Finding Macedonia

taste.

2012-01-31T10:14:00.001-05:00

Nothing in creation is like him. Everything around us is flawed in some way. Even before the Fall, no glory in creation compared to the glory of the Creator. But…sin has the power to make blind us to the glory of God. Sadly, awe of God is quickly replaced by awe of you.

-Paul Tripp-

Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

-C.S. Lewis-

He wants so much more for us. I have a hard time understanding it. That in the midst of my adoration of myself, I have missed something truly grand. Something truly beautiful. Something true.

My boys have no idea what is out there. They climb the trees in our yard to get a better look of our street. They have no idea what it feels like to stand 14,000 feet in the air on a mountain in Colorado in July, with snow around your ankles and blue sky and white peaks that seem to go on forever. They eat burgers and green beans and chew gum. But they’ve never tasted food made by John Fleer that comes in courses and is full of laughter as each taste seems to dance on your tongue. My boys love me and they love their dad and they follow Chloe all over the playground. But they have no idea what it feels like to kiss in the rain, to dance in the dark, to have a stomach full of butterflies and a heart that could bust at any moment because one person walked into a room.

My boys only have a taste of what is to come in their lives.

And it is the same for us. We have only a taste. Wine and laughter and sex and hope and mountains and sunsets and oceans and holding hands while you fall asleep and dancing and music and friendship and peace…we have barely scratched the surface of what is. He wants so much more for us. He has made things that are good in order for us to see him. For, all good things point to him. All good things are the evidence that he is living and moving among us. All good things are the invitation to a collision of the Holy in our lives and our hearts. All good things are a taste of Him.

But we get in the way. We taste, we experience and as soon as it is on our tongue, we turn. And we see our own pleasure, our own satisfaction, our own contributions, our own desires. We pat ourselves on the back or we push ourselves farther or we walk past the lines that keep us safe in order to feel that deeper sense of self-worship that we pretend not to have.

And our taste begins to fade. It becomes dull. And suddenly, it is not quite what it used to be. And we are hungry again.

He wants so much more for us.

Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good!
Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!
Oh, fear the LORD, you his saints,
for those who fear him have no lack!
The young lions suffer want and hunger;
but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.

-Psalm 34:8-10-

abnormal.

2012-01-30T14:49:00.001-05:00

“Map” by Jasper Johns, 1963

I know if I love you the way she (Mary) loved you, my heart will never be safe. Someday you will unsettle my life.
-Ken Gire-
I used to be cool. Then I met Jesus and he wrecked my life.
-Shane Claiborne-

A few months ago I sat at a bar with a new friend of a friend named Adam. We talked about life in America. The greed. The excess. The lack of creativity in the American Dream (go to college. get a job. then a better one. make lots of money. buy lots of stuff). It was the spring and there were parts of me that were starting to rumble. I was looking at the way we do things in America, the way we, from such an early age, make plans to fulfill the American Dream. It just seemed so empty and blank. I couldn't stop thinking about it and talking about it and trying to find out if there is (please God) more to this life. Adam is not from America so his perspective is a really great one to have. Because he sees with a clarity that I cannot. He has a world-view that I do not have. He isn't judgmental. He is observant.

As we spoke, he put into words all of the restlessness that was going on inside me. He exposed the American Dream for what it was and wondered why Daniel and I would ever want something so boring.

Adam is a rockstar. He is living a dream. It is kind of magical to hear about. But he has another. I asked him what he would do if he could be anything in the world other than what he was. A few months earlier he had visited a lake house with his wife's family in the mid-west. He stood on the shore and watched a water-skiing team and began to dream of moving to Wisconsin and becoming a water-skiing coach for a high school water-skiing team. He wasn't drunk enough for it to have been a total joke. No glitz. No stage lights or adoring fans. No chance to become wealthy. Only a chance to be happy. Just a lake and a boat and the ability to impact the lives of a few people.

Since our conversation I have thought a lot about who I am and what I want to be. I have though a lot about how boring the American Dream is. How it seems so often to run so perpendicular the cause of Christ. I have spent time in the gospels trying to figure out if Jesus meant what he said about the first being last and being a servant of all and all of that stuff. I have wondered how that is possible when we are constantly trying to win/have/get/acquire/earn the best stuff/job/house/retirement/etc. I have spent time looking at the characters in the bible who dared to think outside the box. Who dared to follow a man that offered them nothing in the eyes of the world, but everything that mattered.

And as I search for my dream, there is only one thing that I am sure of. With Jesus. nothing can ever be boring. It just isn't possible. In fact, I’m not sure it is even possible to have a “normal” life in the current of the Holy. He is not safe. And he has completely wrecked my life.

imagine.

2012-01-18T11:31:00.002-05:00

Children live in a world of dreams and imagination, a world of aliveness… There is a voice of wonder and amazement inside all of us; but we grow to realize we can no longer hear it, and we live in silence. It isn’t that God stopped speaking; it is that our lives became louder.
-Mike Yaconelli-

I watch them. My boys. Bouncing from pillow to pillow pretending like the floor is a deep and blue and rapid ocean that will suck you in. They are safe on the boats. They are safe in my arms. They are not safe on the floor.

I watch their world where everything is new and exciting and hilarious. I answer their thousands and thousands of questions. I listen to their stories and their songs, written about every move of their day.

Some days their wonder and hope and magic and imagination takes my breath away. Sometimes I feel something in me moving and changing and relating to all of their magic.

Some days the “voice of wonder and amazement” is foreign and frustrating. Days where the voice that used to live in me when I was young and optimistic is silent. And my children’s imagination is a tired routine of questions and loudness and messes. And I wonder why it is so hard to relate to energy and laughter and hope. It makes me feel like a fake. Like I am faking it through a world full of wonder and mystery and magic. A world that in the same breath is nasty and hateful and terrible. Because deep down the voice seems so silent.

I go to a coffee shop a couple mornings a week to write and read. There is a man that works there. He is my favorite barista. He is brilliant and hilarious and flamboyantly gay. And I live in the South. Today a cowboy came in and refused to respond to my barista spoke to him. He stood, looked him in his beautiful and brilliant eyes and did not respond to anything that Beaux said. Then, the cowboy went to a corner table to play kissy-face with his wife. While my heart broke at the next table over.

Because this world is nasty and hateful and terrible. It is an ocean, deep and blue and rapid that will suck you in. You are not safe on the floor.

But there in the yuck, is the quiet whisper of a God: holy and full of wonder and magic. A God who calmed the oceans with a word. A God who created and restores and redeems. The God who offers safety in the pillows of his mercy.

Sometimes the world is far too loud to hear the voice of wonder.

Sometimes it is the only thing on earth that I know to be real.

wait.

2012-01-17T13:50:00.002-05:00

For the hand of the Lord rests on this mountain…
-Isaiah 25:10-

Has it been a year? I think it has been two. In a whisper that we knew only to be the Holy, we heard the drawing. Away. Into the current of the Lord.

And, for hundreds and hundreds of days we have been on the search for the current. Some days we search with open eyes and open hearts, in every nook and every cranny—hopeful that we will know where and what he is calling us to. Some days we don’t think about it at all. Some days we are convinced we misheard or misinterpreted or are mentally insane. Some days the wait feels long and our hearts grow tired. Some days it feels like we are only inches or seconds away. We have an action plan. It might be a good one. Or it might be a filler of space and time. Being still has never been our strength.

But, for now, we just keep waiting. Because it is all that we know to do.

What are you waiting on?

i will wade out
till my thighs are steeped in
burning flowers
i will take the sun in my mouth
and leap into the ripe air
alive
with closed eyes
-e.e. cummings-

attention.

2012-01-12T16:32:00.001-05:00

“We should be astonished at the goodness of God, stunned that He should bother to call us by name, our mouths wide open at His love, bewildered that at this very moment we are standing on holy ground.”

-Brennan Manning-

Sometimes it is just that they want me. Sometimes they crawl under my covers in the middle of the night because it is the safest place in their world. There is a spot under my arm and snuggled into my ribcage that fits only them. Sometimes there are tears or raised voices or demands, not because they are hateful. But because they just want me. My attention. My affection.

And I am reminded of my deepest desire: to be fully known and still loved. And sometimes I just want Him. His attention. His affection. And I forget that I have it. And I forget the price that was paid for it. And I get swept up and wrapped in my own junk and my own importance.

But, at great price, His attention is mine. And His affection is mine. And my name and my heart and my life and my junk and my good and my ridiculous is known.

And that makes the ground and the covers and the spot under my arm near my ribcage more holy than I ever imagined.

fairytale.

2012-01-11T11:23:00.001-05:00

Growing up is a battle. A life-or-death mission into hostile territory. You tiptoe through minefields. Dodge bullets. Try to do the right thing... in a crazy time. But war has another side. The noble side. Forging friendships between improbable comrades. Uniting men. Bringing together the good... the bad... the ugly….After all if growing up is war, then those friends who grew up with you deserve a special respect. The ones who stuck by you shoulder to shoulder in a time when nothing is certain when all life lay ahead and every road led home.

-The Wonder Years-

I spent every summer that I remember of my childhood running around Young Life camps all over the country. My summers seemed to be made out of the same kinds of things that inspired books like the Bridge to Teribithia and the Chronicles of Narnia. Some kids read books and watched movies and dreamed of adventure. I had the joy of living that adventure. Early morning horse rides to a waterfall where cowboys cooked breakfast in a cast-iron pan over an open fire. Harnessed to cables a hundred feet in the air, jumping off of a platform, hoping that the ropes will catch you. Swimming in pools and lakes until the wrinkles threatened to never go away. We rolled down hills full of dandelions and grass so lush it felt like cotton. Epic games of hide and seek that always ended with tired bones and lungs full of fire and heavy eyes. Square dances and cotton candy and freckles on our face, drawn from our mother’s eyeliner. Hot, sweaty summer days running trough the woods, made sweeter by the ice cold Tang Tea that I swear I could hear calling my name from our cabin. We waded in the creek and spit crickets out of our mouth and danced like our lives depended on it.

The characters of my fairy-tale summers were greater than anything I had ever read. There was Megs the Valiant- a spitfire girl who could warm your soul and break your heart in the same breath. She was daring and loving and fun and opinionated and full of adventure. I think our souls were made out of the same kind of stuff. My brother Drew the Just, logical and loyal, he worked hard and played hard and you couldn’t look away from his eyes while he soaked in all that our summers had to offer. There was Bo the Magnificent-quiet until you knew him, adventurous, and loving—with a bravery that made you feel safe because you knew he would go to great lengths to protect you, but also because he could make you feel loved and known, which don’t always go together.(I remember a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo that was glued to his hand one summer. To me, Bo still remains the brave and brilliant face of Edmond Dantes.) Will the Wild- fun and funny, full of life so thick that it was easier to breathe when he was around. He could make you dance when you didn’t feel like it and laugh until your insides hurt. It’s almost as if you could taste his freedom. There was Sarah, who still reminds me in some ways of Jill Pole, always searching for knowledge and faith and beauty and hope and adventure. Benny, who loved deeper than anyone and has a way of making everyone he ever meets feel delighted in, who had fun no matter where he was. Austin Patrick Hall, the Huck Finn of the group- always questioning and daring and laughing and searching. There was Prince Curtis- handsome and hilarious. With the ability to dare you to do the unthinkable and accomplish the unreachable. Princesses Katie and Marion, who we would have given our life and limbs to protect. The court jesters Austin and Graham who were wonderful, crazy and constantly covered in spaghetti. Who I loved in a way that felt like we shared the blood that runs through our veins. These characters were mine. They are my family and are the faces of my childhood. They are some of the dearest friends I have ever had. They remain in me through the stickiness of cotton candy on my face, the way it feels when leaves crunch beneath my bare feet, the smell of a fireplace, the sound of a banjo, the way dirt feels and smells when it is mixed with sweat or tears. We have an understanding of each other that no one else on earth has- a bond that forever ties us together. Just like any good fairy tale.

My summers at Young Life camp are one of the reasons that I believe in the magic and the wonder of the Creator. They are the reason that I know that Jesus came to bring life, full and free. They are my picture of a God who created adventure and dared us to experience it. A God who loves a celebration and who is near when things are hard or scary. A God who fights for us not against us. A God who takes great delight in us.

twentyeleven

2012-01-07T10:01:00.003-05:00

There are so many moments of 2011 that were glimpses of eternity. The kind of moments where the world seems to go a little slower and you have the chance to soak in every detail. Like I said on Monday, it was a really good, really hard year.

MY FAVORITE EXPERIENCES OF 2011

My boys’ first time in an airplane.

Uncle Reno took my boys flying in an airplane. They wore headsets and touched every button on the plane. I listened as he explained flying with the wonder only a 4-year-old could understand. And, thousands of feet in the air, it felt like time stood still. There were 6 of us in a tiny airplane tasting what I only know to be called grace. I remember this conversation later: “What was that feeling in my belly, mom?” “Well,” I said, “I think it is called adventure”. Campbell replied, “Yeah, it felt like adventure. I think God made adventure because he loves us.” I think he did.

The Boxer Rebellion at the Bowery Ballroom

It was surreal. And incredible. Daniel and I, some of our dear friends, and a couple hundred people we didn’t know watched what is and might always be the best concert I’ve ever seen. From start to finish, it was magical. Before it started, we heard an acoustic practice session in the booth next to us from the opening band, Zach Williams and Bellow opened. They were too good. Crazy good. Then came We Are Augustines, who I explained a few days ago absolutely stole my heart. Then The Boxer Rebellion. And they were pure magic. If you look close enough, you can see Eddie Rogert and his giant beard and homemade headband in the corner. We got to watch him be the master of the instruments…it was such an incredible thing to see.

New York City

We went to my favorite city for our 5th wedding anniversary. We stayed with Megan and Claire. We went to a concert (see above) at the Bowery with Megan and Claire and Caroline. We walked until our feet hurt and we ate cupcakes while we rested. We learned the subway. We drank beer at the South Street Seaport with Claire and gin in the Village with old friends and new friends. We drew progressions of Rob’s beard with Adam. We celebrated 30th birthdays in Little Italy over housemade pasta and Prosecco. We went to the Met and I showed Daniel the exact spot where I want to die (on the benches near Renoir and Matisse and Degas). We got lost in Central Park in the rain. Claire and I spent an afternoon Brooklyn walking, talking and going to thrift stores. We shared pizza ith Rob and Claire at the first pizza place in Brooklyn. We went to another concert. Daniel and I spent the most wonderful morning in the Village together with ham biscuits and cheese straws. We ordered-in Chinese food with Claire and Megan that was nasty and wonderful at the same time. We walked Washington Heights in the morning to bring coffee to Claire. We had the time of our lives.

Holden Beach, North Carolina

We spent a week with some of our closest friends in the quiet town called Holden Beach. It was reading in hammocks and on porch swings. It was tiny giggles echoing off the waves every morning and afternoon. It was sunset walks every night. It was laughter that probably woke the neighbors. It was a giant sand castle that ended up being worth the work. It was a lot of mishaps to our car and a lot of mercy on our bank account. It was radio conversations to fill the long hours on the road. It was cooking dinner at night and oatmeal in the morning. It was trips to town and days never getting in a car. In short, it was the most fun rest I had all year.

Watching my little brother give his first talk on stage at Windy Gap.

On our way home from the beach with our friends we stopped at Windy Gap because Drew and Molly were there for the weekend. Megs, EJ and Sullivan met us and we had so much fun being a family—eating dinner and playing and oh so much laughing. Then, sometime around midnight, I saw my little brother give his first young life talk on stage at Windy Gap. It was amazing. I wish I had words to describe it. I closed my eyes at one point and I could see us as little kids rolling down the steps in the County Seat. When I opened them, there he was. My little brother, the man. Telling hundreds of High School kids about a God who loves them just as they are, not as they should be. A God who is as compassionate as he is powerful. It is my favorite memory I have ever made at Windy Gap.

twentyeleven

2012-01-03T09:20:00.001-05:00

I love reading. It is pretty rare that I don’t enjoy a book that I finish, so I am not sure that I should be held as a book critic in any kind of capacity. I just really enjoy reading. I still have a stack of books I can’t wait to get to in 2012 (All Is Grace by Brennan Manning, Tomatoland by Barry Estabrook, Bonhoeffer by Eric Metexas, etc.). I try to keep my reading list on this blog updated regularly, so just because it didn’t make the top 5 doesn’t mean I didn’t really enjoy it. (once again, click the pictures to go to the book on Amazon)

THE 5 BEST BOOKS I READ IN 2011

Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne

This was the best book I read this year. It is one of the best I’ve ever read. I think I quote from it every other blog I write. I love it because it felt like it was written to me. Shane grew up in Maryville, TN with a life that looked a lot like mine. And then, he became obedient in ways that stretched me to even think about. And in this book he obediently reflects the call to adventure, sacrifice, compassion and community that the gospels are all about. If you read anything in 2012, please read this. But, I have to warn you. It will absolutely wreck you life. But, don’t you kind of need that?

Just Kids by Patti Smith

I love New York City and I love rock and roll. This book has so many beautiful things to say about both. Part love story, party eulogy, Smith tells the story of she and her dear friend photographer Robert Mapplethorpe with such beautiful detail and hope. You get to follow the pair from the streets of Brooklyn to the Chelsea Hotel and to the deathbed of an AIDS victim. The tagline of the book says it all: “It was the summer Coltrane died, the summer of love and riots, and the summer when a chance encounter in Brooklyn led two young people on a path of art, devotion, and initiation.”

One Thousand Gifts by Ann VosKamp

I did not want to like this book. It is a book that lots of christian women read in their christian book clubs or Sunday school classes. I don’t really care for books like that. And it is written with such flowery language that was difficult for me to relate to at first. But, then, out of nowhere it became such a great book. And as I read, I felt something in me changing. A stirring and a drawing that only happens when we collide with the Holy. I don’t think I have ever learned more about gratefulness, solitude, and the art of being where you are. I loved this book. I learned so much from it. I can’t recommend it enough. I wish the language wasn’t so flowery, because then maybe Mrs. VosKamp’s audience would be broader in gender. I loved it so much that in September my friend Kyla and I started making our list of 1,000 things we are grateful for. It’s January and I’m on number 47 because I am a selfish bastard.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I barely finished these in 2011. Molly got them for me for Christmas and I read the entire series in 5 days. It is just so, so good. I did not expect to love it like I did. I think I loved every word of all three books. But, this one (the first one) is my favorite. And now, with no attempt to hide my nerd-ery…I am counting down the days until March 23 (79 to be exact) where I will watch Katniss Everdeen kick ass on a giant screen.

The Pastor by Eugene Peterson

So if I am completely honest I am not finished with this book. The Hunger Games got in the way. However….it is way, way too good not to make the list because I have a couple of chapters left. Memoirs are so often my favorite kind of book to read. It feels like such an honor to walk through pieces of someone’s life with them. I love the people from Mr. Peterson’s childhood, the members of his church that he speaks of with such love and devotion. I loved reading about his time in New York City as he searched for answers of life and vocation. This book is quite simply a joy to read.

twentyeleven

2012-01-02T13:59:00.001-05:00

2011. As all good things do, it has come to an end. But it was a good year. A really good, really hard year. I’m going to spend this week doing five “Best of 2011” lists. Of, course it will start (and probably end) with music…because all good things do. (You can click the link to buy them)

FIVE(ok 6) BEST ALBUMS OF 2011

Rise Ye Sunken Ships by We Are Augustines

Their sound, their story, their stage presence…We Are Augustines absolutely stole my heart this year. Daniel and I saw them live twice in the spring, once at the Bowery Ballroom and then a few nights later at Williamsburg Music Hall in Brooklyn. In a word: incredible. Our dear friend Eddie Rogert was guitar-teching with them and The Boxer Rebellion so we got a sneak peak at their sound check in Brooklyn. There were guitar problems and sound problems and it seemed like the expectations of their hometown show might explode. But WAA are men. As real as their frustration was their kindness and humility. They stole my heart. A few hours later, the lights came on and Billy McCarthy put on his Indiana Jones hat, and I think he left every ounce of himself on that stage. Because he is a master of the stage. Because he has the best “hey” in rock and roll. Because his band is really, really good. Do yourself a favor and let them steal your hearts too.

Live in Tennessee by The Boxer Rebellion

This concert happened in my hometown. It wasn’t well attended. I sat in a box seat in the Clayton Center on a folding chair next to Eddie Rogert’s grandmother who brought a blanket for her lap and cotton balls for her ears. I wasn’t very familiar with their music, but Daniel was and loved it. The opening band was a total train wreck. I was getting nervous. But the lights came on, and the drums kicked in, and I found myself leaning forward in my chair, spending the next two hours trying to find my breath.

This year, the album of that show came out. Maybe because I was there. Maybe because it blew my mind. Maybe because I never liked a live album until this one. Maybe because I think that The Boxer Rebellion is the greatest band of all time. Maybe because it is a tiny glimpse of what it is like to see them live. (If you have any regard for your ears at all, you should see them live.) Whatever the reason, this album is just so good. But the whole thing and buy it now.

Nothing is Wrong by Dawes

Dawes is unreal. The kind of band that sings with an angst you have to have experienced to begin to understand. They might be some of the best songwriters in the game right now. And people are paying attention. You should too.

The Cold Still from The Boxer Rebellion

I’m not sure I can say more about this band. I feel like my favorite band of all time should be plenty. “Organ Song” should be part of your day. So should “The Runner”. Really, the entire thing should be a daily part of your life.

Last Night on Earth by Noah and the Whale

I wasn’t so sure about this one at my first listen. I was used to the somber and melodic Noah and the Whale that I found in The First Days of Spring. And, like the rest of the world I worried about a post-Laura Marling Charlie Fink. But Charlie Fink won me over with his happiness in the same way he did in his misery. It is an album full of permission to chase your dreams. I hope that “Give it All Back” is my boys anthem in high school, when they are in a band that practices in our garage. For me, “Tonight’s the Kind of Night’ has been a way to give life and words to mine and Daniel’s quest for something more and something different. I find a new favorite song with every listen. I hope you will too.

Build a Rocket Boys by Elbow

Elbow is just fantastic. Always. I never thought it possible to top Seldom Seen Kid. And many don’t believe they did it in this album. But, for me, the whistling on “Lippy Kids” was all I needed to seal the deal. Buy the album. Google the videos. You are welcome.

