stones + streams (thoughts on faith)

An encouragement to weary pilgrims,

There will be times in the journey of faith,
When your heart feels like a rock,
You feel unmoved, impermeable,
To the presence of God.

There will be times,
When prayers seem to bounce off the ceiling,
Landing like lead upon your heavy chest.
Pray harder still.

There will be seasons,
Where even the attempt to pray,
Feels like rolling a boulder up His holy hill.
Keep pushing upward.

There will be seasons,
You feel lost in the parched desert,
The memory of a lush garden all but forgotten,
Keep staggering towards home.


There will be days,
His Word seems dry and barren,
The stone tablets crush your spirit,
Keep reading still.

Remember the One Who made you,
The One Who took your heart of stone,
Gave you a heart of flesh.
To pulse with love for Him and others.

Remember the difference,
Between stones on the shore,
And those in the stream,
The smooth ones are in the stream.

Keep immersing yourself,
In the living waters,
Even the rocks give way,
To that holy washing.

Mel ;o)

little fire.

The irony is not lost on me, friends.

That the more I try to teach my children.. the more I am learning myself.

Lately, it's about the power of our words.

I'll relay our little scenario for you:  the daughter comes home from school, saying she's been inviting one friend - but not that other one - to her birthday.  Saying she's done "eenie, meanie, miny-mo..." to choose who can come.  My eyes turn to dinner plates as I envision how painful this situation may have been to the girl 'left out'.  (All the while, I remember using this exact same threat as my own verbal arsenal when I was her age).

I take her aside one afternoon, and talk to her about the power of our words (James 3:5/6).

The poison or pleasantness of our tongues.

Do we want to hurt others, or help them with our speech.

She goes back to colouring,

I go back to contemplating:

 ---------

Our tongues are small fires.

Do I raise people up, or raze people down with my words?

Does this fire bring warmth or does it burn?

Does it illuminate the darkness, or sting with it's smoke?

Be careful little fire.

Mel

 

...that secret seducer:

Did you feel it today?

The wind was a raging adventurer.

It carried the clash of swashbuckler's swords on a far off pirate ship.

It was thick with the perfume of newborn flowers.

I opened the windows and let it tear through the house.

It was electric, sending goosebumps across my soul.

I stepped outside.

It tussled my hair and absorbed me into it's strong embrace,

like a long forgotten lover.

 "This is a dangerous wind"

It makes my blood boil.

It breeds a wanderlust in my heart.

I want to pack my bags and find a gypsy caravan.

Nothing else in nature disrupts me so.

These wild winds.

This tempest of temptation.

Did you feel it today? 

-----------------

Hiding inside for fear it will carry me away from this nest,

wind-torn mama,

Mel ;o)

April showers...

[source: trees. my photo.  Brooms]

 BROOMS

"On stormy days

When the wind is high,

Tall trees are brooms

Sweeping the sky.

They swish their branches

in buckets of rain,

And swash and sweep it

Blue again."

- Dorothy Aldis

This poem is in a children's book we had as kids, and today I read it to my daughter and found it a fitting poem for a quiet, grey sunday...

... looking forward to 'may flowers', Mel :o)