Orion’s Circuit

Orion is out tonight, aiming his bow at the rising moon. We reunite each fall and winter, Orion and I. He is my companion in the stars, keeping the same hours as I. It’s chilly out tonight. Clear in that cool dry way that Colorado is known for.

I’ve been through a lot since last Orion and I were out together. My life is definitely patterned in seasons. Some years have had their own theme, but usually the lessons are shorter and more diverse. This year was a scattered year, learning things that built in each other but not in obvious ways. A soldier will learn to march and learn to shoot, and both are related in that they come in handy during battles, but they don’t really build on each other.

Last year when I was almost twenty-four I almost went crazy. I couldn’t believe the life I had; my life seemed inevitable, not chosen. And I didn’t know how to be a twenty-four year old in my situation. Never had my dreams imagined me here. Yet I came to the conclusion that I ought to be myself, trusting God, and not worry about what twenty-four year olds are supposed to be. So I have told myself many times these months.

I don’t miss the soul-searching that comes with autumn. It comes around each year, and I don’t regret it. Nor do I look forward to the restless questioning. My soul never seems satisfied in the fall, the season of Thanksgiving. This November opens with a focus on open-handed gratitude. That’s what I call it. Each day’s blessings are cause to rejoice, never a reason to demand more.

I don’t require more blessings, but I have learned to ask. Such was my summer theme: Hope. Do I have confidence in my Heavenly Father’s goodness, enough to discuss with Him what I want and rejoice that in Him all answers, yes and no, are yea? Will I dare holding out my heart to wait on Him? And when I did this year, oh! how the peace came in. Before, I was silly not to ask for His good gifts.

Spring was hard, an exercise in love. Love hopes all things. It holds on and does not abandon. But it speaks the truth and rejoices in it rather than in evil. Love means sacrifice in the sense of a drop everything to help attitude. It is consuming, on your mind all the time. God never promised love would be painless. Though love has to do with community, it often feels lonely.

This year has brought thoughts about truth and calling and compromise. Faith and that not-tame God have kept popping up. I asked myself what I was willing to suffer for Christ, and for the first time truly doubted that I would rejoice to risk life and happiness and all I’ve worked for. Rejection has been on my mind lately. I’m more honest about reality than I used to be: eyes open to the vanity and hopelessness apart from the work of God to grace us.

And now that I’m facing twenty-five in the next several weeks, I must praise my God that I have a life that I run after. The friends I have are ones I choose. My weeks are spent doing things I believe are important, not just floating through an existence. Though twenty-five seems to have come upon me without my consent, the rest of my life is intentional. That is due only to the grace of God. He has helped me through some hard decisions. Some of my waiting and patience has ended, and other parts remain.

By many standards this year has little to show for it. I still have not written a book or started a successful business. No prince charming has swept me off my feet. Like Orion, I’m back and rising over the same horizon. But those who know astronomy realize that relative to the rest of the firmament, Orion’s position has changed. He will move among the stars and planets like he has not done in my lifetime. And a new year is here: the Hunter is chasing life down.

To God be all glory,
Lisa of Longbourn

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Between Storms

 

This past week has been an answer to my wishes. Too few storms had come to Colorado yet this season. I love to watch a storm out the back window, or from outside if it’s not raining (too hard). Now we’ve had storms the past four days, I think. In between storms my sisters and I took our digital cameras outside and enjoyed the eerie light. We didn’t know there would be another storm until we looked up at the clouds and saw this:

 

How beautiful is that? 

In about a week I’ll be up at a camp near Estes Park, Colorado.  The weather there is beautiful, so I’ll be sure to take good pictures and maybe video of that.  You can expect lots of thoughts when I get back, too. 

Even now the leaves are fluttering energetically above my window, and the sky is too dark for the hour.  I love it. 

To God be all glory,

Lisa of Longbourn

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The Welcome Ache

My bones ache dully like an old woman’s when it storms.  There is nothing unbearable about it, and I feel as if nothing can be done.  Rubbing or stretching often are done, with no effect.  Just now I’m feeling this way, and gazing at the skylights – such a romantic word for the only romantic part of the industrial steel box in which I work.  Outside is a storm.  Spring is still here, its violence the infant compared to the full grown warrior of summer.  Today offered one blast of thunder, the long, patient rumble accompanying darker skies and a bit of rain.  I wouldn’t exchange the storm for freedom from pain for anything.  The pain may even awaken me to the conflict outdoors. 
 
Weather is a conflict, a paradox.  Bodies of air move over or under each other, affecting each other, fighting and at once altering.  It is a bonding and a divorce, a war and a peace.  The clouds hide the sun that formed them, only to be dissolved again or blown away by the solar powered wind. 
 
There are some kinds of pain I hate.  I rebel.  They are senseless, pure war on life and love.  Yet love always carries pain, the truth of pain against the empty imitation.  I would not give up the love to banish the pain.  They work together even, much as the weather, in its dance of wholeness and growth.  Love sometimes explodes in thunder, accompanied inseparably by the curtain of lightning for a moment giving sight to reality. 

 

To God be all glory,

Lisa of Longbourn

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Weather is God’s Plan

In a couple weeks I am planning to go on a weekend roadtrip with a friend.  This being January, and living in the blizzard-prone midwest, I am praying already for good weather.  (You can join me praying for good weather, too.)  My excitement over this trip is such that I’m rather worried about the disappointment a weather cancellation could bring. 

While pondering these facts in church this morning (not because I was distracted, no-o, but because church is relevant to real life), I decided that if the weather changed my plans, I would delight in what God does have for me that weekend.  See, the weather is quite out of my control or yours, and it is my belief that whatever not in my control is particularly in God’s.  (This is only a way to look at the world, because I believe that God is in control of everything; but I must take responsibility for my stewardship of the things over which I have “control.”)  So weather is a gift from God.  Every gift that comes down from above is good.  God works all things together for good to those who love Him and are the called according to His purpose. 

So weather is God’s good gift to me.  I often feel that way.  I could lie back on the ground and watch wisps of fine vapor float over a few stars at a time, contrasting the sharp clarity of the uncovered stars with the pearly veiled stars.  Or there is the brilliantly blue sky deepened and darkened by scattered enormously tall cumulous, filtering out the sunlight to let us glimpse the midnight color of the sky by the light of day.  While out sledding over the Christmas holidays, I lay back in the foot-deep snow, crossed my arms beneath my head, and watched the currents blow geese across the wind-swept sky. 

If the weather alters my plans, I can only conclude that is because God’s plans were so much better.  Whenever God doesn’t give me something I deeply want, I’m almost excited, because it means He has something else – some other course for me.  His ways are always better than my ways. 

Weather.  Lightning.  Rain.  Snowflakes.  Clouds.  Fog.  Wind.  Sunshine.  God’s gifts. 

To God be all glory,

Lisa of Longbourn

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