Honorable Mentions to: Helplessness Blues (Fleet Foxes), The Whole Love (Wilco), The Mirror (Jill Andrews), Barton Hollow (The Civil Wars) and the absolutely amazing Eponymous—EP (Eddie Rogert)

irrational.

2011-12-14T10:44:00.001-05:00

This is the irrational season
When love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
There’d have been no room for the child.
-Madeline L'Engle

It is the season of the irrational. The season where we celebrate so many things that don't make sense. A baby born to a virgin. A baby born to rescue the world. A God that loves us so much that he would rescue us even as we live deep in our own depravity and junk.

It is within the irrational that the magic and wonder lie. The magic that the Night of the Child is a celebration of irrational rescue, irrational grace.
That he saved even me. That he loved even me. That he is warm even to me. That he would come to our earth filled with skinned knees and buildings that fall over and dads that sometimes don't ever come home. A perfect baby. A perfect night. A rotten stable.

The rescue for the whole world.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

kabod.

2011-11-30T10:16:00.002-05:00

"Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare has ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins..."
-Isaiah 40:2

But the reality of kabod shatters every delusion. As previous certainties desert us, we become vulnerable and open. The glory of God makes possible the primordial act of religion: the realization that we are not sufficient unto ourselves, that we have received our life and being from another. In a decision that reaches the roots of our most intimate self and demands the renunciation of belonging to that self, we freely ratify our condition as creatures.
-Brennan Manning-

Kabod.It is what C.S. Lewis called the "weight of glory". The very substance of the Lord. And Brennan Manning is quick to remind us that it's "reality...shatters every delusion". Every delusion that we had anything to do with it. Every delusion that we have control.
In my preparation for what Robert Benson calls the "Night of the Child", I have come face to face with all that I bring into this season. This morning, the shame that I thought was years gone continues to rob me of the joy that a full and free life has to offer. Shame that brings with it a grand illusion of control.
I continue to believe that I belong to myself.
But, me-- I belong only to One. One that came to earth on a crazy night as a tired babe in order to rescue the world. In order to rescue me.
His rescue means that in me the warfare is over. That shame no longer has anywhere to plant roots because my iniquity has been pardoned. Finished. Rescued.
In the Kabod of the Lord the tenderness is great and severe. It is gentle and it is direct. Not only is it really finished, but the mercy is real. It is mercy upon mercy. Double for all of my sins.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

forget.

2011-11-28T10:03:00.003-05:00

"It will be up to us to prepare for the Night of the Child, to prepare the way of the Lord, to make straight the paths. It will be up to us to make a journey of sorts toward Bethlehem, to spend some time listening to the story as it weaves its way through Advent. We are the ones who must make room in our hearts for the story to speak, who must listen carefully to its twists and its turns, listening for the places where it begins to tell us our own story."
-Ruth Haley Barton-

According to the church calendar, yesterday began the waiting period. Advent. The coming. It is our glimpse of the 400 years of silence that the Israelites experienced. Waiting. Watching.

I forgot.
It was the first Sabbath of Advent, my favorite time of the year. And I forgot.

My sweet husband let me sleep in and we went to church an hour later than normal. I was in a hurry to get ready and get everyone else ready. And I loved church yesterday. But no one reminded me that it was the first Sunday of Advent. We ate lunch and I napped and we did our Sunday things. And Daniel didn't remind me. My dad didn't call and tell me.

No one reminded me to begin the waiting.
Silence.

And, this morning was the strong reminder that I have spent so much of my life waiting to be reminded by others. Waiting to be led into the seasons and the waves and the journey of life. Waiting to be reminded what to think and feel and hear.

Year after year I wait for Advent. And when it finally comes, so often I miss it. Some years I start strong. Some years I don't remember until December. Some years I forget until I go to a Christmas Eve service and realize my heart is nowhere ready for all that candles and Silent Night have to offer.

Sometimes for me waiting is replaced by complaining. Complaining that my church doesn't prepare me for advent. Complaining about lines and busy and bustle. Complaining about consumerism. And before I realize it, I am celebrating a season of complaining instead of a season of waiting.

Ruth Haley Barton was a strong reminder this morning: It is up to me. It is not the responsibility of my church or my family or the government or anyone to prepare me for the Night of the Child. It is my job to find the quiet moments of waiting. It is my job to search the path for Bethlehem. It is my job to find how the story of the Holy and my own story weave together in so many ways.

In the quiet of the morning, I hear the invitation to the waiting. I hear the encouragement of my friend Rebecca who preached at our church yesterday, to boldly approach the throne of a baby wrapped in rescue and glory. I hear the giggles of two precious boys as they wait for a starlight on a house in my parents neighborhood. I hear the lady at the table next to me talking about making her meatballs early this year so that they will be softer--and she will have more time with those dear to her when the celebrations come. I hear the whisper of the Holy, that my waiting is not in vain. I hear the gentle voice that brings comfort and hope that it is not finished. That He will come.

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chopped.

2011-11-15T08:23:00.000-05:00

Aim for the chopping block. If you aim for the wood, you will have nothing. Aim past the wood, aim through the wood; aim for the chopping block.
-Annie Dillard-

Last night was rough. The kind of night where you are so aware of the deep and destructive self-obsession that rules your life. The kind of night where you can't look away from the pain you cause. The kind of night where the whisper of the Father "I make all things new" only makes you more aware of how many parts of you need to be made new.

The kind of night that reminds you it never works to aim for the wood.

Isn't that the way it always is? We see something in us that needs to be killed and we aim right for it...forgetting all along that it is the chopping block that we're after. The heart of the problem. We try to be less selfish or more kind or more patient. We see the destruction of our sin and work so hard to find a bandaid...when the infection grows below the surface, untreated and forgotten.

I've heard it said: the heart of the matter is a matter of the heart.

So here I sit with an infected heart. One that longs to do what is right but rarely seems to. And even still...he is fond of me. Even still Jesus died. He took on the infection voluntarily, that I might become his righteousness. He went for the chopping block, not the wood. It wasn't an even trade. But, He made it very clear. He loves me. Oh, how he loves me.

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greed.

2011-11-02T13:34:00.001-04:00

For the last few weeks a friend and I have been discussing a lot about greed, economics, and social justice. It has been such a struggle for me to write out what I believe about all of this to him. Struggling to find a way to criticize without being judgmental. Struggling with whether or not I can disagree with the current economic options without offering up a new one. Struggling out of a set of political beliefs into a big dark empty hole of confusion. Struggling to find what Jesus had to say about all of it. Struggling to understand what Jesus had to say about all of it when I finally find it.

Today, I ended up in Romans 12. It is Paul’s call to action. To be a people set apart. I read verse 2 and I think it might have changed my entire life.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. –Romans 12:2-

Do not look like the rest of the world. Be transformed to a new way, a better way. Discern what is good and acceptable and perfect.

When I look at the world, I see what people have seen since Eve chose knowledge over community. I see hunger and pain and injustice. I see greed and pride and selfishness. And it seems so big and so huge and I have a hard time finding my role.

Tim Keller talks a lot about “generous justice”. That in a cause and effect relationship, we who have been shown immeasurable grace have become the ones who bring justice. Keller defines justice as: giving humans their due as people in the image of God. The oppressed are most certainly our responsibility.

And not just responsibility. It seems to me that Jesus saw and talked about the oppressed of the world with a love I cannot comprehend. He met them face to face with mercy and goodness and justice. He made things right again. When no one else would dare to stretch out a hand, He touched the sores of a man with leprosy. Grace. Mercy. Compassion. And the sores disappeared. Justice. He, the One who restores all things to himself, made things right again. Over and over and over again.

And He asked us to do the same thing.

When we live in the patterns of this world, social and generous justice are impossible. The patterns of our world are not the best way. In fact, the numbers that are a result of the patterns are nauseating. The average worker in America makes $7/hour while the average CEO makes $1500/hour. 36% of the world’s wealth is owned by 1% of its population (in America, the numbers say that 20% of our people own 84% of the wealth). In pro-capitalism arguments, I hear all the time about how America is the most generous country of all time. And it seems as though we are because we give more money than has ever been given—roughly $28 billion/year. However, if you continue the same statistic we don’t even give 1% of our nation’s gross national income. In fact, you can’t even round up to 1% (it’s 0.2%). Less than 1% is not generous. It is not humanitarian. It is not justice. And it just isn’t working.

Our problem isn’t that America has a lot of rich people. There is nothing wrong with rich people. It isn’t being rich that is wrong. The statistics of the world will show you that, in America, we are almost all rich. In fact, Daniel and I aren’t far from qualifying for WIC, yet we rank in the top 1.4% of the world’s richest people. In the eyes of the world and the scriptures, almost all of us fit into the category of wealth. “Rich” isn’t the problem. It is our greed.

The gaps between the top and the bottom are just too large. And I don’t know how to make them smaller. I know that it is the role of the church. I know that it is a heart change not a mind change. I know that it is the actions of the saints and the drawing of the Lord. And I know that our rescue means we have to stand up and look forward and think in new and different ways. Like praying. Like giving even when it hurts us. Like (peacefully) occupying Wall Street, to offer greed a face. Not with hate, but with the mercy shown to us (Romans 12:14-21). Like scientists and engineers offering solutions to the water crisis all over the world. Like braniacs and economists offering us solutions for another world—one where, as Shane Claiborne says, “Marxism won’t be necessary and Capitalism, as we know it, won’t be possible”.

Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them; disagree with them; glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.

-Apple Ad Campaign-

Hurry

2011-10-26T09:59:00.003-04:00

"I was becoming a pastor who wasn't in a hurry."

-Eugene Peterson-

"O lord, you will ordain peace for us, for you have indeed done for us all our works
-Isaiah 26:12-
I am reading The Pastor by Eugene Peterson. It's as enjoyable of a reading experience for me as I can remember. Over and over again, it's message is clear: slow down. Slow. Down.

I tend to get swept away by my own importance. I tend to succumb to the lure of control and busy. I tend to dismiss with my actions that everything good comes from the only one who is good. I tend to forget why we call him good.

I want to become a person who isn't in a hurry.

One who understands with real clarity the urgency and importance of the gospel. But, one who trusts so deeply in the Timing and move of the holy spirit that I can rest.

A wife, a mom, a friend, a young life leader, a person....who isn't in a hurry.

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whisper

2011-10-12T19:11:00.001-04:00

To follow Jesus implies that we enter into a way of life that is given character and shape and direction by the one who calls us. To follow Jesus means picking up rhythms and ways of doing things that are often unsaid but always derivative from Jesus, formed by the influence of Jesus. To follow Jesus means that we can't separate what Jesus is saying from what Jesus is doing and the way that he is doing it. To follow Jesus is as much, or maybe even more, about feet as it is about ears and eyes.
-Eugene H. Peterson-

There are rhythms and currents to this journey. The deeper you climb and wrestle and dance your way into them, the easier it is to start to spot them. They are whispers often silent to much of the world. Rarely do they make sense in our view of the big picture. (because, really, we have such a tiny glimpse at the big picture) They are whispering invitations into collisions with the Holy. Whispering invitations into something bigger and better than we have ever known before.

These whispers are so often hard to hear. Sometimes they are far more painful than a whisper should be. Often for me, it has taken watching the whisper in the lives of others to learn the rhythms of the whisper of the Lord.

Augustine, in his pursuit to have the Lord overtake all of him... "Oh God...the Life of the soul that loves you." Martin Luther has he wars against what is within, terrified that it will impact the magic of the Glory of a God. "...for without you, I would easily wreck it all". Brennan Manning in his heartbreaking quest to believe in the depth and height and width of the love of the Lord... "He has a single relentless stance toward us: he loves us."

In the past few months as from afar I watched the gentle steps of my friend JB, who is living (probably later in life than he expected) in the severe and merciful tension "between the dreaming and the coming true". (quote from Robert Benson) I have watched the whispers of the Holy in the lives of my friends Hitchy and Emmy as they discover what it means to live in simplicity and humility. I see the whispers in Jake and CoCo as they plant roots in a place that has offered them sickness and heartbreak and laughter and cold and mission and hope. I can audibly hear the whispers thousands of feet in the air with Reno. In my brother, who is more important to me than he knows, as he bravely accepts the anointing of the Holy to stand in front of hundreds of judging eyes to tell the greatest story that has ever been told.

And, more than anywhere else, I see and hear and experience the whispers into the heart of my husband, who always leads me to the gentle feet of the rabbi, as his heart becomes captive to the rhythm of the Father. He is changing. And, because he is a really, really good husband, he is faithful to bring me along with him. And, hand in hand, I feel like we are standing in the middle of the river, ready to lift our feet and let the current take us away.

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king.

2011-09-27T09:53:00.001-04:00

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.
-Isaiah 9:6-7-

He was always meant to be the king. He will always be the king. But we are a tangible people. And, so Israel begged for a king that they could touch and smell and see. And God obliged, but not without warning and disappointment. But, a king came. And over and over again, kings would take over the throne of Israel. And it was harder to touch them, smell them, see them. Because they stayed in their palaces. They grew in wealth and in power. They sentenced sons and husbands to die for their greed. They subjected the chosen of the Lord to oppressive taxes and boundaries. But they were kings.

Then, after centuries, another King came. He didn't really look or smell or feel like the kings of the past. Because he had a gentleness they'd never seen before. He didn't demand anything to fill his palace. He didn't even have a palace. He just traveled around. And loved. He really, really loved. In a way a king had never done. He loved so deeply and fully that it terrified them. And so they had him removed. And removing him became the Great Rescue.

We were never meant for any king but him. We were meant to live and breathe under the love and mercy of the Great Rescue King.

And now we are thousands of years on the other side. And we serve all kinds of kings. We serve governments and presidents and corporations We serve greedy bosses. We serve dollars. We serve things that will not last forever. Things that will end. The dollar will disappear. So will America. And Walmart. They are not forever things.

We were never meant for any king but him. Because a son was given as a great rescue plan for our hearts and our souls and our lonely and our darkness. And the increase of His government and his peace will not end. Ever. And, ...he's good. He's the king I tell you. (C.S. Lewis, Chronicle of Narnia)

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grace.

2011-09-26T15:55:00.001-04:00

…when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good.

-Isaiah 7:16-

What once was hurt
What once was friction
What left a mark
No longer stings...
Because Grace makes beauty
Out of ugly things

-U2, “Grace”-

Being a mom is one of the greatest things I’ve ever done. From the first blinking heartbeat, I was hooked. Line. and Sinker. The way they snuggled together all swaddled in between pillows. The secret language that only they understand. The way they smell. The way they look all wrapped up in a hooded towel. The way Campbell says “powell” for pile. The deep voice Grahambo has when he’s excited about something. The way they crawl in my lap after a nap like it is the only place on earth for them. When we dance together. When they sing the Beatles in the car. The way they dance. The special laugh they have that is reserved for each other. Their tiny hands that hold my face and tell me I’m beautiful. Their drawings, full of color and detail and adventure. The way they love—with hope and laughter and reckless abandon. They are mine for a little while. I never want to let them go.

I love them just how they are. Messy, loud, wild. I love them in their good choices and their bad. I love them when they trust my love and when they choose to live outside of it. That is the easy part.

The difficult is teaching them. Teaching them how deep and wide and long my love for them is. Teaching them, that they might learn how much deeper and wider and longer is the love of Jesus. Teaching them that they have dark and rebellious hearts. Just like me. Teaching them that my heart has been rescued, but is still being refined. Teaching them that the chasm that might seem to exist between the yucky of my heart and the good of the Creator isn’t empty. And neither is the grave. Teaching them to see and choose what is good. Warning them against evil.

The grace that it takes to be a parent is more than I ever bargained for. Grace for your children. Grace for your spouse. Grace for yourself. Grace that you claimed at your rescue, but that you forget on an hourly basis.

Grace that will draw them to the good. Grace that will help them choose it. Grace that will be the only way to avoid evil. And grace that will make all of their ugly beautiful. Just like it does in their momma.

tannin.

2011-09-23T14:43:00.001-04:00

“He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes…”

Isaiah 5:2

“Our identity rests in God's relentless tenderness for us revealed in Jesus Christ.”

-Brennan Manning-

Stone by stone, he removes each one. With a gentleness that is only in the hands that fluffed the clouds in the sky, he plants each vine. He builds a tower and sets up shop. He is so near, always watching. Waiting. Not for the grapes to fail. But for the vines to yield. He carves a wine vat in preparation for the harvest. He carves a wine vat full of hope in the vines he planted and the soil he tended.

And what if it is the only thing that matters. That he isn’t waiting for me to fail. That he, with a fierce tenderness, has created the perfect space for me to find me to find joy and depth and hope. The perfect space to become his righteousness. To grow, not to fail.

What if he is rooting for me. What if when no one else shows up, he is there. He made a watchtower. He is near. What if in my searches for a sea of compliments and back-pats, his is the only one that matters. And the only one that is constant. He carved a vat, fully prepared for a celebration of who he made me to be.

What if the single greatest event in human history really was enough. What if the death of an innocent one created a holy collision that could harvest all of my wild grapes and turn them into a perfect wine. Full bodied, with depth of flavor and rich in tannin to remind me that in my wildness, he has been tender.

What if that tenderness is all that matters.

pour.

2011-09-18T16:27:00.001-04:00

Gospel-centered community has a desire to mature in the faith, but also a desire to bring others along for the ride. Which means we open up our hearts and our lives towards difficult people.

-Matt Chandler-

We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, "The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me." For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.

-Romans 15:1-7-

It feels very repetitive, but I have some incredible community. And some hard community. But, overall, I feel like I have a growing and maturing community around me. I am so grateful for people who would dare to walk through life with me—when I’m good and when I’m an idiot. I spend a lot of time being an idiot. Yet, they walk belong side me when I’m hard to reach and hard to relate to.

I’ve had a lot of conversations about community lately. In these discussions, I have found myself drawn in new ways to the idea of gospel community. What did it look like in the scriptures? What are our roles now? Community, for me, is the most difficult way that Christ asks me to deny myself. It is hard to leave the comfortable for the uncomfortable, or the “difficult people”. I find a million reasons to justify finding my niche of people whom I trust…or even people that I have the most in common with. For me, it is scary. It is kind of weird. And I can find a million reasons why it isn’t really the right thing to do.

There is a very repetitive nature seen in groups of people throughout the scriptures. A very build up/send out cycle of living. In the old testament the kingdom of Israel is grown by growing up and sending out—new land and new people conquered and enveloped into the fold. A spread of a nation. The early church was built the same way. It is easy for me to read about Paul’s experiences with people like Lydia who pastored the church in Philippi, whom Paul adored. It is easy to see his love for the Philippians and the community he found there. But, there were also the Ephesians, and they were a little more difficult. Uncomfortable. But he still went. And welcomed.

I have a friend named Jake. He didn’t really have a choice to love Daniel and I, he kind of inherited us. But as our dear friend Courtney felly madly in love with him, we kind of did too. He is so special and dear to us. Jake reminds me more of Paul than anyone I know. He’s ballsy and brave and honest. He is so generous and so wise. There is this tender part of him for when you really need it. No matter where he is, he pours into the lives of others. He teaches and shepherds and pastors. He struggles to trust but he fights until he gets there. He asks the questions that no one dares to ask. But, Daniel’s favorite part about Jake is that he cares so deeply about the answers. He wants to know and be known. He embodies these verses from Romans, taking deep interest in the difficult people. Walking with them, building them up. He teaches me all the time what it looks like to walk in deep and missional community.

I want to be more open. I want to be more obliged to pour in to life with people who are easy to be with as well as the difficult. To walk with and grow with and live life with. I want to be more like Jake. And Paul. And Jesus.

So, who is it for you? Who are you pouring your life into?

misunderstood.

2011-09-16T08:11:00.001-04:00

As he began to take the road again (after welcoming the children), a man came running up and fell at his feet, and asked him, “Good Master, what must I do to be sure of eternal life?”
“I wonder why you call me good,” returned Jesus. “No one is good—only God. You know the commandments, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not murder’, ‘Do not steal,’ ‘Do not bear false witness,’ ‘Do not defraud,’ ‘Honor your father and your mother’.”
“Master,” he replied, “I have kept carefully all these since I was quite young.”
Jesus looked steadily at him, and his heart warmed towards him. Then he said, “There is one thing you still want. Go and sell everything you have, give the money away to the poor—you will have riches in Heaven. And then come back and follow me.”
At these words his face fell and he went away in deep distress, for he was very rich.

-Mark 10:17-22-

A friend and I have been writing emails today about economics. I am not very scholarly on the topic. We landed at one point in the story of the rich young ruler. As I have waded through this story, I keep thinking of our country. I keep thinking that America might just be the rich young ruler. A country that Jesus is so warm to. And, a country that he is allowing to walk away with great riches and nothing else. We are greedy and comfortable and obsessed with ourselves and the protection of our comfort.

We are convinced that God desires prosperity for us in our terms. We are convinced that the American Dream is not only ok, it is a biblical way of living. We are willing to give what we believe God to be asking of us (usually it is 10%), and are even willing to give some of our excesses. We are a little bit uncomfortable, however, with the idea of giving until it hurts. And we are opposed to the idea of giving until we’re dry.

So often we hear that the story of the rich young ruler is a story of reliance. A story of a man who depended on and trusted his money for security and maybe his worth. It is most certainly a story of reliance. But, I think it goes beyond that. I think it is a story of ownership and one of gratitude. It is the story of a man who has a lot of things, a man who probably believes that God gave him the means for attaining those things, and a man who now believes that he owns these things. A man who doesn’t believe that Jesus would ask him to keep nothing for himself.

It is the story of a man who misunderstood. He misunderstood his wealth to be a gift from God for him.

Aren’t we this man? We have misunderstood God’s purpose and desire for our wealth. We believe so correctly that it is from Him….yet, incorrectly that it is for us. We believe that He wants us to have because he wants us to be happy. We mistake happiness and joy. We have misunderstood where that joy comes from.

He is a God who gives. He is a God who shares. And he is asking the same of us. We were not ever created for personal prosperity. It was always meant to be communal. Look at Israel, celebrating the Jubilee and the prosperity and the harvest as one. Collecting, sharing, redistributing. Look at the early church, giving everything so that not one had a need. Receiving, sharing, redistributing.

It isn’t only a story of reliance and ownership. I also think it is a story of missing eucharisteo. Ann VosKamp defines eucharisteo as “grace, thanksgiving, joy”. The man’s wealth was a gift, given in grace. It was meant to be celebrated in gratitude. It was meant to be enjoyed in a way that comes only in sharing. Eucharisteo.

creative.

