Michele Huey's Blog: God, Me, and a Cup of Tea, page 43

The Other Shoe

 

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Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep? –Psalm 44:23 NIV

A man checked into a hotel room and was told to be as quiet as possible because the guest in the next room was a light sleeper. As he pulled his shoes off, he accidentally dropped one on the floor, making a loud thunk! He carefully slipped off the other shoe and crawled into bed. An hour later, he was awakened by someone pounding on the wall and a shout from the light sleeper next door: “For heavens sake, drop the other shoe!”

Have you ever waited for the other shoe to drop? “Trouble comes in threes,” you’ve heard, and you’ve already been slammed with two. “What else could go wrong?” you ask (but don’t really want to know). So you spend your days (and nights) anxiously waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Been there? Done that? Haven’t we all.

In times like these, we wonder where God is. We’ve prayed and prayed and prayed, yet not even a whisper of an answer comes from heaven. Not even a “Wait.” God is silent, and we don’t know why.

Psalm 44 addresses this scenario. The psalmist goes from feeling blessed to abandoned, and he doesn’t think it’s fair.

While in the context of this psalm, he’s speaking for the nation of Israel, we, as individuals, can identify with the situation and his feelings: “You blessed us” (vv. 1–8). “You abandoned us” (vv. 9–16). “It isn’t fair because we didn’t do anything wrong” (vv. 17–22).

Like the psalmist, we have a choice. We can stay in our pit of self-pity, feeling betrayed, rejected, and abandoned, or we can accept God’s sovereignty and, like the psalmist, still pray, “Help me!” (vv. 23–26).

I read this psalm in my Quiet Time Bible Friday morning. In the “Responding in Prayer” section, I was challenged to “ask God to help you to understand His ways and grant you His peace when you are waiting for His voice.”

How can I ask Him for understanding, when my finite mind cannot wrap around God and His ways? As A. W. Tozer wrote, “God in His person and attributes fills heaven and earth exactly as the ocean fills a bucket which is submerged in its depths.”

Even though I cannot even begin to understand—am I supposed to?—I trust that He has a plan and a purpose for the delay. I do not pray for patience as I wait for His answer. Instead, I pray for strength for the wait and His grace to sustain me as I wait.

He hears. He will answer. Of that I have no doubt.

In the morning, O Lord, You hear my voice. In the morning I lay my requests before You and wait in expectation (Psalm 5:3). Thank You for the hope I have in You. Blessed assurance! Amen.

Read and meditate on Psalm 44

(c) 2017 Michele Huey. All rights reserved.

Journey Back Home

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If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself. – 2 Timothy 2:13 (NKJV)

I got up this morning at 5:30—a good hour and a half before my scheduled “rise and shine” time. At first I thought I’d go back to bed after my bathroom trek, but my already too-long do-list got longer yesterday when I added an ambitious project with a Nov. 30 deadline. So I knew snuggling back under the covers would be futile. I’d just toss and turn and think and think and think. Body tired, mind wired. You know the feeling.

So I made my cup of caffeine, dressed, and headed to my study.

Since I was up early, I decided to have my quiet time, which, I’m ashamed to admit, has been sorely lacking. I opened my prayer notebook first. My last entry was Feb. 10. And the time before that was Jan. 17. Well, at least it was this year. When I opened my spiritual journal, I was aghast when I saw the date of the last entry: Dec. 14. My Bible study notebook was just as pathetically neglected. I used to write in them every day.

No wonder I’d been feeling adrift, mentally and spiritually.

Last year I blamed my dwindling time with God on life issues, particularly health challenges and family relationships, the latter undergoing tumultuous changes.

Have you ever felt like you’re standing in the midst of fallout you didn’t create? Yet there you are, stuck in the middle of it all, hanging on to a diminishing sense of direction. Well, that’s where I was last year.

