Shilah Writes

  So very many ways to get off track...'prone to wander Lord I feel it...prone to leave the God I love'. I feel this deeply. There seems to be a pull in taking our eyes off Jesus every which way you turn. Everyday things happen innocently and before you know it you're smacked up side the head with a huge problem. If it's not your own dire need of help and wisdom, it's a friend, brother, sister, husband or child that is overwhelmed within his/her soul. If we aren't willing to recognize the things that keep us wandering lost, confused, frustrated, and in a constant state of dither...well then, my friend, you shall never have peace. And a Christ follower should be at peace. There should be a calm and joy hanging around his aura. Not perpetual harm and injury being done to self and others. Such as be the case when one is distracted from Jesus. So life has a way of taking you back home. Home to your roots and beginnings and the very core of your life. I recently went...

Today is Mother's Day as everyone knows. I don't really know how to celebrate Mother's Day. I've always come back to the fact that it has more meaning when I think about the kind of mom I am to my children over the awesome ness of my mom. And she is awesome. So that's not a problem. But anyway. Being a mom is fulfilling but also it breaks your heart. It hurts to see your kids go through life's wonderful phases of decisions and choices and rejections. They get to have the bad days too. And we need to let them have that. But it's still hard to watch. I'm so very proud of my kids. I don't know if I would've been able to handle social media and technology at their age as well as they do. This metaphorical piece is all about the pulls on the heart. I have a few these days. It keeps me on my knees or flat out on my face at the foot of the cross. "With groanings that cannot be uttered" Romans 8:26  The strings and strains of a mama heart, c an...

  First of all, I need to mention a very minimal loss that has happened about three times to me in the history of all my writing efforts. And that is the loss of something I had written. I thought I had even written it well. It was one of the pieces I almost felt good about(a writer is her worst critic).  Anyway. somehow I click on something to make this well written piece go into the abyss of the computer and could not-no way find it or retrieve it. Which makes me doubt it was any good or that I actually had something worth sharing or maybe even it wasn't the will of my Father that others heard the message I thought I had to share. Or maybe it was just the timing of things...maybe after a day of mulling it over and and asking the Almighty for clarity on it I have a better perspective. I'm pretty sure though that we have all walked the walk of loss at some point. And everyone feels acutely the pain of losing someone or something, a dream or goal.  I follow a twenty someth...

  Sailing has often given me parallels to life. There are soft blue days of sailing with cotton candy sunsets. It's the perfect amount of wind hitting your sails at just the right point, steady and not gusty, that gives you the smoothest movement over the water. Like life, this happens randomly and at great intervals. There will more often be rough passages. Or passages that have every type of weather in it. You can experience all kinds of weather within an hour or less out on the water. It's just a fact of our natural world. Our Creator God made it so. Recently I was watching one of the many sailing channels my husband and I enjoy together. This particular family had just anchored after a hard three day and night passage. They had experience sea sickness and extreme waves the whole passage, a sensation that you can imagine feels to be like inside a washing machine. As they dropped anchor and put the drone into the skies, it became clear to them that it was worth every bit of r...

  I have to admit, I don't know how to help. I have found out that on my own, I'm not much help. I need the power of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Everyday. Here's the thing. We can see the situation clearly. At times we see others' dilemmas quite defined in comparison to ours. We can make all kinds of judgments about how the problem came to be, who is in the wrong, and what needs to be done about the problem, but we have a very hard time moving from the problem to the solution. Current cases in point: War in Ukraine Convalescent of a pandemic Nuclear power threats Human and animal rights...all of these...a plethora of a world in need of a solution. In our homes and churches we have the solution but still draw on human resources in which to blame, judge, and tear apart. If you want to help your suffering fellow Christian at home and in church and around the world, more time should be spent crying, "Abba, Father" on your knees than advocating around the worl...

  The truth is, I've been floundered with the loving of people. I get it really wrong. I don't know how. I don't half the time understand why things irritate and hurt me when conversing and bumping shoulders with others. I'm pretty sure it has more to do with my issues than any cause of theirs. At the beginning of January a theme began to follow me around at every turn. A message at church, my Bible app of the day verse, and of course, the ongoing trial of getting along with people. That makes me sound especially cantankerous and easily offended...which I didn't think I was...I'm still asking God about that. The theme was loving the Lord God with all my heart, soul, and might...and then everyone else. Our pastor said something to the effect that we can't love others properly until we get this loving God thing in order.  While I feel I am gracious and long suffering to others, for the most part, I also can't very well tolerate stupidity and nonsense. So w...

  In our saddened chaotic world, hope is a foreign word. It is rarely presented as just plain Hope. There is always someone who wants to dash reality over most of it. It's almost as if people have become afraid to hope. There is great scoffing about living in a fairy tale and making things glossier than they really are. I'm all for being real. I don't like pretty cliches and pat answers. I can usually tell when someone has actually been through the tough thing they are talking about versus parroting another's story. So I get the whole reality thing.    It's been over a month since I last wrote here. I've been painting and doing house projects and having friends over and doing Thanksgiving and Christmas.  As Bruce and I traveled today to his place of work, I recapped the past six weeks in my mind silently.  A lot of life can happen in six weeks. Some good, some not so good. Or at least it is sometimes difficult to call it good because well, it's often combine...