Silence – No Words

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ Leave a comment

May you experience the power of a touch, a glance, a silent prayer. May you embrace the quiet, enter into the praises in the music, hear anew the wind blow through and touch your face. May the sirens, screams, loud cries of the world fall silent on your soul as you seek His face, His charachter and His grace, in the beautiful silence.

Hoping wordless moments ride on wings like eagles, and lift you up into the Holy places for intimate moments of worship, prayer, and praise to God the Father.

Wishing you Silence on this Sabbath, a transforming and restorative pause from the world, and a regenerative break from the words.

Peace of our Lord,

Elizabeth



Joining Deidra’s wonderful Sunday Community and The Nester for the 31 Days Series.

This is Day 14. You can read the collective here.

Please feel free to leave a comment, but in the spirit of Silence-No Words, you may choose to simply embrace the quiet and leave your sweet quiet presence instead. Enjoy the tranquil, enjoy the quiet.

Slow, Slower, Slowest

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 11 Comments

It may have started in nursery school with that game.

Do you remember the one when the music stopped playing you took a seat and if you

were slow you were out.

You had nowhere to sit.

It may have started with races and racing on the playground.

The fast were picked, the slow left out.

It may not matter where it began because it seeped deep into our every fiber.

And it is.

We race, hurry, scurry, fly by, rush, whirling dervish our way down through our days.

And we miss out on the small.

I hear a collective cry and sigh these days.

From women and moms and wives and mothers.

A cry of the heart.

To rest from the weary of the rush.

A cry of the soul to slow the pace.

And a cry of the eyes of the heart to see it all, record and mark.

Save and savor, this life, these days.

And I seek to find a way to slow.

And it looks a lot like poetry to me.

The fewer the simpler the spaces for breathing.

The shorter.

A place for the eyes and mind to meander down line, weaving along slowly

The words, the life, the road.

I long to be more the tortoise in the story now.

I was the hare, it sounds like harried to me now.

And missing the chair in child’s game seems sweet

Sitting cross-legged on the floor down low,

Slowly I embrace that too.

And of all the slow I now know

Makes us winners

almost every time

Slow to speak and quick to listen, love

 guard the tongue

Slowly slowly this I know,

Release the tongue, the words, the thought

Slowly slowly this I know.

Row row row your boat gently, merrily, slowly,

See the child’s play in the day

With eyes wide open

slow, slower, slowest.

See you at the finish line

Last one there wins.


Today is Day 13 in the series. I am joining others at The Nester. To read the collective click here or go to the page link entitled 31 Days on my home page.

Writing in community with Sandra Heska King

And now its time for your words. I long to hear from you. Jump in and join the conversation. There is more JOY when you speak too. Leave a Comment at the top of the page is waiting for your words. Click, write, speak, join this community. You may wish to subscribe and follow all the posts here.

Letting Go Of Worry

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 6 Comments

We had a meeting recently. One of many. Too many to count. And we discussed the problem on the table. The one of worry.

I shared of how it comes in the night sometimes. And  that capturing the thoughts is harder than putting active preschool twin boys to bed on time. They don’t want to settle down and just go to sleep. Worry is a wild toddler running through the aisles of Walmart.

Its like picking up the headphones at the UN to listen in and you pick up the wrong ones. The words keep coming, you wrestle, but cannot take them to the mat. The thoughts filled with worry. You cannot glean understanding and crack the code to the gnawing  nagging gibberish.

Three a.m. is not a good time to translate worry into a cogent plan, wrapping understanding around a problem.

And at the meeting I apologized to them, the Trinity. They were there, are there. Lovingly listening. Listening in love. I pour out my confession of my I know we’ve been through this before.

This letting go of worry.

And there is nothing worse and its not of Him. And yes we often go back to Release It To Me 101.

And how in this world do you solve a problem at three a.m. or any time of day or night without this highly esteemed omnipotent One who is available to love you through the thick fog of worry.

All you long to do is find the cold side of the pillow and snuggle like a pea in the pod of fluffy white down comforter and crisp clean sheets but worry runs roughshod over you like raging bulls.

Letting go of worry means capturing the thoughts and ushering them out of the mind’s door, saying nice try you wile ones, you are out of here.

I have confidence in Him.

You have no place in this life abundant, life transforming, life renewing. Life set free.

So tomorrow night, when the sweet black-blue indigo skies turn jet- black as coal. The night noises will come out to lullaby this girl to sleep with  a chorus of cicadas and crickets, hum of sleepy slumber night

And tomorrow night, the  cool side of the pillow  will hold the sleepy head and worry will be released in a pre-bedtime moment.

She’ll capture and release the foggy cloud of worry and let it go like fireflies in the night.

Good night my Day, you were good to me. Hello my Night, I am glad you are here.

Sleep tight, good night, don’t let the bed bugs bite.

And The Lover of Her Soul ushers her off into the land of wink-n-blink-n-and-nod.

And worry is no more.

This is Day 12. 

Click on the Tab on the homepage entitled 31 Days to journey through this series, the collective.  Or  simply click here. I am joining The Nester for the month of October and Shelly Miller at Redemption’s Beauty today for her series entitled Letting Go.

Joining Beholding Glory dot com on this Friday too.

The Simple

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 2 Comments

When Hurt and Pain and Death play hopscotch on your very life road,

The heart circles all pumping blood flow back to the vital. To the very critical need.

The life blood, crimson seeks to triage the need and it deems it is the need to see the simple.

Simply see the joy in the simplest. Of gifts, of life.

To circle back and gather round, all the heart beats round the life givers. Life enhancers.

A word, The Word, bread, The bread. Feasting on the written, feasting on the life bread. Feasting on His gifts.

A  Feast is pumpkin bread grilled cheese, say grace around the simple. Feasting senses on the just enough. Not more. Satisfied by simple.

All bells and whistles, accoutrement and clutter cast off for the bare boned simple.

Allowing simple to sing her song of lovely, sing her song of living. She leads us to her simple stream, a trickle flow enough.

Return of beet red male bird at the feeder, he who fights with self on glass. He beautiful. He a one man performance teetering eating seed. Act One, a simple show on window.

Art, the paint. Art, the song. Art, the page. Art, the wiper of the dusty dirty off the soiled  soul places. Art, the interchange of actors in the play of living.

Art, life’s extravagant simple embellishment. Art, worship. Art, creative man gifts back to Creator God. Simply seeing art in all.

And love in all its four greek meaning forms, the greatest though of these simply love.

He serves in small trips to the market, long trips eight hours round trip to provide for us.She speaks simple I love you. He calls, he smiles, he thanks.

All wrapped up in beautiful family love. Love, simple poetry.

And simple takes the chalk out of the hand of that hopscotch threesome on the life-road,

Writes instead we love here, love lives here, cursive on the black asphalt.

So all who drive, see simply, love.

See simple living, savoring of the gifts. Breathing deep the fullness, hope-filled breathes.

Simple  signs her name on the last line of the day, it is beautiful, isimply beautiful.

An alleluia chorus on an amen day.

This is Day 11. I am joining 31 Dayers at The Nester’s place for this series. 

And I am linking with Michelle.