my daughter's little hand. relaxed, at rest. the picture of trust.

snuggled on her little pink striped blanket...






this is what's going on around that little hand...



she has learned to trust. she trusts adults. she trusted me when i told her the dentist would fix her teeth.

she trusted the dentist when he showed her all the tools and assured her that he would fix her owie teeth.

trust.

i'm so glad she's still able to trust. Lord, may she never lose this innocent wide-eyed ability to believe the good things that we tell her.

and thank You, God, that nothing hurt her little mouth that day!

my life these days has a light and dark quality to it...






early morning i'm awake, dealing with emails that request urgent prayer and much wisdom...


i delve into the spiritual bread upon which i must live,
and answer the emails
with a sudden flow of grace that bears fruit within hours...












as the day opens up, grey lowering clouds change to bright sunshine and blue skies, and hours upon hours are spent with happy children, ministering to their every need, feeding, teaching, praying, reading the Word, playing, listening, hugging, absorbing the beautiful world around us and watching their joy as i bend to the everyday necessaries of little ones.


















they go to bed...night falls...










back to the the Word, the emails, the back and forth across the planet of lonely hungry souls who need something i can channel of God's grace...




and then i too, am a receiver of grace, and the soft night enfolds my tired body and heart and i rest, and worship...

i was born in a little French town in the rolling plains of northern Manitoba, near a range of low hills called, grandiosely, "The Riding Mountains". My earliest memories are of green forests, golden fields, blue lakes, and four seasons that changed the landscape of my world from white to green, faded into red and brown, and then white again. The scents of the prairie seasons lies buried deep in my brain...the crisp clean nose-pinching smell of snow...the long wet watery smell of spring rain...the robust green scent of hay and wheat and flax and barley in high summer...the thin icey threatening odor of the coming storms behind the plummy ripened fruit of autumn...deep, deep smells...memories connected to them...the explanation that the olfactory gland is near the memory center of the brain is not sufficient to say why smells make us remember, make me remember. this morning, all in a rush, i was a little girl again, standing in the newly cut grass and surrounded, infused with the living growing waking-up smells of a country lane at dawn. i stood there, dogs nosing along in the grass beside me, and let the memories come along with the dewey hushed moonset...long i stood. then walked again, happy dogs at my feet...walked in a gentle green embrace of remembrance...

there was a lovely sentence in my devotions this morning... "THAT morning's sun will get rid of a lot of fog..." mornings here in the country are sometimes a bit foggy, misty, or smokey with the pungent scent of burning rice-straw. sometimes the world seems to be covered in mist...fog...or smoke...where the line between truth and lies is obscured and we walk with outstretched hands cautiously feeling our way towards the light. but there is coming a morning, a glorious morning, when all will be clear. now we bravely shine the light of the Book on the mist and fog and see it dissipate- but how fantastic it will be when all is clear. when we will know as we are known. when we will see each other, and Him, face to face... "i see you" deeply. when the glass is no longer there between us, darkly... THAT morning's sun will indeed get rid of a lot of fog. maranatha, Lord Jesus.

quietness. i am getting used to quietness. the sound of crickets, frogs, and the wind is often all i hear for the whole day long. my spirit is coming more and more to rest, too. i've been so busy for so many years- a lifetime of pushing. taking risks. doing things that no one has ever done before. striving to find the balance between sanity and creativity, stretched in the tension of call and rest. i'm thankful that God has arranged for me to live outside of the throbbing hum of the city- which i love- and in this place of peace, of tranquility, of green things growing. oh, how thankful i am to have green things growing. quietness. "He makes me to lie down in green pastures..." this season of life is a blessing indeed.

yes, the sky really was this color.

it was a typhoon day.

the problem with taking pictures of kite-flying is that you can't take a picture of the person flying the kite AND the kite. so it looks disjointed...an object in the sky, and someone grounded on the earth holding a string- with a look of joy on their face!

someone needs to invent a way to put it together.

we had a fun afternoon- no, a glorious afternoon.

even tho a killer trick kite attacked several people and gave one of them a real bump on the head.

a catastrophic storm approaches our island. the sky is wild...the breeze has a chill behind it. my wind chimes go constantly for about an hour, then fall silent. a sudden sunset, and then darkness. yet, moments before the light is gone, a brilliant double rainbow arches in the sky. a double reminder of God's promise that all will be well. All will be well. and so, though the storm bears down on us, to sleep.

a young man fights for his life in the hospital tonight.

my daughter sits at his side, endless hours, praying, working, strategizing, learning, guiding the doctors at times, and creating an atmosphere of light in a dark dark place.

will the boy live?

we don't know.

exactly a year ago another one of her boys died, of the very same thing.

it's too surreal.

why? why. why.....

no one knows. God sees, and weeps, and is God.

we pray.

it's our job to fight, and to pray.

it's not our job to know why.

we pray he lives.

we hope.

we believe.

but only God knows the ending, and we have to trust Him.

otherwise the tears are too much.

gecko.

