Moments in Grace

The path through the woods meanders back in the dusky light.   I’m not quite sure where it leads to. I see it almost every morning as I walk and I pass it but this morning it captivates, beckons mysteriously.   I don’t always like mysterious paths.   I like paths that make sense, paths that I understand, paths that I can clearly see where they are leading. God’s paths are not like that. They wind through sometimes dark woods.   These paths go uphill, often climbing steeply through rough terrain and most of the time I cannot tell where they are exactly heading. Sitting with a friend recently, in a coffee shop we swapped God stories next to a quiet fire and caught up on each other’s journeys.   My single friend told me of her work and the small group that she leads and the women she is discipling and the beautiful things God is doing in her life.   And it was plain to me, as clear as the blue October sky that God was making her fruitful right whe...

The path around the lake was a thing of beauty, blue sky blazing overhead in the crisp fall air. And I almost missed this.   In fact I have missed this over and over again for so many years. But not this time. The kids and I walk, hunters of beauty birthing, curious wanderings. We handle our field guides and nature notebooks like the novices we are but this glory can’t be missed even by the most ineffectual of us.   “Look! Look! A tree frog!” In Ohio, this is not a common sight and we stare in wonder. “Look at that caterpillar! It’s all white and fuzzy!” “Let’s identify that tree over there,” I say.   We walk, drinking in the splendor and I think, when was it that I had stopped believing this was possible? Faith is always the first step to joy. And it has been my doubt, my worries that have kept me wearied and burdened for far too long. “Can your worries add a single moment to your life?” ...

There are days when you just can’t figure out where you went wrong.   You can’t determine how you got there or how to get back to where you were. You can be going along just fine and suddenly find yourself lost in some cave of despair.   Maybe that never happens to you.   Maybe it’s just me.   But in any case, maybe you realize you need a compass. Because life is full of places that you can just plain fall right off the map. And when you fall off the map, the only way back is with a compass. A compass that reads life and gives faithful directions.   And maybe what you need in that moment is just some deep down, soul-settling truth, for your True North.   Maybe what you need is to stop and first believe that your compass reads it right.   Because you can’t follow what you really don’t believe is leading you home. And if you don’t trust your compass, and you’re lost in some dark place, where w...

We plant the seeds, row after row and put them into the ground covered by the dark soil.                 The third son and his daddy, planting our little garden bed.   Baby hands growing into child, they gently lay them down, then roll the earth back over, tuck them in tight.   Pat them down and water them in, seeds in their soil slumber.   We place them there tenderly and wait and hope for life to come up out of that dark place. In just a few days we see rows of tiny green shoots popping.   Some don’t.   Some are eaten by chipmunks.   Some come up twisted, weak.   Some are healthy, strong, beautiful. As I watch this ground give harvest, produce its life, I see my planting, itself harvesting before my very eyes.   I watch as this oldest son, oldest of the four boys, is before my very eyes becoming man.   Yielding life.   How very fast ...