One-A-Day

“…you refresh my life.

You are true to your Name…”

~  Psalm 23:3 [Contemporary English Version]

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Feeling dogged lately?

Wondering why it is that sickness seems to be following you everywhere… time after time? Like you are just getting through to get past?  A sitting duck, waiting for the next blow from nowhere?  Almost anticipating it?

I have.

And a question has long been on my heart in prayer.  Are we supposed to just be enduring… letting waves crash and carry us wherever they may?  Is that God’s Heart when He calls Himself Jehovah Rapha,  the Lord God Your Healer?

Lately, I’ve been struck by Proverbs 4: 20-24: “Turn your ear to my words.  Do not let them out of your sight, keep them within your heart; for they are life to those who find them and health to one’s whole body.” [NIV] 

More and more I am conscious of practicing preventive “medicine.” I try to eat healthy, antioxidant foods all the time.  I see the doctor when necessary. I am setting my feet to walking, to being out in the sunshine even just 20 minutes whenever the weather cooperates.  (And, albeit minus sun, even when it doesn’t…)

And as I’ve prayed about maintaining (or restoring) maximum health, I’ve had one recurring thought.  What about His living water?  He has given us foods that naturally build up our immune systems.  How much more in the watering of the Word?

I think I am often running on Word-dehydration.  A sprinkling here or there.

But what if I purposed to “take at least one ‘health-FULL’ word a day and let it soak into my innermost being as truer than any negative symptom  coming against me… like a God-prescribed daily vitamin?   Before something strikes… or double/triple/quadruple-up when it already has.   Thwart the Thief (the devil) who is come to steal and destroy… and celebrate the Lord who has come to give me Life.  (John 10:10)

What if I put more faith in what the LORD God says than in what things appear like, or what the world says, or what seems impossible? (Or take my eyes off what I’ve experienced in the past or seen someone else go through and keep expecting His word above even that…)

My Words bring health to your whole body…   I will plant you like a tree by streams of water, and you will flourish…  

And so, I thought — starting tomorrow (Sunday, June 2) — I would set up a little corner of this blog to do just that. Opening in the Old Testament and going through Revelations.  Searching out those vitamins He’s given to bring us health to our whole body and spirit!

Word-antioxidants!

In keeping with STILL Sabbath weekends and Sunday Scripture and a Snapshot (links you may often notice on my weekend posts), I want these to be brief, tidbit devotions.  Mostly just a verse, a prayer, a thought to ponder.  Let His Word do the talking to our spirits most of all…

Like David in Psalm 103, I long to get in a habit of pushing out the negative things that only seem true — and tell my innermost being what IS true…every day… To bless the Lord!  And to remember all His benefits… that He forgives all my sins, heals all my diseases, redeems my life from the pit, crowns me with love and compassion, satisfies my desires with good things so that my youth is renewed like the eagle’s. 

Won’t you join me?  Starting tomorrow and ongoing each weekend, you’ll find these verses in a new category on the right of my blog… under God’s Health-full Word for Me…  any time you want to soak them in.

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Prayer:  Father, with my camera, I can only try to capture the radiance you paint all around me.  Shadow lights on stately trees with graceful arms uplifted… morning glory on my shoulders…pale yellow stars laid out on leafy branches.  Every part, strung together with melodious birdsong.  All this pointing me back to your promises for life-renewing hope.  And so, I pray…

Plant and steep your Word in me so that it is overflowing rivers of health into all that I am… change my thoughts from accepting as impossible when you yearn to write MORE on my soul and even in my physical well being. Each one of Your holy names is like a window to who you are.  Holy Spirit, reveal to me…and to all who pray with me here… the beauty of your Name, Jehovah Rapha, in fullness we have only yet begun to know.  In healing miracles big or small…I give you all the glory.  Amen.

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©  Pam Depoyan

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P.S.   I’d love to make this interactive as well… and look forward to your thoughts on any particular verse.  If God encourages you or shows you something in one of these scriptures — or if you have a prayer need that you would like readers here to lift up — please come often to this little corner of His Health-Full Words and leave a comment!  Let us be encouragers one to another and drink together of His Living Water… 

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Let’s Go Fly A Kite…

Let’s go fly a kite
Up to the highest height!
Let’s go fly a kite and send it soaring
Up through the atmosphere
Up where the air is clear
Oh, let’s go fly a kite!

