The Race: I Just Got Invited Back in Again

I just got invited back in again.

When I was preparing to come out here to Ireland the first time, I spent a few days and months not working, just preparing. I had to move apartments and use money that I didn’t necessarily have: but the Lord was providing. On one of those days, I went by a park where I used to run as a kid and there it was: the cross country races in full swing.

Of course, I was caught up in the nostalgia. I used to be a runner myself: I remembered the agony and grit required, how quickly it all went by, the feeling of waiting to just start out (awful!). I wrote a grand little paper later that day on running the race together that I asked all of my soon-to-be-teammates to read (they thought I was a bit nuts, poor things. Mores the pity for them.) But God was doing something, reminding me that there is a race to be run and inviting me in, at my old stomping grounds.

Races are hard, ardous, deadly-feeling things. It’s all over really quick, but the blood, sweat and tears in the middle can leave you feeling as though you haven’t a hope in the world: best give up now. You can especially feel that way when you’re the girl who is so slow that your friend can go to the bathroom in the middle of the race and still find herself with a better time than you (that was a humbling day). I remember one race where we had been practicing in really wet, soggy conditions and then race day was dry dust and I lost heart…but we’ll finish that story in a bit.

Races…races are about the endurance, the anticipation of what’s around the next corner without letting that become your whole focus. They’re about running well right now, being fully present, with an ear and an eye to the future, knowing what is to come and that the energy you’re exerting now is worth the gain to come in the future.

I was never any good at races. I was never good at endurance. I hadn’t the head for it: I couldn’t—or maybe I never learned—to take what was in front of me and crush it so that I could reach my ultimate goal. I have had countless conversations with my mother where I tell her about what is in front of me (in a panic) and she calmly explains to me that the mountain I think is in front of me is actually a molehill.

It’s a crazy thing to race, to actually believe in oneself and move forward despite the jeers and catcalls and overwhelming doubt you can feel in the crowd. If you tune in, it can capsize you. My first race in college, I was competing against schools in the Title I division. In other words, they were the best in the nation as it came to cross country. Stanford was there, for gosh sakes! I was cart girl in that race: dead last, with the man on a cart following to make sure we all knew where the field of players was divided: just in case a winner happened to pass me, we’d still be sure to know who I was.

But you know what: I was in the race.

I take myself out of the race so often. I lose heart, get discouraged, stop making available what I have been gifted with when I perceive that it’s not being appreciated…gosh, I act a baby sometimes! And the body of Christ around me suffers for it, suffers for my selfishness, my selfish ambition, my unwillingness to reach out in love. 

I’m in a new season currently, reevaluating. What do I want out of life, what do I need? It’s a time of introspection, looking at deep wounds (far too often self-inflicted) and choosing—as I see myself clearly—to move forward with confidence: fully aware of myself, my faults and all that I perhaps can’t change and also aware of who I want to be, dreaming about how to get there and offering myself again to the world around me.

I want to be back in the race.

I am currently in Dublin. I have a few days here, seeing off my last students as they take off back to their respective homes. The lot of them has gone off to explore with one of their families and there wasn’t room enough for me in the car. I had (well, at first I was miffed by it and then I chose it) to stay behind at the hotel. There’s a glorious pond with swans and a wonderful park nearby. In search of a place to write, I took off into the park. The girls who entered before me had duffel bags hanging on their shoulders and I presumed that they were football (American soccer) players, that being the sport of choice in these parts. As we (I following these girls) made our way toward the center of the park, I saw more and more students around their age and then: a race marked out clearly, and all of them either walking or jogging it. As I walked past a microphone (nearly blasted my ear off) a female voice cheered, “Welcome to the Irish National Championships!” I had stumbled upon a race, and one with a prize to win no less. I felt the invitation again: what would you do?

What could you do? What can you do, when invited into this race with Him. I tell you what you’ll do:

You’ll run in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.

For me that means putting aside the straight up laziness that often keeps me form accomplishing anything. It means gathering people around me who will encourage me and help me to keep training, no matter what the ‘weather’ conditions may be. It means choosing to take on each new day as a new day and then going forward establishing and living out as a pattern in my life to choose forgiveness. It means discarding all the sin that tries so hard to entangle and throwing off every weight that tries to hinder: I want to run free! It means being a living sacrifice, making these choices every day for as long as it is called a ‘day’.

            I’ll end with this, for those who are fainthearted. The story I began earlier, the dry, dusty championship race, didn’t end well. I hardly placed, didn’t help my team much and just fell into feeling an utter failure. Fear was winning and I got so overwhelmed, I almost started walking. There just wasn’t any point to this anymore.

It was then I heard an inner voice say, “I’ll never give up on you, even when you give up on yourself.”

