The Serenity Prayer

I posted this week on my songsofachristianhomemaker.blogspot.com site. If you go there, you will have a song waiting for you to listen to! It's called "The Serenity Prayer" and I'm excited to share it just because it's always a double blessing to share what we have. Anyway, don't expect great! Just expect just me! :-)

Happy listening!

Love,
Carolyn

A Hen Named Howard

Hen laid eggs gathered from backyard. Were they Howard’s? Howard  lays them green, I learned. Well, they’re placed on breakfast table all natural in the pan they were scrambled in and comfortable next to the bread left over from dinner last night. We broke it then and the chunks missing are reminder of that sweet communion.

We commune again this morning. Break more bread with these followers of Christ we haven’t seen for fourteen years, but our sprits know one another as if a mere day had passed. Because time doesn’t mean anything in the Spirit realm that is realm in this bright kitchen with white washed cupboards, cloth napkins, tea candles and dish towel rumpled under Howard’s eggs and plate of local bacon. It was purchased that morning and wrapped in butcher’s paper and it could make a bacon eater out of the likes of me.

And it seems to me that highest Spirit realms are at commonest table where time melts like butter on homemade bread and miraculous happens all communion.

All common. Something rumpled. Something lit. Something heavy iron pan. Something savory. Something scrambled. Local-est pig common, and berry jam and butter common and common grain. And Bread. Saturated. And I’m melting right into Bread at table. Right into Jesus.

We prayed together in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And we talked as the disciples must have talked in Jesus’ presence. Quest conversations to know Him better. To understand His life.

 

Did Jesus talk of His childhood and did His disciples laugh with Him at the “I remember when” stories? Surely. And surely there would have been many to tell. Raising the Son of God? Being sibling to the Son of God? Playing with Him? Childish teasing? Working with Him? Saying “good night” and “good morning” and “thank you” and “please” to Him and hearing Him say the same back? Praying with Him and bowing head at table with Him? Oh yeah. There were stories. He was born of Mary!

The begotten Son of God had a flesh and blood mother and if that’s not enough to put us on quest then we have lost child-like questions. Those wide-eyed “how?” and “why?” questions that look up from below knee level because even a grown-up like me remembers better to be as child when I bend knee and sit back on heel to become small with large perspective. Narrow the eye, lock the knee and stand grown-up tall and the common miraculous shrinks to just common.

My quest to understand big God begins where my big is cut off at knee.  

“Make me small. Hen height in large backyard.” I’m humbling myself on purpose. Looking around like this on purpose. At whatever is backyard-ish behind front edifice, common and hidden at back door in a front-door, curb-appeal world. And I’m seeing big. Asking big why’s and how’s and amazing large at big and letting my feathers get ruffled.

“Be small and have big perspective. Be wide-eyed and see big." And He laughs teasing,“Don’t worry if what comes out of you is odd green egg!”

“Oh, cluck-cluck!” I laugh hen “ha.”

Howard

What comes out of me is odd. It’s Christ, I hope. Hope only because I am filled with Holy Spirit. Hope because the life of Christ is being formed in me. And I hope all through trust that somehow others may see that I am large with Him. And laboring to deliver Him to this world so barren. To give to the barren, Christ.

 The labor is as labor is. It just happens. Because life is too big to be held in. And labor just comes when it’s time and I can’t make it happen and I can’t stop it from happening.

What do the labor pains feel like when delivering Christ? It feels like pressure. Holy Spirit pressure. It’s like a cramp that can be sort of ignored until it can’t be ignored any longer because it’s persistent and nagging and increasing. And, really? I try to ignore holy pressure because it cramps? Cramps my life?

I want His life pushed right out of me. Delivered. I really do. It’s just uncomfortable. His life birthed from mine. It’s engulfing and breath-taking and everything in the world is swallowed up by it. By the effort. And then swallowed up in the joy. And it’s life changing. Every delivery.

And it’s scary. Because, “What if I deliver You; deliver Hope; and the breath never takes?” It’s happened before. Still-born delivery. It’s heart-sickening. Hope deferring and heart-sickening.

“Trust Me.” He says it so simple.

“But where are You when the breath of Life doesn’t take? Doesn’t fill Spirit lungs?” I tremble it out because I know it’s not because of His neglect. But, “Where are You in this?”

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick,” and His answer confuses me.

“You can’t be deferring this hope. Because it is Yours….” I can’t even whisper it because still-born questions empty lungs that want to hear birth cry lusty and lung full.

“Trust. Hope. Faith-breathe.” Is all He says. And this “all” isn’t the “That’s all there is-the end” kind of all. It’s the“beginning of everything” kind of all.

It’s pisteuo kind of all. My life word. Believe, trust, and hope all through word.


I think about this and it hangs with me all the way back home til the next day.

Then, “Ahh! If hope deferred makes the heart sick, then what defers hope? Where does this heart sickness start?”

“Misplaced trust defers hope.” He answers and it’s all scrambley to me and how on earth do you unscramble eggs?

“Why does your fear of a still-birth keep you from pushing Me into the world?” I know what He’s doing. He’s unscrambling eggs.