When you send it flyin’ up there…All at once you’re lighter than air
You can dance on the breeze
Over ‘ouses and trees
With your fist ‘olding tight
To the string of your kite

Oh, oh, oh!
Let’s go fly a kite
Up to the highest height!
Let’s go fly a kite and send it soaring
Up through the atmosphere
Up where the air is clear
Let’s go fly a kite!

~  Mary Poppins

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I glanced down at the watch on my left hand, at the bangle bracelet on the right one, at my fingers white-knuckling the steering wheel.  Then ahead at the silver bumper glaring reflected sunlight into my eyes, and out beyond…the long line of bumpers ahead of that one.  Every one, snailing along the road — well below speed limit. So many slow slow slow  on the take each time the highway crossing ahead gave the GO signal that only about four cars made it through.

Arrrgggghhhhh….   It was already 5:45 p.m. At this impossible crawl, I was never going to get to the graduation by six.  And, Lord… I moaned… What about a parking space?  He alone knew the crowds already down there for the earlier baccalaureate, the families who’d stolen the last spots after getting out of work.  But I’d had to backtrack from my job on the opposite side of downtown, quick change and eat, dash back down.  A perfect weather night, I had thought it would be a piece of cake.  Certainly, I could get there with fifteen minutes to spare.

Mmmmrrrrrrrrggggrrrrr…   Move it, move it, move it…  I growled under my breath. What’s the matter with everybody!!!!   One thing I can never understand… why do the lead drivers at each light sit there a full minute before they suddenly kick into gear ahead?  And even then… move ahead (when they finally do) like they have no gas?

Again, I checked my watch….

Slow down your anxiety…  Don’t worry… Trust Me.  I have it under control.

I heard the internal whisper of those words almost like the feel of two hands resting on my tight shoulders.

But —   I didn’t say them, but there were at least twenty-five buts.   Not the least being I just didn’t know the parking area around this school, what street alternatives there would be if I got there to find the one place I planned on already full up.  And I’m not great at tight squeeze finagling.

Ask Me for My Favor to go ahead of you.  It belongs to those who turn to Me in My Name.  I will lead you.  Will you trust?

I let my breath out slowly, felt tension drain.  My yes was more like an exhale than a word.  But God has been showing me so much lately in His Word about praying and speaking out His Favor to cover my needs and others.  Like the Word that says “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.”  Like Dorothy and friends in Oz, I need to sing out – ding dong, the witch (devil) is dead and rejoice in the Lord’s victory…over…even…this.  Like the psalmist prayed without compunction.  Like the LORD God gave covenant to in Deuteronomy 28.  My Favor is on you…  Rest in Me.

Okay.

I visibly relaxed my hold on the wheel, handing over the string of this  kite to soar at His hands.  Calmed my straining nerves.  Began to just thank Him for giving me good time somehow on the jammed roads, leading me to a perfect spot, getting me there before it started.   And even if I was late… making a way that worked all things to good.

The road narrowed to one lane due to construction.  Last minute lane changers crowded in ahead and behind me.

Songs with words of praise came into my mind.   Prayers I’d been lifting up for others.  Promises of living to proclaim the Glory of the Lord.

I turned into the small office lot where I’d thought to park… knowing it was silly to try, it was obviously full up.  Turned out of the drive opposite the school Gym where the ceremony was about to start… just following and looking…  Amazingly unperturbed. Having no idea where I was heading –

When, right there… going towards a prime spot behind the Gym… I spied four teens moving to a parked car.  Could they be –?   I drove up behind, rolled down my window.

“Are you girls leaving?”  I asked, incredulity – but hope! — in my smile.

“Yep!”  they laughed back, as if it were only natural that students would be pulling out, not  in,  only moments before the celebration began.

A car coming from the opposite end, behind and to my left, waited patiently behind me as I waited for them…  A gift itself, since they had probably been circling the lot for awhile hoping for a find themselves.  (Bless them with one too, Father, I prayed!)   And God had opened it up at just the exact moment I turned out of the business driveway and onto that street.  Had turned my eyes to the walking, giggling figures… Made a way where there was no way.

And given me… a simple, kite-flying miracle.

In a time when I am praying for really big ones, a tiny miracle such as this falls gentle as rain from the heaven on my head.

And reminds me…

I can fume.  I can fuss.  And it won’t change a thing.  (Except rob my joy.)

Or…

I can open up my hands.  Give it to Him.  Trust that He will both calm my heart and open a way.  That He has more than I can ask miracles ahead, if I relinquish the fears and doubts.  Come to Him believing, the way the woman who touched His hem believed.

If in the little moments I AM faithful…  How much more in the GREAT ones?

