I first heard this song (couldn't quite make out the lyrics) at the youth group I help out with. It just caught me...Then I actually listened to the lyrics (now) and I'm just surprised at how Red put my journey together so perfectly in this song...it's sometimes bizarre how similar the human experience is. I love that the music is so epic too--such a Robin song! I may appear quiet, but there's always so much going on beneath the surface--it's positively ridiculous! Hence writing all the time: it has to come out somewhere!
This Is What My Life Sounds Like Lately
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Yeah, I'm Just Going to Write a Book :)
I'm in the middle of what tons of people have done--haha! Just as hundreds of people have written a blog (teehee, I knew that from the beginning!) so tons of people, all down the ages have written books--which, by the way, I'm gonna do. :)
The reasons in case you ever asked (and given sometimes when you don't want to know):
Because sometimes you can't help but write (as this silly blog has testified over and over--I can't keep away).
Because I feel joy in me again when I write--and I want to bring that joy to the world and I need joy.
Because sometimes you just have to write--its a fire burning in you (this is prophecy being fulfilled by the way!)
Because I have a voice and it is worth hearing and more than that if God has one person who can be filled with a little hope (in a world so bent on darkness and destruction) I will write to them. They are worth giving hope to and I don't care what it may cost me, I will do as He asks of me for His people.
Hope is worth giving.
I don't have all the answers and I don't know the future--so I will just keep working, moving forward and seeking out my God--may He move through me, because if He doesn't, I don't see it as a task worth completing...but if He fills it, oh the joy!
Because no one needs to hear from me--but everyone needs to hear from Him!
It won't be easy--but I'm His! Please pray for me and this undertaking when you think of me :)
The reasons in case you ever asked (and given sometimes when you don't want to know):
Because sometimes you can't help but write (as this silly blog has testified over and over--I can't keep away).
Because I feel joy in me again when I write--and I want to bring that joy to the world and I need joy.
Because sometimes you just have to write--its a fire burning in you (this is prophecy being fulfilled by the way!)
Because I have a voice and it is worth hearing and more than that if God has one person who can be filled with a little hope (in a world so bent on darkness and destruction) I will write to them. They are worth giving hope to and I don't care what it may cost me, I will do as He asks of me for His people.
Hope is worth giving.
I don't have all the answers and I don't know the future--so I will just keep working, moving forward and seeking out my God--may He move through me, because if He doesn't, I don't see it as a task worth completing...but if He fills it, oh the joy!
Because no one needs to hear from me--but everyone needs to hear from Him!
It won't be easy--but I'm His! Please pray for me and this undertaking when you think of me :)
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Frederick Buechner Got it Right...Again
God has me on a journey, amen? He has you on one too, whether you're aware of it or not :)
Lately I've been learning my absolute dependence on the Lord, that my status with Him never changes no matter what I am or am not doing (thinking especially of recent unemployment and ensuing struggle) and that He is enough. Everything left, you know? I had been depending on and looking to a lot of things--money, having a job, being independent, going to the mission field--and God has done some purifying...at times it has been difficult, but I have chosen not to shrink back. When all the doors close, it makes you start looking for new direction--and sometimes all He wants is just to spend some quality time with Him, looking into His face and asking questions and getting familiar with Him and His voice. I've been praying a lot and just being with Him in this season--and I've come to a place where its all I want to do. I would take a job that He set in front of me, if it was given with His blessing and guiding, but that's no longer my focus. I just want to see His face and have the glory of His Presence shine down around me--you know?
I feel that these few paragraphs from Frederick Buechner sum up all I've been learning from the Lord recently--well, actually throughout my whole life and especially in the last few months the lesson has really come home to my heart and made its home there. May these words bless you as they've blessed me and helped me see the reality of this God who loves me despite all my faults, the ways I'll fail Him and my crazy heart in need of renewal--He's good!
A little bit of context: in this section of the book Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy and Fairy Tale Buechner approaches the parable of the prodigal son (and the other true stories of the Bible) as the joke of God which only a few get:
"Is it possible, I wonder, to say that it is only when you hear the Gospel as a wild and marvelous joke that you really hear it at all? Heard as anything else, the Gospel is the church's thing, the preacher's thing, the lecturer's thing. Heard as a joke--high and unbidden and ringing with laughter--it can only be God's thing.
