Tag: Grace

Waking Up The Dormant

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ Leave a comment

Dormant-1.Lying asleep or as if asleep: inactive.2.Latent but capable of being activated. 3. In a condition of biological rest or inactivity.

In awe of the new.

Amazed by the spring green sprouts of life, plants, relationships, talents. God at work.

Eyes wide open.  Seeing the glory in the new birth.  New beginnings.

Fresh, fragrant aromas of potential.  Sweet smells of sleeping now awake.

And water and love and tender care are required for these fragile young shoots of life.

The gentle hand of care and nurture are called to pour out merciful love.

I have been given a new old friend.  Several, more acurately.

New grace.  New opportunity.

Through God’s unfailing love and circumstances the soil of my life has been tilled with fresh offerings.  Fertilized with nutrient richness.

What I allowed to sleep, I will wake up in love.  These latent gifts, like unwrapped packages brushed off to the side in those weeks between Christmas and New Years.  Lost in abundance.  Maybe. More likely, lost in blindness and blur of self.

Like the red solo cup in the music video which follows (click on the link to view), God calls out in amazing ways.  Beautiful ways.  Uniquely wooing us to Himself.

1John 3:1 What marvelous love the Father has extended to us!  Just look at it–we’re called children of God!

This couples Lenten Bible Study pours out and holds to account.  And in just showing up how He loves us.  How he teaches and strengthens and woos. What undergirding and pouring out He can do and longs to do when we show up. What lavish, extravagant love.

Today I get a chance to spend time with my new old friend.  What extravagance.  To have a friend.  To share with a mothers heart the raising and training up and pouring into young men.

What amazing love and amazing gift that its not a solo journey across the Atlantic.  That we get to do it in community.

When we activate the gifts God gives, we anticipate the Joy.

When we fertilize the relationships and nurture the dormant gifts allowing them to grow to their fullest potential, we see glimpses of good. Investing in, spending time with, listenting to, reaching out for those people in my world. Those  God created for me.

Thats where I am called  today.  To live fully and see fully. To receive and then pour it back out in love to those in need.

To be present.

Walking through the green, measuring the new.  Spying the lush gifts which sprung up overnight.  There are precious tender gifts flung afresh by His extravagant love.  Last years latent, dormant plants and herbs are back.

They shout we are here for you to enjoy.  They whisper we were always here.  You just didn’t have the eyes to see.

And like all the new I am gazing on in this world, I am grateful.  So grateful.

Its all Grace and its all good.

And as the lyrics of this song so beautifully say, He is calling us all by name.

I don’t want to be asleep at the wheel.  I don’t want to miss a thing he has in store. His love like a dormant volcano with extravagant love can erupt any moment.

Click on the link below to enjoy this beautiful music video.  I did.

wynnegraceappears

?v=7ZKD6GNX

Salty, Seafoamy, Sandy – Grace, Amazing

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 5 Comments


Camping out in this verse for a season:  Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the one who makes me who I am. –Phillippians 4:13

The clouds move in.  The sun breaks through.  The cross stands.  A window I walk past often becomes a symbol of Hope and Trust and His Love.

And I am resting too on this verse: “I’ve found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty.”  Phillippians 4:12

Somedays some of the ingredients in the recipe are missing.

But if I look Heavenward and in His direction and rest on His promises my hands remain full.

Just as a feather has dropped from wing of bird and he’s flown on, so the pressing on

begins or continues.

As sand and sea and salt refresh and renew, so does gazing on all His Glory.

All the possibility of more than just small remnants of Joy becomes clear.

Even as I pen this post, discouragement and frustration wait to pounce.  

But I marvel at His Glory and seek His face. And fix my gaze on all He has created.  This replaces doubt.  This replaces discouragement.  This builds Hope.

And I identify that which I need to return to him.  To lay on the altar.  To offer back to Him.

Release back to Him.  Give that which I was shepherding back to the Shepherd.  Lay it down.

And Marvel at all of His wonder.

“…Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on  to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.” –Phillippians 3

And continue to count the gifts.

Opening up to receive and count them all.  Looking expectantly on the day for all that he’ll do and all that he’ll bring and all that he’ll pour out.

Amazing Grace.  Grace so Amazing.

Expectantly living.  Expectantly looking.  With gratitude for all that there is and has been.

Praise God from Whom all blessing flow.  And they do.

*a bedside chat with my happy girl.  The perpetual joyful one.  She shines a spirit of joy in my world daily

*An email from a teacher praising something good.  The gift of taking time to point to what was good and worthy of praise.

*A kiss on the forehead from the Patient One before he leaves, for days.

*A son who arrived to a place of sun, safely and soundly.

*A cheerful face who consistently brightens my Mondays.  Always. Consistently brightening my world with her smile.

*Midweek plans with friends

*Re-connecting with friend for dinner

*Beautiful music in worship yesterday and my daughter whispering in my ear, “I love this song momma” and I said “So do I , so do I”

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