Thorn in My Side

She left a message, “Mrs. Anderson, your HIDA Scan came back normal.  There is no need for surgery at this time.”  Click.  End of sought after explanation for pain bending me into a fetal position many a midnight hour.  I know I should give thanks – believe God has once again granted healing.  But, instead I feel vague disappointment.  What do I want really??  Someone to affirm that indeed there is something amiss, a diseased part of me in need of removal?  A thorn in my side easily captured in a surgical pouch and extracted once for all out my belly button?  Maybe a little proof the pain is “real”, and a heaping side of TLC, please?

Paul wished for the same – thorn removal, that is.  In 2 Corinthians 12:5b-10, Paul says, “I will not boast about myself, except about my weaknesses.  Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say, or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Some theorize Paul’s thorn may have been impaired vision.  No one really knows.  In my case, the way I see things definitely correlates with the degree of pain I feel, particularly in the night seasons.  Suffering intensifies when my view of God distorts.  Admittedly, I’ve struggled to keep Him in focus lately!!  He’s been trying to teach me to refrain from speaking the truth unless directed to do so.  The more I’ve desired to speak into situations begging a verbal spotlight, the more He has insisted I remain silent, and still!!  As circumstances have grown more chaotic and demanding, all I’ve been told to do is hunker down and be quiet.  This has felt nothing like lying in green pastures beside refreshing still waters.  Rather, like abandonment under fire in a battlefield trench.  I’ve questioned and at times resisted His command to “rest,” in effect asking, “Are you kidding?  How can I ignore this situation, not advocate, not act?  This hurts!!”

I am keeping my grandson this week and have observed he often draws attention to his minor cuts and sprains and tells elaborate stories behind barely visible scars.  Beneath these superficial flesh wounds lies a heart that yearns for notice and aches for validation.  He requests salve, ace bandages, Band-Aids, and Tylenol frequently. His headaches are migraines, his blisters festering sores threatening to become gangrenous.  What he really needs is an awareness of God’s constant loving gaze, of His outstretched arm, of His power to save.  Like Hagar, He needs to see the God Who Sees (him).  So do I!!  I need a fresh view of God who never abandons, forsakes, forgets, ignores, overlooks.  I need to see God who notices everything down to the most miniscule details and acts accordingly, freeing me to rest and follow His lead.

I’ve noticed the pain in my right side aggravated by the load I carry every work day.  On that shoulder I carry the tools of my trade in a weighty black bag.  With those tools I assess other people’s condition, document what I see, mediate healing of minor illness.  Then I offer hope.  I carry these patients in my heart beyond our biweekly meetings, right alongside my family members.  At times, the weight of my living and calling threatens to bend me double and crush me.  And yet, have I not prayed on brighter days to know Christ, the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings?   I call to mind that Christ’s heart broke on the cross and spilled from His pierced side.  Surely He understands the thorn in mine, and knows when it’s best I keep silent and still, believing.

Silent & Still In His Shadow,

 Terry 

Shiny-Side Up!

Mist softened all angles, subdued colors, and quieted the roadside landscape.  Mystery veiled fields ripe for adventure.  We drove on an Impressionist’s canvas, my son and I, towards the launch site, caramel truffle coffee filling the car with fragrant steam.  While crossing a wooded finger of the lake my phone rang, informing us to meet at a new location, Hewitt Park.  Events unforeseen, fog and keys locked in the pilot’s truck, reset the hour and site of departure.

A runner moonwalked backwards round the perimeter of the park.  Meanwhile, my son and I waited for balloonist and passengers.  He listened as I talked of how it feels to fade appropriately into the background of my adult children’s lives, graceful, alone, thankful.  I explained that in new day’s mist, isolated unto God, my eyes of faith open wide on realms of promise and possibility.  Then we talked again of the hawks, “prayer triggers,” reminding me to intercede for my grandsons, and of how many we had both seen in a few weeks time.  Oh the heart of God for these boys!!

My daughter and her husband pulled up behind the balloonist, and we all stood round and watched as an enchanted carriage took shape out of a wicker basket, yards of fabric, and warmed air.  We gazed mesmerized into the animating balloon, swelling round with invisible gravity-defying breath.  Preparation for flight took a little longer than usual as the balloon had the day before undergone inspection and been hastily packed away.  Minor delays and interruptions affecting flight path, God-planned details.  And so as a cool January breeze blew upon the warmed balloon it set sail on an uncharted voyage (humanly speaking!).