"And if it is a joke about the preposterousness of God, it is also a joke about the preposterousness of man as the sequel to the parable exemplifies. The word sin is somehow too grand a word to apply to the reaction of the prodigal's elder brother when the sound of the hoedown reaches him out in the pasture among the cow flops, and yet in another way it is just the right word because nowhere is the deadliness of all seven of the deadly sins deadlier or more ludicrous than it is in him. Envy and pride and anger and covetousness, they are all there. Even sloth is there as he sits on his patrimony and lets it gain interest for him without lifting a hand, even lust as he slavers over the harlots whom he he points out the prodigal has squandered his cash on. The elder brother is Pecksniff. He is Tartuffe. He is what Mark Twain called a good man in the worst sense of the word. He is a caricature of all that is joyless and petty and self-serving about all of us. The joke of it is that of course his father loves him even so, and has always loved him and will always love him, only the elder brother never noticed it because it was never love he was bucking for but only his due. The fatted calf, the best Scotch, the hoedown could all have been his, too, any time he asked for them except that he never thought to ask for them because he was too busy trying cheerlessly and religiously to earn them. 'The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up' even as the prodigal himself was raised up, Jesus says, 'and blessed is he who takes no offense at me' (Matt. 11:5-6). Blessed is he who is not offended that no man receives what he deserves but vastly more. Blessed is he who gets that joke, who sees that miracle."(pgs. 68-69)
Are you getting it in your own life? Take joy! Your Father has given you the Kingdom!
I relate to this passage so well because as a Christian at first I was totally of this mindset: trying to earn my way into the kingdom, too afraid to try for love because I didn't even realize it was what I was missing. I've been on a big journey--still am--to learn to love those around me and see them the way they are--worthy and beloved of God, destined to know Him well if they so chose. I grew up in the church and I was very good at following the moral rules and doing what was right in man's eyes--my salvation was something I was earning (how preposterous!!! seen from my new vantage point). Then I grew up and learned how little and completely unable I was (enter Haiti) but God still loved me in the midst of that breaking down and showed me how He is able--He is at work and faithful in this wacky world from which we live. I was never the same after that season! but I still had to unlearn (and am unlearning and will always unlearn) my elder brother mindset--thank God for His grace. He took my fears and taught me to search out His love--O! the Glory!
I'm so grateful for where He has me and how He chooses to be good to me--it's beyond what I could have hoped, asked or imagined--but that's just how good He is. Find out the ways He's working in your life and thank Him today. He is good to us.
Lately I've been learning my absolute dependence on the Lord, that my status with Him never changes no matter what I am or am not doing (thinking especially of recent unemployment and ensuing struggle) and that He is enough. Everything left, you know? I had been depending on and looking to a lot of things--money, having a job, being independent, going to the mission field--and God has done some purifying...at times it has been difficult, but I have chosen not to shrink back. When all the doors close, it makes you start looking for new direction--and sometimes all He wants is just to spend some quality time with Him, looking into His face and asking questions and getting familiar with Him and His voice. I've been praying a lot and just being with Him in this season--and I've come to a place where its all I want to do. I would take a job that He set in front of me, if it was given with His blessing and guiding, but that's no longer my focus. I just want to see His face and have the glory of His Presence shine down around me--you know?
I feel that these few paragraphs from Frederick Buechner sum up all I've been learning from the Lord recently--well, actually throughout my whole life and especially in the last few months the lesson has really come home to my heart and made its home there. May these words bless you as they've blessed me and helped me see the reality of this God who loves me despite all my faults, the ways I'll fail Him and my crazy heart in need of renewal--He's good!
A little bit of context: in this section of the book Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy and Fairy Tale Buechner approaches the parable of the prodigal son (and the other true stories of the Bible) as the joke of God which only a few get:
"Is it possible, I wonder, to say that it is only when you hear the Gospel as a wild and marvelous joke that you really hear it at all? Heard as anything else, the Gospel is the church's thing, the preacher's thing, the lecturer's thing. Heard as a joke--high and unbidden and ringing with laughter--it can only be God's thing.