This year, as those issues began to smooth out, a monster project took over my life: planning a month-long trip with our fifth-wheel camper to the Pacific Northwest with two other couples. Not an undertaking to sneeze at. Coordinating schedules, planning routes and stops and meals and clothes, getting the camper and truck ready for a 7,000-mile trip, downloading and learning to use travel apps we’d use on the journey—chunk by chunk usurped my time. Small wonder I’m way behind on my novel-writing schedule.

But I shouldn’t blame busyness for not taking time with God. I mean, who really sets my schedule? I’m my own worst taskmaster—slave driver is a better term.

But the more I got done, the less fulfilled and more empty I felt.

You can’t replace God with busyness, no matter how urgent or necessary your activities are. Only God can satisfy your soul. And if your spirit is empty of Him, your entire being—physical, mental, and emotional—is affected. It’s like you’re on a journey with no destination, without a map or app or plan, and are running on fumes.

So this morning, when I finally took quality time to meet with God (and not with one eye on the clock), God met with me. He had, after all, been patiently waiting for me to stop manufacturing excuses and make time with Him my top priority once again.

I opened my Bible to where I’d left off with my personal (and also sporadic) Bible study two months ago, Psalm 37: “Consider the staggering fact that the Creator of time and eternity loves you,” I read in the warm up section. “Write down 10 things you can think of about the love of God.”

Wow! What a place to begin my journey back to God—His love for me. The first three came easily—I’d been pondering them all year: Unconditional. Undeserved. Unlimited. Then, like water sputtering from a hand pump, more words to describe God’s incredible love for me poured forth: steadfast, eternal, healing, unchanging, sacrificial, reliable.

God’s love—the more I meditated on it, the harder it was to wrap my mind around it.

I hadn’t been faithful to Him, but He’d remained faithful to me.

As I wrote the words of Lamentations 3:21–23 in my spiritual journal and the words of Psalm 51:10–12 in my prayer notebook, I knew I’d finally returned home.

Thank you, Father, for Your steadfast, unlimited love. I don’t deserve it, but that’s what unconditional means, doesn’t it? Thank You for pouring its healing grace into my thirsty, travel-weary soul. Amen.

Read and meditate on Lamentations 3:21–23

(c) 2017 Michele Huey. All rights reserved.

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Moving On or Settling In?

[image error]My Presence will go with you. – Exodus 33:14 (NIV)

Throughout all their journeys,   whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the people of Israel would set out.   But   if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out till the day that it was taken up. –Exodus 40:36–37 NASB

I’m a city girl born and raised, but a country girl at heart.

This truth was never more apparent than on our vacation this summer—not a rest-and-recharge vacation, but a “see as much as we can in the four weeks we have” vacation. We pulled our 29-foot fifth-wheel camper nearly 7,000 miles through 15 states. We rarely stayed more than one night anywhere. Most of the time we stayed at RV parks.

I learned there’s a difference between an RV park and a campground.

An RV park is where you park your RV. It has electric, water, and sewage hookups. It may have a fire ring (a place for a campfire), but it may not. It may have a picnic table, or it may not. You don’t have a campsite, you see— you have a parking space, and most often a gravel one. Not grass.

It’s not a place to set up and settle in. It’s a place to park your RV while you visit the sights or just spend the night between long stretches on the road.

A campground, on the other hand, is a place to settle in and relax. You have grass, trees, fire ring, and a picnic table on a site that isn’t merely a parking space.

Oh, you can probably guess which one we prefer.

But travelers need both, depending on the journey.

Isn’t that just like life?

Just as God guided the Israelites through the wilderness to the Promised Land, God leads us through this wilderness we call life to our Promised Land—Heaven.

Sometimes He has us stay in one place for a while. Sometimes we want to settle in and stay there. But eventually we have to move on because that is not our destination. God has much more for us to see and experience. More than we could ever dream of.

Sometimes we don’t’ want to stay. We’re itching to get out of there and move on. But God says, “Not yet.” In His time—His perfect time—we will move on.