Over creek and forest, highway and lane, neighborhood and field, the balloon drifted magical across the sky.  Her shadow traced a God appointed path across the landscape.  Friends of the passengers later remarked they had seen them on their way to church soaring colorful.  Twenty minutes into the flight, my daughter attempted a panoramic of the view below with her new I-Phone, a birthday present received the day before.  Like sand in an hourglass, the phone slipped from her grasp, plunging many stories into a wooded area bordered by fields.  The flight continued, and after a celebratory mimosa following safe landing beside the Overlook, we determined to believe God for yet another miracle.

We drove and took the exit near where the phone dropped, searching for an entry point into one of the fields bordering the cedar thicket.  No trespassing signs forced us to walk beyond where we parked in search of an opening.  Tall weeds and brush surrounded this side of the field, but undeterred we cut a path through and soon entered the plowed field, aerated, damp, and spongy.  Across furrow and hill we traversed sinking in mud, the “forest” looming ahead.  Thankful to have made it to the edge of the woods we talked of searching to the right of where we stood, fanning out to individually look for the phone.  Of course the tiny patch of woods viewed from above now stood tall, thick, and spanning ominously who knows how many acres in front of us, faith-defying!!

I repeated to myself my word for this year, “BELIEVE,” and forged ahead at a snail’s pace.  In fact a snail would have fared better in a forest so dense with low-lying prickly branches and abusive undergrowth.  Small clearings were few and far between.  And after several minutes of covering only a few yards, likely walking in circles, I exhorted myself, “Hope against hope!!”  I looked up for guidance.  I looked down to ensure no snake had found me.  Then I looked around for a tiny phone lost in a big wood, and for a glimpse of family to reassure myself I wasn’t as alone as I felt in that moment and location.  I ended up calling for my son, and gave up searching solo.  He pointed out that we were standing along a fence line, and suggested we separate by about six feet combing the area parallel to each other.  Dead ahead stood a giant of a tree, ten feet in diameter, unyielding branches barring my passage.   Obstacles, delays, time spent strategizing, all determining future steps.  I ended up following my son who soon met up with my daughter.  He had been calling her number repeatedly to try and guide us to the lost phone.  She remembered silencing her ringer the night before, and that the phone was all but out of batteries.  At this point, we all undeniably understood finding the phone would be sheer miracle.

Two seconds later, my daughter praying continually, “Am I getting hot or cold, Lord,” spied something white!!   Could it be her pearly white phone??  She reached to recover only a piece of Styrofoam.  However, my son looking in the same direction spied something silver, her phone shiny-side up a few feet away!!  He picked it up and turned it over revealing seven missed calls, and not a scratch or blemish on its surface.  We gave a shout of praise to Jesus who led us to the phone in less than thirty minutes, with breadcrumbs of grace, allowing for the search to go on only long enough to delight us in His goodness and humor and love!! 

Turns out the phone failed to video the view on descent to earth, but we nonetheless all enjoyed a breathtaking panoramic of God, invisible made visible, like the air that lifted that balloon above the treetops, wind borne on wind.  We planned how to tell such a fantastic story to family back home over Sunday lunch.  Unaware of the gratitude threatening to explode from our hearts, Joe the cook prepared a traditional Thanksgiving feast with all the trimmings!!  God, like us, just couldn’t keep His glory hidden.

He rearranged plans, celebratory meals, gift-giving, timing, weather, orchestrating an in-flight phone drop.  Undoubtedly, He intended delight, both His and ours!!

Amazed in His Shadow,

Terry and family

Kingdom Cultivation

 

Compelled to seek beauty this evening, I closed the laptop and headed for the lake.  Thought I might scout for driftwood to use in creating a Mason jar chandelier for my daughter’s upcoming wedding.  Stepping carefully over waterlogged giants, I listened as acorns dropped and a heron took wing.  Trunks and limbs embraced in death on the small stretch of beach.  Meanwhile, I planted live oak seeds with my wandering feet amid pebbles.  Daily I deal with death and new life up from graves.  The new life is at times difficult to see – like the acorns forced into soil by my meandering feet.  But, faith sees beyond decaying shells, ragged tents, and sealed tombs!!

