karin madden

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September 30, 2013 by Karin 6 Comments

When It’s That One Time That Matters

It’s time for the 31 Days series.  Every year in October The Nester hosts a link-up for writers and bloggers from all corners.  The topics are as varied as the writers.  This year I will write for 31 days about Good Deeds.  The story that prompted this topic is one that I will post on day 2.  Most days we are overcome by our chores, tasks, and to-dos.  These stories inspire me to look beyond myself at the world around us.  We could all use a hand sometimes.  Every good deed touches a heart in ways we may never see.

You can follow the series by clicking here to find all 31 days of posts.

Hebrews 10:24

And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds 31 Days of Good Deeds

~Day 1 ~

I could almost hear a voice.  It was really just a thought that pierced my daydream.  It was the kind of thought that really doesn’t make any sense, so you are pretty sure it didn’t come from you.  The thought rang again,

Take the $20 from the bathroom counter and put it in your pocket.

I puzzled over the request and shrugged.  My thoughts replied,

Ok, I’ll do it.  If I can remember.

I dressed and got ready for the very important outing to Costco.  Supplies were running low.  Detergents, diapers, breakfast sausages that my 11-year-old can prepare all by himself.  The sausages are crucial because they buy me just a little bit more sleep.  I love sleep.  I grabbed the keys, kissed my warrior, and snuck out the back door.  Alerting the six pack to my departure would only bring tears and clamoring to come along.  Any mama knows that special “me time” at the store cannot be interrupted by tag-a-longs.  I stealthily climbed into the truck and sped off (at a screeching 15 mph).

The journey through the store could bring many valuable truths to light.  Pushing that oversized cart through the crowded aisles on a Saturday opened my eyes to one thing.  I wasn’t really there.  I was certainly there in body, squeezing between carts and past temper tantrums, but my mind was somewhere else.

Is this how we cruise through life?  Half in the space where our feet are planted and half somewhere else?  My mind drifted to what the kitchen would look like at dinnertime, to what the kids might remember they wanted to add to the list before I left, to what we might do on the weekend.  My mind drifted to friends back home, to the list of to-do’s that were undone, to just about anything and everything except for the cart… and the people in front of me.  It seems the more people are around, the less we look at them.  City living can bring us to close our minds, our doors, and our hearts just a bit more than country living.  The more faces we are surrounded by, the less we want to be bothered.  Maybe it’s all just too overwhelming and we find a safer, quieter place behind the shut door.

Finding myself in the back row of the swarmed parking lot, I remembered,

The $20!  Sure enough, I forgot.

I whispered under my breath to the One I knew was listening.  He is surely accustomed to my forgetful nature.  I like to blame it on the kids.

Ok, I’ve got something.

I dug into my purse and retrieved the only $4 I could find.  I shoved them into my pocket.

I’m not sure where You are going with this, and I’m sorry I forgot.

I heard You and then got distracted.  I hope this will do.

I checked out my small fortune of groceries and struck up a conversation with the cashier.  If I were the cashier I might like to talk to the sea of faces passing me by with crates of supplies.

She was a nice lady and told me that she had lived here for over 30 years.  She really wanted to go somewhere else, where the trees would tower and the water would glisten.  She was a little nervous about the change of climate.  The humidity anywhere else might be just too much, but she really wanted to go.  Sometime. 

Thirty years is a mighty long time to wish you could go somewhere else.  I wonder if our hesitation to try something new always stems from our resistance to the uncomfortable?  I wonder what else our comfort might be keeping from us?

Helping Hand

The cart swerved and wobbled its way to the truck as I scrambled for the keys.  I pried open the tailgate and began to unload the goods.  It was only about one minute.  One minute passed before I looked up and saw her.

She appeared old.  I doubt that she was as old as she looked.  Her face reminded me of a face I had seen years before.  She reminded me of a meth addict I had treated in a hospital here over a decade ago.  The woman back then had a stroke.  Just one of the many horrors addictions can bring.  It can age you, too.  The kind of aging that rips and robs any glow from the skin and light from the eyes.

