power of God

Barefoot: a spiritual journey

/ Fran Haley / 7 Comments

In my favorite photo of her, she is barefoot.

Smiling from ear to ear, wearing her handmade “wedding dress.”

She is three years old.

She came into our lives like a little angel of light in dark times descending.

My oldest son, like the prodigal, had returned home to find new direction for his life. He enrolled in seminary but resisted the call to preach. He met a young woman seeking the Lord’s guidance in rebuilding her own life…and her little girl’s.

Said my son to me, one starkly memorable morning: “I have been seeing someone.”

“Wonderful!” I replied. Noting his expression: “She must be special.”

“She is. I have something to tell you…”

Long pause. Entire lifetimes hang in the balance of such.

I braced myself.

“She has a little girl.”

I breathed. Didn’t even know I was holding my breath.

Things happen in everybody’s life. The whole of our stories is the overcoming.

I asked only one question: “Is this what you want?”

He nodded. A moment too great for words.

Finally he managed: “You always wanted a little girl.”

Lifelong desire of my heart, now granted.

In the ensuing months we nearly lost his father. My husband battled his way back from heart attacks, cardiac arrests, surgeries. A gray day-to-day existence, clinging to the Lord and the wisdom of the medical team…to this day, medical professionals read his reports and look at him with awe, the unspoken message in their eyes: How are you still here?

My husband survived to officiate our son’s wedding, for which the little “wedding dress” was made. Our girl stood by her Mama and new stepfather during the ceremony. Our boy made vows to them both: to be a loving husband and father, forever.

He also became a pastor. Like his dad.

The COVID pandemic came and went. A new little granddaughter was born. My husband suffered additional health setbacks. Every time he overcame to continue his life and his ministry. When despair threatened me, I wrote my way through it. When I was too weary to pray, I rested in the knowledge that the Spirit prayed on my behalf. When I felt alone, too weighted to move, and that I could go no further, a voiceless voice stirred my heart: You have little girls. You affect their now and their future.

It always, always pulled me through.

I think a lot about loss. How we humans fear it more than anything. How it feels like the end of the story.

It is not.

It is out of loss, out of human frailty and failings, that God does his mightiest work…we will not know all the answers in this life, but he is a seekable and findable God, if we are earnest. He is present with us; we must trust. At any given time we can see only the littlest fraction of his great picture, unless he allows us to see a bit more…

Back to my barefoot girl.

More than anything, we fear losing those we love. From the start she wrapped herself in and around my son’s heart…he so wanted to adopt her. He belonged to her and she to him, but not legally.

Until recently.

This summer our family celebrated the official adoption of our beautiful barefoot girl, now growing tall. On that day at the courthouse, she was a radiant as she was when she was three and so excited about the wedding.

I could quote Scriptures about being adopted children of God, about love triumphing over all and never ending, about the Lord telling his prophets to stand barefoot on holy ground. The verses swirl together in my mind.

What I know is that faith and love are holy ground, exemplified in face of my precious barefoot girl. The spiritual journey is lived moment by moment, knowing the sovereign Lord can bring—so often brings— holiness out of unholiness. Wholeness out of brokenness. That is the whole message of Christ and salvation; it is something we cannot do for ourselves. He is the God of redemption and restoration beyond our greatest imaginings.

My heart has learned to sing with the psalmist: Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the Lord!

He will deliver.

So gloriously.

Ready for the wedding day

Adoption day, at last

*******

with special thanks to my fellow Spiritual Journey band of writers, and to Linda Mitchell for choosing the theme of “barefoot.” Linda: I’d been wanting to commemorate my granddaughter’s adoption. “Barefoot” gave me the perfect beginning place.

Today I dance: Spiritual Journey

/ Fran Haley / 11 Comments

with thanks to my Spiritual Journey writer-friends who gather on the first Thursday of each month, and to Chris Margocs for leading today with the theme of “Shall we dance?”

Today my heart dances. Even as I write these words, I am preparing to attend a chapel service in which my firstborn will be honored. He completed a Master of Divinity degree last December and the seminary faculty selects one graduate for the Pastoral Leadership award. My son was chosen.

Today, with the Spiritual Journey theme of Shall we dance, I recall Miriam, the sister of Moses. In Exodus 15:20-21 she led the women in a victory dance, echoing her brother’s song of praise to God for salvation from Pharaoh’s army in the miraculous parting of the Red Sea:

I will sing unto the Lord, for he has
triumphed gloriously;
the horse and his rider he has
thrown into the sea.

The Lord is my strength and my song,
and he has become my salvation;
this is my God, and I will praise him,
my father’s God, and I will exalt him.
(Exodus 15:1-2)

Today I think about the journey my husband and I have made. We’d been married less than two years when we rededicated our lives to God and my husband became a pastor. I was twenty-two; he was twenty-five. So much story to tell…all these years later, I stand in awe of the sustaining hand of God and His wondrous provision, grace, and mercy.

