Our daughter Julia decided to try Nordic skiing this year, which I wrote about here.
The team is a close-knit one. They work hard, laugh a lot, and cheer each other on at every meet. They are great kids.
The first meet we attended was in the White Mountains and it was a bitterly cold 13 degrees. The second meet was a comparatively balmy 32! 🙂
I hope you will enjoy the sights and colors of winter fun in New England.
“Skiing is a dance and the mountain always leads.”—Author Unknown
Filed under Friday Photos
My cousin’s name lit up on the caller I.D. this morning but I didn’t answer.
It wasn’t because I didn’t want to talk to Missy, but I didn’t want to hear her message.
However, one can’t delay the inevitable, so I picked up the phone to listen to her voice mail.
Her voice was thick with tears as she said the words we all knew were coming but still didn’t want to admit were really true: “The doctors say his heart is weak. They are giving him about another month.” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “I’ll talk to you later.”
The message ended.
I looked outside where the sun was shining brightly on the snow-capped mountains. I was alone in the house except for our dog Buddy, who slumbered blissfully beside me.
I had been watching my former pastor online since I wasn’t able to go to church this morning and the service was ending just as I hung up the phone.
“Go in peace,” he said by way of a benediction.
Those words settled onto my sad heart like a welcome blanket.
My Uncle Duane has been in the hospital with pneumonia for the past week. Tests have revealed that his 86 year old heart is weakening. He will be moved to a nursing home later this week.
We are never ready to say goodbye to a loved one, are we?
Uncle Duane is my dad’s older brother. He enlisted in the Army when he was a teenager and experienced battle on the front lines during WWII. He worked as an accountant for the US Steel company until he retired. Through the years, he has been the most involved and enthusiastic of uncles, taking a keen interest in the lives of his nieces and nephews. We have all been the recipients of mailed newspaper clippings that highlight our various pursuits, family photos, as well as carefully selected birthday cards that were meticulously signed the exact same way all these years:
With love,
Your uncle,
Duane
And no phone conversation was complete without a full weather report…for both our area and his. 🙂
As I walked through the house, my eyes landed on a photo of the family taken in 2008. Uncle Duane is seated on the couch holding his camera. Almost involuntarily, a huge smile broke across my face.
The running joke in the family is Uncle Duane’s inability to operate a camera.
Every single time the entire family gathered together, he would ask us to pose for a group photo. Ten minutes later, we would still be in the same position, smiles glued to our faces as we tried to contain our laughter while Uncle Duane fiddled with his expensive camera, saying things like, “I just don’t understand what’s wrong with this thing!”
One year my dad was given a camera for opening a checking account at the local bank.
He took great delight in good-naturedly drawing my uncle’s attention to the fact that his cheap point-and-shoot provided better pictures than the expensive Canon or Nikon his brother had purchased.
It was all in good fun.
As happy memories from years gone by flooded my mind, I had a good cry.
When my family came home from church, I broke the news to them.
We all decided that in a few days, we will head back to my hometown to see my sweet uncle.
His birthday is coming up, so we are going to get a cake from his favorite bakery and sing to him. I will take lots of photos. We will listen to his stories, share the latest happenings in our lives, and we will laugh.
None of us will say it, but we will all know that we are saying goodbye.
For now.
On a day known only to his Creator, my uncle will leave this earth to finally see the face of his Savior.
He will also be reunited with his baby brother—my dad—who he adored.
I am so grateful for that certainty.
When I called Uncle Duane this afternoon to let him know that we were going to pay him a visit, he protested, saying he was not worth us making a 13 hour drive.
But the protest was a half-hearted one and he could not hide his delight at the thought of seeing us again.
And before we disconnected, he gave me a full weather report. 🙂
I love that dear man.
Filed under Friends and Family
Two weeks ago I was able to visit Portland, Maine for the first time.
Even on a day when the Northeast was locked tight in winter’s icy grasp, this quaint seaside town sparkled like a jewel.
I was completely charmed by this family’s Christmas decorations…
We enjoyed a delicious lunch at the Portland Pie Company…
before heading out to the Portland Head Lighthouse
Apparently Henry Wadsworth Longfellow spent hours sitting at the lighthouse staring out at the sea for writing inspiration. Since my son is an aspiring novelist, he may want to spend some time here too.
This scene made me long for summer. 🙂
Once the snow melts and the sun shines warm, we are definitely heading back here!
Happy Friday everyone!
Filed under Friday Photos
Photo credit: Doug88888
“Unless we take God just as He is in His wholeness, we will never find hope in our own brokenness.”—Jennifer Rothschild.
