Category: Christian Community

Seeing More Clearly Through A Lense of Grace and Mercy

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ Leave a comment

Blinded by the light.  Its difficult to see.  Feeling unsafe behind the wheel.  Hoping to be home and safe soon.  I am vulnerable and I am challenged. The eye doctor dilates my eyes and every ray of sun causes a wince, bringing hand to eye for cover and protection. I am not seeing well.  I am not seeing clearly.  I want to go home. I know this is temporary.  I am certain my vision will improve.  I’ve been told it will take two hours.  But in this time I am reminded of what it feels like to see unclearly, to see the world in a blur, missing detail.  Things are askew.  Things are murky, cloudy and off a beat a bit. There are so many times when I do not see the what’s right there. Someone has unspoken pain and I do not see the what’s behind the surface. Someone is struggling with a life circumstance and I do not see clearly the effect it has on words and actions. There is a hidden fact or emotion which I do not see, cannot see, or even will not see. Things are hidden away.  Buried down deep. Out of sight. Out of plain view.  Things that require sweet Mercy and Grace to see with tenderness and understanding.  Like my dilated eyes preventing clarity, the blur of the eyes of the heart can slant and cripple,distort  the ability to see with Kingdom Eyes.   “You can’t go on ‘seeing through’ things forever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. To ‘see through’ all things is the same as not to see”. — C.S. Lewis, “The Abolition of Man”. But when I put on the lense of Grace and my heart looks out through a lense of Mercy, I begin to see with understanding and love.  The facts or circumstances causing the blurry are less important.  The pieces of the puzzle missing matter less now.  My eyes are more aligned with the heart of God.  Mercifully I see.  The blur of pain causing a skewed understanding fades when I look in love.  His love.  Handicapped on my own.  Unable to see clearly without Him.  Needing the corrective lense on life of the spirit of God, needing a shift in my fleshy perspective, needing a glimpse of His people through the eyes of Jesus.“The litmus test of our love for God is our love of neighbor.” — Brennan Manning.

I want to see clearly, lovingly, tenderly, mercifully.  And I want to see past and through the circumstances- both my own and those of others.  I want to see the hard to see places and yet see nothing, embracing and loving the hard and the unlovable.  Loving in an all out way where all becomes invisible in love but that which matters.  They are my family, my friends, my neighbors. I want to love Gracefully and Mercifully in the blur of life, the blur of pain, the blur of hurt, and the blur of circumstances.

Eyes of Mercy and Eyes of Grace shift perspective, shift view, and opinion and judgement.  A lense of Grace and a lense of Love allow compassion and tenderness to focus the eyes of the heart lovingly, kindly, and oh so sweetly to see Beauty each and every time.  To see the shadow of the Cross and the bright clear love reigning down from Heaven.

My vision is still off.  I feel the sting of the blurr of my vision being manipulated by the doctor.  And I know how fragile the eyes are, especially the eyes of my heart.  I know how quickly I am prone to look out not in love, but in judgement, in criticism, in hyper-sensitivity and without empathy.

So I lean hard on Him as a blind woman leans on a cane.  Crippled am I, handicapped am I without any strength on my own.  With the vision of a sinner, blind to others, stumbling into others, running hard into pain and causing it myself, I need the Shephard’s staff.

Mercifully He offers.  Mercifully He leads.

Amazing Grace.  A view of life like no other, through the lense of Grace.

Five Ways To Slow Down and Yield To Grace

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ Leave a comment

Five Ways Slowing Down Can Yield to Grace:

One –  Slow down the tongue  so  words may give way to Grace.

Two – Slow down judgement,  making way for forgiveness, an apology and reconciliation.

Three– Slow down and listen to a child when she/he speaks, looking them in the eyes and holding hard in love to the thoughts of their heart and the words of their mouth, finding Joy in the gift of their speech.

 Four – Slow down thoughts of  despair and discouragement, making way for  Hope restored, Hope reborn.

Five – Slow down an agenda, a plan, a goal, making way for God’s will, His Grace and His Best in all things.

 

And oh you know this list is written for Me.  And oh you know how many, so very many more I have thought of and want to add.  In trying to keep it simple, I am stopping at five. But you can add yours.

How do you slow down and make room for grace-filled living?

How do you find ways to slow down and savor the all that He wants for us, all that He has for us.

You can encourage others by leaving a comment and slowly shift our eyes to new ways to slow down and yield to Him and to His Grace in our lives.

