have to be. 

Amen

linking up with other God-sized dreamers at holleygerth.com. Join in!

Who's your daddy?

“Fear hangs out right next to whatever it is you’re most called to do. That means the closer you get to your calling, the louder fear sounds. Keep going–fear is a chihuahua that sounds like a Doberman.” —You’re Made for a God-sized Dream, Chapter Five

This week, Holley (who's book is You're Made for a God-sized Dream) is encouraging us God-sized dreamers to write a letter to the "chihuahua of fear", because fear's bark is bigger than his bite. Here's my letter.

Source: Pinterest

Dear Chihuahua of fear,

Ever since I can remember, you have been yipping at my heels by day and staring at me with your beady eyes at night.

I think you started hanging around regularly in kindergarten, when mom left dad and took me and little brother with her. Oh, I didn’t ask for you. I didn’t want you. But, there you were, causing real-life nightmares at night, I-need-to-go-home-from-school stomach aches, and later on in college--the migraines.

What made you think you could hang around and prey on an innocent young girl’s dreams? Who told you that you had a right?

Now that I have a lot of experience and more years than I’d like to admit under my belt, I can see right through you. You don’t belong to me. You were never wanted, chosen or cherished. (in case you ever wondered)

Oh, I still battle you, but I realize that just as your bark is bigger than your bite, your words don’t hold any weight when they are measured up to the heavy-weight of the Word.  So, just in case you've forgotten what I've already told you dozens of times, I’ll gladly repeat myself.

I am a daughter of the King of Kings and I listen to His voice, not yours.

I don’t belong to you and you don’t belong to me.

When you try to scare me in my dreams, I will always stare you back down and remind you who you are.

When you whisper to me that I’m not enough, I will say back, I am enough in Christ.

When your close friend Shame taps me on the shoulder, I will say, “No. I am the righteousness of God, in Christ. There is no condemnation for this girl!”

And, my hand-made-from-God-sized dream? I say, take your paws off of God’s property!!

My Daddy-God says to me, “Do not fear, I am with you. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will hold you up with My hand.”

See there, Chihuahua of fear? That’s my Daddy speaking and He has the final Word.

Who’s your daddy?

linking up today with other God-sized dreamers at holleygerth.com

When God keeps leaning

She said, "I've lost my faith in God. I don't believe anymore that Jesus is divine. I don't believe anymore that the Bible is completely true." What? I could hardly think. I hung up the phone in stunned disbelief. 

My mind just could not wrap around this new information. How could someone who called herself a devout follower of Jesus before grad school, go to a seminary and end up like this? Without faith? And, what was someone who was supposed to be encouraging me in my own journey-to-my-dream doing telling me these things? I was utterly speechless.

*****************************

I had finally made the decision to pick up the phone and call her after reading a chapter in Holley Gerth's Do What You Can Plan. I'd been hanging on to her phone number for months with the intention to call. {do you ever do that?} I expected to get some encouragement in my journey to grad school. What I got instead was an earful of discouraging words. Words of lost faith and lost hope.

My internal world shifted. I started to really doubt my dream.

The dream I've had for several years to attend The Seattle School in the Counseling Psychology program. My dream of going back to get my master's as an empty-nester. My dream to actually have a dream of my own since my own kids have grown. Did I really want to go somewhere that tested the waters of my faith so much that I would lose it?  What do I do now? I have no Plan B-dream!

I pushed through some fear and called an old friend who I hadn't talked with in fifteen years. 

She was a blessing. She eased my fears. She agreed with me that this was shocking. She wondered with me how this woman had come to this loss-of-faith.  But mostly she encouraged me to keep going. To keep my dream. And, to keep the faith that God is working, speaking and leading.

Honestly, I've had more doubts about everything in the past two months and have not even had much creativity or motivation to write much on here {obviously!}. My admittance to the grad school is for this coming fall 2013. But, it all hinges on my husband getting a job in Seattle. And nothing is happening on that front yet. Nothing. {God, what are you doing?}

People keep asking me, "Why don't you just take online classes? Why not a school around here?" No. Not yet. God is leaning this school heavily on me. Still.

My passion to counsel women who need truth and a touch of grace in their lives pushes me on. I've told God, "I'm going to keep pursuing this dream until you absolutely say no." In the mean time, I am still waiting on His yes.

I'm linking up with other God Sized Dreamers today at holleygerth.com