Be Safe, Be Saved

 

Christmas 2020 Poem 

 

--Will remember, forever that Sunday

Sitting with friends in class,

The cell phone—that blast.

A text message reads:

Kobe Bryant deceased!

 

An ending of a life, and another…

And another…

 

In the morning mist, in the low-hanging clouds,

A helicopter spins and pivots

And the hill burns a divot.

The time clock resets,

The soft sway of the nets.

 

Center court—all nine off the bench,

To glory, more glory…

 

Psalm 84:10 “For better is one day in Your courts than a thousand elsewhere.”

 

February takes a leap; March lands unsteady.

A virus in China?

A concern? Kinda.

By the thirteenth of Friday

It’s no longer hearsay.

 

Stay home, wear a mask,

PPE and T.P.—Corona-19

 

Psalm 91:1-2 I will say to the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” Surely He will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you will find refuge, his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

 

Essential becomes a term, a status.

Sending out a stimulus check.

Tom Hanks and his wife? What the heck!

We become familiar with the daily briefings

And all the statistic increasings.

 

We can’t visit our mother

And she passes away…alone.

 

Isaiah 49:13b For the Lord comforts His people and will have compassion on the afflicted ones.

 

Psalm 23:4 “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil’ for Thou art with me…”

 

Tears and tiers; and what Dr. Fauci said…

Binge-watching Netflix

Zoom and Google meets mix.

Weddings cancelled, reunions too.

Ventilator shortages and beds in ICUs.

 

And two sides make their case

As a knee presses into a neck.

 

Psalm 34:18 “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

 

Olympics on hold, Orlando NBA bubble.

Let’s root for the home team

Because here is where we dream.

We worship from our sofa

With our coffee or our cola.

 

Missing the hugs and connections;

Collateral damage amongst us all.

 

Hebrews 10:25 Not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.

 

And I am not sure what I should do

But I know I must protect

Not let this affect

What God has ordained

For a world bent and stained.

 

Government mandate, a journey very far.

A tent or a cave…we’ll accept.

Matthew 1:23-24 “the virgin will conceive and give birth to a Son, and they will call Him Immanuel, (which means “God with us”). When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife…

 

When Hope arrives will we even take notice?

The debate rages on

Nothing new under the sun.

But with the Son

All things infected become undone.

 

Christ still reigns; then and now.

He is my Good and healing Shepherd.

 

Deuteronomy 31:8 the Lord Himself goes before you; He will be with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid or discouraged.

 

Ashes rain down, smoke fills the skies

Red states, blue states

No conventions or debates

A virus still burns to the left and right

Do we know with God, we win this fight?

 

What, we can’t sing a praise?

Grab your lawn chairs.

 

Psalm 147:1 Praise the Lord! For it is good to sing praises to our God; for it is pleasant and a song of praise is fitting.

James 5:13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise.

 

2020: Muted or perfect vision?

Stay at home or Home Bound?

Feeling lost or new focus found?

Zoom gloom or

Creativity bloom?

 

“For I know the plans I have for you…”

Be Safe, Be Saved.

 

Romans 10: 9-10 “that if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.”

 

 

Journal Entries: My Imperfect Love

What if Mary and Joseph kept a journal? 

Journal Entries

My Imperfect Love

Lord, my young heart bows before You.

How can I be Your servant, be obedient?

I sometimes think of only myself.

Lord, this is not how I should love You?

I long to feel Your presence, be in the immediate.

Lord, I want Your Way. Teach me, show me how to love.

I am imperfect, incapable of loving You as I should.

My prayers seem like the noisy marketplace at times.

Yet, I feel my faith in You stirring me up to know You.

You can move mountains Lord, move my heart

towards Your perfect will; may I see the signs.

My imperfect love bows at the Face of Perfect Love.

I Corinthians 13:1-3  If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but I have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and If I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Lord, how can this be? I love her, my betrothed one.

She tells me of such a thing…of a betrayal, yet I must respect her, still honor her.

Love…this love and hope I feel, now…I don’t know Lord. I am so confused.

Father God, I know You are perfect. Your will for me must be perfect too.  Help me Father to do the right thing, to bear this heartbreak. I cannot refuse.

Love cannot be perfect unless I am obedient and dismiss my pride.

Help me to keep loving as You love us.

Oh God. I promise to still be her protector. Help me Lord believe in Your plan,

never my own schemes or what others intend or seek against You for harm.

Give me patience and strength as I prepare for a journey.

We are learning to love, yet help me Lord love more when I can.

I rejoice in life and hope and that You give dreams of revelation to the humble.