"And if it is a joke about the preposterousness of God, it is also a joke about the preposterousness of man as the sequel to the parable exemplifies. The word sin is somehow too grand a word to apply to the reaction of the prodigal's elder brother when the sound of the hoedown reaches him out in the pasture among the cow flops, and yet in another way it is just the right word because nowhere is the deadliness of all seven of the deadly sins deadlier or more ludicrous than it is in him. Envy and pride and anger and covetousness, they are all there. Even sloth is there as he sits on his patrimony and lets it gain interest for him without lifting a hand, even lust as he slavers over the harlots whom he he points out the prodigal has squandered his cash on. The elder brother is Pecksniff. He is Tartuffe. He is what Mark Twain called a good man in the worst sense of the word. He is a caricature of all that is joyless and petty and self-serving about all of us. The joke of it is that of course his father loves him even so, and has always loved him and will always love him, only the elder brother never noticed it because it was never love he was bucking for but only his due. The fatted calf, the best Scotch, the hoedown could all have been his, too, any time he asked for them except that he never thought to ask for them because he was too busy trying cheerlessly and religiously to earn them. 'The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up' even as the prodigal himself was raised up, Jesus says, 'and blessed is he who takes no offense at me' (Matt. 11:5-6). Blessed is he who is not offended that no man receives what he deserves but vastly more. Blessed is he who gets that joke, who sees that miracle."(pgs. 68-69)
Are you getting it in your own life? Take joy! Your Father has given you the Kingdom!
I relate to this passage so well because as a Christian at first I was totally of this mindset: trying to earn my way into the kingdom, too afraid to try for love because I didn't even realize it was what I was missing. I've been on a big journey--still am--to learn to love those around me and see them the way they are--worthy and beloved of God, destined to know Him well if they so chose. I grew up in the church and I was very good at following the moral rules and doing what was right in man's eyes--my salvation was something I was earning (how preposterous!!! seen from my new vantage point). Then I grew up and learned how little and completely unable I was (enter Haiti) but God still loved me in the midst of that breaking down and showed me how He is able--He is at work and faithful in this wacky world from which we live. I was never the same after that season! but I still had to unlearn (and am unlearning and will always unlearn) my elder brother mindset--thank God for His grace. He took my fears and taught me to search out His love--O! the Glory!
I'm so grateful for where He has me and how He chooses to be good to me--it's beyond what I could have hoped, asked or imagined--but that's just how good He is. Find out the ways He's working in your life and thank Him today. He is good to us.
Friday, October 11, 2013
Just Jesus--That's All
Into thin air...
That's sometimes what it feels like when I write on this blog--haha! The words go out and who knows who reads them? But that is not for me to question or wonder about--I'm beginning to see the bigger picture.
Into Thin Air is also the title of an epic book (which I have never read) about an expedition to climb Mount Everest--and that resonates with my spirit because so often lately I feel as though I have begun a journey up into the high country--where Jesus alone can meet me, for no one else knows the way--and it has been excruciating at times. I've been reading a book called Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy and Fairy Tale and Frederick Buechner keeps coming back to this theme of silence--that what is in the silence is what is truly true of us, and that we don't handle silence very well--its too vulnerable. The Gospel is found in the silence, because silence strips us down and makes us see that we are truly dirty wretches who need deliverance. He says at one point, as he speaks about how clothes also are a way we protect ourselves and show our false facade to the world just so we can get by, "I speak of clothes not just as hypocrisy and disguise, though sometimes that for all of us, God knows, but of clothes as essential to survival because we cannot endure too much nakedness any more than we can endure too much silence, which strips us naked" (pg. 32).
That phrase struck me and won't let me go, because that has been my experience the past several months--silence. Silence where you have to look deep in your soul and confront all your thoughts and find out just who you are and what you believe. No wonder I fought so hard to stay away from it, filling my time with noise (youtube, facebook, movies, etc.)--I just wasn't sure I could survive it. Could I endure the voice that wonders continually, "Am I doing well enough? Is He pleased with me?" when I was doing nothing (work wise)? Could I endure my doubts and false hopes and expectations that I place on myself that I can't help but flub? Could I endure all my feelings of unrighteouness, and all the ways I cry out for God to be enough, but am never sure He is, because I am not?