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Other times He pushes us forward, mile after mile, day after day. But, remember, we travel on His timeline, His route, His map, His agenda.

He has a plan and purpose for our sojourn on earth that go far beyond what we can imagine –“far more than we would ever dare to ask or even dream of—infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, or hopes” (Ephesians 3:20 TLB).

Although it wasn’t our style of vacation and the entire trip extended us beyond our comfort zone, we had a fabulous time. We experienced parts of the country we’d never before dreamed of visiting. We learned more history on that trip than we have our entire lives—history that will stick with us because we were there.

We are campground folks. We like the wide-open spaces, the slower paces. We like to settle in and explore the area.

And so we shall. We’d like to spend a week or so exploring Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. And visit as many lighthouses as we can. (I’m a lighthouse freak.)

And I want to spend time in the Colorado Rockies and see the sights on horseback.

Dreams don’t die as we grow older. Instead, they grow bigger and better.

And they challenge us to step out of our comfort zones, push aside the fears that hold us back, and live to the fullest the life God has given us—whether we’re moving on or settled in.

Thank You, Father, for both the moving on times and the settling in times. Thank You that You have a purpose for each one. Amen.

Read and meditate on Exodus 13:21; 40:36–37

(c) 2017 Michele Huey. All rights reserved.

 

Not Our Usual Kind of Vacation

 

 

[image error]Lunch break at a rest area in Utah

My Presence will go with you. – Exodus 33:14 (NIV)

Twenty-seven days. Fifteen states. Nearly 7,000 miles and 2,623 pictures. Vacation 2017 wasn’t a “rest and recharge” escape—the kind we prefer. Rather, it was a “see as much as you can in the four weeks you have” journey. A definite move out of our comfort zone.

And see we did! Glacier National Park. Mount Rainier. Mount St. Helens. The Space Needle. The rainforests on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. Indian reservations.

We toured visitor’s centers and museums. We watched video clips and hiked paths to waterfronts and mountaintops. Our F-150 pulled our 29-foot fifth-wheel camper 17 miles up Hurricane Ridge Road in Olympic National Park—a narrow, steep, winding mountain road.

Lesson Number 1: If you want to experience the thrill of the mountaintop, you have to take the risk and climb the mountain.

[image error]Gondola ride up Whitefish Mountain

We took a gondola ride up Whitefish Mountain in Montana—elevation 6,817 feet above sea level. We ate seafood at Elliott’s Oyster House on Pier 56 then rode the Seattle Great Wheel—a gigantic Ferris wheel rising 175 feet over Elliott Bay.

[image error]The Seattle Great Wheel, Seattle

Yes, I, with my fear of heights, rode both the ski lift and the Great Wheel. (It helped that we rode in an enclosed gondola both times.) My fear dissipated, and I loved every minute of it!

Let me back up here for a minute. When we pulled into the parking lot at Whitefish Mountain Resort, I took one look at the ski lift gliding up the mountain, cars suspended high over the ski-slope-turned-mountain-bike-trail, and I told Dean, “No way.”

Then I noticed that some of the cars were enclosed.

“I can do this,” I told myself. And I did. I pushed away that fear of heights and had a marvelous ride to the top, where the panoramic view was spectacular.

Lesson Number 2: Don’t let fear stop you from experiencing unique adventures. Remember me and the footlog bridges in Smoky Mountain National Park a couple of years ago?

As we cruised along the scenic routes (“sped” is more like it—but we were traveling with two other couples, who had motorhomes and lead feet), I was amazed at the diverse terrains and in awe of their Creator: waterfalls cascading down rocky cliffs; snow-capped mountain peaks; glacier-green lakes, rivers, and streams gushing through lush green valleys; forests of lodge pole pines pointing to heaven; craggy peaks jutting into a cloud-studded blue sky; feather wisp clouds crowning mountaintops; the brown, barren, treeless, desert-like landscape of eastern Washington state.