Amen

I Corinthians 13: 4-7 Love is patient and kind, love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love grows inside of me. I do not know why I am chosen.

I am imperfect, still a virgin, not knowing yet the life as a wife.

My betrothed, Joseph, he is most gentle and seeks Your will as well.

Thank you for this man who loves me so perfectly and chose to keep honoring me.

You, Father God,  will make a way for us, in this growing life.

I only know in part, yet this Messiah, this baby I am carrying knows in full.

Father, I am to raise up a son, not just any son, but the Holy and Perfect Son of God. This baby--Oh, I cannot begin to understand such mysteries, God with us.

This Perfect Child is to come and be our Savior! One day, I will know fully Your Perfect Love and plan as I have read in the Holy Scriptures. But for now, help me take what I know in part and be all I can be for Mary and this child. I have faith plus,

You have restored my hope and love abides near, in a womb, in our hearts. Thy will be done. 

She bounces gently on the donkey as we make our way on this long journey. It's time for the census. Great is Your love Lord, for Mary, more than I could ever give to her. Greater still,

Your love for us, to send this perfect child in this Holy Way.

I will keep stepping in faith and wait on Your Light as You guide us to Glory.

Here we lay waiting Lord, and Joy is my fill.

His name shall be Jesus, Hallelujah and Amen.

Lord, I feel the pangs of birth. I am Your child, and...You, The Messiah comes to free me, 

to Love Perfectly Your Creation. You have given me favor in my young age

when I only wanted to serve You in my imperfect ways. I have been called Blessed One. Joseph and I remain hopeful in all this secrecy and divine appearances and protection. You are fulfilling the prophetic Word;

in and through us we wage

our love, though flawed. Your perfection will lead us in Faith and Hope.

I look upon Your perfect face, and forever I will love You.

Perfect Love. We believe. Your plan is good

You are the Only Way, the Perfect Love for all mankind.

You are my son, but You are my King.

Help us now Lord to worship You and raise You as we should.

I hold You, I behold You, my son, My Lord, Amen.

I Corinthians 13:13 “So now faith, hope and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

John 19: 26-27 “Woman, behold your son, Son, behold your mother.”

John 3:16  “For God so loved the World that He gave of His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him, will not perish but have everlasting life.”

John 1:14 “ And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only Begotten of the Father, full of Grace and Truth.”

 Considerably yours, Coleene 

Christmas 2019

But God: An Intentional Love Story.

I stepped into the hospital chapel, alone. 

But God? A burden pushed from every side. It weighed so heavily within my spirit, yet my body barely functioned in its numb state. A thousand pounds might fall into my lap and I wouldn't have felt it. Only one exception, my lungs ached trying to breathe.

What language did I speak? 

I couldn't put words together in my mind, yet...I knew God interpreted my confusion, my desperate pleas, the anguish in every teardrop. My head hung in a sacred place where many had come before me in this same state, some knowing hope, some...maybe not. There remained nothing I could do, and everything I could do as I inhaled in pain and exhaled in promise.

I learn of my son, Tim's death.  He was so tired. 

Tears of surrender and anguish moved with the fluid prayers, both conscious and underlying. Time. Stop. Rewind, so I won't forget anything. Outside, his father and others paced, did their own petitioning. He heard the words first. I did not. My husband's eyes conveyed a sudden truth no one wanted to recognize.

Let this tsunami pull back, disintegrate, evaporate as if nothing broke the dam of reality. 

In that moment, no utterances surfaced, held under by the pieces of many shattered hearts. God, in all His glorious love and grace, never felt so real and so worthy of all my worship until that very moment.


Full Sail

Twelve years have passed and I am different. Different from that very second and transformed over time. All these collective moments both anchor me and set me free. Learning to find peace in both places,  the Lord God sets the course and I must trust Him.

Like the tides, faithful and true, covering up and pulling back to reveal treasures, the tide pools of tears and memory shells provide discovery and a deeper devotion...in both the wading...(the waiting) and the deep, my story.

I want to, I need to, I must voyage through Your perfect Will, Lord. 

You, Lord, in Your great love for me, For Timmy, are so intentional. As I write these thoughts, pour out my praise and prayers, I press in, buckle tight the grace gift life vest. It wraps around me in perfection and comfort and I see the generous deck hands You have provided to sail along with me. They, as well, are intentional, devoted, my own miracles.

I might have stayed under the heavy tarp of despair and grief..., the grommets of regret and isolation held fast to the what ifs, the should haves, BUT GOD...

I allowed, directed my self to feel His Spirit as all the deck hands prayed, continue to pray and honor our Creator and Giver of life. I billowed up, caught by the Wind and I began to sail through the waters only You charted for me, a personal, intentional course.