2011-09-13T12:26:00.004-04:00

"Satan's desire is to turn me in on myself to the extent that I become a destructive force in community. the thrust from Jesus Christ is the opposite- to enhance my freedom so that I can become a creative force of love. it is the spirit of self-centeredness and selfishness versus the spirit of openness and self-sacrifice for the good of others."
-Dietrich Bonheoffer-

Yesterday’s blog needed a part 2. Here it is.

Amidst all of me that is destructive to community is the invitation of a God, full of mercy and abounding in love, to a life that is full and free and open. An invitation to become what Bonheoffer calls a “creative force of love” in the world.

In his book* Irresistible Revolution, Shane Claiborne speaks so beautifully into what it looks like to become that kind of creative force of love. He says, “We need converts in the best sense of the world, people who are marked by the renewing of their minds and imaginations, who no longer conform to the pattern that is destroying our world….What the world needs is people who believe so much in another world that they cannot help but begin enacting it now.”

I have a friend who often says that the more you get to know Jesus, the more you will fall in love with him…and the more you fall in love with him, the more you start to become like him. I can see that happening. The more I know and love Jesus, the harder it becomes to defend my way of living. I have more questions about what I do and why I do it. Some things start to lose their value, while what seemed worthless gains immeasurable value. Politics and patriotism get really fuzzy when war and healthcare and capitalism and global initiatives are held next to the gospels. Relationships have deeper value and coincidences become surprises from an Almighty. Possibilities seem endless, not because of the country I was born in but because of the contagious imagination and adventure of the God who creates and gifts and instills in us great things.

Jesus is inviting us to be a part of something that is bigger and greater than we ever dreamed. They were his hands that, as Isaiah 45 tells us, stretched out the heavens and his voice that commanded the host of stars that surrounds us. He is the one who made us and put us here. Incredibly though, it is through us, Isaiah reminds us, that he will build his city. And, it is through our hands He will set people free.

The almighty has invited us to come and play.

*If you’ve never read the book, go read it now. Unless you want to stay the same. Because this book might just point you so clearly to the scriptures that you will never be the same again.

destructive.

2011-09-12T14:30:00.002-04:00

"Satan's desire is to turn me in on myself to the extent that I become a destructive force in community. the thrust from Jesus Christ is the opposite- to enhance my freedom so that I can become a creative force of love. it is the spirit of self-centeredness and selfishness versus the spirit of openness and self-sacrifice for the good of others."
-Dietrich Bonheoffer-

I remember sitting in church a few years ago bored by my own frustration. I was frustrated with everything--the music, the kids program (I didn't even have children), the financial board, the fact that some people had painted over an ugly wallpaper border rather than try to take it down. Honestly, I was running out of things to get frustrated with. I remember looking around during worship that morning at almost a hundred closed eyes and some raised hands. As I looked around I was overcome with the realization that every single person in the room was able to worship a God that they believed to be living and breathing and involved. Except for one. Me.

If Dietrich Bonheoffer's quote is true, then Satan has been very successful throughout my entire life in turning me from a spirit of openness to one with and embarrassing and destructive amount of self-centeredness. It has taken many forms and looked hundreds of different ways. It has always been a "destructive force" in my experiences of community with others and with the Holy Spirit.

So often it is my constant belief that I am right. Sometimes it looks like my inability to find compassion for those who think they've been hurt but have never hurt like I have. Sometimes it's my deep and seemingly impenetrable desire to be well-liked and respected. Sometimes it's not giving a shit if I am. Sometimes it's my justifying not asking the deep or right questions to someone I love--caring more to respect their privacy than their sanctification. Sometimes it is my critical, judgmental nature. Sometimes it's my inability to be disagreed with. Often, it's my inability to shut up.

It seems like it is always around. Always there. Always lingering. This selfishness that seems to push against the open arms of Jesus.

I am reminded of the urging of Isaiah to his people,

"Oh, house of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the Lord" (Isaiah 2:5).

He is there always. Inviting me to a different kind of living. A kind of living that is no longer about me. A way of living that is open and free and communal. A place where instead of destruction, "I can become a creative force of love." A place where people mess up and I don’t have to make a mental note about it. A way of living full of second chances, open-handed giving, and a severe yet beautiful mercy for myself and others. His ways are never mine. Yet, he invites me to come and play.

hands.

2011-09-06T16:00:00.001-04:00

Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments and life itself is grace.

-Frederick Buechner-

A lot of time in Christian circles people talk about their “story”. Basically it is the chance to tell who you’ve been, who you are, and who you are becoming and all of the ways that God has been involved and instrumental in these things. I love these stories.

Becoming a mom gave me such a deeper interest in the stories of people. I watch Campbell and Graham every day with a depth of interest that I never knew was possible. I have been able to watch almost every single minute of their little lives and little stories unfold. I have seen them when they couldn’t do anything on their own. When even oxygen was hard to come by. I have seen them learn to breathe, learn to hold their temperature at 98, learn to eat and walk and sleep and jump. I have seen them learn colors and letters and people. I was there the first time they argued with each other and the first time they got pushed around by a bigger kid. I was there the first time they cried and the first time that they laughed. I heard their first lie and their first song. I saw the first time their jaw dropped and they jumped up and down with excitement. I have seen them love others well and bite others on the shoulder or face (really). I have watched them grow and explore and live life with everything their tiny little bodies can handle in the last four years.

And, through it all I have seen the evidence of the hands of a Creator. Hands that knit them intricately together when I couldn’t see it. Hands that held them as he over and over and over again blew oxygen and life into little bodies that were struggling for it. Hands that hovered unseen over their little bodies as they took those first steps. Hands that know when to protect them and when to let them fall and when to pick them up. Hands that clap unnoticed with joy as the new is discovered and imagined and explored.

Hands that I have prayed will bless and keep my boys. Hands that will bring light to shine on them and that will be gracious to them. Hands that will bring them peace and save their tiny souls. Hands that will never leave. Hands that when they look back over their lives, they will see the same fingerprints over everything, reminding them that they are not who they once were. The same fingerprints that Daniel and I see all over our own.

I took you from the ends of the earth,
   from its farthest corners I called you.
I said, ‘You are my servant’;
   I have chosen you and have not rejected you.
So do not fear, for I am with you;
   do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
   I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

-Isaiah 41:9-10-

wool.

2011-08-29T15:40:00.001-04:00

Accepting the reality of our sinfulness means accepting our authentic self. Judas could not face his shadow; Peter could. The latter befriended the impostor within; the former raged against him.

-Brennan Manning-

Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.
19 If you are willing and obedient,
you shall eat the good of the land

-Isaiah 1:18-19-

I am Israel. Dirty. Scarlet. Burning my incense and hoping that the smoke from its fragrance will distract the Holy from the vision and the stench of my sin. Somehow equally hopeful and unwilling to make a change.

And yet, he draws me in.

He makes me clean. I weep as he washes the self-obsession that will always be in this body.

He draws me in.

And I have a choice. To cling or to run. I feel like running. Because I’m not sure I can handle it. I’m not sure I know how to let go of myself. I am afraid that if I don’t protect myself He might forget to. And I’m not sure if I can trust. Because trusting has always brought hurt.

But I cling. With all that I have. I repent and beg for mercy that always seems to be there. And as I cling to Him I am very aware that I have no idea how to live a life that isn’t about me. In the whisper of a song singing over me is a promise to help. A promise to sift. A promise to draw me closer every step of the way.

I was raised up believing

I was somehow unique

Like a snowflake, distinct among snowflakes,

Unique in each way you can see.

But, now, after some thinking, I'd say I'd rather be

A functioning cog in some great machinery,

Serving something beyond me

But I don't, I don't know what that will be.

I'll get back to you someday soon, you will see.

-Fleet Foxes, “Helplessness Blues”-

wrecked.

2011-08-22T20:16:00.001-04:00

“Here’s what has to happen. You have got to get over you. You’re not the point, and the more you think you are the point, the more you will be enslaved to a thousand vices.

If you’ll get over you, you’ll have a better marriage. Because when it’s about you, then your spouse is your servant, given to you by God to make everything better for you. They cannot do that. You thinking you’re the point is going to breed conflict in the relationship with your spouse. You’ll be a better parent if it’s not about you…It’s not hard to spot the guy whose world is about him and his kids are about him. Because when they don’t play well, that’s somehow a reflection on him. And so the volume gets cranked up, and the jab at the kid gets cranked up. I’ve seen fathers lay their children to open shame in front of people. And I’m for sports and being competitive in sports, but when you’re 5-years-old, if nobody peed their pants, that’s a win. If the game is over and everybody is dry, I’m buying pizza. So you can watch a guy who thinks he’s the point, then people have to perform.

When you’re the point, you use others. When you’re the point, you will easily be angered and bothered by others. If you’re the point, when somebody cuts you off in traffic, that was on purpose. When you’re not the point, they just didn’t see you. When you’re the point, it’s ridiculous that you should have to wait in line like this, that your stuff doesn’t work like this and now this poor consumer telemarketer guy who was given to you by Dell to serve you is now getting all of your venom because the world is about you. When things don’t line up like you want them to line up, you’re just seething and looking for someone to blame. Why? Because it’s about you.

But when it’s not about you, you’re free. When it’s not about you, you get to extend grace. When it’s not about you, you get to rest. When it’s not about you, you get to breathe. When it’s not about you, you’ll sleep better. When it’s not about you, you will be happier. I don’t use the word “happy.” Happy is a cheap substitute for joy, and it’s fleeting. But when it’s not about you, you’ll be happier. The more it is about you, the more you’ll be miserable. And some of you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

-from the sermon “Village Identity (Part 1)-The Mission” on August 14, 2011 by Matt Chandler

You can listen to it here. It will probably destroy you, but it is worth it.

more.

2011-08-11T14:03:00.001-04:00

I realize that I don’t love as much as I could or should. I miss cues. Sometimes I hear what a woman says but not what she means and wind up giving sage counsel to a nonproblem.

-Brennan Manning-

Lord Jesus Christ, I admit that I am weaker and more sinful than I ever before believed, but, through you, I am more loved and accepted than I ever dared hope. I thank you for paying my debt, bearing my punishment and offering forgiveness. I turn from my sin and receive you as Savior. Amen.

-Tim Keller’s prayer-

Tuesday night was the last night that our church small group will meet at our house. It was the last night that small group will be led by Daniel and I. I struggled with my words, trying to describe my gratitude to these friends who have become so dear, trying to describe the growth and the struggle that leading a life group has been for Daniel and I. I looked around as I was incoherently rambling and I was unbelievably aware of the millions of ways I have let these people down.

Though I love them deeply, I could have done more. Prayed more. Listened more. Relaxed more. Learned to shut my damn mouth. Been more gentle and far less defensive in my pursuit, and their pursuit, of truth. Visited more. Cared more. Encouraged more. Shared more. Shared less.

In a million ways, I let them down. As real as the understanding was to me of my failures as a leader, was the grace and the mercy of a God who is not only in control, but intimately involved in our lives. A God who is the only loveable thing about me. A God who is the only one that loves my friends and I more than we ever dared to hope. A God who never misses cues. A God who is a just as he is gentle.

He was gentle and gracious in my failures as a leader.

He was gentle and gracious in my attempts to lead well.

In my attempts to lead my friends to the river of hope and life and laughter that they might drink a life to the full…In my attempts to introduce them to the Saints that have taught me about the deep, deep love and power of the Savior and grown me in heart and mind exponentially…In my attempts to encourage missional and compassionate thinking/living, to weigh our lifestyles and desires against the bible.

In all of my good and all of my bad, he was gentle and gracious. My friends may have gotten stuck with me, but my prayer is that somehow in our time together the Lord drew them to himself in ways he never had. It certainly happened for me.

I told my friends the other night that I was thankful for the ways that I have grown in our time together. There were so many conversations that blew my mind and exposed my junk and left me in awe and gratitude and fullness and hope. (The kind of conversations the make my other nights of going to bed with tears and hurt feelings seem so silly) I feel like I grew up with them and now they are sending me out into the big, bad world of high school kids. I feel empowered and enabled and encouraged by their love for Daniel and I. I am so grateful.

“

free.

2011-07-28T22:02:00.001-04:00

Gratitude is the most fruitful way of deepening your consciousness that you are not an “accident” but a divine choice.

-Henri Nouwen, Life of the Beloved-

My life is so full. My life is almost free. I have been given so many things. I have light and hope and laughter and tears and so many people that I hold dear. I have so many things that move me with a gratitude I didn’t know was possible. However, most things I take for granted.

I take so much for granted because I am afraid that most days I forget the point.

Most days I believe that I am the point.

Me. My hopes. My wants. My comfort. My dreams.

I took you from the ends of the earth,
from its farthest corners I called you.
I said, ‘You are my servant’;
I have chosen you and have not rejected you.

Isaiah 41:9

Some days I think I did the choosing.

It turns out that I am not the point. It turns out that my hopes and wants and comforts and dreams are all part of a life full of the grace to include all of these things. A divine choice. It turns out that He is the point. It turns out that my life is full, not because of all of the things that I have, but because I was chosen by the only thing that matters. I was chosen by the One who breathes value and worth into anything that is good. He is the point. And I am grateful.

The more He draws me to himself, the more he reassigns the valuable and the worthy in my life, the deeper my gratitude becomes.

My life doesn’t always feel full and free. Sometimes it is crowded and busy and suffocating. But, some days gratitude, as Henri Nouwen puts it, deepens my consciousness, and I am aware and overwhelmed by the free and the full that has overtaken my entire life. Some days I glimpse the freedom. Some day I will live it.

shipwreck.

2011-07-20T20:09:00.001-04:00

“Barque Mystique” Odilon Redon, 1840-1916

Augustine calls Him the “haven of the tossed and shipwrecked”. I feel tossed and shipwrecked. Looking for the fog to settle and the hazy beams of light to draw me in. I feel jumbled and busy and tired.

Behold my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights…(Isaiah 42:1)

I feel ineffective and short-tempered and boring.

I am the LORD; I have called you in righteousness;
I will take you by the hand and keep you…(Isaiah 42:6)

I feel defensive and irrelevant and silly.

Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine….(Isaiah 43:1)

I feel alone.

Yet, He draws me in. In all of the shame that I think is miles away. In my horrifically judgmental outlook on life. In my terrible choices as a wife and a mom and a friend. In my constant belief that I am far too important. In my defensive and frustrated responses in my small group. He draws me in, a haven. He interrupts the shipwreck with a love and a grace and a hope that I have no way of understanding. When I am least deserving, I am made full and whole and clean.

Quia amasti me, fecisti me amabilem. (In loving me, you made me lovable).

-Brennan Manning-

tight.

2011-07-01T10:28:00.001-04:00

We went to NYC in April to visit dear friends, see our favorite band ever The Boxer Rebellion, and to celebrate our anniversary. It was perfect. I also only took pictures on my phone, so sorry for the terrible quality!

Living is such a gamble, baby. Loving’s much the same.

-Paul Simon-

I guess sometimes the ground can shift beneath your feet. Sometimes your footing slips - you stumble. And sometimes, you grab what's closest to you, and hold on...

as tight as you can.

-The Wonder Years-

Daniel,

Today we’ve been married for five years. Five long, sweet, tiring, adventurous, overwhelming, hilarious, ridiculous, and absolutely wonderful years. In five years our ground has shifted so many times. Learning to live in the same house, the same room, the same bed. The surprise of a baby-then two babies. A long, hot pregnant summer celebrating our first anniversary. Way too soon, late in September, the ground shifted and two little boys entered our world and our hearts and we had to learn how to stand as parents. While our boys fought for their lives, I began to cling, as never before, to the friendship we had been building for a decade. You are my dearest friend. I learned to grab you and hold on to you with all that I have—for laughter, for comfort, for encouragement, for hope, for light. As I grabbed on to you, I started to feel like myself again. Because your hope and your light and your laughter and comfort and encouragement brought me to the feet of the One who rescued you and I—and the One who blew breath into our tiny little ones (even though it took a long time sometimes).

We have spent five years learning more about ourselves and each other than I ever thought I could. I thought I knew you before we got married. But, it has taken five years for me to know the comfort of your breath when you are sleeping next to me. Five years to know that every room that has you in it is automatically a better room. Five years to know that you aren’t going anywhere. Five years to rest in your laughter as well as your frustration. Five years to learn your song and your voice and your dreaming. Five years to learn that I am barely scratching the surface of who you are, who we are.

Thank you for never giving up on me. For chasing me when I run. For loving me when I am closed. For filling our house with music and laughter and creativity and calm. For working your ass off so that I can be at home with our boys. For celebrating me and for celebrating them. For learning to eat salad. For dozens of hospital visits. For being my partner. For being the steady when the ground shifts because for five years you have clung to the only One who is sure. For holding on to me as tight as you can and pushing me to the One who holds me as tight as I need.

Five years in, Daniel Mizell…and you are still the best part of my day. And totally worth the risk.

Love, Linds

old.

2011-05-25T13:51:00.001-04:00

Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, "I have no pleasure in them"; before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain, in the day when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those who look through the windows are dimmed…

-Ecclesiastes 12:1-3-

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
    When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
    Upon those boughs which shake against the cold
    Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang.

-Shakespeare, Sonnet LXIII-

I was listening to a Matt Chandler sermon this morning called “Remembering Rightly”. He spent the first while in Ecclesiastes 12 and my heart just can’t seem to get out of it. Solomon with poetic beauty and clarity is describing the aging process. Remember, he says, your Creator when you are young and you can’t imagine things not being good. Because you will get older, and the days will start to lose their laughter, and it will get harder to see, and your teeth will fall out, and you will be hunched over. Remember while you can still remember.

We were made to remember. We were made to look back at history and at our lives and to celebrate and rejoice and remember. It is part of our very heartbeat, remember the last as a new beat begins.

I spent last night with my grandmother. She is in her late eighties. She is hilarious and beautiful and one of the most special breathing things in this world. She is strong and brave and scared and worried. She is kind. She is my hero of this life. And she is getting old. And it is hard for her to hold her shoulders up. And her days are losing their laughter. She is less patient and less tolerant. And as I watch, my heart breaks for the joy that I have a harder time finding in her. it is still there and my heart leaps when I find it—in her eyes when Campbell and Graham are in the same room, in her smirk when she stacks up the biggest hamburger I’ve ever seen and stuffs it into her 90lb. body. In her voice when she talks about my aunt, her best friend, who died so many years ago but whom she remembers with such gratitude to the Father. Her laughter is there, but it is fading.

I am not very old. But I see a pattern of aging that I am uncomfortable with in myself. A pattern to war against. I see it slowly creeping in—a hardness, an ungratefulness, a grouchiness. I am too young for the patterns I am seeing in my life. I am too young to not be marked by remembering.

I love the honesty of Solomon. You can’t stop aging. It isn’t easy and it is coming for all of us. But, you can remember. You can remember the Lord while you are young. You can break the patterns so that when you are old you will be able to find your laughter. When the leaves are yellow, and getting ready to fall, you will know the Creator because you have remembered.

My grandmother is old and tired. But the foundations of remembering she built for the last 80 years enable her to find that light and laughter and life even when she is tired. she has taught me to remember. Her lessons have given me the weapons to fight against my own grumpiness and hardness and ungratefulness.

love.

2011-05-17T16:42:00.001-04:00

Experientially, the inner healing of the heart is seldom a sudden catharsis or an instant liberation from bitterness, anger, resentment, and hatred. More often it is a growing into oneness with the Crucified who has achieved our peace through his blood on the cross. This may take considerable time because the memories are still so vivid and the hurt is still so deep. But it will happen.

-Brennan Manning, Abba’s Child-

I have these two friends named Courtney and Lindsay. They are very dear to me. They are dear to me because when they found me I was so broken and bruised and closed and guarded. They are dear to me because they saw something in me that I did not know was still there. They saw through my laughter and every once in a while they glimpsed my tears. They had patience with my half-answers and my partial truths. They saw through my masks and confronted my bitterness. They told me when I was wrong. They didn’t let me settle into my resentment, but rather they tirelessly invited me into life.

It wasn’t always fun. Sometimes with raised voices and tears full of tension, they had to let me stare in the face of my shit right in front of them. Sometimes they had to prod when I was very much resisting prodding. Sometimes they had to tell me I was going to make a terrible mistake and then watch me make it anyway. Then, many times they had to pick up the pieces from my giant mistakes.

They were patient and kind. Never boastful or proud. They were always trusting, hoping, persevering.

They loved me enough not to leave me in my shit. More than that, they loved me enough not to pretend like it wasn’t there or to wait until I was ready to talk about it.

I am grateful for them. I am grateful that they stuck around for the vivid, for the hurt and resentment and anger and bitterness. I am grateful that they stuck around to see the “oneness with the Crucified”, the healing of my heart.

still.

2011-05-11T11:05:00.002-04:00

Heading westward towards the sun, where we’re going everything comes undone. We were lost from the start. We won’t be here when the rest falls apart.
-The Boxer Rebellion, “Soviets”-
He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things is passed away.
Revelation 21:4

Sometimes I get overwhelmed by the junk of the world. Osama Bin Laden is dead. But he still lived and he killed and he ordered people to die. And then we ordered him to die. And I feel relieved that there is less evil in the world. And I feel a little bit guilty that it took a murder to feel safer. Last week houses and families and hopes were destroyed by tornadoes all over the southeast. There is a bill in Uganda today that would make it legal to imprison or kill human beings for being gay. Prison or death. Not because you are a criminal. Because you are gay. I am sick at my stomach typing it.
It is easy to miss the whispers of the Holy in the junk of our world. It is easy to miss his tenderness and hope and delight. There is something about Jesus that while being terrifying, is also the most comfortable part of existing. There is something about him that, after denying he even knew him, made Peter jump in the ocean and swim to him in John 21. He is never safe in the ways we consider safe. He is always good but sparsely in the ways we see good.
He is good and peaceful and hopeful when all some people have are the candles they light to remember their loved ones that were in two buildings that crumbled. He is good and peaceful and hopeful when more killing somehow makes us feel safe. He is good when houses are a pile of lumber and chairs are empty at the dinner table. He is good even when a government decides that killing and imprisoning non-criminal human beings is not disgusting but is just.
And even though it is hard to hear over the junk of the world, he still whispers. In the laughter of little boys camping in the back yard. In the stumbling speech of a girl who just said yes to the man of her dreams. In the black and white Colorado mountain that one of your dearest friends texts you. In the strumming of two guitars played by two guys who love spending time together. In the aging voice of a grandmother who things you are the greatest thing in the world. In the healing back and healing heart of a brave man who has hurt for years. In the words of life that remind us that things are not as they should but, but one day tears and mourning and crying and death and pain will be no more.
He is good when I can’t see it. He is good when I don’t feel it. He still whispers when I don’t hear it. And when his holiness whispers throughout this entire world , it says that not only is he good, but he is in control.

shimmy.

