Sunflowers

Recently, I was driving home from a speaking engagement in Georgia on a sunny late summer day.   My path took me down a two-lane highway that wound through the North Georgia mountains.   I came around a bend, and spread out to the left of me was a field full of rows of sunflowers!  It wasn’t just a small field, either – there were almost thirty acres of gorgeous sunflowers, all in bloom.  It was breathtaking!

It didn’t just take my breath, though – all of the traffic on the highway slowed down from the 55 mph speed limit to around 25-30 mph.  I’m sure that the other drivers were also trying to take in this astonishing sight.

The sunflowers were very tall, at least 7-8 feet in height, I would guess.  Above the leafy green foliage of each stalk sat a dark face framed by a fringe of yellow petals.  Each sunflower face was turned up toward the midday sun, shining in its light.  Marvelous!

As I continued slowly past the sprawling fields, I thought about how the sunflowers’ faces track with the path of the sun so that they are always turned towards it.  “Wouldn’t it be wonderful,” I felt like the Lord was saying to me, “if all of My followers were like the sunflowers?”

My mind was then flooded with images.  I could “see” all of His followers, clothed in shining white robes and standing together in a massive group that could not be counted.   We stood shoulder to shoulder in row after row with our faces turned towards Him, beaming reflections of His glory, and with all of our eyes trained on Jesus.  Like a garden with a burgeoning crop of faith and devotion, we were all transformed into Son flowers!  Magnificent!

I know that I fail almost daily to keep my face turned towards Jesus, at least for part of the day.  There are always distractions that try to take my focus off of Him.  In addition, storms come up that can take my gaze off of Him unless I’m careful, and over the past months of difficult times, I confess that I have not been as diligently careful as I should.  I often have had my head down when I should have been looking at Him, the lifter of my head!  (Psalm 3:3)  I thank God for His mercy and grace, though.  With His help, I will be more careful in the future to keep my gaze right where it belongs – squarely on Him and only Him.

 

 

 

 

 

In Pursuit of Rest

²⁸ “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”  Matthew 11:28-29

I have been so busy for the last three weeks or so; I’ve been truly “burning the candle at both ends” as the saying goes.  I have been working my regular full-time job as well as my seasonal part-time job, plus I have singlehandedly packed all my belongings and moved them into a new home, where I have also unpacked them and put them in their new places.  My part-time job is in retail, and that meant working literally all night Thanksgiving night and into Black Friday.  I then traveled to Georgia to visit with family and friends over the remainder of the Thanksgiving weekend.

Not surprisingly, when I finally sat down at my Mom’s house in Georgia and just took a few deep breaths, I realized that I was way beyond tired – I was flat out exhausted.  I went to see my beloved Georgia Bulldogs play, and although I had a great time and enjoyed it, that did not restore me. I actually slept for 14 straight hours one night and well over 12 hours another night while I was there, but even after that, I was still not feeling rested.  There was physical exhaustion to be sure, but the exhaustion went even beyond just that; I was exhausted on a soul level.  Have you ever been at that place?  It is a place of mental and emotional exhaustion as well as physical exhaustion that is just overwhelming.

I had a six-hour drive back from Georgia on Monday, and the Lord and I had a pretty good talk about my weariness during that trip.  He reminded me of His example in Genesis for us to take a Sabbath rest once a week; He also reminded me that this is something I have seriously neglected during this season of busy-ness.  Physical rest alone did not fully restore me, and it never would; I needed to go to Him for rest, for He is the source of real rest.  As David says in Psalm 62:1, Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him. 

I felt like I should do a study of the word “rest” in Scripture, and I found something very interesting in Exodus 34:21, which says, “Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during the plowing season and harvest you must rest.”  Dang.  Even during the plowing and the harvest – and those times are busy! – we’re commanded to rest.  That’s how important rest is for us, as the Lord knew.

Here are a couple more reminders to myself about rest:

Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.  Psalm 91:1

Return to your rest, my soul, for the LORD has been good to you.  Psalm 116:7

I am now returning to my rest, for the Lord has been good to me.  I’m going to rest in Him and Him alone.  Won’t you rest in Him today also?

A Post About Friends :)

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.  Proverbs 17:17

Do you have friends?  I mean REAL friends – the ones who stick by you through thick and thin.  The ones who know all your faults but love you anyway.  The ones who know all your secrets and will never tell a soul.  I am blessed to have several friends who meet that description.

Recently I took a break from a really crazy period of life and went on a weekend getaway with three of my very most dear friends, Valerie, Stephanie and Jenny.  We have been friends for 40 years or more.  Valerie and Jenny still live in Georgia where we all grew up, but life has taken Stephanie to California and me to Kentucky.  In spite of the distance, when we get together it’s like we were never apart from each other.

So, as I was saying, we took a break and made a long weekend getaway to Savannah, Georgia.  I had been through Savannah before, but I had never stopped and explored the city before that weekend.  It was lovely.  We had a great time on Saturday doing a hop-on, hop-off tour through the city and learning about its incredible history.  We did some shopping on River Street.  We ate a fantastic Italian dinner at Bella Napoli and finished up with ice cream at Leopold’s.

