Memoirs of a Moorings

Beauty Will Rise

"One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it's worth watching."

My dad with one of his favorite little guys.

As I write this post, we have celebrated our big boy's 6th birthday. But it's been a bittersweet day. My dad was so looking forward to coming down to celebrate with us. Instead he'sis fighting for his life in ICU. Life can take a turn so quick that it leaves you blindsided. 

After a couple of times of being blindsided, it would be easy to shake my fist at the sky and blame God. Curse Him for all this sorrow and pain. 

Instead I find my heart spilling over with sweet praises. He's still good. He's still God. We live in a fallen world and ugly things like this sometimes happen. 

As I write this, "See" by Steven Curtis Chapman is playing in the background. A freak accident took the life of one of Steven Curtis Chapman's little adopted daughters last year, Although Steven began to feel as though he'd never be able to write or sing again, in time he found his voice again and the songs on his new album Beauty Will Rise were born. 

As I type this I wonder, how will beauty rise again. But it will. I believe it will.

Yep. He's the God Who Sees

"He says to himself, "God has forgotten; he covers his face and never sees." Psalm 10:11

 

(Shayne playing peek-a-boo..thinking he can't be seen. Photo by T. Gardner..best daycare provider in the world!)

Sometimes you just gotta close your eyes and look through eyes of faith.

Especially when God's given you a promise and what you have looks nothing like what God promised. Makes me think of Hagar. The maidservant of Sarai, who was shunned after becoming pregnant by Abram. Shunned by the very woman who caused all the madness. So she fled the meanness and the mayhem. (Read the backstory here.)

And she fled to a spring in the desert of all places. I love how God works. In her brokenness, He provided a bright spot. In her dry place, He provided a spring in the desert and that's where He spoke to her. A promise. "Thereafter, Hagar used another name to refer to the Lord, who had spoken to her. She said, “You are the God who sees me.” She also said, “Have I truly seen the One who sees me?” So that well was named Beer-lahai-roi (which means “well of the Living One who sees me”). It can still be found between Kadesh and Bered." Genesis 16:13-14.

God saw Hagar. He saw her rejection. He saw her confusion. But none of that took away the promise that He held in His hand. Sometimes we confuse the desert with a forsaken promise. But God sees the desert as the springwell of promises. A place where promises pour forth like fresh water. 

We get it twisted. Yet God never does.

God sees me.

God sees you.

And if we stop running long enough, we'll see the springs in our own deserts.

Listen More Slowly

"People ought to listen more slowly." ~ Jean Spark Ducey

 

I've had a love affair with words for as far back as I can remember. A career working with the written word was the only one that I dreamed of as a child--well that and being a ballerina--but that was short-lived. (I could pull in stomach, make sure my shoulders were straight but tucking my bottom under was always a challenge. Do they realize how hard that is for black girls? Okay, I digress.) Translating my thoughts into words is like breathing. Like Snoopy, sometimes the thoughts come so fast and furious I can hardly type them out. Or sometimes, I'm scrambling for a piece of paper, the back of a receipt anything to capture the steady stream of thoughts that pour forth from like my head running water. I've had this cartoon strip cut out for decades and posted on my bulletin board to remind me that sometimes the words just don't come and that's okay.

Lately my words have been sitting quiet in my head like shy butterflies. Lots to say, but I'm feeling like God is telling me to hush a little and listen. As people, we are so often prone to running here and there listening to other people's opinions about our lives and what they think we should do...when God is standing to the side waiting for us to come to Him and get the real answer. The one that outshines them all.

So I'm not going to run from this season of listening. Instead I'm going to take heed to those gentle nudges to turn off the TV and the mp3 player and simply sit in God's presence and listen. Instead of reading a whole chapter, I can sit and meditate with a verse and really hear what God is trying to say. He's talking all the time. It's just a matter of how quiet are we to hear His still small voice.

I'm taking some time to listen more slowly. Wanna join me?

Lunch Box Love

This morning I scribbled this note on a napkin and stuck it in my kindergartner's lunch--not thinking much of it.

I got word from his Sis. T, the boys daycare provider, that when he got in after school he said that the napkin note "was very sweet of mommy." She also let me know he said that seeing the note made him think of me. Awwww...

This afternoon as I was cleaning his lunch box out I saw the note still there--used--but still there. Who knew that a few scribbles on a napkin would touch both of our hearts.

Like Playdoh in the Master's Hand

"And yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, and you are the potter. We all are formed by your hand." Isaiah 64:8

Lately, I've been feeling very unpliable in the Master's Hand.

Unbending.

Unyielding.

It's a most uncomfortable place to be...especially when you know you need to just loosen up, let go and let God do the molding.

Romans 8:29-30 says in The Message version of the Bible: "God knew what He was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to SHAPE the lives of those who love Him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity He restored. We see the original and intended SHAPE of our lives there in Him."

For those of us who are born again, we are being shaped into the very image of Jesus.
No easy feat or us to endure.

We, who were born into sin, are being shaped into the image of the One who knew no sin. 

What?!

Easy stuff for God. Hard for us because we tend to think our cleaned up, baptized, sanctified selves are just fine. What further work could possibly need to be done? That pattern of the world, that cloth that we were cut from, needs to be worked out of us. Because we weren't designed according to the pattern of this world.

I think back to my 5-year-old's fascination with Playdoh a couple of years back. He'd poke it, prod it, flatten it, slam it with his hand--all with the hopes that it would be shaped into the image in his mind's eye. And when he couldn't get it quite right, he'd hand it over to me where I'd further poke and prod until finally it met approval from both of us.

