Thy Word is a light...and a lamp...

 It is a heavily overcast Sunday morning!  I am sooooooooo thankful for some rain and cooler weather.  We have had scorching clear skies, merciless sun (remember we are right on the Ecuator at 10,000 feet!)  and so much wind.  The city and outside the city, is like a crisp dust bowl, and the rain is so long overdue.  Today I awakened to the delicious darkness of heavy clouds, and I came to the front of the house, and looked out, and "my hills" to the south cannot be seen, Cayambe is invisible, as is anything beyond the east hill of Quito.  AND IT WAS RAINING LIGHTLY.  Thank you, thank you, thank you God.
I made a pot of coffee and am sat with my Bible enjoying the peace and quiet.  Quito on a Sunday morning can really be as quiet as a teeming city of 2 plus million can possibly get.  Even the gas trucks haven't been around honking and letting people know they can come out and buy gas!
It came to me that it had been a looong time since I had posted anything.  I have felt I had nothing worth writing about, nothing that would be reader worthy!  That's a little clue about me, when it goes dark, it usually means that I am not doing so very great for some reason or another.  It doesn't usually mean that I am too busy.  A few days indicate busyness, a long period of silence, pray extra! :)
I don't think I can put my finger on any one thing, it has been layered things, complex webs of stuff in my heart.  I would say that I have never been a procrastinator really, especially through the last 2 1/2 years in school, I was the nerd who worked ahead, and made arbitrary deadlines for myself so that I was never pulling all-nighters, or waking up saying, 'oh, it's due today!'  But somehow, I am in a slump, and just cannot seem to find a way out of it, each week I have several deadlines to prep for, and it is not uncommon for me to sit down over and over again, to feel like I am hitting a wall, writers block, thinkers block, or something!  I am not sure what is going on.  I learned at ISF that it is important to just be with whatever is true, to be honest, to turn towards God.  I realized the other day that even this has seemed wrong!  Ah ha!  Shame, shame, hide and cover, I am not being a good little girl and working ahead, and being productive, productive, productive.  Hmmmmmm.  So I am turning towards God in my mess, thankful that He is neither surprised, nor critical, nor wringing his hands in despair, nor rolling his eyes, nor disgustedly walking away.  He knows I feel out of sorts, like a long jumper who has taken off on the wrong foot, and flubbed the jump as a result, but day after day of that.  "And can it be that though my God shouldst die for me, amazing love"  an old hymn is ringing through my head and heart this morning, and I am humbled, and amazed, all over again.  Another song, it must be a cross of love!  Wow!  How can He love me? In my mess?  In my procrastination?  In my fatigue and exhaustion?  In my hiding and covering?  Shame?  Ahhhhh, back to that again, BECAUSE IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ME, OR MY PERFORMANCE.  HIS LOVE IS A SETTLED GIVEN!  Just like in geometry or logic, given this, then that; given His love, given my sin, HE BORE MY SIN ON THE CROSS, HE WHO KNEW NO SIN BECAME SIN, THAT I MIGHT BECOME RIGHTEOUS!  Mind blasting!  "Blasting, not boggling, because anything can boggle the mind."  There is only one response to these truths, prostrated, humble, overflowing gratitude.  So many many eucharisteos, and somehow I have gotten away from writing and numbering them on paper, slinked into, slid into "thinking them" and from that to "not even thinking them"  a slow steady decline.  Again!  "He who knows me best loves me most!" another Gaither trio song I believe.  He is brining truth through old songs to me today, and I thought I would share. 

Please pray that I will trust God, and His Spirit alone, to bring about Christlikeness and transformation in me.  That I will attend to the Spirit's work in me and deny Satan footholds in my life that become strongholds if they are ignored or fed.  And pray that my awareness of sin would only bring brokenness and humility that draws me closer to God, rather than shame and guilt, hiding and covering that distances me from God, the only hope, the only answer to my condition.

El Tri Color!

