Eternal Sighs

For You

2012-11-07T11:40:00.000-05:00

A little early Christmas gift..... just because there's nothing more worthy to share than the Name of Jesus!
Print it, post it, share it, hang it, but most of all love Him.

Inspiration credits to: http://thejonesyfiles.blogspot.ca/2010/12/savior-subway-art.html and http://www.simpleasthatblog.com/2010/12/free-christmas-printables.html

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scripture describes The Eternal One and His work. Nature echos His words that called it to existence. Humanity exhales His breath that awakened its soul. These, the sighs of eternity, remnants of glory, hints of truth, Invite us to recognize, receive, and reciprocate Redemption through the Resurrected Word of Life. Are you compelled to whisper life to someone today? I'd be honoured to join you with an eternal sigh greeting card now available to you here..

The Trees are Falling

2011-11-01T15:00:00.000-04:00

EN002 by EternalSighs

The trees are coming down around us this week. The neighbour's property is so close, and it is being logged. It is such a sight to watch these pillars fall, gracefully they lay down and the ground shakes. I think I'll not spend too much time in the back yard during working hours. And I am glad those men know how to do this. A tree so tall, so close to my house, I shudder and change my thoughts. Stand tall friends, and remember: "God's power is at our disposal when we recognize how far above us is His wisdom"

2011-10-26T15:55:00.000-04:00

Through french doors of the great room, assisted by a few strong men, she comes in spring. I hover near, dust cloth in hand. Does she welcome this rescue from the tiny room where she was trapped, collecting dust, quilt patches, and stowed away canine treasures? Regardless, I intend to discover her potential. Read More Here

Hoping to make this blog better. . . posts here will be similar to the previous post, centred around a new venture: selling greeting cards. I welcome your interest in it, but if you prefer a subscription to my other writing without the greeting card posts, do that over here. I will continue posting little introductions like this to my other writing for your convenience. Bless you for your understanding. - EM

Happy Anniversary Us!

2011-09-14T16:02:00.000-04:00

AN001 by EternalSighs
Purchase as a card on Zazzle

When our love's loyalty is to each other and together to Christ,
it leaves divine imprints in the lives of everyone we encounter.

Sept Blooms

2011-09-08T16:22:00.000-04:00

Rather than highway robbery it is more aptly coined garden thievery. The loss not as dramatic as my mother’s, whose prized heritage peonies were dug up and divided mid-day by plantlifters out on a country drive, is in my garden of few blooms, most traumatic.

A new homemaker, uncertain at what height to set my expectations of my gardening, I doubted I possessed the interest or genes necessary for compatible gardening conditions, and especially not for a beach lost in a pine forest, now my home in cottage country. But after winter’s heap of snow melted from our yard on schedule, the last of the neighbourhood, I needed a reason to be outdoors. And where I lack gardening interest and genes, an interest and eye for design tolerated our barren property for a mere few spring weeks before the need for curb appeal compelled me to experiment.

A few plant sale acquisitions now huddle together in little plots across the front yard. The lilac bush bloomed profusely in early summer, blue sage has been offering colour all season, and yarrow is giving a vibrant show of pink at present. What was labeled rudbeckia is blooming as obedient. Sparse though the collection is, they are my pride and joy. Perhaps I possess the necessary genes after all. Certainly I have developed the interest. Sand, acid, and deer have not defeated me, only the garden phlox. And it has battled valiantly. It has not been bothered by dry sand and an acidic environment. Its buds however have been a midnight snack for some creature.

Early in the season I noticed a few nipped stems on the plant. The flowerbed site is too sheltered for them to have just broken in a breeze. After an application of homemade repellent discovered in a magazine, I watched as the plant grew, maturing beyond its previous development. The plucked stems motivated full foliage growth and that garden phlox is lush and healthy. Eventually a delightful big bud sent greetings from the top of the plant. Smugly I anticipated its unveiling. The deer had not touched their favourite: hostas lining the front window; therefore the phlox was destined to bloom. Inevitably, the dry summer welcomed rain, washing away pest deterrent. To my dismay all that remained of the garden phlox bloom one morning, was a nipped stem. Despite no noticeable tracks nearby, I blame the deer which have yet to be glimpsed on our property.

With summer moving quickly toward autumn, I resigned to wait until next year for garden phlox blooms, sure this is all valuable lessons for a beginner to hasten my gardening expertise. Nevertheless I felt mocked. I bent down to inspect the damage, reached out and touched the rough stem. Suddenly it is I rooted fast in earth, looking up at my Lord, soul gardener. His eyes survey me knowingly. In the bushes behind me I hear shuffling and hasty gulps from envy’s insecurities, doubt’s anxieties, and bitterness’ mistrust; soul thieves. With expectation I wait for Him to apply some pest repellent. Heart raw, brokenness exposed, weary from fighting thieves alone in dark, I whisper, “I want to bloom for you.” In His gaze I find assurance, the buds will return.

