Defining Joy

Posted on May 7, 2018 by Donna Coulson

Joy is an interesting hmmm…not sure what noun to use here…endeavor? gift? emotion?  Really, maybe I should scrap this topic and choose something else, because now that I’m thinking about it, I’m not at all sure what joy is.  My Merriam-Webster says it is “happiness that comes from success, good fortune, or a sense of well-being” and it adds, bliss, delight, pleasure.  When I admit it, that has been my personal definition of joy for quite some time:  happy, smiling, laughing, easy-not worried.  This has created trouble for me internally lately because the fruits of the spirit include joy.  So, if I’m not feeling it, does that mean I am not producing those fruits?  Is the Holy Spirit silent within me? If so, why?

Our pastor’s sermon yesterday was about “understanding God’s love”. His main point was that sometimes God disciplines us (Hebrews 12:7-11), and that when that happens, it’s a hard time.  He described that time of discipline as ‘grievous’, a time that doesn’t include happiness or joy. It’s taken me the time since the service ended to ponder this question of discipline and joy, and I’ve had a couple of aha! thoughts.

When our daughter was in high school, her creative, fiery, ebullient, beautiful, independence sometimes got her in trouble with her mom.  The end result would be grounding.  Now grounding is a funny punishment, because it confines the angry miscreant to close quarters with the exasperated judge/ jury.  At first, she’d be silent and angry, but something really interesting always happened soon after she’d begun serving her sentence: she’d relax and begin to enjoy the time she was forced to spend with me, with us.  We’d watch a movie together, play monopoly, talk, make meals. I spent time wondering about this phenomenon and finally concluded that as a teen, the choices and pressures of the world were probably pretty overwhelming for her.  By grounding her, she was forced away from those pressures and for a moment tucked safely out of their reach.  She was always happy to rejoin the outside world after her time was up, but the duration was a respite, a reminder that she was loved and protected (even from herself) by the arms and love of her parents.

So, back to God’s discipline.  I’m not convinced that God makes bad things happen to us in order to teach us something.  But, I am certain that when life deals out hard times, God is there to help us learn from our mistakes, grow as a result of the pain, and simply endure the trials of this world.  It’s easy to get caught up in those trials and see only the trouble, feel the pain, walk the floor on sleepless nights, struggle through the worry and uncertainty.  It’s easy to lose our happiness, misplace our delight, forget what it feels like to relax.

Something I read recently in the context of the fruits of the spirit defined joy as “the exuberance for life”.  This impressed me when I read it because there was no mention of smiling, or laughter, or happiness as we usually think of it.  What if joy isn’t simply the presence of merriment and frivolity?  What if the definition of true joy includes a deep enthusiasm and passion for life itself?  Lots of things then can become clear and much easier.  Philippians 4 tells us to rejoice in the Lord always.  James 1 claims that we should consider trials and trouble as pure joy.  Before, I’ve struggled with those two admonitions because I just don’t feel like dancing with all my might when my stomach is tied in knots or I’m not sure how to resolve the worries I’m facing.  But I can (and do!) maintain my zeal for life.  I can enjoy the safety and security of knowing that even in hard times, through pain and sadness, God is there with me, just like I shared in being grounded with my daughter.  Okay.  Yes. I can see this new definition of joy behind the pain and sorrow.  And, I can rejoice in that.  Always.

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Anoles and the Art of House Painting

Posted on April 30, 2018 by Donna Coulson

Hanging out on my ladder

Anoles, the tiny lizards who live at my house, are small little guys.  The largest, most formidable ones are maybe five inches long nose to tail-tip.  The fattest one I’ve ever seen was less stout than my index finger.  I’ve talked about these creatures before, and I hope you aren’t tired of them, but they really are so lovable and funny that I end up spending time each day noticing them.

