Bill and I experienced our first wildfire in November. We never dreamed it would be on our property.

I am trying to unlearn my need (and bad habit) to interrupt and ask too many questions. My tendency to teach and "fix" and give the "right"answer. It's exposing my fear of "What if God doesn't show up?"

I'm learning to "zip my lips" and wait.

What if I really believed he cares for me, is careful with me, that he will not let me be blown away if I live lightly? This downy feather responds to the breath of the wind. It floats. It rests. It doesn't cast stones, but even without much substance, it casts a big shadow.  

It sounds morbid but I love to wander in graveyards and read tombstones. Last year on a visit to Scotland, we explored Glasgow’s Necropolis. Ornate statues, monuments, and mausoleums fill the hill overlooking the city. The oldest grave reads 1832.

I learned a new word. 

Perseverate. 
 
To repeat something insistently or redundantly. To get stuck, to ruminate, to loop back over and over. And over.
 
As in, “My 91-year-old mother perseverated.” 
 
My mom passed away a year ago. But I’m still haunted by echoes of her three looping ruminations.

My bucket list has shortened as the years go by. Maybe no marathon or New York Times best-seller. But hold me to this goal: I want to keep clapping until the very end. I never, never want to lose the sense of wonder.

What do I most desire as I stare down my failures, confusion, disappointments? I want to be grateful every day, to keep going and trying new things. (Which means I want to keep failing.) I want to love Jesus more and respond to him out of love not as a means to an end. I want to live a life of wide-eyed joy in the mysteries and beauty of life. And I want to laugh uncontrollably—tears streaming and unable to catch my breath—with those around me.

I’ve been wading in “the gray afternoon of the soul.” It’s not as dramatic as St. John of the Cross’ “Dark Night of the Soul.” It’s like being stuck in a thick fog with no light cutting through to show the way back to sunshine and simplicity. It’s been a season of aching over brokenness—my own, others, our polarized country and churches, and the horrors flashing on the nightly news

We can be assured that God’s love indeed means that all will be well, but here and now this truth must be held in faith rather than full understanding. Julian of Norwich

As I walked and waited, prayed and pondered, I heard a quiet reassurance, “All shall be well.” And that one simple, but not ‘pat’ sentence, allowed me to breathe.

I never thought I was a worrier. Then I had kids.

“What do you most want to hear from God?” I’ve asked that question to many people. The overwhelming answer is . . .