2011-05-05T18:08:00.002-04:00

With a graciousness, a kindness, and an understanding of human weakness that only God could inhabit and exhibit, he liberates us from alienation and self-condemnation and offers a new possibility to each of us in our brokenness. He is the Savior who saves us from ourselves. His gospel is good news indeed!
-Brennan Manning-

Our friends Robby and Katie Painter got married this weekend. Robby was my brother’s roommate in college and he quickly became our family. He has a gentleness in him that no one I know has—it is manly and brave and compassionate. He notices details that others don’t and it makes him experience things with a fullness that is contagious. In my son, Graham’s words, “Robby is my best friend”. He is Uncle Robby to our kids, and he puts them in wrestling moves that “no one has ever gotten out of”. The only way I know to describe Katie is to steal something that my brother wrote in one of his ministry reports. When Katie walks into a room you think, “Here comes the good news!”. She kind of sparkles—her laughter, her kindness, her warmth. They are so dear to us.

The wedding was perfect and the reception was some how a step above perfection. The setting was perfect, the band was incredible, and the laughter was full and free. I couldn’t stop watching. For hours, I watched as my boys danced like it was the last night of their lives. They ran and scooted and kicked and jumped and flipped and spun and laughed and squiggled and shook. It was impossible to look away.

As I watched my boys, Robby and Katie, and a good handful of the dearest people in mine and Daniel’s life dance their asses off, I laughed in the fullness that could only come from the kindness of the One who dances over me. The One who saved me from myself because he was far too gracious and kind to leave me in my miserable shame.

I am so grateful for the almost daily reminders of his kindness. I am deeply moved when he uses people I love so dearly to remind me.

I could almost hear his deep laughter that inhibited our shimmy.

day 31.

2011-04-21T14:52:00.001-04:00

“Pieta” by Vincent Van Gogh, 1889

Are the blessings of God conditional or unconditional? Yes. Because on the cross, Jesus Christ absolutely fulfilled the conditions of the law so that God could love you absolutely, unconditionally. With his perfect life Jesus Christ completely fulfilled the terms of the covenant and he earned the blessing. But with the sacrificial death he completely fulfilled the curse of the covenant and that leaves the blessing for you, me, and anyone who lifts the empty hands of faith and asks for it. Jesus Christ fulfilled the conditions of the covenant so that we could be received unconditionally.

-Tim Keller-

Today’s Reading: Mark 10:32-34

They had absolutely no idea what this thing he kept talking about would mean for him. Even as the day approached from Him to be killed, they were expecting something different. Something like a battle. A physical brawl that would end in the defeat of a tyrannous government. That would leave them heroes, sitting at his right and his left.

Instead, he continued to remind them that it was coming. He dropped hints at what it would mean. And, when it came, the battle wasn’t physical. It was one for the hearts and souls of men. It was a battle against loneliness and hopelessness and death and despair. It was a battle to rebuild rather than destroy. It was a battle to renew and to rescue. It was a battle that was the only option for us to ever be truly and fully loved and accepted.

He talked about it often because it would be the most important day in the history of the world. The day that someone gave up everything, not frivolously or angrily, for you. Because you matter. Because His father is so very fond of you.

day 30.

2011-04-21T14:33:00.001-04:00

“Morning Sun” by Edward Hopper, 1952

Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

-Mark 10:21-

Today’s Reading: Mark 10:17-21

He asked the man to weigh his life against the law. And in his pious or honest (I’m just not quite sure which), he looks at him and loves him. Even though he knows that against the law the man only falls short. And even though he knows that he is going to ask for more, and the man will walk away sad and unchanged. He just loves him. He loves him even in his “damnable good works”. Another translation says he is warm to him. Warm. Even when we’re awful. Even when we choose our own way. Even when we do everything right. He is warm to me.

I love this story from a great book by Brennan Manning called The Furious Longing of God:

Several years ago, Edward Farrell, a priest from Detroit, went on a two-week summer vacation to Ireland to visit relatives. His one living uncle was about to celebrate his eightieth birthday. on the great day, Ed and his uncle got up early. It was before dawn. They took a walk along the shores of Lake Killarney and stopped to watch the sunrise. they stood side by side for a full twenty minutes and then resumed walking. Ed glanced at his uncle and saw that his face had broken into a broad smile. Ed said, “Uncle Seamus, you look very happy.” “I am.” Ed asked, “How come?” And his uncle replied, “The Father of Jesus is very fond of me”.

day 29.

2011-04-19T17:02:00.001-04:00

“Lovers with Daisies” by Marc Chagall, 1949-1959

“It is the difficult and the unexpected, and maybe even the tragic, that opens us up and frees us to see things in new ways. Many of the most significant moments in our lives come not because it all went right but because it all fell apart. Suffering does that. It hurts, but it also creates.”

-Rob Bell-

Today’s Reading: Mark 10:1-16

My grandparents got divorced for their 50th wedding anniversary. I think my dad told them they were supposed to die next, not get divorced. The effects of the dissolution of their marriage seeped into our entire family. To my father, his older brother and sister, even to us, the grandkids. When their marriage died, some sort of hope died a long with it. It wasn’t really a shock. It wasn’t all that messy. It was just over. What they had together had been crumbling for years, and then, it just wasn’t there anymore.

What we suspected, but weren’t sure of, is that my grandmother’s mind was deteriorating. It had been slow. So slow you wondered if it was depression or menopause or just that she was becoming a grouch. But, it started picking up speed. It went from forgetting simple things to forgetting how many pills she’d taken to forgetting what her life actually looked life. Her mind was full of dark holes in her information that she filled with the conspiracy theories of a lunatic. She was deteriorating before us. And it was awful.

In less than ten years, I watched my grandparents’ marriage and my grandmother’s mind disintegrate. I watched the culmination of pain and hurt and miscommunication unfolding at every interaction. What I saw happening was the closest picture I knew to what I was feeling in my own heart. A slow, deterioration. A crumbling. A loss of hope. I was falling apart and I needed a rescue.

For me, it happened going 90 m.p.h. on a North Carolina highway, when, with great mercy, I was reminded that there was only one rescue. And we were permanent. He wouldn’t leave me. He would restore me.

Over ten years after their divorce, my grandparents continue to be a picture of what my heart looks like. Today, my grandmother lives in a terribly sad room in a terribly sad nursing home full of other people with Alzheimer's. Her days are gloomy and her memory is gone. But there is a light for her. A hope and a promise that the Lord repairs and restores. That light comes multiple times every week when my grandfather, “D”, drives over an hour to be with her. And he holds her hand. And he helps her up. And he walks her down the hall like she is the most beautiful woman in the room. His face is proud and hers is peaceful. Sometimes there is a band and they get up and dance. Sometimes they bicker. Sometimes they just sit there. And somehow the further her mind dances away, the more deeply and intentionally he loves her.

What has been broken is being restored.

sorry.

2011-04-18T16:18:00.001-04:00

Once again, I’m so sorry for my absence. I’ve spent the last few days in New York City with some of my dearest friends, listening to my favorite band in the world, and eating yummy things with my husband. I will catch up this week—thanks to both of you who read this blog, I know you understand!

day 28.

2011-04-13T07:48:00.001-04:00

“The Dessert Harmony in Red” by Henri Matisse, 1908

Today’s Reading 9:38-50

I am going to quote today from C.S. Lewis’ article called “Is Christianity Hard or Easy”. Sin is a battle—and in our culture it has become an understated, underrated, push it under the bed battle.

the ordinary idea which we all have is that…we have a natural self with various desires and interests…and we know something called “morality” or “decent behavior” has a claim on the self…We are all hoping that when all the demands of morality and society have been met, the poor natural self will still have some chance, some time, to get on with its own life and do what it likes. In fact, we are very like an honest man paying his taxes. He pays them, but he does hope that there will be enough left over for him to live on.

The Christian way is different—both harder and easier. Christ says, “Give me All. I don’t want just this much of your time and this much of your money and this much of your work—so that your natural self can have the rest. I want you. Not your things. I have come not too torture your natural self…I will give you a new self instead. Hand over the whole natural self—ALL the desires, not just the ones you think wicked, but the ones you think innocent—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead.

The almost impossibly hard thing is to hand over your whole self to Christ. But it is far easier than what we are all trying to do instead. For what we are trying to do is remain what we call “ourselves”—our personal happiness centered on money or pleasure or ambition—and hoping, despite this, to behave honestly and chastely and humbly. And that is exactly what Christ warned us you cannot do. If I am a grass field—all the cutting will keep the grass less but won’t produce wheat. If I want wheat…I must be plowed up and re-sown.

day 27.

2011-04-12T07:34:00.001-04:00

“Noon Rest From Work (after Millet)” by Vincent Van Gogh, 1890

"The main thing separating you from God is not your sins, it's your damnable good works."

-Tim Keller-

They came to Capernaum. When he was safe at home, he asked them, "What were you discussing on the road?" The silence was deafening—they had been arguing with one another over who among them was greatest.
-Mark 9:33-34-

Today’s Reading: Mark 9:30-37

It is hard to imagine what they were thinking as he talked. There was no way of understanding the crucifixion before it happened. All they had known were the atonements and Yom Kippurs of the past—goats and sheep for the sins of some. He was a man, a king, a Christ. Surely he was speaking in stories again.

And rather than figuring it out more, they started to bicker about who was the greatest of the disciples. They were always worried about who would sit on his left and right when he took over the world. They had a picture in their head of how things would look, and they needed to find a way to put themselves into that picture.

What they missed was that he’d been showing them their place all along. It is interesting to me that right before Jesus dies, when they are spending their last moments together in the upper room, we find John reclining into Jesus. Finally, he found his place. In the arms and near the heart of the Holy. It wasn’t about who was the greatest, for He was always the greatest. And He was the only thing that mattered. And he’d been offering them a place all along. It was never about what they had done or would do. It was always about him choosing them and drawing them to himself.

day 26.

2011-04-10T07:31:00.001-04:00

“Alfalfa Fields- Saint Denis” by George Seurat, 1885-1886

A pilgrim isn’t a homeless person. A pilgrim isn’t a runaway or a throwaway. A pilgrim i s someone who is far from home but who is going home. and you’re not there yet, but you’re going there.

-Tom Job-

“But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us." And Jesus said to him, “’If you can'! All things are possible for one who believes." Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, "I believe;help my unbelief!"

-Mark 9:23-24-

Today’s Reading: Mark 9:14-29

Jesus gives the one requirement for things to be restored: believe. And the father is on his way there. But he isn’t there yet. So, he asks that Jesus fill in the gaps of his faith, restoring him. And Jesus, full of mercy, brings restoration to two people: A boy in deep need of rescue, and a Father needing the gaps to be filled. Yet again we see the collision of the Holy with the flesh of this world, and we see the hearts and minds and eyes and ears of these two individuals brought closer to the way they were always intended to be.

While I feel like I am in the boat, searching for another loaf of bread, Jesus, in his great mercy reminds me that this is a pilgrimage. And I am not home yet. But I am going there. And on the way, there is help for my unbelief. And help for the times I can’t hear or can’t see or feel like I am being thrown into the water or drowned in the sea.

He is bringing us home. He is filling in our gaps. But there is something about asking for help that seems to stir Jesus’ heart. It is as if he longs for us only to ask—to ask for healing and hope and home.

day 25.

2011-04-06T15:39:00.001-04:00

“Transfiguration” by Raphael, 1518-1520

Today’s Reading: Mark 9:1-13

It was just a few years ago that I understood the bible as “metanarrative”. That everything is about Jesus. The New Testament and the Old, Paul’s letters and David and Goliath. It all points to Jesus. The entire think is about our rescue and restoration. The Transfiguration is no exception. It seems to be entirely about the experience of Peter, James and John—but it is far deeper. It is such a beautiful parallel of the Cross and all that being restored means for us. NT Wright says it so perfectly:

If you are going to meditate on the one, you might like to hold the other in your mind as well, as a sort of backdrop. Here, on a mountain, is Jesus revealed in glory; then, on a hill outside Jerusalem, is Jesus, revealed in shame. Here his clothes are shining white; there, they have been stripped off, and soldiers have gambled for them. Here he is flanked by Moses and Elijah, two of Israel‟s greatest heroes, representing the law and the prophets; there, he is flanked by two brigands, representing the level to which Israel had sunk in rebellion against God. Here, a bright cloud overshadows the scene, there, darkness comes upon the land. Here Peter blurts out how wonderful it all is; there, he is hiding in shame after denying he even knows Jesus. Here a voice from God himself declares that this is his wonderful son; there a pagan soldier declares, in surprise, that this really was God‟s son. The mountain-top explains the hill-top and vice versa….this story is, of course, about being surprised by the power, love and beauty of God. But the point of it is that we should learn to recognize that same power, love, and beauty in Jesus, and to listen for it in his voice, not least when he tells us to take up the cross and follow him.

It is all about him and his rescue. The whole thing. From start to finish.

Tomorrow’s Reading: Mark 9:14-29

day 24

2011-04-06T07:37:00.001-04:00

“The Swineherd, Brittany” by Paul Gauguin, 1888

Calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, "Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You're not in the driver's seat; I am. Don't run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I'll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? What could you ever trade your soul for?

-Mark 8:34-37, The Message-

Cheap grace the grace we bestow on ourselves...grace without discipleship ... Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must know... It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer-

It is not a religious act that makes the Christian, but participation in the sufferings of God in the secular life. that is metanoia [repentance]: not in the first place thinking about one’s own needs, problems,sins, and fears, but allowing oneself to be caught up into the way of Jesus Christ.

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer-

Today’s Reading: Mark 8:31-38

It’s been called “the way of the cross”. It is an invitation to discipleship—to learning how to live life from the one who created it all.

In my church growing up we were often taught the process of “bettering ourselves”. It is a view of discipleship that is rampant throughout the Bible Belt. A view where if you fix yourself on the outside, you are offering Jesus the best gift. A gift he needs. Because you “never know when someone might get saved” by your goodness. There was no real cost, other than being seen as a goody-two-shoes. There was nothing really about suffering or sacrifice, other than white-knuckling your way into “holiness”. Taking up your cross to follow Jesus was all about what your could do for Him.

Discipleship is an invitation to a life that is full and hard and free. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer says in his book, The Cost of Discipleship, “Discipleship is not an offer that man makes to Christ”. It is not about being better. It is about Jesus. About knowing him and giving up everything to him—even our goodness. Giving up our “self-help” as The Message says, our white-knuckled attempts at holiness. It is to accept the offer of the Holy to collide with our lives, leaving us out of control and under the gentle and firm hand of the Father. It is to follow “the way of the cross”.

Later Today’s Reading (I’m a day behind haha): Mark 9:1-13

day 23.

2011-04-05T15:56:00.001-04:00

“Puddle” by MC Escher, 1952

And he looked up and said, “I see men, but they look like trees walking”. Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.

-Mark 8:24-25-

Our eyes are just our eyes and not all we have for seeing, maybe not even the best we have for seeing. Facts are all the eye can see, eyes cannot see truth. It’s not with the eyes of the head that we see truths like that, but with the eyes of the heart. To see him with the heart is to know, in the long run, that his life is the only life worth living.

-Frederick Buechner-

Today’s Reading: Mark 8:22-30

Yesterday, we left the disciples while they were looking around for a loaf of bread and Jesus asks the question, “Don’t you understand?'’ When they arrive at Bethsaida, we see a blind man miraculously healed. Jesus pulls him out of the crowd (I love the intimacy we keep seeing as he pulls the victim away from the masses) and spits on his eyes and touches him. And then something confusing happens—Jesus asks the man if he can see and he says that he sees men that look like trees walking around.

His vision is blurry. He thinks sees the way that things are, but there is vagueness to the form of men. He almost sees.

It isn’t that Jesus botched the miraculously healing. Instead, in his perfectly crafted way of teaching, it is a picture of the disciples and a picture of us. The man thought he saw, but he didn’t completely. The disciples thought they understood, but they were still looking around for a loaf of bread while the creator of all things sat in the boat with them. We think we see and we think we understand, but like the blind man and the disciples, there is an “almost” quality to our vision and understanding.

We think we understand, but we don’t really give our lives away. We think we see, but we don’t trust with all that we have. We think we believe that God is good and then something terrible happens and we question him with all that we have.

When they walk away from the healing, Jesus asks his disciples a question: “Who do you say that I am?”. I love Peter’s answer, as the forms begin to crisp and the blurry fades away—“You are the Christ.”

As Buechner reminds us, to truly see, to truly understand, to truly answer, “you are the Christ!” is to know that “his is the only life worth living.”

Tomorrow’s Reading: Mark 8:31-38

day 22.

2011-04-04T10:50:00.001-04:00

“Impression: sunrise” by Claude Money, 1872

Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember?

-Mark 8:18-

The time is ripe for looking back over the day, the week, the year, and trying to figure out where we have come from and where we are going to, for sifting through the things we have done and the things we have left undone for a clue to who we are and who, for better or worse, we are becoming. But again and again we avoid the long thoughts….We cling to the present out of wariness of the past. And why not, after all? We get confused. We need such escape as we can find. But there is a deeper need yet, I think, and that is the need—not all the time, surely, but from time to time—to enter that still room within us all where the past lives on as a part of the present, where the dead are alive again, where we are most alive ourselves to turnings and to where our journeys have brought us. The name of the room is Remember—the room where with patience, with charity, with quietness of heart, we remember consciously to remember the lives we have lived.

-Frederick Buechner-

Today’s Reading: Mark 8:14-21

When they are back on the boat after Jesus fed 4,000 people, the disciples are looking around for another loaf bread. They only have one loaf. How will they all eat with only one loaf? They missed it. Not only did they watch Jesus feed people miraculously on multiple occasions, they saw the tangible evidence that he is the giver of all life and all sustenance. It all comes from him. But, they were looking around for some more bread.

I am not who I once was. There are parts of my life that are dark and tragic. I wore shame like it was my favorite coat. I am not who I once was.

In my life I have had more perfect days than anyone deserves. I have climbed mountains and jumped off bridges and even touched clouds. I have more laughter per second of my life than is fair. I have the dearest friends. My family is hilarious and weird and wonderful. I have had so many perfect days.

I have two boys who were never “supposed” to be here. They were conceived in a sick and broken body. They were born far too early. Sometimes over the first couple of years they would forget to breathe. But they run. And jump. And cut their own hair. They laugh and play and are the most wonderfully weird and normal little boys you will see. But they were never “supposed” to be here.

My husband was abandoned. Dropped on a doorstep when he was six weeks old. But he loves more deeply and fully than he should know how to. And, he is loved more deeply and fully than he ever should have been by the greatest people on earth. He would have never known love like that. Because he was abandoned.

I have broken hearts. I have hurt and confused and neglected people that I love. I have said too much or said to little or forgotten to call. I have wounded with my words more than I would ever want you to know. But sometimes, I have been forgiven even though I didn’t deserve it. Even though I have broken a lot of hearts.

But I have been restored. I have been rescued. I am not who I once was. My perfect days and my shameful days and my lonely days—all of them are the evidence of a God that is merciful. A God that forgives. A God that gives abundantly. His fingerprints are all over my life and my world.

But so many days I feel like I’m looking around for another loaf of bread.

Tomorrow’s Reading: Mark 8:22-30 and Mark 8:31-37

day 21.

2011-04-04T10:21:00.002-04:00

“Femme aux Bras Croises” by Pablo Picasso, 1901
The minds of men are apt by their troubles to be cast into disorder, to be tossed up and down, and disquieted with various affections and passions…the mind on all such occasions is its own greatest troubler. It is apt to let loose its passions of fear and sorrow, which act themselves in innumerable perplexing thoughts, until it is carried utterly out of its own power. But in this state a due contemplation of the glory of Christ will restore and compose the mind, — bring it into a sedate, quiet frame, wherein faith will be able to say unto the winds and waves of distempered passions, “Peace, be still;” and they shall obey it.
-John Owen-

Today’s Reading: Mark 8:1-13

So, once again Jesus feeds a huge crowd. 7 loaves, a couple fish. 4,000 people. He not only feeds them, he feeds them until they are satisfied…and then some. Sometimes he gives us what we need. Sometimes he gives us what will satisfy us. And sometimes, in a sweet act of mercy, he gives us even more than what satisfies us- he gives abundantly.
Like on the cross. Where he gave abundantly.
He gets off the boat after the miraculous feeding, and immediately he is met by the Pharisees who demanded a sign from heaven to prove that he is really the son of God.
He just fed 4,000 people with seven loaves and a couple of fish.
He sighs. The deep groan again.
Because he knows what the sign is. And he knows that they will miss it. He knows that when he dies and when he comes back to life, it still will not be enough for them. He grieves that their religion will keep them from seeing the greatest sign that the Lord would ever give them of his great love and great mercy.
Sometimes I miss it too. Sometimes I miss the miracles and often I miss the cross in my demands for proof of God’s love for me. My insecurity and fear and doubt get in the way. My demands get in the way of the one thing Jesus demands: an irrevocable change in my heart. The busy and the crowds have a way of convincing me that I need more and my heart begins to wander.
But, he fed 4,000 people with seven loaves and a couple of fish.
And then, on a tree, he gave up everything that I might have everything.

day 20.

2011-04-01T08:02:00.002-04:00

“Van Gogh’s Chair” by Vincent Van Gogh, 1888

Some people brought a man who could neither hear nor speak and asked Jesus to lay a healing hand on him. He took the man off by himself, put his fingers in the man's ears and some spit on the man's tongue. Then Jesus looked up in prayer, groaned mightily, and commanded, "Ephphatha!—Open up!" And it happened. The man's hearing was clear and his speech plain—just like that.
-Mark 7:32-35-
This sigh was not drawn from Christ on account of the single tongue and ear of this poor man; but it is a common sigh over all tongues and ears, yea over all hearts, bodies, and souls, and over all men from Adam to his last
descendant.
-Martin Luther-

Today’s Reading: Mark 7:24-37

They bring him a man who is deaf and mute. And in 3 verses we see the deep mercy and compassion of Jesus with such intimacy and clarity.

