Pine Needle

Tree goals!

I have a new seedling with much promise. How many pine needles do you imagine my little young plant might need to grow so majestically?

I’m working to manage my hopes, but I am also encouraged that its shared soil has nourished this magnificent tree.  I wonder if this monstrosity began as a limp offshoot?

And then I think, haven’t we all?

Here is a tree in all of its full glory.  It almost demands your attention. I think about every single pine needle that contributed to its fullness and I wonder. 

What if displays like this are actually made to do just that!  Demand your attention.  Command your consideration.  And, then I think if this pine tree were a representation of one’s full life and every pine needle were to represent a manner in which God made Himself known to you by virtue of His workmanship, blessings, experiences, occurrences, sensations, surprises, phenomenons, relationships, what would this reveal?

There was a day that I came upon one of these on a walk.  It too was quite grand.  I was in the thick of placing oversized and zealous expectations on myself where they didn’t belong.  I stopped to look up and it seemed to me they were near the size of this tree.  

We’re all given a special gift according to the generosity of Christ.  I have tendencies to nudge and wedge my way in where I don’t belong with gifts I don’t have. I can be bent on making contributions that aren’t mine to make.  I walked away from that pine tree and stored a personal revelation.

“Settle down, Sparky!” 

In the life of God’s showpiece, I do have a part!  It might be an itty-bitty part.  It could be teeny-tiny.  My piece could be puny.  But, I have a part.  

My role is not likely the lead I try to usurp. But, I have a part.  I may be one line compared to a novel.  I may be one operational widget to the functioning of a machine.  I can contribute with my one line, my one small part, my one limited word in the scope of lines, parts and words.  I am responsible and accountable for using the gift God chooses in His generosity.  I am responsible to make a contribution.  

In God’s work of art, I am but a needle.

Ephesians 4:7

1 Corinthians 12:11

One Word

 One Word.

It’s a challenge.  

Literally.

What one word would you want to set your mind and focus on for a whole year?  Which word of all words might direct your heart in 2022?  What could possibly recenter you all day and all night when life’s navigational GPS has you all over the place?  I mean, that’s the idea behind a One Word challenge.  Is there such a word?

I’ve just never been one to establish New Year’s resolutions because I’ve never been one to volunteer myself for failure. Three years ago, the first One Word challenge was presented and I wasn’t going to accept that either. I mean, I don’t mind a good challenge, just not that one.      

This just seems to require something of me that I’ve yet to conquer in my whatever years.

It played out differently.  There was a niggling word that was undeniably present in thought and word that wouldn’t let go.  So, I chose it.  I mean, I think it chose me, but I went with it.  Unsure whether the next year would renew my steadfast commitment, another new word came a niggling.  I chose it, too.  Then this year’s word served to focus and refocus me.  And, what is now becoming an annual challenge, is once again before me.

I’m never certain of my commitment level from one year to the next.  You know, like a trend that might die out.  But, if that’s going to be true, I don’t think this is that year.

In the course of my writing, outside the safety of my journal, I dared to share a picture and song that reminded me how I needed to be.  Still!  This got me to thinking whether I should settle upon such a word for the upcoming year.

The next day, I’m leaving my gym and a sweet new member, whom I’ve yet to have the pleasure of knowing, hands me something before I leave.  It was a coloring book she had written and illustrated.  She just wanted to give me a copy. It was titled, Finding Stillness, by Twyla Stewart.  You could say, my attention was peaked.  But, for just cause, right?

No less than 48 hours came Christmas Day.  My daughter wrapped a gift she admitted picking for me last year but saved it until this year.  I opened it. It was a gold bracelet with a charm. Wouldn’t you know, it was engraved.   Be Still.   

I don’t know where you stand on a challenge such as this.  If it’s up to you, maybe there’s a niggling word around.  Though sometimes, I feel that maybe it’s not up to me.  This particular time I feel for this One Word challenge that it’s just meant to be.