Refresh My Perspective, Lord Jesus

Child of God and Kingdom Priest

Admittedly, perspective must be refreshed daily, else my heart recoil from seeing life ebb away, and bodies waste.  There are times when my eyes search desperate for heaven’s beauty now!!  When impatiently, I yearn for visual rest, and welcome the sight of cherub faced grandchildren, simple scenes, handcrafted things.  None of which, precious as they may be, can replace gazing upon the beauty of the Lord.  Only then, in the light of His glory and grace, do things of earth grow strangely dim, including suffering, whether personal or observed.  When I look into His eyes of love, I comprehend all suffering known to man is light and momentary, not to be compared with the glory of heaven!!  My thinking realigns with eternity and His life swells inside me like water turned to wine to gladden the hearts of others.   

God does not plant carelessly, randomly forcing me into hardened earth to produce a crop, like I drove acorns into the beach.  Rather He applies just enough pressure to achieve the depth desired.  This He delivers in the form of a Prodigal Father’s embrace, a tight hug, drawing me into deeper fellowship than ever before!!

The Scripture teaches that by His stripes we are healed.  This comes to mind every time I pass the “clawed fields” on my route, row upon row cut, prepared, waiting to receive seed.  In the same way, Christ became The Firstborn of many brethren, firstfruits of the resurrection.  IN Him we were buried and raised to walk in newness of life – Kingdom life.  Should I not therefore accept cultivation?  Accept plowing and pruning necessary to producing a harvest in and through me?

Moroccan Light on My Life's Path

Lamp Unto My Feet: Glory Shine of World Mandate 2012

Living as a Planting of the Lord in His Shadow,
Terry
 

One Day In His Courts

Thoughts roam when I enter this yard.  There’s not much to it really – an ash dominates, while two young live oaks rival like siblings.  Off to the right, a persevering pine and a China berry brought from East Texas have put down roots and determined to survive.  Enclosing this little plot of flat land, leans stout-hearted the fence that Papa built.

I identify with every element of this yard, but particularly the fence.  To her credit, she has withstood driving winds, drought, and temperature extremes.  She has done her best to guard against intrusion, confine our pets, and serve as a backdrop for parties.  We’ve hung garlands, banners, and candle filled lanterns from her posts.  She’s been climbed, peered through, and studied.  Aged to perfection, her gate no longer swings, yet she still kicks up her heels in celebration and her pickets ripple like a glissando under pianist fingers.  I hear her sing of her maker on blustery days, when wind whistles through cracks and joy streams in on sun beams through her knot holes.  Monument of love, she embraces us as her maker hoped she would, affording protection in his absence, and ever reminding us of his desire to bless and care for us.

I recall that at eighty years old, he traveled day after day on what he termed his “tricycle” from Stephenville.  What were his thoughts as he traversed many a mile on highway shoulders to erect a fence for us?  Perhaps he contemplated what he intended to pass on to Matt, my son, while they worked side by side under the blazing sun.  Maybe he reminisced about doing the same with his own son years ago, causing his eyes to fill with tears.   I’m certain his thoughts were of others, as he pressed on hopeful glancing only briefly over his shoulder.

He’s coached me well to look back teachable and with thanksgiving, while moving forward with clearer vision.  And so I look about my yard, a mature woman, hair waved and graying like the fence, and I reflect on the occasions celebrated on this patchy grass.  I remember the animals that have come and gone.  I walk beneath the shade of the trees, and around the fifteen foot China berry I carried not long ago in a Dixie cup of Crockett soil, when the Lord uprooted us both and we came to live here.  I look at her with her trunk curved a bit like a mama’s hip, and gaze at her great arms sturdy and prepared to hold my climbing grandchildren.  GRANDCHILDREN, two in one year!!  One season follows another and I grow old, fade, and lean – lean harder on the Lord.

