I'm baaa-aaack

I'm baaa-aaack.  Desks are in, computer's runnin'  Even the printer is online.  Lot's to do though, so not much network time.  Not feeling up to par, but so much to do.  Happy to have it done.

Song of Reconciliation - Ashton, Becker, Dente

Reconciliation


I was looking for a different song. Didn't find it but found this and remembered how much I liked this song and the combination of these three fantastic voices.

The Child of Promise

So God comes up to Abraham one day and says you're going to have a kid.  This was before Abraham was Abraham and before he'd learned some things about God.
Abraham says 'That's cool. A little baby, huh.'  He and his wife didn't have any kids, this was exciting news.  Somewhere in there, he really believed it would happen along with all the results of that, and God said 'Let's call you Abraham.' and was so pleased with his belief, that he counted it as true righteousness.
Somewhere down the years things came in between Abraham and that promise.  His wife said 'God said you were having a kid, not necessarily that you were having a kid with me.'  Abraham listened to her logic and got her servant pregnant.  The woman was supposed to be a surrigate mother.  Sarah would take the baby at birth and raise him as her own.  But then when the woman did get pregnant, she kinda felt a one-upism and got snotty and Sarah beat her and she ran away.
An angel sent her back home again and promised her that her son would be hated but a great man, none-the-less.  So she went back home had the kid and Sarah settled into the whole thing -sorta.  Evidently, Abraham settled in as well, because when God said, 'Now you really are going to have the promised son and Sarah will be the mom,' Abraham said 'Let Ishmael live before you.'  Before this morning, I never considered that Abraham loved and even enjoyed raising Ishmael.  I never thought about the father's bond before today.
We know the rest of the story - how the baby came according to promise and how Ishmael made fun of him and got kicked out into the desert to fend for himself.  We know how the middle east was affected for all time.  That has nothing to do with my point so I will leave it now.
Years ago, I was a musician - considered a very good musician.  I heard God make promises about it and I loved the idea of the promise.  I made a decent amount of money with it, became reasonably popular and considered it my life work, though I never moved out of the couple of circles in which I learned to function. 
I had a hobby - art.  I made money at it but I never considered it a vocation.  For a time, I moved about those circles without restriction as I had with the music, but I did not pursue it, it pursued me.  Then my life changed completely.
I was a little confused, but always expected God to honor the promises one day.  Since my music was mostly bounded by the lines of religious denomination, and since I was now a divorced woman, I walked away from my commitment and involvements, believing I would not be readily accepted any longer.  That was the practical truth.  From that time on, I played with my music, but it never flowed from me in the same way.  My Sarai, told me to forget the promises, forget the music, pursue the art for that was the only way I would be successful.  I listened with a deep sadness.  Unfortunately, this Sarai of mine was not a part of my life but for a short few weeks and was definitely not a part of the promise, but the words went deep.
I never forgot the promise and tried to reenter the world I had walked away from a few years later, but I had no power, no conviction, no strength.  It broke my heart.  People who worked with me and believed in me didn't understand why it was so confusing and painful; nor did they understand my inability to function within the realm of music.  I lost the promise and the ability.  I retrained myself, became an art teacher, and learned to love my little Ishmael.
At various times in the past 20 plus years, I have heard the siren call of the music I left behind.  But the wound was so great that I turned away.  At one point, I was put into a place where it might be resurrected, but it ended not so well.  After that, I turned the dream and the promise away and have not allowed it to raise even a tiny bit in my heart and mind.
Recently I have heard rumours in my spirit.  Will the child of promise walk and breathe and take it's old place?  My heart feels confused.  My faith is unsure.  My mind says 'Let the child I have walk before you.'  Yet I wonder.  If I give myself in my old age to a dead promise and I see no result, will I make myself an even greater fool?  Is it rationale or lack of faith that leads me?  Do I even have a choice?  If the will of God is that direction, will it not just come about without my struggle?  Yet I feel so torn, so hopeless, so foolish, so faithless.  How can the Father bless or use me at all in this state?  Was Abraham this confused when he decided to believe God in a way that ultimately counted for righteousness?

Rooftops - Jesus Culture (lyric video)

Rooftops

Imperfection

Several years ago, a person dear to my heart went through a difficult struggle as a result of the hardness of life and some poor reactions to that.  I wrote this poem during  that time, but this summer I found myself searching for it again for various reasons.  Finally I had to go back to the blog that I posted.  So now it's tucked back into an appropriate file.  However, because I have been searching for a while, I post it again.  Hope it means something here.

