Help us do what we need to do....

HOLY MOSES!!!

Today is 1-1-11 and I cannot believe how quickly the year has passed. My mama was right all those years ago when she cautioned me to live full because time moves quickly as you get older.

I woke up this morning with a sense of hope in my heart and it was such a welcome sensation! 2010 was a tough year on many fronts for our family. It felt like we put our nose to the grindstone and plowed; trusting (barely at times) that our fields would look different down the road. Seems that the spiritual opposition toward us making ANY stride forward has been fierce. I can mark MANY times in the last year where Scott and I have pulled up our bootstraps to rally in prayer "yet again" and within hours something crazy is happening...kids screaming in their sleep, sickness coming on suddenly, irrational craziness, impending sense of darkness and hopelessness, fighting when you are not sure what you are fighting for, business failure and betrayal we were not ready for, etc.

Sometimes I have been able to remind myself..."well, we must be doing something right if there is this much warfare", but truthfully as the year grew, I also grew...more frustrated, more hopeless, weaker, more tired.

If I were to describe it in a picture it would be something like this....

There is a seawall in Depoe Bay, Oregon right next to Highway 101; which winds down the coast. (the highway, not the seawall) It is a stunning drive full of hairpin turns, incredible vistas, quaint seaside towns and whole lot of memories. One of those "memory" spots is the Depoe Bay seawall which divides the ocean from what some say is the world's smallest navigable harbor. It also divides the town from the ocean. Depoe Bay does not have a stoplight and if you sneezed you might miss the seawall, but because I grew up on that coastline I am very familiar with the highway. Oftentimes, my family would stop on our way to somewhere or back from somewhere to take a gander at the seawall...it was a great place to see the resident pod of whales that stay in the area much of the year. Sea mist hangs around and spray from the waves hiting the wall. There are also these things called spouting horns that shoot geysers of sea water up through blow holes located at the base of the sea wall during storms and heavy surf. Sometimes the geysers shoot up over the seawall and across the highway.

Mist is a tricky thing....at first it feels refreshing, but if you stay out in it too long you get wet and then cold and fairly soon you can get chilled right down to the bone. When the wind is whipping down the Oregon coastline the last thing you want to do is be wet and stay outside in it. A body just can't sustain the cold for long without effect.

That's how 2010 felt for me...wet and cold and having to stay out in it....


BUT -

the time's are changing...and I am looking forward to a new year!!!

I asked Scott to read a Psalm over us this morning first thing and then we took communion as a family. We each prayed...Gabriel was just really enjoying dipping his Matzo cracker into his Blackberry Juice (hey - ya work with what ya got). Phineas said Jesus and mumbled something that seemed very profound for a 2 year old. Riley kept praying that "we would do what we need to do and go in the right direction" She also kept talking about Jesus in our hearts and all I can say to that is "Amen Sister, Amen!!!"

Really, this morning - us gathered together - was a big fat win! We spat into the wind and the mist and said you might have been blowing and spouting gale force on us, but we are turning our face into the wind and looking up - for our redeemer is coming and we will not quit. AND another thing.....we put on hope again!!!!!

January 1, 2001.
1.1.11

Did you know that the number 11 denotes transition? Look at John 11.11 where Jesus said:

"Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I go, so that I may awaken him out of sleep."

Transition from sleep into wake-fullness, dreams into reality, hoping into living.....

I like it!!!

now Jesus - help us to do what we need to do and go in the right direction. AMEN!