Lesson Number 3: Don’t take the scenic route at 60 mph. Slow down and inhale the scent of pine and honeysuckle, listen to the waves rustling to shore, taste the local cuisine, inspect the wildflowers growing by the roadside and wonder what they are, and enjoy the view you’ll probably never get to see again.

Oh, so much packed in 27 days! I could spend 27 months—27 years—in the Pacific Northwest and still not see everything there is to see.

Lesson Number 4: Isn’t that like our life journey? Don’t waste a minute of your sojourn on earth.

I want to share my experiences with you, dear readers. (Some of you followed our journey as I chronicled it on Facebook.)

So over the next several weeks—and perhaps months—I’ll be writing about different aspects of our trip, stops along the way, the adventures and misadventures (yes, there were a few of those!), and how God was there every mile of the way, blessing us with His presence, His protection, and His provision.

So, tune in next week for a close-up look at Vacation 2017.

Oh, Triune God, what a beautiful world You have created for us! Open our eyes to see You in everything around us. Amen.

Extra tea: Read and meditate on Psalms 8 and 19.

(c) 2017 Michele Huey. All rights reserved.

 

In a Stew

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For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. – Genesis 2:24 (NIV)

One of my husband’s favorite dishes is beef or venison stew. A good stew, however, takes time. All the ingredients – meat, vegetables, herbs, and spices – must be mixed together and allowed to simmer for several hours before serving. He says he likes the stew even better the second and third day after I’ve made it because the different flavors have more time to blend.

The best stew I ever made was when we’d lost our electric power for three days after an ice storm. I cooked the batch in a cast iron Dutch oven on top of the woodburner. It took all day, keeping a slow fire in the stove, but the aroma of homemade stew, made the old-fashioned way, filled the house – and whet our appetites. I had to watch the fire, though. Too much heat, and the stew would burn. Too little heat, and the vegetables would still be crunchy, the meat raw, and the stew flavorless.

A lasting, satisfying marriage is like a good stew: It takes time for all the ingredients of both personalities to blend together.

Like a stew, which must first come to a boil before simmering, a marriage also has boiling times, especially in the early years. Bringing a stew to a boil allows it to get hot enough for the vegetables, stiff and resistant at first, to begin to soften. Yet, when allowed to simmer together, each vegetable still retains its individuality – a carrot does not turn into a potato. But at the same time, each vegetable lends its unique flavor to the whole and receives the flavor of the other ingredients. But it must soften first, and that’s what takes time. Cook it too quickly, and you get crusty, uncooked vegetables that stand out but don’t blend into the whole.

Too many couples mistake the first turbulent years of a marriage as a sign the union isn’t working out. Instead, their personality traits, stiff and resistant at first, are being softened so that they can add something to the whole, as well as absorb flavors from the other. Yet each spouse does not get completely absorbed and lose his or her individuality. God made each of us unique, and we retain that uniqueness even after marriage. Like the herbs and spices added to the stew, each spouse’s uniqueness adds flavor and zest to the whole.

As time goes by, we sometimes get too busy and allow the fire to die down. The stew stops cooking and cools. But, to get it cooking again, all we have to do is tend to the fire. So with a marriage. Our many roles and responsibilities consume our time and energy, and we assume the stew is cooking. “She knows I love her.” But she needs to hear it every day. “He knows I love him.” But he needs to see concrete evidence – like his favorite meal on the table after a long, hard day.

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25). “A good wife . . . is far more precious than jewels . . . the heart of her husband trusts in her . . . she brings him good, and not harm, all the days of her life” (Proverbs 31:10–12).

A man and woman become married in a moment, but it takes a lifetime to make a marriage, where two individuals, with all their different personality traits, like the ingredients in a stew, truly become one.

Dear God, thank You for seeing us through the boiling points and the cooled-off times in our marriage. Amen.

Read and meditate on Genesis 2:19–24

(c) 2017 Michele Huey. All rights reserved.