It was (and is) a lot. I have to live with my human self--and sometimes that is cross enough to bear (again, this is an idea from Buechner's book and I think he makes a good point--we have to endure and face just being us before we can pick up any other responsibilities, ministries, etc.) But you know what this journey into thin air (and unemployment :) has taught me?
It's taught me that Jesus is enough--not Jesus plus my works, not Jesus plus how much I am reading my Bible, not Jesus plus the ministry I get to serve Him in--JUST JESUS! When I cry out, He answers, not because I was especially close to Him as I read my Bible and set aside an hour to sit at His feet (though the blessedness of that is worth the time--ALWAYS!); but because I am HIS KID! He is listening for my cry and ready to move as I ask--He's just waiting and aware and able to move. When I reach the end of myself and find that there is nothing in me to be proud of, He still owns me and lets me know with butterflies and rainbows in waterfalls and a million other tiny, seemingly silly acts and signs that He is close and He loves me where I am...I mean, talk about freedom! It's like walking in a fog my whole life and finally seeing sunlight. I am at my lowest--and He loves and enjoys me still. Imagine the glories of heaven--and He wants me to be with Him there, even now, when I have nothing to offer--HE JUST WANTS ME!
I pray that all of you may know the blessedness of possessing nothing and having no works to offer to the Father--and find Him faithful and near still. He has lifted my head so many times these past few (long!) weeks and brought along just the right word, touch or hope to make the silence bearable. I pray you have the time to come face to face with who you are--free of accomplishments, reputation, what you've done or will do--and know your worth IN HIS EYES there. There is no greater freedom than to stand before the God of the universe naked and bare, with nothing to offer and hear Him call out, "My Son! My Daughter! How I have been longing to see you! Come close!" The joy of that cry is beyond telling--I am privileged far beyond what can be seen with human eyes.
I love You, Papa. Thank You for loving me.
That's sometimes what it feels like when I write on this blog--haha! The words go out and who knows who reads them? But that is not for me to question or wonder about--I'm beginning to see the bigger picture.
Into Thin Air is also the title of an epic book (which I have never read) about an expedition to climb Mount Everest--and that resonates with my spirit because so often lately I feel as though I have begun a journey up into the high country--where Jesus alone can meet me, for no one else knows the way--and it has been excruciating at times. I've been reading a book called Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy and Fairy Tale and Frederick Buechner keeps coming back to this theme of silence--that what is in the silence is what is truly true of us, and that we don't handle silence very well--its too vulnerable. The Gospel is found in the silence, because silence strips us down and makes us see that we are truly dirty wretches who need deliverance. He says at one point, as he speaks about how clothes also are a way we protect ourselves and show our false facade to the world just so we can get by, "I speak of clothes not just as hypocrisy and disguise, though sometimes that for all of us, God knows, but of clothes as essential to survival because we cannot endure too much nakedness any more than we can endure too much silence, which strips us naked" (pg. 32).
That phrase struck me and won't let me go, because that has been my experience the past several months--silence. Silence where you have to look deep in your soul and confront all your thoughts and find out just who you are and what you believe. No wonder I fought so hard to stay away from it, filling my time with noise (youtube, facebook, movies, etc.)--I just wasn't sure I could survive it. Could I endure the voice that wonders continually, "Am I doing well enough? Is He pleased with me?" when I was doing nothing (work wise)? Could I endure my doubts and false hopes and expectations that I place on myself that I can't help but flub? Could I endure all my feelings of unrighteouness, and all the ways I cry out for God to be enough, but am never sure He is, because I am not?
It was (and is) a lot. I have to live with my human self--and sometimes that is cross enough to bear (again, this is an idea from Buechner's book and I think he makes a good point--we have to endure and face just being us before we can pick up any other responsibilities, ministries, etc.) But you know what this journey into thin air (and unemployment :) has taught me?
