Dear Reader:

Last Saturday Mandy, Eva Cate, Jake, and I played CandyLand. I must admit  it was the first board game I ever remember playing as a child. What I didn’t remember was the amount of drama  contained in the actual playing of it.

Both Eva Cate and Jake were so competitive that it wasn’t long before smiles turned into sobs and whichever of the children “lost” was bemoaning the fact that they “never won” (even though they had just won three times before that…)

The cards that seemed to unravel the children (emotionally) in their quest to the winning candy treasure box were the cards like the “peanut” one that sent you all the way back to the beginning of the candy road…like starting over.

All Mandy and I heard were pouts of “That’s not fair” “No way”…”I hate this dumb game.” (Yet somehow the tears dried up in time to scream out that they wanted to play it again.) Drama, drama, drama. ( *Mandy and I could only take so much 🙂

I could only chuckle to myself…’Oh my little grandchildren…get ready for life darlings…because you are going to see a lot of “peanuts” popping up along your path and many times you will feel like your life is starting over again…but guess what…you will all find your own riches in the unknown if you keep the faith.

“Unknowns are what make life so unspeakably rich, iridescent, and engaging.” Dominic Done

As much as we all admit to hating change, changing the status quo, or even slightly shaking up our daily routines in life…when it happens and change comes …somehow we grow accustomed to it…and many times stop and reflect back on how it was the best thing that ever happened in our lives…we just couldn’t see it at the time.

Our God is a mobile one and is ever-changing. There is nothing “stationary” about God except in the sense of His constancy. So if we truly want a relationship with Him we are going to have get on board and be prepared to accept change as a part of our on-going special relationship.

Dominic Done, author of When Faith Fails, writes in one article titled “Why Does God Allow Me to Doubt?” that God is not only the Answer but, more importantly,  the Question. Through Jesus’s teaching tactics God shows us that He likes to shake things up.

Jesus told stories, asked more questions to answer questions, was intentionally shocking, crafted memorable statements, used objects for his lessons, and always repeated, repeated, and repeated the most important ideas we needed to follow after He was gone.

Done tells this thought-provoking anecdote.

“Because God is always on the move, then it follows that our faith will be too. The story is told of Augustine, the brilliant fourth-century theologian, who was once walking along the beach lost in thought. He was attempting to wrap his mind around a theological question. He then saw a boy scurrying back and forth, carrying a seashell of water, emptying it into a hole he had dug in the sand. Augustine asked what he was doing. The boy told him: he was transporting the entire sea into the hole. Augustine laughed. That’s impossible! But then he realized that’s what he had been trying to do with God.

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Just when we think we’ve got God figured out, pigeon-holed, He vanishes. The more of Him we let into our lives, the faster He soaks through the limits of our understanding. And that’s why faith isn’t about getting God to fit into our holes in the sand; it’s about running to Him. He calls us not to the shore, but the ocean.”

Done reminds us that we should know that “God does not like to be “boxed” in…In fact the last time someone tried it…He rose from that box three days later.” 

So until tomorrow…”Faith isn’t about containment…it is about possibility.” It is through our doubts, questions, tears, and anger that the relationship we seek with Our Friend emerges and only then do we realize it was so worth the journey.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*Jo Dufford sent me a note card (in which two small objects fell out) yesterday…both having to do with Sammy the Cardinal. I see him more and more each day as he appears to love coming to the bird feeder and pecking away underneath it.

Isn’t it amazing how a red cardinal and a red geranium have touched so many readers…So many of you have felt a connection to each as if they are a family member…and since we are all connected in the universe…that is exactly what we are. Thanks Jo…these days it is wonderful to get a card in the mail…it is becoming more and more a rarity.