I looked at the woman in front of me and really saw her.  My mind zoomed to the sight before me.  She was dressed in flannel and jeans.  The clothing was no match for the 98-degree temperature, even though the feel of dry heat does not match its number.  Her hair was a gray mat of strands running halfway down her back.  The blue-gray eyes appeared dusty and sunken in her loose skin.  She mustered any amount of dignity she could gather and spoke.  The one tooth remaining in the front of her mouth pointed like any accusing finger at all the wrongs and neglect that left it alone to hold a crooked,  forced smile.

I wonder if you could help me.  I need money for a bus.

I knew there were no buses cruising this side of town, and there were certainly no buses in the parking lot of city suburbia waiting to pick up disheveled and desperate souls.  I had been expecting her.

I replied as I dug in my pocket,

I do have something.

She seemed almost stunned at my response.  It didn’t appear she got too many responses to this same question I am sure she had asked countless times.

Oh.

She whispered as her eyes met mine.

I handed her the four crumpled dollars.

I’m sorry it’s not more.  I was expecting you today.

Her smile curled slightly as her eyes flickered.  Maybe she was not accustomed to conversation, or maybe the thought of someone expecting her presence caught her off guard.

I continued,

I kind of knew I would meet you today.  Good luck to you.

She nodded and disappeared into the sea of cars.

Why in the world did I say ‘good luck’?

My hand went to my forehead to thump some sense into it.  It was pretty obvious that ‘good luck’ had not gotten this lost soul very far.  What I really wanted to say was,

God bless you.  Do you have anywhere to go?  

I didn’t say any of those things.  Just, “good luck.”

I climbed into the comfort of my big red truck and stared out the window.  How many handfuls of dollar bills would it take to get this desperate woman to the place she was longing to go?  Where in the world could a bus take her to find the answers?  She didn’t need a bus ticket.  She didn’t need ‘good luck.’  The lost soul with the sunken eyes and the wry smile needed something much more.  She needed a hand.

I was glad she had interrupted me.  I was frustrated I had ignored the Voice that prompted me to pocket the $20 on my bathroom counter.  I remembered the voice of my friend’s dad,

Nine times out of ten, the person asking for money is probably going to use it for no good. 

Nine times out of ten it won’t take them very far. 

It’s that one time… that one time, that will make all the difference in someone’s life.

The difference one time can make.  It matters.  It may matter to one life out of ten, but that is one whole life.

Just like mine.  Just like yours.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I would love to hear your stories.  Do you have a good deed to share?  A story about you or someone you know?  

If you would like to share your story, you can email me at sunrisewithasixpack (at) gmail (dot) com.  I’d love to post your words (and you can remain anonymous) here for others to read and be encouraged.  Bad news gets all the headlines ~ let’s spur each other on in love and good deeds…

Karin signature

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: A Day in the Life, Hope, Joy, Love, Uncategorized Tagged With: 31 days of good deeds, that one time

June 27, 2013 by Karin 14 Comments

When You Can Take Everything… but the Kitchen Sink

My eyes drifted to the very back.  There is a part of the fence I can’t see from where I scrub the dishes.

They run wild out there.  Sometimes their energy takes over and they stumble out like puppies tripping over themselves trying to get to the good stuff.

Sometimes I send them out… those times that my own energy just can not keep up.  Those times I want peace with soapy running water.  Just my dishes, me, and the kitchen sink.  Strange, it’s actually one of my favorite spots in the kitchen.  The sink.

This sink has washed dishes of 1000’s of meals.  This sink has rinsed boo-boos clean.  This sink has bathed babies, caught tears, and one too many times was readily available when morning sickness (in truth, all day sickness) couldn’t wait one. more. second.

