31 Days of Looking for the Little: Provision

October 16, 2014 By

DSC00943 loaves & fishes 2

I wrote about these small things in the same post I linked to yesterday. This basket is about two inches square. Two inches. And it contains seven items I chose myself, at a small store that features lots of miniature things.

Can you see what they are? Five loaves and two fish. Exactly the amount of food that the troubled disciples brought to Jesus when the 5,000 were seating themselves on the grass that late afternoon. 

Just a little lunch basket’s worth, that’s all. Five loaves and two fish. And yet . . . there was enough. More than enough.

I find myself feeling like those disciples way too often. Doubting the Lord’s goodness, doubting the Lord’s willingness to ‘feed’ me, doubting the Lord’s power and ability to provide what I need. Maybe you do, too.

I bought this little set just a few months into my job here in Santa Barbara. I was feeling overwhelmed by all there was to learn, all there was to do. And I needed a visible, tactile, small reminder that God is faithful. That little basket is one of my favorite possessions. God has used it to remind me, over and over again, that there will be provision. Maybe not exactly as I dreamed it or thought I needed it, but there will be. 

How do you remember the faithfulness of God?

Just Wondering
Filed Under: 31 Day Blogging Challenge, biblical reflection, Encouragement, Enough, God's gifts, Looking for the Little

31 Days of Looking for the Little: Seashells

October 15, 2014 By

DSC00945 tiny shells

I have collected seashells all my life. And I’ve bought a few, too. They are all over my house. There is a basketful on the family room coffee table. There is another basketful on the window shelf in the same room. There are shells on the bathroom counters, and a row of four sand dollars on the living room table.

But if I had to choose my favorite set of shells, it would be this one. They are nestled in a half clam shell, on the desk in my study. And they were on every pastoral desk I ever worked at during my years as a pastor. I’ve written about them before, about how we took a spontaneous trip to the beach (when we lived over an hour away from it) right after a winter storm.

The beach was littered with these delightful, small things, and we gathered as many as we could, my middle daughter the champeen collector. I never tire of looking at them, of fingering their delicate outlines and admiring the creative genius that put shell-covered creatures into our great oceans. 

Do you have small things that you keep around your house? Things that remind you of a special time with your family or friends? Things that teach you more about God?

Just Wondering
Filed Under: 31 Day Blogging Challenge, God's gifts, Looking for the Little

31 Days of Looking for the Little: The Angle of the Light

October 14, 2014 By

DSC02495 - succulent

It was early August, just about six weeks after my foot surgery. Our eldest daughter and her family had rented a beach house nearby and they invited the rest of the family over for a swim and dinner. I definitely did not swim, but I did sit and enjoy the scenery. Oh, yes, I’m good at that!

The house they rented was just back from the sand. In fact, the front yard was filled with the stuff! But all around the edges were several beautifully landscaped succulent gardens.

This one was right in front of me, in the chair where I set up shop, with my newly acquired walker-with-a-great-seat holding up my booted foot. As the afternoon began to darken, the angle of the mid-summer light caught the petals of this rose-shaped plant and made me gasp. Who knew a succulent could be translucent?

People who have never lived in California tell me that they would miss having seasons, would be bored by weather that is too similar year-round. But we do have seasons here, they just don’t look like the traditional ones. And those seasons are marked by the angle of the light, as well as by falling or rising air temperature and/or rainfall.

It’s one of the ‘little’ things I enjoy most in my life: observing how the sunlight changes how things look, depending on where the sun stands in the sky. The shadows lengthen, and the sun sets directly over the ocean in the fall and winter months. Only then.

Ask me how I know this! (I bought my first good camera in May and drove 60 miles trying to find a sunset over the water. NOPE. But in January? Spectacular.)

Just Wondering
Filed Under: 31 Day Blogging Challenge, Beauty, Looking for the Little

31 Days of Looking for the Little: Creatures

October 13, 2014 By

IMG_4008 green frog

This little fella is someone we usually hear but do not see. He has a very basso profundo voice, and his song often accompanies our early evening reflections. 