I dock in beautiful Ports of Calling and walk along shores where grace ripples so gently and so amazingly. Hope unpacks the grief and restores this vessel for myself, for others.  A certain horizon awaits me, the full sail Glory of the Lord in my own return Home but until then, I will speak of, serve and worship The Lord of Promise whose Love is intentional for every one of us.

Psalm 27: 13-14 
I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.Wait for the Lord; be strong and let your heart take courage; yes, wait on the Lord. 


Let go, Let God
He is Lord
Grace is Amazing
Heaven is Real

Considerably Yours,
Coleene

A Light of Surpassing Greatness

Not uncommon for me to see, hear, feel supernatural encouragement from the Holy Spirit, I believe with all my heart in the scripture that says, "If you seek Me, you will find Me when you search for Me with all your heart." (Jeremiah 29:13).  With eyes wide open, this summer I delve into the memory, the words, the sights and sounds of my story and God is along for every sentence. Writing a memoir of the grief and healing I've experienced in God's amazing grace, He continues to reveal His unrelenting Holy Spirit of comfort and affirm all He is guiding me to be as a minister in the faith. 

 About 15,000 words in, I've reached THE "chapter"--pathway where the trees breathe promise, where my mourning dawns anew, a chapter about butterfly angels on a mercy mission. 

~View to Heaven~

I am just finishing the chapter when the hard-working man comes home, ready to set himself up to view another world on a not so flat screen and sit for the evening in a worn, so worn and tired love seat. 

The blinds need adjusting; a filter to move the rays where they need to be, so we can see. He makes that move, ready to settle in. 

Are we blind to what needs to be seen? 

...And I am finishing up the chapter in the lowered light of the summer day, on the dining room table where the bread is served, where the cup is filled. 

I'm back there, back to those days of the unrelenting heaves of grief. I'm back to the worn tennis shoes, the overplayed music and the dark park with its illuminated spider webs and shadowy trees in the pre-sun, star fading mourning of mornings. 

The words finish up and I know this miracle once again, so wanting to capture the Truth of His Love, the end story that never ends. My heart is full and it feels glorious. 

The living room is quiet as the hard-working man showers off the day's labor and I stretch up to saunter into life in the evening with him. Looking up, I see into the living space, the light filtering in a perspective unseen before. 

I call out to the hard-working man, "come take a look at what is happening...hurry, before it changes."

The light is streaming in and hitting the wall across the room, the wall where a shelf holds the earthen vessel of ashes of our first born, the shelf that holds the sanctuary of his life. 

The light dances, filtered through the jasmine vines outside and the blinds. 

But I am not blind, for I see the trees, I see the butterflies, the sunflowers, the hummingbirds...

I see and know the Cross, where we can see the Light and Eternity coming together to make Perfect Sense. 

I've seen the dead, and I've seen lives arise from the dead and live with a new found purpose. 

I watch as the light shifts and paints on the canvas of my shelf-holding wall of love and I grab my cell phone. 

I capture the lit up heart, a heart-light. 

and wings of angels...


II Corinthians 3:6-7 the Apostle Paul tells us, "For God, who said, 'Light shall shine out of darkness,' is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves."

I am moved to tears of gratitude, of worship in that very moment. 

The hard-working man comes down the stairs one painful step at a time and he sees my excitement over...light and shadows and walls,  ...and says, "cool!"

The light, still moving, turns the corner and pierces the space where my thoughts come to rest , where my head bows frequently. It spills onto the chair I sit and read His Word, basking in His inspiration and promises throughout my day, where hearts in friendship bonded for eternity. 

 The light brings Love, an affirmation, for the Holy Spirit whispers to me that God is the Light of this moment, and He is the light for all moments. 

What do we see in His light?  A revelation of His eternal love for us, as unworthy as we are, He came to be our Light and remove all of our darkness. 

Amen. 

I saw the Light, I accepted it into my own darkness and I know the Light is Good. 

II Corinthians 4:18 ...While we look not at things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. 

The sun set, yet the Light in my soul, in my son's soul shines for eternity, of that I am sure without any shifting shadow of doubt. 

The hard-working man calls me the next day and wants to talk about the light,  --and the wall and the shelf, as he is thinking about it in his hard-working days upon days.  

God stirs up a heart to want more of Him and again I am warmed by a new sunrise. 

My memoir continues...and I am in awe of His goodness to me, overwhelmed by the Light. 

Psalm 27:1 The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? 

John 8:12  Again therefore Jesus spoke to them, saying, "I am the light of the world; he who follows Me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life." 

Amen.