Tag: Hope

The Little Art Bus That Could {Joy Comes To The Subway}

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 2 Comments

This is a story.

And like any good story you should use your imagination.

All good stories, really good stories, have the same elements.

They have suspense, hope, love, forgiveness, the element of surprise, scarey parts, funny parts, laughter, tears, love, and the good guy always wins.

In this story you will find all these elements of story and more, woven together to form a beautiful story, a tale, a parable, a love story, and the good guy wins in the end because He has already won.

The battle is won. And He is victorious.

But every day we have the privilege of living our individual stories, our own beautiful stories of life and love and giving and partaking and seeing the world and walking out life with others.  Always with others.  Never alone. Always in community. Always as a team.

And what story doesn’t have big bold beautiful pictures that tell along with the words.

Aren’t they often the best part. A word will grab you and show and tell you. I am a lover of words and believer in the power of words. But they work as a team in tandem with the photographs capturing joy and hope and work and play at the perfect time. With precision in love.

We alway want those action verbs, oh use those action verbs those teachers of writers tell the writers.

So this is the part where the good student shows with words and pictures.  The pictures are story in technicolor.

The words will come tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, because the writer is weary and the words, well they need to marinate and process a bit longer in the story. Linger there.  Wait there, for their story to be unveiled and be revealed.

But because you came and because you asked, I will give you some clues to the story, just as the clues were taped to the subway wall, and you can write a story all your very own in your heart and mind.

One about this story, and you will probably be very very close to the Truth.

Here are some clues, and some action verbs to spark your very vivid, creative imaginations.

Daring Dilemna

Patiently Waiting

Curious Onlookers

Joyful Strangers

Hurry Up and Wait

Offering Forgiveness

Accepting Forgiveness

Through the Roof

Begging Forgivenss

Crazy Laughter

Bone Tired

Heart of Gratitude

Off To The Ball Park

Homebody Buddies

Crazy Love Wrapped In Fur

Creator God Speaks To His People Through His People

Community Bonded In Service

Hospitality Speaks A Common Language

Framing A Story

Framing A Picture

Framing a Life’s Dream

Healing With Joy

Reaching Across with Words

Reaching Out With Voices of Hope

Not the End…..

The Waiting Rock

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 4 Comments

I am a child.  It is one of my first memories.  I sit on a rock, the one I have named, the waiting rock.

Out in the country at my grandparents home, I am four waiting for my parents to pick me up after a visit.  It is fuzzy, but clear.  It is vague, but sharp.  It is a place I return to when I go back as far as I can. I am calm, expectant, a waiting child, knowing on this rock that my father will come.

A child like name, a simple place. A rock.

I am  on this massive stone which serves as a holding station for my expectant heart.  And I am collecting acorns which I will sell to my father when he arrives to pick me up.

I have busied my heart and my hands.  And dreamed up in my four year old mind, this acorn-selling venture.

A little distraction to ease the wait.

And now past the mid-century mark in years I struggle with waiting.  Sitting in a place of uncertainty, waiting for understanding.  Murky confusion settles in like dense fog on the mountain side where yellow blinking caution lights signal be alert.

I have been here many times before. It is familiar in its pain.  In my spirit I feel I should have earned knowledge, this waiting shouldn’t seem so challenging. I studied  like a student, text book in hand.  My teacher is Unknowing.  My lessons are tough but served in love.  Wait and see.  Be still and know.  Rest in confidence.  I should be further along when the waiting comes and lays heavy, rolls all cement mixer over my Hope and my dreamy childish plans.

I start over and over in a numbing place of pain, needing to re-learn and remediate the lesson, a big one to trust what will come.  To know it will be good.  To rest in the long corridors where the painful echo reverberates…..wait, child.  Wait. And wait some more.

These seasons marked with uncertainty about time-frames, periods of wonder  and questionning bear down hard on the heart.  This is a familiar place.  A seemingly endless black tunnel of dark wait during times of infertility when my lesson plan was Trust.  I learned. I saw the wait produces good. Shaping and molding and softening happen in these periods of unknowing.  A yellow light, not go green or stop red, but yellow signals me to calm down and behold the uncertainy.