The Pressure to Perform

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If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. – John 8:36 (NIV)

I once knew a man who was very active in the church, teaching Sunday school, singing in the choir, and serving on committees. A former music teacher, he often filled in when the choir director was out of town. And when a new Christian school was launched, he donated his time to give instrument lessons and form the fledging musicians into a band.

Arden was a man I looked up to, but not because he was so involved and had such a dynamic personality. He challenged me to think, to dig deep and analyze why I believe what I do. He didn’t offer pat answers to the questions of life or spout Christian clichés and platitudes that miss the mark and don’t satisfy.

And he loved God. He didn’t have to say it, you just knew it from how he lived his life. Nearly every time I saw him, he exuded energy and was bursting with joy.

Then one year we almost lost him. Doctors determined his heart was weak and, without a transplant, there was nothing that could be done. So Arden spent many months at home, resting.

I missed him. I missed his energy, his ever-present smile, his outspokenness, his way of getting me to think and not accept things just because someone said so.

But God worked a miracle because Arden eventually returned to church and was able to do much more than doctors had predicted. I asked him when he returned if the recuperation time at home was difficult for him.

“Weren’t you just itching to be busy?” I asked.

“No,” he answered. “I could truly relax because there wasn’t any pressure to perform.”

The pressure to perform. Arden passed away several years ago, but I never forgot that statement. I use it to gauge my motivation for doing what I do: Do I teach Sunday school because it’s expected of me or because I love to teach, I love God and His Word, and instructing others fills me with satisfaction and joy? Do I write a weekly column, produce a daily radio program, and speak to groups to feed my ego and glorify myself? Or because it’s a way of telling others about the God I love? And because I believe teaching, writing, and speaking are callings from God?

Do I go to church every Sunday because it’s expected of me or because I want to worship God with other believers? Why do I try to set aside a quiet time everyday? Because that’s what was told I should do or because I hunger and thirst after God?

The list goes on. Sometimes the introspection reveals that instead of seeking after God, cultivating a relationship with Him and serving Him out of love, I’m merely playing at religion.

God’s Son died to give us freedom – freedom from sin and from the shackles of religion, from the pressure to perform.

He longs for a growing relationship with us. We cultivate this relationship, first, by seeking Him, then by serving Him.

“You will seek Me and find me when you seek Me with all of your heart,” He tells us (Jeremiah 29:13). We seek Him when we talk to Him (prayer); when we read, study, and think about His Words to us (the Bible) – and it doesn’t have to be a read-the-Bible-through-in-one-year thing; and when we are still before Him, listening in the quiet for His voice.

Then, we serve Him by serving others, using the talents He’s given us to reach out to a hurting world.

Don’t succumb to the pressure to perform. Seek a personal relationship with God first, then serve others with a heart full of love overflowing – just like Arden.

Help me, Lord, to truly put You first in my life. Free me from the shackles of empty religion to grow a loving, fulfilling relationship with You. Amen.

Read and meditate on Galatians 5

(c) 2017 Michele Huey. All rights reserved.

The Potter and Me

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But who are you, a man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me thus?” Has the potter no right over the clay?—Romans 9:20-21(RSV)

I once saw a pottery-making demonstration. I watched, fascinated, while the potter’s deft fingers formed a pitcher from a lump of ugly brown clay.

“Have you ever encountered stubborn clay?” I asked her afterwards. “You know, when the clay won’t let you do what you want to do with it?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, nodding vigorously. “When the clay is too wet or when it’s too dry.”

When the clay is too wet, she explained, it just flops around. The solution is to place it on a porous surface, such as concrete, and let the excess water drain out. Clay that’s too dry, she went on, is too stiff and cracks. Adding water and letting it permeate the clay should solve the problem.

Either way, the potter has to wait until the clay is ready and the texture is just right before she can begin to fashion it into the vessel she envisions.

“Have you ever had clay so stubborn that, no matter what you did, it still did what it wanted to do?” I asked.

“Oh, yes,” she said, selecting a rectangular, concave dish, greenish gray in color, from the display and holding it out for me to see. Raised designs in the shallow bowl adorned the center.

