I found this poem about memory loss illness and it touched me deeply. I watched both grandmothers lose their memories to dementia over the years, and the thought of both of them with their memories fully restored and them made whole again warms my heart:

“Some people are slowly taken,
to the other realm.
Not physically, but mentally.

Memory by memory,
they are moved from us,
like a painstakingly slow house-flit.

Boxes full of life,
chapters, people, loves.
All packed into a van,
to wait their arrival on the other side

And as these parts are removed,
those left feel lonelier daily.

As though their love is already leaving them.

It is a painful departure, my friends,
this much is sadly true.

But I like to think of the person we knew,
reaching the other side,
finally,
once more whole.

And upon arrival they see their boxes,
awaiting them so long,
and they open them up,
the chapters, the memories, the loves,
and reunite with them again.

I can feel that heartfelt joy
and it brings me joy too.

They are not lost for long,
though it may feel so.

In rest,
they remember it all” (Donna Ashworth).

I must be getting old. I caught myself nodding off in my chair earlier. When I looked at the clock, it said 9 pm. I guess 9 o’clock really is the new midnight once you hit 50. But I’m thankful that it’s a good kind of tired after a productive week rather than the kind of tired after you haven’t really done anything and wasted your day.

Whenever I’m tempted to drift into negative thinking about my job, I remember what it was like to not have one. I clearly recall feeling useless and lazy. I know I’m not supposed to find my identity in work, but there’s just something innate in us that longs to contribute and make a difference, the longing that God gave to Adam and Eve in the garden when he told them to tend over the new creation.

I’m thankful that I like the people I work with and they like me. Nothing’s worse than an environment where there are factions and sides and people who won’t talk to other people. Nothing destroys morale quicker than friction and factions.

I’m thankful for my little tortie who always greets me when I get home and announces in her own little way that she wants head scritches and belly rubs. I like it when she curls up in my lap — even though she steals my spot whenever I get up to pee or to grab a snack. She’s crafty like that.

I’m thankful for the extended holiday weekend. It’s a chance to turn off the alarm and to sleep until daylight, which is a rarity these days.

I’m thankful for the absolute certainty of God’s love for me and the 100% security of my salvation. Even when my feelings tell me not to trust in God, I know His promises are truer than what I feel or what I think. God’s unchangableness trumps my fickle feelings every single time.

I’m thankful for the anticipation of good food tomorrow. There will be turkey. Lots of it.

“Do everything, anything, however menial, measuring it not by hours or by dollars, but by love” (Amy Carmichael).

It always amazes me to watch people who are in the early stages of falling in love. You can tell because it’s almost like they’re seeing the world through rose-colored glasses and everything they do — especially if it is for their beloved — is a pure joy. Unfortunately, no one can ever stay in that initial euphoria of love, Eventually, everyone settles back to earth.

At some point, love becomes a choice. Even when we don’t feel very loving, we do the acts of love. Even when we’re not in love, we can choose to love as an act of the will, a sacrifice of what we don’t feel at the moment.

In terms of faith, there is no difference. We may not feel the joy of our salvation, but we can rest in the promises that transcend feelings. We may not have the bliss of those first few days when we first met Jesus, but we can still choose to love and obey out of the knowledge that He first loved us.

When we understand that worship is more than singing songs and lifting up our hands, we can make any chore or task an offering of worship. We can declare the great worth of God even by scrubbing toilets or sweeping floors if we do it not for supervisors or for a paycheck but like we’re doing it for Jesus Himself.

I remember my pastor telling a story about how at one of his previous churches there was a custodian who used to make the church floors sparkle and shine. When asked why he went to all the trouble on floors that no one was likely to notice, he’d respond that Jesus was going to be there and he wanted everything to look its best.

When we measure our work not by hours or dollars but by love, then our work truly becomes worship, and we return closer to the original design God had for Adam and Eve in the garden where work was a joy and not a burden.

I saw this on Facebook and it spoke to me in stereo. If you’ve ever wondered why God allows us to go through brokenness, it’s so that maybe we can learn how to shine:

“I was in Dollar Tree last night, and there was a lady and two kids behind me in the LONG line. One was a big kid, and the other one was a toddler. The bigger one had a pack of glow sticks, and the toddler was screaming for them. The Mom opened the pack and gave him one which stopped his tears. He walked around with it smiling; but then the bigger boy took it, and the toddler started screaming again. Just as the Mom was about to fuss, the older child bent the glow stick and handed it back to the toddler. As we walked outside at the same time, the toddler noticed that the stick was now glowing; and his brother said, ‘I had to break it so that you could get the full effect from it.’

I almost ran, because l could hear God saying to me, ‘I had to break you to show you why I created you. You had to go through it so you could fulfill your purpose.’

That precious child was happy just swinging that ‘unbroken’ glow stick around in the air, because he didn’t understand what it was created to do – which was ‘glow’.