“Because what if it’s because I don’t push at the right time or hard enough? I don’t trust myself enough to do it right.” My answer gets stuck in my throat because I’m hearing what I’m saying.

He nods.

“Ohh!” I breathe out relief and fill lung all “God! I’ve misplaced my trust!”

I get another nod and I think He’s offering me a green egg.

“My hope is not deferred by You!” I take the egg and give Him my trust. Put it all in His hands. Again.

“Pisteuo.”The word in etched in me. “Believe, trust, and hope all through.” The whole word, because believing isn’t enough. Faith without backbone and skin and nerve endings and blood flow and tear flow, isn’t enough. By itself it’s a bookend that’s not weighty enough to keep a row of books from dominoing down. I have one. It looks heavy. It’s shaped like a book with an owl promoting “Who’s Hoo”as if it knew. But at least it’s not hen clucking.

It toppled as bookend and “Hoo-hoo”sounded like “Glue! Glue!” I glued and it supports boxes of tea now, feather light.

I’m at my own kitchen table. Sipping tea and thinking, “I don’t want faith that supports tea bags.” Black tea for energy. Chamomile for rest. Ginger because it’s my new favorite. Cinnamon for Christmas. Chai for latte. And Echinacea for health. Yeah, I sip these because I have really cute tea cups hanging on wall above it all.

I’m swallowing ginger now. And my thumb is cradled between blue ceramic butterfly wings at top of handle and caterpillars and butterflies crawl and flutter circles in raised ceramic relief.
Only my thumb holds down the one ready fly right off handle.

And there you have it. Faith in a tea cup. It goes down strong spice nipping my tongue because it’s steeped long and it pours out real where caterpillars believe they will fly. And then do. And where butterfly perches ready to go at any time. If it should ever break off, I will miss it but I won’t be surprised and my “faith cup” will then become my “pisteuo cup” because believing isn’t enough. Trusting belief that flies because it hopes? That’s pisteuoenough.

Pisteuo is freeing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome Mat

“Do you have a welcome mat?”

“What does that have to do with pisteuo?” He puzzles me.

He knows I do because He saw me drag it from front door and place it seven paces away. Seven stepping stones to front swing.”

“Why did you move the welcome mat?”He asks.

“Because I am afraid of arriving guests. Because I can control the swing out front, but not everyone inside.” I confess it. And there it is. Fear all thumb pressing down pisteuo that would welcome if I lifted thumb and let trust in God fly beautiful.

“Wasn’t the welcome mat spread for you by people who haven’t seen you for fourteen years? And hadn’t they met you only once before that? Didn’t you eat Howard’s green eggs and local bacon and break homemade bread together and share Me? And weren’t your lungs filled full with My breath alive and life’s cry strong?” He’s helping me remember.

“Yes, Lord.”

“This is your life word. Your pisteuo.” And I love God so much and tell Him so.

“I love You so much!” I’m looking always for pisteuo. It’s my life practice. Every day.

I sweep off welcome mat and place it at front door. Pisteuo welcome.

I wash sheets and fluff pillows and place items in baskets that a guest might forget to pack and bake fresh bread and scramble eggs and give them a jar of berry jam from my pantry that my mother made.

And I am surprised by pisteuo.

It fills me up and is sticking like sweet jam to my soul. It’s scramble in me and spread in me and melts in me and saturates me. I gave welcome in the way I was welcomed, and received pisteuo.Again.

I‘m finding it, this pisteuo life, more and more as I practice the search. I look for it and stir up hen house to find it. In the unlikely. In the normal. In the common. In a hen named Howard who lays green eggs in the backyard and in delivering Christ to backyard souls who want more than edifice. And I’m finding it in everything in between.

Believe and trust and hope all through every day. I find it in crumpled dish towels and lit candles and rumples laundry. I find it in scraping eggs dry stuck off pan and paying bills and buying groceries and seeing “Do Sabbath Love” on calendar square at fridge door. It all has to do with faith and trust and hope all through because it’s life.

Life.

Lived normal with hope that somehow something Christ and green egg odd will come from me.


written by: Carolyn Roehrig

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Must Know Right Now How To Turn On The Hot Tub!

Do angels have pillow fights in Heaven? Because feathers are falling right out of sky and it’s snowing this still morning.

She’s fifteen but I still sit soft on bed and run my fingers through long tangles light brown and blonde. Still marvel at creamy skin and long lashes resting light in upward curve while she rests on pillow. I just amaze a moment like that.

I touch light her sleep warm cheek. Lashes flutter and, “It’s snowing.” I lay my head gentle on hers and whisper it.

She’s not the five year old anymore. I know because a five year old springs out of bed and pads barefoot race to back door and breathes breath smudge on window pane and would run outside like that except mother stands prepared with boots and coat in hand. No. She’s not five. She’s fifteen.

 
She’s fifteen and it’s really great that it’s snowing because she knows my heart melts faster than Texas snow.

“Wanna play hooky today?” Because isn’t this a day to be glad and rejoice in? To slow enough to hear what this silent flutter is loudly proclaiming, “This is the day that the Lord has made!”