He pulls him aside, away from the crowd. This was between the two of them. The man had been a sideshow long enough. And then, he speaks in the only language this man can understand. He touches his ears and his tongue. And just before the collision of the Holy and the flesh, he looks to heaven and sighs- or as The Message says, groans “mightily”. It isn’t an act of weakness, but one of Splankna.

Splankna (or Splagna or spagkhnozomai) isn’t pity and it isn’t weak. It is the moment that everything in you is moved all the way to the very depths of your being. It is a rare glimpse into the guts of the Holy. Into the heart that is moved by the shattered and broken and devastated.

We have seen that the collision of the Holy with our world brings healing and restoration and rescue, and it is in these few verses of Mark that we see it bring Splankna. We see that the Holy is moved to is deepest parts for the brokenness of a man.

And, as Luther reminds us, it was a deep groan for all of our ears and all of our tongues and hearts and lives and brokenness. It is a groan that longs for the restoration of your heart.

Tomorrow’s Reading: Mark 8:1-13

day 19.

2011-03-31T17:45:00.002-04:00

“Blue Nude IV” by Henri Matisse, 1952

And he said, "What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander,pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.
-Mark 7:20-23-
A lot of us have done things in our lives that we're ashamed of. Some are small things, and some of us have really big and devastating things. Some of us even have things that people close to us don't know about. Personal junk that we keep to ourselves so we don't have to deal with it. Because we don't know how to deal with it, do we? We're afraid that if we try it's just going to make everything worse.
-Rob Bell-

Today’s Reading: Mark 7:13-23
Our junk is what inside us. What is deep down that we would die if anyone know. What flows out of us and when we have no idea it is coming. It is the deep dark places, long devastated. The places we pretend aren’t really there.
And it is our junk that, when we stand in front of a perfect Jesus, that makes us dirty. It has nothing to do with the outside- the cup washings and the ministering and the good things that make us feel good about ourselves. It is all about the inside. It is all about our junk.
In Mark, it says that our junk has made us “defiled”. What a terrible word. What a terrible place to be.
But, as the chosen of the Lord, we aren’t left in our junk. Instead, when the Holy collides with our lives and our hearts, he crawls down into the devastation and restores, rebuilds, rescues. We have no idea how to deal with it. Through the cross, it is finished.
Tomorrow’s Reading: Mark 7:24-37

day 18.

2011-03-29T10:18:00.002-04:00

“Still LIfe with Compote and Glass” by Pablo Picasso, 1914-1915

Today’s Reading: Mark 7:1-13
Today, I’m going to let Brennan Manning do the talking:
Pharisaic Judaism comprised a relatively small group of separated ones who almost two centuries before Christ, in order to preserve the Jewish faith from foreign dilution, had given themselves to lives of vigilant observance of the Mosaic Law. Their lives were one long rehearsal, a symphony orchestra tuning up endlessly by playing tortured variations of the Law.

Before the Jewish exile, when the spirit of the covenant was vibrantly alive, the people felt safe in the shadow of God's love. In the pharisaic period, as the understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures deteriorated, the Jews felt safe in the shadow of the law. Obviously, the gospel of grace presented by the Nazarene Carpenter was an outrage.

The attitude of the Pharisee is that keeping the law enamors him to God. Divine acceptance is secondary and is conditioned by the Pharisee's behavior. For Jesus the circumstance is diametrically opposite. Being accepted, enamored, and loved by God comes first, motivating the disciple to live the law of love. "We are to love, then, because He loved us first" (1 John 4:19).

Suppose a child have never experienced any love from his/her parents. One day he/she meets another child whose parents show him/her with affection. The first child says to himself/herself: I want to be loved like that too. I have never experienced it, but I'm going to earn the love of my mother and father by my good behavior.

So to gain the affection of his/her parents, this child brushes their teeth, makes their bed, smiles, minds their p's and q's, never pouts or cries, never expresses a need, and conceals all negative feelings.

This is the way of the Pharisees. They follow the law impeccably in order to induce God's love. The initiative is theirs. Their image of God necessarily locks them into a theology of works. If God is like the insufferable Nurse Ratchet in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, eager to find fault with anybody and everybody, the Pharisee must pursue a lifestyle that minimizes mistakes.

Then, on Judgment Day, he can present God with a perfect slate and the reluctant Deity will have to accept it. The psychology of the Pharisee makes a religion of washing cups and dishes, fasting twice a week, and paying tithes of mint, dill, and cumin very attractive.
What an impossible burden! The struggle to make oneself presentable to a distant and perfectionistic God is exhausting. Legalists can never live up to the expectations they project on God for there will always be a new law, and with it a new interpretation, a fresh hair to be split by the keenest ecclesiastical razor.
This is an excerpt from Brennan Manning’s book Abba’s Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1994)

day 17.

2011-03-29T09:49:00.002-04:00

“Return of the Prodigal Son” by Rembrandt, 1669

God is always calling on us to do the impossible.
-Madeleine L’Engle-
When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored to the shore. And when they got out of the boat, the people immediately recognized him and ran about the whole region and began to bring the sick people on their beds to wherever they heard he was.
-Mark 6:53-

Today’s Reading: Mark 6:45-56
My brother is on Young Life staff outside of Charlotte, NC. If you know me, you know how dear my brother is to me. He writes updates on his ministry often and sends them to his friends and family and supporters. In his last update, he wrote this in response to the challenge of man who led them in some leadership training:

At a regional leadership weekend in January, Pat Goodman shared a hope for his life that I have embraced fully: that when I walk up people might think “here comes good news”. Not out loud or in any way for me to receive glory or praise, but that I might be so immersed in Jesus, His goodness and His love might radiate from me. Because when Jesus was around, most people thought “there is good news.”

I love that in our reading Jesus walks on the water. It blows my mind and excites me to think of how weird and wonderful and powerful he is. But it is the next tiny paragraph that I just couldn’t move past this week.
As soon as he got off the boat he was recognized, Here comes the good news! They see him and they know all that he is about: healing, restoration, reconciliation, laughter, and rescue. He is recognized instantly for who he is. And he spends time healing their sick and caring for the caretakers and just being who he was: the good news in the flesh.
Are we as quick to recognize him? To recognize the things of the Good News? My prayer for us during this season has been that our journey through Mark will let us take a close look at the Good News, the Holy, the great Rescuer. That we will learn his ways and his heart and his purpose. That we will know him well in order to recognize his current and his presence and his purposes more clearly.
This week I added to my prayer. That our time in Mark will immerse us so deeply in the Holy that His love might radiate from us. That when we walk up, something in the people we come across will sigh a deep and restful sigh and think, “Ah, here comes the good news.”

day 16.

2011-03-27T17:00:00.002-04:00

5th Century Mosaic
So they got in the boat and went off to a remote place by themselves. Someone saw them going and the word got around. From the surrounding towns people went out on foot, running, and got there ahead of them. When Jesus arrived, he saw this huge crowd. At the sight of them, his heart broke—like sheep with no shepherd they were. He went right to work teaching them.
-Mark 6:32-34, The Message-
To eat is to acknowledge our dependence - both on food and on each other. It also reminds us of the kinds of emptiness that not even the Blue Plate Special can touch.
-Frederick Buechner-

Today’s Reading: Mark 6:30-44
Our reading begins today with the return of the disciples and the invitation of the Holy for them to rest. The rest is not long, for when they arrive at a remote place someone sees them and spreads the word to the masses of where they are. They are tired. But suddenly there is a crowd. And in one of the most tender moments in history, Jesus looks at them. And with a tired body and a broken heart, he is moved to action by their need. He teaches them. And then, from a couple of loaves and fish, he miraculously feeds them.
Until they are full.
Their bellies and their souls: they are full. I’m not sure we ever know how truly empty we are until we are full. We understand the depths of our longing when it is satisfied. We are full and satisfied only by One. The day Brennan Manning became a priest in the Franciscan Order, an old priest told him, “Once you come to know the love of Jesus Christ, nothing else in the world will seem as beautiful or desirable.” All that we desire and all that we think is leaving void in our lives—all if it is nothing to the love of the One who made us. The love of the one who is relentlessly tender with and to us. To truly know the love of the Holy is to finally be satisfied.
I feel like it will take me a lifetime to know that love. To truly be full. But the tenderness of Jesus that I am discovering is like a magnet, drawing me in and drawing me closer, filling me with ever word and breath and thought.
Tomorrow’s Reading: Mark 6:45-56

day 15.

2011-03-27T16:15:00.002-04:00

“View of the Sea at Sheveningen” by Vincent Van Gogh, 1892

Risk is right. And the reason is not because God promises success to all our ventures in his cause. There is no promise that every effort for the cause of God will succeed, at least not in the short run. John the Baptist risked calling King Herod and adulterer when he divorced his own wife in order to take his brother’s wife. For this John got his head chopped off. And he had done right to risk his life for the cause of God and truth. Jesus had no criticism for him, only the highest praise.
-John Piper, Desiring God-
If I perish, I perish.
-Esther 4:16-

Today’s Reading: Mark 6:14-29

Some days I forget the risk. Some days I forget to risk. I feel like everyone always talks about Western culture: we are and entitled and lazy people. But, aren’t we? We are bored out of our minds, longing for adventure and terrified to risk. And we surround ourselves with people just like us. We attend churches full of safety. And slowly, we forget the risk. Or we convince ourselves that the risk means success and warmth and happiness and financial security.

We forget that for John the Baptist, the risk of the Holy meant sitting alone in prison with his eye gouged out, only to be summoned to the king. Only his head arrived for the king. But they put it on a platter.

So often things turn out well- we risk with great reward. But sometimes they don’t. Sometimes we put everything on the line to follow the drawing of the Lord and everything falls apart. I have a friend who risked everything, moved to Colorado to be near the man she loved and invest in new ways in a new place. Together, they followed the current of the Lord to a tiny town in the mountains. The adventure for them has been one of a loneliness that seems endless and illness to an infuriating degree. We have too many friends who, when risking to jump in the currant have lost their jobs or their homes.

Our pursuit of the Holy is a risk. Saying yes is an adventure. Our eyes may be gouged out. We might lose our house or our jobs or our comfort. The current of the Lord isn’t always a quiet stream. Often, it rages. It isn’t safe, it is dangerous. But, it is always good.

Tomorrow’s Reading: Mark 6:30-44

sorry.

2011-03-27T09:13:00.001-04:00

I’m so sorry I’m 2 days behind. I’ll catch up by Monday. Please don’t give up on me!

day 14.

2011-03-24T18:52:00.002-04:00

“Girl at Mirror” by Norman Rockwell, 1954
He left there and returned to his hometown. His disciples came along. On the Sabbath, he gave a lecture in the meeting place. He made a real hit, impressing everyone. "We had no idea he was this good!" they said. "How did he get so wise all of a sudden, get such ability?" But in the next breath they were cutting him down: "He's just a carpenter—Mary's boy. We've known him since he was a kid. We know his brothers, James, Justus, Jude, and Simon, and his sisters. Who does he think he is?" They tripped over what little they knew about him and fell, sprawling. And they never got any further.
-Mark 6:1-3, the Message-

Today’s Reading: Mark 6:1-13
I love that in Mark 6, we see Jesus going home. And he just starts preaching in the synagogues. And everyone sees. And the talking when from quiet whispers to chattering denial. In front of everyone, he made the claims that they were terrified that he believed about himself. In a matter of months Jesus had shaken things up. JP Meier puts it this way: “[He] attracted and infuriated his contemporaries, mesmerized and alienated the ancient world, unleashed a movement that has done the same ever since, and thus changed the course of history forever”. He goes home where he is rejected in what seems to be a greater way than before. From the beginning, there was a loneliness to his earthly life that I think we get glimpses of in our own.
His neighbors are fickle. Impressed and enraged that he might be someone special. And the talk began to spread to the point that it was irreversible. I love the way The Message puts it: “They tripped over what little they knew about him and fell, sprawling. And they never got any further”. They never got past what little they knew.
I grew up in a place that sounds like that. It sometimes felt like no one ever looked beyond the surface of anything—past the appearance or the rumor or the mistake or what their parents taught them. I knew a girl who was called “Oreo” for years because, as a white 6th grader she kissed a black guy. There are people here who believe that using any translation of the bible other than King James Version is sinful. Once, a Sunday School teacher drew a picture of me on a “slippery slope to hell” for suggesting that women might have a role in the church. If you’re gay around here, it will be what defines you and the word will always accompany your name. If you made a mistake, you’ve never gotten past it. Sometimes it feels like in my town you are never a person,or better a heart, instead you are the summation of rumor and memory and appearance.
It is a glimpse of what happened to the Holy. It feels like a warning to never trip over what little we know about him and never get any further.

Tomorrow’s Reading: Mark 6:14-29

day 13.

2011-03-23T11:27:00.002-04:00

“Danseuse assise” by Edgar Degas, 1879-1880

Then came a man called Jairus, on e of the synagogue presidents. And when he saw Jesus, he knelt before him, pleading desperately for his help.
-Mark 5:22-
It was for him (Jairus) an hour when he was face to face with life as he had never been before, because he was face to face with death. For the moment every matter faded into the realm of insignificance in the presence of the one, overwhelming and terrifying fact of death. And that coming to him in its most appalling form.
-G. Campbell Morgan-

Today’s Verses: Mark 5:21-43
For me, these 22 verses are some of the dearest in all of the scriptures.
Jairus. He is important and he is desperate. His girl is dying. His only daughter. Talitha. I wonder how man y tears seeped from his tired and worried eyes as his mind repeated her name over and over and over on the road to see the only One who could heal her. Talitha. Talitha. Talitha. My girl.
As soon as his eyes confirm the fuzzy image of a man, he races to the feet of the Holy. In a moment all that was important about him becomes, as G.Campbell Morgan says, “accidental and unimportant in the presence of the need that drove him to Christ.” He fall son his knees, full of faith and full of fear, and begs for the impossible:

“Will you come and put your hands on her—then she will get better and live”

As he walks the road back home with Jesus, he is part of the crowd that witnesses a Holy collision that results in the restoration and healing of an incurable woman. He has a front row view of what Brennan Manning calls the “relentless tenderness of Jesus”. And there is more to come for him.
The arrive at his house, with the knowledge of a daughter whose heart is no longer beating. As fast as it had happened to the woman on the road, Jairus once again watches as the Holy collides with all that hurts and is broken in this world:

“Talitha, cumi! Talitha, get up!”

What is your moment—the one when you were face to face with life as you had never been before? Do you hear the relentless tenderness of the Holy as he invites you back on the journey:

Cumi! Get up!

day 12.

2011-03-22T08:01:00.002-04:00

“Infinite Gratitude” by Rene Magritte, 1963

“Are you not thirsty?” said the Lion. “I’m dying of thirst”, said Jill. “Then drink”, said the Lion. “May I – could I – would you mind going away while I do?”, said Jill. The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she may as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience. The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic. “Will you promise not to – do anything to me, if I do come?”, said Jill. “I make no promise”, said the Lion. Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer. “Do you eat girls?”, she said. “I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms”, said the Lion. It didn’t say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it. “I daren’t come and drink”, said Jill. “Then you will die of thirst”, said the Lion. “Oh dear!”, said Jill, coming another step nearer. “I suppose I must go and look for another stream then.”
“There is no other stream”, said the Lion.
-C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair-
As Jesus was getting into the boat, the demon-delivered man begged to go along, but he wouldn't let him. Jesus said, "Go home to your own people. Tell them your story—what the Master did, how he had mercy on you." The man went back and began to preach in the Ten Towns area about what Jesus had done for him. He was the talk of the town.
-Mark 5:18-20, The Message-

Today’s Reading: Mark 5:1-20

One of my favorite things ever written by CS Lewis is this interaction between Jill and Aslan. Her wonder at the great “motionless bulk”. Her fear of what he had done and what he could do. And best of all, his mercy: There is no other stream. It is inclusive, exclusive, and definite.

When Jesus meets the Demoniac in Mark 5, something incredible happens. The man, ungoverned and unrestrained, runs to him. He barely gets out of the boat, and this man meets him. I never thought I would relate to a demon-possessed person, but his reaction to Jesus is the same as mine: fear and wonder. He is both awed and afraid of the power of the “Most High God” and the collision between himself and the Holy that will ultimately occur.

Fear and wonder.

All of the interactions with Jesus have been the same during our study of Mark: fear and wonder. “Come, follow me”. A withered hand, healed. The kingdom of God. A leper. Matthew. The crowds. The storm. Fear and wonder.

Fear and wonder that lead to rescue, restoration, rebuilding.

There is only one stream. And as soon as you jump in, you will never be the same.

Tomorrow’s Reading: Mark 5:21-43

day 11.

2011-03-21T10:59:00.002-04:00

“The Mysterious Boat” by Odilon Redon, ca 1860-1916

Then came a violent squall of wind which drove the waves aboard the boat until it was almost swamped. Jesus was in the stern asleep on the cushion. They awoke him with the words, “Master don’t you care that we’re drowning?”
-Mark 4:37-38, JB Phillips-
I admire thee, master of the tides,
Of the Yore-flood, of the year's fall;
The recurb and the recovery of the gulf's sides,
The girth of it and the wharf of it and the wall;
Staunching, quenching ocean of a motionable mind;
Ground of being, and granite of it: past all
Grasp God, throned behind
Death with a sovereignty that heeds but hides, bodes but abides;
With a mercy that outrides
The all of water, an ark
For the listener; for the lingerer with a love glides
Lower than death and the dark;
A vein for the visiting of the past-prayer, pent in prison,
The-last-breath penitent spirits — the uttermost mark
Our passion-plunged giant risen,
The Christ of the Father compassionate, fetched in the storm of his strides.

-Gerard Manley Hopkins, “The Wreck of Deutschland”-

Today’s Reading: Mark 4:35-41
The disciples and Jesus pull away from the crowds for what I assume the disciples thought would be some rest. And then the eerie sounds of a storm began. It was a small boat and huge storm, so much that the waves were coming over the sides of the boat. And Jesus was asleep. Once again, he has found rest in the chaos.
Because he knows who he is. He knows that he is in control- of their lives and the wind and the waves. And he knows that his heart and his life, and all that he has will be given for these men and all men- to rescue and restore and rebuild. And so, he rests.
And the disciples freak. The storm comes and the wind and waves become too much to handle, physically and emotionally. As the waves wash over the boat, fear begins to wash over and settle in their hearts. They fear for their lives. And, worse, they fear that Jesus doesn’t seem to care that they are dying. That he wasn’t protecting them. That it was getting too hard and he was nowhere to be found.
Because they forgot who he was.
Our confidence, security, peace, trust, hope—all of these things come only from knowing Him. And as life happens and hurt happens and hope seems to disintegrate—as the crowds and the wind and the waves come….don’t we fall into the same boat as the disciples, fighting for our lives and yelling, “Don’t you even care that I am drowning?!?!”
Because we forget who he is.
Our only hope is knowing Jesus. Who he is and who he isn’t. What he promises and what he doesn’t. It requires going beyond what we were taught as children. It requires entering an adventure and a battle against the things of this world and those of the next. It is hard and it is tough and it is terrifying. No one captures it better than C.S. Lewis in the oft-quoted passage from The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe:

"Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy.
"Safe?" said Mr. Beaver. "Don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."
"I'm longing to see him," said Peter, "even if I do feel frightened when it comes to the point."

The storms are swift and they are brutal. The winds will come. And, oh, the waves will crash. And it will threaten to take our lives and our joys and our security and our loves. And sometimes the storm won’t threaten, it will only take. Our only hope of ever finding rest in the crowds and the winds and waves and the storms is in knowing the One who rescues. Our only way of ever knowing the Holy, is spending time with him. Spending time in the Holy: with the things and the people who stir our affections for him, with his word and his soft voice singing over our restless hearts.
Hear the gentle and mighty whisper, singing over your storm: “Hush now, Be still!”

Tomorrow’s Reading: Mark 5:1-20

day 10.

2011-03-20T18:35:00.002-04:00

“Adam and Eve Expelled from Paradise” by Marc Chagall, 1967

Jesus went on: "Does anyone bring a lamp home and put it under a washtub or beneath the bed? Don't you put it up on a table or on the mantel? We're not keeping secrets, we're telling them; we're not hiding things, we're bringing them out into the open. "Are you listening to this? Really listening? "Listen carefully to what I am saying—and be wary of the shrewd advice that tells you how to get ahead in the world on your own. Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity. Stinginess impoverishes."
-Mark 4:21-25, The Message-

This is both a promise and a warning. The promise: don’t worry, this kingdom-message will be public knowledge soon enough. The warning: make sure you’re listening now, because you’ll need to know.
-NT Wright, Mark for Everyone-

Today’s Reading: Mark 4:21-34

Preach always talks about the “already” and the “not yet”. The kingdom of God is already here! And the Kingdom of God is not yet here! It is the confusing tension between this world after the resurrection of Jesus, and the longing for His return.

The beginning of my study of the Kingdom of God and the end of the world was in high school when we listened to a book on tape of Left Behind. It was long after college before I developed any kind of theology in regard to any of this. It was longer after college before it ever seemed like it mattered.

The reason that the Kingdom of God matters is that it is here. That Jesus fulfilled the Law. He restored us and rescued us on the cross. And he came back. There are things happening in our world every second that are only explained by the vast power and goodness of his Kingdom. And there are parts of this world that are only explained by the fact that we are waiting for that Kingdom to come in fullness.

I love that NT Wright reminds us, as Jesus did his followers thousands of years ago: this matters. It is not a secret. It is here and it is coming. And it is a warning that we listen, that we open our hearts and our lives and our wallets and our homes. He has rescued. And, He will return. He will restore. He will make all things new.

day 9.

2011-03-18T20:57:00.002-04:00

“Christina’s World” by Andrew Wyeth, 1948

But the seed planted in the good earth represents those who hear the Word, embrace it, and produce a harvest beyond their wildest dreams.
-Mark 4:20, The Message-
But plant your hope with good seeds,
Don't cover yourself with thistle and weeds,
Rain down, rain down on me
-“Thistle and Weeds” by Mumford and Sons-

Today’s Reading: Mark 4:1-20

There are four seeds. All thrown from the hands of the same sower. They fly through the air onto different types of ground. And the results are entirely different.

