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In her wonderful writings, Marilyn Howshall suggests that God speaks to us most often in metaphors.  I too have found that occassionally something will suddenly come to mind - a little seed of an idea - a spark of understanding - a bit of a metaphor - and I have to work it all out, find the ends of the idea, pull it out until it breaks down.  So forgive me while I think (type) outloud,  for while writing to a friend in a dark spot today, God gave me a metaphor seed.

Looking down at the mire and focusing on the sin done to us, God's flashes of brightness and hope are only flickerings on the edge of consciousness, hardly noticeable - but looking up and focusing on God's love, those flashes are so bright and beautiful - like looking up at the sky knowing that the next firework is coming momentarily and expecting its beauty.

The idea of watching the fireworks has continued to pull at the edges of my mind.  It's kind of neat really.  We don't go to see the fireworks only to keep our heads down and stubbornly gaze at the earth.  Can you imagine, someone walking along looking at the ground and the sky lights up with golden sparkles above his head, and instead of saying, "ooh, fireworks!" and turning to look up and wait for the next one, he only complains that the ground is so muddy and there are so many rocks.   The flash of light was too short to do him any good, he thinks.  He's still in this horrible muddy place.

Oh, does that sound familiar!  Crazy as it sounds, I have a natural inclination to do that very thing.  It's easy to see life in terms of the negative.  Negative self-talk, negative experiences - the whole cup half empty and then some.  The children may be arguing and fighting, full of selfishness and spite.  Then one of them comes up to me with a kiss or does something helpful, and I hardly notice.  I still see them as selfish, naughty kids.  Lord, forgive me! 

But, if I go to see the fireworks, EXPECT to see beautiful fireworks, and keep looking up, God does not disappoint!  Each little spark is so exciting!  The colors, the sounds, the lights - such lights! 

And then, what's really neat - is after gazing up into the heavens watching the grand finale - all the wonderful things God is doing in our lives, then we look back at the earth, and there are echos of the fireworks on our eyes.  Blinding us to the negative.  Keeping before us the thought of God's goodness and love.

I love fireworks, don't you? :)

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no, not from me :)  From the book by Johanna Spyri.  I am reading this wonderful book aloud to my girls right now and am finding myself so inspired all over again.   I'd like to share this excerpt that had me weeping tears of joy today.  It's a little long - but so worth it!

     Heidi looked about her first at one thing and then at another.  The waving flowers, the blue sky, the bright sunshine, the happy bird - everything was so beautiful!  so beautiful!  Her eyes were alight with joy.  And now she turned to her friend to see if he too were enjoying the beauty.  The doctor had been sitting thoughtfully gazing around him.  As he met her glad bright eyes, "Yes, Heidi," he responded,  "I see how lovely it all is, but tell me - if one brings a sad heart up here, how may it be healed so that it can rejoice in all this beauty?"

     "Oh, but," exclaimed Heidi, "no one is sad up here, only in Frankfurt."

     The doctor smiled and then growing serious again he continued, "But supposing one is not able to leave all the sadness behind at Frankfurt; can you tell me anything that will help then?"

     "When you do not know what more to do you must go and tell everything to God," answered Heidi with decision.

     "Ah, that is a good thought of yours, Heidi," said the doctor.  "But if it is God Himself who has sent the trouble, what can we say to Him then?"

     Heidi sat pondering for a while; she was sure in her heart that God could help out of every trouble.  She thought over her own experiences and then found her answer.

    "Then you must wait," she said, "and keep on saying to yourself: God certainly knows of some happiness for us which He is going to bring out of the trouble, only we must have patience and not run away.  And then all at once something happens and we see clearly ouselves that God has had some good thought in His mind all along; but because we cannot see things beforehand, and only know how dreadfully miserable we are, we think it is always going to be so."

     "That is a beautiful faith, child, and be sure you hold it fast," replied the doctor.  Then he sat on a while in silence, looking at the great overshadowing mountains and green sunlit valley below before he spoke again -

     "Can you understand, Heidi, that a man may sit here with such a shadow over his eyes that he cannot feel and enjoy the beauty around him, while the heart grows doubly sad knowing how beautiful it could be?  Can you understand that?"

