Skip to main content

A Whispering Wind

 


Walking in the morning desert heat, the wind is warm and subtle.  I have adopted my friend's naming of the wind as the "heavenly breeze."  We often use this phrase when we have panted and sweated during our hike up the mountain and then are refreshed as we are greeted with cool brisk air as we descend.  But this morning, it's only warm breath that I feel as I walk along the winding path . . .

It's been a good road trip for us as we traveled to Arizona to be with family.  I am really not a fan to go to desert lands in the middle of July, but even with the heat, I realized the beauty of  this area.  The horizons were endless before us, with wide skies in which clouds always took up space in just the right places.  Hovering over mountain tops, the clouds brought dimension and humidity.  The night skies lit up with jagged lightening spikes and roared with thunder.  Rain came in a few large splats and poured in other distinct and very limited places. 

Conversations were plentiful on our trip.  I soaked up the discourses I had with my husband.  I realized with our last 9 months of surviving our home project, we had had much less conversation.  We weren't able to eat together in the same place, and we both had to continue with work with our opposite schedules.  Often with the stress of a house in upheaval you found yourself in survival mode.  I would even call it a wilderness experience.  Living with much less and often feeling overwhelmed, left you with the nagging question of "how much longer is this going to be?" Since there never seemed to be an answer to that, you just pushed on, and even retreated to your cave of refuge.


But this time of vacation also broke through barriers of differences, like the searing sun of the landscape.  Sometimes discussions were difficult to hear without feeling a need to protect and defend, yet ultimately they were opening us up to know one another better, and perhaps be much more suited at loving each one as we are.   And isn't that how we actually grow and thrive, and move ahead in life?  It's like the green shrubs in the desert or the majestic saguaro cactus that thrive in dirt and sand alone, and yet are very much alive and vibrant.  Healing and restoration occurs even in dry barren and hurting hearts. . . 

Elijah had run for miles into the wilderness to escape the death threats of wicked Queen Jezebel.  He found himself in a cave on Mt. Sinai, God's mountain where Moses had been ages ago.  He heard God's repeating question, "what in the world are you doing here?"  He witnessed forces of nature with a fierce wind, a rollicking earthquake and a mighty fire.  He tried his best to answer God's question, and God only answered with a gentle whisper.  Nature is God's creation and serves at His command, it is not God Himself.

The desert can only point me to a mighty Creator, but it's just His still small voice found in His word that I can respond to.  He asks me the same question, "what are you doing here, Mary?"  Yes, there is a time to pause and retreat, but I must go forward into life despite threats, obstacles, hardships, difficult conversations, etc.  I am never promised an easy route in life, but by listening to His quiet whisper in my heart, I can continue to walk on through the heat . . . and arrive in hope, healing and restoration.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

But . . .

  I had to pause for a moment, as I began reading the text this early morning.  But they, our fathers, acted arrogantly:  they became stubborn and would not listen to Thy commandments."  (Nehemiah 9:18).    How often do I find myself verbalizing "but? what about? what then? what if? really?" All the phrases that feed doubt and angst into my life are found in that one conjunction.  Memory stands as the faithful argument against it, but when faced with future days all seems easily forgotten.  This verse comes to a people who had returned to their homeland after being ravaged and exiled by foreign powers.  Nehemiah is reminding them of who they are, and especially of their one and only God who has forever been faithful to them despite  their faithlessness and wrongdoing.  He reminds them how God is a God of forgiveness, slow to anger, longsuffering, overflowing with lovingkindness, never forsaking them even when He was totally forgott...
Post a Comment
Read more

Summer Breeze

  Gypsy Rose immediately prances to the back door as she hears her name.  We are ready for our morning walk, which has started later than usual, since I have some of these summer days off.  But it is still early enough to catch the morning breeze.  Walking south, I am refreshed by feeling the gentle wind all around me, it's a cool wrap in contrast to the summer sun.  But it all seems to disappear as I turn the corner and head west, my summer breeze is gone.  I am at a loss for it even as I continue north and east.  It's only as I begin the southern sidewalks back home that I am met with the blissful breeze.  I realize that though I wasn't feeling it for most of my steps, it was there all along, I just had to turn the right direction to get relief . . .  Sometimes, that is how my relationship with God seems.  Yes, I know He is ever near and is with me, but I don't feel that fact.  Sometimes my prayers seem to be in a vacuum, and I'm ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Brief Moments of Grace

  "But now for a brief moment grace has been shown from the Lord our God, to leave us an escaped remnant and to give us a peg in His holy place,  that our God may enlighten our eyes and grant us a  little reviving in our bondage." (Ezra 9:8)   Summer welcomes me today with a cloudy cool morning and a subtle fresh breeze.  The day is probably teasing me with moderate temperatures before it will launch into more robust sunlight and heat.  The scorching temperatures have given an abundance of tomatoes, bush beans and yellow squash in my garden, while tormenting the kale, cilantro, spinach and herbs.  My refreshment is found swimming laps in the pool and teaching or rather reminding Gypsy Rose to stay in her lane while we swim together.  Days seem to run together, slip away too fast, as I often feel locked in a routine of sleep, work, cook, repeat. I know that I need to pause and reflect, because even in that daily ritual are God's brief moments of gr...
Post a Comment
Read more