Startling reminders pressing us to gratitude

Multitude Mondays

madeleine peyroux

#308-324

Startling reminder that life can pass in a blink and to be mindful and grateful for every moment. Never ceasing to pray for those around us and even those whose path we will never cross, but realize their life is broken.
Prayerful that Whitney is whole in Jesus arms now and that her daughter Bobbi Kristina Brown will be completely bathed in prayer and in His grip!

• Meeting a sweet friend for tea and hearing her heart.
• Sunshine 3 days in a row and lazy walks
• My first birthday card
• A spontaneous gift of coffee and snuggles on the couch
• Every candle in my home lit
• Pandora and my little French cafe station
• A pace slowed by half
• My new discovery of BAKED KALE CHIPS. Where have you been all my life
• Lunch with a sweet buddy sharing all kind of crazy girl things. Warms my heart
• Encouraging words
• Getting out doors this week and better every day
• Why am I tickled by doors and wine displays?
• My sweet Betty made me a beautiful Valentines floral display
• Tea
• BAGELS BAGELS BAGELS. Doing the BAGEL dance
• A birthday ring...Thank you dad and Wanda
• Twinkling light up a winding staircase that I was dying to climb!!

On the wrong side of every door

Funny Friday

Staying true to the premise...1st thought and 5 minutes. A very light hearted thread of how our word struck me today.

TRUST:

I let one in, the other goes out. They stand on opposite sides of the door studying each other.
When the door is closed they intuitively know the other is just outside waiting to come in, and beckon their people. They trust us purely for not only sustenance, but that we will drop whatever we are doing to open that door :-)

With just an expression, I discern their desire for sister to be let in.
Each look out for one another and summon us to their tag teaming & plotting.
Sometimes they both sit on the same side of the door peering out...
I sit back and wonder, "what could they possibly be sitting there dreaming about"?

T.S Elliot, wrote a poem called the The Rum Tum Tugger.  There is a phrase in the second stanza,

"When you let me in, then I want to go out  I’m always on the wrong side of every door

"He's always on the wrong side of every door"

Oh to be as pure & trusting in my Heavenly Father as our sweet pets are in us. How patient He is as I run circles around myself feeling like I'm on the wrong side of the door, while He just continually opens it & smiles :-)

Taking the plunge with Lisa-Jo and a throng of other fun women for 5 min of writing. Come what may, come what might.

A Gritty and Grainy kind of love

1,000 Word Thursday

The above photo touched my heart because it's just family. Being together, silly, loving and living life.
It was taken by someone dear to my heart and just happens to be one of my favorite photographers,
Emily Bell.

You know, that area in the very back of the store? It's not very well lit, there are no fancy headings, colors or subcategories. In fact this section of greeting cards is not even labeled. There are no elaborate pictures on the outside nor rhyming words in. There is no organization.
It appears almost drab as you walk from the bright pinks and reds of the Valentines section at the front of the store.

As you pick up and open card after card, articulated inside are mistakes made, tears poured, patience lost, voices raised. Love striving to find uncondionality, anger, disappointment, grief and did I say tears. Sleepless nights, worry, jealousy and sometime white hot fear. The last few you pick up speak to addictions and loss.

~~~~~



As we approach Valentines day reflections of beaches, flowers, sunsets,  private slow dances under twinkling lights, stolen kisses, soft music, the warmth of intertwined hands, and all sorts of amorous notions fill my mind. These musings are awash with rapturous couples in love. The kind of love that commercials and greeting cards are made from.

There is a "kind of love" that we too oft do not see displayed in the "Valentines" section at Hallmark.  I would call it the

"Gritty and Grainy Love"

isle.

Jesus example of true love is not pretty. His gift to us was anything but pink and red balloon bouquets. His gift of love was filled with brutality and blood. It's the things real life and real love are made from.
His was and is the perfect example of true love.

Full circle, finds contemplations on even deeper places.

F A M I L Y

