You’re Never Sorry You Knocked

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ Leave a comment

I love words.

My family loves words.

Sprinkle them with salt and pepper, eat them up, words.

When my niece told us as a little girl her favorite number was infinity, and then asked whats yours, we were simply dumbfounded.  Maybe we had a switched at birth crisis on our collective hands.  Who has a favorite number?  Make them all go away.  Smiling here.

Last weekend the soul-sister red-  lipped momma friends and I stopped in for a respite.  It was needed, this meal, this table time.  It was all about the fellowship.

We were so taken by what we stumbled upon — “Vapiano.”  This wonderful restaurant offered a place for relaxed time to catch up and just be.  Be friends.  Be mothers.  Be in fellowship.  The restaurant’s website explains.

Vapiano – an Italian proverb chi va piano va sano e va lontano.  This translates as:  people with a relaxed attitude live a long and healthy life.

So we savored our time and asked the waiter to explain what the name meant.  He explained the concept of relaxing and going slowly and how that leads to living a good life.

We savored.  We lingered.  And we learned that there is no literal translation in English for this name or this idea.  I called my sister, fluent in Italian and in three languages and she paused and thought and paused some more.  She got there eventually, to this notion of going slowly. There is no literal translation.

And lover of His word, I now want to know what He says about being relaxed.  So you guessed it I did a word search.  And I love love love the verses.  Okay, that’s another problem with English, right there.  The Greek has 5 words for love.  Whats a girl to do but just say love love love, there is only one word in English.  Anyway.

Psalm 116: 7,8  I said to myself, ” Relax and rest.
God has showered you with blessings.
Soul, you’ve been rescued from death;
Eye, you’ve been rescued from tears;
And you. Foot, were kept f rom stumbling.”

And Psalm 9:9,10 God’s a safe-house for the battered,
a sanctuary during bad times.
The moment you arrive, you relax;
you’re never sorry you knocked.

So we can relax and rest and be still in the confidence that He holds us all the while.

And I for one want to tell my eyes that they have been rescued from tears.  In confidence.  To stand on that word of His.

Words passed over pasta and pannini and wine and water and bread and we lingered. Our environment offered a relaxed mood.  The quiet, the still, the simple.  The mood was set at Vapiano for conversation and good simple food.  And it was very good.

So with all that is good in life, as mommas don’t we say I want more of that for my home, my family, my kiddos, my life.

Don’t we say what pieces and parts of that is translatable into my world.

God’s word and God’s presence provide a sanctuary.  And as the psalmist writes, “the moment you arrive, you relax.”

This morning I received an email.  I have an ongoing email conversation about a child and his French.  We discuss what’s going well, what needs work.  She offers kindness and grace.  And she ends her email Bon Courage.

Bon Courage as you relax and rest and go into your family time, your weekend, your life.

And I will talking to my Soul, my Eyes, and my feet about how they have been rescued and kept from stumbling as I stumble on into this sometimes messy always wonderful life of Grace.

Relaxing and resting in His arms. And in the arms of The Patient One too; he’s been gone a very long while.

You are never sorry you knocked.  And thanks for stopping in here too.  You bring me Joy.

Wynnegraceappears

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Rock, Paper, Scissors

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ Leave a comment

How many times have I driven by simple beauty? The shades of green, from apple to spring bud, spring green, teal, lime, asparagus alone are blinding in their beauty. Shamrock green, chartreuse, jungle green and lawn green.  God created, man named.

And how many times have I walked out into my daily life blind and alone.  Seeing but not seeing.  Struggling when He was there.  Relying on my own strength and not His alone.

How overlooked is the bent oak bough reaching and calling and wooing me to take notice of her age and her magesty.  Her dripping grey scarves of moss and fresh green buds.

Her canopy of strength and protection.

Joan Chittister writes in “Illuminated Life, “–” Dailiness, routine, sameness frees the heart to traffic in more important matters  Mindless work…. is not a burden when the mind is full and the heart like a laser beam finds its way to God. …. We run from place to place and thing to thing, we skirt from idea to idea and do not recognize God in the humdrum of the day to day.  We give our souls no rest and find them dying from spiritual starvation when we need them most.”

In my routine of passing by I had opportunity to capture her beauty and her presence. God the Creator created this bold, rough, boughed up, twisted and bent oak.  I could notice it and thank. And  I could hear God calling me, by name.  If I would quiet my spirit.  If I will still my flesh and body. If I bend my heart and my ear to hear Him whisper.  And He does.


And so often like the single sheep or grazing cow away from the flock or herd, I wither.  He calls me back in community and He calls me back through His people.  I am redirected.  I am sheltered.