Our son named his firstborn daughter Micah, which means Who is like God? Answer: No one. And our little Micah, age eighteen months, loves nothing better than music and dancing. Except maybe food…

Today is a day of victory and praise for all that God has done, and continues to do, in the life of my family.

Today I dance…

I offer it in the form of a pantoum.

Dance, dance, dance!
Who is like God?
No one. No one.
He is beside you, behind you, before you.

Who is like God?
In the giving and forgiving
He is beside you, behind you, before you.
None of the sacrifices

in the giving and forgiving
of all your beloveds
—none of the sacrifices
can do for you what God has done.

Of all your beloveds
no one, no one
can do for you what God has done—
dance, dance, dance!

/

The blessing

/ Fran Haley / 3 Comments

My Dear Firstborn,

You were always the Lord’s.

I rejoice

that His divine purposes
cannot be thwarted

that your preacher-father
lived to see this day

that your first daughter
sitting beside me
as you receive your
Master of Divinity
is the same age you were
sitting beside me
when your father
received his

seven,
representing
fullness
and completion

in an endless
spiral of blessing
that flows on
and on
and on.

You have always
been my joy,
baby boy.

With love
and gratitude
and awe
at the divine work
of the Master

always,
Mom

Be still: Spiritual Journey

/ Fran Haley / 4 Comments

with thanks to Chris Margocs for the “Be still” invitation and to Margaret Simon for the “Presence” offering on behalf of our Spiritual Journey writer’s group on this first Thursday in July

Back in March of 2020, four days into COVID-19 lockdown, I wrote a post entitled Be still. It was based on Psalm 46:10, a verse with special significance to me since I was about thirteen, when a youth group leader gave me a little decorative plaque bearing the first line: Be still and know that I am God. The plaque hung on the wall of my bedroom throughout my tumultuous teenage years until I married and left home at twenty. I had no inkling, then, that my young husband would go into the ministry two years later or that we would eventually have two sons, the older of whom would become a pastor and the younger, a music minister and worship leader.

Throughout the decades I’ve received numerous gifts which have borne those words: Be still and know that I am God. The verse keeps returning to me. A few weeks ago my Sunday School co-teacher brought a handful of cards printed with Bible verses, held them out to the class facedown, and had each of us draw one. I drew Psalm 46:10. Be still and know that I am God.

I could write a lot about those eight words, having to do with trusting God in times of trouble and God’s unfailing faithfulness. Overcoming fear and despair. Carving out time away from the demands, vitriol, and horrors of the world. Finding peace in the rhythms of nature surrounding my home in the countryside (I have written a lot about that, actually).

But those eight words are only the opening line.

“Be still and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!”
—Psalm 46:10 (ESV)

The verse is a call to be in awe of the power of God, to be a people who carry forth the message of godly peace to the world, by which wars will cease (v. 9), and by which God will be exalted. It is a declarative, definitive statement. On the part of God: It shall be. On the part of humanity: Be awed.

Awe has been my guiding word for the past two years. It is likely to remain so as long as I live. In the context of inherent awe and Psalm 46:10, words of the song “Above All” by Michael J. Smith come to mind:

Above all powers, above all kings
Above all nature and all created things
Above all wisdom and all the ways of man
You were here before the world began

Above all kingdoms, above all thrones
Above all wonders the world has ever known
Above all wealth and treasures of the Earth
There’s no way to measure what You’re worth…

Be still and know…God is above all.

My theologian son is studying the work of Eugene Peterson (1932-2018), minister, author, poet, and Professor of Spiritual Theology, Regent College, Vancouver. We have recently been discussing The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language, Peterson’s idiomatic paraphrase of Scriptures, apparently written out of frustration with people not reading their Bibles.

Here’s Peterson’s paraphrase of Psalm 46:10:

“Step out of the traffic! Take a long,
    loving look at me, your High God,
    above politics, above everything.”

I cannot think of a more timely message.

I return now to the original Be still post I wrote on March 17, 2020, during the early days of the pandemic. We thought school would be closed for two weeks. We had no idea of all that lay ahead. Extended isolation. Loss. Rampant fear. Exacerbated discord. Death, violence, rage, destruction. War. Rising inflation.

Consider the verses immediately preceding Psalm 46:10, from the ESV translation:

The nations rage, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts. The Lord of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah (6-7).

And then we are told Be still and know that I am God.

Who is above all.

I thought about linking Smith’s song here. Psalm 46 is, after all, a hymn.

I am linking another song instead, one of my longtime favorites for its plaintive beauty and quiet, meditative message—a little rest stop for the soul on the arduous spiritual journey through life in this world that God, incomprehensibly, still loves.

Be still my soul
the Lord is on your side…

Blessings of stillness, rest, and awe to you all.