In just the same way, God has an image He's forming us into. He knows what the finished product is to look like. How much it needs to be bent and shaped. We are the ones who are clueless. So all the prodding and reshaping can seem like torture....maybe even sometimes like God doesn't care.

But, oh! How much He cares. So much so that He won't let our unyieldingness hinder Him from shaping every silhouette of our lives.

My prayer of late is that I stop being so stiff in God's hand and so hard-hearted towards what He's trying to do in me. In the end, I'm sure I'll be surprised at the masterpiece that He'll unfold after all the shaping and re-shaping takes place.

Last Week's Bento Box Lunches ~ Sept 30-Oct 2

Life is getting by me.......these are last week's lunches and I have been running late all week so no pictures of this week's lunch. Sad thing too because they were good lunches that he actually ate. These lunches pictured were pretty much a bust because he said they weren't warm enough. So I ended up buying him a thermos and another microwaveable container where you heat up the food, cover it and it stays warm. I tried it myself and it worked. I'll try to post photos of them soon.

For this lunch below, he ate all the fruit and some of the stuffed muffin. But the carrots and pizza were untouched. Who would pass up pizza? Such a picky kid this child is!

 

This lunch went over pretty well...the only thing he didn't eat were the Cheez-It crackers.

A Week of Bento Box Lunches ~ September 21-25, 2009

Last week got by me and I didn't get to blog so I'm not even sure what days go with what lunches. And there's one day that I totally forgot to take pictures of the lunch. Such is the life of a mom with a kid newly in kindergarten. I'm trying to catch a groove.

So this is my lunch. I packed it since my big boy ate in the cafeteria a few days last week.

Chicken taquitos, grapes, strawberries and yogurt.

This lunch sadly did not go over well. Most of the quesadillas came back since he said they weren't warm enough. I gave him some chicken lunch meat rolled up. He ate one. All the fruit was gone.

I was a little worried about this lunch and the mac and cheese staying warm enough. I'd bought two insulated bags for the bento boxes and tried them out. The mac and cheese was halfway gone. He said I put too much in there. The hawaiian bread roll was half eaten and the yogurt untouched. He said he was too full to eat it. But of course the fruit and fruit snacks were a hit. Oh yeah and on the bottom level of the blue bento box I packed a hot dog. It was gone. I ended up microwaving the mac and cheese and boiling the hot dog in the morning and packing it up hot in the insulated bag (I'll take pics of it this week if I remember.) He said they were warm enough. I'm thinking of packing lunch in the bag myself to see how warm it stays.

Simple Thanks: The One Thousand Gift List

"Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough." ~Oprah Winfrey

250. Warm weather well into September

251. Pudgy toddler arms around this momma's neck

252. A 5 year old still holding my hand--if only for a second

253. My baby/big boy on bended knee at bedtime

254. Answering a zillion questions about God

255. Requests to listen to the story of David and Goliath on the Adventure Bible Audiobook over and over

256. A mighty cloud of witnesses

257. Sunday's sermon reminding me that God loves me

258. Middle of the night checks on the boys; pulling up blankets and covering cold toes

259. Cookies and cream ice-cream on a sugar cone

260. Texting and LOL with an old friend

261. Homemade lunches

262. Afternoon coffee

263. This podcast series that inspired me to walk through the book of Habakkuk

264. Questioning...yet trusting God

265. Watching God cultivate Noah's heart in me.

This Week's Bento Box Lunches ~ September 14-17, 2009

Thinking I'll make my big boy's bento box lunches a regular feature since a certain friend of mine requested that they be spotlighted so she'll have some ideas. This is for you LaCrecia :-)

I only had to make two lunches this week since the cafeteria was serving three of his favorite things this week: macaroni & cheese, quesadillas and pizza.

TUESDAY

Monday night I made stuffed muffins for the boys. I got a request to include one in lunch for the next day. This time I made them with chopped up rotissiere chicken, cheddar cheese and peas. I also included a hot dog, mandarin oranges, sliced apples, grapes, a pop tart and Capri Sun. This lunch was a hit.

WEDNESDAY

Packed a sweet hawaiian bread roll, crispy chicken tenders, peas, sliced apples, oranges, Cheez-It crackers and a drink. The entire second level (chicken etc..) came back untouched. Turns out he didn't know it was there. Aaarrgh. So we will have to do a dry run the night before. He ended up eating it when he got home.

THURSDAY

Although Rhyan ate in the cafeteria today, I still packed him a snack because they get to eat a healthy snack at second recess. So this was his request, hawaiian bread, grapes and sliced apples. I included the strawberries even though he insisted he didn't like them. When I checked this afternoon, there wasn't a strawberry to be found.

I'm too tuckered out to include tomorrow's snack...maybe I'll add it on next week's post. Any ideas on what to tuck in these bento boxes? I'd love to hear them!

I'm the Apple Of His Eye

"Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings" Psalm 17:8

 

This little dude here never ceases to amaze me. He's so multi-faceted. He's a boy's boy. A man's man. I don't think I've ever seen him with a doll. But here he is displaying his nurturing side in a picture snapped at daycare. He's all about quick left punches, dinosaurs and playing with cars. But when I think about it, I shouldn't be surprised at this photo. Littlest has a soft touch and is known for being a bit of a momma's boy. In fact, being gentle (at the right moment) is something that comes quite naturally to both of our boys. So really..it's only fitting that he would take the time to gaze into this baby's eyes.

Reminds me of how God is with us. He is in one instance, like a mother eagle, protecting her young under her wings. And in another moment, He is fighting on our behalf like the powerful warrior that He is.

That's what I love about God. So much rolled into One. Limitless.

Yet through it all, He holds us up and He keeps His eye on us. I'm in awe of His love.