This is Why We Go...Isaiah 61

I know I should be asleep--so don't tell me about it!

But it's just a turn-Laura-Hackett-on-and-write-it-all-out kind of night...

When all the melancholy of the world and all the things you can't control and don't know about your future come creeping round and hug you tight--and you--sort of enjoy the feeling but wish you were past this point and that the "something more" had happened and you could move into that fairy tale part of your life where all the pieces fit together and you love your husband and know exactly where you'll be for the next twenty years and are perfectly happy and then realize that that's an illusion too.

That even when you're married...

And live in that nation where you have been dreaming you'll be placed...

And doing the "life's work" that you know will be yours...

...it still won't be enough.

You have to recognize your idols for what they are and sacrifice them before the only One worthy of the praise, worship and adoration that you tend to put toward all your ordinary dreams. You have to recognize this tendency to "idolize" the future and learn to live in your present, right now...

Right now...

Because Right Now is the place where you get to meet Jesus...

Remember His love...

And survive "all of this" by living in the complete dependence on Him that He deserves and created you for.

It's...interesting...that Laura Hackett is the one I put on today. She is not Jesus (of course) but she brings Jesus close, you know? And the day I looked up the Haiti footage, all of the wreckage and chaos after the 2010 earthquake, hers is the music that was playing in my ears. So as I read about piles of dead bodies and no real medical help and grief and trauma I heard her letting Jesus sing, "Let's survive this together" and "I'm living in the light of your smile...taking in the newness of life, the abundance...I have a living hope...".

I have a living hope.

What does that statement mean to you? Do you realize the enormity of that declaration! While I stared death in the face, I had life playing in my ears.

I hope my whole life will be summarized in that one statement--staring death in the face while life plays behind my eyes.

Because that is all we do in the world--declare life when none is to be seen...bring hope to the destitute...proclaim freedom to captives...bind up the brokenhearted...

Bind up the brokenhearted...

Forgive me if I sound like a broken record, it's just all becoming clear to me. There is one chapter in the Bible which is indelibly, unutterably massaged into my soul. It has been pronounced and prayed, read and sang, cried out and proclaimed over my life more times than I can count. My ears perk up every time that they begin reading, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for the Lord has annointed me..."

And I know its presumptous, becuase this was Jesus' Scripture when He came into His ministry--but I know it's also my own.

There comes a point when you hear a word spoken over your life--from many silly, crazy and reliable sources--enough that you finally get it. It's been on repeat so much that it is FINALLY the song of your soul. It's the life playing when death is all around--that is what Isaiah 61 has become to me.

When I think about my life, pondering calling and loneliness and isolation and hope and joy and pain and the other million fragments that make up a life--I remember that my life is hidden with Christ in God and that there are good works that the Lord had prepared way before I took my first breath--and even if not one person had ever spoken hope into my dream to see Haiti whole...

The Lord has given me Isaiah 61.

And asked me to join Him.

And if that was all--if I didn't have journals filled with prayers and prophecies and experiences about and in and in the midst of loving them--which has become my life...I would still go, just because I keep hearing Isaiah 61.

And I will never stop hearing Isaiah 61.

And I will never stop bringing Isaiah 61.

And I will never stop living out Isaiah 61, wherever He deems fit to put me.

Just knowing that you're here with me now

It changes everything

Just knowing that you're here with me now

It changes everything, Lord

 

Cause I thought that I had to make it on my own

But you stopped that and claimed me as your own

Cause I thought that I had to make it on my own

But you stopped that

And called me Yours

And called me Yours

Just don't give up on me now cause I'm scared

 and I need you strong when I'm weak

Hold on and believe in me

When my heart just can't figure out what it wants 

please give me a reason to trust 

You'll still fight for me

from Laura Hackett's song, "Here With Me Now"

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.

When Love Comes...

Every once in a great while, something extraordinary happens. An epiphany comes, seemingly out of nowhere, and your life is no longer the same. That’s what happened to me tonight…

I go to the Stirring every weekend at 6pm, religiously. I was feeling a bit obstinate today, so I got there late, sat alone, worship had already started. As we worshipped I was so intent, like I’d never been before. I could hardly sing or move around (very unusual for me). I gradually became aware that I felt like a newly married bride—just wanting to be near her husband, hungry for him, not sure if she could spend a day without him. That’s the strength and intensity of the desire I felt. It was just bizarre. It took me over…no other focus. I just wanted to be with my God, look Him in the face and hear the words He had to say to me. I never wanted anything more; I’ll never want anything more—just to be with Him.

