Looking up

I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
Psalm 121:1

How nice to wake up this morning...

To
a
SNOWstorm!
Something tells me that White House press briefings are about to get fun again!

Lately, I've been reminded...

...about how effectively the enemy uses one of his favorite tools in my life: the Road of What-If. Too often my journey veers down the access road of this dangerous path and I get lost in a jumble of regret over past mistakes, lost opportunities, and a me that had not had the full benefit of all the graces that God has shown me thus far in my life.

Lord, help me not to become crippled by looking backward. Help me to lean on Your strength for today and tomorrow with a child-like faith that You are in control despite my failures...

Grace notes

When sleep her balm denies, my silent spirit sighs,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
When evil thoughts molest, with this I shield my breast,
May Jesus Christ be praised!

Does sadness fill my mind? A solace here I find,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
Or fades my earthly bliss? My comfort still is this:
May Jesus Christ be praised!


~~from "When Morning Gilds the Skies"
English translation by Edward Caswall

Lights out.

Watching one of your children in chronic pain with no hope in sight...there are no words.

All along we've prayed for just enough light for the next step. And now it's gone dark and I can't see a thing. Where in the world do we go from here...

I trust You, God. But I can't see.

Perhaps I should say...

Oh God, I can't see anything. But I trust You.

Easter People

Tonight, in this Passion Week, I needed this.

It's not a great year for the bluebonnets here in the Lone Star State, but the few that have popped their pretty heads up remind me that it's April. Somehow, spring seems squeezed out: the temperatures here say it's summer...the condition of my heart says it's still winter. There's been a blizzard of challenges in the last weeks, so intemperate that I smiled when I saw this week's late snowstorm in New York City and thought, "Yeah, I identify with that."

So many friends have e-mailed in the past few days to see how I'm doing. My sparse posts and the fact that so many e-mails have gone unanswered (or answered in uncharacteristic sentence fragments) has probably given clues that the season is a difficult one. Continued physical pain for CJ and for me; emotional pain in the lives of those closest to me; growing pains in the family as we re-evaluate goals and strategies and dynamics; longings for answers to questions that seem to hang in stale air...all these conspire to make it feel like Narnia before the coming of Aslan.

And tonight, I have no neat way to wrap it all up...no devotional type ending. It's winter...