Hard Skinned Turtles

I never knew that the carapace of the turtle was alive until an unfortunate event happened. We love to colour in my family and my sister thought that it would be beautiful if we paint our little turtle's Tut in acrylic paint. So we painted each square a colour with a shiny varnish at the end with pretty little shiny stars in it. It was wonderful, but a couple of days later we noticed that Tut was not eating... We thought she was sad so we talked  to her more and we sang her happy songs... we even got her very yummy looking lettuce... but no hope! Later we took her to the doctor and he informs us that Tut was dead and explains that the wood-like carapace actually is not a dead block but a very much alive one like our skin and the paint blocked her pores...

I have been wondering how many times I considered some people like Tut's carapace dead and hard skinned and I gave up on them... And how many time His mercies softened my dead stoned heart... And I hope I learn to do the same...

Rest in Peace Tut and thank you for the lesson!

You Want that Look

Every year I plant a type of bulb flowers. 

I plant because it teach my soul. I am too slow for this world that sometimes I feel overwhelmed but seeing the slow pace flowers live by encourages me to keep my steps steady.

This year it was tulip time! (Many fancy this flower)

I watch the process from sprouting to decay with great admiration and awe before the Beautiful Breath that keeps us all, plants and being, alive...

The tulips bloomed and it was spectacular, my colleagues, my family, my friends, all who saw them smiled (call it the flower-effect!) but day after day it was loosing it's glow and bending it's neck and day after day a petal would fall till my beloved tulip had no more clothe on... Naked it was facing the wind and sun. And then it it got straight again! When it lost all its petals, it stood tall again! It was so pretty, all green, bare, simple but so new, so fresh... indeed so pretty! It looked nothing like a tulip but I knew it was... I knew its essence, I planted that bulb !

All this...from looking like a tulip to looking like a weed, from bending to rising again made me wonder and today it made sense! 

Remove this image you have in your head about yourself ! It will decompose, it will burden, you will fall... Come naked before me, I know your essence, it is I who created you... I know you... It is my look upon you that matters and it is that look you crave for... It is My glory that you want! It is My light you want to bear... Glorious glowing dresses you wear will mean nothing before what I will clothe you with... You success in making around you smile will mean nothing before the joy you will bear and share when you look for that Look... the Look of your Lord!

Fortune Telling

Turkish coffee...

About more than a year ago I decided to brew Turkish coffee for my colleagues, everyday that now they think it is part of my job description. I have to admit that I have never had this kind of coffee but to my utter surprise it seems that I do it very well, or maybe, as usual, they are too kind. In all cases it is a very beautiful process and a time I look forward to in my day.

The coffee bean are grounded to the finest possible powder (or brought that way) then put in hot water then boiled and boiled and boiled till that lovely foam formed goes away... all the way with a lovely music filling the room, the music of  the spoon hitting against the coper coffee pot and the aroma of freshness. A morning enjoyable routine... A delightfully slow, very slow process...

And perhaps this cup is telling me my fortune... A slow slow process with grinding and boiling with the music of His hand whisking my life and a smell of beautiful joy coming out my soul... 

Dare to Conform

I was thinking how funny it would be if trees when they are growing are concerned to be different and want to make the most creative fruit. Or birds boasting about being the weirdest birds because of this and that. Or a fish holding a slogan encouraging the other fish to go against the flow... And yet it is so diverse, so beautifully in a varied harmony. I wondered why... They just are, they just live, they just carry themselves as they should... This made me remember that he first name God named himself was "I AM". Of course, He is He, He acts according to His nature...But for us people it is more complicated. We have inherited a rebellious spirit, we have two natures... And we are offered the choice to be in I AM just be in Him and then we will flow like rivers and sing like birds and nourish like tree, we are offered the freedom to conform to the Unconformist  or we can just be concerned in  who we are and loose our identity in the quest of it, in the quest of being unique and in each move, taking a step further from the Creative, the Creator... 

The Lord knew that we have this natural desire to be who we are and He knew that we will loose track and think that it is in the things of this world, in following what the king of this world does that we will think that we are finding ourselves... That is why He came and set an example for us, an example that obeying is actually innovation, death is life, meekness is strength... dare to follow, dare to conform  it is in this kind of conforming that you are creative... It is not in things of this world that you will be marked out those are never new... Dare to be the same as Him who Is. He does not grow old, He is never outdated. He is the source of all New and Beautiful... Dare to conform to Him who is worthy! 

Guess what!

I find some "guess what" questions to be very funny, specially if they end with an exclamation mark and not an actual question mark. They are those guesses that either you will never be able to guess or the ones you actually do not need the rest of the phrase to guess it. And some people might find them so odd: why ask a question you know the other will never guess and why if you know they know, you ask it again?!
But for me I do not think it is that way that I should look at it. I find it beautiful! I find a "guess what" question that you do not know what it is about to be like a trumpet-call announcing a revelation! Something that will startle you, that will probably brighten your day. God wakes you up in the morning everyday with this sort of guess whats... He has in store for you something you cannot know ahead but if you try to guess it with Him, you will be startled! 
Now the other kind of guess what are maybe my favourites! They make you happy! Ohh yes I know the answer!! And those ones the Lord asks them too... Guess what your future holds... YES the best! Guess what about your sin... Yes I paid its price... 
Ps. If you are reading this then Guess what!  ♥

Of Incense, Perfume and Hearts (again!)

Someone got me  a very beautiful original bracelet. It had one bead full of some sort of a lavender mixture that as I was told was something in the past used instead of perfume! Because of that I started to remember all the beautiful smells and perfumes... Incense! It fascinates me! On a soft but continually burning coal it melts to the most beautiful smelling smoke you can ever smell. The smell of  gardenia, jasmine, myrrh,... sweet flowers, will remind you of places, people, incidents that made you happy!With all that,  the verse that we are to be the fragrance of Christ came to mind! The most beautiful Christ! How can I be His fragrance... all my lavender, all my jasmine, all what I would wear would not be enough... I started to wonder and my brain goes to a different topic, a song, "A Man on Fire"  and I know I am on fire, my heart burns but not a flagrant, overwhelming fire, it burns something constant, something flameless, but something hot! Hot in love, in pain, in joy, in repentance... (sometimes hot in impatience, in disobedience...)
And suddenly it made sense! Let my prayer burn like incense before you Lord said David! Let the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you! I knew! I knew this burning heart is what will make a beautiful altar! There I will  lay my incense: my prayer, my praise, my supplication, my words, my emotions, my stories, my self... On a heart that was set on the fire by the Burning Bush... I will not put nasty stuff to burn, I will not dwell on ugly thoughts, I will not deliver hate, those I will throw before they get to my heart! I will be a beautiful fragrance of Christ because it is from Him that all loveliness comes and it is from there that I will get my incense... and on my heart they will burn because I am on fire!

Heart wholes

I heard the story of The Parable of the Sower at Church today and as usual the explanation that our hearts should be a good soil for the Word to be planted in it. But today I realized something! A very simple step in planting I so did automatically today made me stop! We all know that you have to put soil and then make a whole and bury the seed in it and slightly cover it and then water it and after a period of waiting you get so tiny things coming out that make you so happy! And then my brain drew the parallel with the parable! If I want the Sower to actually plant something, I need to let him have a whole in my heart! And my hurts, my deep cuts in the heart suddenly made sense! He cannot plant without those!  They are not made to stay empty! They will be filled and he will water it and shade it and cover it and take care of it  and it will have roots and flourish and become beautiful and make Him so happy! 
He gives Life! He shines! Source of endless living water! The Seed, the true good seed! We shall never find a better Sower!