We often hear the saying, "God is good." 

While I don't deny the truth of that, a phrase that comforts me more is, "God is God." 

I think that my notion of what is "good for me" gets tangled in the truth. 

For some reason saying, "God is God" reminds me of his holiness, 

his "other"ness. 

He is not like us, he is love… 

and not our understanding of what love is or what we think would be loving. 

This calls me to something MORE…the question of "who is this God?"

Yes, I think he is good and loving, but perhaps my understanding of those words are inaccurate…it is worth considering WHO he is.

Play and Discovery

It is now December...I just reread the post I wrote in July and was thinking how grateful I am for the small ways in which he invites me to search for him...that I have opportunities to see him in the world all around me….

Here is another unpublished draft dated Dec. 4th, 2013. Already I see the change in perspective from practicing thanking God for things each day.

I've taken up the challenge of thanking God each day for His small gifts to me...I want to form the spiritual discipline of being attentive…

This post was created as a draft on July 13, 2012 but never published…found it today and was amazed that I have been working at this practice of gratefulness for over two years…and my life has changed…I have changed, for that I am truly grateful!

Well, if I wait a few more days it will be a whole year since I wrote anything on this blog...strange to look back over the year and take stock of what has happened...where I am in the journey...new boss, new co-workers, new way of doing my job and being with people in it...Trent is in Chicago for the summer as an intern at a major corporation in his field and has had a phone interview with the major player in computers and electronic devices...we are at a major transition point in his story...he will enter his senior year at Purdue this fall...and shortly become engaged and then inevitably he will be married...it is a change that I feel so many complex emotions about...grateful for the opportunities and the wonderful woman he has chosen...sad to have him gone from my life and uncertain about what the next stage will be like for him and for myself and David...will we experience loss of being connected to him and his story...what will that loss look and feel like? Zoe is working at the gallery here in Winona Lake...and is spending one day a week with her Joe either here or in his hometown 1 and 1/2 hours away...she will go to her second year at college this fall...studying studio art...my Joe...our Joe is entering his Junior year...only a short step from his senior year, graduation and leaving for college himself...we are on the brink of the empty nest...emptiness was the topic on Sunday at church the image I received was of vessels being made of clay and situated in sand...we were made to be empty...to receive...and perhaps to be filled before pouring out to fulfill out intended purpose...somehow Adam and Eve punctured the design...some might say "ruined" the usefulness of the containers...I wondered if God uses those flaws to pour THROUGH us somehow...so that we are constantly leaking the Spirit of God...and yet never feeling full...never experiencing fullness...what if faith is believing that he is at work through us even though we do not experience him? We might never feel the fullness that he might have initially intended due to the sin-hole that drains away the felt presence of God...yet we know he is in us...he constantly pours out himself for the good of all...what if we try to plug that hole with all the wrong things and for all the wrong reasons? What if we simply accept that we are broken...allow the experience of our emptiness to draw us to the truth? That his Spirit is at work in us and in the world...that our God is bigger than our experience of him...what might it mean to embrace the brokenness and trust the outpouring of the Spirit and not interfere by trying to plug up the hole so we wouldn't experience the emptiness? What might it be like to enter into the process with him? Might we see the leaky hole differently? Could it be possible to stop avoiding emptiness and call it good? Might we tune in to the flow of the Spirit through us and sense his presence somehow? Might there be a way to embrace the process without knowing the outcomes? We know the ultimate outcome...but it takes faith to trust in him when we do not experience any of it or of him in the moment.

It has been so long since I've attempted to put into words (at least here in this space) something of the journey into all the truth that there is...I have been reading Ann Voskamp's book One Thousand Gifts and her blog "A Holy Experience"...as well as trying to capture one thing a day that I am thankful for on my digital device with her handy App...the pace of life is slow here in this month of my life...time to reflect and enter into the moments He offers me each day...walking beside my daughter as she takes steps to leave our home...searching for points of contact with my remaining son...today is my mother's birthday and I want to call and spend a few moments focusing on her and her story...stopping like this each summer has become a familiar rhythm for me...always hectic and flustered during the school year...disappointment with how I handle people in the midst of life's demands...this break in the pattern allows me space to explore...and I am grateful for it.

Wondering about Butterflies Today...?

I was noticing butterflies yesterday... it seems to me that God made flowers to bloom with grace and beauty where they are planted. They are rooted in the earth and have a specific locality in which they are to exist and be what He created them to be. Birds have flight and soar above us on the winds. They cause us to lift our eyes from the earth and our spirits to lift... so what about butterflies? They are flowers in flight... they don't soar but whirl and spin and dip and dive.... they alight on plants that aren't food... do they explore the veins of the oak leaf and trace its varied pathways? What are their thoughts as they wander the space between earth and sky? They seem to be content to be moving about dancing together in such inefficient patterns of flight... Butterflies make me stop and wonder about how I am made and what might there be to enjoy in my time between the earth and the sky....

Of Wounds, Cleansing and Relief

Today a dear friend's daughter went down the hill behind our house on her bike and ended up scraping her knee and elbow raw on the concrete sidewalk. Her mother carried her up to my home in her arms reassuring her through her cries and tears that she would be all right. I noted later how my help wasn't really help at all. I got ice and some bandaids but all I could think to offer was pain relief. I offered to run to the pharmacy to pick up some Bactene spray to ease her suffering and wondered if we had any liquid tylenol that wouldn't be past its expiration date. Her mother asked if she could put her in the tub. Her wounds needed bathed. I realized later that what she really needed was just what her mother was offering... not relief from pain but more pain at least for a little bit in order to cleanse her wounds so that they would have an opportunity to heal properly... nothing I was offering was going to provide her with what she needed most. I wondered at this later... why my thoughts and concerns were all about easing her pain. I am grateful her mother was focused on her care, her true need and not to relieve her pain... at least not until the necessary work was done... what a picture to me of God's love. How often I want the immediate relief of suffering and have no thought for the work that the pain must do to prepare me for what I most need....