All those broken trees, maimed or outright killed beneath that weight of beautiful novelty spring snow (just two weeks back)… they remind me of The Ice Storm — monstrous, momentous event that pivoted my life-thinking right-way-’round. Biggest ice storm I ever encountered. Or drove — madness on two-inch-thick slush-freeze.

A hundred feet down the road from my driveway, tense, I called myself crazy, started looking for a turn-around place.

…But God had said go, it had certainly seemed. And the previous night’s tires through rain-and-snow glop had left a ragged fast-frozen groove from which I now could not easily escape.

So on I drove. And prayed… first for a turn-around, somehow, and safe return home. Then, at last, with realization, and a sigh:

“Well, Lord, if you want me there, You’ll get me there…”

And I continued on…

And suddenly it got easy: On without incident, slip, slide, or crash, through an Ice World dream, a crystal whitened Dali painting kind of world, coated everywhere:  lawns, driveways, trees, signs, houses, and parked cars — anything bendable bowed down, doubled-over humble, contorted, looking melted inside a hard cold crust.

Roadside trees joined hands overhead, forming great iced-branch tunnels, and I traveled through.

Ice all around mirrored sunlight’s glare, dazzling my eyes till they watered and blurred…

And every now and then I could hear it: A “Cr-ack!” Another branch breaking beneath its burden. And in the light my thoughts turned dark, as they’d been running of late.

Bitter near-despair had been weighing on my heart, and seemingly on my whole body. I felt grotesquely bent like those trees imprisoned in frozen wash, distorted and breaking and maybe marred forever.

“This whole rolling scene, it’s like my life,” I murmured within myself, “All sparkly-shiny on the outside, but bent and broken and crippled inside.” So ran my thoughts as I pulled into the unplowed parking lot, and my tires crunched through the snow’s ice crust, making me wonder if I’d get out later.

I parked. I sat. All alone in an empty lot. Was the door up there, at the top of those slippery steps even unlocked?

“You wanted me to come here, Lord?”

Oh, well. I’d give it a try. And so I emerged from my shell, slip-slid my way up to the entrance, and… yes. It opened. I went in and sat.

And sat.

And in the silence I perceived the Presence that is everywhere, unseen. And the sense that yes, I was meant to be here this day, even if no one else showed up, if only for this peace, which I so badly needed.

Soon one or two trickled in, then another few. Of what we shared I remember little. But what I do remember changed my world.

“I love the snow!” the woman declared — the woman who’d managed to slip-slide-walk from up the highway, the woman from whom tragic death had recently stolen a son. She paused. Her eyes were glowing. “I know that trees are getting damaged. But, oh, it is so beautiful!”

She paused again, then added, “We all have ice storms in our lives. It’s just interesting to see what different people do with theirs.”

My own thoughts, turned topsy-turvy! Like they needed to be.

That I remember full well. That, and what one other said later: “Few came today, but those who did, came because they needed to. And they received what they needed.” And how could that one know?

Driving home later (yes, I got out of the parking lot), I gazed again on a still hard, still dazzling ice world, and thought again, “It’s like my life,” but in a different way: Now even the bending and breaking held beauty, and I drank in all the weird wonder. Now I noticed. Light play shimmered and sparkled off every contour it glided over, fragmenting light into an aurora borealis of delicate colors.  Even those contorted branches whose shape I’d judged grotesque, took on a form of grace, like a ballet of nature frozen in time. Fantasy beauty like I’d never seen — and never have seen since.

That was many years ago. My own ice storm then had a name, once I’d identified it: alcoholic marriage. Other storms since, come and gone, had different names. But each brought echoes of that woman’s words, and glimpses of beauty I’d never otherwise have seen. And each brought me ultimately closer to the One Who made all the beauty.

May you find beauty, peace, and joy in all your varied ice storms.

*****

Thanking God, with Ann at A Holy Experience, truly, if unbelievably, for the ice storms in my life:

~For the alcoholic marriage that brought this unbelieving by-your-bootstraps do-it-yourselfer to her knees, to her needed point of helplessness, and made her finally put her trust in Him instead of self.

~For the shattering of that marriage, and the standing bereft and holding the bag, empty of things needful for feeding and clothing and sheltering a child — furthering that dependence on God, and giving me opportunity to see many wonders of Providence.

~ For the joy of knowing the alcoholic came to saving faith in Christ before he died.

~ For the astonishing privilege of being the one to lead Him to it.

~ For the trials of step-family living, in a hodge-podge lodge of wounded souls all, and seeing God’s hand in every life.

