Painting Beauty From The Ashes

I drive down the street under a blanket of gray clouds, flip on the wipers. A song, it threads through the car like a hymn from above, it does. The words, they reach my ears, tunnel right down to that place deep inside that hurts big. The prayer list has grown massive, the suffering around increases and I want it to stop, I want to wave a magic fairy wand over all the pain, make it vanish like vapor from a humid rainstorm. Can't you see it? Can you stop it please? Can we barter over all of this? I hear the lyrics and the tears, they pool, these holding cells of pain and weariness, and I turn the volume way to the right, sing loud and off key. And once the tears start doing the spilling I keep on singing, blinking back doubt and fear.

"Tell your heart to beat again, close your eyes and breathe it in, let the shadows fall away, step into the light of grace."

I don't know why he gives a four-year-old her wings right early, or a twenty-one-year-old is already on hospice, or why cancer strikes some fierce and people die without a hand to hold on to. I know He has it all under control but the pain it sticks like tar and I have to do the searching before the feet get stuck.

"Tell your heart to beat again..."

I bring out the flashlight, dust it off, begin the search all over again, this hunt for grace, this CPR for the heart.I clasp on a necklace given to me last summer, a reminder from my daughter that love trumps it all. Always. Regardless.

And I tell my sister a story, one that got lost this past week with all the swirling prayers and the light, it gleams a bit brighter. My husband and his brother made a trip to the beach, the place where my in-laws lived before frailty and old age drove them back to Portland. They loved the coast, the salty clean air, his tool shed, the casino. Invited into the home and the back yard by the new owners, a sweet surprise awaited them. These two stranger's, they had discovered from a neighbor how my mother-in-law loved her garden, her raspberries, vegetables and flowers. The new owner's named a patch of their garden after her, calling it Inge's garden. You didn't, right? Right there in their yard? Oh how she must be grinning wide! 

And my father-in-law, he now rests partially at the beach he loved, the two brothers sprinkling his ashes over Inge's garden, and the joy that washed over my husband's face as he shared his story reigns me gently back into glory. Only He can paint beauty from the ashes, and I fix the gaze up above once again, sit down quiet with the prayer list, color the mind with a kaleidoscope of hope, telling my heart it's Ok, it's Ok, it's Ok.

You can beat again

A Portrait Of Love

What if we gave it away every single day? Would the air taste cleaner? Would the thankful voice sing louder, no matter who listened? Would this crazy world stop its mad spinning and just plain take those peaceful, restful breaths? What if you gave it away every day and watched as the world tipped right side up?

Watching a video gone viral the other day, that achy good feeling shot straight through to that place inside that yearns for hope, hurtful hate buried beneath all that love and peace. A four-month-old boy seeing his mom for the first time, plastic glasses wrapped carefully around tender ears, perched on his small nose, the tiny lips slowly curving right up to heaven's gate. I grinned happy, watching it over and over again. And once more just because.

I want to believe I have enough to give away, to risk extending until it hurts in places once darkened by fear. And what if a smile worn gracefully pumps life into the clerk at the grocery store? Brightens the inky dark moment behind the mask worn by a next door neighbor, a co-worker. It's a start for sharing, it's infectious and smoothes out a wrinkly bad day.

Hard life muscles its way into the room, into the present moments audaciously daring you to abandon all that beautiful light. All that magnificent joy bearing down on the places that have the blazing possibility of standing tall under the weight of a bold yes to love, a risky yes to sharing and giving, a shout out to peace on earth.

Maybe it seems a tiny offering, a minuscule gift to share with the world. Maybe you want to give more today than yesterday and the mind frets over how many tomorrows are left on this journey. Perhaps in the deep middle of hard, when the steps are sluggish, uncertainties surround like a swarm of angry yellow-jackets, a smile is a courageous start. Especially, most importantly, when it fearlessly begins with your own.

The smile I saw that day on the video, the innocent joy sweeping over that four-month-old's face, it birthed a wondrous awe, tipped me right-side up, and I shared it too. That viral smile, a portrait of love, a hope once again miraculously renewed.

Our God loves to come; He wants to come forth in us, to rise up in all his beauty.

~Margaret Therkelsen~

How To Build A Sandcastle

She leaned over her flower bed, hands busy doing that digging and earthing thing she does. I pulled into the driveway, parked the car. Sat for a few beats. Who will greet me today? Will she smile and giggle like a child? Or converse like the old days, the days Before. She called out a hello as I closed the car door. I inhaled deep and stepped closer into the converging lanes of our lives, where our past and present are causing detours missing on my GPS. I walked over to her and she stood up, this ninety-year-old neighbor of ours. A few words we exchanged and that big sadness I felt lately lifted for a few stolen moments. Like when a small child blows a wish into a gentle breeze, a promise is born again.

She used to watch my son all those years ago, giving a young mom a break so I could go running. He rode his wooden horse pretending to be one of the characters on The Three Amigos. On a good day she remembers. On an off day, the mind sifts like sand and her car is missing from a parking lot, thieves are entering the house, neighbors lurk bad all around. I kneel and pray for the good days to outweigh the off days, for grace to shelter her frame, her wandering mind. Maybe when the mind starts the sifting, and all those stored-up memories co-mingle like a jig-saw puzzle gone wrong, maybe we each get that extra brushstroke of grace, that unique part to play in the unedited piece of the story. The raw uncut version. 

I looked at my friend intently today. Missing that piece of her that is already gone. She went back to her beloved garden, bent over once again, reaching down into her patch of the earth, her unfinished story writing itself into the land she loves, as if nothing has changed. And in the middle of her sifting, I do the recollecting, crafting a giant sandcastle in the shape of a resurrected heart.

She motions to an over-sized six-foot bush hugging her freshly-mowed lawn, tells me there is a sparrow living in there, a family of birds nesting she says. An innocent smile plays across her face. Surveying the shrub I look for evidence, perk the ears for the sweet sound. Silence hangs in the spring air. I smile a yes. Holding tight to beautiful, I see an invisible bird, hear a mother sparrow trilling it over her young, and this infinite grace is winging it once again , sprinkling joy and peace all over my dear friend and me.