Tag: Joy

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…..

Here Comes A Story

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 3 Comments

Grab that story.  

Yes that one.

The one that’s yours.

It’s got your name written all over it. Claim it. Cuddle it.  Embrace it. Savor it.

It is yours after all.  With all its pieces and parts.  What is your story, morning glory?  What are your beginnings, happy endings, messy middles. Your pauses to celebrate, your pauses to regenerate, and re-calibrate.  To learn and gleen.

Did you dog-ear a page, here and there. And did you highlight and re-read. Did you you thank the One who gave you all.  Did you rest on the pages and say this here and that there are places of  Grace.  Places of Mercy.  Places of prayer, answered.

Are you seeing it all, the nuances and layers of love. The places in between blended in between the first and second acts, where He loves and loves some more.  And sends His Savior, Son to take all the pain.

You know those parts of that story of yours. The painful parts that sting and hurt. Where the salty streams run down the cheek and bump-over the face craters, face mountains and valleys, then glide down the silhouette side, to round the chin corner. Like a stream finding its way, taking a slow winding path down pebbled speed bumps of  face. Bone, flesh, and pore drowned in salted streams.

A winged chapter glides by, you might miss it. A part and a piece fly by, grab hold, all kite-tailed happy, catch it and glide.  Ride it and sail.

Once upon a time parts are just once, that’s singular, not plural, once to behold times. Just once to partake times, simply once in a blue moon.  Once in that life-time. Not twice upon a time. Not there will be re-runs and do-overs and repeat performance times, once upon a time are once for you times.

Live your story well.

Run that story well.

Let His Son play a major role, a leading part. He is the star in your performance.  His is the best story ever lived. He will walk it out and be in every chapter and verse. What Glory and Honor do we give the One who gave us all.

He the Author and Designer of these our lives, this our life, any and all that we have.  Release it back to Him.

I give Him my story and thank Him for each part.

Taken off the wing of the One who sent it soaring in.

And sent back to to Him.

On wings to soar up and out, returning to Him, the Creator of All and any.

All and any that I ever claim as mine.

What a story, morning glory. The your story, my story, the our stories.

My once upon a time is just once upon a time and I celebrate all the times of this Life, this story is mine.

May this Sabbath be filled with thanking, and grabbing story, reigning it in and recommitting it all to Him.

Every good and perfect gift is from above—James 1:17

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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.

Up On The Tightrope Wire

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 17 Comments

“A well-developed sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life”  –William Arthur Ward

I may have lost it.  My sense of humor that is.  Do you know the guards at Buckingham Palace.  The ones who stand guard like concrete statues.The ones  you cannot get to flinch, to smile, to giggle, to break their poker face icey stares. That is me.  If this mothering gig doesn’t work out I have a great chance of signing on at Buckingham Palace as the first female guard.  You cannot break this stone-face stare.

I stand guard at the threshold of my home.  These teenagers and occassionally our adult child have to pass through my icey stare and answer all the questions.  How was this?  How was that?  Fun right.  And I don’t blink.  This job of mine has such dire consequences, if I stumble and fall,  they ALL fall down.

Or so I believe.  What if the first thing they see is a smile? Will they reflect joy.  What if the first thing they are met with is a warm embrace.  Will they reflect compassion. What if I warmly insert  humor in my third degree line of questioning.

I am bone-tired of standing like a soldier, guarding my chicks like a stoic mother-hen.  Wait can a hen be stoic.  What if a grade slips, or a curfew isn’t met, or an errand isn’t completed on time.  Or sunscreen isn’t worn, or a pill isn’t taken, or youth-group is missed to go support a friends soccer match.  What if.  What is the worst thing that can happen.

“A cheerful disposition is good for your health; gloom and doom leave you bone-tired.”- Proverbs 17:22

I need to cheer-up this disposition of mine.  I need a spirit of cheerfulness and light-heartedness.  Pronto.

To remind myself that I had not lost my sense of humor I went and found a picture  of myself smiling.  Gosh it is so old. It may have been taken before Mayberry went into re-reuns.

I am going to find a recent one of me laughing so I know there is potential there.

This tightrope act.  This thing we call balance.  It is just plain hard.  When to speak and when to listen.  When to reprimand, when to remain silent.  When to  speak words of praise, encouragement, discipline,challenge,love, hope and pride.  When to rein in.  When to loose the grip, the grasp on these children we love so, and when to tighten and cinch in the boundaries.

When to press in on standards and conformity, and when to let loose  to allow and even encourage creativity and individuality to flow freely.

I love what they are becoming and who they are becoming.  In Christ.

But as it says in the Proverbs, “gloom and doom leave you bone-tired.”  It is time for a season of laughter.  Of joy.  Of smiling and letting little things just lie.

I need humor to walk this tightrope of life.  I may stumble and I may fall.  I may slip up and fail.  No, I will stumble, I will fall, I will fail, but I want to go down with a smile on my face.  I want my children to see joy and laughter in my contenance.

I want them to experience Grace when they are in my presence.  I want it to wear a smile.

And I don’t want to move to London this close to Mother’s Day.