It's taught me that Jesus is enough--not Jesus plus my works, not Jesus plus how much I am reading my Bible, not Jesus plus the ministry I get to serve Him in--JUST JESUS! When I cry out, He answers, not because I was especially close to Him as I read my Bible and set aside an hour to sit at His feet (though the blessedness of that is worth the time--ALWAYS!); but because I am HIS KID! He is listening for my cry and ready to move as I ask--He's just waiting and aware and able to move. When I reach the end of myself and find that there is nothing in me to be proud of, He still owns me and lets me know with butterflies and rainbows in waterfalls and a million other tiny, seemingly silly acts and signs that He is close and He loves me where I am...I mean, talk about freedom! It's like walking in a fog my whole life and finally seeing sunlight. I am at my lowest--and He loves and enjoys me still. Imagine the glories of heaven--and He wants me to be with Him there, even now, when I have nothing to offer--HE JUST WANTS ME!
I pray that all of you may know the blessedness of possessing nothing and having no works to offer to the Father--and find Him faithful and near still. He has lifted my head so many times these past few (long!) weeks and brought along just the right word, touch or hope to make the silence bearable. I pray you have the time to come face to face with who you are--free of accomplishments, reputation, what you've done or will do--and know your worth IN HIS EYES there. There is no greater freedom than to stand before the God of the universe naked and bare, with nothing to offer and hear Him call out, "My Son! My Daughter! How I have been longing to see you! Come close!" The joy of that cry is beyond telling--I am privileged far beyond what can be seen with human eyes.
I love You, Papa. Thank You for loving me.
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Winning the Fight, Jesus by Your Side
Have you ever been in battle?
Swords raised, banners flashing, an enemy to defeat...the wind behind your back, comrades on your side and a goal that you are all striving towards: rout the enemy and reclaim your lands.
Some might call this season of my life the "sit-around-and-do-nothing" phase. Those who see things only from a human perspective are hoping I get a job, move on with my life, find my way--and I have been tempted to call this season by the same name and doubt myself and often my Lord.
But now I see clearer.
I won't give in and lose my heart--my family is on the brink of finally moving past broken and I won't give up this fight until we can be family again--loving, supportive, loyal toward one another.
Because this is just the beginning of one battle.
Because all our lives each of us is going to go through some heavy stuff--and we need each other.
Because Christ has called us to spread His message and when it is first fully lived out in the home, it's powerful.
Because we have an enemy and he would destroy us--but ha! God has given us each other!
Depression has lately been the invisible weapon the enemy has chosen to try and pull me down. But I turn to the story of Jesus and say that if He could endure the cross, i can endure a few days of hopelessness--after all, that Cross caused the greatest victory of all time...and I know not what waits around the corner for my family! I will not lose hope and I will not lose heart--I am in this battle to see victory come!
Fight on all brave soldiers of the Lord! May your victory come swiftly and your communion with the Lord be sweet. He will never leave you in battle (or in the victory), cry out to Him as ever you have need!
We have overcome.
Swords raised, banners flashing, an enemy to defeat...the wind behind your back, comrades on your side and a goal that you are all striving towards: rout the enemy and reclaim your lands.
Some might call this season of my life the "sit-around-and-do-nothing" phase. Those who see things only from a human perspective are hoping I get a job, move on with my life, find my way--and I have been tempted to call this season by the same name and doubt myself and often my Lord.
But now I see clearer.
I won't give in and lose my heart--my family is on the brink of finally moving past broken and I won't give up this fight until we can be family again--loving, supportive, loyal toward one another.
Because this is just the beginning of one battle.
Because all our lives each of us is going to go through some heavy stuff--and we need each other.
Because Christ has called us to spread His message and when it is first fully lived out in the home, it's powerful.
Because we have an enemy and he would destroy us--but ha! God has given us each other!
Depression has lately been the invisible weapon the enemy has chosen to try and pull me down. But I turn to the story of Jesus and say that if He could endure the cross, i can endure a few days of hopelessness--after all, that Cross caused the greatest victory of all time...and I know not what waits around the corner for my family! I will not lose hope and I will not lose heart--I am in this battle to see victory come!
Fight on all brave soldiers of the Lord! May your victory come swiftly and your communion with the Lord be sweet. He will never leave you in battle (or in the victory), cry out to Him as ever you have need!
We have overcome.
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