Category Archives: Uncategorized

A Prayer for Palm Sunday 2018

Posted on by
palm sunday 2018

HOSANNA! Watercolor painting by Donna Harris

All glory laud and honor
To thee, Redeemer King
To whom the lips of children
Made sweet hosanna ring!
~”All Glory Laud and Honor”

“Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” Matthew 21:9

Lord Jesus,

On this Palm Sunday morning, I’m overwhelmed with your humility, your sovereignty, and your generosity. I pray these shouts of hosannas will be filled with the sobering and gladdening news of the whole of this Easter Week. Lord, lead me into a transforming gaze of your cross, an overwhelming abundance of your grace and a longing for your kingdom.

As “Holy Week” begins, I ask you to fill these next seven days with much boasting in the cross. I pray that my heart would bubble over with exaltation for the hope, joy and salvation you generously give. You are the God who saves us from guilt and fear and hopelessness.

“Hosanna!” “Hosanna to the Son of David!” “Hosanna in the highest!”

Amen

Palm Sunday 2018

RESTLESS

Posted on by

21766579_10155146412553869_4951608829553789238_n

 

“It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.” —Wendell Berry

Refined by the Fire

Posted on by

DSC_0447

The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places. But still there is much that is fair. And though in all lands, love is now mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps, the greater.
~J.R.R Tolkien from The Fellowship of the Ring

Refined by the Fire

Oh, to be brave and steely
as the three of faith and resolve
to embrace the shackles without fear of the fire
They are rescued by grace

Refined by the fire

When facing the furnace of the refiners fire
He sweats drops of red while I sleep
yet I whimper and cower when the rooster crows
I’ve grown accustomed to taking lightly this treasure of red

Refined by the fire

To wake up early to see the sunrise
To stay awake to watch the sun go to sleep
The fire in the sky is a safe place to find comfort
It stirs a longing

To be refined by the fire

I want to feel the red in my soul
To long for more of the refiner’s fire
To be made pure
Refined by the fire of grace

–donna harris

The Rescue

Posted on by

Gift 4-2015

He reached down from heaven and rescued me. Psalm 18:16

God will not only deliver his people out of their troubles in due time, but he will bear them up under their troubles in the mean time.

Upon God’s faithfulness rests our whole hope of future blessedness. Only as He is faithful will His covenants stand and his promises be honored. Only as we have complete assurance that He is faithful may we live in peace and look forward with assurance to the life to come. He will ever be true to His pledged word. He will never remove His loving kindness nor suffer His faithfulness to fail.

God will always be himself, and grace is an attribute of His holy being. He can no more hide his grace than the sun can hide its brightness. God’s grace is infinite and eternal.

Instead of straining to comprehend this truth, it would be better and simpler to compare God’s grace with our need. We can never know the enormity of our sin, neither is it necessary that we should. What we can know is that where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.

He reached down from heaven to rescue us.

Gift 4-2015-

40 Gifts of Lent | The Rescue: Gift 4 | Quotations from: The Knowledge of the Holy, A.W. Tozer; page 87, The Faithfulness of God; Page 102, The Grace of God. 

Love to the Uttermost: The Unchanging God

Posted on by

Gift 1-2015

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent, when we have the privilege of fixing our gaze on the giver of life, our Redeemer, the one who has rescued us from ourselves. He came, God-incarnate, to save us to the extreme, as man to die our death. Herein is love to the utmost. For God so loved the world he gave. “Herein is love; when I cannot rise to him he draws near on wings of grace, to raise me to himself.” [1]

In a world of created changeable things, only God alone remains unshaken, unchanging. Only God alone remains true to his promise, for what he says, he will do. [2] He struck the head of evil. He has not left us here without grace. The cross still stands. The grave is still empty.

Gift 1-2015 Psalm 90

Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God. Psalm 90

40 Gifts of Lent | Love to the Utmost: The Unchanging God: Gift 1 | [1] The Valley of Vision; page 16, The Gift of Gifts | [2] Numbers 23:19 | 

Sunday Respite | Give Thanks

Posted on by

Psalm 136:1

Dear Lord,

I often forget to thank you for your steadfast love, to remember that your love endures forever. My affections run amiss towards other things that can never last. Please open my eyes to see your goodness. Please refresh my memory to the times when you have rescued me from myself. To remember those times where you undoubtedly displayed your goodness and love towards me. 

I often remember to give thanks for all of the good things that happen…when life is peachy-keen and goes my way. Absolutely, I will thank you!

But then when something really tough happens, I grumble about it, start to worry, only to find myself leaning into that awful anxiety that has begun to take hold.  Please forgive me for a fickle heart, turning to what is not good and not lovely.

I pray to be steadfast in my love for you. 

I turn my thoughts on you, Lord. You refresh my memory of your goodness and faithfulness. There is freedom from fear and anxiety. 

Thank you for everything you have planned for me to experience, the comfortable and the uncomfortable. 

Everything changes from day to day. But your love never changes. Your love is steadfast. You are good.

With a thankful heart, I pray.

Amen

Winter Inspiration

Posted on by
Patchwork Barn

Patchwork Barn

Red Barn

Brown and Red Barn

Our God manifests Himself in our mangers and muck, our mundane and mess. Ours is the God manifesting Himself in the unlikely and unbearable, in the surprise and the second-chance. The God Who bears the burdens and brings the hope. ~Ann Voskamp

DSC_0844

“Listen to your life.
See it for the fathomless mystery it is.
In the boredom and pain of it,
no less than in the excitement and gladness:
touch, taste, smell your way
to the holy and hidden heart of it,
because in the last analysis
all moments are key moments,
and life itself is grace.”
~Frederich Buechner

DSC_0836

I prefer winter and fall, 
when you feel the bone structure of the landscape–
the loneliness of it, 
the dead feeling of winter.  
Something waits beneath it, 
the whole story doesn’t show.
~Andrew Wyeth

Bare Trees in Winter
DSC_0657

Weeds in unison
Move with the sun
Balancing the snow

Wisdom About Life From a 7 Year Old

Posted on by

This is what you get when you sit a 7-year-old down and ask him to tell the camera what life is all about…..Things like, “The point of life is actually not all about easiness. It’s about hardness.”
(Please try to ignore the fact that he is wearing his sister’s pink socks.)

This clip is shared by my friend, Amy of her son explaining what life is all about. She earned an MBA and now is a SAHM to four kids and married to an economics professor. There is never a dull moment in their home. Here is Amy’s words:

Sometimes I feel it is futile to write or speak about anything, because it’s all been said before by people much wiser than me!  Do I really have anything new to say?  But recently I’ve come to realize that I do have a unique perspective on God’s goodness:  the way I see it being played out in the life of my family.  So here I stand and write, at the intersection of God’s Grace and our family. I have been very blessed with a very giving, loving husband, and children who make me laugh. It is a real-life Family Circus cartoon here many days.
To discover more winsome wisdom and most times hilarious fun, check out Amy’s blog at Frankly Journaling.  (www.franklyjournaling.blogspot.com)