The Woods are Lovely, Dark and Deep

In traditional Jagger style, we were running late for our Father's Day celebrations. Try as we might, it always takes us forever to leave for anywhere. After church we got ready to head down to the Bob Jones Bike Trail in Avila, which is a lovely meandering path through a wooded area, ending right at the beach. It took us so long to get down there that when we arrived the parking lot was crowded and so was the trail, but mostly with people headed back the other way.

Our family rode our bikes all in a row, through the path, down to the beach.

 We played catch on the beach, watched our daughters run to the edge of the water and back. We walked to the end of the pier and then walked down underneath it, where we saw huge starfish on the pylons, as the sun slanted through the water.

 We followed this by a great dinner and some ice cream. By the time we finished, it was nearly dusk, and time to get back on the trail for the bike ride back.

By now, not a soul was on the trail except our family. We rode along quietly, enjoying the evening sounds of birds and the running brook beside the trail. The darkening woods surrounding the path made it so rich and still; it made me think of the line in the Robert Frost poem that says "The woods are lovely, dark and deep." Being with my family in the quiet made me feel so peaceful and content.

I thought about the verse in Philippians where it talks about the peace of God, and how it passes understanding. The peace I was feeling was so wonderful, but God's peace is even bigger than that.

Philippians 4:6-7 says,

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. (NLT)

No matter what joys we know, God has something even better. He is worthy of such praise, and I am so filled with thankfulness that he is a God of peace.

Lord, thank you that we get a taste of what your kingdom will be like. Thank you for sweet times with our families, and that you enable us to feel a peace beyond anything we can understand. I praise you, and I love you.

Famous Last Words

There was a link online tonight about the last words of famous people, who knew they were dying. What a difference between the last words of believers and non-believers.

Joan Crawford (Mommie Dearest) yelled at her housekeeper for praying for her as she was dying, demanding that she not call upon God to help her.

By contrast, Mother Teresa's final words, so simple, were "I love you, Jesus, I love you."

Tammy Faye Messner's last words were "I'm in the hands of Jesus." During an interview with Larry King awhile before her death, she tells him she knows without a shadow of doubt that when she dies she will be in heaven with Jesus.

During their lives, and up to the very end, these women proclaimed their love and reliance on Jesus. He is our reason for life, and our reason for hope.


Lord Jesus, please help me to get rid of things in my life that come between you and me. Help me to know to the core of my being that you are everything. I know that you are all we need, our Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Help me to proclaim your name and to give my life to you.

More than you can Dream

When we first moved into our house, there was a lovely row of mature cottonwood trees just behind our fenceline. These trees were one of our favorite things about our backyard. In the summer heat, the backyard was a good 15 degrees cooler than the front, and the shade was perfect for our little daughters playing on a hot summer day. We loved to sit outside and hear the rustle of the leaves in the breeze.

One day I came home to hear loud sawing noises from behind our house. I looked out the upstairs window, and saw that there was a crew of men methodically sawing down each tree behind our fence, until nothing was left but stumps. I broke into tears, and cried on and off for days.

Our once-pleasant backyard was now glaringly bright and hot, with no shelter from the sun. I couldn't understand why anyone would get rid of such wonderful trees, and there was nothing I could do about it.

But...

What we didn't know was that many of the trees and shrubs in our own yard had their growth stifled by all that lovely shade. Grapevines had gone years without growing more than a couple inches. With all the sunlight in the yard now, everything started to grow like crazy.

The grapevines shot up and over the slatted wood patio cover, covering the top completely, and produced a nice little grape harvest. The butterfly bush grew to immense proportions, leaning over at just the right angle to shade our porch swing. My favorite rose bushes produced the most gorgeous pink-and-white roses. And most delightful of all, a little cottonwood shoot from the tree stump made its way under the fence to our yard, where it grew like crazy, just in time for our growing daughters to have their own climbing tree. Our yard is shady once again, but this time from our own trees.

We spend lots of time in the yard now. The girls climb up our tree almost every day, hiding high up in the leaves, and my husband and I spend hours sitting in our porch swing, enjoying the shade and the rushing sound of the leaves and the mottled light dappling the ground.

I feel God so much in this gift. God wants more for us than to admire the beauty in someone else's garden; he wants to give us a garden of our own, to tend and to love. And he can take a loss and turn it into something better than we could dream.

God, thank you so much for the sweet gifts you give. Though sometimes losing things is painful and confusing, your hand is in the goodness that comes afterwards. Help me to trust you more during the difficult times, and rest in the assurance that  you cause all things to work for good, and that you answer prayer beyond what we can dream.

Because You're Worth It

"You deserve it." "Because you're worth it." "Visa--it's everywhere you want to be." Advertising is everywhere, convincing us that we're not enough, that we need more. And not only do we need more, but our culture tells us that we deserve more, that having more stuff makes us better people. So we spend and spend and are never satisfied. Our culture pushes us into this cycle of buying, but this is far removed from the treasures God has planned for us.

In Luke 12:15, Jesus says "Beware! Don't be greedy for what you don't have. Real life is not measured by how much we own."

Real life is not measured by how much we own. I think we all know that, and yet look at how many people seem to be living the opposite, measuring their worth by their possessions.

So how is real life measured? In Luke 12:21 it says, "A person is a fool to store up earthly wealth but not to have a rich relationship with God." And later in Luke, Jesus reminds us that "Wherever your treasure is, there your heart and thoughts will also be." (12:34)

The world may try to sell us stuff, but these treasures are not long-lasting. The next time I am tempted to spend my money unwisely, I hope that I will remember these words, and know that nothing I own can give me real life. A deep relationship with God, and only that, is an eternal treasure. Because God is worth it, and his love satisfies like nothing else.

Lord, thank you for your words that free us from the things the culture pushes us towards. Let my thoughts and heart be with you always, knowing that you are the real treasure.