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Is there genuine tranquility in your soul?
Posted : 18 Dec, 2010 07:15 AM
This morning my heart and spirit were barefoot blessed to read with the Holy Spirit this article by Tonya Stoneman that I share with you now from a back issue of Charles Stanley's In Touch devotional magazine. In it Tonya recalls her visit to console a friend whose husband had gone to be with the Lord suddenly only to find her friend ministering more to HER than SHE was to her friend through the peace her friend had in her soul from her years of commmunicating with and trusting in God's provisions.
Barefoot Enjoy and Be Blessed in this shared memory by Tonya Stoneman!!! :hearts::hearts::hearts:
Love,
Steve
Seeing the Big Blue Sky
By Tonya Stoneman
God is not our memories or fantasies; He's right in front of us.
They call Montana �Big Sky Country� because the sky takes up two-thirds of the landscape. Despite the towering mountains that stretch out for miles and the vast grassy plains, the sky gives you a glimpse of infinity here on earth. Over-sized cartoon clouds leave giant shadows on the prairie below. As I travel from Roundup to Grass Range, I feel like I�m driving in an IMAX movie. I am engulfed by my surroundings, yet I don�t feel insignificant. The crisp, chilly air and the fir trees and the old-world telephone poles remind me so much of home that I slip into a peaceful state of nostalgia. It�s an open range, so I have to stop periodically to let cows or deer make their way across the road.
I live in the city now, and I don�t want to go back there. I want to pack my bags and move out here. This isn�t the first time I�ve felt this way, and I�m already dreading the reentry process when my visit is finished. I�m here to see my very best childhood friend. Celeste and I have seen each other only once in the past 12 years despite the fact that we used to be utterly inseparable.
Last summer when I was having a strangely awful time in Paris, I received an e-mail. My family had been unable to reach me, so this was their only means of communication. Celeste�s husband Mark had died tragically while lifting weights one afternoon. The funeral had come and gone while I was vacationing on an island with no telephone.
After a long cry, I called Celeste. Her voice sounded strong and stable when she answered, but broke when I told her it was me. We wept together, and then she told me she was worried about her babies. She said that the morning after Mark�s death, she had awakened to the feeling of his warmth next to her in bed�but then turned over and he wasn�t there. She put on his robe and went out to the porch where they used to drink tea together in the mornings.
I ached for my good friend and felt like a loser for not being there to ease her pain. I went outside and took a walk through the gardens near my apartment. I wanted to share the beauty around me with her. And him, too. The caf�s, the music, the cobblestone streets�I began to imagine Mark and Celeste relishing it all. Everywhere I looked, I saw both of them. My mind could not conjure an image of her without him. We agreed that I would go to Montana in the fall when all of her visitors had gone and she needed company.
The two-hour drive to her house gives me time to settle from the business of traveling and my hectic life. I�ve brought coffee from home in case the country folk here don�t have the good stuff. I shouldn�t have bothered.
As I crest a hill and drive down into a valley, I see a gigantic sign looming 20 feet tall on the horizon. It�s literally the only indication of civilization aside from fences and roads. It�s a long way off, but big enough to read from a distance: ESPRESSO. �You�ve got to be kidding me,� I say, as if somebody can hear. It turns out the coffee is amazing.
Hardly any time passes before Celeste and I fall into the familiar routine of talk-ing the hours away. It�s just the way it used to be, only it�s not. We�re 40 now and Mark is dead and everything is entirely different. We meet up with her little sister, who lives on a 9,000-acre cattle ranch. She has about 600 cows, and her garden is bigger than my house. She tells me her goal is to get through the winter without buying a single vegetable at the supermarket. We laugh remembering the crazy things we used to do together�I had forgotten all of these memories. I had forgotten how to laugh like this. I�m envious of my friends, of their serene, earthy life and their camaraderie. They are blissfully unaffected by the vain cares of society. None of them owns a television. After dinner, they sip cowboy coffee and sit around the kitchen table playing word games. Nobody is in a hurry.