On Sunday, we went to Tybee Island.  The beach is my happy place, and I was glad that the others wanted to go there also.  Even though it was October, the weather was cooperative enough for us to swim and wade in the water.  We then had a wonderful mid-afternoon lunch on Tybee.  When we got back to our hotel, we spent the afternoon at the pool.  That evening we had a great seafood dinner before retiring to the hotel to spend a precious last little bit of time together before I had to leave early on Monday.  (It’s a 10 hour drive from my home in Lexington to Savannah.)

The best part of the weekend was just being with people who really “get” me.  We laughed and cried with each other and shared intimate parts of ourselves.  We talked about dreams and plans that we have, and dreams and plans that have fallen apart.  We encouraged each other and were encouraged by each other.  It was a great time of lifting of spirits.  I have found that their kind of friendship is a rare commodity in this world.

Do you know who else really gets me?  Like, better than anybody else?  Jesus does.  Just look at the opening verses of Psalm 139:

 ¹ You have searched me, Lord,
    and you know me.
² You know when I sit and when I rise;
    you perceive my thoughts from afar.
³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
    you are familiar with all my ways.
⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
    you, Lord, know it completely.
⁵ You hem me in behind and before,
    and you lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
    too lofty for me to attain.

I added emphasis to the word “know” to illustrate all the ways that the Lord knows me and knows you.  Isn’t it mind-boggling to think that He knows literally everything about us?  And with this knowledge of us — all of our proclivities and passions, our weaknesses and our strengths, our hopes and our dreams — He loves us more deeply than we can ever fathom.  WOW.   That just blows me away to think that the God of the universe would even want to know me that well.

I pray that you have friends who are as loved and treasured as my friends are to me.  More importantly, I pray that you have the Friend Who will never leave you nor forsake you.  Please comment below or message me if you would like to know Him more.

 

And now for a quick update.  I haven’t written as much lately because I have been SUPER busy.  The pace at my regular job really increases during the last quarter of each year.  In addition, I’ve picked up a second job, one that will just be seasonal before life returns to normal, ha ha.  The main reason I haven’t written, though, is that I’m going through a lot of stuff right now on spiritual and emotional levels.  The Lord is doing some deeper work in me, for which I’m grateful.  I will write about it once I’m on the other side of this, but right now any thoughts that I have would just be half-baked.  I appreciate your patience with me, though, and if you’re so inclined, I would appreciate your prayer that the Lord will complete this work at the deepest levels He wants to take me to in it.  Thank you, and blessings to all!

The Broken Road to Georgia

“Uh-oh,” I said to my husband, Michael, “This is NOT good.”

It was last Friday night and I was driving my relatively new car down I-75 S about thirty miles outside of Lexington, KY where we live.  We were heading to Georgia for the weekend to visit with family and to attend the University of Georgia football game on Saturday.  I was in the middle of three southbound lanes and cruising along with traffic at 80 mph when all of a sudden three of the dashboard warning lights started coming on and the radio display began flashing.  The next thing I knew, ALL of the dashboard warning lights were on and I lost all power to the car.

I was in quite a fix.  Traffic was heavy.  There were large 18 wheelers lumbering along in the right hand lane and people were whizzing by me in the left hand lane.  I had no turn signals and no emergency flashers to even warn people that I was slowing down.  As the car slowed, people in my lane began swerving to either lane beside me to avoid me, some with horns honking in irritation.

Finally I got an opening in the traffic in the right hand lane, and I was able to safely navigate my ever-slowing car into that lane and on into the emergency lane.  Whew!  From there, we called for a tow truck to haul us back to the dealer in Lexington, then an Uber to pick us up at the dealer and take us back to our house so that we could get Michael’s car, and we started our journey all over again.  (We eventually made it to my dad’s house outside Atlanta at a few minutes before 3 a.m.!)

As we drove down I-75 the second time, we started recounting God’s blessings to us just in this little incident:

• We were able to safely navigate to the side of the road in a very dangerous situation.
• The manufacturer of the car provided the tow truck service at no cost to us.
• The tow truck arrived quickly.
• The tow truck driver was very pleasant and very professional and we enjoyed our ride with him.
• The Uber driver was also quite prompt,  pleasant and cordial and we enjoyed our ride with him also.
• All of the work to be done on my car, which has turned out to be fairly extensive, is covered under the manufacturer’s warranty at no cost to us.
• We had a second car available so that we were still able to make the trip in spite of the delay.
• I was not driving alone on this trip (as I often do).
• The car broke down close enough to Lexington that we were able to be towed to our regular dealer and were not left stranded somewhere for the night.

This is just a fraction of the ways that He blessed us that night, and we remain in awe of the many ways that He took care of us in the whole situation.  Isn’t He marvelous?  Don’t His many blessings speak of His great love for us?  We give Him all the thanks and praise and glory!

How do you see the Lord working in your life?  What blessings are you thanking Him for today?  Leave a post in the comments!