The Calling

I was so busy hoping
and striving
to be amazing
that I almost forgot to be me.

Whew!  I almost missed my calling!

The Banner

There's something
That's been hanging
Over my head lately
More and more
It's been getting my attention
At times I look up
And gaze straight at it
Marveling at its presence
In its shadow
Which is somehow made of light
I freely dance
As though not a soul is watching
Yet closer than ever
Someone is watching my soul

When I look inside me
It is there
Even when I'm feeling things
I wish I weren't feeling
Discouragement
Fear
Anger
Despair
There it remains over me, over me
 

It reaches into me
Drapes itself around me
And carpets the ground
Beneath me
Yet somehow is
The ground beneath me

I abide and grow
As slowly I know
In the safety of this place
The works of God
Are wonderful
My expanding heart
Indeed fills with wonder
At the beauty
Of what He's made
And is making
In the world out there
And of me
In here

He beckons me
Lay down my fear
The dread that says
I'll never be
Not ever be
Who I'm made to be
I was made to be
With this banner
Called "Love"
Over me
diane carver mann 2010

My Soul is Knowing It

My friend Stacey and I recently together went on an outing to Oak Glen and Live Oak Canyon to photograph fall scenery.  At the end of our day, we decided we would each look over our pictures and find the most meaningful one and tell each other what message in that photo God may have for us or what He was stirring in us.  I loved all Stacey's shots and thought mine didn't turn out so well, but when I got to this one, it spoke to me.

The flower looks as if it is peeking out from behind a leaf behind which it had previously been hiding shyly.    It's a sunflower, but not yellow like most sunflowers, and it is done being ashamed about its uniqueness and, in fact, even beginning to embrace who its Creator made it to be.  The flower seemed to be saying, even singing, "It's good to be me!"  Without further explanation, here it is!  And I'm making bookmarks out of the pictures, writing the verse below on the backs of them and giving them to a group of people who really helped create a sacred and safe place this year for me to blossom.

 "Wonderful are your works!  

My soul knows it very well."

Psalm 139:14b

The View From Here

The path is narrow

But the view is broad

Everywhere I look

I see God.

diane mann 2010

The Prize

Have you ever won a booby prize?  You remember, it's the gift you get for pinning the tail onto a friend's forehead rather than on the intended paper donkey's behind.  Things went really badly for you, but you were given a prize of some sort anyway to console you for the failed outcome of your performance.  While praying recently for a dear friend's mom who is being tested for Alzheimer's disease, God revealed a way I see Him and His consolation that He wants to change in me. 

"Lord," I plead, "Please help _______ to not have Alzheimer's.  Let the doctors be wrong and the tests come back negative.  And be with her husband and her children as they help her through this time.  God, if you don't keep her from having Alzheimer's, then please be with her and her family throughout this ordeal and show them more of You."  What I really, really wanted, my Plan A, was  healing for my friend's mom.  But if God refused to provide my very best plan, I asked Him to go ahead with Plan B, which was for Him to be with this family.

After closing my prayer in the name of Jesus, this thought arose in me:  God is not the booby prize, yet I pray as though He is such!  The Lord's precious Presence is far greater than any outcome for which I'm begging.  I do know I can bring my specific requests to God, even as Jesus pled with God in the garden.  "Pour out your heart before Him," writes David in Psalm 62:8.  How wonderful and necessary it is to be able to honestly come before God laying out my petitions and grievances.

But I believe God is showing me that, even more than these answers that I am seeking, His with-us-ness is what it's all about.  He wants me to know -- to deep-down know -- that His goodness is infinitely more good than any perceived badness is bad.  Is disease awful?  Yes!  I am still praying for this dear lady to not have to go through the suffering that accompanies this illness, but whatever God allows to be sifted through His loving hands will, as we trust and look for Him, leave us awe-full of Him.  So even the awful can eventually leave us awe-filled.

"When you pass through the waters, I WILL BE WITH YOU," promised God to the Israelites (Isaiah 43:2).  As I spent time with God absorbing the truth about Him in this passage, He gave me a mental picture of myself as a mom clinging to my children in the water when they were unable to swim.  Because of how precious they were to me, I held on tightly.  Nothing was going to cause me to release my loving, protective grip on them.  In His goodness, in His love, He embraces me in the rough waters of life tenderly, with care and with His strength as my father.  During those times of being held by God, I come to know Him more intimately and to trust Him in new ways.

Whether the Lord God plucks me or my loved ones out of the stormy times or carries us through them, He is better than the answer to any prayer for deliverance I seek. "I am the first; and I am the last," says the Holy One.  He is the only prize!  Oh, to know the sweetness of this truth more and more fully as I live this life He has given me!

Father God, if I or others are to be healed, let us know You in the healing and wholeness you provide.  And if we are to go through hardship that we dread, may we find You there and know your grace to be more than sufficient to meet every need.  Let me more and more see that You are both the destination and the journey.  "I am the first; and I am the last," You say.  You are the only prize!  And You are what I desire.

I Almost Forgot

Sometimes I forget about grace
Then remember
And can breathe 
Once again.

dm 2010

A Dying-to-Me Prayer

Lord, Make me dead to what leads to death

And alive to what leads to life.

Amen

Steps

I wrote this years ago to record my fears, gratitude to my husband and hopes that God would see me through the stuck place I was in upon finding out my hepatitis C treatment did not work as the doctors had thought.  I read it again this morning and marvel at the redemptive-ness of God, re-collecting the shattered pieces of me and growing new things in my life from spots of desolation.  Here is a piece of my journey.

