Tag Archives: Renewal

Reshaping Through Our Seasons

06 Sunday Feb 2022

Posted by in Encouragement, Through my window

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Once again a layer of ice has crystalized our countryside in Western Kentucky, though thankfully, it hasn’t paralyzed us as the 2009 ice storm did. Here at home we didn’t even lose electrical power, so we had the privilege of admiring the unbelievable sparkle of the outdoor world from a warm window, where I watched the nearby Hawthorne tree display colors as a crystal prism. Only the sun and the ice compose this dazzling artwork. Snapping pictures for an hour has not begun to capture the reality of what the eye beheld yesterday morning. My eyes, however, remained shifted away from the center of our backyard, where not all was beauty.
There in the backyard is a Southern Magnolia tree I love because it was given me by my brother 12 years ago. Due to it’s size, the weight of accumulated ice was more than it could bear and many limbs lay on the ground, splintered ends pointing skyward. As I lamented my heartbreak to my family, we talked about how insignificant one tree is in comparison to the devastating losses so many have suffered lately. It still hurts; it will never have the beautiful shape it was before the storm.
Thoughts emerged of life storms, splintered hearts and hope, and the healing we long for after the storm.
Hearts scarred and broken from abuse and abandonment will awaken each day and be reshaped by not only the past but by each encounter and effort to recover and repair. Broken relationships leave gaping wounds, and when scars form, room is made for building new and reshaping old relationships. I believe none of this happens without design by the creator God, Who set the life seasons in motion, planning for scars to give rise to new growth; strength in healing from brokenness; beauty from barren canvases where we allow the master artist to create in us renewed hope and revived spirit. (Psalm 51:10)
Just as there is beauty in the crystalized world outside my window even as the ice in its natural character does damage; and just as there is hope for my Magnolia to live on with its scars producing new growth and certainly new shape, we also can continue to be part of new growth and reshaping for others and ourselves after life’s storms. We are helpless to stop these changes of our seasons, but God is able to bring out of those seasons the beauty within us because it was He Who put it there in the first place. “It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves” Psalm 100:3. Give yourself the gift of allowing God through His word, to revive and reshape you after the storms of your seasons. “Then your light shall break forth like the morning, your healing shall spring forth speedily, and your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.” (Isaiah 58:8)

From the Storm to the Table

23 Sunday Jun 2019

Posted by in Encouragement, Faith

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With the blackness touching my face and the silence filling my ears, there was no sleep for me. I lay there wondering how I became so accustomed to today’s sensory input that I couldn’t even find peace in the wake of a storm. I thought how dark and quiet the nights must have been for my grandparents. When their lamp was snuffed out, and the stars and moon were swallowed by the heavy bellied clouds, the dark was solid. There were no security lights; no traffic casting a glow through their dark windows as we have now. But there was more than the dark and quiet keeping me awake. It was that question in the back of my mind – what would I find in the morning’s light? What changes would the storm have brought that I couldn’t yet see?

Unable to await daylight, I entered the darkness by lantern and found some of the porch furniture cast into a bed of perennial plants that I was rather fond of, including beautiful 3 feet tall ivory colored Calla lilies, now lying flat on the ground under a large potted schefflera. I wrestled the potted plant back up onto the porch, and placed the lighter metal furniture pieces back onto their home as well. Taking my wet self back inside, I waited for the electricity to bring our ‘normal’ unnatural night lights, motor humming, and sleep.20190622_110305.jpg

With daylight I was better able to survey the damage, and for us the casualties were minimal. As quickly as the thought “what a mess!” entered my head, it was chased by the knowledge that this is nothing, and my heart was heavy for all the homes that suffered real damage this spring alone, by flood and tornado. I felt ashamed for grieving my lovely Callas. But then, I thought of those verses in God’s Word about even one little lamb being sought when the remaining flock was safe (Luke 15:4-5); and the one pearl of great price (Matthew 13:46); and sweeping the house clean to find one coin (Luke 15:8-9). Yes, my beautiful Callas were important to me, with all the work I’ve invested into that flower bed, and the pleasure I’ve had looking out the window at their beauty. Oh, I’m not really grieving, or “all tore up”, as we say around here. But as always, nature speaks to me of God and His ways. So, I lifted their sad little faces and supported them with a trellis, and salvaged a small bouquet to enjoy the creamy perfection in their blooms.20190622_112347

