Around the Neighborhood

We moved to our current home 13 months ago, leaving a busy, loud road for a quiet, tucked-away dead end. This is an old neighborhood with fairly new folks. It's a pleasant place to be quarantined.

The kids have made a campsite in the woods between our house and the neighbors'. It's a spot to roast marshmallows, lounge in a hammock, and hear the hooting owl at night. We've had dinner parties outside with our friends next door, once with hamburgers, another time with Cuban food, and tonight with pizza. This has been the perfect excuse to enjoy fresh air and get to know these folks. What a blessing to live beside these kind, trustworthy people. 

I've come to enjoy everyday walks. I attempted this before the quarantine, realizing that I needed to move around in fresh air at least a little every day. Lately, God has invited me to think during my walks at my own pace. No ideas are forced; I'm free to stare up at the trees the whole time if I want. Some days it takes me at least once around the neighborhood to come down from the jumbled thoughts firing through my brain. The Lord always gets me to a place of refreshment.

This is one of my favorite places in the neighborhood: 

a fun gravel path to travel.

While I was on my walk one day, I was astounded at the burst of spring color. It was so beautiful; a gift from God in the midst of a strange time. He never changes; Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). I'm grateful for the predictability of spring's blooming flowers, as certain as the sun's rising every new morning. In the quiet early afternoon, as I stopped to gaze at the markers of new life, I wanted to share them with you.

Here's what it has looked like around the neighborhood: 

I love this arbor behind our house, where very sour grapes will grow in summer. The red of the maple and azalea add a warm burst of color when I pass by.

The white azaleas and tree on the right are in our front yard, near the street.

A neighbor's tree. Behind it is a bog, a wildlife preserve that remains untouched.

A friend stops me in my tracks!

How many pictures of azaleas can one person take? Around here, not enough. 

I never tire of looking at them.

Case in point:

They are in every yard, some big, some small, some one color, others multicolored. 

Look at this one!

At our friends' next door. 

Blue Moon Phlox beside our house

I love these two maple sisters!

And this tree...the bark pieces are huge!

I had a chuckle as I passed it the other day, remembering.

My friend Jennie and I would pull bark off trees in her yard, and

Mr. Braswell whose yard backed up to hers would rebuke us.

"Girls, why are you pulling the bark off the trees?" he said,

more than once. Now I know the answer:

"Because we're little girls, doing kid things!"

Remember the gravel path? This is what I found there today.

I don't think these flowers had bloomed yet yesterday!

And wonderful, fun Dave and Lynette. As another neighbor put it, their yard is an arboretum! 

Their daffodils, and then...

...this is beside those daffodils!

The people in this neighborhood are as life-giving as the creation. Here is someone who is sure to brighten my walk. If I don't see him on the street with his mom Karen, he's lounging on his front steps when I pass. Again, there's that predictability! 

It's Toby! He's such a sweet ole boy.

And today, when I returned home, I noticed this, the first

iris of the year! Just in time for Easter.

Thank You, Lord, for sending Christ to complete every jot and tittle.

Let us rest in his declaration, "Tetelestai!"

It is finished!

Deep Healing, Deep Quiet

My girls and I have been memorizing Psalm 27. Next week, we will come to the final verse:

Wait on the Lord;

Be of good courage,

And He will strengthen your heart;

Wait, I say, on the Lord! (verse 14)

Those who are quick to repeat, "Let go, and let God!" in response to the trials of others seem to have never done just that. David's way of commanding it, however, holds water. He lived it; he knew what it was to wait on the Lord, seek Him for the courage to do it, and allow only Him to strengthen his heart. He expresses the difficulty of waiting in that he says it once more, exclamation point and all.

This has been a year of intense purging and healing, but the renewal continues. I am in a time of painfully waiting on the Lord to perform changes that are out of my control. Make no mistake: nothing is ever in our control. This time, though, there's not even an option for me to try. Several situations in my life have me understanding the rubber-meeting-road meaning of Psalm 27:14, as well as another one that we tend to gloss over: "Be still, and know that I am God," (Psalm 46:10).

For years, I've said of certain trials, "I have to let go; I have to let God work." Usually this meant saying that, then proceeding to turn around and attempt to fix the issue, or smooth things over in some way in order to ease the pain. The Holy Spirit is showing me that these things not only don't work, I end up robbing myself and others of spiritual growth. Paul said in Philippians 3:10:

"...that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death..."

This isn't just for Paul; it should be my desire, too. Suddenly it is, whether I like it or not. I confess that more of these days are filled with my thinking I don't like it, yet knowing that God is growing me to love it. "Letting go and letting God" means just that: really getting out of the way of the living God, rather than reciting a catchy phrase to make myself sound noble, yet still pushing through in my own way. 

Charlotte Mason's students kept what she termed a "Commonplace Book." This is a blank book where I copy poems, verses, or lines that I want to remember. It can also be filled with drawings or doodles as the mood strikes. Yesterday, I copied Whittier's From Day to Day selection:

"In God's own might

We gird us for the coming fight;

And, strong in Him whose cause is ours

In conflict with unholy powers,

We grasp the weapons He has given,--

The Light, the Truth, and Love of Heaven."

                                  From "The Moral Warfare"

On Sunday, I expressed my sympathy to a dear lady whose father-in-law just passed away. She began telling me about the trials of her family's Christmas, and an unfamiliar sensation swept over me. My eyes felt googly, and my body was faint. The truth hit as suddenly as the feeling: I simply cannot take on more stress, regardless of whose it is. It is time for my mind and heart to be still.

This is a period of serious change for me. It requires being intentional about not doing too much. I need to focus on my family, our home, and our school, all under the Holy Spirit's constant guidance. It's all I can handle. My quiet moments are spent with the Lord, and also in lots of reading. He speaks to me about allowing myself to put back the wholesome ideas that have either been lost or never taught. God has given me the gift of the deep enjoyment of being still with books. There is a pleasure in clean reading, bit by bit, that I am relishing.

Well-meaning friends want to give suggestions about what I should "do," but I have to allow God the "doing" while He allows me the stillness. It's counterculture, counterintuitive. Deep healing involves deep quiet. When we have major surgery, aren't we advised to rest and let healing happen? Yet most in our fast-paced culture refuse to stop long enough even for such a concrete example. Stepping off the treadmill requires letting God give me back my breath, renewed. My heart will never be made whole otherwise.