There are some people who will be content just ‘being,’ but some of us are chosen… we have to be ‘broken.’

We have to get sick.

We have to lose a job.

We go through a divorce.

We have to bury our spouse, parents, best friend, or our child…

In those moments of desperation, We were broken. But… when the breaking is done, then we will be able to see the reason for which we were created. So when you see us glowing, just know that we have been broken” (stolen from a post on Facebook).

I have a cousin who reads through Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol around this time every year. The part I love is that the copy that she reads once belonged to her dad, my uncle, who passed away in 2006. She writes down the date she finishes each time.

I just might start doing that for myself.

I found a first edition facsimile that gave me all the feels. Plus, it was only $12.99 (which if you haven’t been following the price of books lately is pretty dang cheap).

I’ve read through A Christmas Carol before, but hopefully I can be more consistent from here on out. So in honor of my cousin and in memory of my uncle, I pledge to read through this book once a year until I croak or until Jesus comes back.

And you can hold me to it.

“Why should I spend an hour in prayer when I do nothing during that time but think about people I am angry with, people who are angry with me, books I should read, and books I should write, and thousands of other silly things that happen to grab my mind for a moment?

The answer is: because God is greater than my mind and my heart and what is really happening in the house of prayer is not measurable in terms of human success and failure.

What I must do first of all is to be faithful. If I believe that the first commandment is to love God with my whole heart, mind, and soul, then I should at least be able to spend one hour a day with nobody else but God. The question as to whether it is helpful, useful, practical, or fruitful is completely irrelevant, since the only reason to love is love itself. Everything else is secondary.

The remarkable thing, however, is that sitting in the presence of God for one hour each morning—day after day, week after week, month after month—in total confusion and with myriad distractions radically changes my life. God, who loves me so much that he sent his only son not to condemn me but to save me, does not leave me waiting in the dark too long. I might think that each hour is useless, but after thirty or sixty or ninety such useless hours, I gradually realize that I was not as alone as I thought; a very small, gentle voice has been speaking to me far beyond my noisy place.

So, be confident and trust in the Lord” (Henri Nouwen).

Prayer is not a last resort (or it shouldn’t be), but the first place I go in times of trouble. It should be the first place I go in times of plenty, in want, in anxiety, in peace. Prayer should become as natural to me as breathing.

Thankfully, God’s not waiting on me to become an expert in prayer before He hears me. He’s not waiting until I become proficient at it before I can come boldly before the throne of grace. Even when all I’ve got are sighs and groans and nothing else, He still hears the unspoken words and unexpressed longings.

I don’t have to be any good at praying. I just need to pray. Or better yet, I get to pray.

I’ve been guilty of thinking that where I am is where I will always be. I’ve been guilty of forgetting my past and my future and living in a state of perpetual now where all I can see is right in front of me.

If you forget the past and the future, you lose the big picture. You lose the Meta-narrative of what God is doing. You forget that you are not the point of the story — God is. You are not the main character — Jesus is. You also forget that God has a way of turning peoples’ lives around, usually when they least expected it.

Your job is to be obedient to what you already know. You need to do what God has already spoken and what you already know He requires of you. You need to be actively listening to God’s voice, seeking where He is already working, and preparing yourself to be ready when He calls.

But also you need to trust that in God’s grand scheme, where you are right now is not the end of your story. There’s more to come, and it will be more than worth the wait.

I stole . . . I mean borrowed this from a friend’s social media post and thought it would fit nicely on here;

Good Morning Lord

“A Place for the Weary

Hebrews 10:35
‘Do not lose the courage you had in the past, which has a great reward.’

Is there anything more frail than a bruised reed? Look at the bruised reed at the water’s edge. A once slender and tall stalk of sturdy river grass, it is now bowed and bent.

Are you a bruised reed? Was it so long ago that you stood so tall, so proud? . . .

Then something happened. You were bruised . . .

• by harsh words….
• by a friend’s anger…
• by a spouse’s betrayal. . . .
• By a recent trauma…

The bruised reed. . . . Society knows what to do with you. . . . The world will break you off; the world will snuff you out.

But the artists of Scripture proclaim that God won’t. Painted on canvas after canvas is the tender touch of a Creator who has a special place for the bruised and weary of the world. A God who is friend of the wounded heart.”

This is the only acceptable use of instant coffee in a sentence.

As I write these words, I’m laying in bed in a hotel in Asheville, North Carolina. The plan is to visit the Biltmore Estates in the morning. To put it mildly, it’s been a little while.

To be more accurate, it’s been over 25 years. I think the last time I was here was back in the ye old collegiate days in the 90s (or as Gen Zers would call it, the late 1900s).

I’m excited. I’m hoping to trigger some long dormant memories by this little trip down memory lane. Also, I hope to make some new ones.

I guess sometimes you can go back.