Light, Child

Lift your head, ye mighty gates.

Such quiet thoughts are these.

Jangling keys could sound success.

I'll let her know you're free.

Laugh a while, dungeon child

Strange highways roar above.

Life is ringing at the door

You pale prison dove.

Whistle sweetly, solemn eyes

My heart inhales coal.

Hope comes stumbling in for tea

Lift your head, my soul.

If God had Time

If God were confined to something like Time,

I would wonder 

how

He has enough

 to bless each of us as often as he does.

The Dream I Remembered

I had a dream.

Of happy hearts and dusty feet.

Of wild plains and holding calloused hands.

Of setting suns through campfire smoke.

Of easy laughs and simple clothes.

And I heard a stumbling guitar melody.

It was a gentle song, at the end of hardship.

My heart was full, but my stomach grumbled.

It was a beautiful dream.

A dream where you wake up, and  it clings to your memory's shadow.

A dream where you squint up at morning sunlight and ask -- why?

I saw children smiling in my dream.

Their teeth were clean, and their eyes twinkled.

And their clothes were so dusty.

There was dust everywhere.

Summer Adventures II: We Merry Band of Friends

 Today I am thankful for treasures.

In unlikely places.

For friends that you sought half the world over, to discover them 

next door.

Today I am thankful for God's perfect timing.



I sought, fervently.


I waited, barely.


I asked, doggedly.


And I received, bountifully.



I am thankful for my friends.

For the serious ones -- the ones who look at you and you see the 

hand of God behind their eyes.

I think it is a warm embrace from our Creator, these sober-minded comrades.

They are sunshine to the garden of your soul.

They pull you towards the Light with their steadfast presence.

They are faithful friends.

I am thankful for my silly friends, too.

You know who you are.

Who make me choke on my drink when I attempt to be wise in my own eyes.

Who scramble to blustery mountain tops with me,

and yell at the sky

For no reason other than to 

Be a part of the unspeakable magnificence we will always encounter

When we walk in God's country.

This is for you.

For the conversations we have with our eyes.

For the words -- for the lives -- that inspire us to walk towards Him.

For the laughter that steals our breath.

For Neapolitan ice cream.

For adventures.

For my merry band of brothers and sisters.

It is my prayer that I may never forget the value of these treasures 

that I hold.

"As iron sharpens iron, so does one man sharpen another."
Proverbs 27:17

Photo credits: Alyssa. 

Summer Adventures Part I

Rainy Mondays are made for bubble experiments. 

For barefoot, blue jean fascination.

For wild green land and elusive rainbows.

Rainy days are bonding days.

They're quiet, smiling, summer days.

"I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice, and to do good in one's lifetime..."
Ecclesiastes 3:12

A Psalm for the One I Love

Lord, thank you, for today I love so much I think I might burst.

The love my God has shown this morning is so all-surrounding and overwhelming, it is as a mighty ocean in it's fullness around me!

 

Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus! Underneath me, all around me, is the song of His love for His children.

"See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God; and so we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him." -1 John 3:1

Let me thank you, Lord, let me dance for you in the only way I know how.



























Bless my shaking hands with the power to love as you do, selflessly, with an unchanging devotion that echoes the depth of your agape love.

Still my tongue to silence, do not let me slay the ones I love with hasty words. Irrespective of fault, let me know you better by loving as you do.

 

Thank you, Father, for your promises, for the blessings you have stored up for the child who is faithful. For the grace with which you have flooded my feeble heart, let me sing!

The coastline bears its teeth, and the winds above batters the head of your child, yet you are there, in the hush of the aftermath I hear your still, quiet voice.

Your silence is long, and the days of my anguish stretch as though un-ending. Do not let me wander from your ways. Speak to me, for I know you walk beside me, that you hold my hand in your silence towards me.

Challenge my heart, O God, and though I will fall, and though I will give in to temptation, discipline me to the likeness of Christ -- conform me to the image of Jesus.

"For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers." -Romans 8:29

Lord, teach me to love.

"Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere, brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart..." -1 Peter 1:22

Valley of Vision: A Puritan Prayer

Heavenly Father,

 

If I should suffer need, and go unclothed, and be in poverty, make my heart prize Thy love, know it, be constrained by it, though I be denied all blessings. It is Thy mercy to afflict and try me with wants, for by these trials I see my sins, and desire severance from them.

 

 

         Let me willingly accept misery, sorrows,

temptations, if I can thereby feel sin as the greatest evil,

and be delivered from it with gratitude

to Thee, acknowledging

this as the highest testimony of

Thy love.

 

 

When Thy son, Jesus, came into my soul instead of sin

He became more dear to me

than sin had formerly

been;

His kindly rule replaced sin's tyranny.

 

 

Teach me to believe that if ever I would have any sin subdued I must not only labour to overcome it, but must invite Christ to abide in the place of it, and He must become to me more than vile lust had been; that His sweetness, power, life may be there. Thus, I must seek a grace from Him contrary to sin, but must not claim it apart from Himself.

 

 

 

 

 When I am afraid of evils to come...


Comfort me by showing me that in myself I am a dying, condemned wretch, but in Christ I am reconciled and live;

...that in myself I find insufficiency and no rest, but in Christ there is satisfaction and peace.

...that in myself I am feeble and unable to do good, but in Christ I have ability to do all things.

Though now I have His graces

in part,

 

I shall

shortly

have them

perfectly in that

state where

Thou wilt show Thyself

fully reconciled,

and

alone sufficient, efficient,

loving me completely,

with sin

abolished.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

O Lord, hasten that day.   -- The Valley of Vision: A Puritan Prayer