He (or a very similar friend!) usually resides in the bottom of a large pot we keep on our front patio, but this past summer, we found him in the back yard . . . in our swimming pool!

He was swimming merrily along, but couldn’t find enough traction anywhere to get himself out of the water. So we helped him along a little bit. He sat in the sunlight for a minute, to catch his breath, and then he hopped away. Who knows where he went next?

Small creatures captivate me. Even spiders. IF they’re safely visible in their webs, not if they surprise me in the house. But these little frogs are delightful co-residents with us here in Santa Barbara. We look forward to their summertime music and enjoy their company.

I’m so glad that God made this world with little things as well as big ones. I love watching the recent video of our immense galaxy (featured by Ann Voskamp in one of her weekly collections of good things). But I also like looking deeply into creation to find the smaller things that keep everything going. On that scale, this froggie is not so tiny, I guess. But on my scale? He is tiny, indeed. And I am grateful.

Just Wondering
Filed Under: 31 Day Blogging Challenge, Creation, Looking for the Little

31 Days of Looking for the Little: Seeds

October 12, 2014 By

DSC01308 papaya seeds

Have you ever cut a papaya in half? They’re filled with hundreds of small, round, black seeds! And they are beautiful.

For much of my life, I couldn’t be bothered with papayas. I thought of them as strangely shaped tropical fruit that grew on really weird trees. And they smelled just a tiny bit like dirty feet!

But then one vacation, we ate at a breakfast buffet where they featured slices of fresh papaya, and I was hooked. I especially love these large, red ones from Mexico. Total yum.

But the day I cut this one open, I was fascinated by the little stuff inside the fruit. So I took this picture and I’ve loved looking at ever since. Seeds are miracles, you know? Just tiny things, but containing within themselves a whole new life.

But of course, in order for that life to take root, the seed itself has to disappear. It has to die. It has to open itself and be completely transformed into something new. 

So much of this life of faith is like that, don’t you think? We, too, must ‘die,’ in a sense. At least our false selves need to die — those personas we carry around to show the world that we’re-just-fine-thank-you, that shell that we protect ourselves with. It’s gotta go.

Because it’s only when we let that shell slough off that the beautiful newness the Holy Spirit is growing in us can be seen and experienced. 

Yes, I love seeds. Even though they have to sacrifice something in order for new life to flourish. Maybe especially because they do.

Just Wondering
Filed Under: 31 Day Blogging Challenge, Beauty, death, Encouragement, Looking for the Little

31 Days of Looking for the Little: Moments that Make Me Smile

October 11, 2014 By

IMG_3994 Griffin's cat

It only took a minute. Just a minute. My grandson told me to turn my head and watch his cat, Dexter. So, I did.

And what I saw made me want to laugh out loud! Only, I didn’t because I didn’t want to frighten Dexter — I wanted him to stand there forever, just looking with longing at the yard.

He soon moved onto something new, of course, but that moment salvaged an afternoon that had been tiring and occasionally upsetting. He’s just a small cat, and it was just a small moment.

But it made me smile.

And there is nothing small about that.

What are the little things that can bring a smile to your lips, even when you’re moving through a bad day?

Just Wondering
Filed Under: 31 Day Blogging Challenge, Encouragement, Fun, Laughter, Looking for the Little

31 Days of Looking for the Little: A Single Tree

October 10, 2014 By

DSC01079 butterfly beach

If you’ve read anything in this space, you know that I love trees. All kinds of trees. Great gobs of trees.

But I also have a deep fondness for stand-alone trees. Just one, out there by its lonesome, looking majestic and powerful. No, trees are not ‘little,’ but somehow a single tree falls on the ‘little’ end of the tree-scale in my mind.

This one is a particular favorite of mine. It’s a Monterey cypress tree, and it hangs over one of my favorite places, Butterfly Beach. These trees have become almost iconic in California, adorning the 17-mile drive in Monterey and showing up along the coast in lots of different places. To say nothing of the great numbers of them that are used in landscaping around all the Spanish revival homes in this area.

