e.e. cummings

i thank You God for most this amazing

day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes.

(i who have died am alive again today,

and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth

day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay

great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any--lifted from the no

of all nothing--human merely being

doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Just Step In.

We had a meeting for small group leaders on Wednesday, and a girl from City Church came to share her insights after years of working in their ministry. Of all the things that she shared, what struck me the most was how much this girl really got the love of Christ. It shone through her...radiating...permeating everything she said and did. She showed me that kind of love is possible.

And I began to think about what it takes to walk in that kind of love. Why sometimes if feels hard, or far away, or even impossible. Because what I actually want is to live life positively swimming in that love.

The Lord gave me a beautiful image of the possibility of this way of living and being:

It was a picture of walking along the beach right on the waterline. The sand is soft there, and walking at that place for miles is tiring. The calves begin to burn, and it takes longer to get where you are going. Every so often, the foamy tips of the waves spill over your toes. For a moment, the sand is stiffer and your feet are refreshed, but it doesn't last as the water sinks deeper into the sand. It's like that in life, too. We can walk one way, and every so often we're touched, inspired, and refreshed as we experience the overflow of God's love, but it's only a moment. What we often fail to realize is that there is a whole ocean waiting for us to simply turn and just step into it.



Holy Spirit...teach me how to plunge with abandon into the depths of your love. Show me how to live and love from that place. Let your love flow through me to others. Change my heart and change the lives around me. Your love transforms. Your grace frees.

Snaggle Tooth Reconciliation

I've made peace with my crooked teeth.



With the realization that for all intents and purposes I fall into the category of "adult" (shocking...yes), I acknowledged that I could take some initiative in various areas. After mulling a good loooooooooooong while about visiting an orthodontist to discuss possible "solutions" for the twisty ones on top and the ziggy-zaggy ones on the bottom, I finally looked at myself in the mirror as I brushed my teeth the other evening.

And I simply had a hard time imagining what I would look like with straighter teeth. Then, I got tickled with my "cheesing" and "similing" assessment from various angles. And in that moment (brief compared to the deliberation time)...my heart was at peace.

Baby steps in growing to embrace who God has made me to be: flaws and all.