Another 4th of July

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I do love the 4th of July. I get the day off from work, I get to sleep in, plus I get to dress up patriotically (including my very patriotic Star-Spangled Chucks). Throw in fireworks and it’s one of my best days ever.

Don’t get me wrong. I do love my country. I love what it has stood for since 1776, as well as what it still stands for today. I also know it’s not my religion. It’s not God and country. That’s idolatry. It’s God then country as a very distant second.

My ultimate home is in heaven and my primary citizenship is in the Kingdom of God. That trumps any flag or ideology or political party. That trumps Trump (or whoever the next President turns out to be).

I know I’m called to pray for the peace of the place where I live. The Apostle Paul in Romans 14 tells me to honor and support my leaders (and don’t forget the original readers had Nero to deal with, and he was way worse than any bad President we’ve ever had).

But if I have to choose my loyalties, God wins. Every single time. The Bible also says that it’s far better to obey God rather than human authorities when people contradict the word of God.

America won’t last forever. God will. His kingdom will. His love and grace and mercy will. Choose those first.

A Little Love Goes A Long Way

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I still vividly recall a year ago when I had a bout of pneumonia. My cat Lucy comforted me and helped me in my recovery. She loved me well again.

It still makes my heart hurt that I wasn’t able to love her well again during her last illness. I truly believe that if my love could have made her well, she’d live forever. I believe that it as her love for me that allowed her to stay with me as long as she did.


Then this little gal came into my life. She rescued me from my sadness with her charm and spunk.

Even though I’m still getting used to this new normal, I feel blessed that I’m able to give Peanut a love she might never have known and to pay forward the love Lucy gave me.

I’m dreaming of the day when there will be no more loss or pain or grief. I’m hoping for the day Jesus will turn the world right side up again and forever end the tyranny of evil and lies.

At the end of the day, I’m blessed to have known such love and to still be able to pass it on. The legacy continues.

Blog Post #2,540

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“Thank you, dear God, for this good life and forgive us if we do not love it enough” (Garrison Keillor).

It doesn’t seem real that I’ve written over 2,500 blog posts in nearly 7 years. That averages out to just about one per day.

It’s been a good discipline to attempt to write something every day. Granted, some days are easier than others, and some days I don’t got nothing.

I can look back over seven years and realize just how much has transpired since that very first blog post back in 2010. I lost my job and went through a lengthy job transition before finding my current position. I had to say a final goodbye (I like to think of it more as a goodbye for now) to my beloved cat Lucy and welcomed little Peanut into my world.

I’m still driving a Jeep Cherokee, though not the same one that I had back in 2010. This one is two years newer and has power windows and locks (which you probably take for granted until you don’t have them then they become very much appreciated).

I feel like I’ve grown in grace quite a bit in these seven years. I know that I am certainly more thankful than I was then. It’s not that I necessarily have more than I did, but I’m much more grateful for what I have and a lot less apt to take things and people for granted than I was.

I can’t wait to see what the next seven years bring. I know God will be just as faithful and true to His promises as He’s been up until now. God willing, I will be able to keep you updated on all my latest shenanigans and wisdom.

“Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have got it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known” (Garrison Keillor).

I Want to Go There, Too

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I believe there’s an actual place that exists that meets all of these descriptions. I believe that it’s a place where God will wipe away every tear and where there will be no more night or darkness.

I believe there are hints of that place here and now. We catch glimpses of it here and there and it gives us longings that nothing earthly can satisfy.

Still I long for that kind of place.

Rescued by a Cat

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I went to the local animal shelter with every intention of rescuing a kitten. I had a certain type in mind. 

I even had a kitten in my carrier about to sign the papers when this scrawny tortoise shell ball of fur started meowing at me and reaching at me through the bars of her cage.

I went to where she was and put my hand through the bars and she immediately began rubbing her face against it and purring loudly. She stole my heart in that moment.

As it turns out, she was literally rescued from the middle of the interstate. Today, she rescued me.

I know that nothing will ever replace my Lucy. That was a beautiful 17 year dream that will live in my heart.

Still, I found something I can love and be loved by so I can pay forward the love Lucy gave me.