The rock is not the waiting rock of my childhood.  It is not benign, offering a soft seat for a child.  The rock is hard and it hurts.  The waiting rock of today is a seat of confusion.

And the child, the one of God must lean on the Rock.  Must cry out to the Rock under which there is protection in the funnel cloud storm of wait.  The touchdown destructive storm of uncertainty that the flesh feels fiercy in the turmoil.  The rock of today is the Rock of Ages.

It is the one so sturdy and strong that nothing can tear it down and under which everyone can find protection.

But the heart and the hands look for acorns to gather. And a loving father to bend down and buy the trinkets that the child lays out in a row to offer.

He does this.  He offers to gather up the crumbs. He is willing  and even longing to wipe the tear. He seeks to  gather up the child in love and bring her to Himself. He gathers up the hurting waiting. He casts a shadow of protection and Security in the hurricane force winds of hurt.

Shelters in His embrace.  Extends a rock of certainty, his  very Love .Offers Hope even now, even here in unknowing.

His Love in the waiting is all that is needed. The weak, the meek and the broken find shelter in the storm of the wait.

And can stay hidden in His love until it passes, when it passes and after it passes.

The lessons of waiting.  They are hard.  I am weak.  But he is strong.

I am a child. Sitting on His lap. He is my waiting rock.  He is The Waiting Rock.

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Looking At Life Through A Lense Of Forgiveness

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 13 Comments

That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.  Romans 8:28


It was a little over a year ago.

Cracked open a mothers heart.

Busted it wide slap open.

The phone rings at night.  I need to come home.

And so the next morning he brought him home.  Away at school, a boarding school, he had 21 days left of the school year.

But he needed to be home, with family.  Under the roof of protection.  Under the cover of love.

And now forgiveness starts. Like hatchlings peck pecking at the shell, the hard outer, to gain freedom, to fly free, forgiveness is like that. Freeing you up to be unbound. Releasing you outside the hard shell to live in a place of freedom, not bound by pain and anger.

But more importantly he forgives.  And he has forgiven.  He forgave. It’s like conjugating a latin verb, the repetition of the drill brings perfection in the recitation. I forgive, he forgives, we forgive, they forgive. Its really important to perfect this excercise in full, flat-out, nothing held back forgiveness.

At least for the mother. And she believes for the son.

The mother knows because he forgives because he told her.  And Romans 8:28 pierces, raw red beating, pulsing mommas heart with new power.  With new meaning.  It delivers Truth to the threshold of the home.

When pain inflicted by words and actions wound deep in the inner parts, healing deep and wide is required in the embrace of a father and Our Father. And a mother. And home heals.

And forgiveness begins.

So The Patient One, he barely sleeps through the night like the restless protector at the gate keeping watch over his family, one eye open, heart bruised but braced for the extraction. The extraction of a child from woundedness and pain beyond what he can bear up under.

Twenty some odd days left, but the challenges have become too great. And the hurt it got into the soul and the heart and the head and banged around too much. Delt some blows that carved craters in the inner parts.

Words wound and insults, like stinging nettles in the sea, they rip into the flesh and scar. Pain inflicted through words. We know well the power if we were blind to that before. We know now full well the power of language and actions.

It was time to come home.

And I know because he told me.

And he told the mother, you know those guys why did they do that stuff, and why were they so mean. And the mother says they were hurting, they had pain in their own lives. And the mother says I don’t know, but that they were unhappy.

And he says, you know I forgave them.

And the mother blinks back tears, a blend of sweet sorrow and salty pride, and warm love and says she is glad.

He says you know I am glad it happened because I am home now. And I am so glad to be home.

Healing continues, restoration is complete, and he looks at life through a lense of forgiveness.

And the mother understands Romans 8:28.

And God gives the mother new understanding of what a shelter of love and protection under the covering of home can look like, feel like, and live like.

A mother views life through a lense of grace……and forgiveness.

counting gifts on Monday, here, with Ann at A Holy Experience dot com.