~ For the pain of the prodigal’s parent, sharing the pain of our Father, as expressed in Isaiah 1.

~ For the pain a parent undergoes, watching another grown son’s divorce pull him down in its undertow — in some ways more pang-filled than what I experienced in my own.

~For watching, in admiration, difficult integrity lived out, and a life in Christ grown by leaps and bounds.

~ For the deeper bonding of those late-night talks when all was dark.

~ For disappointment in the family of God

~ For the end of ministries and “friendships” in a church that shockingly proved abusive, reminding me that it’s God Who’s my source, not man, nor groups of humans, even those who call themselves “church.”

~ For more past “ice storms” not mentioned here.

~ For present ”ice storms,” even now in Merry May.

~ For “ice storms” to come, should there still be more, before His coming. For all those trials are training grounds for patience and God-dependence and joy, Just like James 1 says.

~ That I’ve never met a figurative ice storm whose good and beauty I couldn’t see eventually.

*****

Linked to

Tell Me A Story

Some bent, some broken. Those trees and bushes last week.

But, behold!

Before:

After:

Yes, we propped up a few, and yes, three were broken in places, and one broke off completely, but these supple trees recovered, rose up again to stand strong and tall and speak silently of the power of God to raise up the bent down, to heal the battered, to refresh and renew what looks ruined and ended.

Of course there’s a lesson in this, not to go bitter and brittle and hard and resistant (Pro 29:1), but to lean on the Lord, and cast our burdens on Him, to humble ourselves under His mighty hand, and trust in the sure promise that He will raise us up in (His) due time (1 Pt 5:6-7) . 

Yet the resilience comes from Him, a gift from the Giver of all good things, the reliance must be on Him, the Reliable One, and the lifting up is done by the Lifter-up.

Praising Him for these REASONS today:

(as I count toward 10,000 reasons)

164 – Because a bruised reed He will not break (Isa 42:3; Mat 12:20)

165 – Because a smoldering flax He will not extinguish (Isa 42:3; Mat 12:20)

166 – Because He heals broken-heartedness (Isaiah 61:1)

167 – Because He sets captives free (Isaiah 61:1)

168 – Because He opens all kinds of prisons to loose those who are bound (Isaiah 61:1)

169 – Because He comforts those who mourn (Isaiah 61:3)

170 – Because He gives beauty for ashes (Isaiah 61:3)

171 – Because He gives the oil of joy for mourning (Isaiah 61:3)

172 – Because He gives an enfolding of praise for the spirit of heaviness (Isaiah 61:3)

173 – Because He works in all these things to make trees of righteousness, a planting of His own, that He may be glorified (Isaiah 61:3)

174 – Because He promises the repair and rebuilding of old ruins, the raising up of desolations, the reviving of the desolations of many generations (Isaiah 61:4)

175 – Because He replaces shame with double honor (Isaiah 61:7)

176 – Because He replaces confusion with rejoicing in one’s portion (Isaiah 61:7)

177 – Because He bestows everlasting joy to His people (Isaiah 61:7)

178 – Because He loves justice, and hates robbery used for “sacrificial” offerings (Isaiah 61:8)

179 –  Because He will direct His people’s work in truth (Isaiah 61:8)

180 – Because He makes a covenant that’s everlasting (Isaiah 61:8)

181 – Because He clothes with salvation (Isaiah 61:10)

182 – Because He covers with a robe of righteousness (Isaiah 61:10)

183 – Because as the earth brings forth its bud, and as the garden causes the things sown in it to spring up, so He will cause righteousness to spring forth before all the nations (Isaiah 61:11)

(Allelujah! Amen! Maranatha!)

*****

Linked to

Spiritual Sundays

Premature spring after a winter “that never was”…

Overeager blossoms… Early leaves… Summer pushing at the starting gate for early take-off, too…

Then came Winter, late to the party, sweeping in with a vengeance.

Same setting, not many days later:

As snow in summer… so honor is not fitting for a fool (Pro 26:1)

A stone is heavy, and sand is weighty, but a fool’s provocation is heavier than both (Prov 27:3, ESV).

We played the fool. Eve, then Adam, then all the rest of us…

And the weight of our foolishness does much damage:

But there is always hope. He spoke of it from the pulpit today:

A good hope, not a false one, but absolute (2 Th 2:16)

A sure hope, anchor for the soul, even when all else goes wrong (Heb 6:18-19)

A living hope — because a living Savior is our hope (1 Pt 1:3)

A purifying hope (1 Jn 3:3)

A comforting hope (1 Th 4:13, 18)

And a saving hope, that will deliver it all from the burdens of the curse — not only us, but all this bent and broken creation (Rom 8:21).

