See how the incense arises like liquid smoke, curling in waves of sweet aroma?
My Israelite children understood how incense symbolized their prayers. So, also, your prayers flow as perfume to me.
Now breathe in the sweet and cleansing scents of my presence.
Inhale my presence. Do you feel me calm your heart? I will stroke your head and give you fresh wisdom. New life.
Don’t let today’s responsibilities steal away what I offer you: my care and my breath.
Allow me to permeate your day as the fragrance of my love and life reaches deep within you.
Rest in me, dear one.
Let me strengthen you always.
When the days thicken with loss and dread, breathe in my fragrant love.
I am here.
This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Look! I am going to put breath into you and make you live again. I will put flesh and muscles on you and cover you with skin. I will put breath into you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.
A rose bud opens in the storm and a new kind of beauty emerges.
Battered but resilient.
You didn’t think you’d grow from grief. Such fierce loss demands a great deal: so many details, so many responsibilities. Bank accounts. Relationships. Decisions.
And always the gaping crater of loss.
But compassion and kindness can bloom in a tempest. The slashing pain of grief can harden a heart or soften it.
Something of value has been released in you through this battle. I brought you understanding and unveiled deep love. So that you are able to give what I have given to you.
Stand tall, my love, and let your new life unfurl.
We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.
You crawled when the pain drilled into your heart. Rocks bit into your knees and tore through your skin.
But you stretched out a hand, feeling the grit of the path scrape your palms.
You reached out anyway.
Then a day came when you planted your feet and stood. When I whispered, “Can you take one tiny step?” you spread your arms wide to steady your balance and inched forward.
Now you walk. Your knees still ache and your hands remain bruised.
Look where you have come. You have climbed rugged rocks and towering boulders.
Microscopic steps have lengthened into strides.
New life whispers. Do you see the glimpses of new direction ahead? Of hope?
I walk with you, as I have every inch of the way. I’ve never left you. My love surrounds you like a warm pool, washing your torn knees and aching palms.
You move with faltering progress now, my love, but one day you will dance with me. We will spin and twirl, celebrating new life.
Keep walking, my love.
For who is God except the Lord? Who but our God is a solid rock? God arms me with strength, and he makes my way perfect. He makes me as surefooted as a deer, enabling me to stand on mountain heights.
I thought I had found my publisher. He had earnest blue eyes and an idea for a series.
I was all in.
Then I learned he wanted me to write his book for him. The first of his six-book series.
He amped up his determination and locked those blue eyes on me.
“OK,” I said. “What are we writing this book about?”
“I need you to tell me a story about Buzzy the bee.”
“You’re not going to tell the story?”
“I don’t know it yet.” Connor shrugged like seven-year-olds sometimes do.
Buzzy the Bee’s Adventure
I threw together a quick story while we sat together.
“Yeah, that’ll do.” He nodded. “OK, go type it up.”
In short order, we had the story in a digital file.
“Now we have to print it,” Connor said.
I copied the text into a formatting program, bumped the type size to sixteen-point, and widened the margins.
Voila! We had a three-page book. Because I could.
Hoping to impress this young author. Publisher. Probably both, like many are these days.
Making the Book Cover
“Now we need a cover.” Connor had this book stuff down better than I thought. “Maybe Eric could make us one.”
Eric is his nine-year-old brother, who nodded enthusiastically. “What do I draw?”
The technology bug hit me again. “Let’s create a Photoshop version while we’re waiting for Eric.”
Connor liked that idea.
Photoshop churned out a yellow-and-black bumblebee soaring over a field of flowers—Buzzy in all his glory. I slapped the title above him and added Connor’s name.
We printed it and Connor was happy. “That works.”
As the printer chugged out the first cover, he was already planning his marketing plan for his second book. (I am not kidding.)
Eric studied the book cover. “Why doesn’t it say ‘Illustrated by Eric’?”
“Well, you didn’t illustrate this one,” I told him.
Outside your window, birds sing, anticipating spring.
Their life is simple yet dangerous. But how they sing – about the simple things. They celebrate the dawn, the cool air of the morning, the discovered meal.
Let their song rise within you, its lightness flowing to your heart, to your limbs, to your shoulders. To your mind.
Fresh hope longs to blossom within your heart. Your loss does not block my love for you. It isn’t the final action.
My strength can flow through you and heal you moment by moment.
Notice the dawn, the cool air of the morning, the meal from a friend. Sing about the simple things, my love.
Anticipate the newness of this season.
Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? Matthew 6:26-27
