When Tragedy Shifts Perspective–Looking Through A Lense Of Love

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 2 Comments

(Today I am linking up with some other bloggers over at Lisa Jo’s The Gypsy Mama. This is a five-minute writing fun excercise where you write for five minutes without editing, just write based on a prompt.  Today’s prompt word is “opportunity”.  This is my first time so we’ll see what flat out writing for five minutes will look like on a page.  Hope its not a big train wreck of a mess.}

Would you consider taking this opportunity to visit my writing facebook page.  And I would love for you to like it, but only if you really like to.  I think you may find a morsel or two of good stuff coming up soon. Its growing like a little tomato plant getting lots of love, fertilizer and tlc. Thanks. And I will take this opportunity to thank you for being right here.

WhenTragedy Shifts Perspective-Looking Through A Lense of Love

The fresh-faced college girls stay in touch after the reunion. And when one hurts there is a dutiful one in the group who is gifted in telling so Empathy and Love can sit beside.

So the hearts of the once perky young carefrees who are now mommas can now know  what life is bringing to bear on this group of women, once locked at the hip by promise and furture, bright opportunity caling out loud.

In the line of the email as it pops up in Gmail I see tragic screaming like a mean siren on red engine fire truck, screaming and honking something is bad wrong. Something deeply painful is out there in the lines of the electronic message.

And later my wise momma friend who loves five deeply and speaks wisdom beyond her years tries to understand right beside me though she is a days car ride away.

She tells how she just tells hers everyday how much she loves them and how wonderful they are.  More wisdom, a deep black column like a monument to Hope and Love stand on the page of the Facebook Message site. It is tall and bold, processing pain looking for understanding.

And all I hear is go look for opportunity to love today.  Go seek ways to tell love anew, to affirm fresh, to spend time being and loving.  Be creative in looking for those small opportunities to just be with your child and tell him you love him as he is, where he is.  This sounds like how Jesus loves me, to me.

But I had to hear tragedy, and loss and hear of a broken beyond imaginable heart of a momma losing her son to send me running, no chasing, no sprinting breathlessly after opportunity today.

{I believe I may have gone over five minutes.  Grace needed here. Grace appreciated here.}

Linking up with  Beholding Glory today for the first time too for Faith Filled Friday. A Day of Firsts.

A Bubble Bursts In Brooklyn

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ Leave a comment

I think there is a child in Brooklyn that is waiting to teach me how to blow bubbles and to make it art and to point others to Jesus through art, bubbles and a giant yellow school bus.  Did I mention that I do not like big yellow school buses.  Kinda like I do not like green eggs and ham.  Not at all.  Not any way.  Not here or there or anywhere.  But the Great Art Bus Adventure goes on.  I know a tree grows in Brooklyn but so does a boy who blows bubbles reallly really well and needs Jesus. wishing grace…..wynnegraceappears for Brooklyn and soon in Brooklyn from Brooklyn.

Eyes Wide Open- Living A Good Story

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 4 Comments

I am going over to Prodigal Magazine to link up with a writing project entitled “What Does It Mean To Live A Good Story”? But I am not ready to write this piece. Not quite yet. Honestly, its a bit scary.

So this is where I get brave and think with my fingers.  This is where I process and ponder and ask for His grace to be authentic and brave.  And real. And encouraging.

And this is the one where I say that isn’t the most important part of living a good story being awake, fully alive, real and honest.

Isn’t being eyes wide open a really good place to start.  Being present and aware and connected to all of those things around us, around me, anchors  the heart in the lines and paragraphs, in each and every word even, of our good story.

If I fall asleep on the pages or doze off mid-sentence, then I am sadly not present.

There are the parts that are dog-eared.  You know the ones that are marked with brilliant yellow highlighter and turned down page because they are special.  We want to go back there and stay.

But what about the parts which are riddled with conflict, or pain, or sadness.  What about the chapters that are just plain difficult to live once, much less re-live a second time.

Oh but these are the part where the main character is  afraid, very afraid.  This is where fear and doubt creep in. And she tries hard to be brave. These are the parts of the story where we hide our eyes and look away.  We hold our breath and glance away or get out the kleenex.

These are the parts where the husband leaves for a season, and she doesn’t know when and if he’ll return to the home.  And with the brave and the pain come healing and change. And transformation grows out of the dark, wet soil, stained with tears.

The important parts  hold uncertainy. The critical life-altering chapters bear  a fork-in-the-road, a turn or a twist in the life direction.

This is the part of the story where the main charachter digs down deep, cries out for God and is shaped and molded, held and loved and loved and loved some more.

Every good story has Hope and a longing after love in the center. A good story has suspense and uncertainy of the outcome.

There are parts where the heart longs so deeply after the love of another. But waiting is often the most important part.  Without waiting and preparing we would miss so much. The waiting through, the working through, the being shaped in the middle, this IS the story.  This is at the heart of the good story. This is the part we sink our teeth into, it the substance. We savor the sweet and the bitter of the tears and the joy. We taste it all and it is good.

With out waiting and wondering and Hoping there would be a beginning and an end, but what about the messy middle.  Oh, these are the parts where the story gets good.  These are the meaty parts with heart and soul and courage. This is where we linger.  This is where we live.  This is where change happens.  This is the formative part of the story for our main character.

I know an important chapter of a very good story where a mother waited and waited for a baby to love.  To join a little family that had love to wrap around another. A good story  ripens and with the ripening and preparation for birthing the story, the characters are shaped in unimaginable ways.