They enjoy our front patio as much as we do.  Often I have to scoot one off a chair before I sit down, they scurry off though they aren’t very afraid of us and don’t go far. They run up and down the chair legs, stopping to gobble a passing ant. They seem to especially enjoy evenings when we have the lights on outside.  Then, a contingent climbs the wall to hang out near the light so they can snack on the moths and other bugs that the light attracts. The males have this little fold of skin on their necks that they puff out into a kind of oblong, yellow balloon when they are trying to impress the ladies.  It must work, because that was a common behavior a month or so back, and now we have a ton of little tiny lizards playing tag on our front patio. I hadn’t spent much time wondering about where anole babies come from, but I made a cool discovery last week.  I was working on painting the outside of our house (a project that I’m proud to say I did by myself and is now finished!). I took down a light fixture and noticed that leaves and other debris had accumulated around the socket. (Thanks Hurricane Maria!)  I turned the fixture over and bumped it to get the detritus out, and in addition to leaves, a host of egg shells fell out.  Tiny, fragile, pea-sized, cracked and empty egg shells.  What a discovery!  I knew they couldn’t be from birds, the only possibility that makes sense is anoles.  Clearly, the fixture had been a great place for an anole to lay her eggs.  It’s a marvel to me how something could fit into an egg that size.

Teeny tiny egg shells

On Saturday, I wasn’t thinking about anoles.  I was doing the last day of painting on the house.  Overall, the job was an easy one except for two places.  We live in an A-frame house, and the “A” on each end needed both white and yellow paint.  That meant taping off the trim (which I did not paint), and then painting.  For the apex of the “A”, that action occurred at the very top of the thirty foot ladder. Facing outward.  Yes, as if it wasn’t scary enough being that high, I also needed to face outward and then lean out away from the ladder to tape and paint underneath the eve.  Yikes.  Dressed fashionably in a fall harness and sporting somewhat shaky legs, I climbed up and took several deep breaths, then slowly turned myself around on the ladder to start taping.  Learning from having completed the other “A” already, I kept my eyes local, not letting myself glance toward the ground, took another breath, got the tape ready, then looked up at where I needed to put it.  And.  There was an anole. Just hanging out right there at the top, watching me.  His presence unnerved me at first because I didn’t expect it, but it also made me smile and broke a little bit of the stranglehold my fear had on me.  If I could have heard his thoughts, I image he’d have been questioning why I was there, so out of my realm.  I also think I might have heard him invite me to play with him….(not a good idea since I’m not endowed with suckers on my feet).   Anyway, I smiled and shooed him away, I just didn’t think I needed his company right then, and went on with my work.

I’m not at the top here, but you can see how high it is…

This picture isn’t at all flattering, but fear never is!

Now that I’m safely back on the ground, the ladder is put away and I like the paint job on the house, I’m thankful that the job is done, that I didn’t fall off the ladder, and that God created anoles. I realize that their brains are miniscule, and that experts probably would say they are incapable of emotions or rational thought. I’m sure a biologist would claim that they are simply following instinct.  That may be true, but from my perspective, anoles are fun lovers. In their quick movements and fearless antics, they exhibit an excitement about life that somehow telegraphs joy and frivolity. Hmmm, now that my work is done, I think I’ll act more like an anole than a human, and go play!

Hi! Want to play?

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Sufficient Grace

Posted on April 23, 2018 by Donna Coulson

I’ve been thinking this week a lot about the verse in 2 Corinthians 12:9 where God says to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” It seems to me that there are a lot of ways to absorb this verse, and from where I’m sitting this moment, none of them are easy.  The context of the passage is that Paul is telling about some sort of ‘thorn’ in his flesh that he’s asked God to take away, and God has chosen not to.  We’ve all been there, I’m guessing.  I’m there now.  I’ve been asking God to intervene on a couple things, and so far, He has chosen not to, or at least the intervention isn’t what I’ve asked for and I’m not seeing progress…  So.  The question is, what am I supposed to do with the words, “My grace is sufficient for you.” ?

I don’t know the answer to this question.  I know how I’m trying to walk this, but honestly, I have doubts.  I don’t doubt God.  I don’t doubt that His view of the larger picture makes Him more able to make the better decisions, but I do doubt my part in the whole shebang.  So, what am I doing?  Well…

First, I am concentrating on being thankful.  I’m making more of an effort to actually see the blessings around me.  Every day that I wake up next to Karl, in a safe and comfortable home, is a gift.  Every sunset, view of the big dipper, flower bloom, text from a friend – they are all gifts I can’t take lightly.

