Words of Fire Blog

Wednesday's Word: Poodle Prayers

8/28/2012

"J.D." at age 15

"Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests." Ephesians 6:8

I wasn't quite sure whether my particular prayer met the scriptural criteria for "all occasions." There didn't seem to be any fine print attached to the verse. Still, I wasn't sure. My 17 year old poodle was dying. Age had taken its toll, burdening him with a heart murmur, blindness, kidney failure and arthritis. Mindful of the scripture--but still not quite sure--I prayed. I just couldn't face having to put him to sleep. Even as I uttered the words, I searched for the fine print. Really, God? Do you really mean _all_ prayers and requests?
    The day before we were scheduled to make our final car ride together, my heart sank. God had not intervened. The universe was too complicated, apparently, to waste time on one 17 year old toy poodle.
    I was wrong. Upon my return home from work that day, I picked up my faithful companion and as he laid his head on my shoulder, he breathed his last. God had answered my silly, selfish and inane prayer.
    I can't say that I understand why God answered my prayer, or why He doesn't answer my requests for healing, world peace or an end to poverty. Still, I know He hears, I know He listens and I know He answers poodle prayers.

Wednesday's Word: Alive!

8/22/2012

"Life and death are felt as a single respiration--the ebb and flow of a single tide. Death is not an invasion of an alien principle, it is not an attack upon life by an enemy. No! Life and death are identical twins."
Howard Thurman

I am learning to be amazed by the simple pleasures I find in each new day--whether I find gentle rain or piercing sun; whether I see looming clouds or clear blue skies.

I have found that I have spent too much time waiting for what may or may not come--what may or may not materialize. Life, I am learning, is meant to be met with gratitude, wonder, joy and a bit of abandon. Yet we spend our lives cautiously waiting for the sun to shine. We spurn the rain. We seek gentle breezes and reject heavy winds. We don't live, we survive. We are barely breathing. To again quote Thurman, we must move "beyond the dimension that saves the individual life from being swallowed by the tyranny of present needs, present hungers, and present threats." Life fully and deeply experienced is "to live the quality of the beyond."

Saint Irenaeus, the fourth century bishop of Lyons, declared that the glory of God was man fully alive. I want to show His glory. I want to be fully alive, until my last breath here and my next one in His presence.

Wednesday's Word:Transition

7/25/2012

God be in my head,
And in my understanding;
God be in my heart,
And in my thinking
God be at my end and at my departing.
George Herbert

I used to hate the word "transitioning." I found that people who used it just
didn't want to be blunt. They refused to see reality. They preferred the polite
term to the direct one "dying."

I'm now eating my words.

A transition is another step on the road. It's a change. It's an alteration. It's
not an end.

A death, on the other hand, is the end. It's final. It's the last stop. There is nothing more.

I came to my linguistic epiphany on July 10, 2012, when my godmother "transitioned" into the next phase of her existence. She has taken the next step on the road--the one that my faith tells me leads to heaven. Cancer helped her get there faster than any of us expected.

I don't find that the word "transition" in any way diminishes my grief. Rather, it feeds my faith. I saw firsthand how her body failed, but her spirit did not. I witnessed a woman who could, herself, see her journey taking another turn. She did not face this transition with dread or timidity. She took her last breath on this side of mortality, but my faith assures me that she has much more living to do.

I look forward to seeing her, and others who are now in the "great cloud of witnesses" when I, too, take the next step on the journey. Meanwhile, I will grieve this loss, knowing that it is heaven’s gain.

Wednesday's Word: Hope

6/13/2012

"Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake,
so the waves  swept over the boat.” Matthew 8:24

Today has turned out to be incredible. It began with strong winds and dark clouds. Now the sky is full of low hanging white cotton balls; azure blue waters roll by in seamless harmony. I just want to sit and take it all in: Gaze at the sky. Be mesmerized by the clouds. Hear God’s whisper along the wings of
the wind.

Don’t many of our days begin with calm and end in chaos?  We are on blue waters that suddenly threaten to engulf us—with no warning, with no chance of escape, with no life guards on duty.

That’s exactly what happened to the disciples. There was no warning. All of a sudden, the water that they trusted became the death that they feared. Worse still, Jesus was sleeping—seemingly unconcerned with their plight.

What do you do when the day has turned from sunny to stormy? From warm into wild?  I must confess that I am all too often like the disciples, who immediately entered panic mode. I believe that God has forgotten me; abandoned me; left me to perish in the storm of sickness, the squall of failure, the tempest of broken dreams and lost loves. We find ourselves drowning in the fierce waters of depression, despair and desolation. We don’t think that we can be saved.

But the story tells us otherwise. It is precisely when we are afraid that the water to be stronger than our faith that Jesus walks towards us--holding out His hand, offering us His help.  He is ever near us to save us.  He will not let the waters overtake us.

How can I be sure of this? Do I dare believe? His story tells that I can be sure, that I can believe, and that He will save me.

Tell the story: You will be giving hope. Tell the story: You will be offering a life preserver to a drowning soul.

Wednesday's Word: Poodle Prayers

Wednesday's Word: Alive!

Wednesday's Word:Transition

Wednesday's Word: Hope

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