     A pain shot through the child's young happy heart.  The shadow over the eyes brought to her remembrance the grandmother, who would never again be able to see the sunlight and the beauty up here.  This was Heidi's great sorrow, which reawoke ech time she tought about the darkness.  She did not speak for a few minutes, for her happiness was interrupted by this sudden pang.  Then in a grave voice she said, -

     "Yes, I can understand it.  And I know this, that then one must say one of grandmother's hymns, which bring the light back a little, and often make it so bright for her that she is quite happy again.  Grandmother herself told me this."

...

Let not your heart be troubled

Nor fear your soul dismay,

There is a wise Defender

And He will be your stay.

Where you have failed, He conquers,

See, how the foeman flies!

And all your tribulation

Is turned to glad surprise.

If for a while it seemeth

His mercy is withdrawn,

That He no longer careth

For His wandering child forlorn,

Doubt not His great compassion,

His love can never tire,

To those who wait in patience

He gives their heart's desire.

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We've never been a family to do birthday parties.  First off, our house in town was just plain too small.  When you have 8 children of your own, where are you going to put a whole bunch of extras? LOL  And then there's the whole question of whether I agree with drop-your-kids-off-parties in general.  So, we never did them. 

But when we moved to the country, my husband mentioned something just in passing about having the room for birthday parties now, and it set my mind in motion - - always a dangerous thing. :) 

I've often thought I could do one of those businesses where you plan out children's birthday parties, go into the client's home, put the party on, clean up, and leave.  I love planning and I love being creative.  So I really wasn't afraid of the idea of doing one for my own children.   That was before I did one!

The first birthday to come up after the move was Juli's 7th birthday.  I planned out a fairy princess party, invited 7 little girls and their families, planned food, a fairy doll cake, cupcakes shaped like little flowers for the girls to decorate, crafts and games, decorated the yard with gauzy tents and a lacy tablecloth on the food table and lots of flowers, and made little flower crowns for each little girl and decorated invitation cards for each.  Then we cleaned the house top to bottom, set everything out on the day of the party, organized the chaos of the party itself, and cleaned everything up when we were done.  Whew!  Talk about insanity!  Fun, sure!  but totally insane!  We were very glad to be done. 

Only, we weren't done of course.  We had seven other children!  Fortunately, the boys weren't really into the idea of a theme party, and two of the little girls were too little to care, but that still left two more little girls.  Even harder was that both of their birthdays were in the dead of winter which meant an indoor party and definitely not enough room for that many little girls and their families.  (Keeping in mind that nearly every family we are friends with have at least 6 children!)

So I gave up the idea of insisting on whole families and tried to do things as simply as possible.  Um, sure.

The next birthday was Lissa's ninth.  We decided on a Little House theme and we invited just three little girls, two of which were able to make it.  We did it on a weekday afternoon and planned just cake and icecream. 

The girls churned the icecream, worked on little nine patch quilt square sewing projects, and did a little square dancing while I played the fiddle.  It was still a bit crazy preparing for the party and sewing up six Little House bonnets the day before, but the party itself was a lot more low key. 

Finally Abi's 5th birthday was coming up, and much as I would have liked to get out of doing a party altogether, she would have none of that!  She invited everyone she saw months in advance, including my midwife, to her birthday party.  She talked about what she wanted to have to eat and what her cake would look like!  So I started thinking as simple as possible. :)

I ended up having the neighbor girl, Emily come over and help me out.  We had just had Emily's two little sisters come as well as my sister's little girls.  Emily helped me to do each little girl's hair, and then when they were each fancied up, we had a teaparty.  My boys made most of the cupcakes, cookies, and candies, and we had juice "tea". 

It went off without a hitch, no stress, and Abi had a blast.  Not that I'd want to do it everyday.

I'm hoping that now that each of the three older girls have had one party,  I'm done for a very long time, maybe even forever!  It was fun, and given the chance to do it over, I probably would have done the same thing again.  God is good and His plans are perfect.  But I sure didn't have any idea what I was getting into when I started. :)

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I have a friend who is constantly reading Bible commentaries, books, and websites, desperately trying to figure out exactly what she should believe about everything and why.  Her quest for the perfect doctrine is all consuming and she worries all the time that she might have something wrong that will harm her relationship with the Lord.