I got out of the car with peace as a sweater lightly about my shoulders, walked the few steps around the building, sneaked in and through the long line of gowned and capped anticipation that was student upon student pouring like a river in through the double doors now…  heard the commencement march starting up… slid into what looked like the last available bleacher seat and took a breath.

Thank you, Father, was my own, silent invocation….just as the student body prayer began.

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©  Pam Depoyan    

The Year of the Lord’s Favor

 The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
    and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
     and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
    instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
    instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    a planting of the Lord
    for the display of his splendor.

~ Isaiah 61: 1-4

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Sharing with:  A Holy Experience 

 

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photos:  fotosearch.com

Sunday Snapshot

“The angel showed me a river that was crystal clear,

and its waters gave life.

The river came from the throne where God

and the Lamb were seated. ² 

Then it flowed down the middle of the city’s main street.

On each side of the river are trees

that grow a different kind of fruit each month of the year.

The fruit gives life,

and the leaves are used as medicine to heal the nations.”

~ Revelations 22: 1,2

(Contemporary English Version)

Today…whatever your need…take and eat of the Tree of Life that is the Lord 

HEALING… IT’S AT THE HEART OF GOD

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wreath graphic:  http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com

Re- Catching Joy…

For those of you who enjoyed yesterday’s day brightener…An Un-Holiday Gift  … I thought this one might make you grin even wider…  

…A teaser, starting in the middle…

…  I’d just escaped the adjoining waiting room where a television program was blaring details about someone going through something I… did… not… want… to… hear… anything… more… about.  Something that had taken hold of my own life these past few months and left me drained.  It seemed wherever you went these days…bad or heartbreaking news was in your face whether you wanted to hear it or not.  People talking clinically…as if it were just a hypothesis.  I would just wait here until the show topic changed…

I could hear a woman inside one of the offices off the hallway, fussing about her car repair. Saw a small blue-eyed boy in a matching fleece jacket peeking out at me…

 

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Click over to here Catching Joy…   for a little more refreshment to sleep (or start your day) on… 

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An Un-Holiday Gift

Her sweet little voice sparkled across the drab auto-service waiting room, like clear water rippling over stones in a fresh mountain stream…spilling as dappled light over my weariness.  Chitter-chattering to her Grandma, she turned her eyes to mine, blonde hair framing her 3-year old face like a soft aureole.  I smiled warmly – such a dear little face! – and she, taking it as invitation, danced close enough to touch.  “Hi!” she piped, beaming joy at me.

“Hi!” I echoed.

“C’mon, honey,” her Grandma called.

And quick as a falling star, she disappeared through the doorway, her words floating behind her, like so many bits of glitter from a magic wand that transformed my mood.

Ah, children…, I thought. Such pureness of heart. Those little ones that make me want to scoop them into a hug …

The door opened – Grandma and child again.  I saw them head towards the candy machines behind a counter.  Not really paying attention, I could hear only her excitement.  Again, as they were leaving, she caught my eye, I smiled…and this time she came running back to me…as if we were close conspirators… nearly face to face.

“I found it!” she sparkled her pride at me, her hands and feet in perpetual animation.  “All by myself!  I went by the candy machines, and there it was!”

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her Grandma patiently watching.  I could feel the importance behind the child’s words, like she just knew somehow I was a kindred spirit. Even though I only understood she’d left something she valued and now had found it, I knew she was sharing her treasure with me – a stranger.  A gift of trust, so freely given.

I looked into her eyes, beamed back, “Good job!”

Flashing me one more radiant smile, she turned and ran lightly across the room.  “I found it, Grandma!” I heard her bubbling over again as the door swung closed.

Smiling, I could feel His smile softly falling over me. The Shepherd who will leave the 99 to go and find His lost one, carry the lamb back on His shoulders, rejoicing that He too found His greatest treasure….  From the TV overhead, news of wars and sorrows still flowed. But in my mind’s eye a heavenly star lit up the twilight sky.  I found it too, my heart whispered to His. The gift of joy He’d just sent my way… like soft sunset watercolors painted across my day. And maybe, through me, on hers too.

Peace, soft as a blossom on a sweet breeze.

©  Pam Depoyan

A joyful repost...My encounter with this little girl was too lovely to let go without word-painting her for you here…  one more time.   

What unexpected gifts are blossoming in your life lately?

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A River Flowing Balm

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And they heard the voice of the LORD God

walking in the garden in the cool of the day…

the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.

