Category Archives: faith

His grace in my moment of weakness (a poem)

At times like these, I truly know

That there are ones, whe’er friend or foe

who’ll say a prayer that I’ll be whole

In my time of weakness.

Without my saying a single word

The warriors of Prayer were instantaneously spurred

And their heartfelt prayers, my Father heard

In my time of weakness.

His encouragement began in my mother’s home

Where by grace she knew what was already known

And her love covered me like a blanket of blooms

In my time of weakness.

It then continued at my sister’s pool

Where love for my precious family did fuel

Dulling the  confusion of my inward duel

In my time of weakness.

Then there is a moment,  as every now and then

A priceless bit of time with my dearest friend

The one I know, for certain, will be there ’til the end

In my time of weakness.

The reminiscing of days gone by

Some with laughter, some with sigh

Some with tears brimming in our eyes

In my time of weakness.

Knowing that what was once can be

No longer a part of real life for me

Knowing I see what i want to see

In my time of weakness.

In my heart, I realize the pain they’d feel

If but a glimpse of my sadness was revealed

Knowing inside I had lost the zeal

In my time of weakness.

Getting down on bended knee

I pray that from these chains I’m freed

That no more would life be consumed by grief

In my time of weakness.

Driving home with my thoughts I felt so close to despair

Then creation rumbled as it cried out its prayer

That your gentle loving spirit would sooth my every care

In my time of weakness.

© gina minton kearns

Daisies in June

Jim is gone.  He is with Jesus. Even if it were in my power to do so, I would not bring him back to this  life with it’s twists, turns, trials and sorrows.  So this day, this night, this moment, I set him free.  Happy Birthday my precious one … I loved him in life and will love him, even if by God’s will, there is another, until my last breath, for he was a gift of my Father and he helped me see what I needed to see to fulfill the destiny God has for me.  I had words to say, but was unable to  find the way to say them  … and then they were given to me by the Sweet Holy Spirit … It always seems that, at my weakest moment, He gives to me what I need to hear … this time, He gave it to me in words … My God.  My Savior.  My Jesus.

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time, change and dreams … and the encouragement therein