Big steps
Little steps
Stepping toward each other
Backing away
Crawling
Running 
Leaping
Lunging
Strolling, barefooted steps
Steep, mountainous steps
Uphill
Downhill
Learning to pace
Stopping to listen
To the Spirit's footsteps
So we could keep walking
In His ways

Arm in arm with my Dad
I stepped eagerly
Toward you
As tears of happiness
Streamed down
Your handsome face
You gasped
And covered your mouth
Because you felt so blessed that God
Chose me to walk
Through life with you
My Dad prayed
Kissed me
Then placed my hand 
In yours
Up the stairs we walked
We knelt in prayer
We sang
Making our pledge
To God and each other
To walk together
In good times
And bad times
In rich times
And poor times
In sickness
And in health
We promised to love 
And cherish each other
Our whole life long

I've just been through
A very painful
Difficult few years
God never left me
But neither did you
You have been so helpful
So kind
So compassionate
Consistent
And considerate
You have driven home
In the middle of the day
When the darkness seemed too dark
For me to take another step alone
Along you came (flashlight in hand -- or on forehead:)
To help me walk through this illness
The treatment
And all that accompanied it

So many appointments
You sat by my side
Having driven from Huntington Beach
To Loma Linda
We laughed because Dr. Hu
Liked you
Your scientific mind
And your A, B, C questions so well
He always patted me and said,
"You be fine.  You will get better.  You have good husband."

I know God deserves the glory
For getting me through
This tough time of my life
But you have my deep gratitude as well
For you have been a vessel of His grace, strength and love
To me

With each step
I'll stay by you, too
I cannot thank you enough
For your sacrificial love

Back up the aisle we walked
Arm in arm
On our wedding day
Our first steps 
As man and wife
Today I walk meekly
Into the medical center
While you park the car
We didn't ask for
Or expect
This to be part of our journey
But it is not our first trial together
Neither will it be our last
You are the one
With whom I want to share
My ecstasy
And my deepest pain

We have walked with
And comforted each other
Through the untimely losses
of both our Dads
They should be here
For us
And to see our children graduate
Develop their gifts
Get married

Well, the results came back
As did my hepatitis
Seeing our grief
The nurse left us alone
In the examining room
To absorb what we had heard
To comfort each other
To cry
Rather than being a painful
Chapter in our lives
To be looked back on
This illness will remain
We will learn to accept it
Though anger, anguish and grief precede
Our learning to live with this burden
God will use it as an instrument of change
Good and great things will stem
From this uninvited invader
Of what we thought
Our lives would look like

God is the author of my life
Of our lives, of our children's lives
Now we look around and say
This is not what we ever wanted
Or asked for
It feels so cruel and harsh
I stomp my feet
Climb in bed
Bury my head under the covers
And say
It just can't be
This is not okay with me
You cry with me
Searching for a way 
To lessen my sorrow

God, right now I want to run
And run and run
But running from You is pointless
For there is nowhere that You aren't!
So even with my childlike tantrums
And my deep fear
Of an unknown future
Help me to do my running
Toward You
Even if I flail in Your arms
Like an obstinate two-year-old
Be patient with me
I just can't take another step
It's scary ahead
And I am afraid

Offer me Your strong
And steady hand
Teach me to believe 
That Your ways
Are really, truly
Higher, better, brighter
Than my ways
It sounds impossible now
But someday let me look back
And see how You became my strength
In weakness
How You became
My light
In darkness
Be, as You have been at other times,
The lifter of my head

I don't want to look back
At the end of my life
And say, I could have had a good life
Had it not been for my illness
Let it not define me
Let being Your daughter define me
Let knowing Your goodness define me
Let a life being yielded to You
Because I'm certain of Your love
Define me
I'm going to need so many reminders
Of Your love and goodness
Along the way
Doubts will arise
But I'll take them to You

This bad news is a chance for me
To say
I wonder how God is going to show
His goodness and grace 
Through this situation
I know He will
As I reach my shaky hand
Toward His strong, steady hand
And walk with Him
Sometimes reluctantly
But hopefully willingly
Step by baby step.

Diane Mann, 2004

I'm Covered

Today I open a can of paint
Trying not to inhale too deeply the fumes
But am struck with the potent truth
That God remembers
My sin
No more

Romans 4:7
"Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered."

Shadow Prayer

Here
In the sun
Sometimes the heat
Is just too much 
For me to bear
Vulnerable
Exposed
I feel the need 
To hide
To seek solace
In a not-so-light place

Rather than run
To the dark shadows
That deceptively promise relief
May I rush
To the shade
Of Your welcoming wings
And find sweet shelter
There.

Diane Mann
2010

Today

Today I loved you
Not like Christ loves you
Today I treated you
Like He never would
Condemnation He serves not

His fingers don't point

At where you're lacking
Or what you should or shouldn't have done

So pure and right is He!
His fountain flows with forgiveness, cleansing, redemption

A gathering back of His loved ones
To Him

"Come, all who are thirsty! 
Come and Drink!"

God has called me to be a vessel

Of healing love and much-needed grace

To His children

To you

Today I saw you through eyes of fear

And offered my anger

My hurt and resentment

Trying to make you feel as though

You've missed the mark

My actions looked nothing like

The life-giving love

That Christ so freely pours on me

And you

How I hope you'll forgive me
As Jesus forgave me
Today

Diane Mann 2010