be loved

I'm back from India and a brief hiatus from the writing world. Northern Ireland is home again--beloved home. But while I was gone, India was home and I was reminded of my other home, Haiti. It seems that I am destined to fall in love and lose myself to all the places I travel, as well as the people I travel with.

I am proud to have this heart, this heart that feels so deeply and wants so much. At times it has frightened me in its intensity and overwhelmed me in its depth: it seemed strange, no one else seemed to react the way I did to certain situations. But the Lord has been showing me the beauty in this depth, the privilege of being His and reflecting Him even in how I react to the world around me. I walk into places and see and hear with Him, the beauty and the pain reflected in my tears and my laughter.
   
It doesn't come without cost, this choosing to be all His. You have to learn to leave certain things behind, steward it in ways you didn't know were needed--I'm on the journey of figuring out how I operate--the beauty of it--and how to live out this silly, spontaneous, overwhelming life alongside Him. I feel so deeply--and I often don't know what to do with that. Is there a purpose in all of these tears?

God has been speaking to me about the depths in my heart and how He will use my wide awake heart (it's been so healed in these last few months, so much more able to show concern and reach out to those who are different from me and in need--and we are all in need, whether physically, spiritually or emotionally) to awaken the Western world to a heart in them that's grown tired and dead. Not that they don't want to be found full alive in Him, but they didn't even know it was possible and without being shown, wouldn't be able to come fully alive in all the ways He made for them.

There's a brokenness in love not fully expressed--I am becoming more and more aware of this and moving away from the dead way I used to operate. The gorgeous contrast of love fully expressed against what lives only in your heart was broken open to me when we spent time in New Delhi. My friends joined some other friends who had spent all their time in India working with the same group of street kids. We went out to a fancy restaurant that night and the kids were in the marketplace, they lived not far from there. They sat outside in the dar, staring at us through the plate glass windows of the restaurant. I felt horrified--these street kids were staring at us as we gorged ourselves...for me, a nightmare. I had to go to the bathroom to cry and try to understand what the heck was going on...all of my insecurities and striving and judgment and how wrong the world was rose up in me in this overwhelming torrent. I was no better than them but everything about the situation showed just how different we were, how far apart we were. It felt so broken.

I dreaded leaving that restaurant...tell you how it went in a moment...

I have started to realize and be able to put words to the fear in me that keeps me from love. A part of me so dreads the exposing and tearing and utter desperation of putting all of yourself out there to be seen that I have often rejected being loved before it could ever happen. I had no words, no conscious understanding of this part of my self and the lies I was living out of...but there it was. So much has been uncovered in this DTS--a fear of acceptance in me that literally kept me believing no one would ever fully want to know me, lies that told me I was all alone and had to take care of myself, so many vulnerabilities that I would never disclose until recently, when heartache showed me how far I had come.

I was told something recently that tore at the heart of me: I had been in this situation before and found myself in the same pain again...but the outcome was different, as the Lord had been promising me it would be. He had even anticipated, giving me a picture of my heart all shattered to pieces--which it became the next day--and how though it was in pieces, an electrical force held it all together, kept it suspended and connected. The idea and thought, the truth that I have found out as I have gone through this is that my heart is now so intimately connected with Him--I am His Bride--that no piece is held back and so even if the worst thing (considering my history) happened to me, I was actually okay. I fought against being in the situation I was put into, asking God to keep me from that pain, but he didn't answer. And yet He did: I saw the depth we have come to in our relationship now. I see the trust, the way our hearts are interlocked. When we went through this before, parts of my heart died or were harden, parts that only came into being recently, these last few months as I let Him massage out the wounds and come back to life. It was wild to realize how much of me had been cut off because of past wounds. Then, the same situation, almost exactly, came around and I was so afraid--but then he met me so completely. I realized His love that much deeper and the situation is setting me free to love in ways I never could have imagined.

Because perfect love really does cast out fear...and to be fully loved is worth every risk...and no matter what happens to me, my heart really is held. I can truly do anything in His strength, in His arms--and He will never let me fall.

It's not easy right now--I have to remind myself constantly of these truths as my heart continues to heal and attempt to move forward--but I am not afraid of this process and I know He will see me all the way through and He has good big plans for me--far more than I could ever ask or imagine. And I am not alone, I have all of you! I give you permission to speak life, to show off love to me, to remind me of truth--and I pray I can do the same for all of you.

When we left that restaurant, the kids came running to us. I've never seen anything like the smiles on their faces: they were well loved and they knew it. I didn't even know these 7, 8 and 9 year olds but they swooped me up into their embrace as well. If I was with their friends, I was one of them and worthy of love. The grace they showed, the joy in just being with those they loved and knew loved them back was beyond my small judgmental mind. I was floored and delighted to be embraced fully into the Kingdom, with no thought of who I was and what I was about: I was just worthy to be loved, because that was what they knew.

I want to know and express love like that. He is changing, shaping and forming me. I am well loved and as part of His Kingdom, you are as well. Let's express that deep embrace of love, that pulling into intimacy, today.

be loved. Beloved. That's just who you are as His kid.

VICTORY DANCE

"Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks! Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle. But you shall be a miracle." (Phillip Brooks)

Jesus...you've been at work in me a long time. This is my victory dance!