I refresh and am restored by stories so many in small groups and teachings that God has called me in.  Stories of bold faith, of pain and redemption.  Stories that point to perserverance through long periods of prayer. Stories that tell of forgiveness and love and relying on him.  Each story an individual God tale of His calling His people to Himself.

And I can authentically offer my story too.  The real and raw telling of his moving and sustaining. Because it points to Him and His love and His Grace.  When the masks come off and the real and true are shown, it is then that He can touch me and a story of Him and of all His Grace, all His Mercy, all  His greatness can go out into dark.

In my daily dailiness I want to stay in the shelter of His word.

In my routine I want His hemming in.

And in my blessed times of community and  being built up I want to be filled to overflowing with encouragement of His goodness.  To go out to bless and encourage others.

Rock, paper, scissors.  It was a game that was simple.  So very simple.  And I can use this childrens game to steer my mind back to God in all matters.

Rock –That the hard places of my heart would soften by the touch of His hand

Paper — That I would be encouraged by rustling the pages of His word. And staying there.  Meditating there.

Scissors — That He would cut away the rot, the sin, the masks, the inauthentic.  Surgically remove with the sharpest tools and the steadiest hands, that which does not bring Him Glory.

In a tough parenting moment middle child asked me why if he was to take responsibility of himself and his academic struggles would I get involved.  And I said we need accountability.  We all need accountability partners and friends who lovingly redirect us back.  And the Holy Spirit will gently do that if I allow Him to.  Why would I tell my child I will follow up to hold you to account?  Because accountability comforts and provides a check. Because the Shephard goes looking for the one lost sheep and the Shephard’s crook lovingly draws us back.  Because  His sheep know and hear His voice.  And they respond.  Because away from the Shephard away from the herd, I wither and I will not survive.  Because His loving correction always brings blessing.

Rock, paper, scissors.  A device for me to direct my heart back to His.

Easter is coming.  Celebration is peeking around the corner.  Joy wants to leap and spin and twirl around.

But first.

Lord, hold me to account.  Show me my sin.  My fake.  My unreal.  My inauthenic.  Lord, thank you for new mercies and clean slates and fresh starts.  What amazing grace.

Rock, paper, scissors.

A Day

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 4 Comments

Do you know about the Mariana Trench.

Do you know of this amazing place, the deepest ocean trench in all the world.

How simply amazing, this unfathomable place of deep and dark and hardly even explored.  Not really known.  Not well.

I am amazed at the unknowing of such depths of place.

And I amazed too at what simply amazing things are yet to be explored by this explorer of beauty.

In my one zip code town.

Right now, right here in my world at the end of my nose there is much to see.

So very much to see designed and formed by the hands of Artist God.  Creator God.

And everything He has made allows me a glimpse into knowing Him deeper.  More intimately.  Because in the daily and in the simple and mundane ordinary life He presents who He is.  He breaks through to me if I am awake.  If I want to see His art.  And I do.

How can so much wait for discovery.  How much can one day hold out, extend.

I take my camera and go.  And like a surgeon carefully removing the sutures  after healing, I look back on one day and say really?  That was one day.

Oswald Chambers writes, “Simply obey Him with unrestrained joy.”  This is what I want to learn.  This is what I want to be taught.

Unrestrained joy.

In a day I am privileged to be called Quailla’s lady friend and to hear thank you a dozen times from mouthes of sixth grade girls, smiling over greasy pizza.  Thank you.  How many times can they remember to say it.  It is like a chorus of sweetness like tree frogs after rain.  I stopped counting there was so much gratitude, it rained down love.  It was only pizza.  And I ask them about “The Hunger Games” movie and in their sixth grade wisdom they say don’t read the book first see the movie first then read the book.  Oh, okay.  And one rips the cheese off and all the toppings eating crust first then the other.  And we each have our way.  Is it two slices or one and one was so hungry no breakfast, my friend, I worry.  And what unrestrained joy I feel in being called a lady and a friend in one mouthful.

And middle one fusses and argues and pressing in on the heart,  and later says words so sweet, so tender, so joyful. This blend, this mixture, this life.

A stranger works hard, so hard, to connect lost car keys to a teenage child, my own and she reports to me her joy.  How they travel from carwash to her hands because of stranger kindness. Momma guess what happened always goes to the heart.  With joy.  Because the momma heart wants to know it all.

A receptionist extends an extra measure of grace, working out scheduling fine points to help this mother and this child.  Helping with joy.  Helping with bowed up smile on face and eye glimmer when I say my thank you’s.  Sixth grade girls are good teachers of gratitude.

And an email from a childhood friend proclaims an encounter with the one who carried me in her, who birthed me in to this God home.  She says my momma is her hero now because of what she’s witnessed.  My heart, like surgeon’s hands, removes all parts and pieces of this day tenderly in the looking back.

