Category Archives: Things to ponder….

People, events or things that cause one to stop and think.

What’s in a name?

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Journey to the Heights

With a subtitle of… life is the journey

… is the name of this blogsite.

Mount Sopris & upvalley view
Mount Sopris & downvalley

Many times someone has asked me, why this name? It’s so long.

It is long, but I’ll share with the different meanings this name holds for me.

I grew up in the mid-west and lived my life east of the Mississippi River. I spent six years in Germany. I lived all those years at less than 1,000 feet above sea level, sometimes as low as 180 feet above sea level.

My current house sits at 7,400 feet in the Rocky Mountains. For me, this move was a “journey to the heights.”

Ironically, we live in an area referred to as “Missouri Heights.”

My faith expects me to grow and mature, representing the love of God and the life of Christ more and more. For those of you who personally know me, you recognize some days that truth is more evident than others. God obviously calls us to a higher level.

For me Journey to the Heights means all these things.

I’m blessed with better health living at a higher elevation with a drier climate than any I enjoyed earlier in my lift.

I’m blessed by being surrounded with natural beauty, constantly changing. One can watch the massive skies with the clouds and various colors throughout the day. Stars appear close enough to touch.

I’m blessed that God put me here, in this location for this time of my life and He is taking me to higher levels in my faith. This is a gift!

And so, I share Journey to the Heights with all who are curious about my thoughts, my writings, my life!

Sometimes First Impressions are Incorrect…

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We packed up and headed out of Tralee, County KP1030723erry. I’d gotten used to the “green” Ireland offers and had heard so many talk about.
We crested a hill and neither of us could believe what we saw. It did not look like the Ireland we had been introduced to. Our German friends called it a moonscape. I just thought it looked arid and barren.

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A couple days later at a local perfumery (more about the perfumery another day), I learned the area is called the Burren and it offers the most diverse vegetation of anywhere in Ireland. There are only a few Irish plants that don’t grow in this area, and there are many only found here. In fact, there is a wild Irish found nowhere but here.

We walked the Burren and I was amazed. The limestone rocks have many cracks, crannies and holes. They are home to various plant life.

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I understand why so many consider the Burren to be a very special place.

 

 

Eternal Justice

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Disclaimer: I’m sure this topic may elicit some strong feelings from some of you. Please feel free to share your thoughts, but don’t expect any heated debates.

For more than a year, I’ve been reading or studying the issue of women in the church. All the reading and thinking, has left me feeling as if my sense of justice has been violated.

During this study time, I’ve come to recognize the power, or should I say, abuse of power by a few. The Judeo/Christian culture is primarily a patriarchal culture. I accept this as the world I live in. However, when I see how one uses their position of power and/or trust to contrive a message to fit their life view instead of accepting the original text may have been written to challenge or question that very life view, it strikes me as an abuse of power and trust. My sense of justice, or the sense that one should do the right thing because it is the right thing, feels very violated.

While sharing these thoughts with a close friend, she helped me put some perspective on this. She could understand my feelings; but told me when she feels something is unjust, she tries to step back and look at it from the scales of eternal justice. She said those who abused their power and trust, would one day be held accountable. Wow! Those words created a strong visual, and immediately brought to mind James 3:1

Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers,
because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.

The good news is the sense of justice being violated was replaced with peace; with the promise and assurance the eternal scales will validate the truth.

Current day teachings associated with this topic should address the failings of those who translated the original manuscripts, or of those who led the early church into placing such emphasis on scriptures designed for a particular location or a particular set of circumstances. Will that happen?

That still leaves the question of, how ‘women in the church’ is to be lived out today?

For those of you who know me, this is a reversal of my former thoughts on the subject. I want to be clear, I believe God intended for women and men to be spiritually active in the church and among others. This change in my thoughts is not a matter of feminism or equal rights. For a woman, or a man to be involved in spiritual leadership, they have to possess the spiritual gifts of the position they are filling. Those gifts are not bestowed because of gender. People (men and women) receive these gifts from a loving God when they are in relationship with Him.

Stopped in My Tracks…

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The following two sentences are in the middle of a book I’m reading, the last paragraph on the left side of the page. I had to stop and just think about these thoughts. In fact, I’ve been thinking about them for four days.

This is why a defining mark of revival is that as the Spirit increases, divisions decrease. Gender divisions, race divisions, socio-economic divisions fade away as everyone encounters God together.

If you’ve been reading my blog, you know I’ve been working through thoughts related to Revival this year. Looks like I’m still thinking about it.

I still believe ‘refining’ is a critical component of ‘revival’. Yet after reading the above sentences I have to wonder, besides the obvious refining we each need to submit to daily, does this refining need a common focus? As Christians do we each need to take a good look at ourselves, our churches and our communities and then determine where we as individuals, might be able to help bridge some of the divisions that exist in our families, our churches and our communities? If you’re a leader, or following a leader, should you be looking for this?

No one needs to look far, to see the affects of divisions caused by:

  • Ego or power struggles
  • Desire for control and recognition
  • Financial disparity that abound around us
  • Women hampered by the glass ceiling
  • Relationships severed due to hurt feelings or harsh words

This list is unending. I’m sure you could add many more things to it, but you get the idea.

As we pray for Revival, perhaps we should be asking to be refined in a true spirit of unity.

How words land on a page…

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Writing, writing, writing is what writers do. Or is it? Though that sounds natural to folks who don’t know writers, most writers know how many times it is just not that simple.

