Dipping the Toe

Thoughts on faith and life and life in faith

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It Is Well

December 9, 2015 / / 0 Comments

It is.  Well.  With my soul.  We sang that acapella tonight at the concert I went to with my girl.  Audience voices quiet and reverent…swelling there at the end.  There was a time recent when it wasn’t well.  So I quiet listened to the voices and didn’t join in.  I just wanted to savor the truth of it and let it speak to me.  It is truly well with my soul.  

My girl and I, we drove home tired.  She talked nonstop of school.  Then she got still.  “Thank you, Mama.  For this tonight.”  In the beginning, she and I weren’t the ones going but that changed abruptly today and she saw liquid disappointment spill down my face all the way home from school.  She felt me struggle with no details given and meet the gaze head on and try to figure out how to wave and smile where once I would have ridden away with.  It felt odd fitting on us both.  “It’s “stupid”, she spit out.  “How this happened.”  I could feel her frustration at not being able to make it okay.  At having to let go of something she’d begun to trust.
So tonight, my girl and I, we left out in the glaze of an orange sun setting big on the horizon and headed to the concert alone.  We hugged friends we hadn’t seen in months and smiled for our selfie and let the words and the truth of the songs wash over our spirits.  We chose joy.  In spite of things threatening to stab it in the heart.  
Behold the Lamb has become our Christmas gift to ourselves; it sets our gaze and our season  And today we needed an extra portion to remind us He is steadfast, that He wraps us up in His arms and doesn’t let go, that we need not lean on our own understanding, or lack of it.
We don’t always feel it?  But tonight….it is well with our soul and we are safe in His watch.  
Merry Christmas to us

Joshua 1:9 and oranges…..

December 8, 2015 / / 0 Comments
I had time to kill after school.  My girl had an activity that would keep her for longer than I had activities to fill it.  I left the grocery store and felt lost as soon as I got in the car.  “I don’t know what to do, God.  Where to go.”  
“Nancy.”  Clear as a bell.  I knew to go to her house.  I hadn’t seen her in awhile.  Life.  Busy.  Not taking time.  I called her to see if she was home.  “Sure.  C’mon over, sweetheart.”  She met me at the front door with two pieces of my favorite chocolate that she keeps in her freezer.  “I took these out earlier and laid them on my counter.  I knew you’d come here tonight.”  I started to cry and she hugged me tight.  “Come sit down.  I’ll get the kleenex.”  She brought me an orange to eat.  “You need to eat.”
Nancy has seen me through my darkest days.  She’s celebrated when she’s seen God show His father heart on my behalf.  She’s prayed when I didn’t have words.  She’s stood me up and looked me in the eye and charged me to move forward when my compass had stopped working.  She has been my “mama” when I could not go to my own.  
She sat and rubbed my hand until I could figure out what to say.  “I had to walk by the boy today and not stop, not talk, not act like I loved him. Because he didn’t want me to.  And it hurt like ignoring my own kid.  I love somebody who doesn’t love me back and I feel nine years old all over again.”  Hot tears ran down ashamed.  I felt stupid and childish.  I don’t understand.  I don’t understand.  I don’t understand.  
It’s been five years now.  Nancy lost her man to cancer.  They’d been married through a lot of thick and thin and had weathered many a hard storm but they came out standing and ended strong.  Now she walks alone, at least to the natural eye.  She has learned a thing or two about God.  “Do I Trust Him?”, she sang to me tonight.  “That’s what I’ve sung many times these past five years.”  I’ve never known a stronger woman.  But, I know Where it comes from.   “Pray for him, Tamara.  Pray for the dark to be uncovered.  For the evil intent of the enemy to be defeated.”  I couldn’t find the words.  So she did.
I had to go.  She followed me to the door and looked me square in the eye.  “Don’t make this about you, sweetheart.  Be strong, vigorous, and very courageous.  Be not afraid, neither be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you…..wherever you go.”  She quoted Joshua 1:9 from memory.  
“Pray for him.  God wants to bless you.  Be patient.  Trust Him.”  And she stood smiling out in her yard until I drove away.

Chicken Marsala

December 7, 2015 / / 1 Comment

I’ve had the ingredients in my fridge for a week now.  I just couldn’t bring myself to use them.  They’d been all packed up and ready to make for someone we loved.  I didn’t want to make it and eat it ourselves.  It’d taste like something broken.  The girl and I, we put on our comfy cozies and I taught her how, savoring the times with her.  She’s not a kid now.  She looks me in the eye and asks good questions and cleans up after the mess we make.  She has become a companion that challenges me, comes alongside, makes me laugh.  I’m extra glad she’s beside me for this one.  She tells me to make it anyway.

We chopped and stirred and added this and that and mashed the potatoes all lumpy and buttery.
We set the table and the glow of the sunlight sat on the air and colored it a misty yellow.  “STOP.  Don’t eat yet.  I want to take your picture.”  She’s gotten used to that.  The camera snapped and froze the feeling in the air.  This meal wasn’t supposed to be like this.  There was a certain jagged feeling.  We both felt it but we didn’t say it.
“Marsala wine comes from a seaport town in Sicily with a name that literally means Port of God,” I read from google, trying to find meaning deeper than a meal that hurt to eat it.  I smile a little to myself.  Leave it to Him, to put Himself in the middle of it.  I’m comforted by it without making an analogy.  Port of God is good enough for me.  I nestle there and take cover.  We finished the meal and washed up the dishes, putting the leftovers in their cold place.  I’m irritated that there’s some left.  I wanted it to be over with.  
Chicken Marsala will never be the same meal again for me.  It’s love free of charge, even if it’s prepared from a distance.  
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