Tag Archives: joy

Psalms 129- My Love Letter to God

November 13, 2019ache, Christian living, life on the foreign field, lovebeauty, dreams, faith, Father's love, future, hope, Jesus, joy, love, nature, people, Poetry, prayer, Psalms 129, the warrior is a child, travel, waitinginsearchofabrook

I needed Psalms 129 this morning… here is a personalized paraphrase of this beautiful chapter.

God, you know everything about me, inside and out.

You know when I sit down to spend time with you and my thoughts go floating far away from you. You know when I wake up in the morning, wondering what the day will bring, with questions swirling around in my head.

You know where I will be going today. You know the steps that I will take and the path I will walk. You know what road I will follow in the future, whether it is today or tomorrow or next month or next year. And You are going to be there.

You know when I lie down curled up in pain and tears, crying out to you, wishing you would give me answers and tell me the things I want to know. You know when I laugh with pure joy and smile at the way you paint the sunset and draw the moon on the sky and fill my life with good things. You know how much I like it when I get to do the things that bring me joy, whether it’s helping someone out or reading a good book or getting to escape into the mountains for a day. You know all my quirks and the worries I hold and the way I respond to any situation, whether it’s a good response or not.

You know.

Even before I am going to say something, You know what I will say. You know what I will say even before I do. Which is good because so often I wonder, “How should I say this?”

When I am driving on the road, your hand is behind me, protecting me. When I am sleeping, your hand is over me. When I am walking, you are beside me. You are all around me.

I can’t grasp this. I can’t understand this. It’s too much for me to realize.

Even if I wanted to get away from you, I couldn’t. You are with me wherever I go, not just now but in the future as well.

When I am filled with joy and happiness and hope and elation, you are there. When I am huddled on my bed, crying of loneliness or thinking about decisions and uncertainty, you are there. If I wake up early in the morning and hike up Doi Pui to watch the sunset, you are there. If I fly to the other side of the world to visit my family in Kansas, you are there. It doesn’t matter where I go, your hand is there. You hold me up with your right hand.

In the darkness of my thoughts and worries, you are there. In the light of my joy and peace, you are there. It doesn’t matter to you what I am like—you still love me and are always the same.

When I was yet unborn, you put me together. You gave me this kind of eyes, and this shape of nose and this color of hair and this kind of mouth. You did a good job. Everything you do is perfect, even when I don’t believe it.

You are wonderful. I know it.

You saw me when I was still nothing, just an idea in my mother and father’s love. But you designed me. You took your book and you wrote down each and every detail about my life. You wrote down all of my days and every detail that would happen in each of them, even this morning as the teardrops rolled down my cheeks. You wrote out all of my days, even before time started for me.

God, your thoughts, they are wonderful to me. There are so many of them; they never stop. I couldn’t even count them. They are more than the sand in the sea.

At night, I want to wake and think about You, not about my worries.

Oh God, I wish you would take all the evil from this world. Destroy the evil that makes people speak badly of each other and of You and kill each other and cheat and lie. Heal all this pain that fills this world.

God, let me despise those things that are not of you. Let me never take it for granted and say, “That is just the way it is.”

But Lord, as you know, this heart is wavering. It is not strong, but weak. It is full of selfishness and wrong motives and anxiety right now. Look through my thoughts, Lord. Sift through them and take away that which is wrong.

If I am doing something wrong tell me.

And always, always, let me walk in your path.

Let me hold Your hand.

And trust You.

Hope

March 26, 2019achealive, anointing, freedom, green, hope, joy, life, pain, praise, rain, rest, waitinginsearchofabrook

come

down

wash

away

thirsty dirty

dry gray

leave green

hope

gleaming

while each drop

sprinkles drips

washes splashes

lift

parched hearts

heavenward dreaming

hoping

dancing

hope spills on

cracked lips

drink in liquid joy

scent of hope

comes singing on the night breeze

while hearts soak in streams of

anointing life is hope and rain gently sighs in every inch of my cracked heart and every breath is joy and every step of this dance in the rain is a grateful thirsty heart’s praise and tears mingle in this rain and I can believe againinhopeandYouaremyhopemyhopeisinYouandYouaretheMakeroftherainandhope

photo credit: pixabay.com

I Think I Shall Still Remember

April 29, 2018ache, life on the foreign field, Poetrybeauty, Doi Sutthep, dream, Friends, heart, heaven, joy, Poetry, prayer, rain, restinsearchofabrook

When I am old and gray-haired and stooped

I think I shall still remember

How we sat on the balcony tonight

Beneath a cloud-shrouded moon

In an ocean of sky;

How our spirits sang and swooped and soared

In awe,

And how the lights glimmered on the mountain

As it listened to our song

As all mountains do.

Yes, I will remember how the rain, light-footed

Came dancing down, teasing us

While the wind played in our hair, sweeping

To the tune of the songs we sang.

And the raindrops rested on our glasses

Forming little half-moons in the glimmer of light

Fairy lights,

While in the distance the mountain slept

Yet in its sleep still listened to our song

As all mountains do.

And there was laughter and there were tears

Spun together in harmony of song

And our prayers floated up like dandelion dust

Caught in the night wind; driven by worship;

Our hearts soared to heaven and our spirits blazed

With fire,

While the mountain sighed in its sleep

And listened to us dream of heaven

As all mountains do.

Glimpses

May 23, 2017life on the foreign fieldbeauty, Chiang Mai, children, homesick, joy, laughter, simplicity, Wisdom Tree Homeinsearchofabrook

Sometimes I have those moments of lying awake in bed at night and wishing I could take the next plane home, get out of the city, spend time with my family, visit my favorite haunts again, listen to the laughter of old friends, and tear down the road in a madcap gallop on a sorrel horse.

I do have those moments. In no small measure. But on the other hand, I also have moments of pure joy as I experience life in Southeast Asia.

It helps to count those moments. To look at pictures of them and savor the beauty and the joy. And the laughter. I face a thousand decisions a day and one of the decisions that come up the most is whether to laugh or to cry. Or lose my patience. And when I do make the right decision to laugh, it’s always a relief. Like the time I walked into the bathrooms after naptime and caught three of my three year old male students sleepily peeing into the toilet all at the same time. Sadly, the funniest moments are usually the most difficult to snap a picture of because they come at unpredictable moments.

Below are several snapshots of what life has been like in the last month. Beauty, laughter, and just plain cuteness.

This is what life looks like for me most of the time. Minus the green and yellow. We only wear these uniforms Wednesdays and smile with relief when the day is past. This photo was taken at Wisdom Tree Home during the exercise part of the day. The rest of the day is spent teaching, playing, eating, napping, and prepping for more teaching. In my room alone, we have 20 students, age 3.

This is Peem, one of my more solemn students. And sleepiest.

We get lots of giggles, as shown in the picture above.

Sometimes its really hard to wake up from naps, even when our blanket gets pulled out from underneath us.

We do art projects, we just simply look cute with our curls, we find worms and we fall asleep at the table. A lot.

Sometimes this happens!

Going to the market on Monday night is bound to bring me some sort of joy, whether its talking to the vendors, seeing people I know, or a tasty bite of fried chicken strips.