That moment changed: and is still changing, a lot of things in me. To know that the God of the Universe is still rooting for me, will never give up on me, even when I am besieged on all sides and so unsure of how to move forward. His love never changes and in the small schemata that is my life, He has grand designs. I can’t see them yet and can hardly believed He’d deign to glance my way but its true: it’ll always be true and never stop being true that He is obsessed with me and all the details of my life. He has directed so well so far: how could I ever just wander into Irish National Cross Country Championships? And only He would know how significant that would be for me. I take away today what I overheard one coach say: “Don’t think over the whole race, it’s too much. Concentrate on doing the section you’re in really well.”

Yes Coach.

Battle with Insignificance

 Whenever you’re starting out somewhere new, a piece of you—the one that’s still trying to prove itself and doesn’t quite understand grace—will be trying to show, desperately, just how good you are and how fit for the job. For all of us struggling procrastinators and oldest children with perfectionist tendencies, this can be the (figuratively) the death of us! We struggle so hard to be liked and to please and have such a hard time accepting the compliments and well wishes that come our way that we can swamp out all the good with our self doubt.

I write from where I am: a new place where my old ‘striving’ and ‘trying to prove myself’ tendencies have kept me on my toes in my mind for far too long. Despite multiple assurances of my place here and how valued I am, I can’t get through my head that I’m doing well. I must strive, I must forge ahead, I must do things in a new way and see results and…this is exhausting and has no fruit.

As I recall, there’s a Hebrew word for this…the word literally means to walk about in a circle. When we are stuck trying to prove ourselves, we get nowhere. And as we get nowhere, because we have refused to simply be His children and move as He calls, we get really frustrated. So we try even harder…and the circle in the dirt gets deeper but…it’s still a circle in the dirt.

In this last season, I’ve found that the real battle is with the lie the enemy has tried to put on me: insignificant. It has coloured all my perceptions and my thoughts; it has created barriers between me and those I could love in this new environment because I am constantly on the look out for their assessment of my performance.

Dwelling under insignificance, like fear (which I have battled through working under), makes for terrible working conditions to say the least. It will keep you from your full potential, if left unchecked. It becomes the net by which you are ensnared and there, caught in your own imperfect assessments as well as the cruelly (by you) interpreted assessments of those around you…you find…a cage…a prison…the white walls…are you understanding me?

You are trapped in bondage, that which you were never meant to endure has become your prison sentence.

Every word, thought, deed is filtered through this mask that keeps you from seeing life as it truly is. And you can’t escape it: your mind goes with you wherever you go, overanalyzing, trying to justify and reading into everything…it really becomes a bore.

The first step in reclaiming your life from insignificance is acknowledging it. As ‘we’ (all those books and workshops whose focus is to bring inner healing) have learned through the years, the first step toward solving a problem is noticing the problem is there. Well done you.

Second, confession. This is basic…but it works. There’s no formula: it’s just simply letting God and any person who you feel needs to know that your life is feeling pretty ratty. Acknowledging that, as well as what a lie it is, can be really freeing.

Confession also frees you in that there is power in speaking out the things you struggle with, particularly to God. Once you acknowledge your sin (in this case a false mindset) it says He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So it’s pretty simple: you, bring Him your mess. He takes care of it. I like this…

Third: be yourself, even if sometimes in your own estimation you seem like too much or have too much to say or do things you think other people will think are weird. God created you as you: He must have had a reason. I think you are a pretty big deal in His world: and you are in ours too. Please offer yourself with all your tweaks and quirks, I promise you, you will find people who love your authentic self. (Trust me, I’ve done it!) Authenticity coupled with vulnerability will create strong beautiful relationships in your life—and those are worth having. Relationships, after all, will carry over into the next life, though they will be changed. Build them, don’t let anything, especially insignificance, bar you from them.

Now when I say, “be as you are”; I hope you realize I’m not giving a licence for sin. If you have things you need to be working through…work through them with the Lord before the people He has put as accountability partners in your life. Don’t be a mess just to be a mess: you were made to be a blessing. But DO let God heal the parts of who you are that may have been repressed or rejected. If someone told you you have big teeth and it’s made you afraid to smile anymore…please bring that to God and ask Him to show you how beautiful you are. If you can’t wear swimsuits anymore because someone made a comment that your butt is too big, forget them! Ask God to show you who you are. It may take a while to sift through it all (sometimes we have a lifetime behind us full of junk) but God is willing and faithful and will bring things up as you can deal with them. He’s good like that. Always be replacing lies people have put onto you with the truth as God shows it to you. Remember, He don’t make junk.

I think that’s it: be authentic, be real, be loved…keep working past ANY lies that keep you in the dark. The Father of lights does give good gifts—I pray you’ll be on the lookout for them and receive them from Him. He is so good…and He does such good work in you, as you allow Him.

