I took a minute the other day to look at my garage. What a disaster! Dark and dirty, stuff piled everywhere. Could I even find something if I needed to? What was that stuff on that shelf back there I couldn’t get to?

I know; it’s January. Time to shape up and get organized!

But it looks too hard for me.

What is it in me that makes me want to give up before I have even started?

Faced with this seeming overwhelming task, I am reminded of the old saying: How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. But how to start? How do I take that first bite?

I am fascinated by the space between idea and action. For some people, this space is large and extended; for others, it seems almost non-existent. This space is the home of intentions; and intentions can be messy. Intentions elevate manslaughter to murder, and recklessness to bravery. Sometimes bad intentions hide in kind acts. Sometimes, a lack of action negates good intentions. Are your intentions honorable? Are mine?

For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. The good person brings good things out of a good treasure, and the evil person brings evil things out of an evil treasure. Matthew 12:34-35

For now, I intend to make my garage an inviting space. One bite at a time.

So on Day One, I spent an hour in the attic. It’s a walk up attic; very handy, but everything gets piled at the top of the stairs, and the back half of the attic is almost empty.

If I was going to save some of this garage stuff in the attic, I needed to make room!

It amazes me what an old lady like me can accomplish in an hour! It’s encouraging. That elephant is tasty!

On Day Two, I actually began moving things to the attic; mostly things I had taken out of the attic and not returned. I intentionally did not put them at the top of the stairs. The picture above is after day two; only to say that it had been worse! I am not turning this into a garage blog, but I’ll keep you posted!

This little success has encouraged me. The untilled garden space in the backyard looks like another elephant, especially since last year’s garden was such a failure. Perhaps my intentions were askew last year. I was more interested in writing about my garden than actually growing food. I was more interested in your approval than God’s.

One bite at a time; one day at a time. The garden, the garage, spiritual growth, life.

God does not ask us to solve all the problems of the world. God does not ask us to perform herculean tasks. God asks us to search our intentions, our heart, and take the first bite.

They said to him, “Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat? And Jesus said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” When they had found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.” Mark 6:37-38

Not enough to feed five thousand or more. Not an obvious solution. Just one first step, good intentions and faith in Jesus.

Wherever you are, whatever you are facing, whatever elephant stares back at you, even if it’s as seemingly insignificant as a messy garage, you can trust God to help you face it, tackle it and conquer it.

In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Romans 8:37

Betsy

Just for kicks sometime, read through the New Testament and every time Jesus says “I am” read “God.”

After all, that is God’s name, YHWH, I am who I am, I am (Exodus 3:14).

God the bread of life; God the light of the world; God the alpha and the omega; before Abraham, God.

And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age. Matthew 28:20

We are not alone. We never have been. Not as a people, not as a race, not as a generation, not as an individual. Recognize it or not, admit it or not, God is.

I have been physically alone more these past three years than I have ever been. A little quiet alone time was always something I treasured when people crowded my life. But after Nick’s death, and with Covid, that quiet aloneness was sometimes overwhelming. But I was never really alone. God was with me. God is with me.

It seems a little haughty somehow to claim that God is with me, but that is exactly what He promised; not just that He is with me, but that He is with us. Not because we are worthy of His presence, but because He desires to be with us.

Sometimes, when I am frustrated that people can choose not to believe in God, I wish He would do some mighty act that would prove His existence. But He has. He had done many mighty acts, and people still deny Him. We may wonder how the crowd from Exodus could deny God while still receiving manna, but are we much better? Did raising Lazarus from the dead bring religious leaders to their senses? Did Jesus’ resurrection? Perhaps it is not the mighty acts that prove God’s existence, but the smallest incidents of individuals feeling His presence.

The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in a field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown, it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches, Matthew 13:31-32

So that smallest of things, you and me knowing that He is, could be just the thing that brings in His kingdom. Yahweh. Just saying it aloud causes us to breathe in and out, causes us to breathe, which gives us life. It seems a little thing, but it is not. Because He is with us. And His presence in a place makes that place a temple. Like Marine One, which is not a specific helicopter, but whatever helicopter the president is on, so the temple is not a specific place, but the place where God is. And if God is with us, then we are His temple.

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple. I Corinthians 3:16-17

I feel woefully inadequate to the task, the littlest of seeds. But of course, it is not the beauty of the building that makes a place a temple; it is God. So my “job,” if you will, is to acknowledge God’s presence. God is, and God is with us, YHWH, Emmanuel.

The glory that you have given me, I have given them, so that they may be one as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. John 17:22-23

I am, with you. God is, with us.

Betsy

I woke up to the sound of wind this morning. A low humming that rose and fell in pitch and volume. I’m sure there’s some scientific reason for how wind creates sound, but does that make it less amazing? I can’t see it; the only evidence it exists is the tree’s reaction to it. And that sound. Tornado and hurricane survivors speak of the sound of a freight train – powerful sounds, powerful forces, the wind. If I were blind (and indoors), could I identify that sound as wind?

