A Fistful of Diamonds

I considered whether to turn on the air conditioner or just simply roll the windows down.  As I left the grocery store to pop into the cleaners, I marveled at the beauty of the day.  Second day of fall, brilliant blue sky, not a cloud to be seen.
It was just after noon when I finally pulled into my driveway.  Feeling muggy, I argued with myself – needing to put on some cool summer clothes, wanting to enjoy “feeling fallish” in my long pants.  I was tired and looking forward to lunch.  Summer was definitely holding on and not wanting to let go.

I opened my car door and that’s when I saw them.  I was so struck by their beauty that I climbed out of the car in slow motion, afraid the breeze from the movement might disturb them.  There on top of the grass, lay forty or fifty dazzling diamonds in a small circle of about eight inches.  As the sun continued to shine directly on them, I stood very still, not willing to interrupt the moment. 

You see, they had been left there for me by my loving Father.  Just to see the delight in my eyes and the surprise in my smile, my Lord scooped up a handful of diamonds and left them lying on top of the grass.  He positioned the sun just so in order that they would catch the light and dazzle my eyes. 

Oh sure, I could look for a more suitable explanation if I wanted to.  But it was too late in the morning for the dew.  And even a light feathery spider web on the top of the grass would have dried by the noon hour.  There was no other water in the area. 

Besides, I don’t want to know how He did it.  I just know that my Holy gift-giver, left jewels to make me smile.  Somehow, He managed a small circle of water droplets lying on top of the grass to catch the sun and bless my day. 

James 1:17
Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

Letting Go

Every season has its firsts, but fall has my favorites – the first fire in the fireplace, first hot cider, first frost, turning on the heat in the house and pulling out my favorite sweaters from the storage container.  I wait until I’m sure the weather has turned, that it’s not going to trick me with another few days of leftover summer heat. 

Unpacking winter clothes is no chore for me.  That wool, chenille and snuggly velour promise days to come of seeing my breath on the air, snowy meetings with grandchildren, and decorations of holly and pine.  

Sometimes I’m surprised with some piece of clothing that I picked up in spring on “super sale” so late in the season I never wore it.  It’s fresh and vibrant and makes me feel good when I put it on.  While that’s a delight for me, I keep digging until I come to my old friends.  I have a couple of sweaters that I always go back to.  They gave up their shape seasons ago and they have pulls and fuzzy balls.  I look pretty sloppy and careless when I’m wearing them.  But they’re my old favorites and I have a hard time giving them up.

Isn’t that the way with our old habits and tendencies?  We like to gossip, just can’t help it.  The shopping channels and catalogs lure us in just one more time. Our minds wander back to that person we tend to criticize and we mentally tell them just what we think.

We know what God knows – we cannot do this on our own.  He has said “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you…” (Ezekiel 36:26a)  We need this fresh start, not once or twice, but continually and consistently.  We need to go to God as many times a day as it takes to restore our sinful nature with a clean one.  He’s pleased to help us get rid of the old misshapen, fuzzy inclinations.  But I’m keeping the sweaters.

Psalms 51:10\

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Time to Rest

It moved in at about 5:45 on Friday morning.  The big open house we had rented for the retreat was swaying on its stilts even more than it had been the night before, when we all wandered around a little unsteady and disoriented.  I lay in bed for several minutes wondering if the roaring I heard was really the wind.  Too good to be true!  I got up and pulled my long-sleeved velour jacket on and grabbed a blanket from the closet.  When I stepped out onto the big porch, all the rockers were rocking in the wind.  I felt air on my face that was some twenty or thirty degrees cooler.  The trees were whipping back and forth and I grinned in quiet thanks for that first true moment of fall that always takes my breath away.  

Our first visit to Edisto Island was back in May.  Steve and I love to explore new places and this one completely caught my imagination.  No over-developed, fast-food, arcade noisy beach shopping strips here – just simply beautiful sunsets, happy families on wide deserted beaches, water birds, and occasional drop-ins by dolphin families.

That week-end sparked the idea for the women’s retreat that just wound down on Sunday.  I had been so caught up in planning that I had let the season sneak up on me. 

Now that we’re back, I wanted to capture what I could for memory’s sake.  We were so blessed through each other’s company and God’s direction.  There were eleven of us, a beautiful mixture of moms with young children, middle-aged with college kids and older ladies with grands.  Though disparate in age, we are alike in temperament, consideration, and of utmost importance, faith.  There was no bickering or complaining, only much laughter, quiet contemplation, and many tears.  It sounds like a Hallmark card, doesn’t it?  Way too idyllic to be real.  Yet it was; and we left closer to God and to each other.

Thursday afternoon, the four oldest ladies moved into the house and unloaded, promising ourselves one with an elevator next year.  We had a wonderful cold supper of ham, cold slaw, potato salad and home-made wheat bread.  (I won’t be describing all the food because there was so very much of it.  I’m simply opening the “food door.”)  When the tide began to come back in and the sun was ready to drop, we drove down to the “sound-end” of the island to watch sunset and look for dolphins.  Standing in the water and holding the delicate balance between watching the horizon for the sun that was playing behind the clouds and scanning the water for fins, we were mostly silent.  We were finally where we had wanted to be for several weeks. 

When the sun finally slipped behind the last bank of clouds, we realized that we would not be seeing a sunset on the edge of the horizon.  There were several men dragging nets for the bait fish that had come close in to shore.  The squawking diving birds and the men with nets should have alerted us.  We saw the first dolphin and began jumping around and slapping each other on the back.  Then our eyes began to adjust to the pods of three and four that were hovering in the area of the bait fish.  We left with the sense of self-satisfied accomplishment that you feel when you get off a roller coaster and the only thing you really did was to hang in for the whole ride.  We were pumped and ready for the rest of our group to arrive so we could crow!

