Grass pierces concrete

While on our annual Memorial Day Beach House excursion, I was on a walk with two friends when we came upon a lemon tree. It was sort of a strange looking lemon tree because it had no leaves and the lemons were covering exactly one half of the branches. I was so tempted to just pluck one and take it with me. I voiced this desire to my friends and they gently teased me about it, talking me out of it, and cracking jokes about taking fruit in the garden of eden. Anyway, we kept walking.Not more than 3 minutes later, however, they noticed something on the side of the road. Laughing, they told me there was a present waiting for me. It was an enormous shopping bag with “Free Lemons” scrawled on the side of it! I gasped in disbelief and ran to investigate. The bag was indeed filled with more lemons than we could possibly want! One of them hoisted the bag on his shoulder and we took them back the beach house to make lemonade.That kind of thing never happens to me. I was so humbled. How quick I am to grab for my desires based on my flighty wishes. Yet God gives so lovingly, in such abundance! If only I can learn to trust His timing and know in the core of who I am that he knows the desires of my heart and has loving intentions toward me.Free Lemons!!!

There are several indicators as to how I am doing. One is the cleanliness of my room. If the bed is unmade, it quite possibly means that life has been unusually chaotic and it could very well be a plea for help. Another indicator is the presence of household projects and crafts. Those are good signs that I am feeling good about life and have a healthy balance of leisure time that I am not wasting. Anyway, that was just a random Emily tidbit and intro to these things I am quite proud of. Here are a few things I’ve been up to…

So I’ve been looking for this quote from C.S. Lewis’ Great Divorce for some time now, it’s a favorite:But I have forgotten. And only partly do I remember the unbearable beauty of her face.“Is it? … is it?” I whispered to my guide.“Not at all,” said he. “It’s someone ye’ll never have heard of. Her name on earth was Sarah Smith and she lived at Golders Green.”“She seems to be … well, a person of particular importance?”“Aye. She is one of the great ones. Ye have heard that fame in this country and fame on Earth are two quite different things.”“And who are these gigantic people… look! They’re like emeralds… who are dancing and throwing flowers before her?”“Haven’t ye read your Milton? A thousand liveried angels lackey her.““And who are all these young men and women on each side?”“They are her sons and daughters.”“She must have had a very large family, Sir.”“Every young man or boy that met her became her son—even if it was only the boy that brought the meat to her back door. Every girl that met her was her daughter.”“Isn’t that a bit hard on their own parents?”“No. There are those that steal other people’s children. But her motherhood was of a different kind. Those on whom it fell went back to their natural parents loving them more. Few men looked on her without becoming, in a certain fashion, her lovers. But it was the kind of love that made them not less true, but truer to their own wives.”“And how… but hullo! What are all these animals? A cat—two cats—dozens of cats. And all those dogs… why, I can’t count them. And the birds. And the horses.”“They are her beasts.”“Did she keep a sort of zoo? I mean, this is a bit too much.”“Every beast and bird that came near her had its place in her love. In her they became themselves. And now the abundance of life she has in Christ from the Father flows over into them.”I looked at my Teacher in amazement.“Yes,” he said. “It is like when you throw a stone into a pool, and the concentric waves spread out further and further. Who knows where it will end? Redeemed humanity is still young, it has hardly come to its full strength. But already there is joy enough in the little finger of a great saint such as yonder lady to waken all the dead things of the universe into life.”