And to my amazement they do. That one nipped bud has been replaced by three small hopeful buds braving the Sept chill. I rally myself to diligent gardening for the sake of these garden phlox buds, thankful that the tentative, hopeful blooms of my soul are in the care of One with an eternity of soul gardening experience. Turned to Him, my soul will bloom for a season. And as the destinies of these garden phlox buds unfold, I dream of permanent blooms year round, joy spilling into beauty, no longer rooted in sin scorched earth, soul fed by His glory, safe to bloom where Majesty has forever repelled all thieves. Sigh.

------------------------------------------------------ Scripture describes The Eternal One and His work. Nature echos His words that called it to existence. Humanity exhales His breath that awakened its soul. These, the sighs of eternity, remnants of glory, hints of truth, Invite us to recognize, receive, and reciprocate Redemption through the Resurrected Word of Life. Are you compelled to whisper life to someone today? I'd be honoured to join you with an eternal sigh greeting card now available to you here..

Fuel for the Journey

2011-07-14T16:32:00.000-04:00

The interest of 12 year old boys would be piqued by cars. And my distant memory of cars associated with freedom could introduce the underlying message of Galatians 5.

But then I lost my resolve and stuck with the printed text.

In the end, the questions provided fueled our discussion and proved difficult enough without my philosophizing. And I was spared the self doubt sure to haunt me had I voiced my interpretation on broader themes. Now several Sundays past that lesson and 2 sermons wiser on the subject, I dare to post the analogy that began to surface in my thoughts as I made myself presentable to enter a classroom of adolescent boys. Though considered material for a junior Sunday school lesson, I intend no insult to anyone’s intelligence with this parallel. Besides, only those some older than 12, can understand that thrill of the first solo drive after achieving a driver’s license. I remember driving to some event alone the evening after passing my examination. The world was opening to me and suddenly all I saw was endless opportunity.

I had a life to live and by all appearances a driver’s license freed me to live it.

At seventeen I was a product of the age of motion and a family of believers. As a child I rode with my parents many places, but most often to church, in various evolving vehicle models experiencing the phenomenon of combustion engine transportation. I learned God’s Word along with the meaning for the symbols of driving. I saw how dad utilized the vehicle’s mechanisms, of which I understood little more than the need for gasoline. And I learned to recognize poor driving etiquette which he pointed out to us with true transport truck driver expertise.

Mine was a Christian worldview that extended from the church doors, onto the road, into the front door at home.

However, I was no Christian on account of my parent’s examples, my Christian worldview, or my morality.

And though my early exposure to driving coupled with weeks of class instruction, handbook review, and months of accompanied driving, deemed me properly equipped, free to drive, with many places to go, I had no car.

Apparently a driver’s license offered a freedom I couldn’t access on the budget of a seventeen year old. I could only step out of the family vehicle and live God’s plans for me with a vehicle I couldn’t afford.

And this was the thrill that evening this Child of God drove herself to an event: my Father provided me a car!

Jesus passed the driver’s test to God for me. In exchange for His life, God gave me the vehicle of His purposes and plans for me, along with the key of His acceptance, my access to freedom.

But freedom is only accessed, not maintained, by the existence of God’s gift of salvation and acceptance. It continues only with proper and adequate fuel powering my life. One tank of gasoline after my first solo drive and I understood my freedom was tied to the car’s power. Thankfully, the resident fuel tanks were a necessity in the farmyard, and the gasoline was free unless the car use provided me transportation to a job.

Keeping a vehicle fueled does not get more convenient than the farmyard or cheaper than simply reimbursing dad at cost, unless I am navigating life in God’s plans for me, on the fuel of His Spirit.

Then fuel is available everywhere at no cost. Yet I habitually control the gas pedal with little respect or thought for the fuel I’m using. I value the places to go, things to do, and the thrill of the ride more than the fuel.

Were I to value the fuel that powers my journey, I would regularly pause to add fuel to my tank before the need to worry presented itself in indications from the fuel gauge that my journey is in danger of a sputtering stop beside the road. And I would use the gas pedal with consideration for the distance I need to cover until I can add to my fuel tank.

Freedom is directly proportionate to the steady flow of God’s Spirit in my life.