Everybody�s dishes and stoves are worn�so shabby they�re chic. The saucers and bowls have stories to tell. Nothing matches. I think of my self-centered world back home, how I�m irked by my hodgepodge cutlery. All my friends have state-of-the-art kitchenware. (Funny, though, their meals are no better.) It�s silly to think of these things�except that we do it all the time. Whether we obsess about our dishes or our careers or houses or bank accounts or social connections, we pin our hopes on things.
It�s not necessarily important to distinguish what exactly captures our devotion. The point is what these things represent. They are objects of our desire, and they can quickly turn into aspirations. Dr. Zhivago wants to break free from the prison to which his war-torn country has exiled him. He has an affair to sate his starving heart. Jay Gatsby wants to be an aristocrat.
He buys a fine old house, fancy cars, and clothes to convince others he is one. Captain Ahab wants to conquer his adversary. In pursuit of victory, he chases the white whale to his own watery grave. None of these people find what they really want, but they all die trying.
I drive through the snowy hills of Montana, wanting to live in a world that feeds my hunger for beauty, wanting close friends and pursuits that invigorate, wanting to be free of stress, comparisons, and idleness. I crave the affirmation of knowing that I matter a great deal. But I�m pretty sure that, like the characters I read about, I won�t find what I�m looking for by moving across the country.
A girlfriend who is unmarried recently told me, �Most Christians have a place in their life where they experience some kind of longing. Whether a person wants a spouse, a child, a career, a relationship with a parent, financial security, a clean slate, a house, to be healed from a sickness, to be freed from an addiction, or to escape from a Communist country (she�s Cuban) . . . whatever . . . How does a believer deal with unrequited desires in a godly manner? How do we trust God whether or not that yearning is ever fulfilled in our lives? And how is God using it all to draw us closer to Himself? That�s what we need to know.�
It�s so easy to romanticize other people�s lives. I think of the days I spent living in France feeling miserable. Despite the remarkable world around me, I felt lonely there. My rudimentary language skills made it difficult to connect with others, and even mundane tasks were often trying. At the same time, I remember the day I forsook the mountains of my youth in exchange for a city, thinking rocks and streams could not console me the way people could.
Is a person ever home while living here on earth? My pastor says that to commune with God is to live in the pres-ent. The way he puts it, God is not in our memories or our fantasies, but is right here in front of us. We miss life when we live for the past or the future.
Celeste takes me to see Mark�s grave�something I have nervously anticipated. He�s buried beneath a stalwart maple tree just a few blocks from their home. She can go visit anytime she wants. His resting place is peaceful, and she does not cry when we are there. I am certain Mark would be happy with this.
She makes me a bowl of wedding soup, pours me endless cups of Paris tea, and even sends me out for a massage (though she has little money). I�m struck that my dear friend cannot stop ministering to me despite the fact that I have come to help her. Can she really see the thirst inside of me? Or is she just so fulfilled that grace spills out of her, even in her time of need? In many respects, I�m jealous of Celeste. Amazingly, I�m envious of my friend who has just lost her husband and faces the future alone. She has learned to commune with God in this present world full of spiritual poverty. There is genuine tranquility in her soul.
I think this comes from the collective years that she has spent with God, a little bit each day. In the evenings, when the children are in bed, she sits in her living room and reads from the Bible and prays. He has become a good friend to her, someone who will stay when everyone else is gone. She sees Him everywhere� in our afternoon walks, in the neighbors who help with household repairs, in the songs of Ella Fitzgerald�and is not remiss in thanking Him for His faithful provision to her.
As I make the long drive away from Celeste�s house, I decide I will take something of her with me�I will notice the signposts of God�s favor along the way. A smile stretches across my face when, once again, I pass the agrarian espresso stand on Route 87.
Copyright 2010 In Touch Ministries, Inc. All rights reserved. www.intouch.org. In Touch grants permission to print for personal use only.
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