Cast up upon the shore by endless waves
In imperfection lies a battered shell,
Exposing all her secrets unafraid,
Embedded in the sand where once she fell.

Travelers passed her beauty unimpressed;
They could not see the value in the scarred.
A hurried, fleeting glance did not reveal
The loveliness exposed where she was marred.

Her broken beauty says she’s stronger still:
Not to be crushed, dissolved and swept away;
Yet holding to an iridescent will
That speaks of struggles from her yesterday.
DWoodall, 2007

Give me my mountain.

I'm at a curious junction in life.  I'm reminded of my statements from the past about how I would handle certain things if they came.  Now I'm not sure where the road of life is taking me and I am haunted by the words. 
Yet Saturn is still a planet.  It's in the sky and I can see it in the telescope with a bit of effort.  It reminds me of a superintendent I had who told me that when things went crazy in his life, he looked out the window and as long as Poteau Mountain was still there, he was okay.  I thought "What will you do if you ever move?"  Yet I understand that having a non-variable is very important in navigating life.
I work very hard most days and though my age and physical limitations are quite obvious, I just keep trying to complete these things in my life.  There is so much to do.  Why don't I just stop?  It seems to be the non-variable that keeps me sane.  Yet one day, I shall have to 'move' away from the mountain of work.  The time may be sooner than later. 
I have a frantic need to set it all right, but only one me to hold up the other end of the board while I put it together (an analogy).  Into it, I try to interject a little fun so I will not be seen as the drudge I really am.  But there is always one more board, one more screw, one more block, one more bag of cement waiting.
I want to paint and write and sculpt and dream up new recipes, but fun is not my fun.  It becomes one more need nagging my mind.  "You must have fun with them so they will have decent memories of you when you are gone."   And no, having them haul a bucket of rock down the hill or hold a board while you screw it in place is not appropriate fun.
When we bought this place, we did so for two reasons: it supplied me a studio space with a separate entrance and the hill was phenomenal.  Oh the hill.  It held such dreams.  It would be a beautiful place to paint and study and pray.  But then it's really hard to enjoy those things when you're tipping sideways!  So came the lighthouse and the gazebo and a bench here and there.  The swing is made of two halves of an old trampoline so it will be stable on the hill. Hey, it works.  The pool was installed in the less graded part of the yard and needed decks.  We considered an inground, but that was going to be incredibly expensive.
Before we even bought it, we assessed the house and laid claim to visions and dreams.  We both wanted a place to entertain and interact with family, church and friends.
We needed a sunroom to house the plants.  Check. 
I needed a dirty area for clay.  Check. 
I needed a kiln room. Check.
The kitchen would have to be revamped totally. Check. 
The laundry area would have to be made more functional.  Check. 
A one car garage that could be driven through would have to be added.  Check. 
The back roof would have to be raised to let light into the dungeon of a living room.  Not yet.
And we would need a dedicated woodworking shop with a lot of storage.  Ah, not yet.
Bathrooms would have to be redone.  Not yet, (but we do have the stuff to do one of them and the floor tile for the other.)
And everything needs to be unique and attractive.  Well that's a judgement call, isn't it.
Each of these seemed important to the success of our living and the usefullness of our abode.  There are times I'd like to say "Just screw it."  But then it still needs done. 
Louis has heard a different siren.  But it still needs done.  We were both excited when we began.  Now the excitement has waned and the need has not.  If only. . . . When we. . .
I'm not saying Louis doesn't work on it still, but not for long at a time.  He has no heart for it anymore -and there is so much of it, he puts in a lot of overtime, and he has found a greater purpose. 
I've come to the realization that I must make tasks doable for myself if the work is to ever be completed.  We aren't rich people though we have been blessed greatly.  We still can't afford to hire out the parts I can't complete.  I'm doing my best to segment the work into what I can do and what I must have help with.  But it is an overwhelming mountain -and a lot of it is still there.  The once nice walled canopy that was set up to be a temporary storage solution is still out there deteriorating and being shored up in its weak spots - six and a half years later.
When Caleb was 80, his eye was not dim and his natural force had not abated.  He approached Joshua and said, I helped everyone else with their wars, now give me my mountain.  I am amazed each time I read it.  Today it fills me with pain.  I see that through our lives, we change one burden for another.  We escape one impossible situation by running into another impossible situation.  Sometimes I just want to pretend it's not there, but that's not my frame.  So I suck it up and set my jaw and to the echo of other people's good and bad comments, I put myself to it again.  It seemed a logical and doable task in the planning stages.  The need is still there so the strength must be.