Second, I am looking for how this experience is growing and changing me.  I do feel a bit different.  I’ve never been very patient before, and now I know I am much more capable of and willing to ‘wait upon the Lord’.  For someone who loves being in control and taking charge, that’s a huge step.

Third, I am more able to live in the moment, concentrating on just today.  I’ve spent my life with my head in tomorrow. I’ve lived looking forward, planning, working towards goals.  Since I’m not exactly sure what the future holds anymore, I am becoming more and more able to just be here today.

James 1 says we are to ‘consider it pure joy’ when trials and troubles come our way.  Apparently, according to James, these trials perfect us, teach us, help us to become mature.  There’s this little donna in my head that would rather throw a temper tantrum, and she’s having nothing at all to do with counting her problems as joyful.  However, the other donna, the one with the grey hairs and achy hip, recognizes the wisdom in the advice. 

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Froggy Friends

Posted on April 16, 2018 by Donna Coulson

I found a new painting project last week, and I’m happy (and proud) to say that I got started on Monday and finished on Friday.  Karl was a bit worried about this project, I think he had doubts about whether I had the patience and skills to do it well (that isn’t unfair, my track record for painting isn’t the best!), This time, I painted all the metal slats of our jalousie windows.  We have sixteen windows with seven slats each – inside and out.  Tedious.  But now that they are done, they look so good, no more peeling paint or tiny rust spots.  Pretty.

Now the Caribbean has a variety of creatures, and I’ve blogged about many of them in the past, but since the hurricanes, I’ve been seeing a new (to me) frog once in a while.  They are grey and the perfect size to fit in the palm of my hand.  I know that for sure because I had an encounter with one that began when I carried a dish that had been on the front patio inside and dumped it into my dish water.  Unbeknownst to me, a frog was hiding in the bottom of that dish.  When the warm, soapy water and the frog met, a short episode of chaos ensued.  The frog, understandably, didn’t like it.  He did what he needed to do, and made a mighty leap to get clear.  He ended up on my chest.  Oblivious to the frog’s existence until he landed close to my heart, a small amount of screaming resulted (mine, of course). It didn’t take the frog long to decide he still wasn’t in a good place, so he took a second mighty leap, ending up on the inside of one of my open cupboard doors.  It took me a heartbeat (they were fast at this point), to realize that I wasn’t in mortal danger or under malevolent attack, but when I saw that the frog was eyeing a third leap into the interior of my cupboard, and not wanting frog slime on my dishes,  I reacted by trying to capture him.  He escaped briefly, but (I think there may have been a little more screaming) I finally captured him, cupped in my hands, and escorted him outside. I think Karl may have been more traumatized than either the frog or me, what with all the screaming and jumping around, but at the end of it all, we had a good laugh and (I hope) the frog went on to live happily ever after.

Anyway, back to my window painting project this week… I discovered something as I was painting.  We have housemates that I never knew about. It seems that an entire colony of those small grey frogs has moved into the nooks and crannies around my windows.  The first one I saw was in a tiny space above one of the living room windows.  Just two little froggy eyes watching me as I cleaned and then painted the area. He wasn’t bothering me, and while I hope the fumes of the paint weren’t toxic, I don’t think I bothered him.  As I worked through the rooms, I noticed a couple of other visitors. Again, they didn’t bother me, they were living in little spaces outside the window screen, and my rationale is that they eat bugs and stay to themselves, so I really don’t mind the knowledge of their presence.

