Coffee with Miss Beth...

        I want to sit with you in a quiet corner of a Starbucks and laugh as we share stories about our men and our daughters and our Michael boys and the gift of grandchildren.  I would tell you how your Bibles studies drew me into a love a God's word that changed my life forever and you would tell me I am darlin' and I would weep.  
     We would talk about the lives we had in Arkansas and Oklahoma, about the pain, the loss, and then we would praise God for his great love and the amazing grace of His redemption. We would talk about having oldest daughters the same age who roll their eyes and shake manes of thick brown hair and we'd have to get more coffee and I would hold your hand and weep.
     Then you would say something else about my hair and we'd talk about fashion and shoes and shopping and treasures and life and love and Jesus. 
      We would become more than just teacher and student. More than siesta sisters.
      In heaven, the Author of our stories would smile as our hearts knit themselves to one another because He knew that they would. He knew his two daughters, so similarly made, would have joy in their time together. 
     Then this California transplant would hug tight her Texas sister and thank her from the deepest well of gratitude for being such a faithful teacher of God's word. I would tell you that I can  only imagine how hard a life of ministry like yours really is and I would tell you that I pray for you!    

     
    So Miss Beth, don't be surprised if I pop into your office one day and invite you to coffee.  Our Father could be waiting to be entertained by two of his girls that are uniquely made and greatly loved.   

       

      So until then Miss Beth...thank you!

I picked up the paint brush and put it right back down. I had not become an artist.

      I had to remind myself that God would not ask me to do something that he wasn't prepared to help me accomplish, and I knew it was time. Today I would paint.  
     But paint what? The glory of creation? Yes. But I needed a starting point.  
     I decided that, "In the beginning," was as good a place as any, so I opened the bible to Genesis and read through the creation story. 
     Five hours later I packed it up and put everything away. The longer I painted the more discouraged I got.  There was nothing that glorified God in front of me and I had not suddenly become a painter. 
     I began to question whether I had really even heard from God on this subject. Maybe this was not part of my, "Glory Road," at all.  
     A few days later my desktop computer was in crash mode. I had to get my photos onto an external hard drive or I would lose them. Ten minutes in, a picture file opened called, "The Glory of God, " which had more than a hundred pictures where God's creation had simply stopped me in my tracks. 
     I watch them copy with tears in my eyes as God whispered, "Do you remember this?" I did remember.
      "This poppy burst open right in front of your eyes? Do you remember that?"
     Oh, yes. I wiped a tear from my cheek. "I remember." 

     I knew then that God had begun to put all of this in motion long before I ever knew He was doing anything. I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit and heard the words he put upon my heart. "Paint these. This is where we met. Where you worshiped."    

     I reminded him that I could not paint. That I knew he was well aware of the mess I had made the other day. And then a answer came. "Be creative. It's in you." 
     By the end of the afternoon I knew which photos I wanted to start with.  There were still many loose ends, but I was encouraged and my juices were flowing.  I felt like God had given me a clear picture and equipped me with a plan.

     I had been playing with a phone App called, "Toonpaint," where you take a photo and turn it into into a black and white outline. It looked little a page out of a cartoon coloring book.  
     From there I found a program that would print the image onto a canvass. These arrived in the mail in a tube, and them Paul stretched them onto the wooden frames. 
     Now this was a starting point!

     May you never be moving to fast to see God's glory...

     

In awe...amazed and humbled.

    I struggle to share something that "God" is doing in me without it being about me. But, if I'm being completely honest, I'm overwhelmed by it all, so I'm going to try. I'll start with my point.
    If we give God a willing heart, and walk in faith, He brings to fruition the things He begins, and sometimes, they absolutely blow us away.
   
     Recently God recently reminded me that many months ago, when I showed my sister Kay the ToonPaintings on my Iphone she had said, "I think you should paint for real," but there was only a slight serious tone in her voice, and I remember smiling.
   