Yes,

 The whole creation groans with birth pangs until now… (Rom 8:22)

(but…)

…the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For… the creation eagerly awaits for the revealing of the sons of God (Rom 8:18-19).

 Therefore comfort one another with these words (1 Th 4:18).

Linked to

Writing for Five Minute Friday on the prompt “Community”:

The other day I read it: another blogger telling of a certain dark part of her life in which she “hid” herself “away.” And I said it to Husband: “Maybe I’m hiding.” And he smiled: slow, knowing smile, just looked at me with that smile, and that was the clearest reply. Drawing tears.

Yes, hiding. From community.

Ever since that night. When we stood before that group we’d called our community and (supposedly) had the nerve (no nerve for me, only jangled “nerves”) to “make a motion that the congregation recommend to the board that they rescind” a decision. A decision unethical, unbiblical, violating their own by-laws, unjust, and cruel.

And the place turned into a bad dream like swirling fog, recalling “Vanity Fair” in Pilgrim’s Progress. And a group who ordinarily sat silent and asked no questions before voting unanimous yes to every board decision… now was erupting in bizarre behavior and noisy chaos.

Nothing from that point on happened by Roberts’ procedures, except what we tried to do… And no one in leadership called for order…

No one had ever told us the secret rule. It wasn’t written down anywhere: You don’t. do. that. here.

But I knew. Somehow I’d known beforehand. That’s why I had trembled all day. Called friends, enlisted prayer. Couldn’t eat. Prayed, “Lord, I can’t do this!” repeatedly. “Lord, I don’t want to do this.” “Please take this cup…”

Now here I stood, thinking of Luther saying, “Here I stand.” And silently praying forgiveness for these people I’d thought so well of, and who were now thinking and speaking so horribly of us, for “Lord, they don’t know what they’re doing.”

We had breathed on a house of cards. We had peeled back a strip of pretty latex paint and exposed a bit of leprous wall (Lev 14:34-41) — just a little part of it — and panic now seized a community who clung to an illusion of near perfection.

I pause.

My hands are shaking. My heart’s been pounding. And now the tears are threatening. My timer says I have more time, yet I feel frozen in it.

There is more to write… So much more to write…

That night, he bent sideways toward me, murmured just loud enough that I could hear above the cacophony, “I want to leave before this is over.” And I nodded, grim. Definitely. My bones felt chilled. I wouldn’t imagine the crowd in the narthex after meeting dismissal.

We slipped out of our seats while a previous item’s vote count was being awaited (unanimous, I was guessing…) And having gotten stuck with a pew near the front — last place we’d wanted, but all seats behind filled or spoken for when we’d arrived— we now filed to the back to where the escape exit was, back, back, past pew after pew, sea of strange-familiar faces, flushed red with anger, or wet with tears, or deflated and limp, or twisted with the tension of dealing with this phenomenon of someone actually questioning, of even supposing leadership could ever sin or even err.

“Don’t we trust our pastor? Don’t we trust our deacons?” she had sprung up and exclaimed, loud. It echoed in my head.

And later, only later, I read it, this sign of a groupthink group: “If you bring up a problem, you become the problem…”

And so the following Tuesday, when I knew said pastor would be elsewhere, I slipped back into that quaint country church, endured the pretend-it-never-happened small-talk with the secretary whose office I had to pass, and went to that room where we’d gathered around that table, women on Sunday mornings, class shrunk twice because of social upheavals that no one, including myself, had questioned as the odd things they were… and stripped it bare of all my things, of the hearts on the corkboard, of the little feminine décor items that said, “We’re a female community…”

Welcome no longer. Husband also, welcome no longer, but he’d already cleared his room…

and I put the envelope on the pastor’s desk.

And climbed the steps and left the building, and the door swung shut behind me. On community.

…

And yet…

I think I’m going.

To a ladies’ luncheon in a church so different and yet far too similar…

And to Allume in October.

And linking. To the communities below.

…

We all long for

safe community.

The safety lies in Christ.

…

Okay, I really cheated this time.

Time spent writing: I have no idea. I got frozen amid the 5 minutes, and stalled at later points, and, timer no longer ticking further on, I just kept writing.

Time spent on finding links and photos: several minutes

Time deciding whether to publish: Over an hour. No, make that two.

Time to publish: I asked husband.

Overdue, he said.