This sink has been my big screen to the world of my young ones.  The secret garden of their youth.

secret garden

I have had many conversations at the sink here.  Phone pinned to my shoulder, scrubbing circles over the parts of the pot already clean.  Scrubbing circles, listening to the voice on the other end.  Wanting to scrub away the pain, the hurt, the sorrow, the fear and uncertainty, the doubt, the shame… just all of it… from so many voices I have loved over the years at this sink.

The voices of my parents have become gravelled… grown quieter.  Eight years is a long time when you are in your 80’s.  Eight years is a long time when you are 8.  Eight years is a long time… and a blink.  My eyes wander to my little girl.  She is 8.  Just a baby when we came here.  Eight years is a long time when 8 years is all you know.  And it is just a blink.

The voices of my friends have risen and fallen at this sink… just like the laughter… and the tears.

The cherries… they hang from this window to the backyard.  I put them up there 8 years ago.  I had no idea then.

She gave them to me when I left home for the first time.  The place I grew up.  She gave them to me, gift-wrapped with a bow in the parking lot on a sweltering South Carolina summer night.  That was a long time ago.  I had no idea then… she would be gone 12 years later.

A gift, you know, to have no idea.

This life as a military wife has kept me in this place for a long time.  It’s unusual to stay in one place for this long.  Ten years in one place and eight in this home.  This gift to watch our six little ones grow from flailing to crawling to sprinting legs that fly past mama.

My eyes drifted to the very back.

Just over the hill the yard slopes into woods… just out of sight.

I pulled on the rain boots.  The ones covered with hearts.  I get tired of the boring.  The black boots.  I found boots covered in hearts.  It’s on the rainy days that we sometimes need a few more hearts.

heartboots

It was actually sunny, but the boots would be just right for the lurking poison ivy.  The stuff that creeps and crawls and licks at our heels.  Only later do we know that it has touched us.  The damage can sometimes show up much later.  Sometimes the things that touch us, the ones that seem so benign at the time… they show the damage much later.  Yes, the boots covered in hearts… they would do the trick.

I had to go back there.  The big old oak tree.  The woods, the peace, the quiet.

There is a trail through the back of our yard.  The trail itself has been long swallowed by brush and trees and time.  The tree line is what remains.  You can see the line of trees stretch beyond sight.  The trail was worn thin in its heyday.  George Washington rode this old road.  From his capitol home to the harbor city. Years and years and we have no idea.  The years… a blink.

wind

It was the wind that day that caught me.  The kind of wind that whispers and names itself wild.  Just the sound of wind as the leaves turned belly up in anticipation of quenched thirst.

Eyes closed, I just stood and felt the wind.

This wild wind, blowing in all directions.  The whisper…

It’s all going to change.

You just can’t capture a moment.  I tried to capture this wind, but on the screen it just stood still.  The beauty is in the motion… and we just can’t capture the motion.  All we can do is move.  Be still… listen… and move.

I found my way to the bench.  A small clearing with traces of marshmallows melted and sticks charred.  I’ve watched from my kitchen sink countless time… I wonder if I forgot to come out here… I wonder if I forgot to move… one too many times.

The sound of squeals woven through the blowing breeze on this day.  This wind of change blowing His holy purpose through our comfortable secret garden.

The plans we make, the routines that keep us flowing in forward motion, the secret gardens where we hide from the world.  This garden where we have been planted for a decade… where we bloomed into something entirely new.  From five to eight of us.  From blindness to sight.  From stillness to motion.  From doubt to devotion.  From fear to faith.

I just don’t know.  I have no idea.  This one moment in time to the next burst of wind.  Unpredictable.

With each gust, this crescendo of hope.  This hope that His holy purposes cast our doubts to the wind.

path

I have no idea where this will take us.

The one thought in my mind… the whispers growing louder… my sight growing clearer… it’s a promise.  The number he flashes before me over and over.  This number… He has reminded me to pay attention to Him again and again.  He has a way with all of us… if we would just pay attention.

It’s 3:33 pm.

I smile.

