Flying

I am only scratching the surface of what is available to me. There are infinite possibilities that are before me and I am limited only by my faith…by my willingness to consider new possibilities…to step into new ways of thinking.

Once when Jesus and His disciples were taking a boat across the sea a storm came up. It was a really frightening storm and the disciples were beginning to fear for their lives. However, Jesus, their leader, the miracle worker, was asleep in the boat. They woke Him up and said “Master we are about to die! Don’t you care?” He said to them “Don’t you have any faith?”

Sounds like a conversation I have had with God. “God, don’t you care” and He says “Don’t you have any faith”. It also sounds like many situations in life where I have “woke Him up” so to speak and demanded that He save me when all the while He is thinking “You can handle this storm…you can maneuver this boat…you are not going to die…you can do this…I have given you the wisdom and the power to handle situations like this… even to speak peace into a storm.



With this picture in my mind I have begun to approach each days challenges with more courage. I am letting go of every single preconceived idea of God and of myself. And I find that as I am walking and I do not grow weary, I am running and I do not faint, I am mounting up with wings as an eagle. I’m flying

Shine

My mornings continue to be extraordinary. As I run I allow my heart and mind to move into new places where I experience more of God. I am recognizing Him in more places. He is Omni-present so He is in everything and yet He is everything. He displays millions of expressions of Himself everyday through every living thing. I am one of those expressions of God. He has ask me to be salt and bring flavor to the world, to be and to release the brilliant colors of life that are available through Him and He made me to be light, so He very intentionally places me in moments of darkness and brokenness and says “Shine”.

Rain

I had worked late and my enthusiasm was low about doing my morning run. I started thinking maybe I shouldn’t do it. I was going to be working another 12 hour day and would need my strength. I knew the truth though. Go run and get your blood running and charge into this day instead of dragging through the morning.


As soon as I made that decision I heard thunder. Now I had a really good reason to not go. I looked outside and it was not raining yet. Knowing how rain moves all around us here in Texas I decided to go for it. I could probably do my entire run before it started.

I put on my running shoes and walked outside into the cool morning and knew I had made the right decision.

About that time the first raindrops began to greet me…one more chance to go back into the warm house. Instead I took off determined to do my four miles…and the rain came down. Big fat Texas rain. I looked straight up in the sky...the big drops crashing all around me...and I ran.

I thought about how I talk about rain. My words are usually about what rain is going to prevent me from doing or how it is going to interrupt my plans. Although, like most people, I enjoy a good rain when I’m sitting under a covered patio with a cup of coffee in my hands and nowhere I need to be. But most of my conversation about rain is negative. As though rain is not supposed to happen or that rain is a bad thing.

My experience on this morning could be a good one or a bad one and it all depended on one thing…the story that I would tell myself about rain.

So I let the rain hit my face and thanked God for how great it felt on my skin. There was a tremedous freedom that came with running into rain and allowing it to just soak me...and realizing that I had been missing this wonderful experience. Why do we grow up and forget how much fun it is to get wet? When did getting wet become an inconvenience?

I create my own realities. Everything, every situation, every event, even every person in my life is, for me, the story I tell myself about them. Which like the rain…my thoughts are not reality…they are not the entire story…they are just the ones I’m choosing to express at the moment. I can go from exasperating frustration to peaceful appreciation by simply by my choice of words.

What a great morning!

Big Yellow Miracles

Recently my two-year-old granddaughter was outside with me. We live right across the street from a high school and many school busses go back and forth from the school everyday. They are very loud and can hold you up if you are trying to get in or out of the neighborhood. Every time one went by she got so excited and would say in barely intelligible words “Big School Bus!” After about a dozen times I said “Yea a school bus!” She looked at me and gently corrected me” BIG School Bus”. I got it.


The Bigness of the School bus was the thing. It was down right amazing to a little two year old. It never occurred to her that they were too loud. Of course they were loud. They’re huge! They’re not an inconvenience. They’re a freaking yellow miracle rolling down the street!

I had to ask my self this question. “When did I forget that a big huge yellow school bus was a pretty amazing thing to see?” I had been seeing them everyday and missed that they actually had a beauty…a coolness…and amazing factor.

What is really phenomenal about this is that my brain reacts to whatever thoughts I feed it and my entire being is affected. My countenance, my attitude and my energy are dictated by the words I am choosing to think and say.

I am in total control of this process. I can change how I feel, about anything, by changing what I think about it. I can go from exasperating frustration to peaceful appreciation by simply changing my words…about anything…even big school buses.

Now I might decide I really don’t want to live where the school buses run every morning and that’s okay. But I can’t see them now without smiling because my story about school buses has forever changed. “Big School Bus!!!!

Morning Dancer

I’ve become quite the morning dancer. I’m out before sun up and moving with the wind. It is most powerful. I have found myself entering a completely new place with creation, the heavens…God. My images of Him, even though they were very big and powerful, I have found to be limiting. He is greater than my most incredible imaginations. So I run…stretch…reach…run sideways…run backwards…I even spin around to the music…its like flying…and it has become my morning dance with God.

Things Break


It was early morning and I was out on the deck looking up at the big pecan tree. I was noticing where several big limbs had broken and fell. About a year ago a really big one had fallen across the deck, where I was now sitting, and on to the house. I was thinking about how bad it was for those limbs to break like that. And then I remembered someone telling me that…. sometimes the limbs just fall off…. Pecan trees just do that.
My story about the broken places changed when I had more information. The broken limbs were not a “bad” thing after all. The tree was doing exactly what it was meant to do. I called it “bad” because, in my opinion, the limbs were falling in what I perceived to be the ‘wrong” places. I also thought that the places where they had broken didn’t look right.
The truth is that nothing about it was wrong. Limbs break off and fall from Pecan trees. The broken places are evidence that what needed to happen did in fact take place. They also serve as reminders that as long as the pecan tree is alive…there will be more breaking.
Things break…even people. Sometimes we see the places where breaks have occurred and it doesn’t look ‘right”. Sometime the broken pieces seem to have fallen in the ‘wrong” places.

Mom

Last night I looked at the face of my mom. Her eyes were closed. I don’t know if she knew I was there. I held her hand…touched her arm that is black and blue from so many tests. Her breathing was difficult even with the help of a breathing machine. She has fluid on her heart and lungs…kidneys are failing…pneumonia…leukemia.


I kept thinking this is my mom…I’ve seen her face countless times but tonight I am really seeing her face. I saw not just mom, but “Doris”, the lady everyone else has known for 79 years. I saw ‘Grandmother”, the beautiful centerpiece of several generations of children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. A shy country girl… humble almost to a fault…she has walked into and never really out of thousands of lives…and everyone of them, for at least once in their life felt love…genuine and unconditional.

Mom is like the Shepherd that David describes in the 23rd Psalm. She can be counted on… no matter the situation in life…no matter the dangers…even in the shadow of death…she has always prepared a table before us…even in the presence of those common enemies in life such as fear, anxiety, confusion, doubt, loneliness… at her table many cups have run over with the richness of her vibrant reflection of God…goodness and mercy have been ever-present…all the days of her life.

Mom has prepared her table for the lonely, the desperate, the victorious, the hurting, the joyful, the unloved, the much loved. Each one gets the same table…no distinction. Jesus is her friend…the reflection of Him in her life is unmistakable.