Another friend of mine looks at her life and sees nothing to live for.  Depression rules her thoughts and actions.  She believes she could never be good enough to earn anyone's approval, especially God's.  The people she loves would be better off without her around.  She feels nothing but loathing for herself, and although she believes the work of Jesus on the cross is enough to get her into heaven, she's certain that her life here on earth will keep her from God's loving arms.

Nearly EVERY woman I know looks into the mirror and thinks, what a fat, ugly lady I am.  I need to lose at least 20 pounds.  Who could ever love a blob like me?  I don't even have the self discipline to stay on a diet or to exercise every day.  I enjoy sweets so they must be a form of idolatry to me.  How can God ever forgive me when I can't even make myself stop doing this?

What does God want from you?  Beyond believing in Jesus and His work of salvation, what does He want?  I can tell you what He doesn't want.  He doesn't want your super-intelligence that can explain and understand every bit of doctine.  He doesn't want your perfection in every area of life.  He doesn't want your iron-willed self discipline that can decide to never ever eat anything bad for the rest of your life and actually stick to that decision!  What does God want?

He wants your HEART!  He wants YOU!

It's not that giving of your heart to Him that you did when you first believed (although it can happen at the same time).  It's something deeper.  It's utterly falling in LOVE with Him!

Do you remember when you first fell in love with your spouse?  Wow!  Life was incredible!  The whole world seemed brighter, food tasted better, every beautiful flower was noticed and enjoyed, music touched you more deeply, the name of your love was constantly on your lips and in your thoughts, and you couldn't WAIT to see him again.  And everyone could see the bloom of Love in you.  That's what God wants to be to us.  And, get this!  That's how He feels about YOU!  Isn't that incredible?

Just stop for a minute and let yourself FEEL that amazement.  Yes, it's true. He says in Isaiah 49, "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
       and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
       Though she may forget,
       I will not forget you!

       I have engraved you on the palms of my hands"

That's how much He loves you.  He literally engraved YOU on the palms of His hands when He was nailed to the cross.  He is excited when He hears from you and He looks forward to the opportunity to talk with you through His Word.  He sees you as beautiful and precious and HIS.  We hear these things often enough to take them for granted, to not really think about what they MEAN.  But when we do stop and think about it - really think about it - WOW!  What an incredible thing to be loved by God!  How can we not love Him with an all-consuming love - the kind of love we had for our spouse when we first fell in love.  How can we not see that flower growing by the wayside or hear the words of a song and know without a doubt that it is a special delivery just for us?  How can we not find His name on our lips and in our thoughts constantly?

And do you know what happens when we fall utterly in Love with our wonderful God?

We find that we desire so much to be in His presence that we spend more time in His Word and find the wisdom and understanding that He promises there.

We find that new thoughts of praise and joy push out those of hopelessness and self hatred.

We find that people around us think we are "just about the most beautiful person they know".

We don't have to strive for any of those things.  They just happen!  Isn't that amazing??

I have been each of those women at the beginning of this article and now I am the new person described just above.  In my flesh, I still can look at myself as "fat, ugly, stupid, can't do anything right, Heidi"  but that only makes it more amazing that God loves even ME!  And He tells me to take that thought captive and remind myself that those things are not true, because He has changed me, and in His sight I am beautiful.  Beautiful!  WOW!

Do you know that?  Do you really understand that?  Can you feel His love for you?

Jesus loves YOU

This I know

For the Bible tells me so!

Get excited and fall in LOVE and watch your life change utterly!

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Life is such -

A series of sameness.

Wherever I go, nothing changes.

I am only a drop

In an unfathomable ocean.

I make ripples, but they only go so far.

What can I do to change the world?

I look -

Watch -

Expect to see something.

But time flies ever faster by.

And the sea is still the sea.

And I am still

Only a raindrop...

       And maybe that's the point.  It's easy to look around on the journey of life and think, "this town looks an awful lot like the last town we went through ... and the one before that.  You know, I cleaned the bathroom and vacuumed the livingroom and changed a diaper, I hemmed a dress, I wrote a blog entry - and they will all have to be done again - probably sooner than later.  Yet it's not for nothing.  Only God knows who will be touched by some tiny part of my small life today - - one of my children... a friend... a stranger...   Somewhere out there is a tiny seedling whose thirsty roots are stretching out into the soil around them - and exactly what they need is one little raindrop.  :)

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