Disturb Us, Lord.

Disturb us, Lord, when

We are too well pleased with ourselves,

When our dreams have come true

Because we have dreamed too little,

When we arrived safely

Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when

With the abundance of things we possess

We have lost our thirst

For the waters of life;

Having fallen in love with life,

We have ceased to dream of eternity

And in our efforts to build a new earth,

We have allowed our vision

Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,

To venture on wider seas

Where storms will show your mastery;

Where losing sight of land,

We shall find the stars.

We ask You to push back

The horizons of our hopes;

And to push into the future

In strength, courage, hope, and love.

-Sir Francis Drake, 1577

{why a pearl?}

...well, let me tell you!

A mollusk is a living creature. At first glance, it doesn't look very impressive, but looks can be deceiving!

{Oysters, clams, and mussels are mollusks that can produce pearls but the majority are produced by oysters}.

In a nutshell, these creatures are alive! They have a heart, intestines, a nervous system, the whole sha-bang! (well, kind of!) The inside of the oyster has a tender lining called the mantle. Sometimes, particles such as sand slip inside and irritate the delicate mantle. As a protective response to the"pain" of the irritant, the oyster secretes nacre, a chemical that builds up over time, eventually producing the beautiful pearl. The longer the pearl "suffers" the bigger, more beautiful, and valuable the pearl.

James 1:2-3 says, "My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing."

In a similar way, we can have confidence in knowing that there is a purpose for our pain.  Like the oyster, our trials will produce something beautiful if we can learn to patiently trust God.  After all, only He can create such beauty from pain.

{a pearl-in-progress}

There are millions of blogs out there....and somehow I have allowed myself to become one of them :) 

These days, with technology, it's difficult to come up with new or profound thoughts or ideas that have not already originated from someone else.  Therefore, consider yourself warned that much of what I share will not be so much from my own creative brain (unfortunately), but rather bits and pieces of my own thoughts mixed in with things I have stumbled upon in my own journey through life.

Eleanor Roosevelt once said to "Learn from the mistakes of others. You cannot live long enough to make them all yourself."  Whether a mistake, a thought, or a simple little something from the heart, it is my hope that this blog will {at the very least} help me better understand the Heart of God as I attempt to bring forth the hidden things from the most inner depths of my heart and mind out into writing that I can visibly see.  May whomever is reading this blog be encouraged as you venture out into your own journey, learning to trust God a little more everyday. 

A fellow traveler {and pearl-in-progress}.