Tag: Grace

Day 19 – Peace In A Sea of Change

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 10 Comments

Today is Day 19.

{Writer’s Prologue – Strangely my spirit grieves the two/third’s way through, my math mind is icky, or so, I find myself in this Series. It has brought so much richness and fullness and I release to God the Day 32 which is to say the first day without the Series guiding and shaping.  And your eyes and heart here provide me a richness of community. If you would like to receive posts via email click here. The future is full of endless possibility and words beyond this series. Thanks for being a Pilgrim with me. ]

There is what is called the “cushion of the sea.” Down beneath the surface…there is a part of the sea that is never stirred. The peace of God is that eternal calm which, like the cushion of the sea, lies far too deep down to be reached by any external trouble or disturbance…
Dr. A.T. Pierson

Do you know this place where change looms all around. And it feels like sediment stirred up from ocean’s floor. You seek the sieve to filter what of it is good. Perhaps its all. Good. From the God of Good.

Can you hear the seas roar loud like Lion’s roar, a strong bold change.

We sit for long sessions now, The Patient One and I. And there is so much for us it takes my breath away. So much for us to discuss and navigate through. This ship, our lives.

Our church is experiencing deep and wide and profound change. We may make one too as it makes its, change. I walk around with a grievous spirit. And fear that I will weep on Sunday as I serve communion at the rail. I look in eyes that experience a ripping kind of change. Division and confusion. We vote on change.

In our church in days, in our country in days.

And colleges will vote on whether my child comes to them or not. Or maybe its a sweeping decision of a committee of one at these institutions.

But God knows. And he loves. And we desperately seek His will in a sea of change.

For us it may involve boxes and change of address forms, but it may not. That is the way of releasing all to Him. That is the way of abandoning plans while seeking His.

There may be changes in schools and there is a deep desire to seek this path He has for the middle one, the one who looks at schools for art and schools based on Military dictums or simply coming out into the world.

It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life. Celebrate God all day, every day. I mean revel in Him.

The Message, Philippians 4:4-7

And maybe peace in a sea of change is handing him the oars, the paddle, the motor, any steering mechanism on board and drifting.

Drifting on the swells of trust into His arms.

And praying for Him to guide and steer and love us.

Into oceans of change. While we release and abandon our compasses, our course.

He the Map Holder. We fall into His arms.

And I weep.

My ocean is one of tears. May they be salted with sweet and savory knowing that His ways roar with excellence and perfection.

And that the cross is squarely in our cross-hairs, our plumb line His horizon.

{Writer’s postscipt- Thankful for a community of tear-catchers. You know who you are}

To read the collective click here. Today is Day 19. I weep. Todays word is Change.

Linking this post with my friend, Shelly at Redemption’s Beauty. She is writing for 31 Days. Can you hear the release in the air.

We’ve Switched Places

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 21 Comments

What would you do? What would you say to an assignment from Compassion International to write. After you had stepped up to serve.

Would you say “No”. Would you say “not now.” Would you say “wait.”

I can’t not write. And if you speak, or teach, or sing, or fundraise, or rally, or inspire or move out, or impassion others. Go do that. Go do that passion that burns deep. Go use the gift. Go do the thing that keeps you up and stirs your heart.

Now would be a good time to push delete, now would be a good time to file away, these words, or unsubscribe to this blog. Now may be a good time not to read. If you are weary of Compassion. I am looking away because I will miss you if you leave.

Oh good you came back. Or you stayed. But you are here. I see you there and I am grateful.

I can’t not write this Part 2 in my final series. (If you missed Part  1, here is the link.) But you friend don’t have to read. The following is a letter to my sponsored Compassion child. I have traded places with my child, Erlita. This is the one in which I have switched places  and I am now living in Peru, adjusting to the shock, adjusting to life in poverty. Thank you for grace. Thank you for sharing this on your facebook pages and on twitter. Thank you for emailing to others. If you choose to cast a net of words for change in the lives of empoverished children, you might share these words.May God bless my words, may God be glorified.

Dear Erlita,

Your country is so very beautiful and I am overjoyed to be here in your home. Erlita, I think of you, sweet child in my home with my family. I know they love you and I know they are showing you all the places they love. Do you love the ocean, just a short walk from our home, as much as they. Did you see the funny shorebirds running around in the frenzied pace, we laugh and giggle at them and those pelicans. Erlita, they are big and graceful. God designed their pouch with perfection to scoop up the fish. He is an amazing creator. And you will have frozen yogurt and pizza and walks with our silly trio of dogs.

Sweet precious one, my heart dances at the thought of you there. You and my daughter will play volleyball, the game you love so much. Two girls, giggling and laughing, knowing no wall of words, she’ll teach you her Southern English and you
will teach her your beautiful Peruvian Spanish.

And love is the language of girl friends.
Love is the great language that bridges the gap of culture.

Erlita, they will love you well. And you will teach them much.

And I am here in your beautiful Peru. You are surrounded by the beauty of the God created. When I see the mountains and the moon out your window I dream of you, Erlita and your nights here before we switched. And I feel where you were cold. And I smell where you smelled fear. And I hear where you heard crying. And I shiver where you once shivered when the wind whipped and the hearts cried. I see the worn and the torn and places ragged.And the worn out hope and worn down pride. 

I see the sacrifice of parents who choose hunger so a child can eat, in love, out of love, for love. I share your longing, now that I am here, in a way I couldn’t before I came. My empathy, sheer thin like your bedsheets, before, but now. But now my empathy and compassion compounded in the walking here, walking out your life, where you did, child. Where you do child.

