I {LOVE} Sunday::to sing for joy...

O prize exceedingly the matchless power and grace which changes deserts into gardens,
and makes the barren heart to sing for joy. ~ Spurgeon

With Deidra's Sunday community...

It's where I tend to stumble...

In these days following the Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writer's Conference (BRMCWC), I'm revisiting this slightly updated post - one of my most popular posts from last summer - when I compared myself to the writing and photography of others online. At BRMCWC, the tendency was for me to measure my gifts and abilities with the amazing and creative faculty and fellow conference attendees. The feelings of insignificance are the same.

In contrast to my relatively quiet, isolated life in the rural south, I've had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing a variety of well-known personalities, and one of the insights I've gleaned from these relationships is that feelings of insignificance can be common to us all.

It's not that we all want to be famous - we just want to know that whatever it is we are doing - the project(s) in which we are investing our time and energy - are somehow meaningful and not only making a positive difference in our lives, but in the lives of those within our circle of influence.

Every now and then, I catch a glimpse of how far the weight of our words and actions can travel - and it is both encouraging and sobering.

I may feel insignificant - but that's what the enemy wants me to believe. He would like to discourage us in the hope that we will become apathetic and give up our momentary calling - whether it's delivering the mail, writing the next best-selling novel, raising godly children, or running for political office.

One day last summer, I decided to visit the blogs of some of my favorite writers and photographers and send a word of encouragement their way. Some where along that pilgrimage through cyberspace, I began to compare my writing and photography with each of them...and of course, I fell short.

By the time that "journey of encouragement" was over, I was ready to throw away my business cards, sell my camera, delete my blog, and disappear into the isolation of rural life on Pollywog Creek.

I'm sure you know where I stumbled.

When I cease to focus on encouraging others and begin to compare my gifts and the fruit of those gifts with the gifts and fruit of others, I also make false judgements about the value of those gifts and can easily be tempted to feel insignificant and covet.

What I need to remember is that He who began a good work in me (and you) will complete it, that His plans and purposes for my life are good and perfect for me, and that as I (all of us) stay focused on living a life worthy of my calling, I (we) can be confident that by His grace what I(we) do and who I am (we are), loved and chosen of God, is more than significant.

Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. ~ Colossians 3.12-17

What about you? Do you compare your gifts with others? What causes you to feel insignificant?

It's just a house...

It's just a house on a street in a town,
It may not look special to you,
But this is the house where we lived and we loved,
Where we slept and we ate and we grew.
~Claire Cloninger/Nancy Gordon

When bright sunlight illuminates the rich, dark foliage dotting our Pollywog Creek landscape and warm, moist air greets us at the break of day, there's no denying that summer's arrived. It's when my leisurely moments on the backyard swing sipping fresh-brewed coffee and delighting in the gifts that surround me give way to enjoying the view from the sliding glass doors and mason jars of sweet ice tea.

It's no secret - I don't like summer.

It's when gratitude can sometimes be an act of my will - a determination to be grateful for all things - even the hot, oppressive summers on Pollywog Creek. For it's when life is more tolerable for me to stay indoors that I focus my attention on the life, the gifts, the simple and humble beauty inside these walls.

You've seen my living room. It's a conglomerate of styles and colors - of mismatched and make-do furnishing, a sagging entertainment center, old carpeting, and rickety dining room chairs. And I really don't care.

Not too long ago, an out-of-town friend who'd never visited our home stopped by for coffee. "I love this," he exclaimed to my surprise. "It reminds me so much of home."

I love it, too. Our house here on Pollywog Creek is as ordinary as they come, but it's where our family slept, ate and grew - where just outside little boys climbed trees, fished in the pond and built forts by the creek, and where they welcomed a baby sister long after we thought we had all the little ones the LORD had planned for us.

It's in this simple house that we've read thousands of pages of board books, picture books, chapter books and textbooks - where we've finger painted, made salt-dough maps, created costumes and memorized scripts. It's where we have cried over algebra, laughed at Shakespeare, conquered a multitude of academic mountains and rejoiced in the victories.

It's in this house that we've dressed for hundreds of Little League games, Pee Wee football, golf tournaments, and track meets, as well as band concerts, piano and dance recitals and high school graduations - and where we watched with pride and lumps in our throats as our young men dressed for their weddings and their beautiful sister as a bridesmaid.

We have gathered around this same dining room table for twenty-three years of dad-cooked Sunday morning pancake breakfasts and Monday evening dinners with the grown boys and their young families.

It's in this house that we prayed for guidance and embraced the full-time care of my bedridden mother - together learning what it meant to live sacrificially - to wash the feet of the saints. It's also the sacred ground where my dear mother passed from this world into eternal glory with the Father one clear spring day two years later.

Together we have celebrated twenty-three years of babies, birthdays, anniversaries, Easters, Thanksgivings, Christmases, vacations, graduations, and weddings, as well as crop freezes, citrus canker, hurricanes, drought, sickness, and unemployment. 