Our life stories look so different when we glance back and study them from where we are TODAY.  But the only way to live, is to go forward. To live forward. One day at a time. To  go forward with honesty.  Go forward with authenticity.  Go forward through the closed door, the brick wall, the muck and the mire with boldness and faith. And a very brave heart. Open for all that He has for us.

We often would not write nor script what we have lived.  But embracing each word, line, verse and chapter as learning and as our own, makes our story a good one.  Because it is ours. Because it is good since it is ours.

Every good story has an ending.  I don’t know one that doesn’t end whether I am ready for the ending or not.

That is why the messy in the middle, the meat of the center, the rarest, rawest parts are so important.  They are the good story.  They are the good parts.

This is where the bruising comes, the banged up knee and the bloody noses of life. This is where the bankruptcy is declared, and infertility deals uncertainty, and kids change schools, and parents get sick, and friends face tragedy, and loved ones are lost.  And you know all this.  You have your story too.

But a good story well lived takes all the pages between two covers and braced by one spine, and seeks to wrap it all in Grace and all in a thankful heart.

And say this is mine.  This is my story.  And tomorrow will bring joy and surprise and a chance to do a bit of editing and changing of decisions and perspective.

I am not quiet ready to write my piece for Prodigal Magazine.  But I am close. And I am getting braver.  And I am preparing with eyes wide open. But  for today,I have a story to go live.  And for that I am very grateful.

How about you.  You can tell your story too. You can go over there or you can leave me a comment about living a good story.

Thank you for your Grace, here, today.

wishing you His Grace….

wynnegraceappears

The Great Art Bus Adventure

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 2 Comments

Easter is a time of beginnings.

This story starts at Easter.

It starts amid the Peeps, all neon and squishy, and amid the big hats and the big deep belly laughs of community.

There were baskets with artificial turf and dyed boiled eggs displayed with traditional love and care.  Boats bobbling on the water, pitching and diving while tied safely to the dock. Boats filled withhappy stationery passengers on board because the seas were mean that day, not welcoming that day.  But it didn’t matter. It never matters when you have each other.

We just wanted to talk. And tell our stories. And dig down into the inner parts of each other to hear the stories. And to soak in Easter rays aimed right at our faces, traveling from the Heavens to warm us up and toast our souls.

I met Margaret right smack in the middle of Easter.  Seeds were planted. She would leave for Uganda the next morning early.  But for the moment she was anchored by that smile of hers to Southern soil. And tethered to me by a passion for much that reaches out in that Alabama way and lights on your soul like a Monarch mid-flight.

She had a story to tell.  I listened.  God planted Easter seeds as we wrapped the words in conversation under a black night sky right beside a lapping Jeremy Creek.

Uganda called her to come see, serve, and invited her to bring her contagious smile with her. Passion could come along too.

I had my family, school days, Prom nights, my writing, and my dailiness as a momma and wife to live out.

A Southern Springtime blossomed and gave birth to the verge of summer and email arrives.

We don’t know what that next thing is.

We can’t know what He has for us in the day after and the day after thats.

When the in-box invites and its your daughter not you. You are filled with excitement and possibility.

There was a donor, there is a bus, there is a ministry. Can she come along on the road trip with us.

New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Raleigh, and then home is the route this key piece of an art ministry must take. A big yellow school bus needs to come home to Charleston where she will serve and be used in an outreach for the arts. With Christ squarely in the middle.

So like all good stories that have a beginning, middle and ending this is the middle.

Because after en email came a conversation followed by a phone call. And an invitation comes. And I am invited. I would write of the journey. I would write of the adventure. Of the right after the beginning of this story, because much has proceeded the story to this point. There has been dreaming and planning and praying. There has been vision and passion and hearts have donated.

So my middle is this part. This should I go along and re-route my life plan.

And do I take a daughter along who at 16 is caught in a place of indecision. She has my disease. It is contagious. This when you need to think about it seeps all in your cracks and crevices.

And I too have known this far too many times.

But I want to be bold and brave and obedient.

And what post 50 year old housewife and mother who by choice stays home with her kids, with joy, doesn’t want to hop on a plane then hop on a bus and go to Brooklyn to blow bubbles in the park.

What lover of words doesn’t want to write a blog about an adventure down the Eatern Seaboard to deliver the one with the staring role in a new ministry, Big Yellow School Bus.

There will be a videographer and Margaret, sweet Margaret. And there will be a sister. And there may be my child. And there may be me.

So this is my Big Art Bus Adventure story, stuck right in the middle. This is a story with possibility, suspense and daring. The birth of a new ministry calls for celebration, like that of a new born child. One where people come, and Art plays her part, and stories are told. Where paint and color shout joy and creativity. And point to The Creator and all that is beautiful and intricate in His world. All that is visual and designed in beauty and in love for us.

My world is little black words on blank white pages. Oh, but these painters and artists who tell their stories with color and a medium which capture the orbs behind the lids, the windows to the soul and cause the eyes of the soul to see the world anew—these artists have a gift that wows, and stimulates the senses with technicolor love.

It is bold, it is bright, it is love. And in creating they point to The Artist of all of Creation, with celebration, and praise, and a telling of the story.

So I am in the middle of a story and it is a really good place to be. Because there is an ending to be written and there is more of a story to be told. And there is a God who delights in His children.

I may in fact need to not go. I may go. I may go with my child. My child may go without me.

I am turning the page and trusting what my part in this Big Adventue will be.

No matter how it ends, I am glad that I met Margaret, and that I can connect with her Art Ministry and ride the coattails of her passion for Jesus, for Art, and for People.

Not the end.

I am joining Jennifer today over at her beautiful blog Getting Down With Jesus (you will understand her blog name when you go here).