Trippin With Dad

Tonight I am going to take a blog break and finally open the many cards that have come in to mark Dad's passing.  Truthfully, I hadn't the strength to look through them all.  But tonight is the night to honor those who thought so highly of us to send a card.  Much love! 

"My feet ✝️  My Mission" is the title of our evangelist Pastor Fred's new focus.  His declaration is that wherever our feet are is where our mission work should be taking place. Keeping that thought in mind reminds me that literally everywhere I go I will cross paths with people who need to see Christ in action.  We seek distant missions work for reasons that have often baffled me. I was guilty of that same thought process for years. I couldn't fathom being a missionary in my own backyard. But when you see the hungry around you every day and you ignore them to go and feed the hungry in another country then that's something to make you stop and think. When you see the lives torn apart by illicit drugs and think you can only make a difference in the lives of those devastated by natural disasters in some far off land that makes you stop and think. Serve here. Serve in your neighborhood. Serve in the next neighborhood. Serve in distant places. Just serve like Christ d

We are charting new waters Raymond and I.  We have never been here before: focused solely on God, us and family.  Honestly, I AM TERRIFIED.  Ok, that's a bit dramatic but it does feel like swimming in murky water.  We are experiencing the "empty nest syndrome" that no one really talks about right?  It's not like we can just show up at the dorm room of the loved one that's moved out or helicopter text them into utter annoyance.  Our loved one left and they aren't coming home with a bag full of dirty laundry and an empty stomach.  We have blank calendar days now and it feels disconcerting to see assignments that were once vitally important simply gone.  I walk by Dads room and half expect to see some seemingly mundane task waiting for me that I have to get done.  But nope.  There is no use for me in there anymore.  I think when we experience emptiness the natural inclination is to fill it up with SOMETHING so as not to freak out a little bit inside.  You thin

Have you ever stopped and thought about how the process of grieving and loving are so similar?  Welp, as often happens I get to contemplate philosophical questions such as these while walking at dawn.   It is a serene time to exercise (ugh, don't call it that Sylvia!!) and mentally be still at the same time.  In the stillness this morning Holy Spirit revealed just how alike grief and love are.  I got to respond with, 'pray tell, tell me more' while being frustrated that I didn't have a pencil and paper handy to write down His thoughts.   But this is what I recall:  Both Love and Grief can happen suddenly to you like being hit by a runaway train; or they can come on gradually until all you can see is the narrow tunnel before you.  Both love and grief swell your heart to a capacity you did not know you were capable of experiencing.  Both flow over you in waves at the most unexpected times.  Both can be very inconvenient and cause you to act out in unfamiliar ways.  People

So.  The conversation with my Father a couple of weeks ago went something like this: Daughter Me:  Yes Lord I need you for a few days Me:  OK By yourself, quiet and without distraction Me:  Yes Lord It's not going to be easy but I need you to rest in me this weekend Me:  OK There are trials you are about to face and I need you well prepared Me:  OK I have a work I need to complete in you if you are willing and I need your full attention Me:  OK So when friends try to distract you, politely decline and focus on Me Me:  They may not understand but I can do that. It doesn't matter what you do.  It may feel right to praise, sleep, read.  Whatever you are lead to do, do that thing and do it without worries.  I need to still your heart and supply you with My Peace. Me:  I am ready Lord. See.  My Father already knew my desire for peace;  It was my hearts cry for weeks.  I hadn't asked for comfort or happiness or contentment, which, as a daughter I had the right

I have never actually scuba dived (do scuba lessons at the resort pool in Mexico count?) but I am familiar with the term, 'decompression'.  In a sound bite it means a return to normal atmosphere following exposure to great pressure.  My understanding is that after a diver has been under hundreds of feet of water for a certain length of time that  they have to allow ample time  for  certain cellular gases to exchange  so that they do not experience 'the bends' or  diving sickness before they return to the surface.  If done wrong the process of decompression could at the least make you feel just awful for quite some time and at the most could LITERALLY kill. you.  Knowing how to decompress is part of a divers training which they forget at their own peril.  Now.  Why would someone participate in an activity that is potentially so hazardous?  And not so much during but AFTER it is over?  Welp, my guess is that what you see and experience while that far underwater is amazing