And it's within these walls that we have huddled together over sacred writ, prayed and acknowledged God's favor and abundance, wrestled with doubt, and testified to the unmistakable hand of God at work in our lives. 

They are but tiny snippets of life here on Pollywog Creek - events and memories far too numerous to recount after all these years.

Quite often I find myself thinking, I love this house, yet I'm quite certain that many would question my sentimental attachment to such a simple, ordinary place. There is nothing special about this house, except that some of the people I have loved the most will always call it "home".

{Photos - some of the rich, dark summer foliage on Pollywog Creek}

Choosing to remember...

In the spring of 1968, when 23 year old Nicholas Cutinha was mortally wounded protecting his fellow soldiers in battle, I was preparing to graduate from high school. As I was anticipating my future with the hope and excitement all graduates experience, the parents of Nicholas Cutinha were grieving the tragic all-too-soon loss of their brave young son - a proud and honorable soldier in the United States Army, serving his country in the Vietnam War.

We never knew Nicholas Cutinha. In fact, it was just a few years ago that we read his story in a local newspaper and learned that he was one of just a handful of Medal of Honor recipients with gravesites in SW Florida. That Memorial Day we gathered a few flowers from our yard and visited Cutinha's grave not more than 10 minutes from Pollywog Creek.

We've visited his gravesite to leave flowers every Memorial Day since - remembering that he was someone's dear son, we choose to remember and honor the life he and so many others willingly sacrificed for their fellow soldiers, for our county, for our freedom and the freedom of others around the world.

 

Nicholas Cutinha's Medal of Honor Citation  

Rank and organization: Specialist Fourth Class, U.S. Army, Company C, 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Gia Dinh, Republic of Vietnam, 2 March 1968. Entered service at: Coral Gables, Fla. Born: 13 January 1945, Fernandina Beach, Fla. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. While serving as a machine gunner with Company C, Sp4c. Cutinha accompanied his unit on a combat mission near Gia Dinh. Suddenly his company came under small arms, automatic weapons, mortar and rocket propelled grenade fire, from a battalion size enemy unit. During the initial hostile attack, communication with the battalion was lost and the company commander and numerous members of the company became casualties. When Sp4c. Cutinha observed that his company was pinned down and disorganized, he moved to the front with complete disregard for his safety, firing his machine gun at the charging enemy. As he moved forward he drew fire on his own position and was seriously wounded in the leg. As the hostile fire intensified and half of the company was killed or wounded, Sp4c. Cutinha assumed command of all the survivors in his area and initiated a withdrawal while providing covering fire for the evacuation of the wounded. He killed several enemy soldiers but sustained another leg wound when his machine gun was destroyed by incoming rounds. Undaunted, he crawled through a hail of enemy fire to an operable machine gun in order to continue the defense of his injured comrades who were being administered medical treatment. Sp4c. Cutinha maintained this position, refused assistance, and provided defensive fire for his comrades until he fell mortally wounded. He was solely responsible for killing 15 enemy soldiers while saving the lives of at least 9 members of his own unit. Sp4c. Cutinha's gallantry and extraordinary heroism were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the U.S. Army.

An updated repost.

I {LOVE} Sunday::to proclaim the excellencies of Christ...

But you are a chosen race,
a royal priesthood,
a holy nation,
a people for his own possession,
that you may proclaim the excellencies of him
who called you out of darkness
into his marvelous light.
1 Peter 2:9 ESV

{Photo: chapel at the Cove}

Linking with Deidra's Sunday community...

Week{ending}...

I'm in a self-prescribed and self-scheduled writer's conference rehab this weekend. Seriously. Robbi and I flew home late Thursday night, and for most of the day yesterday I either slept or stared off into the distance. Suitcases, bags, books and shoes remain right where I left them Thursday night. One of my {few} goals for today is to get everything moved into the bedroom where I can unpack.

To those of you who prayed for me while I was away - I cannot thank you enough. This trip - navigating airports, cramped airplanes, a beautiful but hilly Ridgecrest campus, and not enough sleep - was undeniably a challenge, but I made adjustments along the way and with Robbi's help and much prayer, I managed {albeit slowly and breathlessly at times} far better than expected.

If you have "friended" me on facebook you already know, but for the rest of you - Robbi and I were humbled, grateful, and thrilled when No Matter What It's a Good Day When placed 3rd in the unpublished non-fiction category at BRMCWC. From the first day Robbi and I began working on this project months ago, we held it close to our hearts but loosely in our hands. We would love for it to be published for those who would benefit from its encouragement, but we trust in God's sovereignty in all things and know that if publication is His plan, then it will happen in His time.

I'll write more about the conference after everything sinks in and settles a bit. For now, we look forward with much joy and excitement to the week ahead when we will gather with family and friends on Monday to celebrate Memorial Day and again on Wednesday for the birth of Nick and Kristin's baby boy. 