I haven’t named her yet, but she’s the cuddliest little critter I’ve ever known. God willing, I look forward to at least 17 years with this one.

Pay the Love Forward

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I will never not miss this little angel of mine. Even now my heart still hurts a little because she’s not here with me.

I most keenly feel her absence at night when it gets quiet and still. That’s when she was always nearby.

Tomorrow my plan is to go adopt another kitten from the local shelter. Not because I love my Lucy any less, but because there’s such an abundance of love in my heart from those 17 beautiful years that needs to be passed on.

Maybe that’s how you can finally move past the sharp grief of losing a loved one. You take all the love left in your heart from them and pay it forward to someone who needs it most.

Perhaps you adopt an animal from a shelter. Or serve the homeless. Or mentor a young child. Or maybe just love those around you through acts of kindness and service.

Don’t let all the love die with you. Pay it forward.

An Inconvenient Life

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“It’s never too late to live a remarkable, inconvenient life given to the interruptions of now.
Love is the willingness to be interrupted.
Love is the willingness to be broken into.
There are never interruptions in a day—only manifestations of Christ.
And the truth is? Your theology is best expressed in your availability and your interruptability—and ability to be broken into.
This is the broken way.
This is all love.
Loving people without expecting anything in return always turns out to have the greatest returns.
Let’s do this today? Continuously make the ever-present Christ present. The hands of every clock never stop signing this: the best use of your hands is always *love*. The best way to say you love is always *time*. The best time to love is always *now*” (Ann Voskamp, The Broken Way).

My prayer that we will see interruptions not as diversions from our work, but as our actual work and labor of love that God has placed in front of us in the moment.

We’re always choosing whom we will serve, whether it be the never-ending to-do list that keeps getting interrupted or those interruptions that are God breaking into our sphere of influence and wrecking our world.

I confess that I’m not a fan of people barging in when I’m in the middle of trying to accomplish something, even if it’s reading a book or binge-watching Netflix. It gets on my nerves sometimes.

Yet that may be the chance I get to serve Christ in disguise. That may be the chance I get to pay forward a blessing that will come back to me a thousand times multiplied.

I want to be broken into in such a way that both I and the people who I come in contact with are never the same again.

 

Just Checking In

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I had all these grand plans of my nightly blog post and how I was going to tie it in with the sermon from Kairos. Then I got home. I’m a lot tired and a little sad, missing my fur baby a lot.

I’m not a fan of sadness, but I’ll take it any day because of all the wonderful and beautiful memories that come with it, 17 years worth.

I know sadness doesn’t have the last word. God’s story doesn’t end with ashes and pain and loss. Victory is written in the final chapter and hope is the last word.

I know all I need is a good night’s sleep, a little coffee in the morning, and a whole lot of Jesus. Those three things more than anything else will help in the healing process.

Oh, and I can say tonight that I still consider myself very much blessed. God is still good.

Velveteen Love

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“’Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’

‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit.

‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.’

‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’

‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.’” (Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit).

I’ll just let this speak for itself. May each of us know Love like this that takes us where we are and makes us real and whole.

 

Another Day, Another Post

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Of all the blog posts I’ve ever written in all my life, this will be one of them. In other words, it will probably not be my finest.

I sat at my Mac Book and opened up my WordPress website. 30 minutes later, I’m checking all these Facebook posts and haven’t written a single word.

Some days are great. Some days are terrible. Some days just are.

God keeps reminding me that any day that I’m alive and aware is a good day. Even the days when the worst case scenario happens, like losing my beloved Lucy. That was one of the hardest days of my life, but I still saw an abundance of grace and joy on that day and I felt every one of your prayers carrying me along and getting me through.

All in all, this was another good day. I worshipped with The Church at Avenue South, had a fantastic Greek omelette at Athens, found a couple of good buys at Grimey’s Preloved Music, then later went to another stellar Kairos Greeter outing in Spring Hill.

I suppose i’m just pooped from all that activity and my brain is too tired to be all creative and artsy and blog-post-y.

I did have some vintage Allman Brothers Band music to be the soundtrack to all my journeys today. That’s something noteworthy.

“[A]lmost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know. Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement” (from Joe Vs. the Volcano).