What the World Needs Now

Posted on March 19, 2020 by Milagro Mama

On Monday before the mandatory shelter-in-place began, I had to run a few errands that included picking up a prescription at the pharmacy. Surprisingly, the line was short, with two people already being helped at the counter and one person ahead of me. She was covered head to foot: a colorful rag-style hat on her head, sunglasses, long pants and jacket with a buff pulled up over her mouth and nose. She didn’t make eye contact.

I arrived just in time, apparently, because suddenly there were several people behind me. An older lady two behind me leaned forward and called: “Hey, I really like your hat. It’s so colorful it’s making me smile.” Hat gal turned, lowered her sunglasses and buff and smiled as she said thanks, adding that we all need to find opportunities to smile in these uncertain times. We resumed our line-standing.

After a beat, I turned to thank the woman who offered the compliment, adding that we all need a huge dose of human kindness as everyone feels the weight of stress. My simple comment led to a line-long conversation: how we can be kind to one another; what shelter-in-place will mean and what constitutes “essential services;” price-gouging and TP alternatives; the beautiful art we might expect as a result of people in quarantine expressing their feelings; and “at least I can walk my dogs,” which led to a discussion about pets.

As each person left, they waved goodbye to our little crowd, wishing us well. In a matter of moments, having acknowledged our shared experience and at least a few of our feelings about it, we became a community. Neighbors rather than strangers.

It was an example of how uncertainty can unite people in beautiful ways. We may be alone in our own homes, but we’re in this together. Let’s find creative ways to care for ourselves and others, to share kindness that will unite us when this eventually passes.

What the world needs now is love, sweet love
It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of
What the world needs now is love, sweet love,
No not just for some but for everyone.

–lyrics by Jackie DeShannon

Cover image by Karolina Grabowska from Pixabay

Lent 2020: What Matters Most

Posted on March 18, 2020 by Milagro Mama

But I can’t stop loving you.

Wow, in a time of unprecedented bad news, that’s the best news ever. No matter what, God can’t stop loving us.

No matter how much of a schmuck I may be today–even though I want to be kind and loving and super-duper, I’m sure I will also whine and think mean thoughts and put myself first–God will always and forever love me. He can’t stop, because His very nature is love.

No matter what. It doesn’t matter. God’s love matters. Love is all we need, love is all there is.

God’s love coats me like the dark-morning full moonshine, like the spring sunshine pouring through trees, bringing flowers to life. God’s love flows over me like the breeze, flows through me like breath. God, I breathe in your love, your presence, your grace.

Help me to live in your love today.

During Lent 2020, I’m reading and reflecting on The Jesus Storybook Bible. If you don’t already have it, I highly recommend it. You can purchase it here. Please note: as an Amazon Associate, I may earn from qualifying purchases.

Lent 2020: Heart of Love

Posted on March 16, 2020 by Milagro Mama

“This is the one!…He has a heart like mine,” God said. “It is full of love.”

I want a heart like God’s, full of love.

Instead, my heart is filled with anxiety, complaints, aches, and some truly yucky gunk, like anger and fear.

My heart needs a thorough cleansing. I imagine taking it out, holding it gently like a fragile, frightened bird. I imagine immersing it in a basin of warm, not hot, soapy water. Holding it lightly in one hand, I swish the water around it, over it, in it. I ask God to remove the ashy silt of sadness, to wash it clean of all impurities.

I need my heart to pump clean, healthy blood. To pump rich, fruitful love.

I imagine God behind me, putting His arms around me and gingerly slipping His hand under mine. His free hand continues the care-full cleaning process. When we are done, God wraps my heart in the fluffiest towel to dry it off before putting it back in my chest. His hand lingers there as His eyes on mine tell me all I need to know:

I am clean. I am whole. I am loved. And so are you.

Lent 2020: Celebrate Love

Posted on March 12, 2020 by Milagro Mama

God’s people were safe. They danced and laughed and sang and thanked God — when there had been no way out, God had made a way.
“I want you to love me more than anything else in all the world — and know that I love you, too,” God told them. “That’s the most important thing of all.”

God did an incredible thing: He parted the Red Sea to save His people from onslaught by the Egyptians. His people crossed safely; the Egyptians did not.

So they danced and laughed and sang and thanked God. We need more of this in life, recognizing God at work in big and small ways and joyfully celebrating with our whole bodies, from tippy-top to tiny toes.

