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

One morning I noticed planes flying in low circles above the park, waiting to land across the river in Philadelphia. I hadn’t noticed planes over the park before, but this day every time I looked up there was another one hanging in the sky, until a signal from the ground released it from its holding pattern. I watched as they floated there, the dangling mobile of metaphors for my life.

How many times have I suspended myself in mid-air for someone, something “out there” to give me the thumbs up before I could move? How many circles above a foggy destination have I made, insisting I know the conditions before I land? How much time squandered before I could come to rest in a firm place?

I end up in limbo when I measure myself against some standard I don’t even embrace. Something in me knows what is good and true, but I keep checking the atmospheric pressure instead of God’s well-defined flight plan. When I try to make my life fit into a mold that God didn’t created for me, I never land on the road He has.
I want to claim the abundant life Jesus died to give me. I will do today, and in this moment, what God has set before me. When I make the journey about Him, I can trust to arrive at the next stop with my bags and itinerary waiting.

And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. Colossians 3:17

One day I heard the familiar call of the orange cat. The squirrel incident wasn’t the first time I’d met O.C., as I came to call him. I spied the handsome tiger cat walking in a field on my fourth walk and called him over to me. He rubbed along my ankles and I pet him a bit, but when I tried to read his tag, he dug his claws into my hand and sprung away wildly, leaving me bloody and confused. I walked on, O.C. meowing loudly behind me. No way, dude. Fool me once…

Well, I was fooled again. I learned from another early morning walker that O.C. hurt a park worker so badly he went to the ER! But here he was, meowing after me once more, and against my better judgment I stopped. Yes O.C., what do you want? Is this what I am here for, to dawdle with this cute little pest that hurts me and gives nothing good in return? And that’s when I noticed the image on his tag: a skull and crossbones. Apparently O.C. has a history.

Deciding not to be a part of his future, I turned to leave. Just then, a deer leapt from where it stood—right behind me—and disappeared into the brush. God has beautiful things planned for me. I mustn’t waste a moment chasing the wrong things, and miss His blessings and gifts.

Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do prospers. Psalm 1:1-3

One day I saw a group of tiny ant hills built up on the side of the path like a miniature ancient cave dwelling. I stopped and looked down at it near the toe of my shoe and couldn’t help but wonder how long the thing would last. One bike tire, one ill-placed running shoe, one curious child and all of that intricate work would return to sand. And in less than one millisecond, God’s ants would be working again to rebuild the vision that He had imprinted inside of them.

Could I say the same about myself? No. Oh, there would be groaning and gnashing of teeth. I would need a week or three months or two years to work up the willingness and confidence to start again…pick up the grain of sand…so heavy…and find my humility. How could I be expected to respond in faith when my life could coming crashing down again, just like that fateful storm with the flooding rains?

God doesn’t ask me to mind the particulars. He doesn’t say, “Be loving if you’re sure others will be loving back.” He doesn’t ask me to give to the poor as long as I’m sure they will invest it wisely or help my neighbor bring in her groceries while negotiating that she’ll do the same for me next week. God is worthy of my trust and obedience. He cares for me, loves me beyond my wildest imagination and requires of me an obedience that will bring a harvest—exactly the one He provides.

I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.  1 Corinthians 3:6-7

My early walks with God were filled with my words. Looking back now I see this process was necessary for me. I had to pour out everything that was on my mind and in my heart and wedged in my bones. I was carrying a lot. I needed to give it to God and He was patient with me and accepted it all.

Soon I began to grow tired of myself. Listening to my own voice and the one in my head felt like a treadmill, same old uphill incline, same old scenery passing through my mind, same old outcome—an ego-centric pile of broken hopes and wishes and me standing in the middle of it asking God WHY? The picture I focused on was growing sour.

One day the Spirit moved in me. Meditate on Me. God is so good. He listened to me. He let me get it all out. And when the time came, He showed me that focusing on Him and His creation would fill me and heal me and draw us into the intimate relationship He wants with me. I began to refocus myself over and over as I walked. I’m sorry Lord. Let me meditate on You. And each time, God poured in.

Let my meditation be pleasing to Him; as for me, I shall be glad in the Lord.    Psalm 104:34