I run my fingers along the little clothesline that held towels and bonnets for children attending Jaxon’s first birthday.  Ants run busy along the tightly stretched cord, life marches on!  There at my feet between the gnarled fingers of the trees is a little paper umbrella cast off one of his cupcakes.  All the hours that went into commemorating his first year of life, poof, and they are gone and a new day steps on stage briefly to dance.  I remember fondly this summer in terms of parties and vacations – Nelson’s adoption carnival, Jaxon’s under the sea birthday, Lori’s woodland party, and our overseas trip to Spain and Morocco!!

Reverently the sun drops to her knees and disappears below the tree line, leaving behind her glory.  My heart ignites in gratitude.   I notice a few tallow leaves, equally moved, suspended like crimson tears on the limb above me. 

 

“The one thing I want from God, the thing I seek most of all is the privilege of meditating in His Temple, living in His presence every day of my life, delighting in His incomparable perfections and glory.  There I’ll be when troubles come.  He will hide me.  He will set me on a high rock out of reach of all my enemies.  Then I will bring Him sacrifices and sing His praises with much joy.”   I’m standing in His courts, “the yard” of His house, meditating, fenced in secure, eyes transfixed on the beauty of the Lord!  Thank YOU for a summer of wonderful memories, LORD!!!

 

 

Gazing Upon His Beauty,

Terry

Living Water -- True Dream Water!!

Standing behind her in line, time warped for a moment.  She with her basketful of a few items, I with one in each hand stood waiting, separated by a few steps both in line and in life.  Flesh hung in folds like wind-empty sails from her tired shoulders.  With no small effort she removed from cart to counter a package of Poise (adult diapers), and two boxes of Tylenol PM.  As quickly as she could bend and pivot, she in slow motion laid her items on the scarred counter to be rung up.  Ebony curls, parted awkwardly by her pillow, swirled out from an exposed patch of snowy scalp.  Purchase totaled, she hoisted a large wallet from her well-worn handbag and flipped it open revealing her checkbook.  Carefully she penned the date, drugstore name, dollars and cents, and finally her signature.  Minutes ticked on a low-battery clock as she produced her license.  All the while I watched resisting impatience, while she transferred the weight of years from counter to cart handle, preventing her collapse.

A nurse, I’ve learned to make note of small details.  While doing so in line, I replayed the scene I left moments before.  Bedroom of a dying man, calming blue, shag carpet preventing rolling of wheels, tension of final breaths, year-long seconds, the three of us standing just outside heaven’s door.  Indescribable details!  I left behind beautiful daughter laboring hard to usher with honor Dad into new realm.  I saw full circle – parent who labored to bring child into the world, lying silent helpless, as child labored to release parent out of this world into life without limits.  There I stood in line, mascara tear-mingled, stinging and ringing my eyes, seeing myself clearly behind patient and drugstore patron, separated by a mere vapor of time.

I’d started the day paying bills, a chore I’ll not miss!!  Discovering an incorrect charge on my statement set in motion a chain of frustrating events.  Keeping my focus, like scaling Mt. Everest, took more energy than I possessed, as did keeping the flood gates securely fastened.  So here I stood in line, issues unresolved, hospice nurse with an understanding of the brevity of life, emotionally and physically spent, peace-longing!!  All-Knowing God timed my waiting.  Minutes dragged, and I turned from the woman in front of me to the bin beside me.  Dream Water, 2 for $6, filled a display.  I strained to read the fine print, tickled!!  (Directions for use:  Drink a bottle to help deal with that energy drink you had earlier, a loud neighbor keeping you awake, and general stresses of everyday life…).  Happily skipping around the bottom of the cute little container were unemployed sheep.  Please understand I’m not debunking or endorsing this product – rather the timing and message spoken through both the woman at the counter and this sleep aid informed me undeniably of God’s Presence with me, and gave me a merry heart which doeth good like a medicine by bedtime that evening.  You see, I figured my bad hair day wasn’t so bad after all – next to bed-head due to the aches and pains of old age, having little time to go get a haircut seemed a good problem to have.  And while the world promotes drinking an artificial shot of energy and then later an artificial shot of peace, I’ll take the old school remedy, please!!  The woman in front of me had a different set of issues in her season of life, but surely we shared in common the desire for renewed strength (as of youths and eagles) and rest from toil (peace).

