Years ago I bought a Hallmark card that I thought was funny in its lighthearted treatment of life’s troubles.  The front of the card has a fluffy little kitten sitting happily and seemingly unaware of a huge, spike-collared, big-fanged dog right behind her.  Other cats are running desperately for safety while she sits content.  The front of the card says, “If you are calm and collected while others are losing their heads…” On the inside the sentence continues, “maybe you don’t understand the situation.”

As an accomplished worrier, I have spent years laughing at the silliness of that smiling feline as I identified with the scaredy cats who obviously were smarter and more aware. In my mind, that happy kitty was ridiculous in her ignorance. 

Fast forward to now.  Karl and I have been doing a Bible study on Ephesians.  Something new has begun to emerge for me in this study. Three verses from Ephesians have spoken to my heart and prompted me to begin seeing things another way:

(2:14) For [Jesus] himself is our peace.

(4:1b) I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.

(6:13b) So that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground.

Let me explain:  If Jesus is my peace, then I can sit comfortably at His feet and not worry.  He has my back as well as my heart.  Because of this peace, then, I can walk, gratefully and humbly, each day and do what I’m called to do with the reassurance that when hard times happen or I encounter evil, I will be equipped to deal with it.

With this new outlook, my funny greeting card came to mind and I saw it with an entirely different perspective.  Today, I look at that happy, contented, and peaceful cat and think she knows it all.  She’s secure in the knowledge that Someone fierce and mighty has her back.  Because she is safe in His vigilant care, she can look out at her world with a smile and with hope, sitting in confidence and joy.

It occurs to me that this card needs a new punch line, one that reflects what Paul is trying to teach us in Ephesians and one that my heart, tired of a lifetime of useless worry is trying to grasp: “If you are calm and collected while others are losing their heads…. Maybe you finally understand the True situation.”

It took thirteen days, two mechanic’s shops, several repeat replacement parts, a bottle of Tums, and lots of prayer support for me to be able to say

There’s no place like home!  (And we are finally there!)

PS: Thank you to Paco and his crew at Hal Burns Truck RV and Equipment in Santa Fe  for finally getting us fixed and back on the road!

After a harrowing drive that included roads closed ahead of us and a ground blizzard that left us with visibility of no more than ten to fifteen feet, we are back in Arizona. We are happy to be safe and where it is a little warmer and a little calmer.

We took our first big desert 4-wheeler ride yesterday on a trail we’d done last year.  This time Karl didn’t roll his ride within the first 50 feet of the trail’s start, so that in itself was a win.   We explored in and around several mines (the fact that they are there, open and accessible, and with no ‘Keep out!  Danger!’ signs makes me shake my head – but of course we KNOW there is the possibility of danger in an abandoned mine, but does that keep us from poking our noses in? Nope.)

We crawled over rocks and stood in awe at the vistas.  Amazing. God’s might is evident in volcanoes and thunderstorms, in unrelenting tides and snow squalls. It would be easy in this inhospitable and foreboding place where every plant and each rock has sharp edges and thorns to think God is absent. But when I look closely His character – His attention to detail and care for the large and the minuscule – are evident to me in the desert. Nothing here is loveable.  Nothing here is, on the surface, beautiful, yet each cactus and scruffy tree, each outcropping of jagged rock has evidence of God’s creativity and His care. 

This comforts me.  I know that inside me there is a lot of wasteland.  There are many areas in me  filled with barbs and briars that make me a forbidding trek for my indwelling Savior.  But just like in the desert where it is clear God is sovereign and where Jesus Himself spent most of His time, I know that God sees the beauty and worth in me.  He hasn’t walked away, He is willing to walk within.

I walked into the kitchen the other day and laughed aloud.  The dish drainer caught my eye, tickling me with how perfectly the elements drying on it epitomizes life with Karl.  I am just as apt to spy a joint compound pan and its companion knives drying on the kitchen counter as I am a spatula, a rolling pin, or a spring-form pan.  On this day, he spent the morning taping and then putting the first coat of ‘mud’ on the new wall he is building for my sewing room/laundry room in the basement.  While he was waiting for the joint compound to dry, he came upstairs and made a Charlotte Royal. It’s a dessert he’d seen on The Great British Baking Show and decided to try.  It turned out absolutely scrumptious, and by the way, the basement wall (now finished and painted) looks marvy, too.

I suppose I could be annoyed at the oddities that show up in our dish drainer, but that’s just not how we roll.  You know already that I love my husband dearly. I so admire his ability to persevere when things are tough, and his willingness to use all the facets of creativity that God has gifted him with. Every morning he gets up and faces his day (and me, which isn’t always an easy task!) with faith and determination to use the day God’s given him the best he can. 

I love writing. I love sitting at the computer trying to find the exact words to make the movie I see in my head come alive on a page.  Sometimes it is tedious, sometimes frustrating, but the end result, when someone reads my stories and tells me they enjoyed them, all the work and worry are absolutely worth it.  Beside the moment when I type the last page of a novel, one of the most satisfying things about finishing a book is receiving a box of the final product.  Yay!  My first shipment of Questioning Grace arrived just a few minutes ago.  Whoo hoo!!

What that means for you is that now I have copies to sign and sell.  (Just in time for Christmas!)  As always, all five of my books are available on Amazon in print or digital, but if you want one signed, just call, email, or message me. Questioning Grace is $16, the others are $15.  If  you live close by, I’d love to deliver you one in person, if you are far away, it will cost you an extra $3 for mailing. Just let me know!  Oh, and by the way, I have about 40 pages in the next on already written!

Happy Thanksgiving!