Finding breath and beauty amidst the storm

Category: Lifelines

LIFELINE FRIDAY – Friends

I love photography and I love sunsets. This spring I got the great idea to combine the two and document the sunsets from the same spot on the first days of spring, summer, fall, and winter to see how the sun moves throughout the year. You may be wondering “Why?,” but it sounded cool to me.

We live half a mile from a public beach on the east side of a large lake – a perfect place to set up a tripod and take a sunset picture from the exact same spot for all four seasons. It’s also a great spot to just sit and visit with friends.

Two of my friends decided to join me, not so much because what I was doing excited them but just because they are my friends. Sitting on the beach watching the first summer sunset and chatting with each other while I basically ignored them (sorry, ladies!) sounded good to them.

LIFELINE FRIDAY – Making space for restoration

My pastor’s sermon Sunday was about restoration. He asked, “Would you like to be restored? Put back together the way you were meant to be?”

He also asked,”What if the Scriptures were actually true and that God actually is in the restoration business?”

Do we live like we believe that is true?

I just read a blog post today titled, “Restoration Areas.” Rev Darth (as he calls himself on Instagram – isn’t that a great name?), found restoration among family, friends, and creation in Colorado this week. He also found a book of photos of the Rockies and meditations in which the author wrote about restoration areas in parks in one devotion.

“What looked to be a hopeless situation was simply a garden waiting for the opportunity to thrive.”

Erik Thomas Stensland, Whispers in the Wilderness

In his blog, Rev Darth also wrote, “[Restoration] is creating space for that which has become tired and worn to grow once again.”

Boy, does that hit home this week as I have been forced to slow down despite our fundraising concert for epilepsy on Sunday! How can I rest when I have so much to do? So, I gave it to God and rested on my couch all day yesterday.

Details got planned, questions were asked and answered via email, and we sold 30 tickets in 3 days – all while I rested.

What if we actually lived like God can restore. If we gave Him the space to come into our tired and worn places to grow a thriving restoration area. We probably can’t even imagine how beautiful that could be.

Here is the link to the full blog post “Restoration Areas” if you would like to read it.

LIFELINE FRIDAY – Resting by reposting…about resting

I sat in my doctor’s office yesterday crying, not because she was giving me bad news but because I was giving her frustrating news. I received my covid vaccination 5 weeks ago and have felt sick ever since – vertigo, nausea, headaches, low grade fever, losing weight because I can’t eat.

To be clear, I’m not opposed now to others getting vaccinated; I support vaccinations. I just should have known better than to do it myself. My body has reacted (overreacted) to every vaccination I have ever received. The worst was 13 years of migraines after 9 vaccines to travel to Africa. I have allergies and autoimmune diseases and several contraindications to the covid vaccine. But I listened to my rheumatologist and scheduled it.

Consequently, I have not been writing much for Come So Alive. I actually have a few ideas for posts but just can’t get my brain to work to write them.

I’m also worrying if I don’t post, you’ll stop reading me. What if that one person I write for loses interest? Then who am I writing for?!

Amid the frustration of my side effects and my lack of writing, I remembered my post from a few months ago about wanting to rest and not blog. How ironic that, now that I probably should be resting, I don’t want to rest but I do want to blog. I reread that post and think now it was meant for me, not a few months ago but me today. I wrote,

“So, this week’s post, this week’s lifeline in the storm, is the reminder to myself that, to come alive, sometimes you need to rest.”

And thus, today’s lifeline in the storm, for me at least, is resting by not writing a new blog but reposting my old one – about resting. If you missed it or need a reminder too, check it out here:

Resting in a Sunbeam

Lifeline Friday – How God showed up yesterday

Even though I usually publish the Lifeline Friday posts just to Facebook, this one is a little longer and I want to share it on the website too.

While I was running errands yesterday, I turned the radio on for the first time in weeks as I usually listen to CDs (yes, I’m old school). I turned it on just as a new song started…and from the very first note I realized it was Blessed Be Your Name by Tree63.

In case you missed it, that is the song that I referenced in this week’s blog post. I wrote about it in 2014 for what turned into the first part of this week’s blog post – about God’s presence – and here God was, showing up two days later in a song that was first released in 2003!

Introducing Lifeline Fridays on Facebook: Catching your breath in the storm

Have you ever been so lost in the fear that you couldn’t think straight?  It sounds cliché but I’ve actually been there.  Unable to breathe.  Not knowing what the next step should be or even how to start figuring it out.  Who or what do you reach out to in the storm? What are the lifelines you use to catch your breath?

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