Listening for Whispers

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter and Happy Spring my friends. I hope this post is finding you all healthy, happy and peaceful. The sun has been out after what might be our final winter storm of 12" of snow or more only a week ago. The birds are chirping loudly as if snow never landed.

I was "playing" with my gramophone horns and fresh cut tulips the other day when the sun came out, so out came my camera.

It wasn't until I downloaded these images did I realize how the starkness the three lone flowers, lined up just so, reminded me of how the our Easter story began...

...how so long ago, because we are so loved, that between two criminals, an innocent one was accused, suffered and died...for us.

Many saw this man as "gone" but those who believed back then waited, then saw.  But those who believe now, we only need to wait and listen....

...and hear the Good News. Because as our Savior said in the moment His life was taken so ours could be saved, Jesus said, "It is finished." (John 19:30) Finished? We are now finished with trying in vain to save ourselves with good works, good deeds, false idols or sacrifices. Only Jesus can save us, and so He did.

And in faith we wait and listen.

In hope we move forward.

In love and worship we continue even when we don't understand.

God can sometimes be like a gramophone horn... if you barely whisper through the small end, you'd be amazed at what you'd hear. While the horn is big, bold, and beautifully imposing...the smallest whisper can be heard - we just need to be aware of our position so we can hear His whispers.

And it takes faith to know that He WILL call out to us. We only have to want to be in position to hear Him.

May your Easter be a day of listening for whispers.

from my house to your house,

Elizabeth

Big Girl Playpen

Big Girl Playpen

Ever see a content toddler in a sandbox? Or a little one banging pots and pans completely happy with nothing but a wooden spoon? Well, I don't think we ever really grow out of those moments. We just either overlook them, or we are convinced our "toys" just get bigger, more costly, and just don't keep us occupied enough to justify the time and energy to engage them.

I am getting my camera back in hand, and I am discovering "toys" all around me, which is nice, as I really need to sit a lot on the sofa, with my knee still secure in a brace for hours at a time. So, I find my "playpen" to be wherever I happen to be, and in this case, it was on the sofa of my good friend's home, Debbie Dusenberry. One early evening, she had fabulous light coming in near her fireplace, and I found all sorts of "toys" to play with within arm's reach, and out came my camera...

I shot these photos in an "old world" style, as I am craving old England lately. My barber husband and I have been online watching some fabulous documentaries and I realize how I so miss certain design elements of the old world that I experienced while living in Europe. And this chair, the plaster, and the sun coming in as it did, gave me a moment of playtime and some daydreaming as though I were living in another era for a moment.

I think sometimes, we forget that the simplest objects around us are made beautiful by the simplest of all things: sunlight.

Sometimes, I wonder if dawn and dusk are mother nature's Botox...

...because no other light could make a simple oil can seem regal. 

I think old objects get even better with age. I am not one to want the new and the shiny. I think because I like a good story and the new just haven't been around long enough to collect one. I hope you enjoyed my little playtime with my "toys." I took several more photos that I may share with you later. It is very late, and I realize that I am still "playing." 

My mother used to tell me often that I was a "night owl baby." She said I would wake up about midnight and yell from my crib, "Hey! Hey! I want to play!" And my dad said I would keep yelling this until one of them would pick me up and carry me downstairs to a special playpen that they set up just for me for my night owl outings. Mom said they could hear me banging, and laughing and gurgling all night long, all content. Then about 5AM, she said, my banging of toys would get slower and slower, as I finally nodded off, just in time for them to wake up and come down and get me to take me back upstairs to my crib again. She did everything she could, she said, to get me to sleep. I would be up again about 8AM, playing all day long. I have been this way my entire life...a true night owl...playing long into the night.

Except I don't bang around so loud now...more like tapping on my keys of the computer. But in my head, I do feel like yelling sometimes late at night, "Hey! Hey! I want to play!" But my barber husband isn't a night owl...heck he is barely a dusk owl! So, like my toddler days...I play contently alone late at night and I am happy. It is quiet (but no Botox sunlight to play with!) and peaceful.

Here is to your playtime - day or night. No big toys needed...just a little playpen and some time to look around a bit...and then go have a ball...or two, or three...or...

from my house to your house,

Elizabeth