New Vision

I just love this book, The Meaning of Marriage. I don't do this (too) often...but today all I want to do is absorb this bit of wisdom from Timothy Keller and his wife:

     "My wife, Kathy, often says that most people, when they are looking for a spouse, are looking for a finished statue when they should be looking for a wonderful block of marble. Not so you can create the kind of person you want, but rather because you see what kind of person Jesus is making. When Michelangelo was asked how he carved his magnificent David, his reply is reputed to have been, 'I looked inside the marble and just took away the bits that weren't David.' When looking for a marriage partner, each must be able to look inside the other and see what God is doing and be excited about being part of the process of liberating the 'new you.'

'If we let Him...He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess, a dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly (though, of course, on a smaller scale) His own boundless power and delight and goodness. The process will be long and in parts very painful; but that is what we are in for. Nothing less.' (quoted from C.S. Lewis's book Mere Christianity, 174-5

     "This is by no means a romanticized approach--rather it is brutally realistic. In this view of marriage, each person says to the other, 'I see all your flaws, imperfections, weaknesses, dependencies. But underneath them all I see growing the person God wants you to be.' This is radically different from the search for 'compatibility'. As we have seen, researchers have discovered that this term means we are looking for a partner who accepts us just as we are. This is the very opposite of that! The search for an ideal mate is a hopeless quest. This is also a radically different approach from the cynical or cold method of finding a spouse who can just deliver social status, financial security or great sex.
     "If you don't see your mate's deep flaws and weaknesses and dependencies, you're not even in the game. But if you don't get excited about the person your spouse has already grown into and will become, you aren't tapping into the power of marriage as spiritual friendship. The goal is to see something absolutely ravishing that God is making of the beloved. You see even now flashes of glory. You want to help your spouse become the person God wants him or her to be.
     "When two Christians who fully understand this stand before the minister all decked out in thier wedding finery, they realize that they're not just playing dress-up. What they're saying is that someday they are going to be standing not before the minister but before the Lord. And they will turn to see each other without spot or blemish. And they hope to hear God say, 'Well done, good and faithful servants. Over the years you have lifted one another up to me. You sacrificed for one another. You held one another up with prayer and thanksgiving. You confronted each other. You rebuked each other. You hugged and you loved each other and continually pushed each other toward me. And now look at you. You're radiant." (133-4)

I have a new vision for all that this could be...glad to live with the God who is constantly changing my mind and my perception of the world.

Meeting Our King

I had a teacher once--when DVDs were a new thing--who believed that they would last hundreds of years.

He was wrong.

I just want to watch one scene from the last Lord of the Rings--I mean, I want to watch the whole movie if possible, but at the least the final, triumphant Return of the King.

Not to be my fate tonight...

But then again--who really wants to see the ending without the beginning and the middle and all thats in between?

It's a tricky thing, living.

Sometimes you think your best days are just around the corner and you want to live all the rest out on fast forward, to get to the ones you think you will really love, the triumphant, love wins, joy filled moments when heaven comes...

...but Jesus asks us to be in on the fight, dancing with Him through horrendous moments, knowing His closeness and nearness as the ones around us seem to be going through hell but He's there and we can let them know.

If I got to the end...and hadn't lived out all the parts in between...it wouldn't be much of an ending.

This is a call to live well your fight--for a King is coming--and we are asked to stay faithful, steadfast, trusting in His words and His love for us, even when the world is just war.

Because endurance only comes from having to endure something--and patient endurance only comes as we patiently endure the trials of this life. Joy follows pain--the first is deadened without the wreckage of the last...and though we would like to skip all the suspense and see our King return and heaven come immediately--the middle parts, all the living, is where we grow into the Queens and Princesses, Warriors and Gallant Men that we always were and will be.

This road is no easy straight path to glory--let me never over-simplify the journey--but the pain and joy have purpose. Each step, when consecrated to our King (and that is my word for this year, He keeps asking me to give this year back to Him, my hands off of everything and no more trying to figure it all out on my own) when I choose to live that kind of life, He has promised to turn it all to His glory.

Glory--He will work all things for my good--when I am consecrated to Him, existing for His purposes and listening for His words to me. Will you join me into this journey into the dark? He promises to be a light in dark places, the one guiding us home. He promises us rescue, He promises favor and He promises His Presence--will you take Him at His word and enter the dark, enter the world, shining out light?

He'll be waiting...

Pressing into the dark.

Alice in Wonderland...again

I feel like Alice in Wonderland...

haha, this is something I've actually written about in another blog--probably a few weeks after I saw the movie. But it's like it's becoming more true--as though it has accelerated in some way...this is hard to write, because its not fully formed in my mind...but usually the only way for me to really know what I'm thinking is to write it out! That pins it down, keeps it from running around like crazy in my head and helps me discern why I am feeling/thinking/acting the way that I am. Writing...my necessary and God given tool.

Back to me being Alice :)

Everything changes today...I find myself facing a new journey. In a lot of ways, my life has been my own these past few years--I have gotten to choose where I want to be, how I want to get there and how long to stay--at times this was lonely, but it was free! Now a new season--Family! First the summer with my parents and then with the missionaries in Mongolia. I keep hearing the verse/idea: "he puts the lonely into families"(Psalm 68:6) and I can't help but know that it applies to me. I have a lot to learn and re-learn about doing family with my fellow human beings :) I also have a lot to learn about laying down my life so that others may thrive (this was the theme--and a fitting one--at my last day at the Stirring today). It's going to be really a wild ride--I don't think I can quite grasp it at this moment...maybe that's why I feel so much like Alice in Wonderland--this adventure just fell upon her and she totally wasn't ready for it--except that she was...she was the one that it had always been planned that she would risk her life to free a kingdom (whoa! noticing parallels!). She started out so uncertain and then as life progressed, all that was in her was revealed--and she was capable of far more than she could have told you she was at the beginning of the journey.

Oh gosh, this has been so much my journey! If you would have told me what the last few years of my life would have looked like, I would have cried and asked you to take it away. But Papa God saw me through all of it so beautifully--I didn't know it, but all I had needed was already in me/God was investing into me. BIZARRE! And so often life posed challenges that threatened to overwhelm me and God  intervened when I called out and became my strength and hope--He invested authority into me, endurance and so much hope...the things I have been through--they show me that God is more than capable of bringing me through any trial or darkness that He puts in front of me...I'm not afraid.

And I have stuff to be afraid of: moving home where I have no friends, moving home in general!, moving to Mongolia in a few months!!!!, going to Haiti whenever that happens :) haha, this stuff is crazy--but I've already seen Him intervene and be strong in all the places where I am weak: so again, I just offer up all I am to Papa and pray that He uses me in whatever way He chooses--it's not my glory that's at stake, it's His!

Alice in Wonderland...ready and willing to adventure with Him...

Pray for me :)