Category Archives: GRATITUDE

“We have nothing to fear. . . ” – Part Two

CHRISTIAN VALUES, DEVOTIONALS, ENCOURAGEMENT, GRATITUDE, TRUSTING GOD

That’s become the SOP when I take my Barny back for visits to the veterinarian.  The receptionist smiles “Welcome back, Mr. Houdini!” and off we go, directly to a quiet exam room to wait for Dr. Smith.  No more noisy big back room for Barny.  He is in my arms, or in his carrier with my arms firmly around the carrier, the entire time.

God speaks unceasingly to His children, all day, every day, if we have ears to listen.  That first day and every day since when I take my fearful little Barny for his nail-trimming, God reminds me, yet again, that I do not need to worry.  I only need to actively trust Him.  I may still feel fearful, like my little cat, but so long as I stay in God’s arms—in the path of obedience—I am completely and totally safe.  And, eventually, my fear fades as I relax into God’s calming, loving presence.

Our Heavenly Father whose love for us is greater than the height of the heavens above the earth (Psalm 103), who is all-knowing, all-wise and, all-powerful has promised never, no never, to leave His children   He daily carries us close to his heart, like a shepherd with an injured lamb.

In His infinite, boundless wisdom He gives us the ability to think on one thing at a time, if we choose to focus.  He promises to keep us in complete peace IF we fix our hearts on Him.  (Isaiah 26:3)  That is often a challenging “if” for my type of personality but I usually get my mind where it should be, sooner rather than later now.

He also soothingly tells us we will face trouble each day but not to worry for He HAS ALREADY overcome the world.  By His grace, I am learning to take a light-hearted approach to problems and to see them as chances to stay close to my beloved Father.  I am learning to sense His nearness and hear His soothing whispers of love, right in the middle of my storms, just like my darling Barny.

One of the many places God promises to be with us and to take care of us always is Deuteronomy 31: 6.  In this passage, God is reassuring Joshua, who is soon to succeed Moses, who led God’s people for forty years.  The Israelites are about to enter the land promised to them, but it is a land occupied by their enemies.

Each and every day, if we are following Christ with all our heart, we can confidently face whatever fear or danger lies ahead.   We have this promise from God. And He is oh so faithful, oh so trustworthy!

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them [the enemy – explanation added], for the LORD your God goes with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you.”  Deuteronomy 31:6 (New International Version)

“We have nothing to fear. . . ” – Part One

CHRISTIAN VALUES, ENCOURAGEMENT, GRATITUDE, TRUSTING GOD

1 Barny summer 2015

(Isn’t my Barny gorgeous???  This is his favorite “observation post” by the porch window.)

“We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”  Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

For 19 years, I had a beloved Tonkinese cat named Thellie.  He passed away shortly before I moved from Florida to Texas in 2012.   My darling little shadow, Thellie, lies at rest in my neighbor’s back yard, with a little marker I made just for him.

Exactly two weeks before I relocated from my daughter’s home (where I’d lived for two tender years as a live-in Nana when I moved from Florida), God sent my beloved Tonkinese, Barnabus Bartholomew Farmer, through a rescue shelter.  He was the only natural mink-Tonkinese listed for rescue in the entire state of Texas (which is fairly big, you know!).   His coat is, indeed, a luxuriantly rich mink color, just like my little Thellie was.  They could have been twins.

Typical of his breed, Barny is hypersensitive.  In addition, somewhere in his previous five years he was apparently traumatized about some things, like feeling pinned down.  I can hold and cuddle him a long time but the moment he feels squeezed or pinned down, he becomes the world’s best escape artist.  Clipping his nails by myself was out of the question.

His first two visits to the veterinarian with me, my little Houdini quickly escaped two different vet techicians who were trying to clip his nails.

“Cat on the loose!” I heard from the back room.   I had to go back to the big workroom and coax him out of the tiny corner he’d found, the dark underside of the desk in the very back of the workroom.  The technicians, smiling and laughing, put us both in an exam room to wait for the veterinarian.

When Dr. Smith came in, I was holding Barny lightly, but up close to my face, murmuring baby talk and rubbing my face over his fur, like we cuddled at home.   Dr. Smith paused and studied the two of us for a moment.  Then she smiled.

“He obviously trusts you so let’s see if I can do his nails while you hold him.”  Barny flinched a bit but never even tensed his muscles to leap out of my arms.  He did, indeed, trust me!

