Each of these pictures share art and speak truth to me. (Click on the picture for the name of the artist.)

Ashlyn’s picture is one of confusion. I love her choice of colors and her art draws me in even though the paths intersecting, doubling back on each other, and generally hard to follow. Does life ever feel that way to you?

Shelly’s picture is a man-made path in London. It’s straight, heading to a specific place. Often I want life to look like that, a straight solid path that I can walk knowing where it is going.

But the beauty pictured by Carol speaks more truth to me. It’s a soft path winding through a woods in South Carolina. It’s a narrow path that sometimes is covered over by the small flowers on its side. I need to pay attention. It’s easy on my feet and I love walking through a woods. This path too has a destination. It’s also a path that reminds me of great sorrow. This picture is from Ramsey Creek Preserve where Carol’s husband and my friend was buried last June.

As I reflect on the past 12 months, the extreme hards and the wonderful highlights, it seems that Ashlyn’s art was an apt picture. The rhythm of life bounced in ways I would have never dreamed.

“For everything there is a season …
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;”
Ecclesiastes 3:1 and 7

It seems that now — this summer — is a time to sew, a time for Echoes of Grace to be silent, for me to pause, to review, to listen well for the voice of God, to discern how the path God has me on is leading. I’m planning that Echoes will return in September.

If you’ve signed up to follow Echoes of Grace, I’ll stay in touch over the summer. Other blog sites are publishing my words and I’ll be sure and let you know when they are live. Today you can click here and read my words, Soul Rest in a Restless Time, on the PCA women’s blog site. (Currently it is the second article from the top.) And maybe, just maybe, God will nudge me to share some new thoughts on Echoes during the summer — again, I’ll let you know.

Thank you to Anna Saks for this path picture from the Maroon Bells in Colorado. Thank you to my friend Kathy Lorimor for creating this graphic. The words communicate the path I’ll follow this summer.

Pause:  Psalm 46:10, The Message — “Step out of the traffic! Take a long, loving look at me, your High God, above politics, above everything.”
Review and Remember: Romans 15:15 — “But on some points I have written to you very boldly by way of reminder,” I’ll be reviewing my journals from the last four years.
Listen: Isaiah 55:2,3 — “Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good … Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live.” YES!

“Your word is a lamp to my feet
and a light to my path.”
Psalm 119:105

“True to your word,
you let me catch my breath
and send me in the right direction.”
Psalm 23:3, The Message

Copyright, Sue Tell, June 2020