Supplication

My Lord, I know not what I ought to ask of Thee.
Thou and Thou alone knowest my needs.
Thou lovest me more than I am able to love Thee.
O Father, grant unto me, Thy servant, all which I cannot ask.
For a cross I dare not ask, nor for consolation;
I dare only to stand in Thy presence.
My heart is open to Thee.
Thou seest my needs of which I myself am unaware.
Behold and lift me up!
In Thy presence I stand,
awed and silenced by Thy will and Thy judgments,
into which my mind cannot penetrate.
To Thee I offer myself as a sacrifice.
No other desire is mine but to fulfill Thy will.
Teach me how to pray.
Do Thyself pray within me.
Amen.
Philaret - Metropolitan of Moscow - 1782-1867

What I never knew!

Ok, so my grandpa: Famous! You heard me.
The other day I was having lunch with my aunt and uncle, and we were talking about this fabulous but unseasonably warm weather when my aunt said,
"It's going to snow, it always snows around daddy's birthday"
Not having known this little tidbit, I asked why, and she answered that he had been born in a blizzard.
So here is the story. My great grandmother is having a rough go of it. Her husband died when she was 6 months pregnant, so her sister comes to move in with her during her confinement, which is lucky, since near the end of her pregnancy great-grandma gets the measles.
She's got a high fever, the doctor is out of town, and this massive blizzard starts raging... that's when she goes into labour! So she pushes through and grandpa is born with a mild case of the measles, PLUS due to the blizzard, the pipes have frozen, ergo no water!
My grandpas' first bath was in beer! I love it!
So great-grandma and grandpa had a bit of a tricky start, but they make it through, life goes on.
Fast forward a two decades and the war becomes pretty central. Grandpa goes off and mans a radar station in New Brunswick I think, and while he's out there he meets all kinds of people from all over. One day, he introduces himself, John James Irvine, and a young soldier looks at him and asks:
"What did you say your name was?"
Grandpa repeats himself, and the soldier with a bit of excitement says:
"There was a John James Irvine who was famous in our town for being born in a blizzard with the measles and washed in beer"
And grandpa says:
"That was me, nice to meet you"

mitts or flip flops?

Gradually and yet all at once spring is upon us. Today I saw bare toes! Out and about bare toes! The feeling of spring is nigh, it's in the air, and it's intoxicating!

Here, on the cusp of spring, hearts are melting, giving no thought to the possibility of frost or snow breaking in on it's thaw. There is wild abandon in the throwing off of the layers that protect us from the icy chill of winter. A lightening of our loads, if you will, as we press forward into newness.

There is steady progress always, even when I cannot see it unfolding. These small but significant changes, one unsteady little step at a time. A little rain that melts the snow, a little extra warmth from the longer hours of daylight, a little bolder morning bird song...

March is not over yet, but still our anticipation of spring and summer outweighs our timidity and as we throw caution to the wind and leave the winter accessories behind.

"There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven -"
Ecclesiastes 3:1

holding loosely

This I have borrowed. These are not my words, but I want to own them, and share them with you:

The growth of all living green things
               wonderfully represents
      the process of receiving and relinquishing,
gaining and losing,
               living and dying.
                                       
                                                The seed falls into the ground,
                        dies
              as the new
        shoot springs up.

There must be a splitting
                                        and
                                                 a breaking
               in order for a bud to form.

The bud "lets go" when the flower forms.
                             The calyx lets go of the flower.
                                                      The petals must curl up
                                                                                   and
                                                                                                  die
                             in order for the fruit to form.

The fruit falls,
                       splits,
                                  relinquishes
      the seed.

The seed falls into the ground...

there is no ongoing spiritual life
                                                 without
                                                              this process of letting go.

                                                                                                -Elisabeth Elliot.

Collected in prayer

Father God, Sovereign King,
You are so patient with me, and gracious to meet me where I am at.
I ask that You give me the courage to live boldly for You, and strength to stand for the one true God, that the loved ones in my life, and those that I rub shoulders with on a daily basis would come to see Your faithfulness and grace and surrender their hearts to You.
Your love O Lord, is better than life.

waiting for the wrong wedding

There are details that I have stored away... just in case I might need them in a hurry, like a passport for a quick getaway. The dress has capped sleeves and is covered with lace, the bouquet is of sunflowers (even though I've heard you have to be careful that they don't stain), dancing to "caravan" by Rachel Portman, and a dance floor lighted with those little white Christmas lights. I don't have the groom yet, but I'm waiting hopefully and expectantly.

I know it's just a day, but all the same, I'm looking forward to it. Sometimes more than I probably should,
but I like the idea of my wedding. The beauty and meaning of the ceremony, the celebration with friends and family, the decorations, the prettiness, the dancing... and me being married.

I know, I know. There's more to marriage than the wedding.

And in any case, the wedding I should be waiting for is coming at an unknown date and time. Sometimes its hard to wait for a wedding you can't plan for, but I know it's the wedding that's worth the  wait.

My hope is in You LORD.

the string on our fingers

I live with my grandfather. He has short term memory issues. You can predict a conversation with him based on where he sits in the living room, mainly because of what reminders are available to him from his vantage point. I have tended to view this as tedious, but as I was trying to steer him in different directions from the same starting point, I realized something.

There is a story that my grandfather tells, about my grandmother going with him on a business trip to Bristol. While he was working, she had to find ways to amuse herself and so she would go exploring. At one point, while visiting some cathedral that had been damaged in the war she found that for a small sum she could make a brass rubbing, and the proceeds would go towards repairs. So she did, and there are two brass rubbings up in our living room as proof. Whenever the conversation lags, or he gets flustered he returns to the story of the brass rubbings, because he looks up, sees them and remembers. He actually often chuckles to himself as he remembers.

I, to my shame, have viewed this as tedious because it is a repetition that before now had born no real significance to me. I had heard the story before, and it wasn't really a blockbuster. But then I realized that  my grandfather remembers with pride and love a woman who was self-sufficient and capable, a time of youth and hope and promise. That in telling me the story, he relives a little bit that memory, and shares with me not only a bit of himself, but also a bit of my grandmother.

The other day, from the same starting point we got into what life was like when he was growing up on the farm. He did in fact half to walk a mile and a half to school except on the coldest winter days when his step father would take him in the horse drawn sleigh.  Before the depression his step father built a new barn, and the unspoken law of those days was that if you built a new barn, you had a dance to celebrate. He can remember as a boy sitting up in the loft watching the celebration and the dancing. The barn turned out to be a weak investment with the advent of tractors and the start of the depression. He can remember during the depression, men riding on the box cars of trains and going from farm to farm looking for work. He has memories of men showing up at the house and being invited for dinner even if there was no work for them, before they were sent on their way. There is such richness in these snippets that I get to glean.

I have short term memory issues. I often forget important things that I have learned. Just as the brass rubbings in our living room are a reminder for him of someone he loves, and a time in his life that he cherishes, they will now be reminders to me that it is worth the time and the repetition even, to love my grandfather by listening to him remember. 

I guess what I realized is that even if I have heard a story before, there are new things that I can learn from it, if I make the effort.