Trees By My Window . . . God’s Touch on My Heart

CHRISTIAN VALUES, DEVOTIONALS, ENCOURAGEMENT, FAMILY, GRATITUDE

sketch back porch burleson rd

             When my daughter was eight and I was a new Christian, our second floor apartment at the back of the complex overlooked a home with a grandfather oak and a stand of four Florida pines in the back yard.  I wrote my first poem while watching God change the oak’s silhouette into the filigree of inky black lace one day at sunset.  And those tall, thin Florida pines swaying together, yet somehow alone, in a late night thunderstorm stirred me to start my first book.

                Our next apartment was a 900 square-foot one bedroom, where we lived in from my daughter’s fifth grade through her graduation.  Outside the bedroom window stood another grand old oak of a different sort.  This one had thinner branches that caught the slightest wind all day long.

                When Sharon was 16 and began taking the car to work on Saturdays, I sat in the rocker with a cup of coffee, staring at that tree and writing for most of the day.  The gentle movement of wind through that tree made the leaves reflect the bright sunlight like so many little diamonds.   Those Saturdays looking out at that tree were the first long days I had ever had to devote to uninterrupted writing.  Writing all day helped me get over missing Sharon and start accepting that she would one day leave home..

                When we finally had our own little townhome, after 15 years of apartment rent, we had our very own grandfather oak — that we owned!   My bedroom felt like a treehouse.  My view was through broad, far-reaching branches. I felt like I was in God’s own arms for the 19 years we lived there.

                Next came my daughter’s home in Austin—which I shared for two glorious years as a live-in Nana.  Sharon’s home was surrounded on all sides and as far as you could see by old, established trees.  I smiled as I rocked my grandsons and watched the seasons truly change the leaves, for the first time in my native Floridian life.  As I did so, God was dramatically changing my heart, preparing me for the next phase of our life together.

                Today, in my tiny one-bedroom apartment not far from my daughter’s home (and my grandsons!)  I again have a huge oak right outside my window and in the distance mature trees of all kinds.  As I write each day, He always reminds me that one reason He put trees on earth is because they are “pleasing to the eye.”

                “And the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye [emphasis added] and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” (Genesis 2:9 NIV)

                Thank You, dear dear Father, for giving me eternal life, through loving and knowing Your Son Jesus.  And thank You, Father, for sending your Holy Spirit.  Thank You for the way He moves in my heart, just like the wind through the trees.  I like how You explained in John 3:8 that the Holy Spirit is like the wind.   I feel His gentle, loving touch, but I don’t understand where He comes from or where He goes.  I just know He is right here with me, as I look at this beautiful tree.  I love You, Lord!

My Mother’s Ironing Board

ENCOURAGEMENT, FAMILY, GRATITUDE, HARD TIMES

The iorning board, with its pale green cover, stands in a corner of my bedroom and every time I look at it, it speaks of how much love empowered the hours of hard manual labor Mom invested in caring for her family.  I also smile, because that work strengthened her hands so much that she rarely had to ask Daddy to open jars for her.

She covered the ironing board for me decades ago now, decades before her strokes began the long, slow decline that has now ended with her enjoying the fruit of her righteous life in heaven now.  She made the ironing board cover more than 40 years ago, when I was privileged to be a a stay-at-home for three tender years.

Having ironed and sewn since her own childhood, she knew the value of a good ironing board cover.  I remember her showing me each step, so I could do it myself, little knowing the one she was making would last my lifetime and beyond.

She cut a thick towel a bit bigger than that distinctive rectangular shape, then covered it with a sheet double-folded.  Starting at one end, she secured all the layers snugly from underneath with about two dozen safety pins, then basted the top in place, carefully inserting the needle through each hole.  Next, she attached the ironing board cover springs, which I don’t think you can even find anymore!

It was during this last step that I remember seeing her hands strain and the tendons stand out.  I noticed, yet again, that her wrists were thick and strong in comparison to her long delicate fingers.  Years of rubbing clothes on a washboard and wringing them out by hand as a young girl and helping with farm chores had begun strengthening those hands.

Then had come diapers on a washboard for the first of her three children (before they could afford a washer), not to mention lifting cast iron skillets every day, sweeping and mopping the entire house, and all the manual labor that homemaking was back in the 1950s and 60s.  Those strong hands and arms were necessary, just like the Proverbs 31 woman.

And I never once heard her complain.  She always described herself as a “homemaker”, not a housewife, and that is what she was and what she did.   Her eulogy, based on Proverbs 31, was easy to write because she had lived out so many examples.

