The Leaves in the Fall

© Tawna Wilkinson

Have you ever observed the leaves in Fall;

No matter how big, no matter how small?

Each turn their color the Creator says to be,

Bright orange, sunny yellow, vivid red for all to see.

Then another beautiful phenomenon takes place.

With no fight, no struggle, almost with haste;

Turning loose of the trees with abandon they fall;

Never to return, no resistance at all.

They are not fearful, for they know His heart;

The Fall season Love brings is a brand new start.

Turning loose of the trees when

the wind comes they know,

They are free to be winsome, 

free to dance before snow.

                

They circle and laugh, they skip, and they twirl;

Enjoying each moment in the wind as it whirls.

“Our Creator is Love”, they all sing as they dance.

“He guides our way, He leaves nothing to chance.”

Oh won’t you come join them, 

precious child of the King?

His love is unending. Do trust Him and sing.

Sing and dance with abandon, and fear not at all,

Live your life as He guides you, like the leaves in Fall.

I Need a Clean Sweep

By Jill Palmer

I was driving past a storage place one time and the sign out front read "Too much stuff? Store it here. First month's rent is free!" 

My first thought was that I would give stuff away before I had to pay someone to store it for me. If you're moving that's different but I personally don't want to own more stuff then I can keep at my own house. Paying someone to store my junk doesn't make sense to me. And I don't know if you've noticed this or not but these storage facilities are going up everywhere! We live in a culture with so much extra. 

We find ourselves with extra things that need storing. We see the sign "first month free" and we find our solution! 

BUT THEN comes the sneaky part. As soon as that first month is over they start charging your credit card to pay rent on the unit. You see the charge on your card and say to yourself "I've got to go through that storage unit and get rid of stuff and not pay any more rent." 

And you do that for months....

As I was musing over that The Lord spoke to me and said that is what we do with our emotional junk. We aren't willing to part with old wounds, aren't willing to forgive, aren't wanting to let things go that we were never meant to carry. And so we store it. And the enemy tempts us and says it's okay...the first month is free! 

And it seems like such a good deal so we do it. "I'm mad at so and so and they don't deserve my kindness." We decide to hold onto something. And at first it's fine. No big deal. It's "free". 

Ya see, each of us has our own storage unit full of past hurts, unforgiveness and wounds. And every once in a while we are reminded that we are "paying" for them. Something happens that reminds us of what's in the "storage unit".  And we promise we'll deal with it soon so we don't have to keep on paying that rent. 

And we do that for months....or years...

See where this is going? This next picture might make you chuckle. 

Jesus wants to come in and help you clean out your storage unit. He wants to go through all that stuff that's been packed in there for years.  Sort through what is to keep and what is to dump. And He sticks with you throughout the whole process! It's like Clean Sweep! Remember that show on TLC several years ago?! 

He says in his word that His yoke is easy and His burden is light.  If you are feeling weighed down by the world then maybe it's time to let Jesus into your storage unit and help you clean it out. And stop paying the enemy to store your junk! 

Have you been paying the enemy to store your junk and saying to yourself "I'll get to it later"? How can you begin to take steps towards a "Clean Sweep"?

Still

By Kim Beach

Ever just get tired of being here? In this life? In this time and place, filling this space on earth? 

Sometimes I look around at the pain and heartache of this world and I just want to hide. Runaway. Flee.

Senseless death claims a friend's son and another friend's brother. Cancer. A family struggles to find a home. War. Broken relationships. Disease wrecks bodies. Marriages in crisis.  

Young people grapple for identity. Fallen Heroes. People use their hurts as weapons. Slavery claims more captives than ever in human history. Abortion. Children are pawns in a game of "love". They are disposable. Suicide. Loss.

It just hurts too much.  

Hopelessness begins to surround me like a cloud. It wraps around me like a heavy woolen blanket, hot and inescapable. Struggle seems futile as it pulls me into despair.

"Where are you God ?!"

Silence.

"Do you see this mess ?!?"

Darkness

"Do you care?"

Then I hear Him whisper...

And a song fills my heart . . .

His promise is true. . .

"He is near to the brokenhearted and those whose
spirits are crushed,"
Psalm 34:18

And HOPE grows again. . .