You share your home, your bed and I share mine. So I must share my honest heart.  I wish I had come sooner. And I wish I had sponsored sooner. And I wish that I had written you sooner, sent encouragement in a letter sooner. Known your birthday so I could celebrate your life with you sooner.

And as you are in my home and I am in yours, there is no room for things left unsaid, in our world now. That we share family and home.

So I say, forgive me Erlita. Forgive me for not coming sooner. For missing  the joy of knowing you, sooner. For not bending my heart and stretching my abundance, my gracious plenty into the places of your need, your empty your longing, sooner. For living like you weren’t in want and need. For simply doing nothing.

Please forgive me for not extending my more than enough, with unfurled hands to you, sooner…sooner..so much sooner.

Thank you for your forgiveness and your love. Embrace my family as I embrace yours. We are sisters in Christ Jesus and my gratitude for you in
my life grows and grows, as does my heart. Because of Jesus. Because of His Grace. You have taught me more about generosity and giving and compassion than you will ever know.

I love you, Erlita. Be warm and safe and loved and cared for, though you have my family now and not your own. And every night when I see the moon we share, I thank God for you.

Love your sister in Christ,

Elizabeth

P.S. Ask Spencer to read you our favorite books, the ones we read when she was your age. And please take them back to your beautiful Peru and start a lending library for your community. We love words and we love you. Feast your heart on God’s word. Its the richest, Erlita. It will fill you up to overflowing, sweet girl.

Linking with Jennifer, Duane, Ann, Emily,Mary Beth and Michelle


Story: Remembering, Praying, Healing

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 17 Comments

“Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the intrument as one goes on.” Samuel Butler from Chapter 10 “The Life of a Storyteller” from Annette Simmons “The Story Factor.”

She cuts hair and her words cut my heart.  And I listen to the story. Someone has released a colony of bees in my insides, the buzz and sting compete with the sweet honey making in one stirring moment.

I hear the happy. But I process the other.

There is a man who has walked this earth for close to a half of a century. He just connected with his birthmother. Worlds and emotions collide. And the telling is a beautiful mix of God and man and life and living.

In a flash of living a man with a mother now has two.

Hearts and life and souls and God are on a course moving foward and the lines of grace and redemption criss cross like the tracks of zipper teeth.

A forward moving narrative.

She cuts my hair. Her words cut my heart. Because I have a child with a birth mother. And so I release the possibilities of circumstance and discovery in his life. She cuts my hair and the story cuts deep my momma heart.

And the story is being written.

There are chapters and pages and lines with hurt, in my own. Wet smears the line of the ink still wet. Dries in a blur. But dries nonetheless. And the pages stay in. There is no ripping or removal. It all stays in.

The beautiful bound spine can contain both and.

Remember,  praying, while healing.

And the violin solo, played in public only gets more beautiful with each note, with grace like resin on the squeeky bow.  With grace like resin smoothing the out of tune and the parts that sound off key, seeming beautiful in the learning of the living. Seeming beautiful in the practice done on the life stage. There is no rehearsal.

And yesterday’s story and today’s story are bound in guilded gold, saved and savored, while remembering, praying and healing.

The same salt that enhances flavor and adds to, can rub in a wound, or help make an icy road passable. Or bring a non-believer toward a Jesus Follower questionning the beautiful, questionning the story, seeking to know more.

Or in excess make us thirsty, with a thirst that feels unquenchable in the longing for wet to hit the parched, the dry, the brittle.

Releasing the thoughts of my adoptive son seeking his birth mother in a one day page of his story, and hoping that when that chapter is written on our pages, we will pray, while remembering, pray while healing, and pray in our  forward living.

And God,  tosses mercy, like coins in the velvet-lined violin case of the sidewalk city  soloist. His gentle affirmation, His constant love. He listens in love. And finds the story of the soloist, beautiful. And sings the chorus of grace.

Amazing, how sweet, it saves.

Linking with Heather and Jen and Eileen and Jennifer, Duane, and Ann. As well as Courtney

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Once Upon A Graceful Time {A Very Short Story}

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 15 Comments

Once upon a time a girl lived in a world which was filled with the Beautiful and the Lovely. Every day she looked all around her in wonder and amazement at the gifts of tender beauty, given in love, given from a generous heart. And she looked for a way to end her days with gratitude and thankfulness for the Giver. One night, she looked up toward heaven and saw the delicate winsome white of the full moon against its velvet black background. And it looked like the heart of God. And it looked as if she was looking into the eyes of God. She was amazed at the graceful suspension of this ball, so round, so perfect looking down in watchful love at her and on her. She knew that every night without fail, she could gaze up and somehow find this beautiful moon the way she could always find her Amazing God.So every night as she crawled under the crisp white sheets and her marshmellow puff of a down comforter, she lifted her eyes to the Heavens and thanked and prayed. And this is how she prayed. “Lord I see the moon, an ever watchful eye on your child. Thank you that my day was filled with Grace. It was a Graceful day, a day filled with Grace, because of your Love. I lift my heart and lips to you with thanks. See you tomorrow night, my God. I love you to your moon and back. Amen.”

{Today’s post is part of a writing excercise for 5-Minute Fridays. Where a “flashmob” of sorts of writers in community write for only 5 minutues, with no editing, backtracking, or over thinking. Today’s word prompt is Graceful.}
Linking with Lisa-Jo Baker for Five Minute Friday

{Photograph of the Blue Moon, a gift from my friend, H.M. Miller, whom I love and cherish.Isn’t she talented?}