* Family time with sand,salt, sea and kayaks

*Having all three kiddos under my roof, bliss—pure joy

*Planning the Great Art Adventure and watching God work out all the details

*Celebrating graduation with neices, with my god-daughter.

*Awaiting the birth of our precious Sadie’s black lab puppies soon. Watching The Patient One and my man/child build the welcome box for the puppies.

* Seeing the excitement in my daughter’s eyes and heart at the count-down to the birth of these young furry children in our home–new life, new furry love, the miracle of God’s design for new life and how we are privileged to play a small role in loving momma dog.

*Spending time with precious friends on the boat, on the river laughing and planning and just being–the simple joy of deep trusted invested in friendship.

*Having middle son tell me how much a certain scripture speaks to him and how he went into his bedroom and spent time with his bible. How the Lord gave him the verse.

*Middle son enjoying his time on the beach after a 92 pound weight loss. A mother’s heart watches years of pain erased by new mercies on these sunny days on the beach, on the river, with friends.

Linking up here and here and here and here too

Small Things Take Up A Lot Of Space

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 2 Comments

“Sometimes”, said Pooh,” the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.” —A.A. Milne

There is amazing power in the one small thing.  One small thing can create a big impact on a body, a soul, a mind, a heart, a moment, a day.

Like the last drop of rain on a leaf is enough to break the bough, tipping the scale, tipping it over.

Rippling through for better or worse, making its mark, this one small thing can impact with force.

One small fleck of dust in the eye distracts and blurs vision.

One small splinter in the finger causes pain and attention directed to the throbbing digit.

 And as a crack in the hull can sink the Titantic,  one word can start a war, one gesture can mend a wounded spirit, so one small action can really  shake things up.

I woke early, very early, restless.

What a slow learner I am.  How slowly I let lessons creep in, settle in and then stay.

I had stumbled, tripped up, been tripped up. And wanting a do-over, yearning for new-found patience, hungry for a re-written script of my narrative was surely at the root of my sleeplessness.

And a message pops up in the pre-dawn hours which changes me.  It softens and it loves through a back-lit screen.  It tenderizes the tough spots. And salves the tender ones.

A note so simple saying she just didn’t know why but she was praying for me.

A small few black words on a white background delivering hope and ecouragement.  The floodgates open and my insides want to erupt with the ripeness of the moment, hitting the bullseye of my heart with perfection.  Love crawling across a screen to meet my insomnia and my woundedness.

I receive so much from a young mother who is up nursing her baby.  She also nurses my soul.

She says that she just doesn’t know why but she can’t stop thinking of me, I am stuck in her head and when that happens she just prays.  So, she continues, “you are getting a lot of prayers.” And she says she just wanted to check in with me.

I will get to thank her today and to wrap my arms around her sweet spirit. And I will smell and touch and hug her first-born son, who is weeks old.

Because her one sweet small note to me opened up communication, I am now privileged to spend time over lunch and a new born with this precious young woman. Amazing grace. And if a note on a screen can deliver such joy and hope, I cannot imagine what time in the flesh will present to this soul.

And oh, how I want to stretch this forward to another. To go be small to someone today. To show-up in a life, to a heart, to a friend, to a stranger in all my smallness.

Don’t we long for these encounters with others.  How many have I missed.

Small opportunity.

Small invitation.

Small calls to be obedient in love, in encouragement, in offering a lifeline.

This blog is a baby.  It is a new-born by the world’s standards, months old.

As it grows up a little, I pray that God will use these pages in a small way.

But more importantly, that I will have ears to hear, and a heart to listen.

As I write, and I blog, and I listen, and respond, and dig in, and wrestle with, and process, and  tackle, and ponder and question, my hope and prayer is that it is pleasing to Him.

My sweet friend has taken up a lot of space in my heart today. Her gesture just sits there being all big and beautiful.

May we all go seek out and be one small thing in someone’s life today, delivering Joy, Hope, and Grace by the boatload.

I started my day praying for forgiveness and I will probably end it the same way.  But maybe  in the in-between times God can use this broken soul to be a blessing to another, to serve as I have been served in love and in obedience.