forgotten your first love

do you remember the moment you fell in love?

do you remember where you were, what you were doing, who you were with?

how did awareness come? Sudden and strong, gentle and soft?

moment by moment, realization dawning, or like a torrent?

gushing and rushing.....

do you remember? it's important.

do you remember? it's the beginning to a love story.

or have you forgotten your first love? Forgotten the taste, the touch, the sensation, the rush....

Return to me, you've forgotten me, love me as you did.

How? Painstaking discipline? Wishful thinking? How can I remember?

Pursue. Discover. Learn to love again.

where is His face?

Where is He?

in the morning storm, as it rolls and blows

in the cry of pain from an illness

in the wreck less, hopeless struggle to try

in the failing, falling, striving, and missing, yet again

in the daily struggle to be daily,

to do daily, to complete the list,

Where is His face?

in the midst of temptation and seduction,

in brokenness and laziness

Why are those voices louder? Stronger? More convincing and appealing?

His presence is in the before, during, and the after....

His face is ever before, always with, and neverleaving.....

He is. Simply, just is.

wash. rinse. repeat.

1. read, reflect, pray
2. run, skip, hop, jump
3. draw and dream
4. talk and listen, communicate and hear
5. watch and wonder
6. consider and ponder
7. sprint and sleep
8. go and go and go
9. wash, rinse, and repeat

mission

i drove on a sunny fall afternoon

listening to an inspiring preacher

talk about his family roots

roots steeped in

love for God and

love for family

and i wept.

my family is not like that;

we don't celebrate together,

share together,

sacrifice for each other.

we compete,

we strive,

we martyr,

we distance,

creating our own families, communities, religion with non-blood folk.

the legacy needs to be reinvented.

the words of God more closely followed.

the mission lived out.

and then i wondered,

pondering, visualizing, wrestling

with

my life mission

it's spiritual

it's pivotal

it's deep

i know these things,

but i couldn't remember what God has whispered long ago

When i sought.

in agony, in deep sadness, in panic

i wondered.

playing around with pieces of words in my head,

pondering, wondering, musing, managing phrase after phrase

it finally came.

to communicate God in a visual way.