The Best Way Out of this Journey...

"The best way out is always through."

                              ~ Robert Frost

No matter what we face in our journey, nor how we wish things would change... in the end, there is only one way out.  The best way out is always through.

Be it a cancer journey valley or a broken hearted sinkhole, when we determine to raise our souls and face the labor of it square on, something cracks inside...

And through that break of wishing the pain away, that facing of the hard, Grace opens the vale to the skies of blue beyond and beckons sweet.

For there is always promise in Grace... an overwhelming love and sustaining power... no matter what we face, nor how we wish things would change....

"But he said, "My grace is sufficient for you,

for my power is made perfect in weakness."

                                                                   ~ II Corinthians 12:9

The Beautiful Broken

 A song for your Monday, friends ... the Broken Beautiful... May Hope take flight in His Faithful Promise!

You'll turn my weeping into dancing
Remove my sadness & cover me with joy
You say your scars are the evidence of healing
That You can make the broken beautiful

 Your love can take broken things
and make them beautiful...

  ~ Ellie Holcomb, the Broken Beautiful

When Thanksgiving is Hard

Tonight we're busy preparing for tomorrow's day of family and feasting...

Turkey is thawed, baking pies fill the kitchen with scrumptious aromas, and tables await the abundant plenty that will make us all beg for mercy. 

and yet...

The news blaring from the heartland is full of anger and hurt.  Harsh pictures from a place far away, but so near, intrude on our blissful Thanksgiving gathering.  Two worlds colliding...

There are scenes of Violence and Looting.  Interviews filled with Tears and Loss.  A story of Turmoil and Flames.  Lives changed... Forever.

It feels somehow wrong to celebrate and laugh with our friends and family... as if we too should take sides...

So, how?

How do we give Thanks when the Rage and Bitterness flow unchecked...when hearts are heavy with Strife and Brokenness...

I have no answers for this unfathomable racial divide.  The wounds run deep. The charged tension that is destroying our very social fabric seems to have taken a life of its own.

My heart aches for the ones so injured in all this.  Families that will wake up tomorrow with what?  It could hardly be Thanksgiving... for as sure as the sun will rise, the anger and hurt that simmers leaves no room for gratitude.

And we plead for peace, but find conflict.  We pray for miracles, but lose faith.

Gratitude eludes us... again and again...

And just when my soul despairs...

Hope.  It walks right in.

With darling sweet dimples and flashing black eyes.

 

 

 

A daughter and son-in-love who have taken an extraordinary leap into the fray.  

 

 

This mother's heart sees no color... just chubby hands that need holding, little feet that need guiding, and a small soul that needs loving...

 

 

Thanksgiving.

It is here.

 

 

Tonight we rest in the presence of Grace...