A Moment in Time

This morning, my husband came to where I was to ask me to come see something he found online. I thought by the way it had obviously touched his heart that it might be something that involved his ancestry research.  He often comes to where I am to have me come help him save images and web pages he has found so they won't be lost.  I sometimes ask for a minute to finish what I am doing, but not this time. The look on his face was unique, and I knew immediately this was something extremely special to him.  I was unprepared for it to involve me.
What he had found, was a picture of a room with a row of Ham radios, and two rotary dial phones on a plywood desk. "This is the Mars station, where I called you from Vietnam." It took a second or two for me to understand what he was saying to me." That is the very phone I used to call you with." His voice broke as he recalled the preciousness of those moments.
Calls from Vietnam were only possible by way of a Ham radio operator back then.  So much depended on who was operating radios when the call bounced around the world, and if there was interferene, or weather that distorted what you said.  I both loved and dreaded the calls.  I loved them because my beloved was on the other end of the call.  I knew at that moment he was alive and well, if I could understand what he was saying. But I dreaded the hardship of not being able to talk more than a minute or two, and trying to say more than "I love you," in such a short time.  I dreaded hearing a warped sound that was supposed to be him, but sounded nothing like him, and not knowing how to answer the garble.  Was he really OK or was this a call to tell me he was wounded.  Did he ask me something and I was not giving the answer he had hoped for and spent so much energy to get a chance to ask.  I always felt like my legs were going to fall out from under me once the call was lost.  How could the contact be so short?  For an instant, he was there and was gone and sometimes I didn't even know if he was OK.  Was it as difficult for him as for me if he couldn't hear my voice?  But I remember every call,  and the helplessness of wondering if it would be the last.
I tried to reassure myself, he would call again, next chance he got. And I prayed that the next time I would be able to hear every word, his voice..."Please dear God, his voice."

There have been times in life that I longed to hear the voice of God as much as I longed to hear Jimmy's voice when he was so far away and unable to make connections without the aid of those precious Ham operators.  A friend told me tonight that he connected someone to her loved one oversees in the 80's, and I was able to thank him for doing it, even though I could never thank the ones who connected myself and Jimmy. I am so thankful that I don't have to go through someone else to talk to God, and know that he hears me. Every word clearly.  Some faiths seem to teach we aren't worthy or able to go directly to the throne of God, but the Word teaches that we have access. And I am so thankful for that, because it would be horrible to think I had to go through someone else to talk to the greatest love of my life...my savoir, best friend, most precious family member, and Lord of my life.  I want nothing to ever come between our conversation, ever.  And as for, my conversations with my husband, thank God for cell phones, but I still hate poor reception.  Always will.

Jesus, speak to me even in my old age, even if I become an invalid, and my mind fails.  Please let me hear your voice clearly for all eternity. AMEN  

Cast Your Bread Upon the Water

Ecclesiastes 11:11

When I started this blog, I had several things in mind.  I wanted to learn something new, I wanted to have a place to journal.  I wanted to leave a legacy for my children and grandchildren of what I really believe, and some of my inner thoughts.  I wanted to play with my art in a new form. I wanted to make a public stand for God. I wanted to look back and remember things I had prayed for and see the changes God had made in my life and how I grew and changed because of them.  I wanted some place colorful and grounded to go when I was feeling blue.  I wanted to never lose my journal, by tucking it away on a cleaning day and forgetting where it was.  I wanted to strengthen my mind, and expand my spiritual boundaries. And I wanted to share my journey. 
I never really wanted to do the social media thing as much as have a means to put my touch on something that might be a gift to my children like some of the things I found when I cleaned my mother's house just before she passed.  Her little notes that described certain things really touched me.  I felt like I knew her on a new level.  And I felt like she knew us, me, better than I ever knew. She was in my mind when she wrote her little notes.  I so wished we could have spent some more time doing things together before her mind began to fail.
But, when I started this blog, I had one more thing in mind.  I was hoping that if someone was seeking Christ, or God that he might lead them here and they might find a seed for their faith.  I wanted not to just go to my Garden of prayers and posts, but to plant things there as well.  I wanted to be constantly reminded that what we do for Christ, no matter how small, is like planting a seed, that is intended to grow and bear fruit.  I learned a long time ago that we do not always know what fruit we bear.  But the older I get, the more I know two things.  Sometimes, that fruit is not so good, and you can't go back and ungrow it. It can be like a weed which out grows the good things. And two, it can be an annual or a perenial, fall on good ground or bad, but it can fall in the most unexpected places.  Often, where we expect to plant something, is not where it ends up growing best, and it can or must be transplanted.
So now, I am wondering....although this has and is functioning for me, perhaps I should also print it. I have thought about this before.  There is still something to be said for a book on a shelf to make purusing the pages visible to anyone who will pick up the book.  If I really target this for my children someday, it is highly unlikely they will ever see much of it here.
I have found that my blogs are more for me than for others, and in the end, I always knew they would be.  Yet, as a guest writer for Chrisy, I have had so many people say they read the combined blog because it is uplifting to them. I find there that Lori and Christy do as much to uplift me as I never could do for them. Our readers comment that they feel encouraged by our vulnerability, and by our choice to show the love of God and how it trumps everything else we ever knew about God. 
God said to cast your bread upon the waters, and after many days it will return.  For give me for not pulling up the actual verse here. That verse seems so odd until you understand that it means, it is OK to put something out there, into the virtual realm of "I don't know who this is for, or who may ever see it;  I am just casting it on the waters." In fact, God wants to use even the thoughts we share with no one but him, to bless someone one day. So this blog is exactly that. It is me casting my faith upon the waters, as if there were no one at all but me and Jesus standing by the waters, setting tiny paper boats afloat and watching them drift away.   What God feeds me with, I cast some of it out there, upon the wind and water, just because it is still in a place drifting upon cyberspace for someone God directs to find it, may.  Now or never, I only expect God to know when or if.  And I am totally OK with that.
Lord, this is yours, to use in any way you choose.  My heart, my thoughts, my feelings, my failures, my joys, my bad days, my blessings, my all.  It is all yours.  Use it as you will. In Jesus name, AMEN