Let's Slow Things Down

For a brief moment this afternoon while I was doing some house cleaning, I was carried back about 7 years to a slower time in my life. Fifteen years old, a sophomore in high school, taught at home by my very loving and attentive mother--those were good days. My sisters and I would have all been home, unmarried, childless (ok, so only one of us is married and a mom!), busy with only our small lives, and for the most part, happy. I am not longing for those days again; I would be very happy to stay away from the 10th grade and a heart that only half belonged to the Lord. But today I wished for a slower day like those used to be. At this time in life, my little sister, if she is not in class, is locked away in her room to study her nursing books; my older sister is learning the great art of motherhood, and I am moving to Thailand in two weeks. Life never stops. Sometimes I wish we could just slow it down for a while....


Here's some cool news though....

..... I got my visa for Thailand in the mail today. :)

Ode to the Shipwrecked Soul

How many days and nights have you spent in the open water, tossed by relentless waves and baked by brutal sunshine? The open sea seems delightful, romantic, the perfect getaway from the worries of a war-torn world--until you are shipwrecked and abandoned by your one security to drift alone on the hopeless waters. Then, all seems lost. A pleasant voyage becomes a tragic tale of loss. What passes through your weary mind those days lost at sea? Are they only thoughts of despair, of listless waiting for inevitable death? Do you dread the setting sun and rising moon, and setting moon and rising sun alike--fearing the dangers that will surely arise with each passing hour? Do you lose all desire to live on in the midst of the vast ocean? Do you beg God for death to come quickly?

Or do you dare to hope?

Do you, in the midst of a sea void of anything good, see the good that yet lives on? Do you, with the advent of dawn, rejoice in a new day? Do you, when the golden sphere settles into the watery horizon, praise God for the relief from the heat, and for the show of dancing lights now moving above your head? Is there anything left in you that remembers the perfect faithfulness of an omnipotent God--that cries out for His goodness to be revealed while yet in the sea--worn ragged by the salt and wind, shoulders burned, hair tangled, arms sore from clinging to the driftwood beneath you? In the moment when "all is lost" do you remain faithful to Him who saves you in your distress, or do you curse His name?

Oh, shipwrecked soul, allow me to tell you--it is while in the sea that you must believe for rescue. It is before the shoreline appears in the distance that you hope for solid ground. It is when you are devoured by the sea that you must claim your victory in Him who conquers all. For when you do so, you will find yourself afloat upon the promises of an almighty God who has never once failed to save out of distress those who fear Him.

Look again; that driftwood beneath you just might be the hand of God.