Still.

Psalm 46:10

Christmas Eve

We’ll be celebrating today.  Yet, not as grand as we’ve once had.  It’s the second year that traditions of family, food, gifts, and games get traded in for smaller gatherings and absent members. Truth be told, the significance of this tradition had itself slumped one memorable Christmas, much like our gatherings these days.

I remember one year imparticular, the significance had just been about lost all together.  In the earliness of this one morning, I realized that not even a nativity was on display.  Wreaths were out. Stockings were hung. The tree was alit.  

This shouldn’t be.  

Was the reason for Christmas being lost on me?

Before any others that morning, it was early enough to look for the box that contained those ceramic pieces I had so carefully wrapped one by one for fear they would ever break.  My search found all pieces perfectly intact in a deep dark downstairs location.  I unwrapped each one individually.  There was Mary,  Joseph, baby Jesus in the manger, three wise men and assorted barn animals.  All there for no one to ever see.  I felt convicted. This was more Christmas than was upstairs. 

I took them up and placed them smack dab on the floor in the middle of our living room.  Center of attention.  Hoping somebody might even trip over them.  Notice them. I had just about lost what the center of this occasion was about.  Not intentionally.  It’s just that each year there was less room to fit the nativity and its pieces until it finally didn’t fit at all. 

My nativity is out every year since then. Those pieces remind me on Christmas Eve, that there was this momma still in her pregnancy on a day like today.   She would soon go into labor.  A natural birth. With stars in the sky,  no one would fit her in either. There was only a barn where cattle were lowing and a trough filled with hay.  It wasn’t until tomorrow where Jesus would there lay.  

Remembrance is important.

Merry Christmas to you!

Make Jesus the center of all that you do.

Luke 2

Still

I took a picture to remind me.  I framed it.  And captioned it.

Be still.

I even picked an anthem for this picture sung by Hillary Scott from Lady A.

Still

But, it’s dang hard.

Here we are at the end of 2021 and my shortened inhales have been no greater and no less than the reduced volume of my exhales. My dad has been practicing and measuring his breaths with a spirometer to prove he’s breathing sufficiently this year.  I question the sufficiency of my own.  It’s just that this year has brought a lot of waiting and with it, there are all these breaths of mine that are minimal and shallow.   I often was hard on my dad because of his shallow breathing.  I should have measured my own.

What a season of waiting 2021 has been.

And Waiting.

Waiting for a coveted appointment, Dad’s medical clearance, cardiac clearance, covid clearance and two surgical outcomes. Waiting for a natural birth, a baby’s healthy cry, a threatening winter’s drive home, a solitary but medically necessary return, and my daughter’s healing.  Waiting for an employment exam, interview, test results, and my son’s career confirmation.  Waiting for his first burning building.  Waiting for his next.  Waiting for a plane to land two men home.  Waiting for a mind to be restored.  Waiting for an effect the vaccine might have,  waiting for an effect of not having the vaccine, waiting for the end to a quarantine, waiting for another end.

And waiting right now.

Brief breaths.

I try to breathe with more intentional inhales and deliberate exhales, but it has come less natural these past 365 days.   And just when I feel its normalcy.  It gets held.  

A friend’s son’s lost life, another friend’s son, a friend’s husband, a friend’s mom, a mother’s daughter, and even when there is way too many people I know, I notice I’m doing it for those I don’t.

Still I wait, and yet what I can’t do, what I don’t do, is bring myself to wait STILL.

Just still.

At rest.

Unruffled.  Untroubled.  Unstirred.

I know better.  I know who’s God.  I know who’s not.

My picture is trying to remind me what I know.

“Yet, I still dare to hope when I remember the faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease.  Great is His faithfulness.  His mercies began afresh each morning.  I say to myself,  The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in Him.  The Lord is good to those who depend on Him, to those who search for Him.  So it is good to wait quietly.”

And be still.

Lamentations 3