Thankful Thursday: Happy Summer!

“But blessed is the man who trusts me, God,
the woman who sticks with God. They’re like trees replanted in Eden, putting down roots near the rivers — Never a worry through the hottest of sum­mers, never drop­ping a leaf, Serene and calm through droughts, bear­ing fresh fruit every sea­son.
“The heart is hope­lessly dark and deceit­ful,
a puz­zle that no one can fig­ure out. But I, God, search the heart
and exam­ine the mind. I get to the heart of the human.
I get to the root of things. I treat them as they really are,
not as they pre­tend to be.”

Jere­miah 17:7–10

HAPPY SUMMER!Today was the longest day of the year and the weather was absolutely per­fect: Not too hot with a light breeze. The sky was as blue and cloud­less as in the graphic above.

I was float­ing on my back in the pool, let­ting the sun bake down on my winter-white skin, look­ing up into that cloud­less sky. I was think­ing about the above verse and how we are com­manded so many times not to worry about things but, rather, to give up the future because it will be laid before us. I was con­tem­plat­ing how dif­fi­cult that is … and won­der­ing why it is that we always want to be in charge when, if we are faith­ful, there is no need because we will always be pro­vided for.

At that moment, float­ing lazily in the cool, refresh­ing water, lis­ten­ing to the kids play­ing in the other end of the pool, squint­ing up at the sun, it was very easy to just let go of all my con­cerns for a few enjoy­able minutes.

Sure … it’s always easy when you’re on vaca­tion or sit­ting in the park for a cou­ple of hours on Sun­day after­noon or enjoy­ing an hour to your­self in the pool before resum­ing work on that end­less “to-do” list.

It’s much harder when the sun goes down on the longest day of the year and you’re back in your house, bathing suit dry­ing over the bath­tub, think­ing about going to work tomor­row, pay­ing the bills, doing the gro­cery shop­ping, tak­ing the dog to the vet and the groomer, hav­ing the car aligned, and, most impor­tantly, wor­ry­ing about a school­mate who is finally hav­ing to face that the chemother­apy is not work­ing, the health­care team has rec­om­mended hos­pice care and plenty of mor­phine, and now we all have to say our good-byes.

The heart — a puz­zle even to us — remains as clear and easy for the Divine to deci­pher as it was when I was float­ing on my back, utterly vul­ner­a­ble, fac­ing up to the sun in the cool, refresh­ing and utterly trans­par­ent water, illu­mi­nated by the pierc­ing rays of bril­liant after­noon light.

I mar­vel when I think about the Divine that way and real­ize that, even here in the dusk of evening, my “hope­lessly dark and deceit­ful heart” does not dim the unend­ing rays of uncon­di­tional love, accep­tance, empow­er­ment and val­i­da­tion of my inher­ent worth shin­ing on me all day, all night … always. And it never can.

Track­posted to Out­side the Belt­way, The Vir­tu­ous Repub­lic, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, DeMe­di­a­cratic Nation, Right Truth, Weblog­gin, Stuck On Stu­pid, Lean­ing Straight Up, The Amboy Times, Con­ser­v­a­tive Cat, Pur­su­ing Holi­ness, Diary of the Mad Pigeon, The Crazy Rants of Saman­tha Burns, stikN­stein… has no mercy, The World Accord­ing to Carl, Pirate’s Cove, Nuke’s news and views, Blue Star Chron­i­cles, The Pink Flamingo, High Desert Wan­derer, and Church and State, thanks to Link­fest Haven Deluxe.

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