Sadly, the Israelites didn’t celebrate for long. They quickly got caught up in complaints of the moment. They were hot and dirty and stinky and tired and hungry and where was God? Did He lead them into the desert to die?

Of course not. But isn’t that just our way? We have short memories. We forget what God has recently done and blame Him for not doing more right now. Bummer for us.

God called Moses up onto a mountain to give him some rules, not because God is all about dos and don’ts, shoulds and shouldn’ts, but because God wanted His people to know more about Him, to understand His priorities. He loves us so much He wants the best life for us so He gave us some guidelines, starting with loving and being loved by Him.

We get into trouble when we separate God’s commands from God’s love. When the rules feel hard and jagged, when they’re imposed on us by others without the context of God’s Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love, the rules lose their meaning. Never let go of God’s love.

Lent 2020: Magnificent Dreams

Posted on March 6, 2020 by Milagro Mama

God had a magnificent dream for Joseph’s life and even when it looked like everything had gone wrong, God would use it all to help make the dream come true.

What do you dream for your life? Are your dreams coming true?

As a little girl growing up in Southern California, Disneyland was heaven on earth and I wanted to live there for eternity. I thought I could achieve my dream by being the person inside the Donald Duck costume.

As an adult, I’m thrilled to say I left that dream in the dust. Now I can’t imagine having to lug around a heavy costume in the sweltering SoCal summer heat.

Unlike Joseph, most of us don’t receive prophetic dreams about the greatness God has in store for us. Still, God indeed has great plans for all of us and He will use all our experiences, even the bad stuff, maybe even especially the bad stuff, to make those dreams come true.

Life often doesn’t turn out as we expect. And that’s okay, because so long as we’re still kicking God isn’t done with us.

We may not get to use dramatic gifts like interpreting a king’s dreams, or sit second-in-command of a major world power. We may have an oh-so-ordinary life, doing our work, growing a family, and loving our neighbors. Maybe our reality doesn’t even look like that, maybe it’s harder, soaked with illness or loneliness.

In the end, what God really wants for us, what makes a life a magnificent dream, is to love Him fully and faithfully, whatever that looks like today. Remember: The Redeemer loves you with a magnificent love and He will use everything, even the gone-wrong events, to make His dreams for you come true.

Lent 2020: See What We Can Do

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Milagro Mama

“Look!…See what we can do with our very own hands!” They were quite pleased with themselves.
But God wasn’t pleased with them…. They were trying to live without him, but God knew that wouldn’t make them happy or safe or anything.

God gave us bright brains and capable hands and put us in groups to accomplish life together. And we need to remember that He is the source of all good things, including all of our creative abilities.

We may not be building the Tower of Babel, but we do stuff all day long. Lots of intricate, complicated, amazing things. Have we lost sight of God in the process? Better question: How do we keep sight of God in the process?

When people got cocky and tried to build a tower to heaven, a tower that would speak volumes about their abilities rather than God’s provision, God gave them the gift of languages. Quite a gift, and also a confusing problem, especially in the beginning.

Communication still gets confusing. We often communicate ineffectively, and it gets in the way of our ability to accomplish things.

However, when we look to God for His plans. When we seek to honor Him rather than ourselves. When we honor one another and the beautiful gifts they are to us and to the world. Then, I believe, God will make clear our communication and we will work together to do all the amazing things He has dreamed for us.

Lent 2020: Listen to Love

Posted on March 2, 2020 by Milagro Mama

You see, no matter what, in spite of everything, God would love his children – with a Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love.

…Noah didn’t mind so much what other people thought, he minded what God thought. So he just did what God told him to do.

When we hear God whisper His Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love over us. When we receive God’s great big love with open arms. That’s when we stop minding what other people think.

The trick is, first, to listen. Get the gunk out of our ears and really tune in to God’s heart. To walk and talk with God as a best friend, as beloved children of our good, good Father, as the only true source of wisdom.

We listen to God through His Word, the Bible, but also through our circumstances, through wise people also listening to God, through His Spirit speaking straight to our hearts.

If Noah had listened to his own common sense, to his friends, to worldly wisdom, he would have missed God’s instructions. It made no sense whatsoever at all to build a gigantic boat in the desert. But God said it, and Noah followed through.

Hence, the second trick: to hold steady to God’s love as we listen and live what He says. Like His instructions to Noah, sometimes God’s words seem to make little sense. I can’t even begin to imagine some of the non-sense God might whisper to you, because it will be a) the same, and b) different for each of us.

But I’m certain of this: LOVE will be at its center.

Miracles in the Mundane

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