The Farside Banks of Jordan

2025 has been a rough year.

Among other things, I’ve attended too many funerals.  A precious little boy.  A loving sister-in-law.  Today, a treasured friend.

There is a sadness, a void, even an anger that we mere humans have when we lose someone we love.  Let’s be honest.  It’s extremely hard to see past those feelings to the eternal picture.  But at each of these services, full of tears because of our loss, the messages were not fully centered around the person we loved and lost.  

The center was Jesus.  At each one.  And there is hope in that for me. 

Hope that in the sorrow, we have Someone to cling to, to cry with, to shout our anger to.  Someone that will always love us no matter what we are feeling.  Or doing.  Or for how long.  Someone that offers forgiveness for all of the stupid things we do or say and the ability to change and do better.  Someone that is reaching out to us to come closer, to move in, to take hold of all of the promises.  Someone that is willing us to do good, to be good, to extend His hands and feet to those around us.  Someone that is asking us to live life like each of those I am remembering:  completely, joyfully, lovingly, humbly, compassionately, generously.  Someone that is asking us to keep planting those flowers so He can make them grow.

I was so blessed to have worked with my friend for the first 16 of the past 18 years.  Her absence at the office over the past 2 years has been immense.  Her absence now is even greater.  But I am clinging to the promises that she and I both believe and one day, I pray, she will greet me again with her contagious smile and her strong, loving arms.

I imagine her standing next to my loving sister-in-law; both looking over their shoulder watching that precious little boy run through the fields of flowers just beyond.  Behind them there’s a long line of people that I love waiting to welcome me home … there on the Farside Banks of Jordan.

Tonight, I will mourn a little longer.  But tomorrow, God willing, the sun will rise again, and peek out from behind the clouds, bringing Light into our darkness and color to our gray world, and I will try again to live like my friend, my sister-in-law, and that little boy … to live like Christ.

Philippians 2:1-7
2 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, ² then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. ³ Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, ⁴ not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
⁵ In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
⁶ Who, being in very nature^[a] God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
⁷ rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature^[b] of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.

So Much Noise

I am having difficult sleeping lately so I'm trying various things to get my body ready for sleep.

Anyone that knows me well, knows that I am not a girl that loves to lounge in the tub but much prefer a pounding, hot shower.  And I like my shower in the morning ... I've been known to equate your morning coffee to my morning shower.  If I'm doing some dirty work during the day, I'll also take one at night to clean up, but you'll still find me back there in the morning.  It's just my thing.

I say all this because I've tried a couple of nighttime baths recently.  Sounds like a lovely way to wind down, right?  Hot water, toss in some Epsom salts (magnesium is supposed to help with sleep), some quiet time to settle down and relax.

Quiet time.  This should be so easy for me to achieve.  My nest is empty.  There is no one here to make noise.  And I definitely know how to "be quiet".  But as I soaked in the tub searching for relaxation, all I could hear was noise!  The water was dripping ... where, I do not know - it was not from the faucet, so do I have a leak below the tub??  The clock was ticking ... incessantly.  The furnace was running ... why isn't it warm enough to keep it off yet?  The lady beetles were flying into the light bulb ... so. many. beetles.  And why didn't I turn the light off?  It's way too bright in here.  The cat was at the door begging to come in ... really???  It's like having toddlers!

So this begs the question ... can we really achieve quietness or is our world such a busy, loud, clanging cymbal that this is impossible?

I work in an office that is not quiet.  Phones, conversation, phones, office machines, phones, laughter, phones, alarms, phones, crying children, phones, doorbells, phones, traffic, phones, music.  You get the picture.

I live in a house that is not quiet.  Music, television, phone, fan, cats, appliances, ticking clocks, and, apparently, dripping water.

I inhabit a world that is definitely not quiet.  Traffic, nature, weather, sirens, people, entertainment, social media.

Even when I attempt quiet, I cant seem to achieve it.  My brain stays in overdrive.  I can't stop thinking ... about anything, everything.  Burnout?  Depression?  Survival mode?  Years of unintentional habit?

I want quiet.  I want peace.  I really want to be able to hear what God is yelling to me from the heavens but I just can't seem to hear over all the noise.  I want warm weather to return so I can at least be outside immersed in the  sounds of nature in hopes they drown out the sounds of my anxieties. But until then, at least for this afternoon, I am going to stay inside, as quiet as possible, and try to be comfortable in that.  

Right after I fold the laundry ...

"In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength."  Isaiah 30:15