We went for a walk this morning in a state park around a gorgeous lake. It was so beautiful that it took my breath away. We started to look for mushrooms and didn’t see too many, but as our eyes adjusted to what they were looking for, we began to see them, and eventually saw gazillions of them. I saw three little purple ones and bent down to look more closely. At ground level, I saw another patch of them, and then another patch until I noticed that the whole floor of the forest was just about covered with these little beauties. I would have just walked by and missed it all if it wasn’t for the more intense look… and this taught me a wonderful lesson. Start looking more intently, Barbara! How much am I missing because I am not looking carefully? God spoke to Moses after Moses stopped to actually look at the burning bush. Not before, but only after Moses stopped to carefully examine. Is it time to carefully examine my life or simply the issues that I have questions about, or the things I need more understanding on? Maybe the understanding doesn’t come because we want it, but because we actually seek it. Isn’t this such a simple concept, but so rich and wonderful?
It is time to look more intently, and be full, rich, fat with revelation, content with true understanding.

Real Simple Magazine posed a very interesting question to its readers back in June of this year–today is Saturday and I get to catch up on a bit of reading!–WHAT’S THE BEST THING MONEY CAN’T BUY? If I could only pick one “thing,” –and what’s a “thing” by the way? event? moment? actual thing I can touch?– I would have to say that salvation is the best thing that money can’t buy, obviously. But I’ve been thinking… what are the things I truly enjoy that money can’t buy? So here is my beginning list for today:
My husband’s love and respect
Sunsets
Kids giggles
My children’s joy
The sense of God’s pleasure
Peaceful evenings at home
The smell of fall
The warmth of the sun on my skin
A caring phone call
Sunrises
The Word of God revealed to my heart
My healthy body
My girlfriends
The joy of the job well done
My soul at peace
My heart rejoicing
God’s voice to me
Color
Music
Taste
Smell
Sight
Kindness
A walk in the woods on a snowy day
A walk in the woods on a spring morning
A walk in the woods on a summer evening
A walk in the woods on a warm fall afternoon
The song of birds
The whistle of our train at 8:32 every night
My husband coming home at night
Waking up without an alarm clock

I think I might need to write an article on this…

We are so very busy these days, and that might just be an understatement. Many of our activities are absolutely necessary, no question there, but I wonder how busy we really need to be. However, that isn’t even what I am pondering this day. I am noticing that we do a lot of what we do just because we do it, and it bears very little fruit. I don’t know that the issue is really that “our hearts aren’t in it,” like the expression says. I am thinking that we just don’t choose to purposefully put our hearts in what we do. I can bake a cake or bake a cake, if you know what I mean. You, who have a beautiful voice, can sing a song of worship, and the performance is truly beautiful. But what will you have accomplished if you did not pour your heart into the song, the words, the music? You will have a lovely performance, and that is it.
So much in life is done without heart, and it is breaking my heart today. Such a waste of time, of energy, of resources. No fruit to speak of.
I say, let’s do less, but let’s really do it.
Iam having people over for supper tonight. I am really going to do it!

I did not sleep much last night as the rhythmic noise of the fan in the room below ours kept me wide awake. I put words to the rhythms and made up songs, my mind took me to many places in my childhood and my future, I thought a lot of issues through without coming up with any workable answers, and I tossed and turned while my husband laid quietly beside me.
Not that I minded at all, really. Because the rhythm of the fan meant that my youngest child was home for the night, and that is a very rare occasion these days. Upstairs, my daughter was sleeping in what is now the guestroom and used to be her room. My other two grown-up kids, Matthieu and Amber, had spent the day with us and were now on a one-night get-away.
We do get together for Christmas, Thanksgiving and some of our birthdays, and we occasionally see the kids one at a time for different reasons or for no reason at all, but we rarely see them all at the same time. This Sunday, we sat around a meal of corn and chicken, and laughed about the past, asked hard questions about the present, dreamed about the future. I heard conversations about investing and how to do it best in this difficult economy, I watched them encourage each other in the Lord, speak difficut truth in love, and be ridiculously goofy. I soaked it all in, listening quietly from my corner, drinking freely of the joy of being the mom.
This morning, the last two left. One was on her way to the mall before heading home, and the other was going back to the place he calls home now. We are not really home anymore. Maybe still homebase, safety from any storm that life might throw at them. And it is wonderful that way. They don’t need me to be their home anymore because they have found their own way in this world and have discovered the secret that is the key to all other secrets: JESUS Himself is their home, and they never leave home without Him. So I really don’t need to be their home anylonger, and I guess it is a sign of success for their father and I. But as they left today, I found myself chocking up. I love them so much it hurts. They have given me such joy, they are such pride to me. All is well with me, I just needed to readjust to the lovely peaceful silence in my home.