Summer

Sigh! It is summer vacation, the delightful season of margins. There will be time to read books just for fun, to go on vacation, to spend time with family, to sleep late, and exercise, and time to just sit and think, if I have a mind to do so. I love the holidays of winter, the brilliant colors of fall, the warming and flowers of spring, but the margins of summer cause me to sigh deeply. Thank God for summer!
Photograph by: Dewitt Jones (Photographer for National Geographic Magazine)

Joy

For years and years I have been wondering why I, a Christian, didn't have more joy in my life. I treasure my relationship with the Lord Jesus. I am so blessed. Still I felt defeated and joyless. I am a fairly positive person, but too often I saw the half-empty glass. I wondered and wondered what was missing.

I think I have happened upon the answer. (Actually, I believe Someone has been answering my query for years and years, and I was just too clueless to understand.) A couple of weeks ago I was reading the Bible, I can't even remember what passage, and I suddenly realized that thankfulness is a crucial weapon in our arsenal against the enemy powers. Fiery arrows of doubt, despair, and complaining are slung at us constantly, all day, every day. For all those years, I was letting those arrows penetrate my flesh. What if we countered those arrows with thankfulness, instead?

I decided to try it. For the past two weeks I have been deliberately thanking God for the blessings in my life, one by one. Thank You for warm water in my shower. Thank You for my precious family. Thank You for giving me wisdom to guide that wayward child . . . Even when the arrows of doubt and fear came toward me, thank You for promising that You are always with me. Thank You for the promise of Your protection. Thank You for friends who will be honest with me. Thank You for birdsong that reminds me to be thankful.

What I am finding, and I have not yet arrived, is that when I replace my complaints about life with thankfulness, my misery is replaced by joy. I will keep experimenting with thankfulness! You try it too. Let me know what you observe.

Selah

I was reading Psalm 3 this morning. I noticed the word 'selah' three times. The footnote says that it is a word of uncertain meaning, but I remember someone telling me that it seems to be a term that indicates a musical interlude, a time to stop and think about it. Be still and know God.

My teacher husband, my teacher friends, and I have been noticing that the ability to be still and think about it is an ability that must be cultivated. With the distractions of media abounding around us and our young, selah is too often missing in our lives.

What do you do to "selah"?