And if angels can have pillow fights then can’t we flap snow angels and have snowball fights while earth spins and clocks spin on classroom walls? Yes, we can. And we are!

She’ll sleep a tad later and that’s fine. But just so she knows. It’s snowing. Later she’ll sled the slope with a plastic garbage bag and her sister and cousins. It’s just a slope. Not a hill. Because this is central Texas, after all. And it’s garbage bag because who has sleds leaning ready against fence here?

And I’m the one who runs barefoot to back door, cell phone in hand, because I must know right now how to turn on the hot tub!

I slip into the nearest footwear. And really? Well okay. I shuffle out in leather slippers twice as large as my feet. Bless that big German who walks tall and leaves his slippers everywhere but closet!

It’s all flutter and feather and angel down this morning. I taste it and this yellow dog walks funny. No running with tail arrowed this morning. Just timid steps and paw prints gentle exploration. Her brow is furrowed question. Her first snow.

 

 

 Hot Tub and Berries

 

Hot tub is one-hundred and one degrees. Bowl of frozen summer berries in one hand, towel in other and I’m so out of season in this hot-pink swimsuit!

There is real feather flutter out here. Red bright cardinal. Black flock. Jay blue. White-tipped some kind of bird. Hawk? Is there such a thing as white-tipped hawk? It’s just all knockabout flutter and I’m tasting it. Sticking berry-stained tongue out like I’m five. Tasting snow.

And angel white and heaven pure, follows seeing magnificence magnified just as surely as today follows yesterday. And that magnification was yesterday. I saw it.

 

Rain drops. Yesterday.  Streamed down every branch and twig and cane and strung together and hung heavy and heavier til tiny drop and teensy splash. Tenacious drops unbound and also strung together, strong and also fragile, held tight and let go loose.

I looked. Not at it. Into it.

Looked into a drop and saw magnificence.

Hanging inside dangling water globe was pure magnification of what it hung from and what was behind it. There! A droplet suspended at leaf tip and I saw large the miniscule sawed edges at tip.

I wondered right there yesterday, “Can hold it? Or would it burst and rivle down?”

I opened finger. Held finger tip close beneath water globe. It pulled stretch and in one single strain detached from leaf tip to finger tip and there must have been a groan in the stretch and a plink in the transfer. I just couldn’t hear it.

But I held this globe up high and, there! Bit of branch and sky hung off my finger all magnified and I felt like Atlas holding the world and I thought how God holds earth and the heavens above it and the depths beneath and my little bubble too.

And how He holds my world together when I groan in the strain.

When I stretch to let go before I drop beneath the weight of too, too much.

When I detach because I’m hanging upside down and God finger is right there to catch me in the transfer.

I feel the pull and let go and He is holding my little world right side up and He holds it together. And His finger print is magnified there in my globe.

His print large in my miniscule.

Nail print too, because without that in His hand my world would splash, break and become puddle.

 

The back door opens and there she is. Fifteen in hot pink bathrobe and snow boots! She is so much like her mother, I laugh pink.

Red cardinal flaps snow at his earth-toned betrothed.

“Is he washing her?”

She is like fallen leaves. He blood red. And I watch it play out. The washing.

Blood red. Washing the color of fallen. White as snow.

And how on earth does that make any sense? It doesn’t. It makes no earthly sense at all. Yet, here it is. Right there on earth.

And all I can say is, “There is One who can wash you.”

And, “Thank You for washing me like this.”

 

 

 

Red Cardinal

 

I’m still earth color. But don’t be fooled. The washing happened.

I held water globe yesterday.

“Ahh,” my brain is bending.

“Surface tension holds wet drops together til they spill out under weight too heavy.” The ponder hangs between me and God as I dip finger tip into hot tub water. Break surface and draw up what? Drops of water bent globe-ish round til they drop spill and tension breaks open.

"Holy tension broke under weight of sacrifice spilt down.”  He magnifies the magnificent.

I see it here. See it all spill and run together. Just see it because what is behind it is magnified. There is magnificence in this little water drop I’m holding.

And there is magnificence in this little drop of life.

God magnified in my life. And I see it. Here.

And it’s His victory that my world is held together in His hand.

Sacrificial print in His hand magnifies larger than my sin.

His victory that His print is magnified in my little world bent like droplet.

He holds this bent lens. Contact lense. It’s bent like that. And I see Him clearer through contact. Through contact. Through “when He holds me and my world in His hand right before His face” kind of contact.

And it’s all victory His.

 

I was thirteen when He held His hand just under my bent world. Holy tension breaks open and I spilt open. Just spilt it at thirteen, “The likes of me is a sinner just like everyone else!”

And God hand scooped up spilt me.

“You cried tear drop. Sweat drop. Blood drop. And all spilt. Under the weight of sin. Under the weight of sacrifice for it.”

“You are cleansed by it.” The snow is so white!

I’m held in this holy tension. And isn’t this the only tension that can hold any of us together? Hold falling pieces and drip and bent spin, in peace hand?

Brow knits. Nostrils flare tear sting. And wet drops spill down cheek and it’s not because I’m in the hot tub

It’s because it’s true.

 

written by: Carolyn Roehrig