Category: Grace

The Old and the Worn

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ Leave a comment

Banged up, worn down, worn out, broken, tarnished, ripped, faded, and graying.

Those things which bear the beauty marks of time. They grow better with age. They tell beautiful stories of their days. Speak to weathered storms, dust ups of life and bumps in the rocky road.

We are an impetuous people, seeking the shiny and new. Chopping down the old.

That amazing gardner in Luke 13:6-9. “The Gardner said, ‘Let’s give it another year. I’ll dig around it and fertilize….'” referring to the fig tree which wasn’t bearing fruit.

What amazing grace we are given.

What amazing love and care and patience are poured out on us.

“Hallelujah! Thank GOD! And why? Because he’s good, because his love lasts.” –Psalm 106

Am I offering that same forgiveness given me. Or am I chopping others down?

LOVE NEVER GIVES UP – 1 Corinthians 13:4

Sock Monkeys and Beaver Dams

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 2 Comments

She slips the hot pink sock monkey in her bookbag, takes it to school, and sleeps with it last night. At sixteen gestures of love from Mother to daughter can still hold places in the heart. A Valentine Love gift. The giver didn’t know the weight of the gift. Couldn’t imagine what the transaction would mean.

And we giggle when we squeeze it together and the monkey says silly one-liners. Are we fifty two and sixteen? Feels like childhood, true early childhood revisited. And its off to high school, out of the comfort of home, into the world which can bear down and crush the spirit. Where young boys can hurt young girls with words and actions.

My phone has a message waiting…. waiting. Its been so very long since I’ve heard this voice. It feels like Grace to have a break through on this day. It is Grace. My breathe is taken away. I pause in the receiving. As much as this transaction means to my heart, these words delivering love, I rest at the place of why is this so very rare. Why do words come from that end so blue moonish.

Why are the pronouncements of love so infrequent? If today feels right, why not daily or weekly?

Why does one who is so intimately a part of send sweet words of encouragement and love so occassionally?

What blocks, and dams up a natural flow from the source to the rivers? What logs or rubbish keep the waters from flowing downstream where they refresh and nourish and bless the life below? What clogs and impedes the flow of life giving expression out and onward to a place of blessing? What has built up like a beavers dam causing a blocking of the natural delivery system that could exist, should exit?

“And by and by Christopher Robin came to an end of things, and he was silent, and he sat there,
looking out over the world, just wishing it wouldn’t stop” — Winnie the Pooh

The gift was grace, the gift was love and I will always love the giver. Because the clog in the flow may remain. I will always love the giver.

C.S. Lewis write: “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung out and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements;lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless– it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”

Can I pick the log out of my eye, the fluff out of my ear, and the rubbish out of my stream to let frequent, extravagant love flow from me.

What overflowing, life-giving, affirmative love can I pour out in a note, a call, a spoken word, a message on a phone waiting…. waiting.

Love “puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end.” – 1 Corinthians 13:7

“Love never dies” – 1 Corinthians 13:8

What fully alive, fully present, fully overflowing hot pink sock monkey moments are there waiting to be lived, in love?

wynnegraceappears