It was a little different when I got to the upstairs window that is right above the bed where I sleep.  I moved the bed and took down the curtain.  I reached to take down the screen, and there, watching me was a frog.  Out in the open on the window sill outside the screen.  No problem.  I told him to be gone, then unlatched the screen, confident that as soon as I did, he’d jump away.  Not so.  He watched me until the screen was out of sight, then slowly moved on his little suction cup toes, towards me.  Again, I told him to go away, but he paid no attention, so I added a hand motion or two.  He just watched. Well, I had to get a little more forceful, and eventually, I herded him back outside and to the edge of the windowsill.  Since I really didn’t want him coming back in, specifically I didn’t want him tracking through my paint, I nudged him with my hand and made him jump off the windowsill.  At this point, Karl got involved, because he was just outside that window on a ladder, working on the roof.  He watched as the frog began climbing back toward the window.  Using a glove, he enticed the little guy back down, and for the rest of the afternoon, the frog hunkered down about five feet below our bedroom window tucked into one of the valleys in our new corrugated aluminum roofing.

A few hours later, paint dry, screens and curtains reinstalled, I checked that window.  Yes indeed, my friend was back.  Clearly that window is his home, and he’s not willing to move. I’m okay with that.

 

It’s funny.  Earlier this year, when the temperature got all the way down to 71 degrees a couple of nights, we had a mouse decide to come in from the cold.  I wasn’t sad to see the little dead mousy in the trap, and set a couple more to make sure we got them all.  I hate mice and I’m not willing to share any space with them.  Here’s a ponderable: frogs are slimy and not as cute and furry as mice, but I don’t mind them.  Huh.  Go figure.

 

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Signs of Progress

Posted on April 9, 2018 by Donna Coulson

There’s something so satisfying about weeding the garden.  When you start, there’s a problem.  When you finish, everything is neat, tidy and pristine.  It’s the same with cleaning.  Start – dirt and mess. Finish- shiny and smelling good.  Painting is a joyous task.  Start with ugly, end with glossy.  Being able to see the fruit of the labor is such a gift. Progress is evident when beauty reigns. I yearn for the shiny, new, polished, and complete in order to be satisfied.

Instead of pretty and perfect, what I got this week was a floppy, detached, cracked and sad sole.  Literally.  My tennies, my work tennies, decided to poop out on me.  Oh, I’ve known for several weeks that there were spots where the sole was pulling away from the top, but that wasn’t a major issue.  I’ve known that they were scuffed and ugly, but each morning I slipped my feet into them, laced them up, and went on my way.  Until Friday.  On Friday, I was on the ladder, helping Karl lift a piece of galvanized aluminum up to its final resting place on the roof (Morgan, Karl’s strong and strapping helper, needed to be away for a few days and I was elected to help!). As I stepped down, the unthinkable happened.  My errant sole got caught on something and nearly the whole darn thing peeled away.  Drat.  I considered duct taping my shoe together, but honestly, I had to admit we’d gone past that point.  With reticence and reluctance, I untied my faithful work shoes and removed them.  I threw them in the trash.  After a respectable and respectful mourning period (okay, it was about three minutes), I went upstairs to find the only other pair of tennies I currently own. Now I’m wearing my ‘good’ ones to work in.  Bummer.

As I went back to work, I had a thought.  Those shoes are a measurement of progress.  I actually gleaned every bit of usefulness from them.  They partnered with me and gave their all.  Later in the afternoon, I noticed another evidence of hard work accomplished.  Karl’s gloves. Holes in the fingers. Sweat stains. All of a sudden my perspective changed.  Instead of seeing nasty, smelly shoes or worn out gloves, now I could appreciate their ugliness and tattered condition as a testimony of their effort and faithfulness.

Hmmm.  I’m sure that my aha moment won’t change my love for the shiny clean and glossy new, or take away my goal of seeing progress evidenced in new beauty, but just maybe, when I see the smooth, worn edges on a wooden bench, or the nicks and mars on the dining room table, or maybe even when look in the mirror and see the wrinkles around my eyes, or survey the age spots on my hands, just maybe I can appreciate those as good progress made. And I’m hoping God does, too!

