Joy in the Journey

There are some things I just can’t do, and that is a good thing. I just got back from a camping trip with my mom and children. It was a lovely two night stay at a small lake that is just about a 2 hour drive from home. We had the place to ourselves, the wildflowers were in glorious bloom, and the children made a lot of good memories. A pair of bald eagles graced us with their presence and we got to see them dive for their breakfast. We had a lovely hike at dusk and could see for miles from the top of the hike. We identified some flowers we didn’t know the name for before. We had laughter and joking, played card games and cooked over the fire. A friend and her son came to visit us for an afternoon. The last evening we had a yoga session on the green grass overlooking the lake, at sunset. At bedtime the children giggled over a movie in the tent while I sat by the fire and wrote in my journal. The frog song during the night was epic. The stars were glorious. The water play in a creek we s...

Psalm 46:10 : "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!" Lamentations 3:25-26 : "The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord." Ecclesiastes 3:1 : "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven." Isaiah 30:15 : "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength." These are just some of the results you will get when you google "Bible verses about slowing down". I looked them up because, lately, about every answer I get to every question I ask God is "You can rest easy, you don't have to work so hard..." in Andrew Peterson's calming voice. Either I have that song stuck in my head or God is trying to tell me something. Or both! I am a worker. I like to be busy. This slowing down thing isn't my area of e...

We don’t know why she had that alabaster jar of ointment. Perhaps she used it in her business? Perhaps she was planning to sell it and use the money to escape her life of sin? We do know that it was expensive and imported; alabaster came from Egypt. And we do know that she had somehow heard of Jesus of Nazareth and the amazing things that He was doing and saying. Maybe she had even heard Him speak? Maybe she knew someone who was healed by Him? She found out that He would be at Simon the Pharisee’s house, so she took the jar and went after Him. How did she get in? To show their generosity, important people would invite the lowly to come to their meals and sit against the walls as the host and guests ate. After the honorable had left the table, the dishonorable would leave the wall and eat the leftover scraps, probably fighting the dogs and each other to get their fill. I don’t know how she heard about this meal or if she was personally invited, but I do know that when she got there, t...

He was in dangerous territory, and yet he sent his friends on ahead and sat down alone and waited. He was waiting for her. Why else would he have chosen to come this way? Why else would he have been sitting there, in the heat of the day? He was weary, but I wonder if it was only from the travelling… His people and her people had been feuding for over 700 years. Cultures so similar, following many of the same rules, worshipping the same God, but her heritage was tainted. Her people’s blood was considered impure…defiling…as unclean as the blood of swine. He had been raised in a society that encouraged men not to talk much with women. Even husbands were discouraged from conversing unnecessarily with their wives. Talking with women was regarded as a way of bringing evil upon yourself. And yet when he saw her coming, friendless, in the heat of the day, he prepared to speak. “Please give me a drink.” It broke the silence like a clap of thunder. A Jewish rabbi, talking to her? I imagi...