I’m comforted in the knowledge that my Father in heaven gets down in the deep with me to shoulder my burdens; lifts my face, picks me up when I’ve fallen; supports me and continues to work with what I have to give. If you’ve weathered a storm of your own lately, or perhaps in the midst of despair even now, you are surely fearful of what you will find in the path your storm takes. I would encourage us all to look up to our amazing God, Who by His grace and through Jesus Christ, saves us; and our sweet Holy Spirit Who takes our cry from the depths of our lows to the Father. He hears, and He works more mightily than we can imagine. Bring what you have to the table and let it shine. You are as important to Him as the whole flock, more worthy than ten times your weight in silver coins; a pearl of great price. He will salvage, He will save, He will keep you in His wisdom and time.20190622_113048

“He calms the storm, So that its waves are still.  Then they are glad because they are quiet; So He guides them to their desired haven.  Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness, And for His wonderful works to the children of men!” Psalm 107:29-31 (NKJV)

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.” Psalm 51:10

Monday Makeovers

06 Sunday May 2018

Posted by in MONDAY MUSINGS

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“…all things are become new.” II Cor. 5:17b

The clothespins were starting to fall out of the ripped side of my old blue bag. It was made of that stuff somewhere between paper and fabric, so there was no mending that! Certain that it would not endure another trip to the clothesline, I began pilfering around for a solution, without having to buy another one;  or more likely, wait through several trips to the town of forgotten errands. Rummaging around in my craft supplies, I spied a piece of heavy canvas, so old that I don’t recall what its origin was. The great nieces had used it for a drop cloth once, but it just never felt right to discard it. So, I’d shuffled it around 100 times, more or less.

  • One old coat hanger and my wire cutters provided a stabilizer for the back side, where I placed:
  •        two grommets from my sewing box, left from a project of three years ago;
  •        removed the actual hanger from the old bag to fit through the grommets;
  •        used an old spool of brown thread for contrast stitching,

and it’s a new clothespin bag!MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA

 

Why, you ask, would I care about a clothespin bag? Because for me, and my family, there is nothing that compares with the scent of sheets and pillowcases hung out to dry on the clothesline in the fresh spring air. So that’s the why of that.  As to why I didn’t just go grab another no-trouble replacement at Wal-Mart? There’s a little bit of a DIY’er in me and a lot of cheap, too. So if I can make it out of old parts, and not incur more expense than buying one, why not?

I’m so glad the Lord didn’t just toss me out, but set out to remake, renew, and refurbish me instead. My soul was torn, and my spirit was falling out. The devil was wearing me thin.  But the love of the Father made my soul whole. The Holy Spirit speaks peace to our dismantled spirits through the Word of God. And Jesus Christ sacrificed all the needed materials to make us new.  “This people I have formed for myself; they shall declare my praise” Isaiah 43:21

When God’s people, Israel, had been cast far off, scattered among foreign people and lands, God’s prophet Ezekiel relayed to them that God would restore His people. “Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes and keep My judgements and do them, and they shall be My people, and I will be their God.” Ezekiel 11:19-20.

Today God’s spiritual Israel, His people, “know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens.”  (II Corinthians 5:1, speaking of the resurrection) There is also a renewing in this life that can be a daily blessing. When we as wives, mothers, sisters and friends let each other down, betray our own hearts’ desires and do what we wish we would not; and worse, when we let down the Christ Who gave us the perfect example, we are being the torn ragged old cloths that time and temptation produce. But we have One who loves us much more than we can understand, and He has provided a way to mend and makeover those who go to Him. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” (verse 17)

Thank you Father God for taking my heart’s old tattered cloth and replacing it with the sturdy fabric of faith; for giving me new purpose every day, spurred on by your Spirit and the zeal of fellow Christians. Thank you for a day of rest and worship, preparing me for my Monday makeover. “Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.” (II Cor. 4:16)