 

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New Coat of Paint

Posted on April 2, 2018 by Donna Coulson

Now that we have a new front door and the roof is nearly on, tasks of somewhat lesser importance can be begun.  This past week, I took on a task myself that I’ve always been just a mere helper on before, but this time I was It!  That task was painting the exterior of the house.  Now our house, for the time we’ve been acquainted with it, has been white with chocolate brown trim.  Pretty, but actually a little boring, especially with a white roof.   When it became clear that it needed to be painted (blistered and missing paint was our first clue), it occurred to me that I didn’t have to stick with white, so we chose a nice, soft lemon yellow to replace the white walls.

Armed with four gallons of paint, new brushes and rollers, and enthusiasm, I cleared the grass and flotsam from next to the first wall and began to prepare to paint.  All Stop!  First, I needed to scrape the old, loose stuff away.  Yuck.  Hard work.  Little paint chips flying and sticking in hair. Sore arms after just a few minutes.  Discouragement.

Karl to the rescue!  Power tools, yes.  He fitted a wire rotary brush on the end of a drill and sent me back to work.  Alright!  This is more like it.  In a short time, the first wall was actually ready to paint.  Now, with Third Day playing in my ears, I spent the afternoon slapping paint on a wall.  I love painting outside, I don’t have to worry about making too much of a mess, and the truth is I’m a very messy painter.  A few hours later, the first wall was done.  Yay! So far, I’ve completed the whole downstairs part of the exterior of the house.  What I have left is the upstairs parts of the two ends.  This might get a bit tricky – since long ladders are going to be needed for parts of it, but I’m still feeling pretty confident that I can do this.

Of course, as I’ve worked, I’ve thought about how I can turn this house painting project into an object lesson about life or my Christian walk.  Several maxims appear:  No matter how pretty the paint, if you paint over a rotten board, the result will be unsatisfactory. Taking time to remove the old, bad, dilapidated, and worn out before adding a new cover gets the best result. Removing sin and bad habits hurts like a wire brush, but it’s worth it in the end. Life is messy.  Yellow paint in my hair doesn’t make me a blond.

Our back patio

Okay, I could go on and on now that I’m on a roll…but I’ll quit.  For today, I think the lesson I’m going to claim is this:  Life happens one brush stroke at a time.  If I focus on the patch directly in front of me, I see doable, attainable progress as opposed to feeling overwhelmed by a big job.  Life is a big job.

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Love in Action

Posted on March 26, 2018 by Donna Coulson

I’m tired today, but not nearly as tired as the fourteen people Karl and I took to the airport this morning at six AM to catch a flight home.  That dozen-plus-two worked hard this week, and they leave behind some real progress in the hurricane recovery and restoration for Frederiksted Baptist Church and the home and hearts of two Coulsons. Let me explain: In many ways, Karl and I call two places home – St Croix and Wyoming, and because of this we consider ourselves members of two congregations.  Our Wyoming church home is Golden Prairie Baptist Church near Burns, Wyoming, and of course, our church home here on island is FBC.  Well, the coolest thing happened this week – the two church families have joined – at least partially for a little while. Usually for spring break a group from GP go on a mission trip.  In recent years they’ve gone to help at an orphanage in Guatemala.  This year, they decided instead to come here, with the intent of helping restore the Sunday School building since Maria ripped the roof off that building.

And, help they did.  This group is the third and last group of people who traveled here to help us.  The first group came from Florida and they got the roof put back on.  The second group was from New England, and they restored the building’s inside, detailing the roof and putting a coat of paint on the inside.  The GP group then came in to do the finishing.  In four days, the group comprised of hearty, beautiful souls painted the entire exterior of the church and Sunday School building, they painted two bathrooms and the pastor’s office, and they did a little decorating inside.  They also did some carpentry work, pressure washing, and painting at a facility our church operates as a men’s home.  AND, two of the guys still had time to come to our house and install our new front door  – a job Karl was dreading to do after he finishes installing our new roof.  Add to that the fact that they brought all their supplies with them along with a plethora of Sunday School supplies to get us re-started with, and you can get a glimpse of why they are tired.

Painting the outside of the Sunday School building

 

After services on Sunday, the ladies at FBC put on an amazing lunch for everyone, just to celebrate!

 

 

 

All fourteen GP peeps plus their FBC hosts took time to relax and check out Point Udall.