Open to God’s counsel in my weariness, I left the drugstore for a dear friend’s house where we watched the Breaking Free Session Six video.  Heart riveted, God spoke, plunging me deep into well of living water, filling bone-dry vessel with refreshing drafts of His life, at the same time satisfying Himself in the act of fulfilling me!!  He used John 4:1-18 to address my thirst for more, to point out why I had overreacted earlier in the day, beginning with paying the bills, fretting, feeling “robbed,” deceived, grappling for control.  He reviewed with me my unsuccessful attempts at refueling and refilling my tired and thirsty soul lately.  He exposed the true cost of impulsive behaviors, of earthly excess – no matter how seemingly harmless and acceptable.  I repented and agreed, and then He revealed the lies Satan repeatedly hooks me with as well as the weakness of my own flesh prone to settling for low-calorie, all natural ingredients, quick fixes to emptiness and weariness.  God comes to give abundant life – rich and filling, high in calories (fuel to burn), supernatural, with present and everlasting benefits.  I’m not only speaking of food and drink here!!!  Certainly you’ll agree, Dream Water is a far cry from Living Water, HE WHO FILLS AND SATISFIES US SO WE CAN REST.

The Lord capped off a wonderful night’s rest with dessert this morning served up in the following Scriptures:

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.  I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”  John 10:10

“You have made known to me the path of life; You will fill me with joy in Your presence, with eternal pleasures at Your right hand.”  Psalm 16:11

“Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.”  I Peter 1:8      

I pray my older sister back at the drugstore knows INEXPRESSIBLE JOY, and that with each step toward heaven’s door she and I both grow to love and believe Him more.  Then and only then will we be truly filled, our thirst quenched!!!

 

Drinking Deep In His Shadow,

Terry












For more inspirational reading visit Spiritual Sundays at www.bloggerspirit.blogspot.com.

Putting Up Easter

Jaxon's First Resurrection Basket

This morning I woke determined not to spend this gorgeous fall-feeling spring day before the computer gazing at Pinterest party ideas.  I must confess, having laughed at the notion but a few weeks ago, I am struggling with a party-planning obsession, pinning idea after idea to a cyber bulletin board.  Embarrassed, I must also admit “pinning” visually and emotionally gives me a euphoric rush, albeit temporary, and is my new feel-good and choice of escape.  Ugh – now that really is humbling.  OMNISCIENT DADDY understands, graciously convicts, forgives, and restores order to child who often can’t keep her balance in this world!!  FAITHFUL, He walks not only beside but inside steadying His children whether toddling anew, riding precariously without training wheels, or lumbering along cane clutched toward rim of gaping grave.

 

Homemade Resurrection Eggs

Now I sit on my porch, laptop warming thighs, writing -- not surfing (ha!), Heaven’s breeze carrying in her arms tangerine and white butterflies to share this new-life morning with me.  My heart fills!!  For several hours I have been putting away Easter.  When the storm blew in late Easter afternoon, like Dorothy in Kansas, I raced about the yard bringing under cover the day’s games and decorations.  With help of others, dishes were washed, and a few things put up where they belong.  Remnants remained however in virtually every room, begging to be put up, out of sight, until next year.

I began with the resurrection eggs which lay open, their contents spilled and jumbled.  Unfolding the little pieces of paper with Greatest Story of All, I sorted symbols and eggs and prepared to snap them shut until Easter 2013.  Like many other bloggers however, I just couldn’t bring myself two weeks after Easter Sunday to pack it all up without listening long to Risen Lord and His thoughts about empty tomb(s).  At this point in writing He brought to mind: “I call Heaven and Earth to witness against you today: I place before you Life and Death, Blessing and Curse. Choose life so that you and your children will live. And love God, your God, listening obediently to him, firmly embracing him. Oh yes, he is life itself, a long life settled on the soil that God, your God, promised to give your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” Deuteronomy 30:19-20

Egg Shell Tea Lights

So many thoughts have raced through my head this morning, I feel need to find the bottom line to determine my destination.  Yet God, like butterflies flitting about my yard, turning my head this way and that, assures me He will tie up neatly what He desires to say.  I invite you back to my kitchen table, where plastic eggs split open with good news like empty tombs.  There I snap pictures, and God informs me I am colorful egg of Easter, made to contain life – not simply a message written, read, symbolized, and shared, but LIVING WORD HIMSELF, EMPTINESS FILLING, LONELINESS OBLITERATING EMMANUEL!!!  I move next to discard broken shell tea lights dyed morning before Easter with natural juices and spices.  God prompts me to retrieve them from the trash and snap another picture.  Again He speaks truth over me.  Eggs must break, open, like closed doors on wombs and sealed tombs, to permit new life, and to form vessels to hold and emit EVERLASTING LIGHT.  How I delight in life-containing broken shells glowing radiant on table Earth.