Time.  That elusive element that can drag out for what seems like an eternity or pass in a split moment.  The one thing that is both a constant and ephemeral, often at the same time. It seems to go hand in hand with change, a thing that I have never quite been able to grasp nor to become adept at handling.  While change isn’t necessarily a bad thing, often a good thing even, it is still unyielding in it’s power to overtake my life.  Change, like the passing of time, is inevitable.  There is no miracle that can erase those things that make my life better or worse and there is no magic that can bring back a moment that has passed.  Having a memory of something that has happened or that has been at one point is not the same thing as having that moment to live all over again.  Each time a memory is revisited, it changes slightly, taking on the gleam of what I would have it to be, whether it is better or worse than I remembered the last time I visited it.   There are even those memories that seem to be inherited, those that don’t really belong to me and yet they are in my mind and my heart as though they were mine all along.  My brain, heart, spirit and soul have been strained to the breaking point at times and when that happens, it feels as though any chance of a normal life cannot be possible.  Life then takes on a dream-like quality that is somewhere between reality and fantasy.  There are times when I hope to stay awake forever so that dreams cannot blur the reality that I strive to hold onto.  I dream in color and am often in the midst of violence and blood, neither of which I am fond of on any level.  Of late, my dreams have veered down an entirely different vein and it remains to be seen what will come of them.  I don’t put any stock in dreams, not in the way that some folks do in thinking that they mean anything in particular.  They are outlets that allow my body and mind to be free and clear of everything while taking a journey into fascinating, though often frightening, places.  I know that I am not alone in this statement.  I have friends that have dreams that make mine seem innocent and juvenile in comparison and I can only nod and appreciate that I have not yet crossed into that particular realm.  Time seems to have no bearing on dreams and rarely factors into them.  Over the past couple of years, I have spoken with many people about their dreams.  Their dreams are often perpetuated by time and change and revolve around loss and death of people or others, whether it was natural or tragic, that they loved.  Each person has said that they have had many, many dreams of those they are missing and I can’t help but feel blessed in some way that my dreams have never crossed that threshold.  I have not dreamed of my husband, not once, since he passed over two years ago.  I have not dreamed of my grandparents though my grandmothers, both of them, were a defining force in my life.  I have not dreamt of friends that have died nor of pets that I cherished.  While on one hand, I feel that I have been cheated out of revisiting those that I loved, on the other, I am glad that I have not had those moments between sleep and wakefulness, that place that holds me captive until I can awaken and have only the foggy memory of something happening.  I am glad that my nights are not plagued with actual loss and torment, though my days often are.  There are days and days that have no significance whatsoever, and then suddenly, out of the shadows, time passes and a moment that meant so much is upon me and I feel as though I am dying myself.  I have wished to die.  Maybe it is a fallacy to believe that everyone has a moment here and there when the burdens of life become so heavy that death seems like the obvious solution.  It is not the solution, not to anything, at least not by my own hand, but there have been times when it weighed into the equation.  As I’ve gotten older, more experienced and possibly even wiser, those thoughts don’t enter into my mind.  It is irresponsible to believe such dwellings and above all things, I do not want to be irresponsible.  Ok, that’s a lie, I do want to be irresponsible and completely carefree and irrational, but reality keeps me tethered whether I like it that way or not.  I have found myself, at times of great despair, praying for faith, but praying for faith is like spitting in the wind.  In order for prayer to do any good, faith must come first, for if I have no faith in whom to which I pray, then I have wasted my time.  I do have faith.  I have faith in an awesome God that has taken me through valleys that I would never have believed I could have lived through.  I came out bruised and battle-scarred, but not broken.  I have been close to being broken, but never to the point of no return.  That is one of the mysteries of time.  It can heal or it can destroy, depending on what I decide to do with the circumstances that are given me.  So whether it be time or change or dreams that I cannot control, when the day dawns and I awake, I am thankful for all I have learned.  I’m a bit apprehensive about the lessons  yet to learn, but those valleys are not my concern at the moment, and when I travel through them, I will not be alone.  And neither will those who will read these words and hopefully, find some kind of comfort in knowing that the thoughts of time and change and dreams are shared by many, that they are not alone in their journey through the darkest times they will ever face.  I am not so gullible as to think that there will not be more darkness in my life, but with each trial, I find that I am stronger and more able to face that which will come.  That is the beauty of the mystery of time … it really does, if allowed to pass, heal and restore our minds and hearts to a place that is bearable, a place in which we become not those who are discouraged by life, but are able to encourage because of it.  I like to think that because I have been there, I can encourage others who are there now, wherever that place may be.  So be encouraged my friends, and know that irregardless of what is in the here and now, tomorrow is another day and there will eventually be joy in the morning.

Romans 8:38-39 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,                        Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

What is an idol, anyway?

Idols.  I think it is safe to say that, when talking about idols in the Biblical sense, the image pops into our minds of statues or other man-made things that we choose to worship.  But in the grand scheme of things, those types of idols are only a small part of what is placed before God.  Now, Webster’s dictionary defines an idol as a representation or symbol of an object of worship: a false godso if it is a representation or symbol, it can be many things.  Money, worry, job, children, anger, food, alcohol, sex and a myriad of other things could be considered an idol.  I have, as likely many followers of Christ can say as well, had idols in my life.  I have spent many nights thinking about how I was going to pay my bills instead of giving the problem to God, letting Him handle it, and then praising Him for it.  I have sacrificed many a blessing because I was too busy chasing after something that ultimately could not bring me peace or joy that lasted more than a few minutes, or at best, a few days.  The valley is a place that I am more familiar with than I would like to be.  The mountain is where I prefer to find myself, but without the valleys, how could I possibly know that there was a mountain to be on in the first place.  I’ve spent a good part of my life searching for something and then grasping onto the first thing that made me feel whole, only to learn that the wholeness was only temporary and that the weight of my burdens soon overpowered me again and I would find myself right back where I started.  God doesn’t share.  He won’t give blessings to us when we are giving our praise and adoration to something else.  It took me a long time to come to the realization that there is only one thing I truly need to be at peace with myself, with my life and with the world around me, but once I realized it, it was so simple that I could scarcely believe that I had been looking everywhere for what was in my heart to begin with.  When I asked Jesus to save me, He did and the Holy Spirit took His place in my heart and soul, but, and isn’t it a shame that there always has to be a but … but when I put the stress and failures of my life on a pedestal, then I hinder any blessing that could have been mine.  This whole post came about because I was reading in 1 John, chapter 5 this morning.  The chapter is about love and faith, confidence in God when praying for things that are in His will and the knowledge that He will provide them for us.  But the very last verse says Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen. There can be no confidence in God when He is not the center of our lives, if He is not the object of our worship and if He is only an afterthought, so little children, keep yourselves from idols, amen.