Genesis 3:8

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When I woke, just after seven o’clock, and got up and went to the window, I opened it to the mournful cooing of the dove standing sentinel on the neighboring roof line and a soft shimmer of dew upon the flowers and grass.  There was a refreshing in the air, and a gentle, rain-washed breeze playing through the wind chimes on my porch, and the color radiance  of the lone amethyst tree across the way gloriously reflected in an entire nearby picture window…and the peaceful, clean-linen scent of blossoming spring.

As I peeked from the window out over the deck to the tip of white ironwork bench below, where the blue hydrangea sway and glisten unto the sun and I could picture sun dappled light and shadow over the sweet bonnet-faced pansies and raspberry dahlias and the rock bed river beneath… all the little things of worry, seemingly justified or not, began to feel far-flung and impossible and dream-like.

Here in my little cul de sac, morning was just beginning to dance her shadow lights across the gazebo out beyond, and over lawn and flowering bushes.  Trees wearing their fresh-painted coats of a green still sprigged with pear blossom, never brighter than in May, were not concerned for any fears or imaginings or worry-laced  tears shed.  Lilting notes of one bird calling to another echoed back and forth, unaware.

A robin ran suddenly across the porch railing like a tightrope walker, then down and over the lawn in quick, staccato movements.  The mourning dove flew as if blindly, near-missing my window… then perching on a wicker chair, its beak moving soundlessly, like a movie that has suddenly gone silent… as if it were pondering, momentarily dazed. Just then, a squirrel broke the quiet and ran chittering up the tree across the way.

Every one oblivious to homes around… each one fresh and new with a cold milk pitcher dip of morning.

Soon, I would be opening other windows to cool-breezed air and birdsong and breathing in the scent of warm oatmeal bubbling with fresh fruit stirred in… and filling a water jug and taking it outside to refresh my flowers — those little pansy faces like maids a milking — and lifting my own face to light and breeze and wanting nothing more… in this moment… than to be.

Here… reaching back to His outstretched palm…

Lifting those concerns that in the dark of night seem weighty but now are light as white eyelet-scalloped dogwood petals I throw into the wind…where He catches them with His right hand and flings them far, far, far away and into the wave-foaming sea.

And I can hear the rhythm of His heart as He walks here… in the garden with me… and the settling of my own… as He sings of promise and hope that covers all, and of fresh anointings on all the work of my hands and more, and of new beginnings and grace-washed tomorrows where fear and doubt are no longer allowed…

And He is beckoning me to let go of them even now… and forever…

And I say yes.  Yes to the peace and quietude He serenades through birds and sunlight on flowers and fresh breezes… and to life.  And to trusting to simply refusing worries and taking every thought captive.  And replacing them with hope…And to knowing His word never fails, because the peace He pours out is like the never-ending oil in the Shunammite woman’s jug.  (2 Kings 4.)

Even in the later on… when the gardeners will pull in across the way, tugging red flatbed behind, obstructing the view and starting in with roaring machines and temporary discordance.   Bees will begin their humming and butterflies come winging in the afternoon.  In the evening, a bunny or two might settle warm upon my lawn until some car should come to chase them off to hollow and home.

But in this moment before day would soon begin, serenity hugged our circle of homes like Hands cupped around us, warm as tea.  This peace…it will always be.  A river flowing balm.

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©   Pam Depoyan    (The above is my little exercise in descriptive writing  a la Daphne Du Maurier whose lyrical words have been lately singing across the pages of “Rebecca” to me once more…)   

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And a river went out of Eden to water the garden…

Genesis 2:10

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Note:  If you click on any of these photos, they will enlarge…  I can’t get enough of seeing the details in the flowers, myself…   Just playing with my camera these days…

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A Holy Experience 

Purple Majesty for Mother’s Day

              

             You can’t get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough                                 to suit me.  ~ C.S. Lewis

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Before we know, it’s become a game between us.  The silver-haired, lavendar-loving lady I introduced you to here — Passionate About Purple –  and I.

A game of catch as you can, get dibs, and swing into the only semi-comfortable seating in the break room.  Calling it a sofa is a stretch.  More like a worn down, little bigger than a loveseat respite, flanked by three equally spent ‘soft’ chairs.  But… in a sea of hard metal card table type seats, it’s Taj Mahal of cushion.

“Go! Go! Go!” she urges me one morning as I make it across the wide room, nearly reach the door, then settle into slower stride beside her.  After all…it seems a bit rude to push by her.

“Don’t wait for me!  You can get there faster than I can!” she twinkles, with a featherlight shove to my back.