Walking with the Lord…

'Tis A Gift to Be Loved

I think I finally realized something: I get to be happy.

I’ve lived for so long in this, “This is the way it is. You just endure and hope it’s over soon” mindset even while people around me were saying, “It’s not always like this. There are hard times, but there are good times too.” I’ve been in the hard so long—the emotional grind, the uphill battle, fighting to see even hope—that imagining that the things I imagine and dream about could come to be seems like a complete fantasy, one I haven’t even allowed myself to indulge in—I can’t. If I did, for one moment, I wouldn’t be able to enter in, to go back into the fray that is my daily life.

So I push and I fight and I’m exhausted but sustained—by a good God, whose powerful, good, life-giving Presence continues to pour into me and gets me through the torture that life can seem. He’s my safe place (refuge as Psalms 91 says) and with Him I am complete—no matter the storm around me.

And He’s taught me to abide, and He’s taught me to cry out for Him and He’s taught me to love even when there isn’t anything visible to human eyes worth loving. He’s taught me to believe beyond what I can see, live heaven-minded and trust Him. And I have lived—conquered—even found freedom in the middle of mine and my family’s struggle.

He is truth and hope and love and He has been enough for us in the middle of it all.

And I haven’t done it perfectly—I have way too many things to regret—but He’s teaching me even there to let the past be the past and move forward in hope—or as one of my favorite Chris Tomlin songs says: LET THE FUTURE BEGIN!

I was at his concert two nights ago and just got taught again how good He is. We worship because He shows up, inhabits the praise that we send forth and changes our hearts as we interact with Him. I love this personal, loving, close God…I went to this concert out of obedience (it was a school night!) and I could just feel God pulling off layers—getting at my heart and the battering it has received lately and just washing, cleansing, strengthening in the most powerful way. He has good ahead of me—so close, I can almost taste it! as they say—and even in the middle of that crowded arena He was speaking close to my heart again, making that hope rise, changing and preparing me for the future. I walked out with my heart feeling a little bit different…

I heard a sermon recently that talked about how life is a process of giving the Lord little bits of our heart at a time. This is true: that it is a process on one hand—your whole heart does not automatically become His (I’m sure there are exceptions) but on the other hand it shows such faithfulness and patience on His part—to keep pursuing our hearts, even in the places where we don’t necessarily want to be fully His, it shows off His love. That He would keep coming after us, being patience with us, letting us have a part and a say in the relationship and not pressing us beyond what we are able to give. It’s a beautiful piece of God.

I was a little more His after that night at the concert: a little (no, actually a whole ton) more able to believe that He has good for me (exceedingly more than I’m imagining! As the Kristene Mueller song I’m listening to right now says—God timing!). That what I have been dreaming of could become a beautiful, hopeful reality that I get to just bless Him with—honoring Him because He’s the only One capable of pulling it off and loving Him even more for being able to dream and see come to fruition the joy of His heart.

Realizing that He desires that I be happy and fulfilled more than I ever will is an incredible (almost unnerving for me) declaration. But it’s true. He wants kids after His heart who will dream with Him to see the world changed and He will be the force behind the movement as we launch forth in hope: His sailboats.

I’m ready for anything and the next step and the launching…

Always, desperately, hopefully, carefully, wonderfully His.

This is Really Long--Don't Read It Unless You Want to Believe in the Change Jesus Brings! :P

"As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God. When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death. But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way by obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living by the Spirit." 
(Romans 7:4b-6)

 Excuse me for a moment whilst I process my year...

Twenty-four--that was not a year I missed saying farewell too...it seemed to all go on forever with no hope in sight. I think I learned, as Abraham had to, to trust in God's promises even when there seemed no end in sight...no land to journey to, no son to see grow up, no dream blossoming...

Endurance produces...what was that again? Hope? Ha. How I learned the truth of that extraordinary statement. I think I'm realizing evermore that so much of our lives must be lived out supernaturally, supremely apart from what we realize/think we are able to do. This new life of the Spirit--a completely new way of living--is really the way we must go if we want to have anything to do with Jesus and His kingdom. Because its all--backwards and not upside down, but illogical: gaining hope from being in a place of despair; forgiving when there is no earthly reason to; believing in resurrection for ourselves, these old bodies--it's all ludicrous in the best possible sense of the word. Love especially--love, especially, is a most insane, unimaginable concept. No, not romantic love that everyone is obsessed with--but that ability to continue to hope in and long for someone who completely shuns you again and again. Reaching out to that person over and over even while they reject you...that's love.

Isn't that insane?