1 John 5:14-15:  14 And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us, 15 And if we know that He hears us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him

Sometimes the encourager needs encouragement

Underneath the umbrella of certainty, there is, as always, an uncertainty.  Now, while that may sound profound, it isn’t.  It’s just one of those things that popped into my head while I was sitting around feeling sorry for myself.  I am certain that, after all this time, there should not be days that I come home from work and expect to see a chair in my living room with the man I love waiting in it to welcome me home.  But the brain is a wonderfully complex thing and doesn’t always follow along with certainty, objectivity or, even at times, reality. 

It is, in a way, like expecting to take a drink of water, and have tea or coffee in the glass instead.  It is a momentary shock to the system followed with a quick recovery of remembrance of what was, or was not, there to begin with.  Life is very much like that tea in the water glass.  It looks like the same old day, the same road, the same surroundings, but, at any given time, a hitch can throw the whole process off. 

I don’t like days like that.  They usually end up with somebody, likely myself, crying or upset, sometimes angry that I was duped again by my own fatigue or momentary lapse in reality.  But days like this come along.  If allowed to have control, they will bring down not only that day, but days to follow.  Satan loves nothing better than to be watching from the shadows when that happens.  In the moment of surprise, he is able to stick his foot in the otherwise locked door and once his foot is in, it doesn’t take him long to maneuver his whole self into the scenario. 

I can’t think of anything, other than prayer and the knowledge of just how much I am loved by Jesus, that can push him out and shut the door.  It doesn’t pay to be fooled into thinking that if the only part that is left in the stronghold is a foot, then the stronghold is safe.  The part that kicks you down before it steps on you is the foot.  It will do us all well to remember that.  Our minds will play tricks on us, dulling memories over time to register what seems to be important and then building that into something that is extravagantly overstated. 

I was having one of those days today.  The foot was in the door and just when I was near to being kicked to the ground, there was a knock at it.  And at the door was my niece and she had something special for me.  It was a picture of a flower that she had drawn and had written both her name and mine on it.  It wouldn’t have mattered if it had been a rock from the garden, she took the time to bring it over, in the pouring rain, to shed some joy on what was fast becoming a rough evening. 

Jesus doesn’t forsake us when we’re down.  He doesn’t leave us to fend for ourselves even when we forget to pray for His help.  He knows what we have need for and sends His encouragement so that we can get that foot, along with the rest of the devil, out of our door. Jesus has shown me over and over again that my gift is one of encouragement … just as He’s shown me over and over again that sometimes, the encourager needs to be encouraged.   In this case, I hung the encouragement on the fridge and just looking at  it reminds me that not only is all not lost, but much has only just begun.

2 Corinthians 12:9 ~ 9And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Addendum:  two years later, that encouragement is still hanging on my fridge.  Jesus is everything He promised He would be.  I am in awe of Him.