But, they are all seeds. Tiny, weak and magnificent.

I can’t help but think of my life. Amidst the busy and the crowds. In the confusion, the fear, the shame, the heartbreak, the laughter, and the rebuilding. Throughout the tired days and long nights and the loneliness. In everything, as I look around: the earth is very good. My soil is full of a community that loves me deeply. My soil is filled by plenty who teach me well. My soil has music and laughter and meaning. The earth around me is good, because the deeper I look into it, the more I see the fingerprints of the One who restores all things to himself. I see the evidence that He is here. His nearness is the only thing that will produce a harvest beyond my wildest dreams. And He is very near, even in my tininess—it is Him who is making me magnificent.

Tomorrow’s Reading: Mark 4:21-34

day 8.

2011-03-17T17:36:00.002-04:00

“Pine Tree Near Aix” by Paul Cezanne, 1890

"My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it."
-Brennan Manning-

Today's Reading: Mark 3:22-35

I read today’s reading a couple of times, struggling through it to find meaning. Not because there was no meaning, but because I just couldn’t seem to get there. I tried to understand the “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit” and Jesus’ response to his mom and brothers calling for him. I tried to find what others said about, I looked further into what my bible said about it. I couldn’t shake the idea of Jesus and his family. If you go back to verse 21, you see that they are trying to “seize” him because they think he might be crazy. Maybe they were calling for him so that they could calm him down. He seems to disown them saying: “Who are my mother and my brothers?” in verse 34. I just couldn’t figure it out.
I left it lingering when my boys came running into my room and jumped into my bed. We laughed and crawled under the covers. We read about the sinful woman, who in their words “made a lot of bad choices”, who poured perfume over Jesus’ feet and anointed him with her tears. We talked about the kind of love the Jesus is offering and that it is the kind that rescues us from our bad choices and our good choices. We spent the next twenty minutes giggling in the safety of that rescue.
An hour later, I got in a car with one of my dearest friends. We talked about growth and sanctification. We talked about our joys and our failures as moms and wives. We talked about nothing and we talked about everything. Our kids were bothering each other like crazy in the back seat, fighting and squealing and giggling and singing and crying (three year olds have a large range of emotions). It was a normal day, in a normal car, with our normal conversation. I only know to call it dear.
I put my boys down for a nap and crawled into my bed. I missed my husband with the longing of a thirteen year old girl. I got all butterfly-ed thinking about him. I got sad knowing that we won’t have an evening together, eating with our boys and sitting on chairs outside laughing at whatever silly thing we are talking about.
And when I came back to this passage, clarity seemed to rise from the murky confusion. “And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers!’”. The only thing I am sure of in these 13 verses today, is verse 34. We are his family. We are the dear ones of the Holy. His heart longs so deeply for us that it was wrung out for our rescue. He has crawled under the covers of his rescue, giggling with us in the dark. We are his. His family. His own.
And I know how I feel about those that are mine. And the thought that His love is deeper, higher, longer, wider, greater—it took my breath away.
I know that there is depth yet to be discovered in the other 12 verses. But today, I never got past the fact that Jesus called me “mine”.

day 7.

2011-03-16T14:47:00.002-04:00

“Story Painter” by Jacob Lawrence, 1942
And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him. And he appointed twelve so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons.
-Mark 3:13-14-
Jesus made his church out of human beings with more or less the same mixtures in them of cowardice and guts, of intelligence and stupidity, of selfishness and generosity, of openness of heart and sheer cussedness as you would be apt to find in any of us.
-Frederick Buechner-
The actual call of Jesus and the response of single-minded obedience have an irrevocable significance. By means of them Jesus calls people into an actual situation where faith is possible. For that reason his call is an actual call and he wishes it so to be understood, because he knows that it is only through actual obedience that a man can become liberated to believe.
-Dietrich Bonheoffer-

Today’s Reading: mark 3:13-21

The call went to twelve men. Twelve ordinary men. There were fishermen and thieves. There were brains and there was brawn. There was the rock and there was the traitor. They were impulsive and scared. And he called them for 2 reasons: to be with him and to send them out.

Eleven of them obeyed.

He called them to be with him. And the “single-minded obedience” that caused them to follow meant that for three years that had more intimacy with him than any human has ever known. How sweet the call of a Savior. To be near him and in him. To be with him.

It is the same call for us. He calls us to be with him. And it is only our nearness to Him that readies us to be sent. It is only, as Bonheoffer says, through our obedience to that call that we are ever liberated to believe. We believe him when we are with him.

So listen to the call of your Great Rescuer: Come with me. Be with me. I am near to you. And I will send you out. And you will change the world. Because you have been with me.

Tomorrow’s Reading: Mark 3:22-35

day 6.

2011-03-15T22:25:00.002-04:00

“Dance at the Moulin de la Galett” by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1876

Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed…
Mark 3:1
After 45 years of trying to follow Jesus, I keep losing him in the crowded busy-ness of my life. I know Jesus is there, somewhere, but it’s difficult to make him out in the haze of everyday life.
-Mike Yaconelli

Today’s Reading: Mark 3:1-12

I’ve never been able to get past the fact that everywhere Jesus goes, a crowd follows. Everyone wanted to see if what they heard could ever be true. And so, they followed him. Followed him everywhere: into crowded homes, all the way to the ocean so that he had to get in a boat for safety, as he carried his cross to die for their awful choices.

It is interesting to me that Jesus is crowded so often. And so am I. And that it keeps me from following him, from growing, from worship. He knew when to draw away and be alone. He refreshed, recharged, and worshiped. And it prepared him for the crowded life that he lived.

For me, restoration always comes hand in hand with solitude. It prepares me to follow, even into the crowded busy-ness of my life. Spending time alone allows me to find him, even if only for a second. To feel drawn to him and embraced by him. And as the crowds pull me away, it’s like a sweet fragrance that lingers, reminding me that he is there.

Tomorrow’s Reading: Mark 3:13-21

day 5.

2011-03-14T13:57:00.002-04:00

“Rest from Work (after Millet)” by Vincent Van Gogh, 1890

There is a work underneath our work that we really need rest from. For almost all of us, unless God comes into our lives, we’re working and we’re doing things to prove ourselves—to convince God, others, and ourselves that we are good people. And that work is never over, unless we rest in the Gospel.
-Tim Keller-

“Come ye sinners, poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore….Come ye weary, heavy-laden, lost and ruined by the fall.”

-Joseph Hart, hymn”

And he said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man,not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath."

Mark 2:27

Today’s Reading: Mark 2:18-

He says, I am the Lord of the Sabbath. And it was made by me for you, not the other way around. It is a gift of rest. And, there is only one rest.

I am rest.

I have 3 year old twin boys. My husband works long hours some days. And we volunteer most of our free time throughout the week. I am not telling you this because I am a great person, I am telling you this because I am tired. In my life I have found plenty of things that soothe, quite a few that will numb, and some that distract. I have found only one thing that gives me rest.

And it is the last place I will go. Because part of me still feels like I need to earn it. Like salvation, there is a part of my heart that has been conditioned to believe that it takes my “Look at what I’ve done” song and dance number to ever be given rest. This part of my heart compares my situation with the rest of the world, and it finds that I deserve rest more than some and that I have a long way to go to earn the rest of others. I sing and I dance and I wait to bask in the radiant rest of the Lord because I have earned it.

But, just like everything involving Jesus- I can’t earn it. I will never deserve it. All I can do is ask for it. Not work for it.

And he is faithful to give me rest. Long walks, laughter and enchiladas with my girlfriends, tears alone in my room, authors that put into words the things that I cannot, music that moves you to your core, reading stories with my boys with the lights down low, sweet moments alone in my car under the trees. My rest has only one source, and he gives lavishly. Oh, that I will learn not to miss it with my song and dance number.

day 4.

2011-03-12T09:27:00.001-05:00

“Self Portrait enters the clock and the reads” by Edvard Munch, 1940-1942

Jesus did not call us because of our righteousness or gifting. He called us when all we had was need.

-Jon Bloom-

Lord Jesus, you are my righteousness, I am your sin. You took on you what was mine: you set on me what was yours. You became what you were not, that I might become what I was not.”

-Martin Luther-

Today’s Reading: Mark 2:1-17

Matthew. He’s sitting in his booth, by the Sea of Galilee, when a man walks up surrounded by fishermen. The very men he was unfairly taxing. I have to wonder if, for so many reasons, his stomach was in knots. When they meet eyes, something in him changes. Once again, in an instant, the Holy collides with sin. When Matthew recalls this meeting in his own gospel, he doesn’t say that Jesus saw a tax collector, but that Jesus saw a man. Isn’t that what happens when the Holy collides? We are seen for who we are and who He will make us to be.

Once again, it takes only two words: “Follow me”.

He leaves the booth, his allegiance to Rome, his job, his wealth. To follow. Because the man that asked is like nothing he has ever experienced before. The eyes of the man who asked are worth more than any dollar given to him in that booth. There was something about those eyes and that voice that made Matthew feel safe and terrified enough to obey.

The Holy collides and in an instant, Matthew understands. Just as he felt seen as a man, he looks into the heart of the One he would now follow and sees that he is not just a man. And he is not like anyone in the religious system. He sees the heart of this man, and it moves him to throw a party. With dirty people. And maybe loose women. And probably wine. Lots of it. And as Jesus sits with Matthew’s friends, they are seen in the same way. Not as their dirty labels, but as men. As people with value and hopes and as people worth his time. As people worth rescuing.

The Pharisees disagree. Always. And Jesus says one of the most crucial string of words that have ever been put together in defense of his new friends, and in pleading for the hearts of his enemies:

“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners”.

Mark 2:17

We see so clearly his heart for us. That it was always about his glory for us. He didn’t come for us because we were righteous, but he came for us because he saw us as a man. Dirty and sick. He came for us because He was the only one who could give us real righteousness, who could make us become the very righteousness of the Father (2 Corinth. 5:21) He- who never knew sin, who had never been dirty, would become dirty for us. To repair and to restore. To rescue us.

day 3.

2011-03-11T12:06:00.001-05:00

“Icarus” by Henri Matisse, 1947

And a leper came to him, imploring him, and kneeling said to him, ‘If you will, you can make me clean.’

-Mark 1:40-

This man did not come questioning the ability of the Lord, but wistfully wondering whether He would be willing to help. He came steeped in his leprosy.

-G. Campbell Morgan, The Great Physician-

Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life… It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: “You are accepted. You are accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know… Simply accept the fact that you are accepted.” If that happens to us, we experience grace.

-Paul Tillich-

Today’s Reading: Mark 1:35-45

He wasn’t clean. Not in the least. He was alone and he was a leper. To anyone who knew him, he was the image that burned in their minds of what it would be like to be void of any good thing. Maybe it was his fault, his sin, that got him there. Maybe it wasn’t. But his disease, slow yet rampant, was the result of a world that fell. A world that chose its own desires over its Maker’s. He was a leper. The visible expression of our complete depravity. A constant reminder that things are not as they are supposed to be.

And then he came face to face with the Maker. He looked into the eyes of the One who fearfully, wonderfully, intentionally spun him together. As G. Campbell Morgan puts it, “Holiness in the flesh is standing face to face with sin in the flesh in its most terrible manifestation.” Yet, somehow Holy did the unexpected. He spoke a soft word and reached out a hand. He touched. And, in a second the holiness of the Son and the destruction of sin collided. On the tongue and in the touch of the Holy, the collision resulted in restoration.

Grace.

It is the same for us. It is free and it is full. It meets us when we aren’t clean. It cleans us, heals us. It rebuilds. It restores. It is the only rescue. It comes on the wings of the gentle words of the Maker. Like fingerprints smeared on a window, it is the evidence of the touch of the Holy. The Holy that stands face to face with our sin and touches us anyway.

day 2.

2011-03-10T16:02:00.001-05:00

“Christ and Disciples” by Georges Rouault, 1936-1939

"Look into my heart, O God, the same heart on which you took pity when it was in the depths of the abyss.... My soul was vicious and broke away from your safe keeping to seek its own destruction looking for no profit in disgrace but only for disgrace itself."
-Augustine-
“Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him.”
–Mark 1:16-18, ESV-

He just walked right up to them. He walked right up to them and asked them to follow. And they did. Immediately. Their nets, their boats, their livelihood—left on the shore right where they’d been standing. Left for something greater and something more free. Something that mattered. Left to follow someone who had walked right up to them and saw all that they were. And all that they weren’t. And all that they should be. Someone who asked them to follow, even still.

Though I am rotten on the inside, He as asked me to follow. Though, on my own, I am hopeless and helpless, the invitation remains the same. Follow me. Drop them- your nets and your security and your junk and your shame and your goodness and hatefulness and depression and self- doubt and boredom. Drop it. Follow.

Over and over again the scriptures remind me that the love of my Creator has absolutely nothing to do with me. I am not too dirty. I do not have to catch him on a good day. I am not too good or too hateful or too self-obsessed or too right. He is not swayed by me in any way other than the bending it takes to scoop me up and invite me into his world. Brennan Manning says it this way:

“He is not moody or capricious; he knows no seasons of change. He has a single relentless stance toward us: he loves us. He is the only God man has ever heard of who loves sinners. False gods — the gods of human manufacturing — despise sinners, but the Father of Jesus loves all, no matter what they do. But of course this is almost too incredible for us to accept. Nevertheless, the central affirmation of the Reformation stands: through no merit of ours, but by his mercy, we have been restored to a right relationship with God through the life, death, and resurrection of his beloved Son. This is the Good News, the gospel of grace.”

It has nothing to do with me and everything to do with his great Love for me. To chase me all the way to the shore, to choose me and invite me into the scoop of His hand that spun the worlds into being, and to let me dance. Dance in the freedom of his promise, the goodness of his mercy, and the adventure of life the way he meant it to be.

Tomorrow’s Reading: Mark 1:35-45

day 1.

2011-03-09T20:35:00.001-05:00

“John the Baptist in the Wilderness” Carravagio, 1604-1605

“Human repentance is a miraculous invitation from God to be more like him in the only way we can: by submitting to the power of his grace, by turning away from everything in our life that is disobedient, sinful, and false, and by turning to the one and only living God”

-Louis Tarsitano-

Gospel repentance is tapping into the joy of our union with Christ in order to weaken our need to do anything contrary to God's heart.

-Tim Keller-

“Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, the voice of the one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight’”

-Mark 1:2-3-

Today’s Reading: Mark 1:1-13

It starts John the Baptist, the messenger. He declares that the Lord is moving into the neighborhood. His instructions are clear, “Prepare the way”.

The preparation is necessary. Repentance. It has to precede everything else. It makes straight the paths. And they have to be straight, because He is coming.

John the Baptist describes the coming Lord with such eager expectation and careful description. He chooses words that describe only a man and words that describe only a God.

He baptizes the One who will baptize in a much greater way. He is an eyewitness to the audible pleasure of the Father. He sees with his own eyes and hears with his own ears and touches with his own hands. “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased”.

And then, shortly after, he goes to prison. And never returns. His job was to be the messenger for the One who will make all things right- rebuild, restore, rescue. And he does it well.

It is both appropriate and scary that the beginning of Mark and the beginning of Lent start with a call to repent. This season for us begins with a “miraculous invitation” deeper…deeper into not only your own heart and your own depths, but into the heart of the One who made you, the One you long to be with and be like.

Tomorrow’s Reading: Mark 1:14-34

ash wednesday.

2011-03-09T10:40:00.001-05:00

“Solitude” by Mark Chagall, 1933

Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer;
   you shall cry, and he will say, 'Here I am.'

And the LORD will guide you continually
   and satisfy your desire in scorched places
   and make your bones strong;
and you shall belike a watered garden,
   like a spring of water,
   whose waters do not fail.

And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
   you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
   the restorer of streets to dwell in.

-Isaiah 58:9, 11-12

Last night in our small group we spent some time worshiping and praying and doing communion and reading through Isaiah 58. This chapter has brought so much life to me. Watching in 14 verses as the Israelites move from empty rituals into a real relationship with the Lord is such a tough and beautiful thing to watch. To me, it is so important to begin the season of Lent with a clear reminder from the Lord that religious rituals are nothing to him. They don’t matter. We don’t get points or something for them. Since the beginning of earth, the only point of a religious ritual has been to grow, to change, and celebrate and revel in the glory of the only One worth celebrating. That is what Lent is- an intentional preparation for the celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus, our Rescuer.

For the next 40 days we will dive into not only the depths of our hearts, but into the depths of the promises and heart of the Lord. We will intentionally ask the Lord to clean the parts of us that get in the way of life with him- real life, and real joy. The parts that keep us from worship and keep us from laughter and keep us from trust.

My prayer for this season is simple. It is that, as is written in verse 9 of Isaiah 58, that we will call and that we will hear the Lord cry, “Here I am!”. Here I am in your depths and your junk and your “good” things and your empty things. Here I am. In your anger and pride, your self-righteousness and your doubts. I am in your laughter as much as I am in your years. Here I am. In your friendships and deep loneliness. Your contentment and your restlessness. I am here. I am in that longing, nagging feeling that there has got to be more than this. Here. I . Am.

And there is more. May the next 40 days be spent allowing the Lord to guide and satisfy us, to show us the parts that are broken and to strengthen those places within us. May he water us like a garden with the only water that does not fail. May he take the ancient and ruined parts of us and turn us into what Francis Schaeffer calls, “glorious ruins”. may this be the beginning of a life for us that is marked by three words:

Rebuild. Restore. Rescue.

lent.

2011-03-09T10:03:00.001-05:00

“Entry into Jerusalem” Pedro Orrente, 1620

Throughout the Lenten season, my goal is to walk through Mark on this blog. We are doing it together as a Life Group, and I am excited about the ways that walking through the life of Jesus through the eyes of his disciple will change us. If you’ve read my bog for very long, you know that Daniel and I have spent the last year in Mark. I’m still only on chapter 11. Maybe it is time to finish.

The book of mark is widely believed to be written by a writer and an attendant of Peter, John Mark. The events involving Peter are told in such vivid ways that it is our chance to see Jesus through his eyes. Not only that, we get to see the real Peter: his good and his junk. All of the disciples are painted with an honesty that is dear and relatable. My bible talks about the themes of Mark this way: “Fellowship with Jesus marks the heart of the disciples’ life, and this fellowship includes trusting him, confessing him, taking note of his conduct, following his teaching, and being shaped by a relationship to him.” Mark is about discipleship.

So…let’s begin the journey.

partner.

2011-02-21T13:32:00.001-05:00

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."

-C.S. Lewis-

I knew Daniel for years before we got together. I dated his best friend in High School and I used to set him up with my friends because I thought he was so cute and weird and wonderful. My freshman year of college he and my roommate hung out for a while. Our paths crossed over and over. I saw him at a wedding the summer before he became my boyfriend and he winked at me what seemed like a hundred times. Which I thought was very odd and sort of creepy. I remember calling my roommate from freshman year and saying this sentence: “If Daniel Mizell thinks he has a chance with me, he is sorely mistaken.” I know: Classy.

Falling in love with Daniel Mizell is an unexplainable process for me. I know it sounds stupid, but I’m not sure if it happened in an instant or over thousands of moments in the months we were getting to know one another as friends and then kissing friends and eventually boyfriend and girlfriend. It started months before our first date, when I would watch him. Watch him play piano at church, watch him interacting with his friends, watch him as he listened quietly to what everyone else said, watched others as they laughed at every word that came out of his mouth. However it happened, I fell irrevocably in love with that boy.

The more I felt for him the more difficult it became to open up my heart to him. In fact, the day after I finally admitted to myself that I loved him, I tried to break up with him. I had gone home with butterflies and giggles and felt all the things that a girl who is in love feels. And as I’d gone to sleep, it was the first time that it hit me that there were only two endings to this relationship: marriage or the biggest heartbreak of my life. I’d had my heart broken, and I really wasn’t interested in doing that again.

There are a few great risks in our life, and I am convinced that the biggest one outside of saying “yes” to Jesus, is falling in love. It is opening your heart to be embraced or trampled on and having no idea or control of what the outcome will be. There are no guarantees in that moment. There is only risk. And you either risk or you don’t, there is no middle ground. You can’t sort of put your heart on the line and experience any real joy or any real disaster.

I am so glad I decided to risk instead of to break up with him. Life with Daniel Mizell is the greatest and most beautiful adventure. There are so many different days. There are really good days. There are frustrating days. There are hard ones. There are days full of rest and plenty with none. There are days that are fine. And days that are scary. And days that are silly. There are ones I forget and ones that I never will. There are days that are wasted. And, there are days that I can only describe as eternal

I still watch him: playing piano at church, interacting with his friends, listening quietly to what everyone else says. I still watch his friends laugh at him like he is the funniest person in the world. I watch him wrestle our kids and teach them about instruments. I watch him do the dishes and straighten the pillows. Almost five years into this marriage, I have never been more grateful for taking that risk. Years ago, he became the best part of my day. He still is. Rooms became better just because he was in them. They still are. He is my partner in this life, and it is by far the greatest gift outside of the cross that the Lord has ever given me.

I love you, Daniel Mizell. Thanks for taking a risk with me. Thanks for sitting outside in your turquoise truck, waiting for me to decide that I didn’t really want to break up with you. Thanks for making me yours and for being mine. And, thanks for the two most wonderful little boys I know—I always thought the world would be so much better with a little bit more of you in it.

gratitude.

2011-02-16T10:26:00.001-05:00

“The chief end of God is to glorify God and enjoy himself forever…The happiness of God in God is the foundation of our happiness in God…For God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.”
-The Westminster Catechism/ John Piper, Desiring God-

Every little touch would hurt my tender conscience. But one day, as I was passing through a field, suddenly I thought of a sentence, “your righteousness is in heaven,” and with the eyes of faith, I saw Christ sitting at God’s right hand. And I suddenly realized — THERE is my righteousness. Wherever I was or whatever I was doing, God could not say, “where is your righteousness?” for it was right before him. I saw that my good frame of heart could not make my righteousness better nor a bad frame of heart make my righteousness worse, for my righteousness was Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever. Now my chains fell off indeed!
-John Bunyan (author of Pilgrim’s Progress)-

Preach taught out of Psalm 16 on Sunday. It is a song written by David from the voice of the Levite priests. And it is hauntingly beautiful. In my mind it sounds like a Boxer Rebellion or Laura Marling or Civil Wars song. It is an invitation to look into the depths of what the Lord has done. As if David is saying, “Come and look at the goodness of the Lord. You would never expect it to meet you in this way or this place. But if you peel back a few layers, it is here, it is haunting and it is beautiful in a way that nothing else in the world is. Come and see and be satisfied.”