But that's what Jesus is, that's what He offers. To every person that could possibly ever choose to follow Him (and that's all of us) He extends His love, His forgiveness, His very life--and He asks us to do the same.

It is insane--because if you try to do this--really love someone despite how they treat you--you will end up in abusive, co-dependent, broken relationships...and no one wants that! So no one loves that way--or do they?

See the trick is--the catch, the gist of it all, the way I have learned from my own Father--this centerpiece of all that encompasses a life giving away to Christ--is that we don't do the loving.

Hear it again--it's not your job to do the loving.

Well, God is love and if we know God then we know love and if you don't have love then you don't have love, so I have to muster up the love for this other person, right?

Wrong.

We love because He first loved us.

This is love, not that we loved God but that He first loved us and sent His Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us. 

Can we just live here for a moment? Catch that last verse from 1 John--as we love one another, God dwells, abides, lives it out through us and that love (which came from Him in the first place!) gets perfected in us.

I've needed to hear this every day of my life and live here and I will die here--waiting for God to come and fill up my life so that I quit scrounging and trying to show enough love...finally believing in the fullest sense that Jesus came not to perfect me, but to love through me and the change of me becoming more and more like His Son suddenly gets wrought as I go about the ordinary task of loving Him alone by loving all those around me as He lives through me. 

I'm sure I'm off theologically at some point in the middle of this vast understanding that I am trying to pinpoint into a few words. Beloved, forgive me for it and move on.  Just realize for a moment with me the grace that this Pharisee-ical little girl has learned and be in awe of the God who would take the time to wrought that change. I am not the same--all my perfecting and needing others around me to perform has slowly died away in the flame of being broken enough to just know Him. He loved me in the middle of my mess, when I had absolutely nothing to offer--and I will spend my whole life learning how to live out a life filled with a love like that--a life leaning into my Father's arms and feeding others out of the abundance of that embrace. 

It's amazing the little places you'll go to--and the things that the Lord will teach you there. The endurance, hope, love--they don't get learned on the big stage when you're feeling really important. The hope of your life, the truth of it and who the Lord is creating you to be--they come out of small moments, lived in the presence of family and friends, completely mundane and totally treasured. Don't be ashamed or deride the big stage and shiny lights--but live your life not around those edges but in a way which proclaims that even if those things were never available to you, you know that your life is good, worth living, full of Him. 

That's what I learned this year--the hope when everything is failing comes because of the strength I find in Him, the joy in the midst of pain is present because He abides with me, I can keep climbing up this mountain, painful as it may be, because He's offering His hand to me. I don't have a lot at this point in my life, but all I have finds its origin in Him and that makes it exceedingly worth more than all the riches I could recieve. And given the choice, He knows what I'd choose.

A friend made the comment when I was talking over a bit of my year, "You're in missionary training." I laughed a little, but only because its true. I don't think even I will understand the gifts He's placed in me by teaching me how to live out through this year.

Because I wanted to run and cry and quit--so many times. I couldn't. I had no options--I had to face the reality of my life as it came and be honest about it and keep moving forward even when everything in me wanted to leave. To be honest, I screwed up a lot. Hurt people. Would have left had I had any options. But He stayed me, rescued me time and time again, practiced forgiveness through me, taught me to be an intercessor, changed me, ransomed me from the dead and restored me. Who I am now is stronger, more hopeful than who I was when I began twenty-four.

I wouldn't live those years again if you paid me (or did anything for me! ha!) but I would never trade the character, endurance, presence... 
 
"Now you have every spiritual gift you need as you eagerly wait for the return of our Lord Jesus Christ." 
(1 Corinthians 1:7)

It's weird--I've never read this verse before, to my knowledge. But running across it this morning, the truth of it stuck in me--I have everything I could ever possibly need for every day ahead because of the access I have to Jesus and the truth of what He--the ever faithful one--is doing in me. I've only had a taste of the glory which is to come--and it only makes me thirst that much more.  

like this song by Brooke Fraser says:

if i find in myself desires nothing in this world can satisfy,
i can only conclude that I was not made for here...

"He will keep you strong to the end so that you will be free from all blame on that day when our Lord Jesus Christ returns." 
(I Corinthians 1:8)

There's something about the steadfast grace of God that keeps me running forward, with such hope! It makes me think of a vision I had once of me and my future husband (wherever you are!!!). We were running forward with all the strength we had, each of us with a hand in Jesus'...there was such joy in the exchange--I never even saw who it was on the other side of Jesus (I really didn't want to, yet) but I knew that our lives were about staying close to each other through our life in Jesus and He was the One propelling us forward. That no matter what came, He would link us together, enable us to keep running forward, joy and hope in our faces no matter the circumstances. Himself--so present with us...even in the middle of this terrible season, I somehow knew, deep in me past what anyone could say/convince me of, no matter how they spoke despair, no matter how stagnant it got--I just knew He was faithful--and it enabled me to keep going.

