He is Greater.....John 3:30 says He must become greater, I must become less"

One of my favorite chapters of the bible is Psalm 139 for many reasons.  I have been considering verse 11 for a few days now.  It says this:  If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.  Often, we feel afraid of the dark.  As children, the darkness brings thoughts of monsters and insecurities and the unknown.  We need to check under the bed, in the closets, behind shadows.....and it takes a lot to convince a child that they are safe in the dark.  Some children are not safe in the dark.  Darkness lived in my children's elementary school for years and years.  A teacher was doing horrible and subtle and insidious things to children and no one knew it.  The boys were unable to find a voice to stop it.  It went on far too long until one brave child told what had happened that day....

If I were sitting across my dining room table from you tonight, I would likely make eye contact with you, fold my hands in front of me,  take a deep breath and smile.  We would start to talk together and we might share a cup of tea or a glass of wine.  I would ask you how you were and I would expect to be allowed to talk through how I am.  In a relationship, we would get to a place where we both felt like we were seen and heard and we would feel better.  I really hope that this little blog can do some of that for me.  I don't have the time or emotional reservoir to have all of the conversations I want to have......so I am hoping and asking God to make this a vessel for that.  Twice in two days a small little child called me Grandma.  It is a legit label.  I will be 50 in 3 months.  I could be a grandma if timing was different.  I married later and had kids later but if I had married earlier and had kids earlier, I would have been...

It's late Friday afternoon.  We have just made a Walmart run.  It happened because we are stuck in the house tonight when we had planned to do something else.  Why?  Influenza.  Precious spiked a temp at 4:30am this morning of 102 so I kept her home from school and couldn't take her to the dance camp event she was registered for.  Josiah had a low temp 2 days ago so he has been home for a few days already, trying not to spread the germs.  They feel fine.  They are bored, playful, making a mess everywhere and demanding things that little kids demand all day long....but because of those fevers we are home.  I got sick last Sunday morning on our very rare and extremely hard to negotiate night away.  By the time we got home mid-afternoon on Sunday I had fever, aches, chills......I was miserable.  I have fought the aches, the fevers, diarrhea, sore throat, tight cough, loose cough, runny nose, headaches, etc all week.  I no longe...

There is a trend this year, at the dawn of this new year, on social media.  The trend is to choose a word for the year.....kind of a theme word to guide the year.  I think it is half inspiring and half pushy...so I wasn't eager to embrace the trend.  I reluctantly considered it, though.  In the moments I considered it, nothing really awesome came to mind.  I let it go.  Later, in prayer, I did ask God.  I said that if He had a word for me, that I would take it more seriously.  More or less, I said, Lord, if you have a word for me let me know.  If not, that's fine too.  Some time later, maybe days, maybe hours, I'm not sure, I was sitting beside Precious.  We had had a rough day and I was feeling spent.  I reached for her hand and her strong long slim fingers laced within mine.  I leaned in to her, like we do with someone we love very much, and in that moment when our hands connected and our bodies met I heard a wor...

I need to finish what I started with the possible secret meanings of the 12 Days of Christmas.  It technically finished on January 5 but I'm wrapping it up today.  Go figure.  On the 11th day of Christmas my true love gave to me:  The Eleven Faithful Disciples.  They were Simon Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James bar Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot and Judas bar James.  (I don't know what "bar" means....I copied this list from the internet.  The 12th day is the 12 points of belief in The Apostles Creed.  The Apostles Creed was my desperate cry at a time in my life when I was at the bottom of the well, the end of myself and I had lost all hope and courage.  I no longer could clearly know what was true and real and what was a lie....and God began to whisper back to me the words of The Apostles Creed, The Lord's Prayer and John 3:16, and the 23rd Psalm....after a long season of not going to church or rev...

The 9 ladies dancing are the nine fruit of the Spirit from Galations 5.  Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness,  Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-control.  These are gifts because they are so very hard to obtain and keep in our countenance every day.  The world is hard and full of adversity.  Feeling even a few moments of these gifts is a success in a day.  These gifts are also choices, I think.  I can choose love over hate, joy over misery, peace instead of war, patience in place of hurry, kindness not meanness, goodness instead of evil, faithfulness rather than disloyal, gentleness instead of harshness and self-control over impulsivity.  Hard choices.  The right choices.  The 10 lords a leaping are the 10 Commandments.  Rules to live by that protect, rather than restrict a good life.  The Christian faith is full of guidelines for life and important but mysterious truths.....it takes a lifetime to know them...

The seventh day of Christmas marks the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit: 1.  Wisdom, 2. Understanding, 3. counsel( choosing to do what is right), 4. fortitude (courage), 5. knowledge, 6. piety( the gift of reverence) and 7. the fear of the Lord (wonder and awe). As I start 2018, I have a long list of things I want to do better this year that I did last year.  Most are pretty cliché and predictable but as I read the list of these seven gifts....I think I want to ask the Lord for these things instead of help losing weight and keeping my house cleaner.  Lord, grant me these gifts and give me the power to use them for your glory..... The eighth day of Christmas is for the 8 Beatitudes.  Jesus listed them in his famous sermon on the Mount.  When he named the poor, the sad, the meek, the peacemakers, those who want to do good and make peace as those he blessed, well, that was pretty counter-cultural.  When he called thos...