The LORD is good to me.

What do the days ahead hold for you? 

Linking with sweet Sandra's "Still Saturday"...



{Photos - from the trip to Asheville with my point and shoot}

The origin of all things beautiful...

{Jonathan} Edwards encountered the Creator in his creation. Or, to use the language of the apostle Paul, God’s “invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made” (Romans 1:20; cf. also Psalms 19 and 104)

...I’ll never again gaze on a giraffe or a bug or a constellation or a cloud or a valley or a mountain stream or a bird in flight and fail to think of God and marvel at his power and worship him as the “Original” of all things beautiful. ~ Sam Storms The Personal Narrative of Jonathan Edwards - Part III  

HT-Ann Voskamp

When you can't...

When you can't that's when you can watch what God can do through you. Yvonne Lehman

Basking in the worship, fellowship, and teachings of some of the most gifted and creative brothers and sisters in Christ this week at the Blue Ridge Christian Writer's Conference outside Asheville.  

Meeting my dear friend across the miles - the delightful, beautiful and amazing, Beth Vogt - has been one of many, many highlights I've experienced in this beautiful place tucked in the North Carolina mountains. 

With two and half more days ahead of me, I can only imagine the highlights to come - what God will do through all of us in our places of can't. He is so, so good to His people. 

What about you? 

Thinking about the quote above from author Yvonne Lehman, last night's keynote speaker, I'd love to hear how you have seen God work through you when you knew you'd been called to do something you couldn't.

I {LOVE} Sunday::to be fully known...

For now we see in a mirror dimly,
but then face to face.
Now I know in part;
then I shall know fully,
even as I have been fully known. 1 Corinthians 13:12 ESV

{Photo: foggy drive to the airport}

Linking with Deidra's Sunday community...

As the dew...

May my teaching drop as the rain,
my speech distill as the dew,
like gentle rain upon the tender grass,
and like showers upon the herb.
Deuteronomy 32:2 ESV

{A Friday dawn wandering...}

{I'm flying to Asheville this morning for 6 days and the Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writers Conference. I'll try to write a "weekending" post later.}

Linking with sweet Sandra's "Still Saturday"...

I wonder...

In our Pollywog Creek pasture, black-eyed susans dance on tall slender stems to early summer's warm breezes, while clumps of common tickseed and tiny southern fleabane push through the sandy ground along rusty fences and fill the shallow ditches by the road. 

They're common weeds, and come rainy season and the grass grows too tall, they'll be mowed over...and if I didn't have a camera, I'd hardly notice or care.

It's through the lens of the camera that I see beauty in the ordinary - the common weed - and the unmistakable fingerprints of an orderly, powerful Creator. 

And it makes me wonder what beauty I miss in the ordinary lives around me - image-bearers growing in the dry places of every-day life in the trenches.  

Lord, open my eyes to the wonder and beauty in every person you bring into my life this day.

My beautiful mother...

On Mother's Day 2012
Remembering my mother with much love gratitudeMary Eleanor Gardner White
May 10, 1918 - April 19, 2001
{Photo-my paternal grandmother, Lucille White, my mother with me, my dad with my brother, my maternal grandmother, Mary Gardner, 1952}

I {LOVE} Sunday::to know this truth...

The grass withers,
the flower fades,
but the word of our God
will stand forever.
Isaiah 40:8 ESV





{Photos - blackeyed susans}

Week{ending}...

Apologies to my readers who are not at all enamored with these not-so-lovely muscovies. I agree with you - more or less. They are large and messy and rather....ugly. 

But when I ventured outside into the healing warmth of yesterday's noonday sun and discovered these three waddling about, I couldn't resist trying to capture the beauty of their iridescent plumage. 

Today we are off to the east coast to celebrate Austin's third birthday. He's clearly the cutest three year old ever, so you can expect photos to appear here on Pollywog Creek next week, as well as photos of three week old Wyatt and the five year olds, Mason and Gavin, of course. I am one rich mimi.

I'd love to know what you are up to this weekend.   

Linking with sweet Sandra's "Still Saturday"...

The goodness of God on a difficult day...

Whining and feeling sorry for myself is pathetic, unproductive, and sorely lacking in gratitude, but I choose to sit in that sorry place for a moment.

I'm not happy to have sent my Nikon back for repairs - right after UPS finally finds our house and delivers it.

And I'm not happy that I have to increase my RA meds - after working so hard to wean the dosage down.

And I'm certainly not happy that I need handicap parking.

I step outside the garage to soak painful joints and muscles in sunlight and God opens my eyes to the blanket of flowers and buzzing bees at my feet, and I pick up the gift that is my Sony point and shoot and capture a glimpse of the goodness of God on a difficult day.

And whining turns to gratitude when I cultivate an eye for God's multitude of mercies and grace.

Where have you caught a glimpse of the goodness of God on a difficult day? I'd love for you to tell me about it.

{Photos - the blanket of flowers at my feet}