The dark night...all I had at times was a heart still burning for Him--and it was enough.

"Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit." 
(Romans 8:5)

I think for some reason this verse became alive in a different way through this year--somehow or other I had always missed--or maybe hadn't had to live on close proximity with--people who were so willing to live in darkness, be dominated by what was controlling them and not see the harm it was doing. I learned compassion and forgiveness in a big way by seeing people through this--just being so aware that the reason they acted the way they did was almost not a conscious thing on their part--they didn't mean to damage you so bluntly, knife thrusts of words--they just didn't know any other way. So you had to learn not to be dead toward them, but to keep peeling back your pain and disappointment and see them anew each day. It's still a struggle for me--loving in spite of the pain they cause--but as I said earlier, Jesus' love has been shown to me so new...and I mean, just recently.  There's a newness in me, a profound declaration wrought by the pain that the Lord is completely pleased with me as I do my best, working out of His supernatural love, to extend love to the broken. It becomes such a beautiful thing--and they often have no idea how to respond--but its not about them and me anymore--its about what Jesus wants to show off through His kids--and that's His love! He wants Himself, His beautiful character of seeing beauty in the pain and calling forth hope out of brokenness to become a part of all we do. I for one am jumping on board.

"God will do this, for He is faithful to do what He says, and He has invited you into partnership with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord." 
(I Corinthians 1:9) 

 I mean, partnership with Jesus (perfect words for what it is) who wouldn't want that? Who wouldn't want the nearness, the darling blessedness of being one of His own and operating in His love? No more striving on my part to become all I was made to be, crying out of fear, "Use me, God!" lest He forget about me and all I did turned out to not be enough for Him. No, I have learned a new way, a reliance on His tender care and a darling hope into all of His promises--because a promise, unlike a contract, cannot be broken (read Romans 4 in the Message--it'll change your life!). I live in the risky faith embrace of trusting in the Son of Man, who loved me and gave Himself--for me. I don't count His grace as something which is to be taken lightly--its what saved me, sustains me and will bring me into my forevermore. He's faithful for that!

"So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point: you died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead." 
(Romans 7:4a)

A re-uniting...no, no, just a uniting--what you never had before because of sin becomes fully yours, fully possible because of what Jesus did for us. This year I proclaim His faithfulness, His power to release us from the grave, His utter ability to show up in whatever you called "dead" in your life and bring full life, better life than you could ever have proclaimed over it, to come springing up like a well-tended vine. It's all Him in you, no mustering up or being enough--but relaxing into what He is doing in the world and simply choosing to meet with Him there. Its such a more graceful way of life, its truly life--its what He has for you! Just seek...

"The message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God." 
(I Corinthians 1:18)

There was a moment, on the eve of my 25th birthday, when I lost it all. I mourned what had been, all the destruction, despair and hopelessness that had filled the year that was now behind me. I wailed, crying like I don't think I've ever cried, because this past year was just so hard to live through. Words can't describe and so that night the groans that Romans 8 talks about came out--deep anguish over what was lost, a grieving.

"And Christ lives within you so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God. The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead,  he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you." 
(Romans 8:10-11)

I woke up the next morning and the love of God--which I had been crying out for, longing for, had a desprate need for--because I knew that I did not have within myself the capacity to love as He did, did not even know how to go about loving in this way that He commanded all throughout 1 John 4--suddenly it was there. I was just wrapped up in the love of God in a way that cannot make sense unless you have known that full assurance, peace--I suddenly knew beyond doubt that I had all I needed, the full depths of who He was, like in a way that's past knowing. It was just a part of who I was (am) now.

"So where does this leave the philosophers, the scholars, and the worlds brilliant debaters? God has made the wisdom of this world look foolish." 
(I Corinthians 1:20)

It was something new in me--God blessing and filling me up and reminding me that He is very present, ever present on the Earth--and that as I seek I will find, all I need is in Him, that even the worst that I can do will be covered by this love and that should I seek Him my whole life I will never come to the end of the goodness that is Him, all that he longs to pour out into me and through me. Like a good friend said last night, "We're not a pond, we're a hose." All that He is can flow out of my life and bless others as I rest and abide in Him allowing Him to reach out through me. It's good...and it won't make sense to anyone unless they are in Him! And He invites us into all that goodness, no matter where we are!

"So God did what the law could not do. He sent His own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sins control over us by giving His Son as a sacrifice for our sins." 
(Romans 8:3b)

25 is a new year--beyond reaching a pivotal birthday into realizing that I can face anything from this point forward and it will be cake. I have hit and lived through the worst that a life can offer you. Jesus has shown up solid and become such a deep part of who I am that to separate would be to take the very life away from me--and you just can't do that! He rose from the dead--and so will I! It's bizarre how far this year has taken me--and I haven't traveled more than 8 hours from my home at any period during this time...