I listened with tears in my eyes as a woman from our Bible study shared her heartache. Four years after Jesus allowed her life to take a detour that she never wanted , she is still struggling to deal with her new reality.
She is hurt. She is angry. She is scared. She is afraid to hope. She is weary.
However…she is resilient. She is a fighter. She refuses to leave the path that Jesus has led her on…because to do so would be to leave Jesus.
She could no more leave Jesus than she could refuse to take her next breath.
He is her very life.
Her tenacious faith inspires me.
Afterward, I thought about the cost of truly following Jesus.
It is never easy.
Sometimes it is downright dangerous.
He requires every last piece of us. No holding back.
Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to be My disciple, let him deny himself (disregard, lose sight of, and forget himself and his own interests) and take up his cross and follow Me (cleave steadfastly to Me, conform wholly to My example in living and if need be, in dying also). (Matthew 16:24).
Not a whole lot of wiggle room is there?
When Jesus called His disciples, He asked them to leave everything and follow Him.
They had a choice: yes or no? Stay with the familiar or venture into the unknown?
A quick read through the Gospels will show that the instant they said yes, their lives changed forever.
Rather than live on Easy Street for the rest of their earthly existence, they would travel Calvary Road.
Time and time again, Jesus failed to live up to their (very limited) expectations.
He simply (mercifully) shattered those false perceptions to smithereens. Instead, He gave them a front row seat to what it looks like when GOD breaks into history and walks this earth as a Man.
It took them all the way to the Cross.
Talk about a horrific detour that none of them saw coming.
Yet…this was exactly the place of God’s greatest triumph and victory.
We know that now, 2000 years later.
They didn’t know that then.
What will do with those moments in our own lives?
It is when Jesus allows something into our lives that we never imagined or wanted that we have a choice to make.
Do we really want to follow Jesus?
Not the Jesus we may have invented in our minds…but the real Jesus as He has presented Himself to be in His Word?
The One who plainly told us, “In this world you will have tribulation and trials and distress and frustration.” (John 16:33).
Notice what He did NOT say. Jesus does NOT say: “In this world you will have prosperity and good times and lots of laughs and all your dreams will come true”?
Everyone would like to follow a jesus like that.
But that jesus does not exist.
The real Jesus does not exist to make your earthly life easy and comfortable. There was nothing about His life that was easy or comfortable.
The real Jesus tells you that even though this life is difficult, you can “be of good cheer (take courage, be confident, certain, undaunted!) For I have overcome the world. (I have deprived it of power to harm you and have conquered it for you).” (John 16:33).
Following Jesus means saying “YES” to everything He allows into your life.
He is good. All the time.
He is incapable of doing us harm.
He always knows what He is doing.
He is kind and compassionate.
He went to hell and back to save our sin-saturated souls.
He does not enjoy seeing us in pain but He loves us enough to do whatever is necessary to ensure our highest good and His greatest glory.
So…when pain sears and life hurts and hearts ache…will we say the hard Yes?
NOT a masochistic “yes” to pain…but a full-throated, whole-hearted YES to the Savior who bled and died and rose again to give us LIFE?
Will we say “YES” to His heart? His ways? His love?
Will we say “YES” to trust rather than doubt? To courage rather than fear? To life rather than death? To hope rather than despair?
Will we say “YES” to the healing of our scarred hearts?
Will we say “YES” to the Jesus of the Bible who has traveled the very roads He asks us to travel and freely gives us His strength and His joy for the journey?
Will our entire lives be one of “YES” to the One who said “YES” to us when He came to rescue us from sin?
The choice is yours.
The disciples said yes. It cost them everything. Jesus led them to the bloody Cross and it all must have seemed like a cruel joke.
Their “YES” led them here?
It did.
Although they never would have believed it at the time, they were in the very center of God’s will on that Good Friday.
Yet…on Sunday, there was an empty tomb.
Their “YES” had led them there too: to ultimate triumph. To life everlasting. To a blazing, eternal JOY that would never end. To freedom.
Don’t be afraid to say the hard “YES” to Jesus.
When you do, you will discover that you have actually said “YES” to inner healing, supernatural joy, exquisite intimacy, boundless hope, tremendous purpose, deep peace in the midst of the storms, and fiery courage.
Bottom line: your “YES” gives you all of Jesus.
And He is all you ever need.
Filed under Devotions
Since I am learning the art of photography (I have A LOT to learn, but I really love it), I decided to devote Fridays on the blog to posting photos from my part of the world.
