Hope

A Beautiful Day

The Agoura Hills area in California is just beautiful. My husband and I took a hike up there a few weeks ago when the rain let up for a couple of hours. I didn't take any pictures of the muddy trail since I was literally pulling myself up by holding onto the sturdy bushes along the trail (thank you, sturdy bushes). I kept on thinking how not good it would be if a.) a mountain biker came along since the trail was so narrow, and yes, there were mountain bikers somehow traversing that very steep and muddy trail and b.) if I ate it and slid down the mountain. I suppose I would have just been really muddy, but who wants to be covered in muddy clay? We persevered, though, and oh my goodness, what a view. The sky opened up and we could see for miles. Monstrous clouds, blue blue sky, tiny subdivisions below to remind us we weren't really that far in the wilderness, and wild flowers all around. It was a beautiful day.

Today we're off to the coast for a few hours to breathe in the salt air, then its back here to work on projects and make goodies for Easter dinner tomorrow. Today feels so quiet, like it is waiting in anticipation of tomorrow. The Saturday before Easter always feels like that to me. This morning I thought about the disciples who sat in a room thousands of years ago, the anguish in their hearts as they tried to push away the images of their leader on a cross. I thought of Mary who might have been confused. Thirty-three years ago an angel had appeared to her--she couldn't forget that. She had never slept with Joseph and yet, she was pregnant. Jesus was the Son of God, her own body testified to that. So how was he dead now? It had all happened so quickly.

The end of Luke's gospel brought me to tears this morning. Jesus seems to be so helpless as he is accused and tortured and finally killed along with some thieves. And yet we know now the exceedingly great amount of will he was exercising to allow this to come to pass. He knew God's will. He knew his road would be dark and awful and yet, he stepped into it. "Into Your hands, I commit my spirit," he said as he breathed his last. Did you know that phrase is a child's prayer, similar to "now I lay me down to sleep?..." His trust led us to having a true hope.

I pray that this Easter will be different for all of us. That we will stop and remember the choice he made for us. Today I am so grateful.

Illimunated Steps

I went to a simulcast a week ago and was so blessed to hear Priscilla Shirer speak. She was talking about something we've all been through--interruptions of our 'life plans'. They can be small things--getting sick on the day you were going to catch up on all your errands, not being able to get your stuff done at work because you keep on being called onto different tasks...or big--a cancer scare, the sudden loss of a friend, losing a job. Whatever it is, we've all been there. She really encouraged us to begin looking at those 'interruptions' as openings to a conversation to God, as interventions by him. I truly believe this is true, though goodness knows, I tend to forget this when I'm in the midst of the interruption!

One of the things she spoke about was hearing the voice of God. How often we want to do things our way, not realizing (or remembering) that since He's God He knows what's ahead for us and very well could be preparing us for or protecting us from something we've no idea about. I can honestly say I'm grateful for unanswered prayers that I made only to find out later that those answers would have led me down an entirely different path that I did not want to take!

She used an illustration from a Michael Jackson video that was so dead on...I hope you'll take a second and go read it on her blog. It's really good.

Click here to go to her blog.

Custom Onesies

A friend at work asked me to make some custom onesies for the new baby in their family. They're big Real Madrid fans...it was fun making these. :) I was going to skip out on making the soccer ball but my husband convinced me it would add a fun touch. I'm glad he did. :)