I hear You.

I know it’s time to move.  To leave this place where our roots have grown stronger.

It’s time to move into the plan of His choosing.

I know this.  This wind of change is the one worth riding.  This wind that whispers, that beckons, that commands… this wind is the breath of Life.

The breath of life that brings me to leave the secret garden…

and the kitchen sink.

 

Jeremiah 33:3

Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.

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Filed Under: A Day in the Life, Faith, Family, God's Promises, Hope, Military Tagged With: when it's time to move, winds of change

April 19, 2013 by Karin 2 Comments

Fear, Faith, and the Good Fight

The water heater broke that day.

I remember the water running across the garage floor, flooding plastic toys that were waiting for the little one growing in my swollen belly.

The water flowed endlessly, but I couldn’t seem to pay much attention to it.  The day was a sweltering, early one in Las Vegas that morning.

It wasn’t the leaking water that woke us. It was the 7 am phone call.

Did you see it?

Have you heard?

Both towers!  The planes flew right into them!

There’s another one – the Pentagon.

And a 4th… they are looking for it….

I startled from a deep, pregnant sleep.  Shocked.

Repeated the words to my husband.

 Bin Laden

That’s all he said.  He knew.

The rest of the day… burst water heater, blazing Las Vegas sun… all a blur.  I remember rubbing the swollen life inside me while I watched the news…. stories over and over… smoke, terror, fear.

The eeriness of the empty skies in the city that day.  The only day, in a city full of life and air traffic… everything sat silent.

What kind of place are we bringing you into?

I wrapped arms around myself in a thin attempt to protect this new life given to us.

faith

We had 5 more little ones over the years.  With each story passing along news tickers and told by animated reporters, I wondered the same.

What kind of place have we brought you into?

Monday.  Scrolling through pages in the screen I glimpsed a message from a friend.

Two bombs have exploded at the Boston Marathon.

My mind raced to my dear girlfriend.

That’s where she is!

He’s running that race.

My friend, having just lost both parents to the vicious villain of cancer.  Only three months apart.  Sometimes it all seems too much.

She was there… cheering on her boyfriend.

What’s her number?

I lost her number…

My contact list, incomplete after being swallowed into the cyber world.  Incomplete.  My list was just incomplete without this sister I’ve had for 25 years.

Scrambling with sudden dread, I grabbed the remote and scenes of chaos flashed before us on the screen.  Smoke, terror, fear.  My warrior grew silent.  The all too familiar scene required no words.

This time, the moment of panic to find out more as I worried for my friend, brought the scenes to life in front of my children.  Eyes wide, they watched.  The scenes, the stories gruesome.  The voice of the reporter cracked in the familiar tone that took me back to September 11.

I turned it off.  Sometimes it all seems too much.

A message flashed.

I’ve talked to her.  They are ok.  Here is her number.

A wave of relief fell across me… followed by a wave of dread.  How many killed?  Hurt?  How much more?

The eyes from young faces peered at me questioningly.  These little ones…. they feed from our love, they feed from our tempers, they feed from our joy, they feed from our fear.  I do not want to feed my children fear.

Let’s pray.

I whispered as a I took small, young hands in mine.  They nodded in silence and bowed their tender, trusting heads.  We prayed for love.  We prayed for healing.  We prayed for peace and protection.  We prayed over and over for the Father’s arms to wrap around the people of a city attacked by the evil serpent of terror.  We prayed.

prayers of saints

Sometimes prayer rattles like a check list, as if we have forgotten we are talking to the very One who loves us the most.  It shouldn’t, but sometimes it does.  This time we felt it.  The Holy Arms wrapping around and a blanket of peace fell across the room.  The glimmer of worry vanished from the young eyes and they went back to the carrying on of kids.

I texted with my girlfriend that day.  Over and over the words strung together and revealed a disbelief of the reality before her eyes.

Her runner.  He had, at the last moment, moved forward in the wave of runners. This put him ahead of schedule by 20 minutes.

