It was always the little girl that
captivated her – the one reaching towards the endless sunlit sky and racing
through a field of tall grass and wildflowers, chasing dandelion dust and
butterflies on the breeze. Her hair twisting and flying. Her legs
barely able to keep up. Racing a boundless horizon. The summer
dress. The cloudless sky. Embracing
sunshine. Freedom. Joy. Grace. Holy abandon.
Heaven smiling down on her in fullest delight. It was the place her mind ran
to when she wanted to step away from the world for a while. When she
needed “pilgrim” to be redefined and “wanderer” to be a thing of beauty because
being both sometimes called her to the outer edges of her faith. 
Life in a broken world has a way of teaching us
sometimes that it isn't safe to trust or to dream for ourselves or for others -- that it isn't safe to chase dandelions -- that if
we allow our heart to breath out hopes, like a wind-kissed dandelion, they will
scatter instead in a million directions and be forever lost. White picket fences
become things of fairytales but not real life. Redemption becomes
heaven’s playground but certainly not earth’s footstool. Things gained come shrouded with some kind of loss...the great trade-off of the
universe. So holding joy comes to mean holding fear, yet the heart cannot
hold both together. Can the God who clothes lilies with beauty while the
heart lies bare really be trusted, we reason? Can His goodness ever
bridge the gaps and demands of life when those very gaps and demands elude goodness? How does one
chase dandelions when His whispers seem too quiet to hear and the shouts of this
world too loud to ignore...when the lies of everyday reality seem easier to
believe than His truths that challenge them...when the transparent beauty of the gospel for real life seems to get veiled by real life itself?
So He asks us to simply run,
limping with wrenched Jacob-hips and all (Genesis 32). Unhindered...with the joy of
heaven set before us (Hebrews 12:2). While life may offer up only leftover
crumbs after everyone else is satisfied (Matthew 15:24-28), He offers up a heavenly feast and delights in taking
the "Mephibosheth hearts," lame and crippled in spirit, to be His sons and
daughters and invites them to eat continually at His table
(2 Samuel 9:11,13). Yes, He asks us to
run...in open fields of beauty where the God of Hope comes and reminds us to
breathe out hope in Him, and to let it scatter in a thousand directions and
plant seeds under heaven’s canopy. Eyes of Grace will watch where each
seed falls – He will catch them in His heart before they hit the ground, never allowing
one to be lost from His gaze, that word of love, that little gift, that sacrifice, that right choice, and, yes, even that dream. And He'll catch life's betrayals, rejections, wounds, and heartaches too with the tenderness of a healer. He'll keep gently whispering along the
way that hope brings joy and that joy is never for holding but only for giving. A heart that is
trusting is secure in not only what it has but in what it gives away. Lessons for life, learned and relearned in
the dust at the foot of the cross on our paralympic journey to the finish line.You know, they say white picket fences and giants are for fairytales. Perhaps they are. With fences of pure grace hedging us behind and before (Job 3:23, Psalm 139:5), He confines our hearts to His as the King who makes princes and princesses out of paupers (Ezekiel 16:4-14). Giants in so many forms set across our path till we learn to become brave Goliath slayers. Until we learn and re-learn the simplicity of five little stones, prayer, the kingdom within, and Things Unseen.
And they say little girls running through fields of dandelions and a thousand little violet flowers are storybook endings. Maybe they are. Our story wrapped up in Jesus' story written across timeless pages where, as the last page of life is turned, we see instead, in His indelible script, the words "The Beginning."
This blog....
Chasing dandelions.
Chasing grace.