The Dreaded TeeShirt Drawer

By Tiffany Bleger

So, my dear husband likes tee shirts. A lot. Plain tee shirts, colored tee shirts, tee shirts with business logos, tee shirts with funny pictures, tee shirts with sports teams. I counted them one time. And just shook my head in amazement. 

The tee shirts go in two drawers in the dear husband's dresser. When we first got married, we quickly realized that we had two very distinct tee shirt folding styles. And those two folding styles were, more often than not, completely incompatible with each other. So, I would wash the clothes and fold them. When I would put them away, I would put them in the drawer "my way". Any shirts that were in the drawer folded "his way" would get refolded to "my way" and stacked with the others. 

This method had the potential to work perfectly... if only the husband didn't wear the tee shirts. 

You see, the husband actually likes to wear the tee shirts. So he would rifle through the drawer, looking for "that one", messing up my perfectly aligned stacks. If he refolded any of them, they were folded "his way". Have you realized yet that "his way" equaled wrong in my mind? Other times, the shirts were just shoved back in haphazardly, which was only slightly worse than folding them "his way". So every time I did the laundry, I ended up refolding and reorganizing his tee shirt drawers again. 

This process became so annoying and tedious that I began to dread the laundry. I began to harbor resentment against my husband. I began to believe lies like -

"You know, if he appreciated you, he wouldn't do this."

"He doesn't see how hard you work around here. You're invisible."

"He doesn't respect you. You don't matter." 

It got so bad, I stopped dealing with the drawers all together. I would fold his tee shirts and leave them stacked on top of the dresser. If he put them in the drawer, fine. If he didn't, fine. I wasn't going to deal with it. And I wasn't going to acknowledge the obvious lack of communication that was occurring either. 

Fast forward a few years. I'm browsing Pinterest, wasting time, when I stumbled across an article about folding tee shirts. I clicked on the link, not expecting anything. But what I found started a new process of communication in our marriage. The method taught by the website was different than my method, and different than his. It even had you stack the tee shirts in the drawer differently. The more I looked at it, the more I thought it just might work, if I could convince him to go along with the plan. 

But first I had to talk to the dear husband about it. 

Neither of us like confrontation. We were both raised in families that did not deal with confrontation well, and so we both took the "don't rock the boat" mentality. It was easier to harbor bitterness and resentment than actually face and deal with the hurts we caused each other. 

Guess what I found out when I finally talked to my husband? When I told him how frustrating it was to be continually folding and refolding laundry? How unappreciated and invisible it made me feel? 

I found out my husband wasn't a mind reader. And neither was I. 

He had no clue why the tee shirts had started being left on the top of the drawer. He had no idea  how frustrated and alone I felt. 

We talked about that dreaded tee shirt drawer. We talked about this crazy idea I had to do something completely different. We talked about talking to each other. About really being honest. About sharing our needs, our desires, and our hurts without making assumptions about the other person. 

And we folded the tee shirts. 

Today, when I open the drawer, there's usually a few haphazard shirts. But they don't bother me like they used to. I refold them and stack them, knowing that it excites my husband to be able to see all the tee shirts at once. And I'm at peace knowing that I can take my wounds and fears to my husband in safety. 

You see, it was never about the tee shirts at all. It was all about the communication. 

Mining the Treasure Within

By Jill Palmer

 
This month our little town made national news because of the toxic waste that the EPA accidentally dumped into our river - the Animas river. Three million gallons of the nasty yellowish stuff came slowly down the mountain from Silverton and right through the middle of our town. Within just a day or so it had moved on and continued its journey south leaving our river a little yellower on the side but other than that it looks much the same as before this happened. 

Naturally this upset a lot of people, myself included. So heartbreaking to see this in your own town and wonder just what was in the water and what the effects of this toxic nastiness would be on the environment. TV crews have been here, the governor has been here (and even drank the water! Ew!) and hundreds of people looked over bridges to see the sludge go by (myself included). 

The quick history of it is this: We're a mining town and have been for over a hundred years. There are hundreds of mines north of us. When you mine there is always waste material and the waste material gets moved by water. And much of  that water goes into the Animas. The Animas has never been a clean river since mining started in this part of the country. It's never been safe to drink. It wasn't before the accident happened and it certainly isn't now. The EPA was trying to clean it up and the accident occurred. Who knows if it was on purpose or not. What matters is that it happened. Coincidentally, the night it came through our town there was a huge rainstorm!

So what are we to do?