We were made to want more!!

I tried hard over Easter to introduce especially to new generation THE FILLER OF ALL VOIDS, TOMB DEFEATER, JESUS.  Still just beginning to lay hold of the implications myself twenty-seven years post rebirth, I excitedly packed the day, planting seeds in object lessons, setting before wondering eyes the truth in living color, that we were meant for so much more; designed by LOVE as vessels for continual refilling.  I’d been thinking for some weeks about why we desire always more, and more, and more…  And I stumbled as if for first time upon INEXHAUSTIBLE FOUNT OF LIFE’S desire to perpetually fill us with the more and more and more we desire, FOREVER-MORE.  I of course had read and intellectually understood this, but in grappling with “management” of my own desires began to think long and hard about living with an undying appetite for more.  To think about the point of want, that is!

Tender and Nugget Celebrated Easter With Us

At times, living with want seems confusing business to say the least, a back-breaking burden of the curse relegated to life on this planet!!  After all, aren’t we supposed to mature and learn to be content (with less), to be satisfied with God alone??  Gluttony, greed, covetousness, adultery, all rise from a corrupt desire for more, right??  Logic would demand then that human beings nail unruly want to the cross – get rid of trouble-making desire at all costs, and bind and gag the deceitful heart from which it springs!! I’ve attempted to put a sock in the gaping mouth of my desires, and to cooperate with God in their refinement, putting off many until heaven.  Surely there desire will finally be perfectly managed, will neatly line up with God’s like good soldiers in His army, no longer marching to the beat of a different drummer.  What a relief heaven will be, no longer stuffing and stifling want.  Then I’ll physically be with LORD MY SHEPHERD, and shall “really” not want, right???  WAIT JUST A COTTON-PICKING MINUTE!!!  There is something missing in this view, I fear.

Night Before Easter Resurrection Garden with Sealed Tomb

God, GOOD GOD, made me to desire more.  My parents, Adam and Eve, wanted more while in their sinless state, pristine environment, and in rich fellowship with PERFECT GOD.  They wanted, and thus were tempted to want to be “like God.”  Note: they wanted to be like Him apparently over and above wanting Him, as lovers want and are satisfied in one another.  They had not yet learned how to REALLY LIVE WITH THIS BEAUTIFUL THING CALLED WANT, to trust GOOD GOD to make space in them for more of Himself through ever-increasing desire.  Our problem is not in wanting more, it is in accepting less.  We err in choosing not to wait (anticipate more than we could ask or think), and therefore miss the more of HIM we ache for!!!

Celebrating!!

Learning to be content has nothing to do with curbing want, rather it is the process of discovering the beauty and point of all want – embracing our form and function as GLORY vessels, more importantly wanting evermore DESIGNER ALL WISE, who longs to GIVE WITHOUT END.  To whom could He give Himself but to ones who want Him, who grow to trust more in their wanting, to mature in their joy-filled pre-climactic ache, to know more fully LOVE WILL COME AGAIN AND AGAIN TO FILL, ever expanding through want our hearts to hold even more.  What security He desires to give in context of want fulfilled, WHAT LOVE IS THIS, THIS ONE WHO WITH UNBROKEN CHAIN OF GENEROSITY LINKED US ETERNALLY TO HIMSELF??  He is RESURRECTION AND LIFE.  This day I choose LIFE to fill me!!  Thanks be to God for breaking off chains of lesser gods which offer at best temporal highs, for drawing me into Himself through want of more!!!!

 

Learning With Them To Want HIM More!!

Wanting Him More In the Shadow,

Terry




P.S. I recommend you listen to Earth Like Heaven, by Jonathan David Helser at http://www.aplacefortheheart.org/aplacefortheheart/Home.html.
And for more inspirational reading, visit Spiritual Sundays at  http://www.bloggerspirit.blogspot.com/