ECHO.

a strange, mechanical two-syllable sound that creaks forth from some hidden location on our balcony- or roof- every night.

sometimes in the afternoon.

no use to try to find him (her)

just a sound.

a lonely little gecko searching for a friend, maybe.

"i wish we could find him and take him along when we move" says daddy.

we love our ECHO.

RESCUED.

ALL OF THEM.

GLUED TO THE INTERNET COVERAGE, LIVE, FOR HOURS AND HOURS AND HOURS, I WAS.

WATCHING THE FACES, THE STRAINING CABLE, THE WHEEL TURNING, TURNING, TURNING, THE ARMS OUTSTRETCHED...

THE DARKNESS UNDERGROUND LIT BY HIDEOUS GLARING LIGHT, ARTIFICIAL AND TERRIFYING...

THE SUNLIGHT ABOVE GREETING THE MEN ONE BY ONE WITH RAYS AS TENDER AS THE TEARS THAT FELL...

AND THE FINAL SCENE OF THE FINAL MAN, THE BRAVE MANUEL, WHO STAYED TILL THE END AS THE LAST RESCUER, LEAVING BEHIND HIM THE DEAFENING SILENCE OF AN EMPTY TOMB...

REMINDS ME OF ANOTHER EMPTY TOMB, WHERE ANOTHER MAN CAME DOWN, SO FAR, TO RESCUE US, AND THEN LEFT A SILENT HOLLOW IN THE MOUNTAIN WHERE HE HAD BEEN...

ALL OF US, RESCUED. TO THE CHEERS OF THE ASSEMBLED CROWDS WATCHING IN THE BALCONIES OF HEAVEN...

THANK YOU IS NOT ENOUGH.

EVER.

cherrylyn.

her little face is as delicious as her name. all of her is just delectable.

bright eyes, delicate nose, perfect teeth, sweet little tender lips, petite limbs, soft hair, and that smile.

that "tear your heart out" smile.

this child was abandoned on our doorstep 5 years ago, along with her siblings catherine and alex.

she's grown up in our children's institution. loved, to be sure, fed, clothed, cared for, but not in a family.

we are just now "de-institution-alizing" her.

for all of these sweet smiles, there are hours of silence, hours of sullen quietness, hours of inexplicable sadness when she retreats into a silent world where none of us can reach her.

happiness is rare for this little one.

abandonment issues have tied her up on the inside, making laughter and ease an unfamiliar companion.

yet she'll run at me full speed and throw herself at me with arms outstretched as if to say, "grab me while you can, i'm out of control"...and i do. i hold her. i love her. i kiss her.

but nothing will ever make up for the mother's love she never had. nothing can replace the arms that should have held her while she was so tiny, helpless, and needy.

cherrylyn.

today i shared my sunset, (my sunset, huh- oh the hubris of my small self) my crickets and frogs and quietness, with a tired and weary friend.

she sat on the porch steps and drank in the smells and sounds of the sweet provincial air...she gasped in delight to hear the gecko that brought back childhood memories...

she sipped her coffee, specially made by "PD", and savored each sweet swallow...

played badminton with the grandson under the streetlights...

listened to emma's excited chatter...

shared her heart and asked deep questions, and listened intently to the responses we gave...

and left with a promise to return...

what good is a sunset if you don't share it?

THE HEAVENS DECLARE THE GLORY OF GOD...

my father is 87 years old.

he is failing- fell last year and broke his hip, survived but cannot walk very much without a walker...

has fallen again, because he forgets/is too stubborn to use his walker...

the week i spent with him last summer was hard.

he's never been the easiest person to be around, and he doesn't particularly like me, i don't think.

all i have to do is open my mouth, and he's off- ranting, shouting, gesturing wildly, rebuking, threatening, scolding.

that's ok.

nothing has changed since i was a kid.

i do love him, and i miss the dad who was manic a lot of the time and disappeared when he was depressed.

this old man who is frustrated, peevish, and growing weaker by the day is difficult for me to handle.

my mother was gone in such a short time; dad has hung on for so long.

i don't know how my brother paul does it- seeing him twice a week, doing all his business affairs, keeping his doctor's appointments and making sure he's cared for.

i would lose my mind.



where, oh where, has my daddy gone?

YELLOW BOOTS

proof that i am indeed an alien.

at least in the eyes of Philippines Immigration.

but, thinking about this, and pondering the horrible photo that makes me look MARTIAN, i realized, i really am an alien.

not of this world.

anyone else out there remember a fresh-faced Christian rock band who came out with this album back in the 70's?

PETRA.

not of this world.

let me hum a few bars.

"we are strangers, we are aliens,......

we are not of this world..."

*grins evilly*

took my kids and youth group to the PETRA concert in Saskatchewan all those many years ago...sat through the whole thing with tissues in my ears so they wouldn't bleed...but the ride home in the starlight across the dark prairies with all the kids sleeping in the back brought that theme throbbing back over and over...

we are not of this world.

despite the awful photo on my alien card, i am happy to be one.