I praise and honor her memory, with deep, deep gratitude.  When I see her on the other side of glory, I think I will spend about a thousand years or so, just hugging her and saying thank you – only then I will have the words to express how much I mean it and how deeply I now understand her unconditional love for her family.

Thank you, Lord, for two wonderful parents.  Show me how to use my words to inspire others to be the same for their own children.

He Molds the Soul. . . Sometimes in Darkness

CHRISTIAN VALUES, DEVOTIONALS, ENCOURAGEMENT, GRATITUDE

As a secretary for 20 plus years, I worked in uncounted offices, each one different.   One was, literally, a converted storage closet.  No windows and Lilliputian in dimensions, but it had four walls.  One office, two decades later, comprised an entire floor, with cubicles in the middle and old-school four-wall offices along the perimeter for supervisors.

Somewhere in the middle of this years, my desk was in a small reception area.  I was gatekeeper/executive secretary/gal Friday for two supervisors.  This office was deep inside a large facility – again, no windows but fortunately, a glass wall with a view to the large worker-bee area just outside.   In this office, I kept one pot of pothos.  The bright green leaves warmed the sterile office atmosphere and grew, even with only artificial light.

The little the pot lived on top of the filing cabinet.  When composing letters for my bosses, gazing up at it relaxed me and let me think.  Soon after moving in. however,  all the leaves turned their faces toward the middle of the office.  I rotated the pot, then watched its leaves time and again revert to the same slanted stance.

“Odd,” I thought.  “There is no sun, the entire place is well lit during the day and in virtual darkness all night.”

Late one evening, I headed out the door and switched off the lights. The bright red emergency light suspended from the ceiling two feet from the plant flashed on.  I knew the secret now. Each night, in the solitary night hours, the little plant strained its utmost toward the light made bright by the darkness.

Dearest Lord,

Please make my heart like that plant.  In our times of solitude each morning, mold me and incline my heart to You and Your ways only.  You are the only Light in this world.  You alone are our source and our salvation.   And when I stray from that way and You lovingly send darkness into my life, for a season, so I’ll lean toward You again, grant  the wisdom to do so quickly and gratefully.

For I know that You discipline those you love, that You are a jealous God, that Your love for us is greater than the height of the heavens above the earth, and that You want our hearts turned toward You for safety and to have sweet, sweet communion throughout the day.   Thank You for telling me in Your Word that You delight in hearing my prayers.  Please do whatever it takes to keep me close.  I love You, Lord!  Amen. 

“Taank yoooo”

CHRISTIAN VALUES, DEVOTIONALS, FAMILY, GRATITUDE

For the third time I straightened the tangled thermal blanket so that the cottony softness lay gently over my grandson’s face, all the way over his blonde head.  Then I tugged the blanket in around his tiny feet and spooned him in close for a soft squeeze and two mutual “hmmms.”

A soft “Taaank yooooo” came from under the aqua blanket. I gave him another soft squeeze and whispered.

“You’re welcome, baby.  Nana loves you.”

Finally, my two-year-old grandson settled down.  When my hand, stretching lightly across his little frog belly,  felt his breathing deepen, I uncovered just his face and then let myself relax. I might or might not be able to sleep but for sure I had some good prayer time available.  The little rascal slept better if someone was with him for at least the first hour of his afternoon nap at which point, he tossed and turned (yet again!) then settled again, his eyes never having opened.

Monday through Friday, I have the greatest possible privilege  – helping my daughter with my two- and four-year-old grandsons.  I get to see these tender years, and with two children!  I’ve always said the hardest thing I ever did in my life was putting Sharon in daycare at the age of 3, when the divorce happened.

I cherish each day with them, yes, even though they are both all-boy and quite the handful at times.  I learn so much from participating in their innocent joy and spontaneity.  Can anything compare with collecting acorns in a bucket, digging in the sandpile, or building playdough cats?

But the one lesson I absorb each day is how happy they seem to be, with so little, and how totally they give their love and acceptance.

Dear Father, thank You, again, for letting me walk through these precious years alongside my grandsons.  Help me be more like them in their contentment and unconditional love.  And help me remember that my every expression of gratitude to you touches Your  heart as much as Allen’s “taaaank yooo” touches mine. I love You, Lord!”

That Precious Deer

CHRISTIAN VALUES, DEVOTIONALS, GRATITUDE, TRUSTING GOD

I held my breath.  The little yearling dear, two feet away from the kitchen window, looked right into my eyes.  His gauntness accentuated the size of his liquid brown eyes, and in those long seconds I felt a love almost as deep as the first day I held my daughter in my arms.  I love animals, but I had never felt like I was looking soul to soul into one’s eyes like I did now.

