From where does my help come?

I became acquainted with Psalm 121 in my mid-20s when I worked for The Salvation Army.  I helped plan a work retreat and came across this psalm and it seemed to speak to my heart, although I'm sure my manager was wondering a bit how that fit in with the theme of Increased Efficiency.

Psalm 121

A song of ascents.

¹ I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
² My help comes from the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.

³ He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
⁴ indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

⁵ The Lord watches over you—
the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
⁶ the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.

⁷ The Lord will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
⁸ the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.

 

 

My work is about traveling, and I think back to those early days -how I was driving all over the Midwest without benefit of cell phones or GPS or WIFI, meeting strangers in their homes, nobody really knowing where I was (including, sometimes, ME) for days at a time. 

 

Really, it says something about the goodness of humankind that nothing truly horrible ever happens to us professional fundraisers.  Truly horrible = can't laugh about it later.

 

I think I like this psalm so much because it starts out with the singer looking around for help, and immediately recognizing that his help comes from the Lord.

 

I wish that was MY immediate thought.  Usually my first thought when serious trouble happens is, What can I, alone in the world, do to resolve this issue?  Then, my second thought usually is, "I.Am.So.Screwed."

So, task #1 in seizing truth: Remember that my help comes from the Lord.

Julia Child

Julia Child was an amazing woman with an amazing life.  We know her best as the author of cookbooks, but she was SO MUCH MORE than that.

She is actually a bit of an inspiration to me.  Julia was a woman who longed for children and when that simply didn't happen for her, she ended up doing all these amazing things.  I know she would have traded every single thing, every adventure, every accolade for a child to call her own.  I know that because I would make that same trade in a heartbeat without a thought.  There is a peculiar pain about being childless.  Still, had Julia had her own way, she would have remained unknown, then the rest of us would have been Child-less.

I totally get that desire that is so strong you kind of don't care about whatever your purpose actually IS in this world, longing is longing and not all of our decisions in life are actually our own.  God had different plans for Julia, and it seems He has different plans for me.

David, in the Old Testament, wanted to build a temple for God, but God told him no.  Still, David recounted how he had been blessed and did not mourn how his own intentions were never realized.

That is true gratitude, to see all the blessings and not count as loss the longings for the desires of the heart.

I cannot turn one way and say, Look how I have been blessed! and then turn a different direction and say, Here is where I have been cursed! simply because my intentions are not the same as God's.

LOOK!  How I have been blessed!!!  That's really where it ends.  Anything less counts the curses as equal weight -or even heavier!- than the blessings.

I tell God ALL THE TIME, Lord, my life is Yours, and then a breath later am listing my personal preferences as to what He does with it.

One thing I have finally figured out, when you hand your life over to God, it is no longer your own.  I really have to let go of my own desires, no matter what great ideas they are, or how good or how helpful they are.  Those are about me, and centered around me, and not centered around the one Person who knows me down to my toenails and understands how to use me to the greatest good for God, for everyone else, and truly, for my own self.

I do believe that God is Love, and Loves me more than I can dare dream, and so whatever His plans are, they are for the greatest possible production of Love, right? Keeping my eyes fixed on Him, that wisdom rings clear and true.

But then, keeping my eyes fixed on Him is the only way I can ever know anything with clarity and in Truth.

Love

My cousin Hammie, aka Heather Ann, aka Ham Slamwich, took this picture a while ago near where she works.

I love this.  Okay, well, I love graffiti.  I have a soft spot in my heart for "street art."  Okay, yeah, technically it is vandalism, but I still like it.

I love this especially because it is sage advice and such a beautiful thought expressed in a less-then-lovely construction site.

Which, really, when you think about it, is a lot like life: Beautiful thoughts in a construction site.

The process of building something is usually only beautiful to the person who sees the end result and understands how each element of the process fits together to achieve that.  In life, I think that sort of understanding is called "enlightenment" or something.


For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. 1 Cor 13:12

And the letter continues: and now these three remain, faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love.

These are really famous verses often read at weddings, which seems so puzzling because they honestly seem more fitting for funerals... the word often used for love in English-written Bibles in these verses is "charity" which comes from the Latin "caritas" which is the love of God above all and unlimited loving-kindness toward all others. We will know fully once we are fully united with God, which seems to be something that happens once we are in heaven.  We sometimes get brief glimpses here on earth, though.

I just like to think of this as that as God knows us and loves us beyond measure, our faith and hope in Him is dwarfed by His Love for us.  God actually understands that we only see a small tip-of-a-pencil part of the entire process and understands we get frustrated and hope dims and faith becomes uncertain. Still, He loves us through it and lets us have some of that Big Love to share with each other.

So it does seem that all decisions and directions must be taken on faith and hope, and when we allow love to set the course, "...all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well..." Julian of Norwich.

Under the Protection of St. Michael

I suppose as this is the first blog post, and as I am praying for the intercession of St. Michael, who I love, I should wait a few days and begin it on the Feast Day of the Archangels.

But when it is time, it is time, and apparently, now it is time.

Over the weekend, I had a few revelations, one being that my old blog, which gave me a lot of help during the last two years, had run its course and a new direction was needed.  God reminded me that He gave this gift of writing in order to do beautiful things with it, to be true and open and help point the way to Him.

When you start writing what you think people want to read, as opposed to what really needs to be written, you drift from your purpose.

I have no great manifesto as I did with the start of my last blog, "Living My Manifesto."

I am not exactly sure where this will lead or what shape this will ultimately take.  I do know perfection is not the goal.  Showing up is most of life.

What I DO know that that there is a lot of beauty in the world, that God has infused my life with His Spirit, and I want to focus on that, not on the battles and backslides.  I want to keep my eyes on Him, knowing that the Lord of All, who created me and blessed me and gives me purpose, is bigger than all evil!

Something else I know to be true, when I take my eyes off God, my vision gets clouded and my memory fades and then the demons of loneliness and doubt and despair (who really do prowl through the world seeking the ruin of souls) shut my eyes completely to the knowledge that I am beloved Child of God... and so are you.

If God stopped thinking about us for one microsecond, we would cease to exist. Truth.