The Master's Voice

I close my tattered Bible and contemplate a choice

Do I resume my hurried pace or listen for God's voice?

My helter skelter schedule puts me in a spin

With lists and uttered empty words that contribute to the din.

I'm too busy pleasing others and working dawn 'til night.

"It's not my fault," I justify, "I have to do what's right."

Yet still I feel an emptiness at the end of each long day

My head it meets the pillow and I forget to pray.

Yet still, you love me as I sigh and give reason for my days

You understand my weakness and you know my fragile ways.

"Rest, my child. Be still and know..." God whispers to my heart

I know the way that I should go, yet I find it hard to start.

Sometimes the clutch around my soul brings fear with no releasing

The Word of God tells me to pray without a thought to ceasing.

So equip me Lord with prayer and peace; remind me of your Son

Jesus, in His gentle way. Tell again what He has done.

When my mind is stayed on Him a stillness fills my soul

The busyness or wordly quest no longer is my goal.

So as I seek Your still small voice in every thing I do

My motivating urgency will be to worship You.

As I pray a calmness comes and makes my heart rejoice

An urgent need to look to God and hear that still small voice.

Bless you Jesus as you wait with patient love for me

Lessons learned remind me that Your grace has set me free...

Pay Attention to Your Body, Ladies.

Mom

I miss my Mom. It has been two years since my sweet Momma Bear passed away. I find that so hard to get my head around but when I look back, so much has happened since she went to be with Jesus.

Yesterday Amanda and the children went with Dad and me to Mom's gravesite in London. We met my sister and my niece there, too. It was a gloriously sunny day, although it had originally been forecast to rain. Thank you Lord.

We spent a little while there, reminiscing, adorning her grave with a rainbow of flowers, making sure there were hints of purple displayed - her favourite colour, and just generally participating in a bittersweet time of remembering Mom.

I keep thinking how grateful I am that Mom wasn't there as I went through my chemotherapy for ovarian cancer. She always fussed over me as I fussed over her! "Take care of yourself! You're doing too much! Make sure you rest!" All words of wisdom from Mom, which I would give anything to hear once again.

But alas, life takes pathways that I knew one day would happen, yet for some reason I was ill-prepared. Perhaps it was a refusal to believe that my mom would die. A little girl feeling.

I recall one frightening night when living in Scotland. I was lying in the top of my double bunk. It was four hours after a train had hit some workmen on a railroad behind our home. There had been a mixup in communications and a switch had not been thrown that should have been. The terrifying memory still reverberates in my mind. The thunderous roar of the train. The horrific screams of the men. The frantic moments as Mom rushed out and performed CPR on the bleeding victim. Three men were killed that night and, although, Mom yelled at us to stay inside - we heard the wails and moans through the open windows.

Hours later, when the emergency personnel had done their jobs, the eerie quietness filled my ears and my first experience with death pervaded my mind. I was eight years old.

I remember crying myself to sleep that night asking, begging, pleading with God to not let my parents die. I thought I had made a pact with God that they would live forever. As the years passed and as I saw Mom's coffin being slowly lowered into the ground on July 20th, 2007, I watched the grandchildren and great grandchildren toss flowers into where Mom's remains would rest. I suddenly recalled that promise-making moment so many years ago -that pact; and in a fleeting childlike emotion, I was angry with God for breaking his part of our bargain. But then I looked heavenward and I remembered how God never breaks a promise. What he really said that day, some forty some odd years ago, was that He would always be with me; He would never leave me nor forsake me; He would bear all my burdens, carry all my sorrows and love me without condition.

I've still got my Dad here and I try to treasure the moments with him. That I consider a privilege and I thank God that Dad will be with us for a long time to come.

Thank you Jesus for preparing my heart and receiving Mom's soul. And thank you Mom for teaching me my very first prayer that night so long ago..."May four good angels guard my bed. Two at the foot, two at the head. And keep me safe all through the night until I see the morning light...Amen...

One Pair of Hands

I am feeling particularly sad right now. A friend has just been handed the news that her breast cancer has returned. Another gal I know recently had a brain tumour removed. Praise the Lord she is now home and the tumour is benign. She is a mom of seven children and the eldest has Down Syndrome. Yet another friend, who happens to be a medical doctor, is just at the end of her chemotherapy but has been hospitalized for a large blood clot. She is now under close scrutiny for that, lest it move and become fatally lodged in the lung.

My flesh calls out...why, Lord, why? Then I remember the cross and the message of eternal life. I recall how Jesus never promised that life here would be easy. I think deep and hard about the lessons I learned about relinquishing my life to my Saviour last year as I was going through chemotherapy. I saw the compassion in the faces and actions of friends and family - a little hint of heaven.

As I listen to the song - One Pair of Hands [posted here,] I remember that I need not be sad. He is the One with the strong hands that lift us and uphold us through all the raging storms of life. Praise Him. I needed to be reminded...

Mini Trevor

Let the bells ring out and the banners fly...little Landon Scott has arrived. As I gaze at the face of our newest little grandbaby I am in awe at the miraculous event dubbed birth. How anyone can say that we crawled out of the sludge and were brought into being via the big bang is beyond me. Perfect little fingers and toes. The sweetest little wrinkled forehead. Soft, tender skin. How he reminds me of his Daddy when he was a tiny babe. I am in love all over again. Janice is well. Trevor is proud. And grandma and papère are grinning from ear to ear. All is well with the world. Thank you sweet Jesus for this tiny miracle. May he grow to love and serve you with all his heart and soul.
For You created my inmost being: You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise You for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful. I know that full well. Psalm 139: 13-14