She had intended to make a vase, but the clay wouldn’t rise up into the walls. So, not wanting to waste the clay, she fashioned the stubborn lump into the dish she now held before me.

I bought it. To remind me of my own stubborn self. To remind me that God has to knead me into the right texture before He can begin to fashion me into the vessel He has planned.

I am clay that is too wet when I feel defeated and discouraged. When I’m tired of fighting to move forward and I just don’t want to take another step. When I feel dwarfed by someone else’s accomplishments. When I think all my effort is for nothing. Or when I feel unappreciated and used and taken for granted and invisible. So I kind of flop down and don’t do anything.

I’m clay that’s too dry when I’m stiff-necked and refuse to obey, even when God’s will is clear. After all, His way may not lead to Blessings Highway, Happiness Lane, or Prosperity Road. So I resist. But the pain, disappointment, and heartbreak will mold me into what He wants me to be. But I don’t want any more pain, disappointment, and heartbreak. I’ve taken all I can stand.

“What disturbs us in this world,” Alexander Maclaren wrote more than one hundred years ago, “is not ‘trouble,’ but our opposition to trouble. The true source of all that frets and irritates, and wears away our lives, is not in external things, but in the resistance of our wills to the will of God expressed in external things.” (Joy and Strength, compiled by Mary Wilder Tileston © 1929)

If I continue in my stubbornness, God will still find a use for me, although it will not be what He originally intended. I don’t want that. I want His number one plan for me – because that’s His best.

So I’ll keep my clay dish in a place where I’ll see it everyday – so it can remind me that, as I am kneaded into the right texture and thrown onto the wheel of life, the hand of the Potter is shaping me into the vessel He has planned.

When I get impatient or discouraged, Lord, remind me that making a vessel is a multi-step process that requires time – and my cooperation. Amen.

Read and meditate on Jeremiah 18:1–6

(c) 2017 Michele Huey. All rights reserved.

Searching for Signal

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You will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. – Jeremiah 29:13 (KNJV)

I was trying to watch a baseball game on television one rainy evening, but the picture kept breaking up. Then the screen went black, and white letters appeared across the bottom: “Searching for satellite signal. Please stand by.”

“Oh, great!” I grumbled. “This is the best part of the game!”

The weather had been stormy, and it isn’t uncommon for us to lose the signal to our satellite dish during a particularly strong storm. But it wasn’t storming, just raining. Lately we’d been losing the signal a lot, even if it was foggy out. If we didn’t lose the signal altogether, the picture would break up into colorful fragments or slow down, like someone was playing with the slow motion button on a VCR remote.

After a half hour of trying to keep up with the score on a fragmented, silent screen, I gave up and went to bed. The next day, however, the reception wasn’t any better, but then again, neither was the weather.

“I don’t remember the reception ever being this bad,” I complained to my husband.

“Maybe I didn’t angle the dish right after I took it down and put it on the post,” he wondered. We were siding siding our house at the time, and he’d taken the dish off the side of the house and attached it, facing the southern sky, to a post in the ground.

Now he pulled out the instruction manual and flipped through until he came to the section on adjusting the dish. Fifteen minutes later, we had a clear picture. Although the dish had been pointed in the right direction, it had to be at a precise angle to receive the signal from the sending satellite.

Sometimes the storms of life interfere with the signals God sends me. Or sometimes, even though I’m facing the right direction, I’m not receiving what He’s telling me because I don’t have the right angle. That “angle” could be selfishness, hurt feelings, a touch of envy or jealousy, or a simmering anger. Maybe I’m nursing a grudge and harboring unforgiveness. Or perhaps my desires are becoming worldly, or I’m pursuing something I know is not in God’s will for me.

Whatever the interference – whether outside of my control, such as a storm, or within my control, such as my own rebelliousness – it’s causing me to lose contact with a God who promises never to leave me nor forsake me (Deuteronomy 31:6,8; Hebrews 13:5).