Needless to say, I was a mess. When they started preaching, I immediately knew I needed to leave. I am a shy, rule oriented person, so standing up in the middle of a church service, gathering my things and walking out the door is not the norm for me. But there was almost a roaring in my ears and I couldn’t even focus, I knew I had to just go, Go, GO!

I left—and as I drove away I began to realize what all this was welling up inside. All my life, I have been chasing after other lovers. All my life…Each one got taken away from me, or I chose to leave them (mostly they were taken, with my consent). I mean, I loved my cat with all my heart, I loved Haiti, I loved S-----…when those weren’t going on, my heart was always searching, creating little love affairs. I loved so many—in my poor way—though they never knew. I was too afraid to publicly love—that would require risk. So I built shadows of the dream that love is, and was content, in my way, with these…I knew no other way.

They talked about loving Orphans tonight—my calling perhaps because I was one. I only learned to truly love another being with my first trip to Haiti, where God started ripping out bits of my heart and began to put in beautiful bloody bits of His own. I began to beat for a cause—and it ruined me. It brought me to the end of myself, looking up at God, crying out for Him to do something! Make it better! Heal this hurt! How can you live with this?” He smiled at me, comforted me, sang over me…He knew I’d understand soon.

Then S------—the poor sucker!—last of my shadow loves and most deadly. Loving him exposed the broken parts of me—the lie I carried that hissed, “Unworthy”, the belief that I would never be pursued—loving him ruined me. And I looked at God and moaned and said, "I don’t know if I can bear this!” God took His broken daughter in His arms, loved her past her shame and said, “You are my Bride.”

You are my Bride…broken, hollow, empty, soulless, fearful…

He said it again, “You are my Bride.” She began to look around, saw “Worthy, Adored, Radiant, Joy” written on the walls of her heart. She began to hope.

“You are My Bride.” Destiny pouring out for her, dreams taking shape, hope restored and restoration coming…

“YOU ARE MY BRIDE!” This last one was a shout and with it all fear was dismantled. All that the little girl had built her life upon was suddenly in tatters and she found herself looking into the face of her King, her Father, her Bridegroom and laughing with Him at it. And they began to rebuild together, from the inside out.

That is what is happening in me. That is why I am overcome with my desire to be with Him—I know now who my True Love is and my heart is finally able to feel all that it was created to feel. And all that it wants—every beat of it—is to be with Him. It knows that it can have no other lovers and that all it needs is found in Him, and so it thirsts for Him achingly—oh to know the goodness of God and eat at His table. No more wandering beggar in rags, trying to find crumbs where she could. Now I know I am the Princess, the Desire of His Heart and I will preside at His table. His banner over me is love and I shall never leave its shade.

I’m finally able to only want you.

PRAY FOR HAITI

Home with the family...craziness. Also a time when I do a lot of reading! It's nice to be able to sleep in...well, I kind of sleep in except for Sarah coming in and first asking me to help her make breakfast and then bringing breakfast to me--and it was delicious!

Last night--well all yesterday I was praying for Haiti. I found an article which was telling of an incredible conference going on in Haiti today, put together in part by a woman named Joan Hunter. I really know nothing about this woman, but healing follows her. Haiti needs this healing. I was told (multiple times) that I have the gift of healing, not necessarily physical, but emotional and spiritual. Even before this was spoken over me, I was part of one girl being healed--physically and emotionally--really powerfully. (Weird, I hadn't remembered that until now) I wonder what will come of this woman and her ministry.

The real conference started today and about 1000 pastors are supposed to be coming. They'll be learning/being trained for two days and the third day (when we celebrate Jesus' resurrection!) they'll be praying for the people of the city--and more than 1 million are expected to show up!

All of this is being held in front of the presidential palace, where the three days of fasting and prayer were held in February a month after the earthquake. God is still moving and reaching out to this desperate country with open arms through His children. I am amazed and so enchanted with how God is moving and the good things He's doing and the fact that I get to watch and pray through it all. I am alive at a time when things are moving quickly, the Spirit is so active. I never ever imagined that I would be a part of anything like this. God is so much more than I can put into words!

