There are those words I don’t like all lined up in a row: discourage, make them afraid, work against them, and frustrate their plans. This is an old story, a common approach. We set out to do something God has commanded us to do – build something to honor the Lord – and there they are – the enemies showing up pretending they are there to help, but instead, the results are anything but.

I am in the book of Ezra. Of course, with my usual diversions, this is not this year's reading through the bible – it is last year's! I took a little left turn and jumped forward to the New Testament around August and now I am catching up where I left off in 2023. And here they are waiting for me, the descendants of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. True to God’s prophecy to Jeremiah 70 years have come and gone in captivity to the Babylonians, yet arms filled with silver and gold and the returned looted treasures from the burned Temple – and very importantly, the blessings and authority of the new king of Babylon, the remnant has returned to their beloved Jerusalem to rebuild the altar to their One True God and they have laid the foundations for a new Temple. Whew! That was a long sentence! And a long journey.

Praying without ceasing. Some days this is where we live. When the hurts are too deep. The prognosis too grim. The future too unknown. The path too dark. I don’t know how you walk through it without faith in a sovereign God. A God who rescues when all seems lost. A God who is proven and true and faithful when our faith is running thin.

I grew up in a home running on faith. It was always humming below the surface, in the background, holding everything together. I don’t know what it is to be in a place where God is not. I imagine it would be horribly lonely.

There’s his mark. The little blue ink line on the front of my blue leather journal. Only an inch long, I know it is his.

He is fascinated these days with the marks an ink pen can make. It’s not that we give them to him. Lord, no. But we leave them scattered around the house like breadcrumbs to find our way back. I am sure he thinks they are there for his good pleasure.

On my refrigerator, there are drawings of cars climbing a mountain and motorcycles signed with a backward 'B'. But this morning as I pick up my journal to write about Peter, I am greeted with the boy's little line in ink. It is a reminder; "I am four years old and curious. I know I shouldn't, but I will. Just a little bit."

“Open your eyes. Look.” These were the simple but very direct instructions I heard before I had a chance to even begin my morning prayers. “Look.”

Anticipating three days at the front row beach house of my friend, we had been watching the weather reports of storms covering the south, deep and wide. Morning greeted us with dark gray clouds hanging low, the roar of crashing waves instead of the gentle roll of calm turquoise waters. Wind blowing. Rain falling. We perched anyway on the balcony overlooking the wet dunes – eye-level with the storming sea beyond.

This is the problem; I spend as much time listening to the whispers of Satan in my ear as I do listening to the songs of God in my heart.

Oh, Satan is such a dastardly deceiver. He comes quietly, well-dressed, and softly insistent. He knows me so well. He knows how to insert himself in my dreams and in the still of the evening. Or he waits for me to be the first murmur I hear as I enter the day.

I am thinking a lot about the modern church these days. I kind of miss the very old-fashioned one I grew up in. Teaching seemed to be very black and white and direct – the bible was true, and Jesus died for our sins. There just really was no question about the truth of those things. Those were the facts, pure and simple. These days we slip and slide around on shifting sands.

These days popular pastors in their progressive churches have made a compromise too far. They cannot say the bible is true or without error or even sacred. They are not too sure about Jesus. After all, who is to say everyone isn’t right? And righteous? Just trust your emotions and look out for yourself. That should turn out well. Don’t be too concerned about the buildings on fire around you.

“Eve.” Mary Jane texted. “We haven’t taught on Eve.” No, we have not, I am thinking. Because that story did not seem to end well. Maybe I am missing something, I remind myself. It is time I read it through again.

I start with Genesis 3. Adam and Eve have absolutely everything they can ever want or need or desire. There is one teeny, tiny requirement for them to live rent-free in paradise. Do not eat the fruit of one tree. Only one rule. One requirement. One choice. Call it whatever you like; without that one opportunity to prove you were trustworthy, you would be nothing more than a robot or a puppet. One rule to not eat the poison fruit of the one tree gave you the chance to obey God – or not.

How many four-year-olds does it take to blow out a candle? To Mikah’s credit, she got the first one on her first attempt. But there were many more candles lined up along the table, with flames still burning.

It was the first time in many weeks since we had gathered. The last time was to celebrate love coming down in Immanuel; this time it was to celebrate love going around in memory of Saint Valentine. I probably need to look him up sometime.

Let me tell you a little story.

‘Susanne arrived with her heart heavy in her hands. There was only one thing that would ease the pain. She looked out the window in the back of the cabin and there it was - the lake, blue in the moonlight, waiting for her, calling her name.

She snapped the latches of her suitcase open – and then paused. Considering the circumstances, a bathing suit was completely unnecessary.

Feeling lighter than she had in ages, she pushed the door open and walked across the lawn. Reaching the crunch of the sand under her feet, she looked up into the stars in the vast sky over her head. She breathed in the night air. And dove deep into the water.’

Here in this beautiful passage, there is not one, but two reminders to fear Him, our God. Fear. We have painted that word and the emotion that goes with it in ugly colors. We have scratched it out with a black marker and decided to avoid it at all costs. Fear is bad, we think. We buy the tee-shirt that proclaims we are fearless because if we walk without fear every door opens before us and we enter in tall and strong.