Myself ain’t who she used to be

Myself.  One of the first words we learn as kiddos and one of the most damaging ones we can use as an adult.  I can do it myself.  I don’t need any help.  I have everything under control.  I am the master of my universe.  I can handle it.  All of these phrases have passed through my mind and many of them through my lips.  And it is such a lie.   A deceitful, self-defeating lie that is harmful to me on so many levels.  I, on my own, am like one of the chickens my grandparents used to raise.  There was a wire fence that was open on both ends, but the chickens would get behind it and walk back and forth all day and never realize they could go around.  The world, even my tiny, limited part of it, sometimes threatens to overwhelm me, forcing me to try to find someway out besides the door.   But, I can handle it.

I had dinner this week with one of my oldest and dearest friends.  We’ve known each other since we were in second grade.  I only see her a few times a year, but that doesen’t matter.  I know she is there.  At least I do now.  We only recently reconnected after having lost touch for many years.  That is the way with all of my old friends.  There are people that I think of nearly every day, but somewhere along the way, I decided that I didn’t need anybody.  So without meaning to, I lost touch with wonderful friends that I would loved to have known as an adult.  The blames lies with myself and the lie I decided to believe … the one that told me I could handle it.

As I get older and the Holy Spirit continues to guide and teach me, I see things more clearly.  I see that myself is not who she used to be.  That myself died when I gave my life to Jesus.  All these years that I have continued to believe the lie that I can do it myself and don’t need anyone has been my own doing.  Jesus took that along with all the other baggage when I gave myself to Him.  I didn’t have to carry it, but as long as I was determined to, He was going to let me.  When I look past what I let myself believe to what is actually real, I see myself as who I am now, not who I was then.  I find that I can be myself instead of making myself into someone that myself thought I wanted to be.  I am who God wants me to be.  There is power in that.

To Paris (with a little help from my friends) via a Greeting Card

In the late spring, early summer of 2012, my daughter, a member of the UVA-Wise Highland Cavalier Marching Band, is going to Paris.  I am blown away by this and plan to give her all the financial help I can so that she will be able to go.  On my own, I cannot afford to pay for us both to go.  While I have a passport and have had the wanderlust for so long I can no longer remember when it started, I am struggling with the notion that I might not get to go.  It isn’t jealousy or envy, for I couldn’t be more happy that our Tay gets to go on such an amazingly incredible adventure.  No, it is the photographer in me that wants to see.  That needs to see.  That longs to see.  One of my most constant prayers has been to ask that my photography enable me to travel.  That greeting cards would allow me to go places that I’ve only dreamed of and to visit each place, across the globe, where my cards have sold.  When I pray, what I see is being able to just jump in my car or on a plane and go wherever, whenever, with only a few changes of clothes, my camera, my phone, my laptop and my tripod … just any old time and for as long as I want.  While I believe in my heart that such will happen eventually, as it was God who set me on the path of photography in the first place, and so I feel very strongly that it is He who has put this wanderlust in my heart, I have no doubt that photography will take me where I am meant to go.  I am hoping that it will take me to Paris.  I have a specific destination, besides Ardmore in County Waterford, Ireland, to pray about.  So I am praying specifically this time.  I am praying that the money I make on my greeting cards in the last quarter of the year, September through December will take me to Paris.  While I wish that hundreds of thousands of people would share this and would talk up Through the Eyes of the Spirit, I leave it to the Father, who already knows how it will end.

To check out the greeting cards, click the photo below to open Through the Eyes of the Spirit in a new window.  If you feel led to do so, share the link with friends and family.  God is in control, but your support and encouragement is appreciated.  While everyone may not understand the need to go and to see, some will.  As for me, being accepted, even when I’m not understood, is priceless.

looking in the right place

This afternoon, following a short nap to recover from an early morning in the field where the deer hang out, I hiked up to the old orchard to see if I could get a glimpse of one of the black bears that call our little piece of Clinch Mountain home.  I’ve heard all about them from dad and others who have seen them, but as a photographer, I have to see them for myself.  I want to know what it will look like through the lens of my camera and if I can capture the majesty of creation and do it justice. God continues to bless my photography and today, though He didn’t let me see the bear, He showed me I was looking in the right place.