And today we remember the day He endured more pain than we can imagine--all for the sake of love for us.

The love shown on the cross...confounds me and leaves me with no words. What do we say to love shown in this self sacrificial way, love which is so different from the self-gratifying love we see played out before us everyday. The love of the cross makes us pause and squint as we try to comprehend; or else captures us for only a moment before we move on, unsure of how to put into words what we just saw.

I feel that far too often we just walk away from the cross--because it really doesn't make sense to us. Those who choose to pick up their own cross and follow after Him are far and few between.

But through these few the love of God spreads through the world. I am so excited for Haiti today...on the day when He picked up His cross and walked to His death, they are learning the power of His name and how He can free people from all that has kept them chained. After all, Jesus didn't stay dead forever! That cross was for one day--but Jesus came back from that defeat, and He was stronger than ever! Too often we see Jesus as the one who made a way for us to have eternal life--and we forget that that eternal life starts now! We live abundantly (but not as the world sees abundance) from NOW until FOREVER. If Christians started grasping this now--and calling on the abundant life that He has to offer--no more sin controlling you, no more sickness keeping you from your dreams and no more shame keeping you from speaking His name--how powerful we would be! The Holy Spirit is real, He came first at Pentecost and He is moving through the whole earth even now. We are meant to live out this life by relying on the Holy Spirit for our whole strength--because He is connected to Jesus and God, our Father. We're not living this life out trying to do good works out of our own strength, but by asking God what He's up to in the world (getting to know Him intimately, so much so that His words--found in the Bible--are always buzzing through our brain and we know Him, and the truth He spoke, deeply) and then asking Him to move through us as we talk with people, pray for people and love. It's only His power, and His power flowing through us as we rely on and abide in Him, that will change the world. So don't look to yourself anymore! There is a higher power and His yoke is truly easy and light! Call on Jesus with all that you have within you and He will hear. He has just been waiting for you to give your full attention to Him, no more distractions or other's voices keeping you away. What this world needs is Jesus--and He's just waiting for them to cry out to Him.

Full of hope and joy because of Him and His goodness toward us and Haiti...

Here in the Waiting with Jesus

Today is a little hard, but Jesus and I are making it together. I rejoice in Him and He really is worth waiting on. When the time comes I will go to Haiti. Meanwhile I watch and pray...I don't want any other Lover.

The words I got for the Haiti team can be found in John 14:
¹²"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.
¹³"Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
¹⁴"If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it."
How powerful is that? May that team (which left today) call on Jesus' name together. I will be calling out on thier behalf too, every morning at 6 AM. May they have grace and strength, know His peace and let their hearts be broken. May they be opened to how much we need Jesus, and then find in Him strength.

The Love of God

So much GOOD is happening...

I've never been in a place in my life before where so many people have spoken into me. I guess I've lived out my faith so much of the time in a very American way--in that it has always been individualized and all about me--now something is shifting. I don't neglect meeting with God alone on my own...but times of community worship and just being with people are helping me grow in knowing God in ways I never thought possible. For example, I meet a woman named Krista (and kept seeing her everywhere) who has been a missionary in Mongolia--she'll probably read this, Hi Krista!--and when I gave my testimony last Monday, she was so incredibly encouraging. I spoke about being in Haiti and the helplessness while you're there that can overwhelm you. I only lived in that for three weeks--she's been living in that for more than two years! I can't imagine...but it created such a strength in her and a reliance on God. She said she was encouraged by my testimony, but I am far more encouraged by her and her choice to follow God even when it was so hard...she has such a faith.

And that's just one source of encouragement: I feel as though I am literally surrounded by people who keep telling me what they see in me and what they see in my future, who sit with me as I cry though those deep woundings in my heart. It's just so amazing. I'm crying right now as I type it. God is so good...because around this time last year, I had no one speaking into my life--it was so lonely. And now...

It makes me wonder what is ahead. God knows going to Haiti will be hard...hearing from my friends when they get back from their mission trip to haiti this spring break will be hard. My heart will be broken again, I can feel it. God is so good, He's such a guider and a provider. He prepares me for what is ahead of me.

