Pacing the Cage

"Sometimes the best map will not guide you 
You can't see what's round the bend

Sometimes the road leads through dark places 
Sometimes the darkness is your friend

Today these eyes scan bleached-out land 
For the coming of the outbound stage

(you find yourself)
Pacing the cage"
      Bruce Cockburn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpz-pn-G77E

Bruce Cockburn often distills in song
what my soul feels 
poetically
And, for that, I am thankful
(and can't get enough)

There's something about my life that often finds me 
Pacing the Cage
once again
Pacing the Cage
like an animal hemmed in
Bound
yet fierce and strong
aching to race and to pounce

Today my mind raced
and last night, all night, too
Where will I be?
What is my life to be?
Who will take me in?

I offer up this pacing, Lord, as prayer.....

Pain, glory and grace

This thought recently occurred to me.

Can failure lead to success? (This is an easy question.)
Is pain the path to glory? (If Christ is our example, obviously.)

We hold our pain close
like a shield
protecting us from more,
and, yet, in doing so we deflect grace

More pain
More grace
Bring it on!

On the need to write...

This week I have written two professional development feedback reports for my job.  I'd been putting off doing them, but, since money is involved in their completion, I decided to go ahead and get them done. And I really enjoyed the process. And remembered how much I love word-crafting.  And realized that I ought to write more often. So here I am again at the blog.

The world is full of lonely people. I am one of them. This surprises me and makes me often sad.  However, I have discovered that when I write, I connect. Even if no one is reading my words, the fact that I am using words and putting them out into the world somehow makes me feel less alone. 

C. S. Lewis has said, "We read to know we are not alone."  I think I write for the same reason. And, honestly, writing is more fun for me than reading these days. Which proves I need to write, right?

I am living with two teenagers alone in a two bedroom apartment. And I am blessed.  This makes me want to shout "Victory!" I write of victory, of struggle, of insight and confusion. I write to know I'm not alone.  Thanks for reading along.

We must remember to pray without ceasing....

And as we do, we find that God is with us, that He is for us, that the things which seek to distract us and cause us to want to fret are nothing. Nothing.  No Big Thing in light of His goodness and mercy.  Lord help me to remember to continue to watch and to pray, that I might live as though you are Lord, for you are.  And this is enough.

On Regretting Things Done and Not Done in The Past

For so long I have felt that much of my life has been not well spent, but, rather, wasted.  The reasons do not matter now; I could fill a book with sad stories. What matters is that God has helped me to see and realize just today that what I have lived through in the past has prepared me for today.  And tomorrow.  And this brings me great joy. 

"And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purposes"  Romans 8:28

All things past, all things present, all things future.  God is causing them to work together for my good (which, of course, means that he is making them work for His good since I am His child, but that is another post). 
I needn't worry that my past has somehow kept me from being able to accomplish God's will in my life.  My God is a magician....He uses what I have done and what I have failed to do, and makes of  it something worthwhile.  This makes me want to sing and shout!  My life made fruitful, despite myself! 
What a privilege it is to know the Living God, to be known by Him and to be "called according to His purposes".

Why write when one can simply pray?

Why, indeed.  Why not?  Well, God wrote. That is reason enough for me.  So here we go again, this time just the four of us: Jesus, the kids and me.