Without it the abundant life promised is continually interrupted by my panic to once again reach a fuel stop or as I discovered as a passenger riding a country road, by an empty fuel tank. Gloriously, dad was only a cell phone call away and willing to come to our aid with a jerry can. The generosities of my Fathers coincide. And I tell myself that I am not careless with their generosity, despite a driving history testifying otherwise.

My frequent heavy accelerations and detours consume fuel for no advantage to the ultimate goal as I try to push God’s plans for me ahead of His schedule and around my carnality. This is the same carelessness that eventually risks an ill timed empty gas tank.

To my shame, my tendency continues to be driving with a perpetually low tank of gasoline.

I do have enough appreciation for the fuel powering a vehicle that I’ve never been found pushing my car down the road with a tank full of gasoline. This is counter productive to the entire purpose of possessing a vehicle.

Freedom in driving and living is only experienced when utilizing the power of fuel and the Holy Spirit.

However, God knows I’ve tried to live His plans for me this way, choosing to depend on my own resources rather than God’s Spirit fuel to power my obedience to Him. Moving forward with God’s plans for me depending on my human power is an exhausting, discouraging situation. It is not freedom. It is not liberty in Christ.

It is self-righteousness.

I wish I could say, “And the girl and the car lived happily ever after.”

But the car my dad provided was re-purposed after I couldn’t stop when necessary on an icy road. The insurance company labeled the car “totaled” and abandoned it to the scrap yard.

But with God investing in my life and faith, I’ve been protected through driving mishaps and spiritual wrecks. Thankfully He’s never abandoned the vehicle of His plans for me, though some adjustments may have been necessary.

Freedom is a delicate state to live in.

I’m learning that the laws and guiding structure of roads and signs and Scripture and Spiritual authorities are not restrictions but aids to providing me a safe, successful, even enjoyable journey. When I accept them, I navigate with a wisdom that values the power fueling my journey, and follows the guiding structure with consideration for the conditions of my environment. They are beneficial to the goal of reaching my destination where my arrival is expected.

By God’s grace and the power of His Spirit I will arrive alive in Glory to receive ultimate freedom:
life within the fuel chamber of God’s presence.

I’ll take to the skies and sore in the splendor of His power and wonder! I will be free, eternally.

Sigh.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Scripture describes The Eternal One and His work. Nature echos His words that called it to existence. Humanity exhales His breath that awakened its soul.

These, the sighs of eternity, remnants of glory, hints of truth, Invite us to recognize, receive, and reciprocate Redemption through the Resurrected Word of Life.

Are you compelled to whisper life to someone today? I'd be honoured to join you with an eternal sigh greeting card now available to you here.

What's in a word? - His-story

2011-03-08T19:02:00.000-05:00

Uttered

Those first words of earth

Commanded life that

Made visible truth and

Described their author,

Expressed His heart of

Beauty, Power, and Wonder

Shared

His words invited

Interaction with His heart

And discovery of His glory

Continued the flow

Of His goodness as

Together they began His story.

Whispered

The word war began

With first ever untruth

Exalting death and

Enticing disobedience

Introduced alienation

From the face of life’s Word

Written

His story is recorded

Of all His acts

Preceded by words

But a word without

Its heart housed in a body

Becomes distant

Promised

His heart took a face

Again walked the earth

Made tangible His word

Speaking life from heart pure

And followed the word

Of His Father’s will

Everlasting

His words live on

Expressions of hearts

Changed by His work

Through the word of His gospel

Redeeming words

Back to His glory

Playing along with Random Acts of Poetry at:

2011-03-03T11:45:00.000-05:00

I hear them as I wrestle the frozen morsel: mom instructing every precaution to avoid contamination, the voices on the radio waves discussing the cause for a meatless diet. And I acknowledge as I do dinner preparations, that I am straying from the voice of both.

I do not have bleach to clean up after this exercise, and will be serving beef for dinner.

To this farm nurtured girl, beef was a staple on the table and in the finances. I ate the best, a work of my parents. Now a new bride in cottage country, I understand the lavish previously normal to me, is not typical; even contemptible.

The deeds that strike horror to some are merely part of a process for me.
“Should I be so indifferent?” I wonder as bare hands pry at raw meat. Though some arguments opposed to my diet are reasonable, I know the Creator has designated dominion. And the question of what that dominion was to include is abandoned to preoccupation with recipe and stove. The riddle of what was intended for my consumption, unsolved for the moment.

I cannot imagine myself a vegetarian. Neither can my doctor. Only the other month he encouraged more red meat in my diet on account of anemia. Though difficult to afford, and to obtain in satisfactory quality, beef still feels like a necessity.