So how do I adjust my angle so that I’m once again getting a clear picture? First I pray, confessing my willfulness and sin. If a life-storm is the problem, I ask God to guide me through it, protect me, and strengthen me.

Then I read His Word. While I don’t play “Bible roulette,” picking verses at random, God’s Holy Spirit often brings to mind portions of Scripture that address my beleaguered spirit. Frequently the day’s scheduled reading is just what I need. His Word truly is “a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 19:105), “full of living power, sharper than the sharpest knife,” cutting deep into my innermost thoughts and desires, revealing to me what I really am (Hebrews 4:12).

Just reading His Word isn’t enough, however. I must meditate on it, think of how it relates to me, how to apply what I’ve read to my own situation. Then I pray again, asking God to forgive me, help me, and guide me.

Unlike my satellite dish, my angle needs adjusted every day – even moment by moment. But I know, whether storms are raging outside or inside, if I seek God with all my heart, He has promised I will find Him. Only then will I have a clear picture.

Thank You, God, that You are never far away. Why, You’re as close as the mention of Your name! Amen.

Read and meditate on Psalm 63:1–8

(c) 2017 Michele Huey. All rights reserved.

 

On and Off My Rocker

All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quiet in a room alone. – Blaise Pascal

[image error]The rocking chair described in this post is now downstairs in the family room. This one is now used for my quiet time.

In the corner of my dining room is a gray antique rocker. A thick, green-checkered cushion hides the lawn chair webbing that someone weaved in to replace the original cane seat. Over the rocking chair hangs a brown cane swag lamp with its switch a reach away. On the wall behind it, from the wainscoting up to the ceiling and the full length of the wall, a bookcase constructed of thick, rough timber, darkened with age and covered with several layers of clear finish and a thickening gossamer of dust, is crammed with two of my greatest loves: photos of my family and books.

The rocker sits next to a four-feet-by-eight-feet, triple-pane, casement window looking out on the front yard, with flowering bushes blossoming one right after another: azalea, lilac, mountain laurel, and rose. A wooden, six-sided bird feeder dangles from the branch of the maple tree 20 feet from the window, which reflects the tree and the western sky so well it fools the birds, which often fly into it. Here I watch the snow fly, the storm clouds approach, the leaves change, the sun set, the morning stretch over the field from yonder pasture to my front yard, where I saw two bears racing towards the woods behind the house one summer morning. Where I savor the seasons of the year and sense the passing of the seasons of life, uncertain of how I feel about it.

Surrounding my rocker are several baskets of yarn and projects-in-progress, three sewing baskets, a basket of my quiet time materials—devotional books, two or three Bibles (different versions), prayer lists, and my “basket case,” a wicker basket with 365 slips of paper with Bible verses; I take one a day to keep from going nuts.

There’s a coaster for my coffee, tea, or water; a radio so I can listen to the Pirates’ game while crocheting, a book or two for leisure reading, an old hymnal, a box of tissues, and a small basket of pens, pencils, and sticky notes.

Here is where I head in the morning, cup of caffeine in hand. Where I wait in the lulls of life. Where I find peace for my troubled mind, anxious heart, stubborn will, and battered spirit.

Here is where I talk to God, and where, in the absence of the roar of busyness and the static of the world, I hear His still, quiet voice. Where I weep with worry, pour out my problems, complain about life’s unfairness, deal with discouragement and disappointment. Where, impatient, I demand answers—something, anything, to hang my dwindling hopes on. Where I sing with gratitude when I finally see the answers, which are always so much more than I prayed for.

Here is where I finally “get it.”

This is my quiet time place. My little corner of the world, where I hide from the world to find strength to deal with the world.

Where I meet with El Shaddai, Jehovah Jireh, Adonai, my Abba Father.

So that when I’m off my rocker, I’m not, well, off my rocker.

O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. – Psalm 63:1 (NIV)

 Read and meditate on Psalm 63

(c) 2017 Michele Huey. All rights reserved.