I have blogged for years now, and never broke that rule of silence. (Why?!) There is more to write. Much more. About a long-repeating pattern of church abuse, hidden… a disconnect from scripture, from Christ Himself, true head of the church — and a few seemingly insignificant weak spots that make many now-decent churches vulnerable to becoming abusive, even cultic, more than they would ever guess…

Here and there, in weeks to come, now and then, bit by bit, by God’s help, I hope to share what I’ve experienced and learned, what I know I need to share, what others need to know. Thank you for grace. And prayers?

Linked to

So dry grow the grass and the woodlands, the soil and the air, without His blessing from heaven, it gets scary. Then, at last, comes the blessing:

How I thank Him this week…

~for wet grass…

~and puddles with drops making circles..

~and moisture washing off birch catkin pollen.

~for novelty of April snow.

~for replenishing the water table, the springs in this wilderness, the wells of earthly water…

…..

So dry my life, my mind and heart and soul once grew, living apart from Him, that this got even scarier.

So, savoring the many REASONS of Psalm 103, REASONS TO PRAISE HIM (below), my heart wells up to thank Him also…

~For overwhelming mountains of benefits He’s showered on my life, my heart, my soul:

~for forgiving me all my iniquities (so many) (Ps 103:3)

~for redeeming my life from destruction (and oh, it came so close!) (Ps 103:4)

~for pouring out on me His tender mercies and lovingkindness (Hebrew checed = boundless, merciful, steadfast, deep, strong love — for which we have no adequate English word) (Ps 103:4) I deserved none of this.

~for healing so many body afflictions:

~the sickness that nearly took my life as a small child,

~the Lyme disease of years ago that never recurred

~the herniated disc so bad I could only drag my leg and thought I’d never run or jump again (I can both run and jump for joy!)

~for allergies that once ran me down all year and set me up for every cold or flu that came along and plagued my winters with sickness —  now so lessened that this winter just past brought no flus or even colds, beyond a momentary sniffle

~and someday, all my diseases will be healed, completely, forever!

~For satisfying my mouth with good things, renewing my youth like the eagle’s, with well-being better now than ten or fifteen years past.

~For His promise to bring about righteous judgment and justice for me (in His time) (Ps 103:6)

~For making His ways known to little me

~For showing me actual miracles

~as well as providential happenings, so frequent, so timely, so beyond Probability’s laws, I like to call them miracles, too.

(But there’s too much to tell about all this in just one post,

So, more another time…)

…..

Counting more…

REASONS (IN GOD HIMSELF) TO PRAISE AND WORSHIP HIM

137 –He is a God of many benefits (Ps 103:2)  

138 – He is willing to forgive all one’s iniquities (Ps 103:3)

139 – He redeems lives from destruction (Ps 103:4)

140 – He crowns people with lovingkindness (Ps 103:4)

141 – He crowns people with tender mercies (Ps 103:4)

142 – He satisfies people’s mouths with good things, so that their youth is renewed like the eagle’s (Ps 103:5).

143- He brings about righteous judgment and justice for all who are oppressed (in His time) (Ps 103:6)

144 – He condescended to make known His ways to little man (to Moses) (Ps 103:7)

145 – He made known His miraculous acts to His people in history (Israel) (Ps 103:7)

146 – He is merciful (Ps 103:8)

147 – He is gracious (Ps 103:8)

148 – He is slow to anger (Ps 103:8)

149 – He is plenteous in mercy (Ps 103:8).

150 – He will not always strive with us (Ps 103:9),

151 – He does not hold onto His anger forever (Ps 103:9)

152 – He doesn’t deal with His children according to what their sins deserve (Ps 103:10)

153 – He doesn’t punish them according to their iniquities (Ps 103:10).

154 – As the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him (Psa 103:11)

155 – As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us (Ps 103:12)

156 – As a compassionate father pities his children, so He pities (has compassion on) those who fear Him (Ps 103:13)        

157 – He knows our frame, how we are made (Psa 103:14)

158 – He remembers that we are dust (Ps 103:14)

159 – He is so much greater, in His everlasting might and immortality, by comparison our days are but like grass gone in a wind’s breath (Psa 103:15-16)        

160 – But His mercy is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him (Psa 103:17)        

161 – His righteousness extends to children’s children, to such as keep His covenant, who remember and do His commandments (Psa 103:17-18)

162 – He has established His throne in heaven (Psa 103:19)

163 – His kingdom rules over all (Psa 103:19)

*****

Linked to

Multitudes on Monday

 10,000 Reasons