Remember, February began with two dear men, Cade and Greg, coming to help Karl start on our roof, when Cade left a week later, the roof was well on its way. Then, Liz, Greg’s wife and one of the most amazing women I’ve ever known came to relax with us and remind us how much we are loved and why we live here.  After that, my bonus daughter and her new hubby arrived to bring us joy and blessings.  Four days after they left, our GP friends arrived. That’s a total of nineteen people.  Nineteen people in the last two months who weren’t satisfied with phone calls or prayers or good wishes or cards or anything short of themselves to share our journey through recovering from Maria.

So. Today I’m cleaning and doing laundry.  Karl and Morgan (another blessing of a huge sort who happens to live nearby and works really hard!) are working their way across the second side of the roof adding a new steel skin.  Despite the loud music and the sound of power tools, the house is quiet.  Gone are the faces and hugs of those who were here.  Make no mistake, though, their love remains.  It will be a long time before that runs out.

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Lizard Lessons

Posted on March 19, 2018 by Donna Coulson

One of the things I’ve learned about since I first came to the Caribbean is lizards.  At first, I was enamored with the large iguanas.  They are so prehistoric, Godzilla-like.  I liked them at first, mostly because of their novelty. But then the novelty wore off and I learned how destructive they are – in the Spring, they dig deep, deep holes.  Sometimes these caves are seven or eight feet in length, and at the end of them, is a clutch of sixty or more eggs, ready to spew forth a whole new company of neon green babies to contend with.  Not my friends since I live on the side of a hill. Karl and I enjoy harassing the iguanas now, and do so whenever we see one.

There are two other kinds of lizards I live with, though, and both of these I think are really cool.  We have geckos and anoles.  The geckos are shy. (Well, not really, they are nocturnal, and I’m not!)  I don’t see them often, but when I do they make me laugh with their woggly gait and big, bulbous toes.  My favorite, though, are anoles.  These little guys live, mostly, on our patio and around the outside of our house.  They are diurnal (new word for me…means active in the day – that’s me!), so we spend a lot of time together.  I appreciate them because they eat bugs and also because they are just fun to watch. I will admit that I am projecting human traits on all three of our lizard companions as we coexist, but I’ve come to believe that there are several lessons that I can learn from them.

  1. Keep quiet.  I read in Wikipedia that some lizards make a noise, but I’ve never knowingly heard it.  As far as my experience goes, lizards are silent.  How many times would it have been better for me to keep my mouth shut?
  2. Keep your eyes open. Interestingly, geckos don’t have eyelids, but even though iguanas and anoles do, all three are very conscious of their surroundings. It’s nearly impossible to sneak up on a lizard, you can’t get very close before they take evasive action.  So often, I am clueless simply because I don’t pay close attention.
  3. Don’t hold on too tightly. When it gets into a tight or dangerous situation, an anole can drop its tail off.  Left behind, wiggling all on its own, the tail serves as a wonderful distraction while the little guy gets away.  How many times do I stubbornly hold on to an unproductive thought or worry when I’d be better off jettisoning it?
  4. Have a thick skin. Iguanas have tough hide. Getting my feeling hurt is often a choice I make.
  5. Know your limits. From my perspective, anoles are fearless. They climb to the top of our house, they perch upside down above my head on the ceiling, they jump farther than they should be able to. They do all this without any outward show of hesitation or second guessing.  How do they do it?  They try.  They just do.  How many times do I limit myself and what I can accomplish because I doubt?  I doubt God’s provision, I doubt my own abilities.  I don’t see something as possible and therefore it isn’t.
  6. Live for today. Lizards do not prepare for winter, they don’t store food. An ant strolls by, and an anole runs over and eats it.  In the evening, anoles hang out by our porch light and gobble up little moths and mosquitos.  They live in the moment, munching as they go, chasing each other over the patio furniture (and me if I happen to be sitting in the way!). They are footloose and fancy free.  I like that.

 

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Can You See It?