Finding peace in the midst of sorrow

Time heals all wounds.  How many times I have said that.  Then, after my husband Jim’s death, how many times I heard it.  The first time I heard it, I was immediately sorry for every time that phrase had passed through my lips.  I vowed to never say it again and I haven’t.  Instead, I tell the truth as I have found it to be.  I tell people who have recently  lost a very significant person in their lives to death that the first year is the hardest 365 days they will ever face and the second year, especially in the beginning, won’t be much better.  It is a path strewn with obstacles, fear, grief, anger, betrayal, loss and a brokenness that feels like it will never end.  As soon as one “first anniversary without” passes, another one is on it’s heels.  And if no anniversary is imminent, there are the songs, movies, peopleclicking will open new window for link to Through the Eyes of the Spirit greeting cards and places that bring the loss so close it threatens to suffocate me.  Alone, I am no challenge to such deep pain.  I, on my own, would have folded the first week, tucked my tail between my legs and given up.  But I wasn’t alone.  He who knows all about me, including the horrifying loneliness and gut-wrenching emptiness, was with me.  When I was unable to hold my head up, He held it for me.  When I went days without sleeping or eating, He knew.  When I broke down and sobbed because I had no place for the hurt to go, He stroked my hair. When I found no joy in photography, He showed me something incredible. He made me realize that I was not, nor had I ever been, alone.  He showed me that I, though lost without Jim, had to heal before I could carry on for His glory.  Healing is still a work in progress.  It has been nearly two years, and while my thoughts are no longer consumed by Jim, I think of him several times a day.  There is nothing wrong with that.  At first, I felt guilt that my mind wasn’t filled with thoughts of him and cried about that nearly every day.  I had no peace. That stunted my healing significantly.  But, always faithful, God led me past that guilt into a place that let me find pieces of myself that I had hidden away during the months when I refused to feel joy.  How, I asked myself many times, could I laugh and be joyful when the man I had given my heart to was dead.  The real truth was revealed.  Without my Heavenly Father, there would have been no joy to start with.  With Him, I could feel joy and sorrow, loss and laughter, grief and happiness, all at the same time and it was ok. He showed me where peace was and, low and behold, it was right where I had left it… in His love. Healing really did begin after that realization but it wasn’t time that healed me, it was Jesus.  So the truth is this:  Time doesn’t heal anything … It only gives faith and grace the time to work as healing comes with reliance on the Lord.  Whether the healing time is a few weeks or a few years, if God is given control, healing will, without doubt or reservations, come, and time will continue to pass because that’s what it does.

Watching Gracie Grow

Down’s Syndrome.  I had heard of it, seen people who had it and been around other folks who had children or grandchildren with Down’s but on a personal level, had no real understanding of it.  At least not until the birth of my youngest niece, Gracie.  Gracie came into the world nearly eight weeks early and spent the first two months of her life in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NIC-U).  She had tubes in her nose and mouth, IV lines in her veins and spent much of her time in a special incubator that kept her body temperature regulated.  There was great excitement at each wet or dirty diaper and each dropper of formula that she was able to swallow.  The doctors said over and over to not get our hopes up, that there could be many things wrong and that she would likely be brain damaged, a near-vegetable.  They told of the horrors of holes in her heart and dysfunctional kidneys, blindness and the inability to walk, talk or do many of the  activities that other children do.  Their faces serious and their prognosis dire, they didn’t know what we did.

