We Are Not Alone

Ah, friends. We are not alone.

Some days our emotions shoot up, out, over with the pressure of a geyser.

Sometimes the pressures of life sound like the roar of the river, tugging, tugging, tugging until we waterfall over the edge.

I was wrong when I pictured life flowing as a placid, peaceful stream.

I was wrong when I envisioned everyone else with life figured out, worry-free, smooth sailing.

In Chapter 14 of Waymaker, titled The Waymaker, Ann says, “The place we are all ultimately seeking a way out of is aloneness.”

It’s true we all struggle in different areas. We have unique challenges. We often feel alone.

What’s not unique, where we’re not alone, is found in the waves of life. They continually come. Continually capsize.

Ann continues in the chapter with this wisdom ~ “Instead of focusing on moving forward, what matters is what you’re moving toward.

Not inward, not wayward, not forward, always toward!”

Where is our focus? Our compass point?

Where do we seek a steadying when waves roar, geysers spew?

Ann gently nudges herself, us, with this sentence, “Your wholeness is more about the health of your attachments than the hellishness of your adversities.”

What have I attached to? Is it healthy?

Do I trust the Waymaker to make a way through the waves? Will He guide me through the rapids, sustain down the waterfalls?

This quote sits at the beginning of Chapter 14.

“If there is anywhere on earth a lover of God who is always kept safe, I know nothing of it, for it was not shown to me. But this was shown: that in falling and rising again we are always
kept in that same precious love.”
~ Julian of Norwich

In the falling. In the rising.

We are held. We are not alone.

Link arms, fellow comrades. Point toward each other and toward His steadfast love.

Questions to Ponder

As August ends………

What has brought you delight?
What has been delicious?

Where has unexpected delight shown up?
Where has grief taken you by surprise?

Who have you laughed with?
Who did you say “I love you” to?

When did you sit and savor?
When did you wander with wonder?

How has beauty blessed you?
How has gratitude graced your days?

The Delight of Life

life in its living ~
seeking after the light,
it’s beauty and wonder,
pure childheart delight.

it’s petals and flowers,
a leaf&bloom crown,
lemons and berries,
laughter abounds.

it’s sugar and sunshine,
bright red paper straws,
daydreams and bubbles,
with love in it all.

LISTEN:

Do you enjoy Wordle? Have you seen or played Waffle?!

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Books

Your Mountain is Calling by Rachel Anne Ridge
The 5 Minute Journal
The Little Book of Lykke
Sarah Rising
My Reading Adventures Book Journal
A Curious Faith by Lore Ferguson Wilbert
The Cost of Control by Sharon Hodde Miller
Giving Your Words by Sally and Clay Clarkson
Chase the Fun by Annie F. Downs

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Beauty

Today
Beauty shone her shy face
Shimmering
Wondering
Who would notice

Who would pause
Take time
To sip
To savor
Drink it in

For moments are fleeting
Flowers blossom
And begin to fade
Away
Again already

Darkness is heavy
And long in the waiting
But time tick tocks
Ever ever ever
Never slowing

Or hastening
Steady advance, rather
A both/and
Not either/or
Holding space, a tension

For delight and despair
Gratitude and grief
Laughter and lament
Poured out together
In this act called life

And all that is good
And generous
And kind
Wells from intentional acts
Of seeking, seeing, stilling

Reaching beyond ourselves
Creating rhythms
That resonate
For a fellow wayfarer
And make today a little easier

Because beauty nodded
And we noticed
And held vigil
Breathing soul deep
Offering refreshment abundant

Yet, We Will Rejoice

The crops are all drying up
Curling up
Wilting into themselves.

They are tired.
Weariness weaves around us all from the relentless heat
and the refusal of rain to
shower us with refreshment
and quench the parched places.

A metaphor for the endless desert seasons of life, of course.

Yet.
Yet, the clouds float beauty
on their canvas of azure
stretched endlessly, effortlessly
above our sun-baked heads.

Bees buzz and water gurgles
from our well.
Roses bloom. Cosmos wave.

Countless dirtdevils spin across the fields,
yet the air conditioner hums and window glass shields against wind, heat, and dirt.

We watch cornfields turned to silage, beans give quietly up.
We watch markets and watch milo leaves curl into yellowing spikes.

We watch sunset paint the sky in brilliant sweeping strokes.

We watch weather reports and we wait.

Watch and wait.
Pray and praise.
Hold to hope.

Familiar practices,
really,
in the rhythms of life.

For what else is there
at the end of the day?

There will always be dry spells and bills and pain and suffering.

There will always be the choice to grapple after gratitude, grow in the giving of thanks.

Uncertainty usurps. Disappointment debilitates.
Cares capsize.

Yet, we will rejoice in the Lord,
our hope and our salvation.

Eugene Peterson summarizes Jesus’s testing in the desert:
“In the three great refusal’s, Jesus refuses to do good things in the wrong way.”