"But to those called by God to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God's weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength." 
(I Corinthians 1:24-25)

Mexico was like a culmination of all that year--a chance to stretch my wings and realize that the cage I had been living in for so long was starting to rattle--God was on His way, up to something, whispering on the wind. I'm stretching my wings, dreaming, anticipating, so fully hoping in the God who has taken a little bird who might have always claimed she was only a songbird and declaring over her life that she is an eagle, she has great strength, that what she carries changes atmospheres, people's life directions, hope--she just brings it, a result of a deep connection and abiding in the Father who speaks such strength and grace into all His children. She will be His beauty on display in a way most people have never seen--and don't be afraid of it! Lean in ever closer, and carry my heart, O my daughter.

"Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do. For if you live by its dictates, you will die. But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God." 
(Romans 8:13-14)

I will do whatever I will do, says the Lord, it matters not what you think I'm capable of or what you think I'm up to. I am the one who moves and breathes and gives life--the very life of the world. Any of you aligned with Jesus and living out this life in His life have no idea what you are in for! This life changed the world, gave wind to sweep under your wings (Holy Spirit) and went through (is still going through) the whole world. Do you think that has ended? Do you think that it could ever end?
Jump in--no telling what we'll see, only sure thing: Jesus is King and He does as He pleases.  
What hope!!!

"Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world's eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you. Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important. As a result, no one can ever boast in the presence of God." 
(I Corinthians 1:26-29)

I am so aware of how incapable I am--but monstrously absorbed in the fact that God can do as He likes through a life laid down. This is powerful, wholesome, stake-your-life-on-it truth...may it be the truth that changes your world as you walk through this life with Him, fully aware of His grace and how much hope He longs to bring into this broken world. If He can make me, in the middle of all my unknown circumstances and whatevers!!! trust--the one who used to be so fear-filled and worry haunted--if He can break me down enough to believe and fully walk in all He has for me--just think of what He can do in you! Never put the limits on Him--practice letting go! Letting go is having an insignificant faith--a faith that lays down all it has ever believed about what we think He can do and then laid down all that we think He should do in us or others and just chosen to have our vision expanded, our love (and ability) to love change and has been set free into believing that anything is possible and Jesus is at work everywhere. Do you live that way? Does your life proclaim an effortless, totally able God? Expand your vision of yourself, those around you and the Lord you serve! And if you have gone through utter brokenness--as I have this year--rejoice in it, for you know He is in the middle of it!

I was in Yosemite last Tuesday, reveling in sunshine, flowers and the delight of knowing my God. I went (for the first time in I don't know how many visits to Yosemite) into the little chapel on the valley floor and just had a moment of thankfulness and praise before the Lord. He has made my life come alight even in the middle of the crazy that was this year--I was even sitting in a pool of sunshine in that little chapel--and I know that that will continue to be the reality of my life in Him. No matter what we may be going through, we live our lives out in the sunshine of His love. That's where all this beautiful life comes through...

Choosing to be Fearless

I need a....

I would love to have a...

If I could just pin it down and bend it to my will...

Sorry, I've never not had an opening line as I write. Usually I have my first sentence fully formed before I ever get to my blog page and then it just free flows from there (no, I do not write these ahead of time, edit them to death and then post them--surprised? Don't be...God knows I am a recovering perfectionist and if I didn't just get out all I was thinking and feeling--with no looking back--it would never appear on this page. Hence the sometimes too much information/slightly strange posts. Hey, you're the one reading it! I didn't twist your arm!) Back to real life...blog life...whatever! (throws her hands up in the air) 

The point is, I want to understand love. I want to have it figured out to the "T" so I no longer have to obsess about it the way our freakin' modern culture does constantly. I want to pin it down, strangle it if I have to and understand it completely. I don't want it to be messy or unpredictable or not go my way--I want it mine and I want it now.

And that's why I have so many issues! I am being slightly ironic in this post, but the way I feel about love and how I wish it would behave just goes to show how far I must go in order to learn its secrets. I hate that I can't control--but that is loves very definition. No one has it pinned down or gets it right--we all stumble and mumble through it and a few of us (maybe they really are the lucky ones--or maybe they're just normal people with the same insane amount of issues who choose to be fearless) make it to the marriage altar and vow to stay together FOREVER!

Oh, man...I'm like one of those guys with commitment issues--except I'M NOT A GUY!! Haha, you just have to laugh.

