My walks in this park used to be very different. Instead of honoring the moments for growth and refreshment, I was often absorbed with thoughts of others. I put on earbuds to negate interaction with others. I dressed in a way to fit in and look pleasing to others. I might secretly roll my eyes when another walker didn’t respond to my friendly smile. And I competed with everyone on the path. Yes, if there was a person anywhere in front of me, I set my sights on him and charged forward, closing the gap until I finally passed him. I never thought of it as “competing” but making goals and challenging myself.

When I turn my mind to God, preoccupations with others disappear. I strive for the goals and challenges He has for me and release false connections to others. I cannot compare with another creation of God, we are each unique. I need not compete to climb higher but aspire to climb to the heights God sets for me.

Each of you must examine your own actions. Then you can be proud of your own accomplishments without comparing yourself to others. Assume your own responsibility. Galatians 6:4-5

As a child, I loved going to our family farm in the summers. After school was out, I’d throw my flip flops and shorts into the station wagon and we’d drive away into sweet summer freedom and fun. Simple!

Well, actually my parents first had to wrap up their teaching classrooms. Then they would prepare our home to be closed up while we were gone. And the farmhouse, for our arrival. And then there was the matter of transporting all of our animals—chickens, ducks, rabbits and a goat or two from our boarder’s farm to our farm. And buy all the feed and hay. Not to mention packing all of our necessities and belongings—even my mother’s piano—into our vehicles. My parents were working hard behind the scenes to create a wonderful summer experience for me and my sister and I had no idea or care in the world.

When I wonder what God is doing in my situation, I try to remember all of the things my parents were doing to provide a wonderful life for me when I was young. As a small child, I couldn’t conceive of the work, time, planning, coordinating and balancing it took to provide good things for me. I love returning to the trust of a child and letting my Father move beautifully in my life.

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28

When the Egyptians were closing in and the Israelites were losing hope (Exodus 14), Moses told them, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”

Imagine if the Israelites ignored Moses and tried to fight the Egyptians themselves. Imagine if they ran into the sea for refuge without God parting the water. There are times in my life when I must allow God to do the work. It may be more than I could handle alone and it may be that God wants to shine in the situation Himself.

When I am still and silent in faith and humility, God can step in and be my defender and all the glory is His.

Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him and He will act. He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. Psalm 37:5-6

I collect heart rocks. I have hundreds of them, all shapes, sizes and composition. I’ve surrounded myself with stony unbreakable hearts while my human one breaks so easily. I am beginning to think that God made it that way.

A cast for a broken arm, glue for a broken dish, a spring for a broken watch but what for a broken heart? No earthly thing. God made my heart deeply special and extraordinarily specific to me. My heart is attuned to only God and the spirit He made me to be. He alone knows the frequency at which He resounds in my heart and the code to open it for repairs.

That’s why, I believe, a heart is a lonely and bewildered thing without God. A hurting heart is a heart losing hope, one which longs for something to sweep in and change everything, to turn things right side up again.

God ultimately does. I turn to Him and tell Him my truth and He brings—or perhaps His angels do—the thing my heart needs, at the perfect time, in the perfect way. He delivers it to me, the perfect healing. I continue in faith, knowing that though I have seen loss, God loves me so much. He knows the disharmony in my spirit and comes to bring my heart back into resonance with Him and the life He gives me to live.

He heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds. Psalm 147:3

God looked upon His creation and saw that it was good. I trust God and His word. I am not all-knowing, so I defer to the One who is.

On this day, a friend of mine passed. These are the days I ache to question the plan of creation. Down in my bones, I ache. Upon reflection, I see I’m not really questioning God’s plan, I’m just wondering how my personal experience fits into it. His word tells me His plans are good, but from my minuscule outpost here in creation, with my equally tiny, selfish perspective, my friend’s death feels senseless. I wonder if she could tell me something different from her current perspective.

My feelings about small, selfish me get in the way of embracing God’s creation and plan in its entirety. If I like something, I gasp, “Wow!” If I don’t, I question, “Why?”

Recently I stopped in the quiet wet woods for a moment and breathed in the fragrant air. The tree trunks were black and the leaves were dripping bright green. I just wanted a moment, just one sweet moment. Immediately, the high-pitched sound of a minuscule gnat drilled into my left ear and I protested. “Why?”

He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names. Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; His understanding is beyond measure.        Psalm 147:4-5

My smile is an acknowledgement of my faith in God. When I choose to put my concerns in His hands and leave them there, I have nothing left to do but bask in His promises.

I have lived through traumatic times when that smile did not beam naturally from within me. Though my soul was writhing, I affixed that smile every day because I knew that’s where it belonged. Yes, it would quiver frequently and flip upside down in a frail moment, but I would eventually find my way to a mirror, see things more clearly, and coax it back into position.