gracie smiles

That God was already working in that little life and had been even before she was conceived.  They didn’t know that this child was a miracle in the making, a blessing that would far exceed any of our imaginings.  As her little body rested in the incubator, her lungs strengthening with each breath, her muscles growing with each kick, her eyes, unfocused and blurry beginning to gaze directly into ours, we prayed.  Our friends and families prayed, our sister churches prayed and an ever-faithful, merciful and loving God gathered the prayers together and let His blessings flow, falling like the gentle rains of springtime.  When Gracie came home from the hospital, the nurses rejoiced that she was well enough to leave and cried that she would no longer be a part of their everyday lives.  At first, we handled her like a fragile china doll, afraid that the slightest touch would break her.  So tiny was she that our hands could cover her entire body.  But she didn’t stay tiny for long.  She grew and she thrived, she looked and she learned and she brought joy into all of our hearts that we had never known before.  With each milestone, she would smile and clap, then watch and wait for her fans to clap with her.    Watching Gracie grow is one of our most cherished blessings and I, for one, am grateful that this beautiful child graced our lives.  Not surprisingly, she has made her way on to numerous greeting cards, most recently, a Nurses Day card for Oncology Nurses.   Her love, light and laughter is contagious and I hope everyone catches a little bit of it.  I pray that God will continue to bless our sweet Gracie-Bell all of the days of her life.

a little pray-er goes a long way

In the corners of my mind

The past.  One of the most powerful weapons satan has to use on us.  He takes us down the paths that we have already walked and reminds us, in the wee hours, that our shortcomings and failings are always just a thought away.  He reminds us over and over of things we have said, wished we had said, hurts we have caused and the ones that we carry.  He tells us that our mistakes are never forgiven and urges us to not forgive.  But what he doesn’t remind us is that the past is the past.  What is done is done and cannot be altered.  It is what we do from this point on that makes or breaks us.  We can hold onto the hurts and injustices, the pain and the memories or we can break free.  He only has the power that we give him when we embrace the twisted thoughts and memories that surface when we are most vulnerable.  If we embrace the misery that he offers, then our chances of overcoming what we perceive as the most embarrassing or painful moments of our lives become less and less likely.  But there is hope for everyone who is suffering from having a past, and that list would include every human being.  Even the tiniest baby will, if they live, have a past.  There will be lost tempers, hurtful words and actions, pain and heartbreak.  It is a part of being human and living in a human world.  The world around us is as unforgiving of us as we are to ourselves.  It is beyond our own capabilities to outrun the past… and satan knows this and will gleefully use it to keep us from moving forward.  Each of us has a purpose in this life, a reason to be.  Everything that happens to us as we travel through this journey of life can be either a stumbling block to ourselves or it can make us stronger and more able to recognize the warning signs in others of the effect of their real or perceived imperfections and insecurities and enable us to lift them up.  Jesus was perfect.  He had no imperfections and for some, it is impossible to imagine a perfect person.  Someone who has no regrets or things they wish they hadn’t said or done.  I have a life full of things I wish were different and, in the dark  hours of night when I begin to relive those moments, my strength begins to falter and the darkness becomes heavier as I remember all that cannot be changed.  It is then that the Holy Spirit reminds me that what is past cannot be changed.  Rectification, reconciliation, forgiveness… they can all be given, but forgetting what we have lived, well that is a different story altogether.  The things that we have done, said or survived are all part of what makes us into who we will become.  Whether we use the past for harm or good will decide how we will relate to other people and how our actions will alter their lives.  It is not easy to overcome a past full of pain, and impossible to do it alone.  Trust in the One who understands suffering, who understands what it is like to be alone and abused, to be wrongly accused and tortured, both physically and mentally.  Trust that what you have survived will make you stronger and that you will go forth in hope.  It is these things I focus on when my own darkness threatens to overtake me and smother me with all that I cannot change.  When I need comfort, I know where to find it, but self-suffering and guilt-enabling get in the way.  The light that I know is there could shine through if I let it, but at times when I cannot seem to get past the moment, I refuse it.  But the gentle prodding of the Holy Spirit continues until my defenses are broken and the fog lifts.  I always look forward to those moments and delight in hearing the song that my God sings over me.  And during these long nights when all the things I dislike about myself manifest themselves into the demons I fight, I know that I do not fight them alone.  And therein lies my comfort.  Because no matter where I have been or where I will go… no matter what I have said or left unsaid… irregardless of how often I try to handle things myself, He loves me anyway.

Matthew 11:28 ~ Come to me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest

Double rainbow over Clinch Mountain, Big Moccasin, Nickelsville, VA