“But now we have been released from the law, since we have died to what held us, so that we may serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the old letter of the law.” (Romans 7:6)
Christ has freed us to serve God out of love rather than duty. How beautiful is this?!
P.S. See this original post for info about this photo challenge and more about this reading plan I’m using this summer for the book of Romans (and I’d love to have you join in!)!
Bonus for you: I recently rediscovered a couple posts in my draft folder that never got published but were nearly complete. Because they were somewhat time-specific, I’ve decided to put on the finishing touches on a couple of them and post them backdated to the time when I initially wrote and photographed them. I’m not sure if those of you on my email list will still get a notification if I backdate a post, so I thought I’d include the link here, just in case! I’ll be posting them as I get them done over the next few weeks, but here’s the first one!
“What then? Should we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? Absolutely not!” (Romans 6:15)
“The righteousness of God 
Sometimes, when you’re sick in bed, watching the world go by without you outside your window, it’s good to do something other than focus on how sore your throat happens to be. Or maybe, for you, it’s more like sick in heart and focusing on how deep your hurts happen to be. Either way, they can end up feeling pretty similar: discouraging.
I remembered the
I remembered the fish we saw, and the fish we caught,
I remembered eating ice cream in a shop that smelled of vanilla and waffles,
And, as is often the case, it was easy to go on from there and remember the things I didn’t have photographs of, like…
Meet my borrowed kayak!
I slipped along past the water lilies, and brushed gently through the wild rice. The water was like glass except for the artful zigzags of water bugs. The mosquitoes stayed away, and I could hear a blue heron croaking in the distance. Water dripped down to my elbows as I dipped the paddle up and down, and for a few minutes, the looming to-do list for the upcoming weeks faded away to the back of my mind.
The quiet of the water was a peaceful place for thinking, and as I floated airily along in my orange pod, it occurred to me that the gift of life is a lot like a borrowed kayak.
My encouragement for the day? If there’s a kayak sitting neglected in your yard, go use it. It’s good for the soul. And if your life feels a bit like a neglected kayak, go use that, too. Spend it well–and when time is up and it’s time to give an account, you’ll have no regrets.
…my camera gave to me,
My camera brought to me,
…my searching brought to me,
It’s the best part of spring, that brief period of time when life begins to reemerge from the bare branches and brown earth. The world is exploding almost visibly with life, and I hardly dare blink lest I miss something. Everywhere I look there are buds bursting open, leaves unfolding, new scenes unfolding and an unending number of discoveries to make.
Then, there are the woodsy pilgrimages to make, traditions dating to my childhood, like going in search of the dainty lavender and white hepaticas that are so absolutely quintessential of a Minnesota spring.
And, if I’m paying attention and watching my step as I go, there is almost always something new to discover. Something unexpected, like the strange forms of emerging horsetail at the edge of a gravel country road. Or a pair of sandhill cranes, flapping their half-graceful, half-ungainly way out of the maze of last year’s cornstalks. Or a fisher bounding across a lonely, narrow, backwoods road, stopping just long enough to glance back at us curiously.
Beauty in the expected and familiar; beauty in the unexpected and unfamiliar. Truly,
Rejoicing Hills 