Yesterday, we had a snowstorm. This morning when I awoke, I looked outside and literally gasped at the beauty all around our neighborhood. The stormy skies from the day before had given way to the soft pink light of morning, just before the sun made its glorious appearance. I bundled up, grabbed my camera and ran outside.
I hope you enjoy this glimpse of the Creator’s work in New Hampshire on a Thursday morning. 🙂
“Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire; it is the time for home.”—Edith Sitwell
Filed under Friday Photos
Photo credit: Google
This blog is called The Power Of A Moment.
It occurs to me that I have been somewhat lax in writing about moments in time that really move and affect me.
I just had one such moment.
My brother recently lent me a DVD of the 25th Anniversary Concert of Les Miserables. I had seen the movie and while I loved the themes of grace and redemption, I truly did not understand why this play was so beloved. When I shared that with Jeff, he handed me this DVD and said, “Watch this and you’ll see why.”
He was so right!
I literally sat transfixed as Broadway actors and actresses used their incredible vocal gifts to make the music come alive in astonishing and beautiful ways.
One performer in particular brought tears to my eyes.
His name is Alfie Boe and he played the grace-saturated hero, Jean Valjean.
Photo credit: Google
At one point he sings a prayer to his God called “Bring Him Home.”
He sings with passion, tenderness, deep emotion, and tremendous power. It is absolutely spellbinding. With the final note, which is both exquisitely gentle and fiercely powerful, there is complete, almost stunned silence. Then, the audience leaps to their feet and absolutely explodes with cheers, shouts, and applause. Even Alfie Boe looks overwhelmed as he stands alone bathed in the spotlight on that huge stage. Tears shine in his eyes and he swallows hard.
I had chills all over and realized I was holding my breath. The beauty of that moment filled my senses and I marveled at the amazing talent I had just witnessed.
Then I remembered the fascinating and beloved verse our pastor had mentioned on Sunday: “The Lord your God is in the midst of you, a Mighty One, a Savior…He will rejoice over you with joy…and in His love He will…make no mention of past sins or even recall them; He will exult over you with singing. (italics added).
If you belong to Jesus, He is singing over your precious life right now.
Imagine! Jesus Christ SINGS over YOU!
Just let that settle on you for a moment. Drink in the truth of that statement. Marvel and be amazed.
If the voice of a human being has the power to move us so deeply and bring tears to our eyes, it is astounding to imagine what Christ’s own voice—the very Voice that called creation into being-— must sound like!
He is the Creator of all music. He is the Creator of all beauty. He is Beauty.
Therefore, His Voice must be beautiful beyond description.
When the day comes…and it is coming for all followers and lovers of Jesus…that you finally see Him face to face, I imagine He will lift His Voice in joyous song and serenade you with a love song that will last for all eternity.
Until then, rejoice in knowing that He sings over you, His beloved, even now.
Filed under Devotions
When He has brought out all His own, He goes on ahead of them.—(John 10:4).
Photo credit: Etrusia UK
A new year is always exciting.
There is something about opening a brand new calendar and seeing all those little blank squares that always give me a such a sense of anticipation about all the opportunities and new adventures that lie ahead.
Yet, this excitement is inevitably accompanied by the icy whisper of fear, as I remember past years when what began with happy expectancy morphed into heartbreak as the days unfolded.
The above verse speaks directly to every such fear.
Jesus is not limited to time. He exists outside of time. Time is His creation. He sees the end from the beginning. He knew all things before He even created the world.
For it was in Him that all things were created, in heaven and on earth, things seen and things unseen…all things were created and exist through Him…And He Himself existed before all things and in Him all things are held together. ..all the divine fullness (the sum total of the divine perfection, powers, and attributes) dwell in Him permanently. (Colossians 1:16,17, 19).
One of my favorite devotionals is Streams In the Desert by L.B. Cowman. Today’s entry was very reassuring if the beginning of this new year finds you full of fear and trepidation about what is to come:
“Take heart!…Whatever awaits us is encountered first by Him, and the eye of faith can always discern His majestic presence out in front….Comfort your heart with the fact that the Savior has Himself experienced all the trials He asks you to endure; He would not ask you to pass through them unless He was sure the paths were not too difficult or strenuous for you. This is the blessed life…quietly following the Shepherd, one step at a time.
Dangers are near and fears my mind are shaking;
Heart seems to dread what life may hold in store;
But I am His—He knows the way I’m taking,
More blessed even still—HE GOES BEFORE!
Doubts cast their weird, unwelcome shadows o’er me,
Doubts that life’s best—life’s choicest things are o’er;
What but His Word can strengthen, can restore me,
And this blest fact; that still HE GOES BEFORE.