After church the other day, the Lord was talking with me. Just out of nowhere as I got into the car He said, "I like doing miracles. Will you be my miracle?" I just laughed out loud--the week before had been hell (too much isolation and I don't know what all!) and I had school the next morning for the first time in three weeks...it was just a funny moment to be asked to be a miracle. But, of course, I said, "Yes" and the fruit of my life since that moment (it's been four days) is just incredible...

And of course, this miracle has been in process for who knows how many years--well, I do know. Three. I wrote a blog almost three years ago when I started going through the first really hard trial (it involved a boy...and him dating another girl) and the Lord comforted me then...let me know that three years from then the ache would be healed, it was worth hoping...

And He has done all that He promised. Obviously I'm not married--not even aware of anyone that I should start dating--but that doesn't matter as much. It just doesn't. I trust my Lord so much-especially in this part of my life where I am so vulnerable and He knows the weight of it and knows what He wants to do--that I refuse to be like the world around me, overly obsessed with what may happen and who they're going to have their next crush on. I've seen His timing too often. I know He's good. He's going to love me through.

The second part of this quote by Phillips Brook that I had never seen before and am now living in the joy of:

"Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come to you by the grace of God."

I am His miracle!

How To Be Lovely

this was my soundtrack while I wrote this blog:

I think we've focused so much on being beautiful that we've forgotten how to be lovely.

I only noticed this because of the way that men have reacted to me lately.

It seems I have cultivated that "gentle and quiet spirit" that is of such worth to God and apparently--it's attractive.

People like to have a place where they can feel comfortable and secure--isn't that what most mothers offered?

We want to be safe and loved and cared for well--and truly, the only people who we can be safe and loved and well cared for by are those who have found themselves in turn safe and loved and well cared for. You cannot give away what you have never taken the time to receive.

I have received in abundance in the last few months--something beautiful. I didn't mean to end up in this place I am in--both spiritually and physically--but I have chosen into it. I have not turned my back or walked away or tried to distract myself from my reality. I chose, as I have chosen with every painful season that the Lord has had me in lately, to walk with Him through it. To see what He was saying and chose to take His kisses of love as they come.

Every once in a while it bogs me down (thinking back to just half an hour ago) but then I remember the goodness of my God and the way He has kept being faithful--the way He has taken such good care of me. It's astonishing, His faithfulness, and I will not fear anymore--even when I end up unemployed in Coarsegold--because God can take my deepest fears and turn them back around into something beautiful for His glory--and I'll never stop looking for that--and He knows it. He keeps asking me to trust Him and I just keep saying yes--because He loves me and I know it and that's all a human really needs.

That's what makes you lovely. That's how you can be lovely to the world--by knowing how well you are loved today.

Take that situation--wherever you find yourself today, whatever situation it is or relationship that you wish you could get out of or just the feeling in your head that you can't  shake--and offer it to the Lord. Be honest with how you feel about it--cry a little (cry a LOT!) and then look Him in the face and recognize that this love is for you. We can all choose into being His children, being His beloved ones, being lovely. All it takes is a prayer, a turning to Him with all you are.

And doesn't our world need to be more lovely?

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.

Grace springs up all around

God uses fractured people, huh? He just asks that we don't lose heart and keep following after Him and keep believing that what He says is true...

This is where grace steps in. I'm seriously crying right now realizing this. I try so hard to make things work out and do what I believe is God's will...and when I feel like I've failed--and I seem to see more failure and lost opportunities in my life than successes--I really beat myself up. People always comment on my upbeatness and never ceasing smile...but on the inside...it's not always that way.

Grace......what a beautiful

earth shattering

concept.

This things make sense to me so little...but I think I'm getting it. God is the one in control. I am along for the ride--a valuable instrument in His hands, but not the cog which will cause the entire mechanism to fall apart if it fails.

And He chooses to use us...and it's His grace...He is at work through out all that we do.

Our task is to move as He calls us to, but still be okay with the flukes and the mistakes. I am telling you, i am going to mess up! and mess up big in this life!! But I feel a joy rush, even now. So long my life has been dictated by fear--everything revolving around my fear of messing it up and causing the flaw which makes everything fall apart. But I have a revelation!!! I'm not that important...

So if I chicken out and don't talk to that person I know I'm supposed to--it's going to be okay! But since it's going to be okay, even if I mess up, why don't I just do what God asks? Wow...so freeing!

He calls us to live in love, not perfectionism! Stop the judging, Robin, of yourself and others :) Smile big, live loud and let love be your mark among all those blunders! I can't wait!

P.S. I got to hang out with seventh grade boys at school today and I just love the conversations we had :) I love people and connecting with them and finding out what makes them tick and still loving them! I can't wait to be a teacher and pray that I learn to be a servant in the process (serving instead of being served). Shake me up, God! I want your refreshing righteousness and none of my own. i rely on YOU! Rain down...

Also there was a prophecy over my life that involved the balm of Gilead and I recently found out that the country I'm traveling to is a source of this balm...

This adds beautiful mystery and the touch of God to my trip. I can't wait to see what this trip brings. Lead me on, beautiful One. Show me where You long for me to tread...