But seriously, forever freaks me out. Maybe just because I overthink EVERYTHING constantly and can't help but analyze my life to death (I also pray, which keeps me from being a witless ninny--God helps me face life :)) but the idea of marriage is a LONG idea...it doesn't end (in my book) until one or the other of you keels over and dies.

See, that would be the end of my thought process--expect I started to fall in love once. The madness of that infatuation stage goes beyond what they show you in movies with the staring into your eyes deeply and never wanting to look away and the taking a walk by yourself for an hour and a half, just talking it out with God to try to get him out of your head only to having it destroyed by seeing him for fifteen minutes. Listening to his stories of his childhood (really, only got to hear one--wish there were more) and hearing his heart as he talked about the world and just wanting to be around him. I couldn't get enough. 

But I was too afraid--and stuck on my own idea about what my world would look like--and I wasn't fair and I sent mixed signals all the time and never, ever did I want to keep him from his dreams--and I didn't think those dreams could hold me. (Cause I'm my own God, right, and I know.) I didn't choose to be fearless, to risk it all and see what could be--I let it go...

And I just want to know what love is...because I think I botched my chance at learning to love fearlessly and I need God in the middle of all of that. 

I was reading Thomas Merton today and I just got stuck on one paragraph and then it made me cry:

"Let us, therefore, learn to pass from one imperfect activity to another without worrying too much about what we are missing. It is true that we make many mistakes. But the biggest of them all is to be surprised at them: as if we had some hope of never making any."

My theme for the year is both "Letting Go" and "Consecration". I don't know how those two could possibly exist in the same--universe? mind? sentence? They're diametrically opposed to one another--they'll never come into rhythm together. But maybe that's how God works--in all the ways we'd never expect Him to, except that we gave Him a chance. Maybe that's exactly what love is--facing the impossible with hope, knowing that you are not alone as you take this journey. Maybe the only way to love is to let go of all your thoughts and intentions and place them in the hands of another, trusting that they care enough for you to take the best care of you that they are possibly able to. I never understood that--my mistake...

I have to get used to my mistakes--forgive myself and move on and quit being so surprised at what they are and what they teach me. My small life matters--and He will keep loving me past my own insecurities and failures for the rest of my life--I never have to question that. Can you imagine the goodness of God?

Oh I needed to get that off my chest.

So...this year I will--choose life, mistakes and all, and learn to enjoy it for what it is. I will allow my heart to heal and continue to hope. I will stop trying to control all my outcomes and lean into love, His good, never-changing love. Whatever is around my corners is good.

I just want you (dear reader) to know that my feelings for that boy--ah, man!--have changed. God taught me forgiveness (for the poor dear had no idea what he was doing, his affect on me) and not to be ashamed of how I had felt ("How could you let someone you knew so little of get so far into your heart?" was the lie from the enemy that used to shame me).  My heart goes on...(cue Titanic music)

Love will make its way to me, steadily, softly--in the meantime, God has shown me more love in my lifetime than many know in any marriage. I am not ashamed to say that He is all I need. My life is in His hands--horrendous mistakes and all--and there is always hope! 

There is always hope.

Some more Merton, from No Man is an Island:

"It is, therefore, a very great thing to be little, which is to say: to be ourselves."

"A multitude of badly performed actions and of experiences only half-lived exhausts and depletes our being."

"It may happen that a man who is able to accomplish very little is much more of a person than another who seems to accomplish very much."

"A man who fails well is greater than one who succeeds badly."

"For we cannot make the best of what we are, if our hearts are always divided between what we are and what we are not."

"But, above all, we must learn our own weakness in order to awaken to a new order of action and being--and experience God Himself accomplishing in us the things we find impossible."

That's love for me. 

Stripped Away

What do you do when it all gets torn away from you? When you lose the one thing which you thought would bring you happiness...when you have to move away from all you've known...when life can't seem to give you anything but hard knocks?

I ask it because I'm living it. There's a place deep in my soul that's unsettled and striving, that keeps crying out for more when less is all I see around me.

I've read a lot of books on "desire" and "choosing to know your own heart"--books that remind us that the single most painful thing we can do is acknowledge the mess our lives are in--how far we are from where we intentionally tried to be--and to go from that place and keep hoping. Every book...they say that this is the hardest thing you will ever do, but you will only get your heart and your life back if you do choose to keep hoping, keep trusting and keep pursuing God even when all seems lost.

Because all will be lost--especially if we are in a pursuit with Him.

There are easier ways--we can slip in the back door, take the smooth road and end up where we always wanted to be by our own merit--but there's no pride or glory to God in that methodology. If you are in a pursuit of all (ALL!) that God has for you--prepare for the worst.

Prepare to leave all that is familiar behind--you're paving a new trail...

Prepare to be misunderstood--your circumstances will make sense to no one, usually not even to you...

