Tag: joy

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Memoir

Loss

Loss. 

The memory comes back. Distinct. Clear. From 1972. One hot, humid afternoon in Kediri, Indonesia.

I’m just arriving at our home. After being away for high school a couple of months. In Jakarta.  

Standing outside. Reaching for the handle of the screen door. And suddenly a subconscious map surfaces.  One I never knew was there. 

A map of presence. Home and those who belong in it. 

Without warning, the realization of deep loss hits. Full force. There’s an empty space on that map. 

The place where my sister Ann has always been.

Grief. Tangible. 

Me with Momma and my new baby sister, Ann. Bangkok, Thailand. 1961.
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Categories
Devotional Making Disciples Memoir

Master artist

“Hmm,” my college art teacher says. Then again, “Hmmmm.” 

She’s looking over my shoulder. At the simple drawing. Graphite lines. Bare bones to plan and guide the assigned painting. 

“Bigger. Go big!” She says. With increasing volume. Her arms flying out for emphasis. “Stretch it out. Go biiiig.” 

The startling command contrasts with my small, neat pencil sketch. So confined and contained.

That time I learned to “go big.” Art by me. 1978.
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Categories
Devotional

Refining

Tomorrow. Next month. Next year. 
Detailed future schedules, meticulously stored in digital calendars. 
Vanish. Into thin air. Digital air.
As a corona virus disrupts. Delays. Deletes.
And thieves break in.
Whispering fear. Stealing contentment.
This confining space. A refining place. Reveals. 
Makes plain where best-laid-plans put down roots.
And expectations take hold. 

“Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will travel to such and such a city.…Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring—what your life will be!…”
James 4:14,15

2020. Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.
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