Psalm 16:5-6

The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

It is such a strange concept to me to be grateful in all things. To see all of the lines of my life as pleasant. I have millions of pleasant lines, but it is hard for me to put some of my experiences into that category. Don’t we all feel a little bit like the lines that have been drawn for us are difficult, or unfair, or often times unbearable? As preach brought up, we compare our lines to others so often. We see the lines and cup and portion of others and we compare it to our own. They’ve never hurt like we have. Their person didn’t die. They were healed. They have an innocence I never had the chance to have. They have a job and a car and a home. They have a better job and a better car and a better home. Things are easier for them. Things are better for them. We think we are beyond it, but we spend so much of our lives deciding the worth of our portion worth based on the portion of others. We, in a move of piety, turn ourselves into martyrs—taking on all that is difficult for the greater good. Or we become bitter by what others have been given.

Numbers 18:20

And the LORD said to Aaron, "You shall have no inheritance in their land, neither shall you have any portion among them.I am your portion and your inheritance among the people of Israel.”

For the Levites, their land inheritance was none. Nothing. No land. No plants. No business. No money. ]And no way to make any. Nothing. Yet, their inheritance is far greater than any. For, their portion is the Lord. Everything. They were given the only thing that has ever been or will ever be on this planet with any significance outside of this planet. They were given everything. Total reliance on him to eat, to have a place to sleep, to hope, to grow. They were given everything.

Our only response is repentant gratitude. No matter the lines, the cup, the portion—they have been delivered by Him. Our response is gratitude. Because in all things, in all things, he draws us to himself. And it is only that drawing, His drawing, that can ever make us grateful. Only as we are drawn can we ever begin to see Him as our only portion that will ever matter. Only in the drawing can we give anything its proper placement. We will find our satisfaction in him.

But my response isn’t always gratitude. And I am not always satisfied. We don’t always feel the blessing of our portion. Sometimes we will daily. Sometimes something awful will happen and we will be angry and bitter. We will feel cheated. And other days we will feel satisfied and grateful. And I think it will feel like one big cycle. Yet, in his mercy, deep and beautiful, we will learn to be satisfied by the only thing that can ever really satisfy us. He will draw us in. He will become our portion, our cup, our inheritance. And we will be full, free, and grateful.

unseen.

2011-02-07T10:57:00.003-05:00

"So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal."

-2 Corinthians 4:16-18-

And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree,
there will be an answer, let it be.
For though they may be parted there is still a chance that they will see,
there will be an answer. Let it be.

-Paul McCartney/John Lennon-

For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.

-2 Corinthians 1:20-

“Often, trust happens on the far side of despair”

-Brennan Manning

Please forgive my silence. I have spent the last two weeks in a lot of silence and experiencing a lot of healing. It has been a really hard, really beautiful two weeks. I have been longing to write about it, but I just did not have the words. I am not sure that I have them now, but I have to get what I do have out of me.

Exactly two weeks ago I was sitting in a doctors office, on an exam table, finding out that I had lost a baby. I knew something was wrong with my body, but I had no idea that I would hear words like “not viable” and “biochemical” and “miscarriage”. We weren’t trying to get pregnant. After a positive pregnancy test on Saturday, we were just as terrified as we were excited. I feel like I held my heart back, I knew something was wrong. A negative test on Sunday confirmed all I needed to know. But, sitting on the doctor’s table I realize that though my head was very methodically handling the information, my heart was burning inside. I smiled as the doctor walked me through all of the information. Yes, smiled. Fake and plastic. Holding it together. I even made a few jokes. I have no idea why. I got to my car and every scientific answer, every uncomfortable joke, all of the walls I had put up around my heart and my tears, every stupid and stone-like, methodical thought just collapsed. Or exploded. In my car, I sat-a crumbled, devastated girl. And, like a mighty wind or wave, I was covered by the mercy of the One who gives and takes away.

Most people would never know that they were pregnant in a situation like this. My endometriosis is triggered by everything from a headache to hormone changes, which is the only reason I found out. I have often found it difficult to find the mercy of the Lord in my endometriosis. I found it that day. In his mercy, the Lord let me know of a little baby that no on would have ever known about. A little baby that didn’t have enough cells or chromosomes, or whatever it was, to live in the real world. A little baby that He, in his great mercy saved from suffering and pain. In his mercy, the Lord let Daniel and I know about this tiny little thing that no one would have ever known to love or pray for. We got to. We got to love it. To pray for it. Even, for a second, to celebrate it.

This little one was unseen. It was fleeting- never even having a heartbeat. Yet, somehow this little one was a picture of the mercy and glory of the Lord, unseen, yet with the power to crumble walls, to break the stone, to pierce the scientific. Glory that is full of hope. Mercy that is full of tears and splankna*.

I found comfort in 2Corinthians 1:20, a verse I found on this blog. Comfort that all of God’s promises find their Yes in Him. That he is in control whether it makes sense or not. It has taken two weeks through a journey of self-doubt to find trust. To find that I can utter “amen” (or in my case, “let it be” over and over again) to the glory of the Lord. To be thankful that I am being prepared for an eternal weight of glory. To trust in the unseen, and to even celebrate all of the unseen.

There is an answer. Let it be.

*Splankna is a Greek word often describing the compassion of Christ..it is a feeling so deep that you are moved in your guts.This is my husband's favorite word.

self-condemnation.

2011-01-20T09:00:00.000-05:00

“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

-Matthew 11:29-

“One of the most shocking contradictions in Christian living is the intense dislike many disciples have for themselves. They are more displeased, impatient, irritated, unforgiving, and spiteful with their own shortcomings than they would ever dream of being with someone else’s. They are fed up with themselves, sick of their own mediocrity, disgusted by their own inconsistency, bored by their own monotony. They would never judge any other of God’s children with the savage self-condemnation with which they crush themselves. Through experiencing the relentless tenderness of Jesus, we learn first of all to be with ourselves. To the extent that we allow the compassion of the Lord to invade our hearts, we are freed from the dyspepsia toward ourselves that follows us everywhere, that self-hatred that we are now even ashamed of. It is simply not possible to know the Christ of the Gospels unless we alter our attitude toward ourselves and take sides with him against our own self-evaluation.”

-Brennan Manning, Lion and Lamb-

I always feel like there are two people who can put words on exactly what I feel: my dear friend Courtney and Brennan Manning. For me, it is not so much a hatred or even dislike for myself as it is my gauge of self-evaluation is grossly skewed. I don’t hate myself, I doubt myself. I believe fully in the promises of the Lord for you and Often, I omit them for myself. I have a standard or a judgment on myself that I have for no one else.

We should look at our hearts and evaluate them based on reality and rational thinking and truth. We should be tough on our sin with all of the fight and the strength that is in us. As John Owen says, we will not kill our sin with a few gentle strokes. We should war against it. However, this should not equal self-condemnation. Nor should it equal self-doubt.

Repentance should be always before us. Always in our hearts, always on our tongue. Repentance and humility require a long and difficult look within ourselves. But they do not require the shame and condemnation that come hand in hand with our self-hatred or self-doubt. If we are the Lord’s, then we do not stand before him or anyone condemned. The exact opposite actually- we are free. We are chosen. We are sons.

The issue with self-doubt is that it really is not our own self that we are doubting. My friend Elise reminded me of a beautiful definition of humility: it is simply seeing ourselves as God sees us in Christ. We are to as Manning says, take sides with him in how we see ourselves. That is humility. When we fail to do this, when we doubt and condemn ourselves we begin doubting the One who spun us together in our mother’s womb. The one who taken us and chosen us from the farthest ends of the earth (Isaiah 41), crowning us with beauty instead of ashes, gladness in place of mourning, praise instead of despair (Isaiah 61). It is doubting his fondness for us. It is belittling the cross that made us actually become His righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21). Our self-doubt is actually a doubt of Him and of whether the cross really worked.

When you doubt yourself, I pray that you find yourself in his words. That you will feel the face of the Abba warm toward you. That as you find yourself in that warmth, you will be moved to repentance. And that in that repentance, you will find the rest that comes only from his great mercy and gentleness.

**If you are looking for more reading on this subject, read anything by or about Charles Spurgeon. I’ve learned and been comforted so much by his life and words and swimming with him through his sea of self doubt. For me it has been community with the saints.

doubting.

2011-01-19T11:23:00.001-05:00

“A humble saint always wants to be a better person than he is. But there is a great danger here of losing your bearings in sea of self-doubt; not knowing who you are.”

-John Piper-

“Maybe when we get busted in our sin, when He disciplines us when we're defiant, when He confronts us in our ignorance or He wounds us in our strength, when business starts to fail, when marriage gets difficult and we don't understand calamity, when disease infects the body and isn't going anywhere, when sorrow enters the life, what if these things aren't happening to us because God is angry with us? What if they're happening because God loves us too much to save us from them? What if in them God is displaying His deepest mercy?”

-Matt Chandler-

I have been fighting this battle between humility and self-doubt. They are exact opposites. And they are waging war in my soul.

For a while now, the Lord has been teaching me the art of the long look. A long look into the depths of my heart: the parts I don’t know are there, the parts I am aware of and hiding with every part of me, the parts that need to be dealt with, the parts that would make you shutter. This long look has often been met with the rebuke of a Lord who is far too kind and far too merciful to me to leave me alone in all of my shit. These long looks have been very difficult. And it is difficult to know that saying yes to the life and the adventure of following Jesus, means I will spend the rest of my life taking long, difficult looks into my heart. I will be met with rebuke and warmth and great mercy. But it will never get easy.

The problem is that I am failing at these looks into my heart when my quest toward holiness and humility causes me to swim through the “sea of self-doubt”. When my doubt causes me to lose who I am. I am reminded of Paul saying in 1 Corinthians, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain.” My self-doubt is a symptom of my self-obsession. My self-doubt is offensive to the Lord, who made me what I am. And if I know anything of Him, his grace is never in vain.

I am me. And as the psalmist reminds us in Psalm 16, there is no good thing in me apart from the Lord. But I have been chosen by him and for him. And because of that, Colossians tells me that the power of the one who chose me works mightily within me.

He is fond of me. He is warm to me. Because by his grace, I am who I am. Humility is finally understanding, accepting, and living under this truth. His rebuke comes from his great love for me. It is a way to draw me closer to his heart, pull me closer to his purpose and glory. And He…He is good, and faithful…and He is fond of me.

“How guilty the accusers. How heavy the tree. How real the scars that mark your hands. How great is your love for me? How great is your love for me?”

-Mark Wagner-

doesn’t.

2011-01-18T10:52:00.003-05:00

“What you think doesn’t really matter. What the bible says is what matters.”

-Matt Chandler-

"If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself."

-Augustine-

“Knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

-2 Peter 1:21-22-

I’ve been struggling a lot with how to interpret scripture. It is hard for me to even write about because I struggle so deeply with how to balance experience and the words of others and theology and so many other things in trying to learn to interpret what God is telling me through the Bible. I’ve been learning and struggling on how to do this for years. Daniel and I started leading a Life Group at our church this year. And my struggle with this got even deeper.

We keep longing and praying for truth at our Life Group. Begging the Lord that despite what Daniel and I or anyone else says, that our friends would leave our house with a more clear picture of who God is. Not who we are, but who He is. That the picture they leave with will be a true to who He is and to what He says.

But I keep getting in the way. I want so badly to stay true to what the scriptures say, but I keep making an ass of myself. I continue, over and over again to clearly communicate what I think. And as Matt Chandler so clearly says, what I think really doesn’t matter. I’ve had to apologize privately and publicly and it is humiliating.

I struggle with how far our leadership goes into what others say. I don’t want to discount or discredit anyone’s process. I want us to struggle together to figure out what scripture is saying. And I want us to land in truth, land in the scriptures- not our experience or what we have grown up hearing. Our experiences are such real and good ways of learning, I just think we often let them interpret the scriptures rather than the other way .

I struggle with knowing when to shut my damn mouth. The sermon where Matt Chandler talks about how what we think doesn’t matter, he talks about things that divide a church. One of those, he says, are people who don’t know when to stop talking. People who talk about things that they don’t really know anything about. I’m that person. I don’t know when to close my mouth.

I struggle with confidence in my discernment of the scriptures. I study and I read and I pray and I meditate and I still don’t believe that God will give me a clear picture of himself. The problem is, I know myself. I know how obsessed I am with all things me. How often I push myself and my thoughts into my study of the Lord. And it is that obsession with me that convinces me that the Lord won’t offer me a real picture. And that is bogus. And ridiculous. And self-obsessed. And he is better. And he is the prize. And he wants me to know more of him.

The most dangerous thing in the world is a bunch of people sitting around talking about what they think about what Jesus says. It is also one of the most clear and beautiful experiences of community and struggle and the Holy Spirit. Our friend Hitch is in our life group. He is quiet. He is gentle. And he has spent the last few years growing and learning in exponential ways. And he doesn’t talk when he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. But, when he talks the entire room leans forward. I hang on his words because they give me a more clear and beautiful picture of Jesus. And there are more Hitchy’s in our group. In fact, in that room are some of our dearest friends. And they are light. and laughter. and a better, more clear and beautiful picture of Jesus.

Please don’t ever leave me Lord, because without you I wreck it all.

“May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord my rock and my redeemer.”

-Psalm 19:14-

warm.

2011-01-15T10:35:00.002-05:00

“Every uncorrected error & unrepented sin is, in its own right, a fountain of fresh error & fresh sin flowing on to the end of time.”
-C.S. Lewis-
“We see ourselves as basically nice, benevolent people with minor hang-ups and neuroses that are the common lot of humanity. We rationalize and minimize our terrifying capacity to make peace with evil and thereby reject all that is not nice about us.”
-Brennan Manning-
Let notsin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sinwill have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
-Romans 6:12-14-

I spent my advent with a much closer view of my own heart than I would have ever desired. I am always surprised that when I try to intentionally prepare for the celebrations of Christ (i.e. Lent, Advent) I spend the majority of my time staring at the gross parts of my heart. As Daniel and I led our Life Group in Advent devotionals each week, God dealt with parts of us that we had no idea were there.

I know that I am gross. I know that my sin is always before me. And over and over and over again I safely put myself in the same category as everyone else. We are all sinful. That is true. It is part of every single breathing person. But that doesn’t mean we are excused from warring against our very nature. Though we are all in the same boat, that does not translate into sin tolerance from the Lord.

He is not tolerant of my sin. He is not tolerant of my lack of repentance. He is not tolerant of the lifestyles and cycles and dangerous places that my heart continually eases into. Paul spends so much of his time talking about warring against our sin. Romans 5, Galatians 5, most of Philippians. He is not tolerant of my sin.

He is however, fond of me. Warm to me. I was reading Mark 10 this morning and it is the story of the rich young ruler. He comes to Jesus and wants to follow him, but the cost is great. And he has to give his entire life away. Everything. And in his question, and in his distress as he walks away, it says that Jesus’ heart warms to him. His heart is warm to me. Warmth is by no means tolerance, but, oh, how it is warm to me.

I’ve spent the morning overwhelmed by that warmth. Overwhelmed in Him being fond of me. I’m not even that fond of me. And as I sit in the warmth, my heart runs in two directions: worship and repentance. These days, I can’t seem to find one without the other.

My sin, it is always there. And it is disgusting. And embarrassing. It is evil and it is damaging to myself and to others. It’s wake crushes. And it must be dealt with. It must be warred against. And the only hope I have in this battle is that I fight with a God who is fond of me. So deeply fond of me that he sent His son, who volunteered to die for all of my nastiness. I war with a God who is warm to me and warmth to me.

Please do not leave me, Lord. For, without you I will wreck it all.*

*Stolen from Martin Luther

transform.

2011-01-05T14:23:00.001-05:00

“When Scripture comes alive in our hearts, it doesn’t inform us as much as transform us.”

-Margaret Feinberg-

“Stubbornly to stand still when the Lord is clearly challenging us to growth is hard-heartedness, infidelity, and a dangerous lack of trust.”

-Brennan Manning-

I had a realization this weekend. I’m a pretty good student. I like to research. If I am interested in something, I want to read/watch/listen/taste every single thing I can get my hands on. Even with the scriptures. When I am interested in figuring something out, I am a pretty good student of the scriptures and the saints. I love the challenge and the grit and the logic of studying. Studying the scriptures is a really good thing.

I had another realization this weekend. I have a long way to go in learning to meditate on the scriptures.

I was in my twenties before I ever really experienced the power of the scriptures. That words on a page of a dusty old book could seep into my life and my heart and quite literally and tangibly change me. That the scriptures could “come alive” in me and “transform” me. It happened. Over and over again.

For a few months in college, I asked every single day for God to show me something about himself. He did. Every day. Most of those days, it was in the scriptures. I began to learn from the words I was reading who God is and what he is about and how he sees me.

As life got difficult and the questions got harder, my desire for something new about God every day went away. I stopped asking. I stopped looking for new things.

But in his grace and mercy, he has chased after me. He has proven over and over and over again that there is something in the scripture that has the power to completely change and transform me. And, for me, that doesn’t happen very often from studying. Or from just reading. It’s never worked when I try to read the whole bible in a year. Or when I have a set guideline of how much to read. Or I have a topic I’m trying to prove. The transformation happens when I take the time to read slowly…to chew and listen and wonder. To meditate. And now, he is asking me to get better at that. Be a better meditator. I will change you. Just show up.

My choosing what is comfortable for me is not what God has ever asked of me. My failure to show up when he invites me to deeper and wilder adventures is “infidelity and a dangerous lack of trust”.

It is a new year. If you think that God is not inviting you to grow, you are mistaken. It is time. Grow.

plans.

2010-12-20T17:56:00.001-05:00

May all your expectations be frustrated,

May all your plans be thwarted,

May all your desires be withered into nothingness,

that you may experience the paralysis and poverty of a child,

and sing and dance in the compassion of God

who is Father, Son and Spirit,

Amen and Amen.

-Brennan Manning-

My son wanted to wear his RunDMC shirt today. I told him he was not allowed to change shirts again. He silently went to the kitchen and dusted powdered sugar all over himself. He came back to my room with the expectation of being punished for the powdered sugar mess and then to be asked to go change his clothes. He did not expect his mom to see through his plan to get to wear his RunDMC shirt.

My heart broke at his manipulation because all over it I saw my own. How often I risk a small bit of pain in order to gain what I believe will be great joy for me. My plans with rebellious, manipulative, dark motives that will equal my joy, my security, my pride.

It is how our world operates. We all have different places on the spectrum, but we all operate to protect ourselves.

Two thousand years ago a baby came into this world. He came fully aware that he would risk everything, suffer an immense amount of pain, and ultimately give all that he had for my joy. My joy comes only from his glory. Only what he is willing and gracious and delighted to give me.

How gracious and merciful he is to me. To see through all of my rebelliousness and manipulation and dark. To stop me in my tracks. To offer me a greater joy than I could imagine. To come to this earth so that my very soul could feel what it was made for. To offer me the deep belly laughs that fill my world and are really just a blip in time. To delight in those blips. How gracious and merciful he is.

wreck.

2010-12-14T22:08:00.001-05:00

Lord God, You have appointed me…but you see how unsuited I am to meet so great and difficult a task. If I had lacked Your help, I would have ruined everything long ago. Therefore, I call upon You: I wish to devote my mouth and my heart to you; I shall teach the people. I myself will learn and ponder diligently upon You Word. Use me as Your instrument -- but do not forsake me, for if ever I should
be on my own, I would easily wreck it all.

-Martin Luther-

choose.

2010-12-14T10:34:00.001-05:00

Poklon trzech króli, Peter Bruegel

“I belong to the Lord, body and soul,” Mary replied, “let it happen as you say.”

Luke 1:38, JB Phillips version

“Shall we enter into life? If we do, we may sin. If we don’t, we will wither and die. Learning to live will with our passion is no easy business. Indeed, it will take a lifetime full of learning and choosing, but choose we must. Say yes to passion. Say yes to trusting God with the process of growth and change, and get ready for the ride of your life….” Jeff Imbach, River Within

“When Mary said yes, she could not have known about the silent night of birth in a stable or the angelic hosts singing and praising God. ..Could she have foreseen that her son would willingly place himself in harm’s way for the sake of others? Would she have said yes if she had known about the betrayal of her son that would lead to his crucifixion? Mary only knew for certain that if she said yes to God, everything would change. And so it will be with our yes.” Helen Bruch Pearson, Mother Roots

My heart is heavy. Some dear friends of mine had a house fire yesterday. It looks like they’ve lost everything. They will find out today. I saw them for a little while last night and a minute today and I have been thankful since. Only Clay and Christy would lose so much and greet us with hugs, laughter and stories. Gratitude for all that they have today. Gratefulness for their children and their safety. And with Peace. Somehow, they greeted us with peace. Beyond Peace. With Shalom.

I got in the car last night devastated for them. Devastated that it is Christmas. Devastated over their daughter’s quiet tears that she won’t be in her house at Christmas. Devastated over their son Huck’s embrace of his dad. (don’t Dads make everything better?)

The Lord was quick to remind me that to say Yes to him is terrifying. It is adventurous. And you might lose everything. Clay and Christy said yes. They moved to our city to do Young Life three years ago. Since then, they have had more happen to them than I have space to recreate here. Hard things. Really hard things. And now a fire. They said yes and everything changed.

Clay prays like no one I know. Christy serves her kids and kids all over Maryville in ridiculous ways. They haven’t given up. They still choose yes. The shalom that is covering every inch of them makes no sense without that Yes. They had that shalom before. It isn’t new. It is only thicker and strangely more beautiful. Ashes to beauty.

Christmas is saying yes. Christmas is choosing yes knowing that the stakes are high. Christmas is learning to be ok to lose everything. Christmas is not only the understanding that God’s glory is the most important thing that has ever been, but falling madly in love with that idea. Wearing it like a warm blanket. And over and over and over again choosing yes. Yes until it hurts. Yes until he returns.

*My advent readings came from Jim Branch’s advent devotional. If you don’t have it, you should. The Lord has changed Advent for me.

friends.