Her runner.  He finished the race.  They moved from the victory line in celebration… 20 minutes before the bombs exploded.

Sometimes it all just seems too much.

She wrote of chaos and fear.  Sheer horror and crying.  Running and little kids scared to death because they didn’t understand as they saw horror on the faces of adults.  She saw a  mother and her children crying because their dad was running the race and they couldn’t find him.

Broke me right there.

She wrote.

Drawn into the place through her rapidly strung words.

Oh God, that breaks me right here.

I looked at the faces of my children.

We do that, don’t we?  We put ourselves into these places of fear and dread… we imagine.

What if.

Bedtime came.

Weary children, warm beds.

My oldest daughter tucked tight under soft blankets.

Mom, will you pray with me?

I really want to pray.

And she prayed.  The most beautiful words flowed from this child as she prayed for family, friends, new babies, fighters of cancer, and a city fear-filled and mourning.  She prayed words that drifted like incense to the very feet of our Father.

A smiled crossed her sleepy face.

Goodnight mama.  I love you.

Sweet slumbers took my precious girl.

Faith.  She prayed the worries and wonders and why’s straight to the Source.  She released it all and fell to dreams.

The faith of a child.

May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice. (Psalm 141:2)

Prayers.  Our prayers.  The prayers of the saints are incense for our God.  You know what He will do with the prayers of the faithful?  He will build bombs.  Bombs to right the world.  To wipe every tear, to heal every wound.  Fear will have no place to hold foot.

…Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.  (Revelation 5:8) 

…He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all the saints, on the golden altar before the throne.  The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, went up before God from the angel’s hand.  Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake.  (Revelation 8:3-5)

Faith.

In this battlefield of earth, where we wonder why…

We fight the good fight.

The good fight… we fight together…

To let go of fear, embrace the faith of a child, and fight the good fight… finish the race.

run the race

We provide the shrapnel of love that the justice serving God will use…

to turn the earth off its head… and back to holy ground.

 

Hebrew 12:1

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

Karin Madden

 

Filed Under: Community, Faith, God's Promises, Hope, Perseverance Tagged With: faith of a child, prayer as incense, the good fight

April 15, 2013 by Karin 4 Comments

When It’s Hard to Let Go

It finally arrived.

Spring.

spring flower

I found myself piled under clothes ranging from baby to big.

The boys, completely uninterested, roamed as mama went to work sorting, saving, discarding.

The girls, completely interested, protected prized possessions from mama’s rapid fire selection process.  It takes more than just a little time to sort clothes for six.

Oh, mama, not that one.

I like that one.

A tear trickled down my sweet girl’s cheek.

Please don’t give that away.

I don’t want to let it go.

She held what looked like a Barbie-sized shirt to her chest and sighed heavily.

It’s too small for you.

We’ll save it for your little sisters.

I smiled, knowing that feeling of I-don’t-wanna-let-go.

You know, sweetie, sometimes we have to let go off something.

Many times we get something better in place of it.

My mind went to the bag of treasures from my sister-in-law.  One of the gifts of a large family.  Hand-me-downs.

Then, I heard my own voice…

My words must echo Yours.

Don’t you have those times when what you say to your children… is just exactly what God is saying to you?

dew flower

I smiled to myself.

I get it.  Yup, I heard you.

It’s hard to let go.  Of things… of places… of people.

It’s hard.

I cling to the things… the things that remind me of babies new in my arms.

I cling to the things… the things that bring me back to a time gone by.

I cling to the things… the things that trigger a memory.  Afraid that the memory will be lost if I don’t hang on tight.

I cling to places… wrapped in fear that if I loosen my grip, the place will fade away from my thoughts.  Or worse… I will be the one forgotten in that place.

I cling to people.  My children… husband… parents… family… friends.

Will it all fade away if I don’t hold on?

daffodils

If I loosen my grip, even just a little, will I just end up empty-handed?  Or worse… broken-hearted?