How could I accomplish this when my world was crushing into pieces? God.

I turned my focus from what I desperately wanted to who I knew God to be. God gives me strength and lets me rest in His. He doesn’t leave me. He watches over my life and keeps me from harm. He blesses me. When I run to Him, I am safe. He has good plans for my future and His plans do not falter. He guides me. He delivers me. He is with me forever.

God’s word is full of His promises, those and many more. How He will fulfill them in my life, I do not know but I smile with the serenity of knowing He will.

And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? Matthew 6:27

Jesus came to take away my sins and restore my relationship to God the Father. I am not innocent, but He is. He took my place on the cross and when I accept this gift, God will see Jesus in me. When God finds in me Jesus’ holiness and purity, I am made whole. My sins are hidden behind Him. I can only see Him and His merciful love for me while He sees me through Jesus. Is there a greater gift?

I can never be holy on my own. I cannot walk in perfect love and truth and peace, only my Lord can do that through me. My burden is to let Him. I must humble myself to His magnificence and, like a cloud, become transparent to Him, moving only according to His breath and turning each molecule of my being to His light, letting it pour through me onto my life and others’. Is there a labor more beautiful?

Sometimes I feel like I must beg Jesus to wash me again and again. Then I consider this: I’m walking along a path with Jesus, holding His hand in joy. I utter something sinful and let go of His hand, fall to the ground and cry and beg for His forgiveness. He stands above me a loving countenance and I imagine Him to say, hand outstretched, “Child, I hear you. I’ve forgiven you. Will you join Me again so we can continue together?” Is there a more merciful love?

And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.    1 John 3:3

I am grateful that God kept calling me to the park that day. I believe He was inviting me to a life-changing experience. He knows exactly what I need and delight in, and exactly how to best provide it. In fact, He is the one who put those needs and desires in me and they all lead back to Him when I follow them in faith.

What if I had brushed off the promptings or ignored the instruction to remove my earbuds or decided not to go back when it rained the second day? Would He have tried again? I think so, in some way. But what God has for me is good and I always want to be prepared to receive it!

God lets me make my own choices. Like the father of the prodigal son, He lets me go when I insist on going, and eagerly meets me when I come back. Why? He loves me and desires to draw me close to Him.  Jesus is the way to that precious abundant life and every time I have returned to Him from some cold, empty place, His hand grabs mine before I can even look up into His eyes and search for a way to ask how to come back. There will be a day that I never have to fear leaving His presence again. That hand, always in mine. Those eyes forever loving mine.

I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently, find me. Proverbs 8:17

One day, early on, I felt God tell me to walk in the dog park. I have had a phobia of strange dogs since I was a child, so I had avoided this shady path. It winds up into the woods past two fenced areas and dead ends down at the street. If I made it past the dog areas once without incident, I still had to turn around and pass it again to walk out and re-enter the park. I reluctantly obeyed, filled with fear.

I walked through the dog park fifty-five days in a row. I jogged if I was particularly anxious, but generally I forced myself to walk. If I kept my mind on God with every step, things went more smoothly. I might even smile at a dog owner and enjoy watching the dogs play inside the fence. I could cope with the dread of one coming up the path toward me. I was managing my phobia, but I couldn’t have done it without trusting deeply in God.

When I held my breath and closed my mind in fear, I locked God out. I needed to carry His peace with me the entire stretch, no matter what happened, and this took practice. I began to breath in “God” and breath out “dog”. It made me chuckle and continually reminded me that God was with me in the midst of my phobia, perhaps especially then. He longs to show me comfort and love.

You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts You. Isaiah 26:3

Goethe said “The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.” When I walk alone I feel bathed in God’s beauty. I enjoy walking with others but when I walk alone with God, He has full access to my mind, body and spirit. I go with the intention of being filled with Him so He can reveal to me all that He is. And all that I am in Him.

I have a growing list of the top most beautiful things I’ve seen or heard at the park. The gray of a catbird, perky fiddleheads waiting to unfurl, the dirty yellow fuzz of a gosling, the fluid galumphing of a groundhog escaping my camera, bubbles suspended in a frozen pond, wisps of clouds reminding me that angels are near. I adore the satisfying plop of umpteen unseen frogs launching into the water as I wander along a grassy bank.

More beautiful than these is a God who answers every prayer with perfection beyond my imagination, who remembers my obedience and returns to me an astonishing harvest in His perfect time, who heals broken relationships despite all the missing pieces, who consoles me when I can no longer love the gray of the catbird or see the angel in the cloud.  God has only beauty to offer.  I want to always be ready to receive it.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. Ecclesiastes 3:11