Posted on March 5, 2018 by Donna Coulson

Sometimes on clear days we can see Puerto Rico from our house.  There’s about a ninety mile stretch of open water between us and them, and if the clouds are somewhere else and the humidity is low, we can see the coastal outline on the horizon.  It’s one of those cool things that happen – like glimpsing a shooting star or enjoying the rare appearance of a deer in our yard – a gift of sorts.

 

Saturday, we could see it – and it was so close!  Now in my rational brain, I know that the two islands do not move and that we are always the same distance apart, but that isn’t what my eyes took in.  On Saturday, Puerto Rico’s coastline was much nearer to us than usual.  Defined, distinct, sharp.

Puerto Rico from our house

So I’m thinking: Is a comparison of feeling God’s presence and the vision of Puerto Rico valid?  Whether I can see my far-away neighboring island or not depends on several circumstances. Some I have no control over: clouds, humidity, light, weather.  Some I do have control over: I have to go outside and look.  Is it the same for seeing and feeling God’s presence?  Definitely I do have some control over that: I need to be open to His call and listening for His presence.  But I wonder? Is it all up to me? During those times when God doesn’t feel close and I can’t see Him at all, is it because of me or is it because of circumstances outside of me?

 

I know I’m not the only one who asks this question. Psalms is full of chapters seeking God and not feeling His nearness. Since the hurricanes, things have not been easy and I’ve wondered what I’m doing wrong.  I’ve spent a lot of time in prayer and study, but there continues to be an aloneness in my soul that I can’t seem to banish.  It’s not that I doubt God – I don’t.  But I’ve spent a lot of time doubting myself. I’m standing outside, facing west, why can’t I see Him?

 

Before you start to worry, please know that I’m okay – because here’s where hope rescues me.  Even on days when clouds are in the way or nights when darkness cuts off any chance of a good view, I don’t feel totally isolated because I know that, just like Puerto Rico, God is there whether I see Him or not.  I am standing on Bible passages  (like Habakkuk 3: 16-19, Psalm 91:14-16, Matthew 8:23-27) written by people much wiser than I, knowing that this, too shall pass.

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Too Many to Count

Posted on February 26, 2018 by Donna Coulson

I’m counting my blessings, so I really don’t have time to blog today.  There are so many of them. Amidst a continuing parade of wrinkles and hurdles, this week has reminded me how loved I am both from heaven and from earth.  Last week, our dear friend Greg and his son Cade came to our island and home for the express purpose of helping Karl put a new corrugated skin on our horribly steep and treacherous roof.  Instead of enjoying paradise, they worked all week on ladders, getting sore muscles and sunburns as they drove screws and put up metal.  Cade returned home, and then Greg’s wife Liz arrived. For the most part, the work stopped (though the men are on the roof this morning), and the joy of friendship has reigned.

Cade and Greg, just beginning our roof project.

Karl and Greg – all smiles and screw drivers

I just can’t stay discouraged or stressed when dear friends sacrifice their time and daily lives to come spend time with us.  We’ve had lots of fun: taking distillery tours, snorkeling, a terrific evening sailing on the historic Roseway, listening to music at jazz in the park and at a local hamburger joint, sitting on the gallery talking and laughing.   There are not many better days than those filled with cherishing and being cherished by people who love you and you love right back.

We four have been friends for so many years.

On that same note, I just can’t stay discouraged or stressed when the God of the universe sacrifices Himself for me and spends time with me.  How do I know He is here?  Well, these weeks I know because I see him in Cade, and Liz and Greg’s eyes. I feel Him in their love and loyalty. I’m touched by God with how they encourage us.  I heard Him in a sermon yesterday morning reminding me of His safety.  I witness Him in the power of the sea and the wind in the sails of a sail boat.  I see Him in the stunning rainbows He has provided us all each morning.

Not a typical rainbow – instead a sort of dot or smear of color just on the horizon

It’s been a reminder and lesson beyond precious this week.  To be loved for no other reason than just who I am – it doesn’t get any better than this.

This wasn’t a typical rainbow, either. This one was a straight line of vibrant color just above the sea.

Categories: Living on St Croix, Random thoughts on being me | Leave a comment