I pulled out a sweet surprise for my little one.  A treasure just a little too small for her older sister.

This one is for you.

Do you like it?

She squealed with excitement.

Mama, I love that one! 

Is it mine, now?

Oh, you were right!  I let go of one of my favorites, and look!  

I got another one!  And I love it!

It’s not complicated, this letting go.  It’s simple, really.  Stretch one finger at a time.  Open the hand.  Palms up.  Let go.

It’s not complicated.  But, it’s not easy.

It’s not easy when it comes to the things that trigger memories.

It’s not easy when it comes to the places that feel so comfortable.

It’s not easy when it comes to people.  Especially people.

It is so very hard to let go of people.

I lost my entire contact list on my phone last week.  Not a tragedy.  But, definitely a pain.  Inconvenient… and startling.  My dependence on this little device for contact with just about every one I know.

My oldest boy chuckled.

First world problems.

No doubt about that.  The remedy was fairly simple.  A few emails, postings, and contacts came rolling back in.

But what about the ones I missed?

Would I get those back?

Along with the contacts went the text messages.  A series of strung together words between friends and family.  I saved so many.  Me.  Having a hard time letting go.

There was one in particular.  My dear friend.  She passed on to peace in His arms a year ago.  I saved her words.  Every. Last. One.

Gone.

I felt the tightening of my throat… waited for the tears.  The words came flooding back.

Sometimes you have to let go.

Sometimes letting go is the only way to receive something new.

This something new is a new realization.  Heaven.  That places that waits for someday.  It exists right now.  Now, I know that seems so simple.  I just never thought about the Heaven that is now.  It’s a place we talk about.  The final destination somewhere in the future.  The truth is… Heaven is very present.  Today.  She is there… today.  I don’t need thin words and typed texts.  I need the truth.  The truth is freedom.

Letting go.

The contacts I lost?  The numbers came rolling back in.  The something new?  Connections I didn’t have in the first place.  People I had lost along the way.

The truth?  The freedom in this truth?

None of this is mine.  I hold tightly to everything that is temporary.  The things and the places in this temporary season.  The people, well, there is an eternal promise.

My dear friend gave me words to hold on to before she went.

It will always be ok.

And it will.  I will not be easy.  It will not be painless.  But, it will always be ok.

We have to let go over and over again.  Letting go… opens our hands to receive over and over again.

Let go.  Give.  And wait…

We can not out-give God.

In the end… the new beginning… it will always be ok.

 

1 John 2:24-25

See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you.  If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father.  And this is what he promised us – even eternal life.

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Filed Under: Faith, God's Promises, Hope Tagged With: faith, heaven, letting go

December 19, 2012 by Karin 8 Comments

When our opinions don’t matter, but our voices do

It’s been a while.

I intended to stop for a moment and rest.  Then, life happened.  Life happened all around me just as it usually does, but this time so many things so close to the heart.

I chased promises for 31 days.  I found them.

The testing.  Faith, belief, trust.  Trust.  Over and over He asked me…

do you trust me?

I wish I could say that I did.  Every moment.

I wish I could say I didn’t question.  Or wonder.  Or doubt.

I wish I could say that I stayed buried in His life-giving words.  Every.  Day.

One thing I did do.  I kept talking to Him.  Talking and talking and talking.

The one area I missed.

The listening.

I didn’t listen quite a much as I should have.

I wandered, foolishly, away from His own words.  He graciously followed me and provided me with signs, right where I was.  Through friends, and strangers, He showed me again that He is in all the details.

The day I was wheeled into an operating room for a stubborn kidney stone, my dear friend called to share the diagnosis of her dear daddy.  Cancer.  It had been hiding everywhere.  No one knew.  Until that day.  Two weeks later he passed.  Two weeks from diagnosis to the end… the new beginning.  He believed, you see.  He was not afraid.

