Dinner with Friends

Tonight was awesome! We started the outdoor grilling season by having a group of our dear friends over. Good steaks, good wine, wonderful salad and delicious appetizers. What could be better? Seriously, how great is it when you can have a group of people who individually, and as a group, bring such joy and encouragement to your life?

We feel so blessed to have a group of people with whom we can be totally real, totally ourselves and we just love each other. All of us have gone through some very tough seasons individually, and some of those tough seasons affected all of us. And through it all, we became even closer. There's grace here to simply be whatever we are in the moment and know that we'll be loved through it. Accountability? Yeah we got that - through grace and mercy and love for one another. No judgment, no condescension...grace, mercy and love. It's too rare in our too-busy western culture. In fact we were talking last night about it. None of us have ever experienced this kind of group closeness in our entire lives.

Thanks to a kind and loving God who teaches us how to be true friends. Now if only there weren't so many dishes to wash! :)

Life! Life is a very great adventure!

One of the last lines delivered in the 1991 movie, Hook, was by Peter who now thought that living, not dying would be a very great adventure. It's always made me smile. That and the little Lost Boy who said good-bye to Pan with, "That was a great game!" have stuck with me over the years.

I am not sure why, but I think because it embodies the optimism that is so much a part of who I am - or at least who I try to be. I just love the attitude that living is both a great adventure and a great game. We are meant to have fun in this life. We are meant to face challenges that would try to defeat and tear us down. When we refuse to stay down, when we look to our Maker and declare His TRUTH, nothing can truly beat us. We are HIS and He will not allow us to be defeated permanently - unless we turn away from His love.

That's the one danger we believers face. Believing our circumstances can possibly, even remotely, be bigger than God. Believing that God has turned His face from us and isn't looking after our best interests. Oh, that can be a terrible burden.

So how do you keep your wits about you in dreadful circumstances? Do the thing that confounds the senses - praise Him. Worship Him. Adore Him. Give your entire being to giving God the honor due His Holy Name!

Wow - circumstances may not, probably will not, change, but you will. Your heart will sing and maybe, if you listen, you'll hear the echo that comes back to you from heaven as God sings over you (Zech. 3:17). The reverberation of your praises sung back to you by your Father, who loves you with a fierceness that cannot be quenched.

SING! PLAY! DANCE! For life is a very great adventure!

Fun Stuff, This Visual DNA

Thanks for heads-up Tom... Very fun indeed.

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Agin' Ain't for Wimps

Last weekend I came face to face with a very harsh reality. My parents are old and they're really starting to show it...especially my mom. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with getting old - I want to do it myself some day (though some of my young friends at church will tell you I'm already there). But they are truly getting old. Mom's 85 and Dad's 89.

This weekend the rose-colored veil of denial was rudely pulled from my face as I came to terms with the fact that my Mom's health is in serious decline. No one killer thing, you understand, but the combination of being 85 and having numerous medical issues that limit her mobility and balance. When we accompanied them to her doctor's appointment Monday, it happened. He said that horrible thing doctors say, "Enjoy your life, do the things you want, and try not to fall." Stark reality. There is nothing medical science can do. Just, "Enjoy your life..." with the inference being clear. Drat! My rosy veil all torn to shreds in one sentence.

What I am coming to terms with is that 85 is good, long time to live and it ain't over 'til its over. God will decide how much longer I have to enjoy my mom's company, but I can guarantee you that we will indeed enjoy life, because we know the Giver of Life. We also know that our parting here is only temporary. We'll see one another again, so we're not saying good-bye at all anyway, just "see ya later." And we don't have to say that just yet either. Thank you God, for the good times and hard times and the inevitability of our mortality. It keeps things in perspective to know that we don't have unlimited time and that we can make the most of the time we do have, because You are Life and Life Abundant!