But what if fear is sometimes a good thing? What if we see before us something big and wonderous and powerful that should make us take pause?

I think of a summer visit to the Grand Tetons. That was not my familiar world. Everywhere there were warnings about bears. In that land that was guarded by mountains and surrounded by vast prairies and deep woods, the bear roamed freely. Tourists who entered there with naïve expectations of a tame wild creature easily photographed or fed or petted would be in for a rude awakening. Bears were the kings of that kingdom, and they were not to be underestimated.

Michael is insistent. He will not be denied. His phone call comes in usually at the most inopportune time and I ignore it. I become as stubborn as he becomes determined.

“I am not answering,” I say out loud, resenting the ringing that finally is silenced as it goes to voicemail. “This is a free call from an inmate at Augusta State Medical Prison. This call will be recorded…” drones on as the mechanical voice clogs my mailbox. I delete the voice messages, but before the day is done, it will fill up again.

These phone calls are only three minutes, but they require my complete attention, so I chose the timing of when I accept them. Oddly, I talk to Michael more frequently than I do family or close friends.

The breath of heaven. I have tried this week to write about it. (This is my second attempt!) Because every day it has shown up to breathe new life in me. Each day, God's presence has come to surround me and fill me and all I have done is show up, with feet following His directions, hands open in expectation.

It started as I walked into December. Wearing a red silk dress, looking out into candlelight and beautiful faces looking up from round tables with fine china. I was invited to stand on a stage to tell the story of God’s Son appearing here in our dark world. My friend Hannah sang Gabriel’s Message to the accompaniment of cello and violin and the chills ran across my arms as I was filled with the Spirit’s unexplainable joy. Breath of Heaven.

I have had an image floating around in my brain for several years. It is flooded with blue water and light. There is a white dress floating in slow motion – say, 48 frames per second. A little girl, blonde hair streaming out is with a man dressed in black dress pants, barefoot. It is almost like a still frame, this moment suspended in time. I have looked for it on the worldwide internet and come up with nothing. I decided it was some strange memory of my own, seen from a distant vantage point. Because that little girl was me.

You may not have grown up in the Baptist Church. I did. Rock Hill Baptist was a small congregation by today’s standards – maybe even small for back then. The church, founded in the 1800s, was built on the land of my Great-grandfather, George Henry Cunningham in 1894. My grandparents also were members there and raised their children in the church. My mother did the same. Daddy was a deacon and treasurer of his Sunday School class. We were there every Sunday and every Wednesday night. It seemed that most of the congregation was related to us in one way or another. The people there were kind and loving and salt of the earth. It was a safe and secure childhood in my little world.

This Christmas is already different from all that came before. My heart has been captured by new thoughts and new friendships. God’s Word is a sharp sword clearing a deep and wide path through tangled woods, opening a clear path for my feet to walk, allowing the sunlight to pierce through what was a dark canopy over my head. Does this season look different for you?

After a long year of pestilence, God has picked me up, moved me over to a new place, and set me down. I look around in wonder. I am no longer walking alone. There are women in front of me, pointing the way. There are women beside me, who call my name in joy, who take my hand in theirs, who walk beside me. I am overwhelmed.

There must be something in us that longs for holy ground. A holy place where we can easily find our God. I think of the holy places I have visited over the past weeks. Places built by human hands and heartfelt desire to honor the holy, to touch the Spirit – which I know is God – and to feel His presence.

My journey into holy places started in Arkansas. I had changed our course westward to visit two glass chapels – both built in the quiet of the woods, both designed by the architect E. Fay Jones. The first one we visited is called Thorncrown and was built through God's grace a few miles above the mountain town of Eureka Springs. We were the last visitors of the day to peer up into the wooden rafters that reached to the heavens, leaving as the couple who had arranged to be married there arrived in a bright red pickup truck. The groom was happy to oblige with having their picture taken although his bride had not yet slipped into her dress.

God created them for watching. They stand alert, unmoving, waiting. Their eyes look straight into mine. Direct. Searching. Their ears, high and open, tilting, rotating toward the slightest sound. Their noses are dark and round, twice the size of their almond eyes, hiding their mouths underneath.

They are interrupting my sunrise watch, these deer who silently arrive each morning, quietly waiting to see if I am friend or foe. This morning there are fourteen of them; bucks with their awkward antlers, does who lag slightly behind, and the fawns who stay mostly hidden in the taller grasses.

Friday morning, I awoke in Tucson. In the 1970s themed hotel where we were staying, I had played Linda Ronstadt's album Hasten Down the Wind on the record player and sang along to,

“By the rivers of Babylon

Where we sat down

And there we wept

When we remembered Zion

For the wicked carry us away

Captivity require from us a song

How can we sing King Alpha's song in a strange land?

So let the words of our mouth

And the meditations of our hearts

Be acceptable in thy sight

Over I”

Or at least that is the way I remembered the lyrics…