We sat in rockers watching for our group and the first car load of four finally arrived laughing about being temporarily stuck in a gravel pit on the way.  We helped them bring their bags in and claim beds and rooms.  By now it was dark and I was waiting for 9:00 PM – we were supposed to see an almost full moon rise over the ocean.  Just as the next group of women pulled up, we commandeered their truck and set off for the opposite end of the island.  We calculated where we thought due east was and sat on pilings and waited for what was surely a gamble on this very cloudy night.  After about fifteen minutes and just before we gave up, someone pointed and said, “Is that it?”  We all gasped as we looked at a dark red moon hovering just over the water – mind you, not a harvest moon, not a bright yellow, orange or red moon, but one that was more brick red or burgundy.  We strained our eyes to make sure we were seeing what we thought we were seeing.  As the clouds moved, it finally floated away.

I’m not going to write about every single moment but simply try to capture the precious time I spent with these women.  We had wonderful, sharing sessions on prayer.  The weather may have let everyone else down, but it was so perfect for me – cloudy, gray, windy, with the promise of fall.  Food.  Can I just say that Baptist women, southern women know how to pamper each other?  We brought home-baked cookies and cakes and breakfast bread and coffee cake.  We had bowls of chocolate and other candy.  And these same women love to serve and wait on each other.  I’m pretty sure each one of us felt completely indulged.

We walked on the beach and waited for sunsets.  The dolphin came in close and played for us.  The birds dipped and squawked and honked.  The ocean dropped a supply of shells and even a starfish as a result of an offshore storm. 

And through it all, there was a sense of rest.   I was amazed that, even though I had provided lists of sightseeing tours and shops along with plenty of free time, none of us decided to leave the house, except to walk on the beach.  We napped, watched movies, played games and just enjoyed each other. 

And God was there.  In every activity, at every meal, with every prayer and for every study session.  We felt His presence in our thoughts and through each other.

As we gathered for one last prayer on the beach, I realized it.  I’ve often left a retreat with a sense of a “mountaintop” experience.  This one was different for me.  It was just an abiding sense of peace and love.  I’m hoping to carry it with me for a very long time.  God blessed us all this week-end and I’m grateful.

And I came home to red berries on my dogwoods and cooler breezes at night!

The Biggest Rock

Our church in Virginia was experiencing growing pains.  We had sold our building and were in the process of building a larger sanctuary and classrooms.  The process ended up taking a few years.  


Our pastor likened it to the wilderness travels of the Israelites.  Each Sunday two big trucks would pull up to the local high school and a team of “Levites” would transform the building from a school to a church complete with Sunday school rooms.  As a backdrop for the series of wilderness wandering sermons, we had replicas of articles the Hebrews used in the tabernacle.


Toward the end of our “journey”, we built an altar to celebrate crossing the Jordan into the Promised Land.  As we came into the auditorium, there were big bins filled with stones and we were each to take one to participate in the ceremony.  I shopped for a second and then chose the biggest one I could see.

Steve and I found a place to sit and I looked down at the sizeable rock in my lap.  I was overcome with a sense of shame.  Why did (do?) I need to have the biggest, the best, the first?  That rock became my symbol of my pride.  I participated in the ceremony, but I placed my rock with the others in some shame.

I have since learned that this rock, my pride, is the boulder I carry around my neck.  It is the thing that God most wants me to overcome.  And with His minute-by-minute help, I will do it.  My hope is that my “rock” will become smaller and smaller until one day, I won’t be able to find it!  I know that day is coming when Jesus returns, but what a goal to work toward in the meantime!

John 3:30; Romans 12:10; Mark 10:43-45

He must become greater; I must become less…Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.  Honor one another above yourselves…whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Pulpy Blueberries

Cereal excites me.  And nope, it’s not a sugar high.  I just like good cereal – especially those kinds that come with nuts, or “clusters”, or whole grains.  The other day I was more thrilled about a bowl of cereal than I probably should be.  Because I had fresh blueberries – big, plump, juicy ones – to put into the bowl.  That’s a whole other level of cereal right there.

So I pulled out the package and rinsed them off.  I popped a few into my mouth straight out of the strainer.  And I must have had the strangest look on my face.  Sure, a couple of them were perfect – tasty, a little tart and a little sweet – just what I was expecting.  But a couple of them might as well have been pencil erasers.  I don’t chew many pencil erasers but I’m assuming they don’t have much flavor. 

So I faced a dilemma.  Obviously I couldn’t test the whole batch.  Should I just throw a bunch in and hope that enough of them were tasty to overshadow the pulpy ones?  Should I just give up on the whole container?  What kind of an impact would they make on my cereal?

These questions all posed more thought that I was willing to process on an early morning before my second cup of coffee.  So I went for it!  I sprinkled about a half cup of blueberries on the cereal and poured the milk.  And you know what?  It was good!   Sure there were a few bites with more mush than taste.  But on the whole the other berries worked extra hard and had so much flavor that I had a delightful, tasty breakfast.

If you were to look in the church door at “us” on a Sunday morning, you’d find a lot of differences in believers.  But you’d find a lot of similarities too.  We’d all be singing, bowing our heads during prayer, listening to the message and smiling at one another.  

If you followed us home and throughout our week, the resemblance would continue.  You’d see us hold the door open for the person behind us, smile at strangers, yield at stop signs. But on closer inspection, you would notice some of us laughing, hugging, listening, crying…living!  Enjoying life moment-by-moment and making it interesting and appealing, too.  

Because shouldn’t other people want what we have?  Matthew tells us we are to be salt and light.  But could we please just not be pulpy?

Matthew 5:13,14; Colossians 4:6
You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no er good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.  You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden…Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.