Monday, March 28, 2011

The Voice of Japan



This email from my dear friend Himo speaks volumes about the need for prayer in a land so devastated:





Hi Debbie
 
Thanks for your email.  We are fine as usual and spending our daily life as well.  But we have so many problems day by day.  A biggest problem is an unclear power plants.  It made water pollution till around Tokyo area, and vagetables, milk by radioactive contamination, power outage till summer or next winter?!  
 
And of course, quake dameged area is still not recover, homeless people are 32000, 10500 people died, 17000 people missing.  That area is still cold weather, so people do their best, but it`s been so hard life, so they must be bounds, limit,,,
 
I just hope that Japanese government does everything right away,,, I can`t image how much time and money we need, I just want to give up everything if I had  such a sad happened, just no hope, can`t image our future,,,but we have to build up our future!!  Our economy is an uneasy emotion by elecronic power, well anyway a little bit panic all over Japan . . .
 
 
*     *     *
 
 
Please continue to hold Himo, her family, her nation in our prayers.
 
 
 
 

 Hear my cry, 
O God; 
attend unto my prayer. 
Psalm 61:1

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Where Quiet Bloggers Go . . .

Someone recently remarked that they had my blog figured out.  She boldly stated, “You blog when you are happy.”  I laughed and wondered how I had left such an impression on one who sits with me in real life and witnesses the beauty, joy, and true happiness I enjoy every day.  As we sipped tea, listened to the girls share their gifts of music, and laughed recounting life’s goodness I tried to explain that I do not go away from the blog to sulk, but rather to think, live, be, and learn.  Sometimes I feel called to share the pages of this life’s journal; sometimes it is enough to simply write in my journal or think or just sit.  Sometimes I am called to be quiet.  Quiet is good.

Sometimes I find my joy
In laughing out loud
Sometimes in quiet. 

Still . . .

I count it all joy.



The following pages of my journal filled from my overflowing pen this morn.  Maybe this will help my friend see that a quiet blog does not mean a disquieted heart.


* * *

3-24-2011

These morning hours of quiet, prayer, study, and writing enrich my life like a frame setting off the canvas upon which God/Christ/Spirit paint me . . . my life . . . my message to the world. 

“Essential,” I write, knowing that a day (such as yesterday) without this quiet beginning lacks something vital,  like bread baked without salt (an oversight I commit when baking under hurried or distracted circumstances).  A day without quiet contemplation resembles a salt-less loaf over-risen becoming full of air, splitting at the edges, losing beauty, tasteless, blowsy and frail . . . in short, unsatisfactory to serve.  It falls to bits when the knife comes, rendering it useless save for breadcrumbs; even then it must be dried out to be of any use.  How sad to see a loaf set aside while still fresh and warm and eager to be enjoyed.  Patiently the crumb dries and waits to be ground into meal that will shore up a heartier fare such as ground beef destined to become a succulent loaf – the centerpiece of supper.  The breadcrumb sees her vital role even if she has been hidden away into a new kind of loaf.  Others may not see her, but she is present and presently used.

Proverbial, prophetic, poetic. 

Scripture (Matt. 5:13) calls for salt to season life, to add flavor, to preserve with integrity.  So what of the unseasoned? Unsavory?  God finds use for the salt-less loaves, does He not?  Surely He has taught the housewife all she knows, had He not?  Ground to meal, salted and seasoned, ready for use in a new way she gives to life.

Some disparage my choice to forgo accolades from lectures given in Ivy-ed Halls in favor of hearth-side service.  Where once I dreamed of audiences vast for my excavated treasures, I changed course and followed God’s call like a desert Amma.  In quiet surrounds I pray, read, write, learn, teach, nurture, give, live, love. 

My life exceeds my dreams. 

My loaf of life is seasoned, leavened, baked, and served 
by His recipe.

And it is good . . . 


 
albeit quiet at times, 
like when I am chewing a big mouthful of Daily Bread.






Monday, March 21, 2011

Glimpse of Grace


Inside the Cocoon at Wisteria Cottage

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Sunday Wonder


Ye have not chosen me, 
but I have chosen you
 John 15:16

* * *


We praise God not to celebrate our own faith
but to give thanks for the faith God has in us.  

To let ourselves look at God, 
and let God look back at us.  

And to laugh, 
and sing, 
and be delighted 

because God has called us his own.

~~ Kathleen Norris ~~
Amazing Grace






Friday, March 11, 2011

Please Pray . . .



Please pray for my dear friend-like-a-sister in Japan.  Himo is currently safe with her two children (daughter Mayu, 12, son Riku, 9) in southwestern Japan, but her husband Hiroyuki is stranded in Tokyo. 

I met Himo when she was 13 and a foreign exchange student to the US staying with my inlaws.  That was 23 years ago.  Since then she has been to visit me several times but I have yet to make it to Japan to see her.  (Oh, how I wish I would have stored memories of Japan seen through my own eyes before this tragic quake!) 

Please keep the Kishikawa family in your prayers as we all join hands and hearts to pray for Japan.

Thank you.