We pray. 

And that's what we did. I meet with a group of ladies a couple times a month and we pray for our church, our community, our town, our nation and our world. At one of our recent meetings the Lord put it on my heart to pray for our river. As I did He showed me how this toxic waste mess can relate to my own toxic waste mess in the supernatural (the supernatural is represented in the natural and it's one of the coolest things!).

I saw my life as the mineshaft and God was mining for treasure - pure treasure. As He mines, there is waste in the run off. Basically it's always there. It's my old life leaving and the new treasure being discovered. 

My own toxic waste leaks out over time. Often it doesn't hurt lots of people but sometimes it can. Truly it's part of the process of getting it out and the treasure coming to the surface. 

Occasionally a circumstance can seriously poke my "mine" and when that happens lots of toxic waste can come out in gallons! Lots and lots. And it can affect lots and lots of people. Ugh. The ugliness of my own yuck blown wide open for others to see. How fabulous.

But God reminded me of the rainstorm He brought to heal the Animas. He does that in my life too. His Spirit floods my soul, cleanses me of the toxic nastiness and brings healing to myself and others.

I have continued to meditate on this word picture over the last several weeks and it has deepened as He reveals more and more layers to this analogy. Truly His Living Water heals my soul. 

What treasure is God mining in you right now? How can we allow the waste to run-off instead of explode in a huge mess? 

Struggling For Perspective

By Nancy Turley

“The surrendered accept that pain is always but growing pains. And growth is always a gift—even when trials are the tutor.”   Ann Voskamp’s blog (A Holy Experience)

“What used to be a hindrance now helps you the most.” Eckhart

Outside my “Reading Room” window is a hummingbird feeder which hangs down next to a six foot high bush. I love to watch the hummers feed and rest on the steps of the feeder. That is until a Rufous appears out of its hiding place and chases them off. I see it perched in the branches of the bush or even from higher branches in our spruce tree out front, ready to pounce, selfishly declaring the feeder its own. It definitely does not play well with others. I ponder why God even created the Rufous. It is just a big bully, exercising its power, intimidating others from what is also fairly theirs.

I’ve had Rufouses in my life in the form of humans, even as an adult. But more and more, it feels like the real bully is the enemy who would steal my peace by the thoughts and lies he instills in my mind. At times I do feel like I have gone two steps forward and one back in my struggles to gain victory over this. Lately, the teasing thoughts that again assail me are of fear as I wonder about the future. My body is “talking” to me more ways than one, as is my husband Steve’s. It’s easy to project into the future with fearful outlook.

I’m near the end of the book, Into the Silent Land by Martin Laird. One chapter specifically focused on how to bring our minds to a place of silence instead of allowing the harassing thoughts to take over while praying. The author talked about the struggle to keep focused as we are taunted with the current circumstantial struggles in our lives. Interestingly as I read, my visual focus was drawn to the actual printed words with the root word of “struggle” on just one page. Without reading word by word and counting, I could make out eleven times it was mentioned! (I realized later it was because the two lower case letter “g’s” hung below the line and caused my eyes to be drawn to it as they are more darkened places on the page.)

During this counting process though, I had a mini Aha! moment when I realized I was literally doing the very thing the author was pointing out. I was focusing on the “struggle” and thus only saw the words with struggle on the page. All of the other print and wisdom on that page were diminished.

When we focus on the struggle and not the bigger picture, we narrow our perspective and can’t see what God is doing.

I know that despite our real-life struggles, God can and will use them for good, despite the “Rufous bully” thoughts of the enemy. In fact, I think because of these bully attacks, we can be strengthened in our “inner woman” to combat the new onslaughts. The fear that once overwhelmed me four years ago led me to a place of courage into a “new land” which has given me much joy.  Those hindrances are like the two sided coin that can morph our weakness into strength.

Much of our individual journeys are indeed from growing pains, but that pain is a gift—it can allow us to see from a different perspective, a bigger perspective, that of the One who can see all. 

What hinders your perspective? How have you dealt with "Rufouses" in your life? How can we see our struggles and pain as gifts?

Mustard and Mountains

by Kim Beach

 

Faith
Tiny
Mustard Seed
Bigger than me
Mountains loom ahead
What's on the other side?

We must change our perspective
Look at the Majesty
The glory ahead
Beautiful Path
Future bright
Hopeful
Faith