Category: Grace

For Better, For Worse, Till Death

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 9 Comments

Today is 5 minute Friday at Lisa-Jo’s where we write for five minutes on a one word prompt; and today it is on risk. Challenged. Scared. Excited. I will write for five minutes and trust. Thank you for being here today. It is a privilege to have you on this journey. (Linking with Lisa-Jo at Lisa Jo Baker dot com) GO

Risk- For Better, For Worse, Till Death

Everyday is a new start. His Mercies define the new. The beginnings begin anew. We love fresh, we love new. And we start our “I do’s” all over again. Every morning of everyday.

We love, broken. We love hurt. We love tired. We love flat out. And extravagantly. With it all on the line.

And when He leaves for a season, only to come back months later, we start over again with Hope, and Love, and forgiveness.

And there they are again. The new Mercies of His. They are there.

Walking beside Trust.

And when we say I do, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, till death, we risk.

We risk a life of two, merged as one. Invested. Investing. Placing the needs, desires and wants of the individual, of the one behind those of the other.

Because Love invests and Love risks.

It risks everything.

And gains the whole world and a life of love.

Love is risky business, but oh the glorious, indescribable, unfathomable reward.

STOP

Moving At A Snails Pace (Photo Blogging)

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 5 Comments

Oh the best laid plans. 

To go one way and then you find yourself heading another way entirely.

Spontaneously slow walking and talking, at a snail’s pace really.

Uncovering the unexpected. And stopping. Often. 

To ponder on the stumbled on wonder.

To view the world with a shift in your life lense. The one through which you view things in the daily ordinary.

But the summertime lense can bring a cool green change in perspective.

Cut flowers from the yard, petals on the path, shadows through the gate they lay down and ask to be stumbled upon.

When you find yourself moving at a snail’s pace. Because you walk in the shadow of a generation before. And you know you have this one glorious day.

And the gift comes in taking the path marked by another one. Whose pace is not your own.

And isn’t that what love does? It shifts gears and changes pace and waits on others.

It is patient and it is kind. And I think sometimes it moves slow and steady, at a snail’s pace. And the only rushing sound is that of the waterfall. I am learning to love like this. Slow and patient. Unrushed.

But I am slow at learning to love, like this. And oh it is so slow and hard, this new kind of love.

But that Joy comes in the unrushed dog days of summer in the shadow of another generation is a good lesson to learn. Summer teaches with her slow warm hand. She turns the head and opens the heart to learn anew.And shows  in the  slow light of  a June day how to love to the beat of another’s pace and stride. To love the other’s ways. To bend down in love to another’s needs.

Even if I learn it at a slow snail’s pace, it is that I learn it at all, in the days remaining that is important. 

And the light creeps through and shines like the Hope that I have to learn it well and to learn it  for good. The good that is lasting and the good that is slow
and patient and kind.

We are three generations watching in love at how we care for and love another. Three women with a pace and stride unlike the other’s, learning to bend in love. Slow loving the other.

Slowing down for love on these dog days of summer. 

 

Linking with Ann today at A Holy Experience dot com

When The Past, The Present and The Future Collide

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 4 Comments

It is all right there. In one place at one time.

We go there.

To 1908 and 1944 in old photographs, sepia with pink, black and white, more sepia.

And read the beautiful cursive notes, unlike today’s. Marked by an unknown family member. Written in connective lettering now worn, now requiring translation. Unknown penmanship, but a message that is familiar. Words about this place.

Room by room scribblings of her thoughts remark on ownership, “my room.” A photograph tells of pride of place and of the outer beauty, rhododendron are a symbol of early summer.

They are the great equalizer between generations. A flower. A tree. A beacon. A landmark pointing to time and place.

The past, the present, and the future are on a collision course right here, right now. And I stand in the middle of the bitter sweet swirling storm of the three sources of power.

We read the written and attempt to decipher the unwritten. The author who penned the copious thoughtful notes. The photographs record sweet detail of the day.

And later we go to shop in town. The questions that the mind poses when memory blurs the lines. And questions repeat and stories are retold.

And she forgets the recent but remembers the past. And the neighbor’s name too.

I walk with my camera to record the present that looks amazingly like the past. The pictures we have reviewed over the breakfast table for the first half of the century. She too took photographs of the rhododendron and of the house.

My camera and my eye are drawn to similar beauty. Similar landmarks of this place.

And the spring which bears my name carries cool water from the earth delivering it out and down to cool generation after generation, hot from the summer treks up the mountain she calls home.

They come with jugs from far away. I know because she tells me time and time again. The memory, the short term one, is struggling so.

These defining moments of age and disease, they may define me. And I prepare in my heart for this.

Just as generations have shared the spring, the house, and the rhododendron, I may share in this inability over time to remember the beauty and the detail. And the words and phrases.

But today….

Today I photograph. And I load up with as much good and beauty as I can.

I dig deep for patience to hear the repetition of the familiar of story over and over and over again.

But isn’t that what we do with those stories and memories we love.

We tell them over to generation after generation.

And what do we do with those things that may come our way from past generations. And when generations before had memory loss in life so you may too. But you just don’t know. But you are certain that He loves you so and He has a plan.

And that anything that comes your way, any pieces and parts of life that start to tear and break away from the current normal –you can face and you can bear. You will meet and face it all head on. Forgetting the neighbors name and the rest. And you will be brave, in Him. And you will borrow Hope from Him.

Because of His Grace and His Love and His Mercy, it all becomes more than OK. It becomes, we can do this melange of life, this mix of past and present and future together.

We can dance through and around and above all that comes our way in the arms of The One Who Made Me.

And like the spring which flows from the rocks which bears my name from generation to generation, always flowing fresh and life-giving, so He pours out and into us when all collides and His Hope springs eternal.

And the future, mixed with the past, mixed with the present is all glorious because of Him.

Simply counting gifts with Ann at A Holy Experience dot com.

Gifts for the counting…
*This mountain home built by my family in 1908
*Time with my daughter and her “old” friend…hearing them laugh and giggle on the long drive up. Learning from them how to laugh at the simple things.
*Father’s day with my father
*Time with my mother talking about the past and reviewing old family photographs. A joy. A treasure
*Writing a bucket list for our time in the Blue Ridge Mountains so that we make memories and savor our time here.
*Hearing a stream flowing constantly outside of my bedroom window here. One of my favorite things in all the world is a stream flowing and the sound it makes bumping over the rocks.
*The rain on the roof last night and cool mountain air.
*Plans to pick wild raspberries with The Patient One and go to Mount Mitchell this weekend
*8 lab puppies who are growing and who all have good homes.
*Time with my man/child just enjoying each other and doing projects around the house. More and more it is all about the simple.

Dreamy Days Of Summer

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 14 Comments

I want to think again of dangerous and noble things, I want to be light and frolicsome. I want to be improbable and beautiful and afraid of nothing as though I had wings.

by Mary Oliver

Friends, wishing for you a place to sit and dream to ponder and pray, to thank and reflect.
And wishing, too, carved out time to place your heart at His feet, thanking him for Fathers. Our Father who art in Heaven….we praise you. And our earthly fathers, we love and respect you.

Happy Dreaming. Hoping you discover a lush green space in which to dream.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.–Phillippians 4:8

Linking today with Sandra Heska King for Still Saturdays