The Mariana Trench.  The below the ocean depths, unfathomable place holds mystery.  Unexplored. But so does this dry above ground place.  This life.

What sweet and tender heart behind the window.  She asks me, prods me, walks me through a way to save on medicine.  It is so expensive, this tool for living.  This ADHD remedy for child of mine.  She cares.  She pauses.  She suggests.  She prompts.  And it is grace and love in an unexpected place.  And its gift.

What follows is gift too.  From the Artist, Creator. Yesterday my camera and I saw these things.  I see pinks on brown and shadows.  I see weeds of beauty.  And crosses in rubble and grey and lavendar and green mingled and mixed.  And you might see beauty too.  Enjoy scrolling down and resting where you like and skipping past where you choose.  Bless you each as you look out for life today.

Wishing unrestrained Joy.

Do You See The Gifts – Nestled and Tucked Away

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ Leave a comment

Nestled – to settle snugly and comfortably, to lie in a sheltered position, to draw or press close, lie or be situated in a half-hidden or obscured position.”
Nestle – To lie or be located in a sheltered spot, to be naturally or pleastantly situated. To house in or as if in a nest.

Do I see them there, the nestled gifts in my life?

Do I count and name and mark as packages of life and love from Him all those tucked away goodnesses?

Do I see myself in that nest of His creation, the secure, safe position of closesness to Him.  The place of resting close to Him.  Of being pleasantly housed in the safety and security of His love and shelter.

Will Trust walk along side and adjust my lense to see my beautifully gifted circumstances, no matter what they are and what they bring.

If I invite him.

Will Trust re-align my heart so that all is always viewed  through the lense of His Grace, pointing and leading toward His plan and His will.  Will Trust do that for me if I soften and release and bend to that place of surrender?

Will I permit my heart and my life to rest in His loving grip? And house my life, my childrens lives in the nest of His provision.

I can see them there, all of them,  most of them right under the bridge of my nose, lent to me, given to me and placed on the silver platter that is His provision.

They are wrapped in laughter, surrendered to sleep, marching defiantly through the door.

They are in need of love and forgiveness and patience.

They are in need of a clean shirt, pants pressed, longing to be clothed in properly fitting and styled garments.  Longing to be clothed in love, mercy, grace and forebearance.

They are belly-laughers, and belly-achers.  They are puffed with pride and laid low by humility.  Hurt and beaten-up.  Loved up and weary.  They are fatigued with fighting and striving.

And they are emptied out and proud, turning back to the heart of Him.

They are seeking and struggling, yearning and longing.  These gifts are hungry and battle-scared.

And like bird in nest, they squawk squeak, cry out beak open for nurishment, sustenance from sustainer- God, provider-God.  Gift-giver-God.

They are dressed in uniform, ready to run the race.  To wear the victory, wear the defeat.  Shed the tear, celebrate the victory with the cries of happy warrior.  Arms flailing, spinning in joy of moment of celebration and song.

And I can hear them.  Gifts all loud and happy.  Loud and mad.  Loud and pressing in with defining self, and growing up self, and finding self.  I hear the flesh asserting, demanding, crying out in hungry need.  For this and for that and for those things.

And I sense like soft, gentle cheek breezes, gifts under nose and gifts covered up.

Lost under shuffle of life and hurry.  Gifts under confetti sky of lunch with friends while fruit trees drop spent blossoms on noses like He  announces His presence, as if we doubted He was there.  Invitation goes out in Grace, Lord be in our conversation.  Lord be in our moment of fellowship.  He came, as He does.

Gift-giver.  Lover of respite.  Lover of community and friendship and linked hearts.

And I see them, these beautifully wrapped gifts,  long like unending jet stream streaks in blue sky, sky streamers, heaven ribboning. Long, conversations. Long, life ponderings and musings. With these soul sisters, red lipped momma friends. Deep down gut laughs.  Deep un-masking, authentic presentation of life journeys. Safely harbored, safely moored in moments of linked momma hearts.

Extending ear, lending heart.  Preceeding conversation with safely guarded sanctuary of trust and acceptance.

And I see these gifts in furrowed brow, angry tone, loving smile, extended ear, apologetic offerings, prayer on phone, sweet good byes, abrupt hello’s, news of pain, and news of joy, moments of correction, parent-speak, momma pleas, disappointment, second chances and messy life.

So my thank you notes, penned, spoken, whispered, muttered, under-my-breathe and out in the open are these words in part —- the gifts are precious, they are many, and I am blessed.

And each is kissed by lips of humility. Written by broken flesh, and unworthy hands.

Yet sealed in the shadows of the cross.

Thank you for all.

Thank you for each.

Grace-fully Gratefully Yours,

wynnegraceappears