This is my lovely daughter Amber, and awesome little grandson, Sebastian James, and he is sporting his Ecuador Jersey from the National team.  Copa Mundial here we come!  Si se puede!
Can I just say that being far away from kids and grandkids just is not my favorite thing.  I am looking hard for some eucharisteo there, but not sure!

 Austin hiking at Hume, enjoying nature!  There is something important, and orienting about getting next to something huge, whether its mountains, or oceans, or Redwood trees (below) to remind ourselves of how tiny we really are, and how powerless we are!  However God is powerful, and the creator of such great beauty!

 So, today I am headed out of the city, to our lovely Youth World Hacienda El Refugio, to sit with a friend, and then sit on her porch (below) and soak up some of the tranquility  of the countryside.  Hear birds, and watch humming birds, pray and think!  And maybe do some reading and journaling.
We will see! 

 Looking out from the porch!  I will sit here in about an hour! :)  Yeah!

More of the views I will have this afternoon! My soul needs to get out of the busyness, and the noise of the city, especially living within a stone's throw of 5 or 6 huge apartment building construction cites, one of them is so close the workers can see what I am eating!
So, even as I write, a gas truck is honking (they do all day, every day) and a truck is passing and someone is on a loudspeaker saying that they are here to buy any kind of recyclable steel, wire, washers, dryers, etc. etc., there is construction going on in our building, and that's just a little of why, I need to get out for just a few hours, and hear nothing but birds!  I am so grateful to have this beautiful spot to go to. 

And finally, can you see why I miss this little man soooooooo much!  So if you live close to your grandbabies, today make a point of squeezing them, and think of me and pray that I can be a creative grandma, finding ways to love from so far away!  

Back to School--Not!

The sounds of school buses rolling again early each morning, the uniformed children pouring out of buildings, school gates that have been locked for the last 6 weeks, are once again flung open, and the sounds of bells and children ring out--so I know school is back in session!  But, we have no first day pictures to take, and I am not back in school myself, (first Aug/Sept. in 3 years) I am not reading through syllabi, counting pages to read, plotting and planning out my homework load etc.  And I miss it!  All of it, having kids in school, going to school myself.  All of it.  But there is a season for everything, and that season is over.  So I am taking the time to say goodbye.  So for those of you who are cranking up for another year, who have stocked backpacks or who have readied your own classrooms, or are reading over syllabi and sighing or thinking of complaining!  Stop!  School, whether teaching or learning is a huge eucharisteo!  Do you know that there are parts of the world where girls are forbidden to learn, and do so at the risk of losing their lives?  Be thankful for the freedom you have to teach, or learn!  Enjoy!  Seize and Savour!
As I sit here tonight, I am looking over a heavily clouded sky, it has been raining a little, and I am hoping there is more to come.  We need the rain so badly.  I have candles lit, and am enjoying the stillness in the house.  I look around and am so thankful for the ways that we have been able to settle in here a little more.  Today I found a little store tucked, almost hidden from the street, what caught my eye was some flowers in a bucket inside the door.  They were packets of roses (25 in a bunch) and they were so, so fresh and beautiful.  All the places that I ordinarily buy roses have had such poor quality roses lately that I haven't bought any in a long time.  These were wonderful.  I stepped in and was delighted to find the owner, such a lovely lady who reminded me so much of Phil's grandma Tate.  We started to talk, and she was brimming with love of the Lord, a deep faith, love for people, etc.  I left some 25 minutes later with a new friend, and was touched at God's provision for my soul today.  I felt like I had been with an angel He sent to visit with me.  Another eucharisteo.  We share a love for flowers and arranging them, for the Lord, and meeting people, good music, good coffee and quiet coffee shops that have good ambience!   I walked away full.  An errand to the taylor to have a kitchen curtain made for the girls house had turned into so much more.  If I hadn't been walking back from that taylor, if I hadn't had a bit of money, if I hadn't seen the flowers, if I hadn't listened to the inexplicable tugging to go down the long hallway and call out, I might never have discovered this gem of a lady.  A lovely day!  A delightful, unexpected surprise.