From inside my home, I watch the barren tree limbs move as if by free will. They are dancing round about, back and forth, with no apparent purpose; and then they rest, as if tired from their exploits. The leaves on the magnolia tree shake and shiver. Then the sound picks up, and the dancing begins again.

Wind, breath, spirit. The Greeks and Romans envisioned wind as a god blowing air across the land. Simplistic to our 21st century brains, and yet. Isn’t there something beyond our grasp in the wind? Isn’t there something majestic and powerful and beyond our control?

And suddenly from heaven came a sound like the rush of violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Acts 2:2

Wind can be a gentle breeze on a warm day, cooling and refreshing us. Wind can uproot trees and blow away buildings. The wind ushers in changes in weather and stills the sails in calm seas. Always changing, ever present, unpredictable, uncontrollable. Somewhat like God. We know it’s there. We can feel it; we can hear it; we can see the results of its presence. But the wind does not operate at our beck and call, nor is it restricted by our expectations.

The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. John 3:8

We do know, 2000 years later, that wind is created when air particles move from high pressure areas to low pressure areas; and we know the variation in the way the sun heats the earth causes the different air pressures. Somehow this knowledge does not take the mystery and beauty and wonder out of the wind. Nor does this knowledge enable us to control the wind.

Wind is amazing to watch. How many of us have stood at the window watching as the newscasters urged us to get to our “safe place”? I know I have.

Is it any wonder the wind reminds me of God? Mighty and marvelous, gentle and refreshing. Able to lift a kite into the sky or a ship across the sea. Able to change the landscape in a day.

Thus says the Lord: I am going to break down what I have built, and pluck up what I have planted – that is, the whole land. Jeremiah 45:4

I believe in wind. I have felt it. I have heard it. I have seen the tree branches and leaves move, even if I can’t see the actual wind. I know it can revive me on a hot day. I know it can harm me. A source of comfort, a source of change, a source of power. A lot like God.

I believe in God. I have felt His presence. I have heard Him whisper in my ear. I have seen obstacles and situations move and change, even if I can’t see God. He revives me when I am burdened. He holds my fate in His hands. A source of comfort, a source of change, a source or power.

In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Genesis 1:1-2

I woke to the sound of wind this morning…

Betsy

I like to plan. It gives me a false sense that I have some level of control over what’s happening in my life. I tell myself that I plan to make sure everyone else has an enjoyable time, but I fear I am trying to avoid their criticism.

I am not alone in this love of planning. There are entire industries devoted to helping us plan. It’s hard to imagine what life was like before there were calendars. The Covid shutdown may have wiped them clean for a while, but I was eager to get back to planning things.

What I have learned, over time and through much frustration, is that I must make plans in pencil, preferably a pencil with a large eraser. This was certainly true while Nick was suffering through surgeries, chemo, and failing health. It has also been true this past fall. Awaiting the birth of twins, their arrival on Thanksgiving week, extended family coming and going with their own plans, surgeries and biopsies thrown in the mix, why bother owning a pen?

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such-and-such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.” Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. James 4:13-14

And now it’s the new year. 2023 – shouldn’t we have flying cars? Did you make a new year’s resolution? I will admit I stopped making them a long time ago. I eased into it by dubbing the upcoming year “the year of the house,” or “the year for travel.” But I found that I rarely knew in January what the upcoming year would hold. Last January, I didn’t know what a blog was. Last January, my daughter was not pregnant and lived in Fort Worth.

So I will make my plans in pencil. I hope to have a garden. I have been scheming on ways to enrich the soil, hinder weeds among the sugar snaps, frustrate the robber squirrels and chipmunks. I plan to continue this blog. Maybe I’ll have a better garden; hopefully I’m a better writer. God willing, I will have some new things to share. I’d like to spend some time at the beach, and much time at the lake. I plan to spend a lot of time with my grandchildren, and my children and my family and my friends. God willing.

Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.” James 4:15

Because who besides God knows what the new year will bring? For the world, for our country, for my family, for me. As civil rights activist Ralph Abernathy famously said, ” I do not know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future.”

That’s why I do not stress about not being able to plan in pen. It’s a little scary to be open to wherever the Lord may send my way. I make my plans, but I prepare myself for God changing them. I try to leave words like “never” and “always” out of my vocabulary. I keep telling myself that any relationship is more important than any plan I make. A hard lesson for those of us who like to plan. I remind myself that my plans need to be subject to His plans.

His plans are better than mine; better for the world, better for His kingdom, better for me.

And He is with us. No matter what happens. To the end of the age.

Now to Him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. Ephesians 3:20-21

Happy New Year!

Betsy