The Apple of His Eye

[image error]The Helix Nebula from CFHT, 8/28/2000
Credit & Copyright: J.-C. Cuillandre (CFHT Staff), CFH12K CCD Camera, CFHT
(See explanation below)

Keep me as the apple of your eye. – Psalm 17:8 (NIV)

My dearest Child,

You are the apple of My eye. Sometimes, I know, you feel as though I’ve abandoned you. I have not. I’m here. I’ve always been here, and I’ll always be here for you. I’ll never abandon you, no matter what happens, no matter how you feel or behave. No strings attached. I love you simply because you are Mine.

I’m sure you’ve heard the expression, “the apple of my eye” many times, but do you know what it means? The “apple” of the eye is the pupil, the center of the eye and the part that allows light in. Without this delicate part, you wouldn’t be able to see. So the pupil—the apple—must be protected at all costs.

I am your protector, the shield around you, the strong tower into which you may run for refuge, your rock, your fortress, your deliverer, your stronghold in times of trouble. Yet there have been times you haven’t run to Me. You’ve sought help elsewhere. I never force you. I always give you the choice. Sometimes your choices break My heart. But I want you to love Me and choose to obey Me on your own. Like the pupil, I want you to open up your heart and allow My light and love in.

There are times when I must intervene for your own good. What parent would allow a child to step out into a busy street and not run and snatch that precious one from harm’s way?

When you’re weary and bearing a heavy load, I lead you to a place of rest where your soul can be refreshed. If I didn’t, you’d run yourself to death. What are you trying to prove, dear one? You don’t have to earn My love or prove your worth to Me. I created you. Just as you are. For a purpose. Everything I allow in your life has a purpose, child. Work with the circumstances, not against them. I am in control, whether you believe it or not.

Sometimes I allow hardships in your life to teach you, to strengthen you. Do you remember learning to ride a bike? How many scrapes and bruises did you endure before you were able to ride without someone running right behind you, ready to catch you if you fell?

Yet there came a time when I had to stand back and let you do it on your own. I watched you fall, brush yourself off, and hop back on again. I was so proud of you. I watched you cry when the pain was more than you could bear, when you were so frustrated because after all your attempts, it still wasn’t working out the way you’d planned. I hurt because you hurt. I counted your tears and bottled them as a reminder of your growth pains. But I was always there.

As you grew, the lessons became harder. Such is life, My child. Sometimes I allowed you to wander in a wilderness, to struggle in a storm. It pained Me to hear your cries, “Where are You? Why don’t You help me?” I was helping you. I never abandoned you. Your faith had to grow stronger, and the wilderness and storms make perfect faith-growing greenhouses.

You, Apple of My Eye, are precious to Me, and I love you so much, there isn’t anything I wouldn’t give for you. Indeed, I gave My Son.

You are the apple of My eye. Don’t ever forget it.

Love,

Abba

Read and meditate on Zephaniah 3:17

NOTE ON PHOTO: I typed “Eye of God image ” in my browser, and one of the websites that came up was this picture of the Helix Nebula. Here is the explanation from the Astronomy Picture of the Day website, dated Aug. 28, 2000:

Explanation: One day our Sun may look like this. The Helix Nebula is the closest example of a planetary nebula created at the end of the life of a Sun-like star. The outer gasses of the star expelled into space appear from our vantage point as if we are looking down a helix. The remnant central stellar core, destined to become a white dwarf star, glows in light so energetic it causes the previously expelled gas to fluoresce. The Helix Nebula, given a technical designation of NGC 7293, lies 450 light-years away towards the constellation of Aquarius and spans 1.5 light-years. The above image was taken with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) located atop a dormant volcano in Hawaii, USA. A close-up of the inner edge of the Helix Nebula shows unusual gas knots of unknown origin.

Source: Astronomy Picture of the Day, Aug.28, 2000

(c) 2017 Michele Huey. All rights reserved.