In the meantime, you can still view the posts and content from Jan’s previous site at: www.jankern.wordpress.com.

In the meantime, you can still view the posts and content from Jan’s previous site at: www.jankern.wordpress.com.

In many parts of the world it is the season of rest. Nature hibernates or slows.

Our winter in northern California has yet to fully rest. Today I took a walk in a warm sunshine that felt like spring, thankful while being hopeful for the blessings of rain and rest.

Seasons are unpredictable, not up to us. Gifts from the Creator, they come and bring what they have.

I remember visiting a small Amish bakery in Missouri when my children were young. It was a sweltering summer day, and as we stepped into the warm darkness of the little bakery, my son exclaimed to an elder Amish man, “It’s hot!”

The man smiled and said, “We take the blessing of each day. Without the warmth we would not have the grain to bake the bread.”

I’m learning to live in the uncertain, within nature’s seasons and life, with a blend of acceptance and expectation.

With thankfulness and with hope.

Each day made by God a day to be thankful. Psalm 118:24

Usually I’m not conscious of how incessantly they drive my thoughts, play with my choices, nip at my perspective of myself or my relationships.

But if I make room for a shift . . .

What if I live up to my expectations, my goals and dreams, my prayers and understanding of God’s love for me—instead of the expectations of others?

What falls away? What remains?

What truth, what gold?

At one of our meals, a cherry pit hit my stepmom and my father immediately blamed the children. He wouldn’t let it go even though their ten cherries and corresponding pits were accounted for.

This is the same man who once told me, “Your mother and I didn’t plan to have children” and never followed that up with, “but we’re so glad we had you and your sister.”

Childhood moments with my father, especially mealtimes, meant enduring harsh, impatient words and responding with tears and stomach aches. Expectations, control, no sense of the child as a person. No grace.

My initial response was to hide, to be quiet, to go under the grid. If I did everything I could to stay out of his line of sight, I could survive—not that I was aware as a child that was my tactic. But this became a pattern in my life in other contexts and relationships.

Later when I realized that, I began to find my presence and my voice again, and to help others do the same. I’ve worked alongside my husband for most of our married life at a residential ministry for at-risk youth. I’ve written the stories of those who didn’t have a voice, and I am partnering in a project with an organization that is making inroads into halting the sex trafficking industry, primarily in the Sacramento area.

I loved my father, and I don’t allow the difficult memories to cloak my life in regret or unforgiveness. By the end of his life I believe he gained awareness of his impact and softened. What I didn’t realize, until recently, is how much of who I’ve become and God’s transformative work within me has been tied into those early days with my father. How when I thought I was hiding or giving up, I was learning to fight. For me, for others, for a voice. For grace.

Yes, grace. And courage and purpose and fullness of life.

After all, cherry pits are seeds.

“That’s what’s important—that babies get loved.” She tells others this is what she can still do and says, “I was born to hold babies.”

Simple. And powerful.

In a place of transition and questions and hoping to land more firmly on what I was born to do, I smile as I think of this woman. Am I trying too hard? Making this more complicated than it needs to be? Likely.

This woman—her name is Edna—has a beauty and wisdom to her story that I can learn from.

Live. Be with others.

Do what comes naturally.

Love.

Imagine what it would be like if instead of speeding down a highway through a country setting we took time to walk the same route. What would we notice? Who might we meet?

Or what if we were to stroll through a museum and pause in front of one masterpiece. Just one. What intricacies of the artist’s labor would we begin to notice? What stories would we imagine?

Religion and art are saying the same things: stop, pay attention, be aware of the depth of time, see people, see others, be human. ~Fredrick Buechner

If you were to find a moment today to pause and pay attention, where would you linger?

‎”Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.”
The Message’s take on Matthew 6:6

Take time to stop, if even for a moment, to be fully you, fully present in the presence of God. What shifts do you notice?

Note this bit of gorse bush. The whole year round the thorn has been hardening and sharpening. Spring comes. The thorn does not drop off and it does not soften. There it is, as uncompromising as ever; but halfway up appear two brown furry balls, mere specks at first, that break at last–straight out of last year’s thorn–into a blaze of fragrant golden glory! –Lilias Trotter

My friend offered these words with a single hyacinth bulb and a container for growing it. She wrote, “This is not a bit of gorse bush, yet is a bit of spring fragrance for the winter. Wishing you a joy-filled day.”

Her words offered hope that my difficult season would one day bring about a blaze of fragrant glory. Sometimes lying in my bed at night, all I could utter were single-word prayers, but they were filled with meaning. After receiving the gift and quote, I pictured the thorns of my life transforming into an unmatched fragrance of life and fullness.

Fullness. Did you know that when Jesus said, “I have come that you might have life and have it to the full” (John 10:10 NIV), that the word “life” was not the Greek word bios but zoe? We’re invited out of daily mere existence to a life lived with passion and vitality.

Imagine taking the energetic zoe life God calls you to into the way you live and work, into your relationships and conversations, into how you take care of yourself, into all your choices, goals, and dreams.

That’s living. That’s thorns to  a blaze of fragrant glory.

What is one area of your life you’d like to live more energetically and passionately? What will you do differently? When will you begin?

In the meantime, you can still view the posts and content from Jan’s previous site at: www.jankern.wordpress.com.