~~~~

In the Gritty and Grainy card section you also find cards conveying such things as forgiveness, concessions, kindness and truth. Morning breath and passing gas at the dinner table and raucous laughter. Some on illness and serious knee time. Self control and keeping no record of wrongs are nestled together near the top.
Expressions of true love and it's willingness to give ones life for it, just under them.
Cards reflecting, commitment, persevering and protecting just to the left. Did I say forgiveness? You pick up a couple on your way out that express prayer and holding a loved ones hand as they pass to Jesus arms. 
As you turn to leave, your arms full with new perceptions, you see that though Gritty and Grainy, this section really has the best to offer.

~~~~

I still believe in sunsets, slow dances and love making.

In fact I believe that we start somewhere in the well lit decorative and well mapped out section of the card store. With all the hearts, kisses, bells and whistles.

However it's just the beginning...

Day is Dimming

Wednesday's Word

 

 

 

 

 

“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?”

Psalm 8:3-4

 

 

"The more the years swell by and pass."

I was just having that very conversation with a friend today over tea. How important it is to capture every moment with our loved ones as we are but a blink in time.

Ultimately however, our place is not here. We are but temporary passengers bound on a train for Glory.

My friend Laurie sent the above video sometime back and I listen...over and over.

"Where you are...I wanna be, It's Your love that has changed me.

I'd give the world and all it's charms

For a moment in Your arms

Better is one day with You than a thousand elsewhere."

~ Brooke Fraser~

 

I am not made for this world

Tuesday's quotes

“If I find in myself desires which
 nothing in this world can satisfy, the
only logical explanation is that I was
 made for another world”.

~ C.S. Lewis~

(Back) Earth, Venus.(Front) Mars, Murcury, Pluto

(Back) Jupiter, Saturn. (middle) Uranus, Neptune.

Sun

Festival of lights. About 1,000 light years away and part of our Milky Way

The Eagle Nebula

A "Rose" made of galaxies taken by the Hubble

Photos courtesy of www.Nasa.gov. The Hubble telescope

Art en eaux troubles

Somedays we just need to have a heart of gratitude.

This photo is from the art exposition "L’art... En Eaux Troubles"
(lit. translation: "Art in Troubled Waters") in Paris.

An immediate squeeze clutched my chest. If I was going to title this it would be

"For his is the kingdom of Heaven"

So much to be thankful for.




This week gave me much pause for innumerable counts of thankfulness. Joining with a multitude of other women in our mutual act of worship, GRATITUDE!

Grab the button and go

#294-307

• A wide variety of shoes to pick from that don't involve tying water bottles to my feet
• Family night tickling the funny bones here
• Two days with my sweet Betty sharing deep rich heart words and trying on silly glasses
• Meeting the kidlets for a rendezvous away from school for lunch
• Sadie Hawkins (Mardi Gras style). I love that siblings can be best friends.
• Two weeks mandatory leave of absence to heal. Praying to find rich things to fill the minutes
• Bad news from the Dr. that I'm purposefully giving to the Lord and expecting miracles. I will not lose sleep :)
• The anticipation of Super Bowl and even more anticipation for the goofy commercials
• A toasty electric blanket
• Snuggling with my hubby listening to oldies
• My shiny cross paperweight
• Watching my son set up a folding table in the bed of the truck to play a board game with friends. (Creativity)
• Several days of sun IN A ROW
• A leisurely walk with my man down a country road that always boasts of curious farm animals.

Towanda buys a Valentines day card

Funny Fridays
 

A friend recently sent me the below video of a hairy parking lot scene which was quite reminiscent of a scene from the movie "Fried Green Tomatoes."

I'm not saying it's right, but I will admit there is something a little cathartic to my bones when taking in the below clips.

We have all had similar situations. If not in a parking lot then at the gas station, at our children's school, standing in line at the grocery store or maybe even in the post office.

Why even today I was standing in the massive card isle at a superstore. Enjoying precious rare moments alone to pick the perfect Valentines day cards for my children. Not a soul in sight.

Out of the blue, stands a woman behind me so close I could feel her BREATH ON MY HAIR. She literally (no exaggeration) physically reached for a card in front and to the other side of me which TOTALLY pushed me back.

• First thought: "There must be a camera. If I'm going to be on candid camera or something I need to behave."

No camera!

• Second thought.."Maybe she has special needs". I studied her....

NO, she was humming along like it was THE BEST DAY OF HER LIFE!

My inner Towanda (flesh) was screaming. 

• Third thought: Throwing my card at her while yelling "Look lady back off you have a 300' row of cards to look at do you really need to read the card I'm holding in my HANDS"

Meanwhile the Holy Spirit was saying LOVE JOY PEACE PATIENCE GENTLENESS LOVE JOY PEACE PATIENCE GENTLENESSLOVE JOY PEACE PATIENCE GENTLENESS LOVE JOY PEACE PATIENCE GENTLENESS....

So the moral is this: Thoughts (temptations) are just that. We have one, we chew on it and we either act on it or hand it to the Lord.
Though I've wanted to ram my car door a few times, smash into a car that has just behaved badly, ram my shopping cart into the back of someone who just cut in front of me, pull the moms hair whose kid is a spoiled bully or slap a woman with my Valentines day card, I don't.

Why? Well I don't want to get arrested.

But more importantly I love the Lord and well, He is a God of L O V E! Seriously how would I explain to my children...

Well kids I was standing in the Valentines section looking at cards all about love and I don't know I just pushed her down....?

I can however laugh a little at the genius of mans creativity and sense of humor as obviously I'm not the only one who has ever contemplated these things =)





Towanda in the Winn Dixie parking lot

1,000 Word Thursday

Photo via Pintrest

Gifts from an Orchard

Wednesday's Word

   

Galatians 5:22-23

But what happens when we live God's way?
He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity.
We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

^{Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified.}