They are not perfect, but then who of us is? They get brittle as they age and have this nasty tendency to drop their large branches on parked cars, garages, or people who might be in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

But they are beautiful and haunting, aren’t they? They may be solitary, but they still provide shade, a lovely profile and a welcoming home to lots of different kinds of birds. I like that in a tree — and in a person, too. 

Just Wondering
Filed Under: 31 Day Blogging Challenge, Beauty, God's gifts, Looking for the Little, Trees

31 Days of Looking for the Little: Fuchsias

October 9, 2014 By

DSC02392 fuschia

When I was 12 years old, we moved to an old house in Glendale CA. Along the narrow side yard, which was pretty much in the shade all day long, there were long, brick planters filled with a variety of fuchsias.

I fell in love.

They looked like tiny fairies to me, like the ballerinas atop a music box. So delicate, rich in color, and unusual.

My mother, however, detested them. I never did understand why. She kept threatening to yank them all out, and I would beg her to reconsider. Apparently, she heard me, because they stayed in place until we moved to a different home about seven years later.

We have a few fuchsias in pots on our front patio, and my husband tends them carefully. Both of us love to see their blooms and to marvel over their delicacy. 

Fuchsias are small things, preferring to hide in the shadows rather than bust their buttons in full sun. I think that’s what I love about them: their fierce beauty, almost hidden in the side pockets of most gardens. 

I love coming across beautiful things in unexpected places, don’t you? I know people who are like these flowers, too. They don’t make a fuss, they refuse the limelight, they just sit quietly in the shade and radiate beauty.

I do love all the flowers that bloom in the sunlight, too. And you know — it takes all kinds to make a garden, just as it takes all kinds of people to make a good world.

Just Wondering
Filed Under: 31 Day Blogging Challenge, Beauty, God's gifts, Looking for the Little

31 Days of Looking for the Little: Pelicans

October 8, 2014 By

DSC02107 pelicans

I am fascinated by pelicans. Though they are large by bird standards, in the scheme of all the things, from humungous to tiny, I’d have to say that they’re on the little side, wouldn’t you?

First of all, they are silent. Did you know that? Apparently there is no room in that generous beak/throat of theirs for a noise-making mechanism of any kind. Then, there is what they look like — almost prehistoric in their outline, like some fossils I’ve seen in pictures. 

What I really admire is their grace, and their incredible diving ability. They usually hang out with friends, often making a silent, long line like the one in the picture. And when I see them flying up or down the coastline, I always breathe a little more rapidly and begin thanking God for this visitation.

When I’m at the beach, I’m on the lookout for birds, especially for these strangely beautiful creatures. Pelicans are reputed to feed their young with their own blood during times of famine and distress, pecking at their breasts until blood flows and then feeding it to their chicks. The early Christian church often used pictures of pelicans in churches and in other art work.

Why?

Because such sacrificial life-giving spoke of Jesus to them.

I knew there was something special about these birds!

Just Wondering
Filed Under: 31 Day Blogging Challenge, Beauty, Birds, Looking for the Little

31 Days of Looking for the Little: Playdates + a Giveaway!

October 7, 2014 By

IMG_4359

Sometimes I read my friend Laura Boggess’s words and I wonder, “In some alternate universe, are we related?” Because this woman writes my heart, and she writes it beautifully.

And this little book is a gem. A GEM. Laura tells us stories about her life, she quotes lots of great authors, she plumbs mysterious and wondrous truths from the worlds of psychology, theology and ministry — because that’s who she is. She is a psychologist, a closet theologian, and a pastor.

I adored every page of this book, and I read it in one sitting. She asks terrific questions and she finds meaningful answers all the way through. I highly recommend that you order a copy today and plan to use what you find there as you walk out your days. She helps us to re-think how we live by doing one of the things I’m writing out during this challenge: focusing on the ordinary, the small, and discovering God, right there. Right there.

I received a free copy and I also ordered one and that one I am giving away! So if you would like your own copy, please leave me a comment and I’ll enter your name on a slip of paper into my famous name-pulling hat. It’s definitely a worthy read. A little book that can.

Just Wondering
Filed Under: 31 Day Blogging Challenge, Book Review, Giveaway!!, Looking for the Little
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