One of my pastimes for the days when words don’t flow is to review writing prompts. During a light-hearted don’t want to the world to take me too seriously mood I came across the following prompt:

One Day you come into work and find a cookie mysteriously placed on your desk. Grateful to whoever left this anonymous cookie, you eat it. The next morning you come in and find another cookie. This continues for months until one Day a different object is left—and this time there’s a note.

Something about this prompt spoke to me. Words sprang into my mind fast than my fingers could put them on the page. That day a story was born. Many changes and iterations later, the story is different.

Revival or Refining — Part II

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I’ve been pondering the Revival or Refining question for a few days. Thanks to each of you who reacted to this post.

A friend on FaceBook posted a comment that simply said “Both”.

His response resonated with me. I believe he is correct.

God’s church is the people! So when we consider anything the church is experiencing we need to consider what the individuals are experiencing.

Refining happens when we submit to changes God wants to make in our lives. These changes should be happening to all believers regularly. Then those changes should bring about revival within us. We should be strengthened, changed and desire to be closer to God.

Refining may have gotten a hard wrap. People tend to consider it something negative. Sometimes the process is difficult, but that may be the result of our resistance. The results of refining are what most of us desire.

  • To be free from impurities
  • To be free from moral imperfection
  • To improve or perfect
  • To be free from what is coarse, vulgar or uncouth

If these things are going on in your life, you are changing. Those changes are reason enough to celebrate “revival”.

Here’s the definition for revival so you can see if it might already be occurring in your life:

  • An improvement in the condition or strength of something
  • An instance of something becoming popular, active or important again

I think The Church should be ready for both “refining” and “revival”. We should encourage one another to submit to the refining and live in revival!

 

Iron Sharpens Iron

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As Iron Sharpens Iron
So
Writers Sharpen Writers

Most writers I’ve met are solitary creatures. We do our work alone.

Yet it is in coming together, baring our souls and sharing our work we are honed to be better at our craft.

I’ve found writers either instantly bond, or take some time to develop a relationship. Once that relationship is developed, they tend to hold others gently, recognizing we are each a work in progress – both in our lives and in our work.

It is in those relationships other can speak into both your life and your work. In the differences of opinions, the suggestions or the encouragement we learn. I learn. From these people, I hone my skills. I change and my writing changes. I hope I do these things for other writers as well.

My goal is to become a better writer this year. That means I have to commit to more time writing. We’ll see how that works for me.

Reflections

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It’s that time, when I reflect on the past year. I began 2015 with no particular expectations for the year. It became the year to conquer fear. Or should I say, turn my fears over to God.

By March, I found myself on a new trajectory. I would be going to Haiti in June. This newfound knowledge was surrounded by much fear and trepidation on my part, yet I knew it was a trip I was supposed to make. I had fears about my personal health; my ability to withstand the heat and humidity; letting go of pride to ask others to partner with me and greatest of all were the words a wise elderly woman spoke to me when she said, “These trips change people. You will never be the same again.”

Those words were frightening to me. It had taken many years for me to learn to accept and appreciate myself, and my life. Now I was hearing, I would never be the same. What would that mean, and would I like the person I would become?

As I prepared for the trip, I watched God graciously erase each fear before I arrived at the action part. The departure date arrived and I was ready to go. The trip itself was amazing. All I’ll say, is if God is asking you to step out and do something like this – then GO.

I was changed! Changed in the best possible way. At the end of the year, my husband received some medical news that created some uncertainties in our life. Fear was not part of this time. When I stopped and reflected on this, I was surprised! The old me would have been fearful and anxious. The new me was able to go about the required actions, procedures, tests and waiting, resting in peace.

Though I’ve been a child of God for years, I’m ending 2015 with the following refrain from “No Longer Slaves” having new meaning for me:

I’m no longer a slave to fear

I am a child of God.

 

A Nurse, I’m NOT!

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As a young child, I idolized my second cousin Joan. She was a nurse. I was sure I wanted to be a nurse, like her. I stuck by that dream until I was 16. Something happened during the year to make me realize I had no tolerance for seeing others in pain, or even seeing things I perceived as being painful.

Over time my sensitivity to issues requiring medical attention increased. As I had children, I could attend to their cuts and bruises as needed, if no one else was around. If some other able body were in the vicinity, I would get hot, and then dizzy, rendering me worthless in dealing with the problem. The other adult would dress the injury. With things bandaged up, I could attend to their other needs.

Fast forward, now I’m home with a husband requiring attention to a surgical wound. YIKES! I’m able to get the initial bandage off. But the gauze around the drain tube is stuck. I feel myself getting hot, and my head getting lighter. I back off and sit down.

The good news is, my being a wuss about medical things is no surprise and we both laugh about it. He references how funny he thought it was listening to the doc telling me the things I would have to do at home.

After taking a break, I get the old bandage removed. Photo the site and the pictures off to the doc. Hubby is enjoying the break from having is neck all bandaged. I’m not enjoying his freedom. The sight is unsettling for me. We work together and get the bandage back around the drainage tube.

The phone rings. Doctor’s office calling. He has to take this call. Then he asks me to make some calendar adjustments. When I’m done, he’s completed his taping up of the new bandage.

Why this happens I don’t understand! Intellectually I understand what needs to be done and why. Yet when it’s time to take action, my mind doesn’t respond the way I need it to.