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Thank you for your response. ✨

Wrap Up A Word in A Poem, Wrap up A Word In Love

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 4 Comments

(Today’s post dedicated to my mother Maggie on this, her birthday.  She has taught me to love and hold on to Words.)

Moments like pebbles jet- skim over water, thrown out hard,  fast from child’s hand, speed along, bump, skip along. Ripple space, dent, ripple path. Fall hard.

Speedy jump all bullet shot out of angled hand to delight.   Race on. 

And words thrown out, caught in heart nets. Tossed,  captured,   pondered. We grab, wrestle with these letters all clustered up, woven in wonder.  Knitted for warmth, encouragement, teaching, healing. Put forth for comfort and hope.

 Grab hold of time, wrap it in words with love. Cherish its beauty, its singular lightening fast, quick flash, steamy quick rising temporariness. Hold hard to words telling story of moment.

Put a word on a wound.  Place a word on pain , wrap it in God-breathed, God-given hope. Send it out in a prayer built of words, fragile and sweet.

Put a word on joy, put a word on wonder.  Cinch it in silver shiny wrapping with bow of beauty.  Deliver it in Mercy, signed with signatures of Grace.

 Speak them, write them,  sing them, show them , shout them, whisper them,
sling  them– those grace-notes, love-notes, words dredged from deep heart places.

Watch it , this word chosen in care, delivered in love. Watch it skim across the hearts of one in need. Leave a little love dent, a kind ripple, and fall hard on the soft places of the inside place.

See hope take root.  And healing take place.

Words skipped all tippy toed school girl happy hopping poetic on the spaces of need. Choose them with care, toss them in love, your words, this Sabbath,  this day and every one given by Him.

Poetry most often communicates emotions, not directly, but by creating imaginatively the grounds for those emotions.  It therefore communicates something more than the emotion; only by means of that something does it communicate the emotion at all “–C.S. Lewis, “Studies in Words





Two Bloggers, Two Salads, and A Two Hour Lunch (This is Grace)

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 5 Comments

This is Grace.

I know a woman who walks out grace, with grace.  Shelly Miller of Redemption’s Beauty a beautiful blog which I follow.

And you will read more of her beautiful story there.

But this is a story of her grace shown toward me, a new blogger.

We sit in a booth and we swirl words around.  And  thoughts go off into places of shared passion.  Sentences spiral around salad about being women and mothers and bloggers.

She laughs a contagious laugh.  It springs up from way down and lands in the between  us.  Warm covering the time like down comforter, snugging in for a two hour stay. She and her story delight. How she came to write in a most unexpected way.  Her story of hearing story because she invites story to come out and play and feel free  She invites and the sharing begins.

Her eyes twinkle with joy as we sip from our straws like girls at the pharmacy counter after school all cherry coke and faux leather swirly seat. And I soak in the wonder that is her life’s story of teaching herself about life. Of digging deep into a thing and come up with the knowing.

We laugh about carving out time and finding balance in our lives.  And she answers some questions and leads me to places she knows I want to go, with words about words.

She is a picture for this blogger/woman/mother/wife of beautiful redemption and of taking a daily step, in brave faith. With faith so bold and strong. Of perservering much and living abundantly. I can tell you many of Shelly’s beautiful stories of redemption.  They are beautiful but they are hers. And she tells them with a striking loveliness and tenderness each time she writes.

We lose track of time a bit and startle when we see the hour.  The time that was spent.  Grace is like this.  It invests in others.  It grants patience and gives out. It explains simple things to beginners who stumble on their way.  It answers promptly and plainly and calmly.  It doesn’t judge the knowledge gaps or hold on greedy to self.  It shares what it knows and embraces a fresh start, a new beginning. This is Redemption’s Beauty.

Grace takes us to a moment that is simple and sweet and covered in community.

Givers give selflessly and abundantly.

Givers of time, of grace, of encouragement.

They place self on the shelf extending a hand out and down and to those who need a word.  Or two.

And you know we discussed grammar and typo’s and sentence structure and books.  Oh yes, the book “The Element of Style” was in the mix. As was “Writing Down The Bones.”

But this two hour lunch was a thank you with a giving woman who has much to give.

And she has much to say about redemption.

Because I sat with Grace and looked Grace in her glistening green eyes, I know even more about redemption today.

And blessed am I to share with you a story of embracing, encouraging and extending the gifts we have and the gifts we’ve been given.

And to pass on the encouragement to you to use your gifts to bless others in family, in friendship and in community.

Thank you Shelly for sharing yours and blessing others.