     He reminded me that after a very precious prayertime following Bible Study, a dear friend said to me, "I think you should write a Bible Study, Pam." And I remember shaking my head and laughing,  "Oh yeah...you see me in here. That's so not happening."

     Around this same time, another friend sought me out in the hall outside the nursery after church one Sunday and said, "I really have to share something with you. It sounds kinda crazy and I don't know what it means, but I think I'm supposed to tell you this."
     "What?" I asked her.
     "That you're going to start using your hands in a new way." There was a pause, smiles, and then we both kinda shrugged. "Okay." I said. Then I hugged her and we both went on with our day.  
    I spoke to this last friend recently, we had not seen each other in quite some time. I asked her about that day and she did not remember her words to me. She also did not know that I was painting.

     I write this because I see clearly how God uses the people He puts in our lives to encourage and affirm the things He is saying to, and doing in, us and I want you to see it too. God knit his people together for His good purpose. I love this!

     Now, almost a year later, I work on my Bible study, and paint almost every day.
 If I'm not writing or painting, then I'm praying, or thinking about it.
    If you told me a year ago that I would do a charcoal drawing of a horse for a friend, or paint my Mother's favorite picture of tulips for her birthday I would have told you that you were nuts. I am now, though, forever thankful that God knows me better than I ever knew myself. He is pulling something out of me that I never knew was there. 
     So I am now fully committed to this journey down, "The Glory Road," I don't know everything that lies ahead on this trail, but I trust my God. 
     I know that He halted a fiery passion in this daughters heart and in his time gave her back something even greater. I have great peace in that kind of love and know, without a doubt, that it can be trusted. 
     So use this for your Glory, Lord, and know that I see it for the miracle it is. I know what you have done. 
     May I never forget how impressed I am at this moment with what my Father in Heaven has done with one single willing heart.

     In awe, I sit amazed and humbled.

 

Just pick it up already...

      "You're ready for this." He tells me. "I've been preparing you for a long time."

     "But I'm scared." There. I said it. I want to shout with joy, and keep it a secret. I was full of excitement and flooded with fear.  
     The very idea of someone like me trying to paint the creation of God was beyond crazy. So I do nothing. I just wait. I wait and I pray. 

     As I do, God begins to remind me of the unique way I had been created. As far back as I can remember, I have known him through the glory of creation. "This is why I chose you for this,"  and I remember box turtles, fat bumpy croaking toads, and caterpillars of childhood.  Oklahoma thunderstorms and juicy plump tomato worms with long curved thorns. I remember Jude Paul's miracle blackberry bush, the coming and going of the Sierra mountain sun, and the cloudy summer days of my youth. 
    I know the deep joy and laughter of Grandsons and I had a moment of deep connection as I looked into the huge glassy eye of a Mother humpback whale. 
     "You see me everywhere," God said, and I knew it was true.

     So I stand here in faith with my feet on the, "Glory Road", because God has put them here. I will stop walking by the table and pick up the paint brush.  
     I will paint.
    I will. 

It is Mother's Day...and I know love.

    I spend the morning alone unpacking suitcases, sorting laundry, and mopping dirty floors. I do it with praise and know I am blessed.  After back to back weeks of travel and a workweek ahead, this is my time.
    I load the wash and remember Reed, not yet one, standing in the laundry room sink beside me.  I clean the toilet in the guest bath, see myself on the floor beside Jude, and remember all the bathrooms I've sat beside toilets in while babies learned to potty.
     I turn corners, go up stairs, and everywhere are marks and memories.  Every knock and fingerprint, and mouth smudge hold a story. I vacuum as the living room fills with a brother and sisters, grandsons, nieces, nephews and puppies.  On the glass porch door I see Onyx's lick marks and picture Paul curled in a Tug Chase pile by the fire. Our Michael hangs from the ceiling beam.
     A chest in the office is covered with marked up Bibles and studies that still make me weep and I know God.
     I paused today on the stair my Mother fell to when we got the call her baby brother Bill, had died, and I can hear her cry out.
    I add tea bags to a pot for my Kombucha and see Gus sitting at the window crying for Garrett. But now it is Cali who sits and cries.
     I see Chandler dance across the kitchen floor and sing with a smile as big as the sun and I stand at the sink and know her heartache. I remember the words she spoke to me in this very spot and how the truth of them made me weep uncontrollably.
    Outside in the yard I see weddings, celebrations, tables, flowers, families, children, and I hear worship, laughter, prayer and praise.
    I smell ReAnnon's cooking and see her nursing baby boys from almost every room as Paul passes by windows on his tractor. We grieve babies that were lost and yet life goes on and still Paul passes by the windows on his tractor.
    A back porch holds a daughters heart and the songs of a Mamo and three baby boys.
    Under the stairs is a tiny room with pillows and books and broken horses.
    Outside is a sanctuary. A garden gift of miracles. A meeting place where I listen and pray and know.
    Praise, tears, death and life.
    It is Mothers Day and I know God and I know love.