One thought I don’t allow myself to dwell on. It is the same one provoking those opposed to my dinner plans; a thought very intimate to the Israelites of old gathered around the family lamb for Passover.

A life was birthed and sacrificed so I can live abundant, eternal.
Dinner is not a ceremonial affair, remembering reserved for communion. Yet, this truth seeps into puddles on my cutting board, into a life insulated from bloody deaths. I’d rather forget, reveling the lavish meal or joining the cause of meatless diets, than participate in reality. I’d rather avoid the necessity of death with attempts to create my own righteousness or deny the sacrifice and the promised splendor, than acknowledge the barbarian I am and sever my portion.

Could this dinner be gratitude for a life-giving sacrifice, honour for the cost of my lavish?
My Father would think so, it is his livelihood.

So today I’m consuming beef for dinner. Another day, when I’m living the lavish of glory beyond the reach of death, where the memory of the sacrifice is etched in the hands I’ll hold not in the carved dinner on my table, I’ll change my diet. It will consist of whatever my Father has prepared. And it will be good, better than all deadness I’ve ever eaten, because there I’ll be eating from the tree of life.

Sigh.

Annotation: Genesis 9:1-5 gives some clarity on God's view.

For futher consideration:
What the Earth Gives @ the high calling. . . Ann's quote particularly catches my thoughts, halts my reading...

The Spirit of Food @ amazon . . . this book, on my list to read.

To the Loyal

2011-02-19T17:01:00.002-05:00

You’ve patiently waited for me. Been companions on a halting journey you perhaps understood better than I. You’ve been in the wings eager to lift me when at last I return from distraction to write. Thank you.

I grasp for purpose in this exercise. Flounder with insecurity. Fear ruin. Slowly I’m finding the ground beneath these drifts. I’m committing to the purpose of Truth, to be with no agenda but to exist, a record of His breath. I return to you, the loyal.

Arrived, I have not. Willing to continue the discovery, stretch and change, here I am.

After preoccupation with living, and spending time learning this art at Redeemed Days, I choose Eternal Sighs as my priority.

I now describe this space (labeled “about” on the menu):

Eternity, home of Truth, sighs all delight. Softly invites me out of sighs of despair, frustration, fear, apathy, to discover Him, Truth - large, glorious. I thought He always shouts, mistook His confidence for arrogance, His superiority for coercion.

Though strong, He whispers in sighs of eternity brushing tendrils across my soul. For,

“God is above all things presiding, beneath all things sustaining, outside all things embracing, and inside all things filling.” A. W. Tozer

I slow to listen, to watch, to wait with those who were ready to receive Him when first He came quietly, majestically.

In this place I receive; savor the microscopic dust of His magnified existence. Bedrock theological dissertation and doctrine I reverently defer to those ordained, accept their influence as a microscope powering my ability to see. Though,

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face:

now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. (1Cor 13:12)

I simply anticipate my Saviour’s repeated coming through eternal sighs that breathe life to my living. And, finally when eternity shouts loud and clear from the clouds, when there will be no overlooking Truth’s reign.

How I want you to come with me, to celebrate Truth. You are welcome. You are invited. He will set you free – to see.

Sigh.

Dying to Live

2010-11-15T12:55:00.000-05:00

I thought a November walk in the woods would be less intriguing. But then I stopped to acknowledge the dying around me. And in the decay I smelled future life. Fallen heros of the forest give there last offerings to the life of the woods. Lying in their beds of carpeted foliage, they testify to life sacrificing for the new growth struggling to be strong. And always the bedrock holds the ground from generation to generation.

These are the royalty of the woods, robed in moss and light, spreading life as they die.

How like my earthen wanderings – a royal member, commissioned to cultivate life as I die.

But for me, my life is not lost to the new growth among which I die. It is lost only in the source of the Life I lived. My final death never comes. When I am laid in my earthen bed, I’ll exchange this fleeting work on earth for the product of the eternal work of My Saviour. And while I revel in the glory His work has created, I pray the fading evidence of my earthly days will fertilize His life in the generations to come. Sigh

Smudged Glass

2009-09-03T21:38:00.006-04:00

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. 1 Corinthians 13:12

I tend toward negativity. Maybe recording the inspirations that happen upon me, whether through the most ordinary moments and things, or the unusual occurrences and stuff, will turn my heart and thoughts to interact with truth. Many of these posts will seem the smudgiest of glasses, but I anticipate the thrill of discovering a deeper meaning beyond the obvious. And when the truth seems hidden and vague, I will rest in the certainty of one day seeing and knowing with the same unobstructed view and pure truth with which my Maker sees and knows me. Sigh.