Threads in my hands...

Two threads that have been in my hands lately, look different, but have a similar flavor to me...

1. From: Echo of the Soul by Philip J. Newell

"The arms of the human body represent strength. The left arm is associated with the strength of power and the right arm with the strength of love. The greatest of strengths is love, greater than any power. ("love wins...!" message of the cross... recent Open Door sermons. www.thedoor.org has them to listen to on the internet. Select "two weeks ago" sermon.) To be made in the image of God is to be 'endowed with strength like God's own', as Ecclesiasticus says. Do we know the energy for life that is deep within the mystery of our beings, or have we forgotten the strength that resides within us? The Prophecy of Isaiah says, 'Awake, awake, put on your strength.'

(...)

To be made in the image of God is to say that such strength is at the core of our being. Just as the mystery of our identity is found in the name of God, 'I am who I am', so the strength of our being is derived from the power and love of God. In the Prophecy of Isaiah, God says to Israel, 'I surname you, even though you do not know me.' Similarly, God says, 'I arm you, even though you do not recognise me.' The more aware we become of our deepest identity the more alert we will be to the strength that is within us. We also, of course, will become more aware of the ways in which we have neglected or abused our strength in the relationships of our lives and in the injustices of the world."

2. Sara Groves (co-written by Bronleewe) song from her cd entitled, Add to the Beauty (wonderful cd!!)

Add to the Beauty
We come with beautiful secrets
We come with purposes written on our hearts, written on our souls

We come to every new morning
With possibilties only we can hold, that only we can hold

Redemption comes in strange places, small spaces
Calling out the best of who we are
And add to the beauty, To tell a better story
I want to shine with light
That's burning up inside

It comes in small inspirations
It brings redemption to life and work
To our lives and our work

It comes in loving community
It comes in helping a soul find it's worth
A soul find it's worth

Redemption comes in strange places, small spaces
Calling out the best of who we are
And I want to add to the beauty
To tell a better story
I want to shine with the light
That's burning up inside

This is grace, an invitation to be beautiful
This is grace an invitation

Redemption comes in strange places, small spaces
Calling out our best
And I want to add to the beauty
I want to shine with the light
That's burning up inside.


This all leaves me wondering and noticing... Lord, each moment... where is my strength? What am I doing with it? Where am I spending it? Am I adding to beauty? Am I using my strength to bring beauty to each moment? Or am I still asleep.

Lord, wake me up where I am asleep and sustain me where I am awake... deliver and sustain me.

Amen.

Childhood...

Is There A Lost Child In You?

What pains me most
these days
is my inability
to reach back into my years
and touch the child I was.

And yet,
loving
living
stirring
deep within my soul
that child lives on.

There are days
when
my adult ways
turn tasteless in my mouth
and the child of long ago
starts
pressing on my soul.

On days like that
I long to touch that child again
and let her take me by the hand
and lead me down
a path that has a heart
and show me all the things
that
I've stopped seeing
because I've grown
too tall.

"The spirituality of my childhood is the one I would most like to have restored. It was pure and fresh and honest. I read God everywhere! It was Divine Reading at its best. The forest was my place of solitude. The trees, like gods and goddesses, bent down to hear my prayers. I trusted them with all the secrets of my heart, and I was never disappointed. In their presence I felt safe. Looking back at the poverty and the wealth of my childhood, my memory becomes a ray of hope and pain. I have become too complicated in my prayer. Yet under the eye of God all shall be restored."

Macrina Wiederkehr
"A Tree Full of Angels"

Please, Lord. Amen.

Healed Heart Afresh Catch Up...

Fifteen

Therefore I make provision, ere I begin
To do the thing thou givest me to do,
Praying: Lord, wake me oftener, lest I sin.
Amidst my work, open thine eyes on me,
That I may wake and laugh, and know and see
Then with healed heart afresh catch up the clue,
And singing drop into my work anew.

February Fifteen
"Diary of an Old Soul"
George MacDonald