A glimpse of Hinds' Feet on High Places

My bones hurt.  I consider it a blessed anxiety, actually.  The pain puts me on edge, but it’s a trembling built upon rightful things.  The gamut of emotions kicked in on Sunday when my husband and I decided to discontinue a particular music role with church.  While I feel quite certain it’s the right thing to do, the decision to depart was arduous and sentimental.  On Monday, we felt accomplished in another way to finally enroll at a nearby gym, but the first day’s leg lunges put my thighs in knots.  At first I thought the excruciating pain made me sad, but later I realized more accurately the pain made me mad because I’d finally been gung-ho with the gym idea, and in one day’s time I was nearly paralyzed in pain.  On Tuesday, a new music rehearsal brought some internal fidgeting, testing my composure to wait and observe when ordinarily I would’ve already dived in.  On Wednesday, I determined that a portion of my strain was due to an added role associated with prayer near a local abortion center, yet a deep breath and a skyward glance did refresh me for the task.  As each event fell into the week, I prayed.  My physical pain intensified, as also heaping into the mix was the immense joy of seeing a friend translate a first chapter of my bus book into Spanish.  And that idea of translation, coupled with a wonderful event associated with this blog, opened some new and exciting doors of conversation with family and friends.  Joy wanted to explode through my bones, yet my body ached to know how that could happen.  I awoke yesterday to the thought of Hinds’ Feet on High Places.  It’s a story based on Habakkuk 3, illustrating how the Lord takes us across the thresholds of fear and anxiety and frees us to climb the slopes toward an almost intoxicatingly joyful view of life.  It’s like Malachi 3, where the Lord throws open the floodgates of heaven to pour blessing so huge that we can't contain it.  Indeed my frail frame this week has felt the weight of merely a glimpse of that enormous blessing He offers through His son Jesus Christ.

A plea from within HEB

Money was tight.  Chemo and radiation had cost thousands upon thousands already.  She’d endured all shapes and sizes of medical procedures.  Now that she was somewhat recuperated, my friend had been applying for jobs, but to no avail.  This particular day called for a trip to the local HEB grocery store.  Whether contemplating chicken or hamburger, or choosing between sliced bread and tortillas, my friend debated the purchase of each item.  Pressure mounted, as she knew her shopping list usually tallied $200, though her purse held $40 less this time.  It was the culmination of all kinds of anxiety.  Finally she pleaded, “Lord, You know how much money I have.  I’ll grab what I think I need, and if it’s too much at the cash register, I’ll just return some.”  So she pushed her basket up and down the aisles, pulling from the shelves what she thought best and looking for the Lord’s peace in the process.  The cashier’s conveyor belt fed each item toward the scanner.  Total = $160 exactly!  I can still see the thrill in her eyes from when she retold the story last weekend.  In her weariness, she had called upon the Lord.  He’d been with her through all the physical agony, and He was with her still now.  For this child whom He loves dearly, and for her husband, her daughters, and her mom, His light shined brightly. 

La Taza

Our last hope had been the coffeehouse on McCullough, and now it’s closed.  We had the proverbial Y in the road—musically, that is.  I wanted to veer right, my husband wanted to go left, and the McCullough coffeehouse had been our single remaining common ground, ever since the guy at the guitar shop mentioned it.  And now that it’s closed, what to do?  Proverbs 3 says to lean not on my own understanding.  Though I had specifically prayed this last year, I didn’t fret now about the why of it all, nor did I feel hurried to fill a void.  Interestingly last Saturday, a new thought came to mind.  What about La Taza?  A friend mentioned their coffee, and in turn I wondered if they hosted music.  One phone call and one short drive later, we stepped foot into the fun La Taza world of mocha, jigsaw puzzles, Scrabble, and conversation.  Music was our connector.  Actually I could see how our year-long wait on the coffeehouse idea had built an eagerness in me to set the phone call in motion and pull some song charts together quickly.  No second-guessing at this point.  La Taza was quaint and laid-back, and we loved it.  It’s easy to start wondering now about what the Lord might have in store for this new venue, but then again, I don’t want to jump too far ahead.  I stayed up late last weekend reliving the blessings at La Taza.

God, my banker

Have you ever sensed God speaking to you through someone else?  This week I was inspired through the voice of a particular man.  From the moment I met him, I felt blessed.  We had talked probably 5 minutes, and suddenly he threw in a zinger.  “Let God be your banker,” he uttered.  I had mentioned nothing to him about the dollar signs dancing in my head.  Ideas about books, and music, and coffeehouses, and questions of how financially they could all work together had felt cluttered in my brain.  This man’s words zeroed right in to quell any worry.  In a sort of teaching mode while he spoke, his forefinger pointed in the air and then at me, so I was sure to hear.  And what set the whole stage for me to keenly listen was his earlier comment on planting seeds and watering them and scattering stones.  At first I thought of 1 Corinthians 3, but the part about scattering stones I had recently read in Ecclesiastes.  Interestingly I had taught on those exact verses a couple of Sundays ago, so my attention was certainly drawn, as if looking up to find myself sitting in the Lord’s classroom with Him personally teaching me in the moment.  Simply I had entered the doors of the hospital that day, unaware of how the Lord would connect me in conversation.  Forever He is weaving His goodness amongst and within.