Sometimes, God’s gifts are confusing. I wouldn’t call them “bad,” but I would label them with the sticker-styled name-tag as “hard.” There are things that show up in camouflage - not hidden in cruelty - rather, sheltered in mystery.

during the past five years, this belief has been through the fire. My husband and I dealt with countless extended family issues, including mental health challenges, broken relationships, and unhealthy dynamics.

Sometimes I feel like I spend most of my life waiting; hovering on the dash between the need and the answer. The gap where I feel like Mr. Time taunts and teases. The wait-game. Played by us all on a daily basis. The game of traffic, check-out lines, drive-thrus, pay-days, school car lines, staff meetings, roasts in ovens, Christmas morning, and the list continues…

Human hands can do great work and produce amazing creations. Yet, there are the untouchables. We cannot influence the sun’s habitual obedience to rise and fall. We cannot manipulate the ocean waves to halt their ebb and flow. We cannot interfere or change the given routine of twenty-four hours, seven days a week.

To be human is to know pain. But to be human is to also know healing.  Have you not seen your bruises fade, your cuts healed, your broken bones reset, and bug bites disappear? Isn’t the physical body created to produce certain pain receptors and begin the healing process all on its own? We know pain, but we have also experienced healing.

On the shallow shoreline, a discolored seagull had come across a treasure. There, riding the sway of the lapping water, was a live crab caught in what appeared to be fishing line.

In the busyness of September, I hope that you have been able to find your own come away place and that you have been able to find the solitude and intimacy with the Father that you need. If you have not yet found your place or scheduled rest time, you do not need me to remind you to do so. Your soul is already aching…

September 11, 2001, was one of those life-changing days. I remember where I was when I heard the news and how I felt watching the world crumble on live TV. I had seen horrible pictures of wars in the past, I had been to the Holocaust museum in Washington D. C., and I had heard war stories from Veterans. But, I had never experienced the destruction of something so prominent in real time.

How often do you feel like running away? Escaping the circumstances at hand? Admittedly, the idea of loading a suitcase and disappearing to an isolated island often traipses through my thoughts. For you, it may be disappearing into a television binge, an Internet shopping spree, an old addiction. Either way, there are times we all want to drag our baggage into a place where we can temporarily say goodbye to the now.  

There are just moments in life where I am overwhelmed by the circumstances and my faith gets clouded by the fast moving current. I can too easily allow my eyes to shift from the Healer to the heartbreak.