Watch this video of Haitians worshipping. I love them!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_l7bc1b2B3Y

A nation following after God...that is the dream (turning into a conviction) in my heart :)

Haiti...stretching out their hands to Jesus

Haitians surprise me every time!

After I wrote the last post, I ran into some videos about Haiti and a three day fast that went on their recently...I love to hear them sing--that's how I remember them best, singing in church...so to hear a whole city singing was something else altogether for me. Literally everything stopped in that country for three days while they had a time of fasting and prayer. Unbelievable, especially since this is the time of year when they should be having Carnival (which is the original Mardi Gras). Instead, they were seeking God...

My soul is at rest in God. It feels so weird to not have turmoil, but so good. I am ina place where I just trust Him and I trust His plans and His love for me.

They need teachers in Haiti! Lord, send me!

Oh, but I have so far to go...I must learn how to teach in English first and learn Haitian Creole...but...it feels like I'm on my way somewhere, and that is so good.

A group from my school will be traveling to Haiti this spring break. I went to one of their team meetings and was so blessed to be around them, to see the faces of people who will go to the country I love...May your love be so deeply in them that the Haitian people (or anyone they encounter) will feel that love and be transformed by it. You at work through your people--and probably in ways they never expected...

We love You, Lord. We love the way You work.

Check out these videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/kgroder#p/u/4/7mEeGgQRta4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ChGU5LgTSU&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ex5UqAU33I

Okay and definitely watch the part in this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdXqguIA5Z8

where the Haitian (pastor?) speaks...so good!!! To hear from their mouths what God is doing and how they are turning to Him...wow...now words--God is bringing His new birth for them!!!

The blessing of Oreos

I am so thankful for good friends!!! They bless me so much!

I've been on a shoe-string budget (as in, I can't afford to buy anything) and I don't mind...because it makes those little blessings that much sweeter. Such as right now, when my friend Cherith said, "I have something for you" and then ran to her room and came back with a whole container of Double-Stuf Oreos...and handed them to me! The whole container, not just two cookies! Do you know what a wealth that is to a girl who can't afford to buy anything? I was pretty floored and I asked her, "Are they all mine?" a couple of times. I just couldn't believe it...

It reminds me of God's grace. He has so much for us, His Holy Spirit meant to fill our lives and Him showing Himself through miraculous signs and words for us and yet...so many of us don't believe it. We can't believe He would bless us, we've made such a mess of things! And yet...it is all for us...oh, it floors me! Does it floor you? Ask God for an outpouring of all that He has for us, accept His gift!

I was watching the IHOP webstream and just dancing and asking God to outpour His Spirit...I was praying for His Spirit to fill Haiti...oh, it was so good. His Presence.

Seek Him, my friend. He is not far from any of us.

My Family in Haiti

School's running full tilt and I'm planning to pray every night at nine 'o' clock in our prayer chapel on my university's campus. One friend has joined me so far and I hope for more. You can begin to feel terribly alone...

Haiti, everything that goes on in Haiti, always hits me hard. I looked at the pictures the Los Angeles Times has up on its webpage and...it's crazy. It's so real, but I just don't get it...lots of people are going to die and it's just numbers, but these were people, beautiful people.

The family I have there lived in the mountains above Port au Prince, near the Dominican Republic border (the most beautiful spot in the world that you have to go over crazy roads to get to, squashed into a car...I love it!! except for the legs going numb part) They should be okay, but I'm sure they make frequent trips into Port au Prince...they could have been there when the quake hit. In any case, I wonder what they're thinking and feeling, what they know so far about what happened in the city below them.

I just don't know.

I think that's what almost killed me this time last year was the not knowing. I had hideous pictures going through my mind of...it was grisly. God gave me a picture of hope though and I choose to focus on that, on children with bright smiles and healthy faces in beautifully colored clothes. The orphanage...

Someday, I'll live in Haiti. A literacy program will be up and running for them and there will be an orphanage called "In His Name" (whatever that looks like in Creole). It may be far off, but I'm working towards God's dream. I have His hope and I have His son living in me. It's beautiful and I can't wait, but I don't mind waiting on the Lord in this time. His ways are perfect and so is His timing. I know that full well. In the meantime, I pray and learn and He prepares my heart. What a glorious God!