HE GOES BEFORE! Be this my consolation!
He goes before! On this my heart would dwell!
He goes before! This guarantees salvation!
HE GOES BEFORE! And therefore all is well.
The (ancient) shepherd always walked ahead of his sheep. He was always out in front. Any attack upon the sheep had to take him into account first. Now God is out in front. He is in our tomorrows and it is tomorrow that fills people with fear. Yet God is already there. All the tomorrows of our life have to pass through Him before they can get to us.
God is in every tomorrow,
Therefore I live for today,
Certain of finding at sunrise,
Guidance and strength for my way;
Power for each moment of weakness,
Hope for each moment of pain,
Comfort for every sorrow,
Sunshine and joy after rain. —F. B. Meyer
So if today finds you full of fears about what 2013 holds…please take comfort in knowing that Jesus holds the days ahead…and YOU…in His strong, powerful, and loving hands.
If you belong to Him, you are safe ALL of your days.
Never forget that He goes before you. Your unknown tomorrows are known by Him.
Take one day, one step at a time.
There is nothing to fear.
Filed under Uncategorized
(Photo credit: taranoel)
Every December, I ask Jesus to show me a verse that He wants me to live out during the upcoming new year.
I have done this since 2002, when a Sunday school teacher suggested that we do this very thing. The goal was that by the end of that year, you would KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that you have lived that verse…that you have walked it out with Jesus. It has jumped off the page in the Bible and now lives permanently in your heart; a powerful testimony to the fact that Jesus lives and still walks with His followers today in the Person of His Spirit.
It has been a life-changing experience and I highly recommend doing it.
This year, He has given me this passage: “Command those who are rich in this present world would not be arrogant nor put their hope in wealth which is so uncertain but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and ready to share. In this way, they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age so that they make take hold of the life that is truly life.” —(I Timothy 6:17-19).
Life that is truly life!
We all want the “good life” don’t we?
Our culture has plenty to say about what that is: health, wealth, and beauty.
Yet, Scripture tells us that those things are fleeting and definitely NOT worth our time and energy. In fact, if we put all our energies into attaining those things, we will be left empty-handed in the only place that really matters: standing before God once our life on earth has ended.
What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? (Mark 8:36).
I only have one life and I want to live it in the way that my Creator deems worthy: the pursuit of Christ. (John 17:3)
This verse tells me what His priorities are:
1. Wealth in this world is uncertain and can be gone in an instant.
In the blink of an eye, wealth disappears, for it will sprout wings and fly away like an eagle. (Proverbs 23:5).
2. I will put my hope in God Himself, not my bank account or anything else in this world
Take a moment and look around you, wherever you are while reading this. You are not taking anything you see with you when you leave this world. In fact, one future day, everything on this earth is going to be destroyed by God Himself (2 Peter 3:10). Only people and God are eternal. The things of earth will not last. To spend your life seeking those things is to waste your life and miss what truly matters.
“No thing can satisfy the soul. The soul was made to stand in awe of a Person…the only Person worthy of awe.”—John Piper
3. I will rest and rejoice in the fact that our God is a lavish Giver.
As this verse says, He richly provides all things for our enjoyment. He is not a heavenly Scrooge. He loves to give and He only gives good gifts. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights who does not change like shifting shadows. (James 1:17).
Enjoy the good gifts He has given you. Revel in them. Thank Him for them. But don’t live for them. Live for Jesus.
4. There is one way to be rich, regardless of the size of your bank account: be rich in good deeds.
Give your time and your treasure for the good of others. Open your eyes to the world around you. There are needs everywhere. Go and meet the ones you can with what you have.
We own nothing. We are simply stewards of what God has seen fit to entrust to us. Live with an open hand. Giving is the path of true joy.
5. Live for heaven, not for the stuff of earth.
Compared to an infinite eternity, this life is a vapor, a mist. (James 4:14)
Yet, what we do with this short life has eternal ramifications for the next. (Matthew 6:19-21; Luke 16:19-21).
This world is not our home. Let’s not live like this is all there is. Let’s spend this year filling our bank accounts in Heaven with true, eternal riches as we live day by day with Jesus, following wherever He leads, knowing that He can only do good to us.
This will result in true life! The transliteration of the word “life” in the original Greek is zoe. It means: “the absolute fullness of life…a life active and vigorous, devoted to God, blessed.”
I want to live a life like that in 2013.
Do you?
“Whatever you do, find the God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated passion of your life and find your way to say it and live for it and die for it. And you will make a difference that lasts. You will not have wasted your life.”—John Piper
Filed under Devotions
Power Of A Moment 