DenyAsk

I am most grateful that God chased after me for many years.  His pursuit of my soul had nothing to do with any perceived merits my imagination may have amassed during my existence.  I had no polished medals decorating my facade,  no carats of virtue to illumine my character.  There was no blazing jewel in my makeup to dangle before heaven and invite an inspired awe, nothing to persuade my Creator that I was worth saving.  My "good" was at best a selfish flaunt of orchestrated events that were designed (sometimes unconsciously) to draw acceptance.  Spiritually speaking, I was a corpse.  Decayed in my very DNA by a propensity toward rebellion, God was the farthest reality from my mind.  I didn't want to be bothered with the "God thing". Today I cannot imagine where my life would be without God.  He has indeed made all things beautiful.  He has removed my mourning, that inner emptiness that I felt even as a preteen.  He has taken away ...

Today I have successfully lost one of my two car keys. Yap, after several unsuccessful attempts over the past few years, I have finally done the misdeed. It's not like I was trying to set a record in the Guinness Book of Records in a category penned after me. I wasn't going for "the most distracted woman" award with this final offense. This ability to misplace/lose/place out of sequence/miss the obvious trait has followed me ever since I can remember, and not without causing me grief. I remember a time in high school when my English teacher was going through our book review essays and discussing our ideas. His comment on the margin of my writing was this: "great essay as usual, but you completely missed the point". I have carried that latter part of the phrase with me for many years. I have tucked it deep within my heart, along with other "proof" demonstrating my deficiencies. What started with a mustard seed thought had ballooned into a ...

I have been thinking more about heaven these past few days.  As I "number my days" and approach another birthday, I realize that I most likely left behind at least half of my lifespan, if my death is to happen within the statistical range slotted for my gender, on my continent.  The thought that I am most likely past the midpoint of my life, and how little I have accomplished within it, is a most sobering subject to ponder.  But what if I fall outside the carefully drawn statistical range of my generation, and I die sooner?  How close to heaven am I really then? My search for accomplishment has nothing to do with success that is measured in dollars or earthly accolades.  I have no ambition to assemble all my faculties into high gear and invade the beaten hallways of some lauded university, to extend the length of my title a few letters to the right (although I have no objection to such pursuit by others). The allure of fame, as observed in the parade of celebrit...