Prepare to lose it all--He needs to have His hands on your life, so you must relinquish control...

Prepare to die to what you want--the vision goes way beyond what you can see...

Prepare to leave silly arguments about calling behind--it all becomes worthless in the light of knowing Him...

Prepare to dance and sing and praise Him even in the middle of your deserts--these are the sweetest moments, the sacrifice of praise...

Prepare to meet Him in a new, life giving way--and prepare for Him to fill you with Himself on a level you could never have imagined when you first started out...

I have lost it all--love, independence, career, hopes for my "future"...it wasn't His best and so He stole me away to a new life--comfort, hope, joy found only in Him. I read in a letter yesterday (the first letter to my husband--haven't meet him yet :)) that I have been praying that I would truly know deep love--we never know what we're praying for, do we? Never realize how deep and wide and crazy those prayers can be and the journeys they will take us on. I prayed that prayer unaware of the pain that would come out of knowing deep love. My Lord asked me to sacrifice all--took things I depended on away, one by one--so that I might truly love and hope in Him. He's a wild God--but so good in the end. I wouldn't trade sun filled days for the dark nights where I have known Him.

And now the journey continues--chooisng to live out of my heart, though I can see less than far and have much to ask...still I will choose to dream. When I moved home I put this Post-It note up on the wall to remind me to keep pressing forward:

Give yourself room to DREAM! 

It may seem crazy and messy, but it's the only way to hope...

I choose hope today, will you...? In the middle of all you can't see, in the middle of desperate pain and broken relationships, will you choose to believe and trust that there is a good God who knows you and wants to show love to you? Give yourself room to dream, remember the words He has spoken to you and move forward in hope...

Even on a rainy day, there's still light and color behind the clouds.

Inspired by Psalm 137   

By the waters of Babylon,
    there we sat down and wept,
    when we remembered Zion.
² On the willows there
    we hung up our lyres.
³ For there our captors
    required of us songs,
and our tormentors, mirth, saying,
    “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

⁴ How shall we sing the Lord's song
    in a foreign land?
⁵ If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
    let my right hand forget its skill!
⁶ Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth,
    if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
    above my highest joy!

⁷ Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites
    the day of Jerusalem,
how they said, “Lay it bare, lay it bare,
    down to its foundations!”
⁸ O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed,
    blessed shall he be who repays you
    with what you have done to us!
⁹ Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones
    and dashes them against the rock!

Will You Let Him Create You Into Something Precious?

I don't know how we manage to survive life.

There are so many dangers and pitfalls...so many things we aren't even aware of that are constantly pitting themselves against you (for Christians its spiritual warfare, all the lies we must toss aside to keep fighting) or not (think non-Christians who are going the way of the world--ultimately destruction--and Satan blithely lets them keep to their course).

It's been crazy the last few months...I'm literally exhausted from the assault...and yet He was there through it all. But He couldn't take it away--that was not part of the plan. That wouldn't cause any growth.

I had to live through it.

The Lord has been teaching and speaking to me lately about the truly precious things of this world--diamonds, gold, pearls--and how these beautiful precious pieces do not come about by any accident. Rather it takes focused time (pearls), heat (gold) and energy (diamonds) to create these precious pieces--and why would He not take the same time and care with me? He knows exactly how much heat I can handle (gold), the pressure I can withstand (diamonds) and just how much waiting I can endure (pearls) and if I'll stay with Him, I'll see the results: the gold, diamonds and pearls coming alive in my life. But if I chose to shrink back and not allow Him to do the work...I remain unrefined and will turn out to be just plain old dirt...it's the process that creates the jewels. Am I willing to let Him see me through these trying times?

What would your answer be?

So Lord, even here, where I am most broken and doubting I will let you speak peace and comfort over me. I will choose to believe that You are good and You are doing good things even in my life, even when I can't see it. I know my breakthrough is around the corner and my victory is on its way--for You are the One orchestrating the paths and plans of my life. I know because I ultimately gave my life over to You and every day I choose to be a living sacrifice--for good or ill, in richness and poverty, until You come again. You know how the battle rages and You know how You're making me strong enough to endure. The precious, priceless things you are creating in me are worth all the heartache, strain and waiting. I don't know the end of my story--or how You will see us through, but I trust You. I know You are at work and I will never stop asking You to intervene. You gave it all up for us on the Cross so we could have all we need as well as abundant life and I am claiming that promise true over my life and the lives of my family, no matter where they are with You. You are more than this situation, You are more than the tears I cry and the prayers I pray and I am so thankful. Thank you for creating in me an "oak heart" (as my good friend Natalie prophesied). Now fill it with Yourself.

Ever Yours,
Your Kid and little piece of glory (as Robin has sometimes been translated), Robin