My friend, her children, her mom… they remain here.  Seeking the joy in this Christmas.  Though the tears blur their earthly eyes ~ hands reach out, unseeing.  Reach out in the faith that cannot been seen, grasping onto a God who holds them firmly in His hand.

The day I was wheeled into this surgery, another dear girlfriend was wheeled into her own surgery.  Again and again she allowed doctors to cut into her eye, attempting to restore sight.  Attempting to save her sight.  The surgeries at first seemed successful, but time and again they failed.  Then, with a final attempt, the cut appears to have healed the wound. She waits.  Grateful for what she can see… timidly reaching for what she does not.  Is He really there?  Is He really here?

A car accident.  Yet another friend and her precious little ones.  She told me that she has never felt His presence like she did the moment the cars collided.  In the blur of events, prying her little girls from the crushed steel cage, collapsing from pain of her own, being placed on a board into an ambulance ~ His presence was so great… she thought she would look up and see Him.  A glimpse of the unseen.  The blind faith… just knowing He is here.

All this and so much more, in a matter of weeks, began the day I stopped counting His promises.  I intended to write so many times, but words felt inadequate in a time of searching… a time of searching for understanding.

Then, and I hardly feel equipped or that I have the right to comment on the precious souls lost to this world just days ago, unspeakable tragedy.  Only my mama heart can speak to what happened that day.  I just don’t understand.  There are absolutely no words.  So many opinions swirl around, but our opinions are rather empty.  Our hearts heavy.  I just don’t understand.  I can only pray… and even here, in this place of wordless pleading to God, I have nothing.  No words.  Then His words…

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.  

Romans 8:26

The spirit…

He knows there are no words.  He requires no words. 

I read the most beautiful words from dear Ann… words of this broken place.  The story of a snake… it slithered its way long and forcefully into a warm kitchen of a missionary and his wife.  Answering a distressed call, a local man wielding a machete swiftly decapitated the serpent.  The profound insight from the missionary during this unusual occurrence has left me with one more scale peeled from my spiritual eyes.  The snake did not know he was dead.  Thrashing and destroying, his tail flailed through the house.  Then, his end.

We know his end… this end of evil.  We know he is finished.  This pure evil that continues to thrash through our world.  The final outcome, he has missed in all his destructive desire.  He wants us to miss it, too.  It is finished.  In the end… love wins.

Love wins.

Our opinions… so many of them like a swirling kaleidoscope.  Do they really matter?  Does it really matter what we think?  I stopped writing for a while.  Wondering… does it really matter what I say?  What my opinion is?  Not really.  Opinions are based on feelings, half-truths, partial knowledge, passionate desire for justice.  Opinions, in all their adamant fist pounding, desperately seek truth… understanding.  We want to understand.  

What does matter, what matters more than anything else is…

what He says.

His truth.

The truth about writing… it’s not an answer-giver.  It’s an answer-seeker.

A desperate quest for understanding.  To understand the mystery in the suffering.

My opinions do not really matter.  My voice in all this noise only matters for one reason.  It is just one more voice trying to muffle, to quiet, to drown out the doubting, the hating, the darkness that begs to swallow us whole.  Just one more voice desperate to seek light, shed light, see light… through all this… at the end of all this.

This voice seeking to thin it’s shell of skin… to allow one more flicker of His light to shine through.  Here, with all the others whose flames flicker faith, hope, peace, joy… love.

And, so, I write.

 

Proverbs 18:2

A fool finds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinions.

 

 

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Filed Under: Faith, Friendship, God's Promises, Hope, Love, Trust Tagged With: trust, when our words matter, when we want to understand

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Meet Karin

Hi! My name is Karin Madden. Writer. Warrior wife. Mom of six pack. Homeschooler. German-blooded southerner. Welcome to the place where I explore what it means to grow stronger - spirit, soul, and body. I write to inspire and encourage - to remind you we are not alone. By being bold with grace and speaking truth in love, we can become who we are meant to be. I'm glad you are here.

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