Jane Foard Thompson is an inspirational speaker and award winning author and poet. A former Montessori teacher in Texas and Utah, for eight years Jane and her husband were missionaries in Honduras, Central America. After working for the American Red Cross in Idaho, they now live in Florida, where she writes, leads music and women's Bible studies at their church, and enjoys nine grandchildren and her Golden Retriever, Lily.
“Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God.
Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage.
The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.
“The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant. They’re full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God.
Don’t fall for that nonsense.
This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need.
With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply.
Middle Daughter and my grandsons are visiting from Switzerland, and we’re juggling schedules to create as much family time as possible in the limited days we have together. I am acutely aware of how precious our hours are. Though I want to hold on, time slips through my fingers without a backward glance. A song from my youth, drawn from the wisdom of Solomon plays in my head.
I’ve lived most of my life looking toward the future, somehow assuming there would always be more time, another chance for a do-over, opportunity for change, for what-I’ve-always-wished-for to arrive.
Perhaps it is the deaths of loved ones in the last year or two, or maybe it’s just the wisdom of aging, but I have a growing sense of the limitations of my life, and of those I care about.
And that we can only live in this one — this moment — this blink-of-an-eye moment.
No where else.
To learn to live in now, I am discovering the wisdom of knowing what time, what season I’m in.
And living fully into it, even when it is not what I expected or anticipated.
There is a time to build, and look toward the future.
And there is also a time to relax.
After a rigorous day on the ski slopes, my oldest Swiss grandson flopped into a chair and announced to his mom, “I’m chillaxing.”
Jeremy chillaxing after skiing
His first day on the beach here, he carried that forward.
Jeremy chillaxing
Relaxing and chilling out — chillaxing — resonates as a skill for me to acquire.
You’d think that after months of my semi-invalid life that I’d have that one down pat. But give me a day of normal energy and I’m zooming around like that little pink toy bunny with the drums.
But I am learning to chillax.
And I’m learning other ways of approaching life in order to live fully in the moment.
As an introvert, I’ve always enjoyed time alone.
But now I’m enjoying time together with others with whom I share love, or faith or interests.
We rarely know when the sun will set for the last time for us, or those we love, when we, or they, will dance on into eternity.
Empty dreams or an empty tomb?Have you trusted God and thought you were following his will, only to come to a dead end? Nothing is right? Is hope dried up like summer rain on a hot pavement? I imagine the friends of Jesus felt that way after the crucifixion, when they left Jerusalem for Emmaus, struggling to understand, trying to grasp the deep ache in their guts — to find a way to wrench the pain out. Then a stranger joins them. He seems oblivious to the shaking of their foundations, their world spun out of control by the cruel death of the one who had raised the dead. He healed so many. He seemed to be the answer.
The traveler was a stranger until they sat to eat, and he broke the bread.
Did they recognize him by the way Jesus had torn the bread when they gathered for the last supper, only days before — before hope ended and darkness feel on the world?
Could they have been among the 5,000 on the hillside who saw him turn a few loaves into bread to feed them all, sending hopes for a great future surging through their veins?
Or did they see the nail wounds in his hands?
Only after he disappeared, as oddly as he had arrived, did they realize how much had changed within their hearts.
The pain and despair had somehow flowed into warmth and wholeness.
If you, too, are on that road, wondering where God is in the midst of your pain or loss or lack, look for the Risen One who is seeking you.
Seeking your heart.
He offered himself to bring you shalom.
Deep, no-matter-what peace.
Always and forever peace.
By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. Romans 5:1,2 MSG
Glimpse of Peace 