His look was so trusting, so desperate, so pleading.  I had just spent the previous 30 minutes caring for the horses, weeping the entire time, looking down toward the fence every few minutes where the deer leaned against the wire and then laid down, too weak to move.  When I had gone inside he must have come up to the house.

He nibbled on flowers and licked the concrete where water had run off from watering the collection of flowers and plants in pots.   As I kept working in the kitchen, he again came and stood close to the window and stared, again, a very long time.  The tears flowed again and so did my prayers.

We were many miles outside Austin, where I help a retired lady care for her horses.  “Oh, dear Father, please do something for that little deer.  Either heal it or take it home or let someone come take away its pain and take it home to You, Lord.  Please, Lord, please, don’t let it suffer.  It is so innocent and so trusting and so fragile. I know You love animals, Father.  Your concern for them is all throughout Your Word.”

Two days ago, my employer had said it was surely dying and probably was diseased.  She said when does had new babies they often ran off the yearlings and this seemed to be the case.  I had seen a buck, a doe and three fawns the day before standing, framed like a painting by the morning mist, walking away from their night-time nibbling toward the cover of thick bushes and trees.

I think I will see that little yearling’s eyes for the rest of my life.  Later that day, much much later that day, when I had finally managed to fully trust God to take care of His precious little deer, I finally understood what God was saying.

If it crushed  my heart to see that little deer suffer, and to know that more suffering surely lay ahead for it, how unimaginably more had God hurt to see His Son Jesus suffer?  If I felt that little animal’s soul look into mine, what had God the Father felt when His Son looked at Him and pleaded, “My Father!  If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me.  Yet I want Your will to be done, not mine.” (Matthew 26:39b, NLT).  How did God feel when He watched His pure, innocent Son suffer and die so terrible a death – all that I might know Him?

How dare I ever forget this lesson?   How dare I ever neglect any chance I have to tell another suffering human soul of the great love our Heavenly Father has all His beloved humans, the crown of all His creation?

Unjealous Heart, Chap 2, Post 11

EFFECTS OF POVERTY, GRATITUDE, HARD TIMES, THRIFT, TRUSTING GOD

Operating in that small kitchen proved excellent training for not only Sharon but for me as well — even before my current emphasis on not complaining.  I found the experience fertile ground in which to grow the good fruit of patience, especially when preparing a meal.

We both liked simple foods, a fact which should have prevented having to spread ingredients all over the counter.  Like so many single parents, though, I leaned toward short-order cooking of two separate meals, one of traditional children’s foods and another with foods more appealing to my adult taste and adult need for lower calorie intake.  So the end result,  preparation-wise, was identical.  I may as well have been preparing an involved, complex meal.

Cooking a typical evening meal might begin with hauling out a bag of carrots, cutting board, knife, and scraper.  The carrots had to be done first, because their preparation took up the sink and two-thirds of the counter space.  With the carrots scraped and chopped and back in the refrigerator to chill in their yellow plastic container (a former economy-size margarine container), I cleaned the counter, cutting board, and sink. Next, I hauled out ground beef, salt and pepper, eggs, milk, and bread to mix up hamburger patties.  There was not one inch to spare, and quite a few inches too few, by the time all that was sitting on the  miniature counter.

I used the ever-faithful, ever-useful large mixing bowl to mix the patties.  With two hamburgers sizzling in the frying pan, I packaged up the rest of the patties in aluminum foil, put them in the freezer, cleaned the counter, and started a can of green beans heating on the back burner.  Next, I took the cookie sheets and broiling rack out of the oven, put them on the floor by the card table, a further impingement on floor space, then arranged tater tots on a small pan and put them into the oven to heat.

I tried hard to see the humor in all the necessarily careful planning and timing and patient rearranging of bowls, food, pots, and pans.  At times, though, like tonight, the best I could manage was a caricature of a grin, a resigned slow shaking of my head, and a tight-lipped silence as I fought hard not to complain out loud.

“It’s so unfair,” I thought as I turned the burgers over and put the ketchup squirter and mustard bottle on the table.

“The Wexels and people like them have so much and we have so little and…”

As I closed the refrigerator door I saw the words, written in red, I had taped above Sharon’s first grade picture and her latest example of penmanship.  “Be patient with difficult circumstances.”