In and out of true inchworm movers in the hall, I dodge, reach the goal and land there with but a moment to spare… all the while hilarious old skit scenes from the 70′s Laugh In show are rewinding before my eyes.  Those young ensemble comedians who used to dress up as the doddering to the extreme octogenarian in the park (Artie Johnson) chasing — um, I mean, inch-shuffling — lovestruck, after the hair-netted, support hose-stockinged woman (Ruth Buzzi) who always turned and clobbered him one for even thinking he could win her!  I stifle those old childhood giggles bubbling up now.  For…here I am in the real life scene…

Each break, waiting with bated breath for the time monitoring leaders to notice – Um, c’mon! The clock is on that minute!  Holding my purse in my lap, so’s to be ready to dash before the slower ones even get out of their chairs.  For if they do, well, I might be stuck standing blocked behind them a literal full minute and a half before they even move forward…And — my buddy’s depending on me!

Most people seem to prefer moving towards the back of the break room.  Standing and hovering over the tea and coffee station.  Twittering and chattering like happy crows in a cornfield.  Or bursting through the glass doors, literal rain or shine, to grab a smoke.

Sooo….our only real competition is a couple of somewhat larger, older gents from another room.  Even ONE of THEM can monopolize the entire couch. If our leaders are slow on the take of releasing us by a nanosecond, they can beat us there.  And occasionally do.

Believe me… in those moments… I feel defeated by more than just a chair.   Chivalry is dead, I think, observing their oh so cool glance right through my thin, frail partner.   Though, once or twice, she braves the five inch space left beside by one hefty giant and just squeezes herself in…  Me, not so much.  And the one kind guy who does offer another woman his seat, when I know full well how much he wants it… well, he renews my faith.  One of those old-time cavaliers who charmingly, in this case, reflects his bygone era love of barbershop serenade … 

Father, I sometimes pray, if you want me and Anne to share today, won’t you please put your favor on us for that couch?

And… most often He does.  Giving us once again little moments of story sharing that punctuate this temp job with LIFE.

Dare I say, even glee?

One such moment is the day I watch her truly leap out of her chair at the call of BREAK!  Close behind, I grin as she sprints and dodges forcefully… something in me purposely slowing to see her grab it.  Zippier than I remember her from last year, she casts her purse down on the seat, narrowly reaching it before another, turns to me and crows –              “We got it!”      

And in between nimble fingers flying over the rainbow of little squares she is knitting to make her annual Mother’s Day gifts for women at her church, she tells me fun and lively stories.  How she has to get up at 5 a.m. to take her daughter to a meeting stop this morning where she’ll catch a lengthy ride to a job in Canada for the week, then drop off her granddaughter at school and get here by 8:15.  If I were her, I’d be ready for a nap too.

She tells me once of an audacious young man who approached her recently in the grocery store.  Expostulates in her Why I NEVER tone.  “He actually asked me how OLD I was!”

Hiding my own wondering at her so-lined face, yet still energetic mind, I quip back.  “You should have countered him with – ‘Hasn’t anyone ever told you not to ask a lady such a question?’”

She chuckles… says she will the next time.  Ha.

Still, looking into her eyes… I try to picture the younger woman.   “I had soft brown hair in those days,” she tells me…

Other days, we talk of moms who sewed our clothes, how she used to make matching outfits, same materials, different styles… for each of her grandchildren.  She brings photos in to show me. Shares reminiscences from her childhood that make me try to envision that long ago childish curve to her cheek.

As our time dwindles down on this job to no one knows when the project will end, I bring her a little gift – one of my small pen & ink drawings of an old Mill House. She claps her hands like a child with a teacher’s prize.

One morning, she stops me on the way back to my seat, points at her screen.  “They say we are almost done on my side,” she laments.  “Oh… I’m sorry,” I whisper back.  Knowing she hoped for a few more days.   And… like last time, she seems abruptly out the door and gone…

I think again of these little teacup and saucer moments we have in life.  Like spots of afternoon tea and crumpets with someone who opens a page or two of their book to us.  Writes them somehow… into our own.  I think I’ll save one of hers recently shared for another post…  

And simply offer this one today as a Mother’s Day quilt square to you…  

 

 If birds were pink, I think they’d be made of swirling dogwood blossoms…

©  Pam Depoyan

Oil and perfume make the heart glad,

and the sweetness of a friend (and mom!) comes

from earnest counsel.

Proverbs 27:9 (Parenthesis, mine)

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Photo note:  I don’t know why my digital camera keeps dating my shots with January.  Perhaps I need to re-read the setting directions? 

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A Holy Experience