I am...

I am a sinner saved by grace...
I am chosen child...
I am set apart by God...
I am a covered by the blood of the lamb...

I am tempted...
I am fearful...
I am made new...
I am beloved...

I am refined by fire...
I am saved...
I am unfathomably loved...
I am a worshipper...

I am called...
I am died for...
I am a receiver of gifts...
I am a receiver of promises...

I am not worthy...
I am a wretch...
I am forgiven...
I am an ugly thing made beautiful...

I am a walker of faith...
I am a believer of promises...
I am a warrior princess...
I am a daughter of the King...

I am a soldier of battles in the spirit...
I am a beloved daughter...
I am a bearer of Armor...
I am a vessel of the Holy Spirit...

I am broken...
I am transformed...
I am made beautiful...
I am a lover of your Glory...

You are mine...

Flashback when Chandler sewed...

     I had a moment of surprise today that I'm still pondering with a bit of awe.  It is kind of like that moment that I put the boys bike chain back on. In my head I saw my Father's hands do it and I just knew what to do.
     It happened today with Chandler, but the video memory I had came from Mom.
Chandler is sewing.  My precious child simply jumped into the sewing pool with both feet. On Moms last visit, she spent all day shopping with Chandler for material and patterns and shared with her from a well-spring of sewing knowledge.
     There would, however,  be no "super simple" or "easy to sew" patterns for my redhead. She wanted what she wanted, and that was that.
     "That's pretty ambitious," I told her yesterday as we shopped for another pattern, but I couldn't really explain why I thought so when she asked me.  It has been almost 40 years since I've sewed anything.  In the end, Chandlers strong will provided all the confidence she needed and I couldn't help but smile.  "Go for it." I told her.
     Chandler and I could not look more different physically but beneath her pale skin, blue eyes, and red hair lies a spirit I know intimately. I really get her. She is, at age 24, so much like I was at 24 that it stuns me sometimes.
     This child now sits and my kitchen table, patterns and material covering them both, and I remember...
     In my childhood, mother spoke through the straight pins she held between her lips or as she bent over a pattern on the floor with scissors in her hand.
     Today I was working on taxes. Papers in piles all over the floor of the living room, so as the purr of Chandler's sewing machine filled the room,  it soothed and comforted me in a way I did not expect and I saw my mothers foot against the pedal of her own machine. I remembered the excitement and anticipation of the new dress.
     "Mom!" Chandler shouted. "I need your help."
     I sat down beside her and could hear my mother voice. I saw her fussing with the patterns, turning them this way and that and suddenly I knew what Chandler had done wrong. I could see it. Crazy.
     Chandler is going to be amazing behind the sewing machine. I believe this.  With a legacy of love and a heritage already in place, Mimi will simply pass the baton and answer all her questions until the day Chandler makes patterns of her own.  I think she's gonna take to this like a duck to water and I smile as I write this.
     Thank you Mom!  Your love from behind the sewing machine formed and blessed me as a little girl and is coming full circle back to me as a mother. Our little Chan is sewing! I love you.