I smiled, not much, but a little, and with that, the tension began to ease.  I shook my head and laughed, this time a real laugh, as I turned down the heat under the burgers.

“If I hurry,” I thought, “I can get one of our special cheesecakes in the refrigerator before Sharon finishes her shower.”

What I mean by “God helped me”

CHRISTIAN VALUES, ENCOURAGEMENT, GRATITUDE, TRUSTING GOD

When I was a new Christ follower, so many  years ago, I often wondered what some of the Christianese I heard meant.  People said things like, “God told me” or “the Holy Spirit really came down last Sunday in service”.   And, even though it’s been more than three decades, I am still not sure sometimes when people use certain phrases.  So, I quite often just ask.

I want to explain what I mean when I say “God helped me” with this website and with http://www.unjealousheart.com

As the Bible commands, I tithe (which means to give  ten percent of your gross income to God).   I also give other offerings beyond the tithe, and I give to the poor.  (I am saying that NOT to brag but to explain what the Bible says do with our money – because it is ALL God’s money anyway!)

I honestly do not remember if it was my idea or I heard it from someone else, but I also tithe my time when I am working on the writing.  How do you tithe time?

Well, for every sixty minutes I have to spend working, I pray six minutes out of those sixty minutes.   No, I am not “legalistic” in that I keep track to the second – because occasionally while I am praying I get such a great idea (that I know comes from God, not my own intelligence for sure!) that I stop and begin working on it.

Technology and learning new software are particularly difficult for me. I have the typical dreamy artist disposition and technical details frustrate me.  I just want to write!!!!  So it has been a huge education in patience and trust for me to tackle making two websites as well as everything else that writers have to do in this new world of publishing.

But, I prayed every time I sat down at my computer, and God has done miracle after miracle for me.  No, I don’t mean He supernaturally moved the computer keys or anything like that.  What I mean is I would google how to do something, then painstakingly follow the steps and, almost every time, it worked!  Surprise, surprise to me!

I also was blessed to have the good sense to call for help from the Godaddy and Aweber support teams, both of which are prompt, professional and friendly.

This is also the same way God “helped” me get through grad school.  How loving and faithful He is!  He gives us dreams and then helps make them reality as – or in proportion to how much – we trust Him.

Bless you, dear readers, and dare to trust God to help you with things you fear you cannot do.  He delights in helping His children!    As Paul tells us in II Corinthians 12:9 ,  God says “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

May we say with Paul, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”

The God of Angel Armies is by My Side!

DEVOTIONALS, ENCOURAGEMENT, GRATITUDE, HARD TIMES

So much to do – working on the website and everything connected thereto.  It takes me hours. How I wish I could just pay someone else!  Then there is writing posts for this blog, doing a fresh entry for the unjealousheart.com website, helping each day with my grandsons, maintaining my  relationship with God as top priority (which is really first in line), and then the unceasing demands of daily living – exercise for my back, groceries, errands, laundry, paying bills, cooking, cleaning  – and somehow getting adequate sleep so I can think clearly.

Dear dear Father, only You can enable me to get all this done, but I know You will.  I do not have the strength of youth, like I did during those blessed years when Sharon was home and I stayed up late and got up early to write.   Proverbs 3:5-6 is just as true today as it was  20 years ago.  I know that!  

And though, externally, my standard of living is about the same, it is infinitely richer, deeper, and satisfying. I know You better, and I trust You more.  I automatically treasure the unseen things – giggles from my youngest grandson, surprising wisdom from my older one, spontaneous hugs from both of them, and the relief on my daughter’s face when I walk in the door each morning to delighted cries of “Nana!  Nana’s here!”

Only rarely do I feel the poison of jealousy and envy now, like I did so many years ago when I wrote “Unjealous Heart”.  When I do feel envy, I confess and squash it immediately by counting my blessings and focusing on what I can do for those in my path at the moment.  And the same with fear and self-doubt.   The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, “the God of angel armies” is by my side.  Whom shall I fear, as Chris Tomlin sings. http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=WDZYYWNX

God has promised to guide my steps as – or in proportion to how much – I trust in Him with all my heart.  I’m glad it’s too confusing to figure tjhis all out for myself because it makes me lean closer to Him.

“I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the       wicked.”  (Psalms 84:10, NIV)

Yes, Lord, I would rather live close to You and be poor than have “riches untold”. You alone can satisfy!  You alone care for my soul and have a unique plan for my life and You are – still –  working all things out for my good! Thank you, Jesus!