2010-12-08T11:24:00.002-05:00

Dance I, Henri Matisse

"The way of trust is a movement into obscurity, into the undefined, into ambiguity, not into some predetermined, clearly delineated plan for the future. The next step discloses itself only out of a discernment of God acting in the desert of the present moment. The reality of naked trust is the life of the pilgrim who leaves what is nailed down, obvious, and secure, and walks into the unknown without any rational explanation to justify the decision or guarantee the future. Why? Because God has signaled the movement and offered it his presence and his promise."

-Brennan Manning-

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

-Annie Dillard-

Yesterday, God made me be really vulnerable with my Life Group as we are preparing for Advent together. I hate being vulnerable. I hate confessing how gross my heart is to my own self, I really hate it in front of others. Years ago I was in a toxic relationship where my vulnerability was exploited for the world to see. I lost almost all of my friends. I lost ministry. I lost a lot. And I swore never to be vulnerable again. I would never open my heart.

I moved back to Maryville shortly after and I was a mess. A total disaster. It was in my total depths that I met some of the dearest friends of my life. In my total depths I learned to trust in the goodness of the Lord and walk an unknown and irrational path of adventure and mercy. And these friends have taught me how. They are Christmas to me. They are the visible expression of the healing and restoration that is overtaking the places long devastated deep within my heart. Journeying with the Lord is as terrifying as it is good and beautiful and intimate. With only his presence and promise, it is a lonely road. I am so thankful that over and over again God reveals his presence and nearness to me through my dear friends. So often to me they are his reminder that he chose to come as a baby to rescue even me.

This week my friends have been Christmas. Christmas is Kyla nodding and smiling in a room of blank stares. Christmas is a long phone conversation with Courtney about houses and hopes. Christmas is holding back the tears at Starbucks because of a hug from Preach and him reminding me how much he loves me. It’s me being more confident in what I have to say because Reynolds is in the room. Christmas is me laughing out loud in a very quiet room because of a text from Claire about crazy eyes. It’s Megan telling me how to pray for her this week and for the last 20 years. It is knowing that I will see Molly and Drew in two weeks and tearing up every time I think about that because everything is better when they are close. Christmas is Sarah showing up early to life group every week to help me cook but mostly to talk to me. It is praying for Jessica as she dances and wishing I was there. Christmas is knowing that this weekend I will laugh until I cry over good wine and good food with my good friends. It is trying to plan a lunch with Lindsay to hear about her trip to Guatemala. Christmas is Rodney kissing me on the cheek and inappropriate number of times because he thinks I’m the greatest. Christmas is sitting by Brooke at dinner because I love everything she has to say. Christmas is cutting down cedar trees with Emily and Brad knowing we’ll do it for years to come. Christmas is Campbell and Graham putting Mary and Joseph on the back of a semi-truck to drive them to the manger because they can’t find the donkey.

Christmas is Daniel being sick, so when he falls asleep he cuddles up on me without knowing it. Christmas is Daniel learning a song for me because it meant so much to me on Monday. Christmas is every room being better when Daniel is in it. Christmas is him thinking I can change the whole world even though he knows the real me.

Christmas is me being different because I am being restored in my devastated places. Christmas is that Jesus uses my friends over and over again to fill in the lonely places of our journey. Using them to invite me into healing. And making them so damn funny along the way.

deep.

2010-12-06T11:00:00.001-05:00

Theotokos of Vladimir

“I want to tear off the rooftop
So maybe I can see you in the sky
I want to catch every raindrop
And wash the shadows from my eyes
I just want to live my life like it was meant to be

Change me. Where I stand. Change Me. Take my hand.”

-Ryan Long, “Change Me”

It takes a change deep within me. Something shifting so that I can hear. Preparing for the Child doesn’t just happen. It is intentional and it is difficult and, honestly, it is terrifying. Preparing for the child means that something has to change deep within me.

Buechner says, “Listen to your life…touch, taste, and smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it…”. I’m not sure how deep within myself I am willing to go to prepare for Christmas. I will find my control, my greed, my distate for all things not me. I will find my dark criticisms and hateful thoughts. And it is terrifying.

Yet.

Deeper still, I will find a little baby. Who put on skin that tears and bruises and burns. Who chose that very skin in order to rescue me. I will find his mark and his love and his laughter in the depths of my heart. I will find he is restoring the places long devestated. My brokenness bound, my misery becoming shouts of gladness. A little baby, whose very being gives my soul its only worth.

Change me.

valley.

2010-11-23T08:03:00.001-05:00

To end this series of blog posts on suffering, I want to leave you with these lyrics. Ellie Holcomb says she wrote this song during a time like what we’ve been talking about in her life. But, I can’t help but think it was written about me. For me. For you.

The Valley

I don’t want to face this valley.

I don’t want to walk alone.

You say that you’ll leave to find me

Well I am begging you now to come

Don’t think I can face the morning

The heaviness in on my chest

You say that you’ll lift this burden

Well I am begging you to bring me rest

So, come and find me on the darkest night of my soul

In the shadow of the valley, I am dying for you to make me whole

For you to make me whole

I can’t keep myself from sinking

From drowning down in all this shame

My throat is worn out from calling for help

And I am praying you remember my name

I know I can’t fight this battle

Been surrounded on every side

You say that you will deliver me

Well I am praying you restore my life

So, come and find me in the darkest night of my soul

In the shadow of the valley, I am dying for you to make me whole

For you to make me whole

Answer me out of the goodness of your love

In your mercy turn to me

I know it’s you that I’ve been running from

But it’s against you I lean

You’re all I need

So, come and find me in the darkest night of my soul

In the shadow of the valley, I am dying for you to make me whole

For you to make me whole.

You can find more of Drew and Ellie Holcomb’s music at www.drewholcomb.com. And then go to iTunes and get everything they’ve ever recorded.

promise.

2010-11-21T17:01:00.002-05:00

“This is the intimacy factor in suffering. Do we want to know him? Do we want to be more personal with him and deep with him and real with him and intimate with him—so much so that we count everything as loss to gain this greatest of all treasures? If we do, we will be ready to suffer. If we don't, it will take us by surprise and we will rebel. May the Lord open our eyes to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ!”
-John Piper-

Preach talked a few weeks ago about the good part of suffering. That thought makes me squirm. It makes me nervous. As I grew up, plenty of people turned suffering into butterflies and rainbows. When a preacher starts to go there, I get nervous. There were no butterflies and no rainbows in Preach’s message. He honored the real experience of tragedy. And he offered a promise that is all throughout the scriptures; a promise that is ours when we hurt. He offered the prize.
I believe that the promise of more of God in suffering is something that is always offered. I miss it a lot. More than I’d like to admit. But, that doesn’t change that the promises are all over the scriptures. At the end of the book of Job, Job says that he finally sees the Lord. He was a believer and good and upright and all of those things before anything happened to him. Then, he says something that blew my mind. He says that going through what he went through was the difference between hearing by his ear and actually seeing the Lord (42:5). It is not just that Job acknowledges God's goodness and his glory, though he does and that is good, the final parts of Job are worship, repentance, reconciliation, sanctification and more of the Father. I really believe that there is special revelation and intimacy of the Lord offered to those who suffer. Though it is not the only experience bringing sanctification, it is a crucial part of the process for so many.
God’s glory is the most important thing that there is. And it will happen, regardless of our experience. As we suffer, we must believe that He is good no matter what happens. We must trust and believe His glory. However, if we miss Jesus in the process of submitting to His glory, then we miss the prize. We miss joy that is there. We miss more of Jesus. And more of Jesus is the journey of sanctification.
Often, I would write off these promises as things that were “nice”. It is nice that people could find some sort of comfort in their suffering. I believed that I knew real suffering, and that this was no comfort to me. I would submit to God’s glory. But I had suffered too deeply to gain any real comfort from what people said about all things working together for good. Sure, I believed that, but belief and comfort are very different. These days I feel like the Lord is changing something in me.
These days, I am starting to believe that more of Jesus in suffering is a sweet, generous gift of the Lord. I think that it answers the questions of suffering in a real way. Instead of dismissing them in attempt to submit to God’s glory, I am finding that they are a piece of that Glory in me. We are not martyrs to the Glory of God...maybe martyrs for it. We are sons. Co-laborers. It’s not just about being used by God, but about fulfilling the will of God through sanctification and completion. Jesus is literally the embodiment of the Glory, and his suffering and resurrection are still the most crucial part, not only of human history, but even of his life. (In Hebrews it even says the Jesus learned obedience through suffering and was made perfect through suffering). Paul talks about our suffering completing what is lacking in Christ's crucifixion (the lacking is that we are now united with him through our suffering....Little Christs as my friend Hitchy says). It isn't nice...it’s the prize. United by suffering. More like him and more of him by suffering.
We will always suffer. Paul pretty much tells the Ephesians that it is a guarantee of following Jesus. Until the Lord returns, it is our reality. I know that I might hurt forever because someone made a stupid choice to hurt me to my core when I was young. I might spend the rest of my life in hospital beds with endometriosis. At the risk of sounding like butterflies and rainbows, I believe that I have the opportunity to have more of Jesus with those things than if I’d never experienced them. One day, that will be enough for me. It isn’t always enough today, but my prayer is that one day it will be. More than enough. One day, those things will feel like a prize.

“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the Law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith – that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and may share his sufferings…”
-Philippians 3: 7-10-

incomplete.

2010-11-19T07:19:00.001-05:00

Look at Him as He lies in the manger and on the lap of His mother, as He hangs on the cross. Observe what He does and what He says. There you will surely take hold of Me.

-Martin Luther-

Sometimes, even when the scriptures show a God willing to be found where He is, there is no comfort. Sometimes the mystery of the Lord feels like a cop out even if it’s not supposed to. Sometimes it feels like we’re left alone to die in our junk. And, sometimes, it seems like that feeling will never go away. We were never meant to stay there. We were never abandoned.

I think a lot of people die alone in their junk, feeling abandoned by the Lord. At the risk of sounding cold and heartless, I really believe that dying alone, abandoned in your junk is our fault, not his. People die every day in their suffering and in their pain. Rarely is that ever their choice. Dying in our suffering and in our pain and all of those things is sometimes the providence and wisdom of the Lord. Sometimes they are all alone. However, the chosen of the Lord never die abandoned. Dying alone, abandoned in our junk, is His honoring our choice to see him has hidden. Sometimes, the question isn't what if we die alone in our junk, but what if it is our fault we're there?

Often our mistake is taking what we see of our journey and somewhere deep within us believing it to be complete. We might not say it out loud, but it is there. The belief that the only thing we may ever have is the feeling of being abandoned by our creator. And that we have to learn to be ok with that. When, in reality, our journey is not over yet, and we were never meant to be abandoned. Like John the Baptist, we might give all that we have to God and die alone, beheaded in prison. But, even then, I believe that God is about reconciling HIS PEOPLE to Him every single time. On earth. In heaven. Rescue, reconciliation: they are promises for the people of God. When we do not experience this as the chosen of the Lord it is our fault, not God’s. He promises and I believe he will deliver. And sometimes we spend our entire lives looking for him where he cannot be found. Our ending may not be a perfect one. But, as the chosen of the Lord, our ending is not abandonment. And we are never really alone. He will be found where he is.

hide.

2010-11-16T10:45:00.001-05:00

He is an ever-absent help in time of trouble.

-HG Wells-

Does God hide from us? Isaiah talked about it and so did David, “Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (Psalm 10:1) After a tense and wonderful discussion about suffering in our small group, I couldn’t get away from the thought of God hiding. A friend talked about how sometimes that is just what happens, we call and there is no answer. There are times that God just hides. It was what I had always believed, but that night it just did not settle very well in me. So I read everything I could get my hands on.

And my thoughts did a 180.

I believe that there is a biblical argument for God hiding. I’ve come to believe that these scriptures fall into two categories: one for those who believe, and one for non-believers. There are verses that reference God hiding that I believe are talking about his hiding to not ever be found (in example, the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart that he might never find God/Salvation). I am nowhere near smart enough to dissect those anymore than that one sentence.

It is the other verses that I can’t seem to shake. The verses that talk about God hiding from us, His people. I think that these verses are misinterpreted when we see the theme as God abandoning us in our junk and just leaving us there. I’ve felt like that. I’m sure if you’ve ever suffered deeply, you have too. I think when we allow our experience to interpret, there is a very clean argument for God hiding from us. Because it feels that way. What I have missed for so long is that I think in all of these cases the hiding of God has two crucial pieces. First, I believe many times we interpret God hiding when really he is just not willing to be found where we are seeking him. And, second, I believe that God has a deep desire to be found where he is.

I read an article where it says that God hides behind the question "Why?" (as in, Why did god do this?). He hides in our speculation. He will be found where he is as opposed to where he isn’t. He is not in the question why (I have learned this far too well). When tragedy hits, it is our initial reaction, to camp out in the question and wait for him to show up. But that is not where He is. He is in his words and promises. That is where he will be found.

In the verse above from Psalm 10 (there is a similar one in Psalm 13), David is genuinely looking for the Lord. He is looking in the Why (“why do you hide yourself…”). His tone is defeated (in Psalm 13 it is “How long, O Lord will you hide from me?”). I think often when people talk about these verses, they read them alone. To know that David felt the way we feel. He did. The problem comes when we don’t look at the rest of what he is saying. In both examples, David cannot find the Lord in the first verse. However, by the time you finish either of the Psalms, you find the desire of the Lord to be found where he is. You see worship, faith, hope, and sanctification in David. Not the feeling of abandonment. He found the Lord where he was all along. In worship. In the scriptures. At the end of Psalm 10, some people think that he actually quotes promises in 1 Chronicles 29:18- he found God in the words of the Lord that came before him. God is where he chooses to be, and he will be found there. It is not that he his hidden, it is that we look in the wrong places.This might sound like a giant religious cop-out. I hope it doesn’t sound as much like a cop-out as it does as a mystery of the sovereignty of the Lord.

suffering.

2010-11-15T13:48:00.001-05:00

“Every time an airplane goes down, you'll find somebody on Larry King talking about “Where was God?” They'll mention 9/11 over and over, “Where was God on 9/11? Where was He?” But here's where the blasphemy occurs. Do you know that up until that point, there had been nearly 100 years of air travel where no terrorist hijacked a plane and crashed it into a building, and no one ever went on the Larry King Show. No one ever went on the Larry King Show and said this, “How awesome is God that for the last 100 years nobody hijacked a plane and crashed it into a building.? How awesome is He? How gracious is He? How beautiful is He that He's protected us in such ways?” So He gets absolutely no credit for the beautiful day and every ounce of blame for the horrific one. Blasphemy. Yeah, it's who we are. And we're unapologetic about it.”

-Matt Chandler-

I have known nothing more difficult than dealing with God in my pain. I’ve spent far too many days sitting in hospital rooms with my children and often myself, knowing that God could fix it all and is choosing not to. Can he still be good when I hurt? Can he still even be there when my sons stop breathing? So often my theology wasn’t ready to answer the question. I was told that people sin and so I had to pay for it by nights in the hospital in excruciating pain. Some people told me that it was my sin that landed me there. I often believed that God was “in the cleft” or hiding from me, it certainly felt that way. There is no way he could watch all of that and just not do something. When He was done hiding, he would triumphantly re-appear and make it all ok. As if he and pain could never go together.

I’ve spent the last few months researching and sitting in the information for these couple of blog posts. That does not mean they are great or revolutionary or well-written even. It only means that they are hard. I guess they really started last year when studied Ephesians with some ladies. Paul talks about suffering in ways that I had never experienced in myself. And I saw that my theology on suffering was running a bit contrary to what the scriptures were telling me. It is when I learned that bad theology on suffering really matters. It knocks you out.

As it turns out, God never wanted there to be pain, but when it came he didn’t run from it. The garden was perfect and all He asked from Adam and Eve was a little bit of trust. Pain was our choice in that garden when an apple looked better than glory. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t stay. He doesn’t turn his back when things are terrible. Look at Jesus, he spent his entire ministry immersed in the pain of people. Immersed in their accusations and blindness and withered parts.

I think my biggest problem with suffering was my view of the scripture. I don’t think that I was interpreting it correctly. I think we discern incorrectly because, as a culture, we are very experience driven. Often times our politics, our morality, our goals, our religion is based on our experiences. That gets us into trouble with the scriptures. You see, our experiences do not interpret the scriptures. They can’t. They don’t have that power. The only thing that can happen is for the scripture to interpret our experiences. When we switch this up our only answers are bad theology and a distorted view of God. For the rest of this week, I want to welcome you into my journey on this blog.

loved.

2010-11-08T11:15:00.001-05:00

There’s more coming. Really. But for now, I can’t seem to get away from this, because today I feel loved. Loved by a King who will not let me go. My maker. Designer. The One who chose me. And I have no idea why.

“Love it will not betray you
Dismay or enslave you, it will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be
There is a design, an alignment, a cry
Of my heart to see,
The beauty of love as it was made to be”

-Mumford and Sons, “Sigh No More”

And, because I miss my friend who would love this song but she lives in Colorado and it is too early to call her and tell her to buy it. She loves me too.

terror.

2010-10-27T14:44:00.002-04:00

The mystics always talk about terror and I've never understood it, although I do now. It's the recognition of what truth means. Truth is frightening, terrifying. I'm not sure I really want to be with the truth which is why we work so hard to control it, suppress it, and take the life out of it. When the guys were in the boat when Jesus calmed the storm, I'm convinced that they were more afraid when the storm was over. They knew the terror of near death in a storm, but now they knew a new terror. The terror of a God who can calm a storm. And I don't think there are enough terrified people in the church. The church is made up of people who have God all figured out.
-Mike Yaconelli-

comingsoon.

2010-10-13T11:04:00.001-04:00

Don’t give up on me! I apologize for being distant. A few weeks ago at our church and then in small group we talked about the problem of evil and suffering in the face of a Good God. I have been writing for weeks and I’m editing now. So, the next blog series will be up soon!

wait.

2010-09-16T21:47:00.001-04:00

“But if we keep our hearts and minds open as well as our ears, if we listen with patience and hope, if we remember at all deeply and honestly, then I think we come to recognize, beyond all doubt, that however faintly we may hear him, he is indeed speaking to us, and that, however little we may understand of it, his word to each of us is both recoverable and precious beyond telling. In that sense autobiography becomes a way of praying…”

-Frederick Buechner-

I feel like I’ve been getting to know myself well lately. Looking deep inside is difficult and crazy. I have some hard memories. I have been pursued relentlessly and there is evidence of it all over my stories. I have made some of the most ridiculous decisions you have ever heard of in your life. I have made a couple of good ones. And, more often than not, when I look at my life and remember with depth and honesty, I find that over and over again I have jumped the gun.

Often I have heard the whispering invitation of the Father for something bigger or deeper or different. There is something incredibly fun for me about those those gentle urgings and invitations. My problem comes with the waiting. The process. The journey. Instead, I find something that looks good and sort of fits what I feel the Lord is telling me and I jump in, completely submerging myself. It is usually not until I am flailing or drowning that I see my own intentions and selfishness.

I don’t love to wait. I don’t love to wait on the Lord. I love it when He asks me to do something, I guess I just don’t love to wait and find out what it is. So I miss it. I miss his voice and his answer and his nudging. I miss a joy that is full.

I believe God to be far more in control than this blog seems to say. I believe that he has a plan for glory that will happen. I also believe that I can make decisions that affect my joy in a negative way. I have made a lot of those choices.

In this time of strangeness, nothing is more clear than my call to wait. My head knows it is good and right and sanctifying. My heart is chomping at the bit.

fear

2010-09-15T11:06:00.001-04:00

“It’s hard to be a Christian, but it is too dull to be anything else. When Jesus comes into our lives with his scandalous cross in the spirit that will not close, we pray for the courage to stand fast a little against the insidious realism of the world, the flesh, and the devil.”

-Brennan Manning-

“Abba, I abandon myself into your hands. Do with me what you will. Whatever you may do, I thank you. I am ready for all. I accept all. Let only your will be done in me and all your people. I wish no more than this, O Lord. Into your hands I commend my spirit. I offer it to you with all the love of my heart, for I love you, Lord, and I give myself, surrender myself into your hands without reserve, with boundless confidence, for you are my Father.”

-Charles de Foucauld-

“But as for me, I will always have hope;

I will praise you more and more.

My mouth will tell of your righteousness,

of your salvation all day long,

though I know not its measure.”

-Psalm 71:14-15-

When I look back at my life, there are a few times when my only reality was fear. The weekend after my boys were born. There was a day when all of my junk hit me in the face going 90 mph on a NC highway. the first time Graham stopped breathing. There have been other days here and there.

And then, there was the last week. There is this part of my heart that is completely taking over my head that is terrified. Of people dying or getting sick or leaving or something awful. Terrified of Lord. Terrified of his power and his might and his justice. It is the kind of fear that feels ominous and overpowering. It makes me cry, and I’m not a crier. It keeps me awake. It is ruling my mind.

The most terrifying part to me, however, is that I feel like my heart is looking at the Lord and my only response is, “I trust you”. My stupid head is looking at my heart and warning, “Don’t say that out loud or he will test you.”

He is in control whether I trust him or not. He is completely sovereign even if I get pissed at him for the way the world looks. He is good when we think he is not. Our bargaining is ridiculous in the face of his glory. His glory will come regardless of my response. I have spent years learning this.

I accept it. I believe that my cosmic deals with the Lord are ridiculous. I believe that my reality does not change him. He is always good. Incapable of anything but good. Sometimes what I see is good isn’t. Sometimes what I think would be good isn’t. But He, He always is. It may be the only thing I really know.

I have no idea what is in store for me. I have no idea why I am so scared. I know that it isn’t from the Lord. I know that his love is perfect, and that fear and love have nothing to do with one another. That fear is associated with punishment, and I am no longer under punishment. There is no room for fear in love.

For the last 3 days I have had to wake up and choose love. And a million times a day I have to choose it all over again, that I might stand fast a little. And buried under all of the fear is the whisper of the Lord that makes it all worth while, “You are mine”.

current.

2010-09-14T14:38:00.001-04:00

Baby I love you, but if you wanna leave take good care,
hope you make a lot of nice friends out there,
but just remember there's a lot of bad,
and beware, beware,
oh baby baby it's a wild world,
it's hard to get by just upon a smile.

-Cat Stevens, Wild World-

I have been unable to find words for a while now. On Sunday, Preach talked about how he ended up at our church. He talked about how he wanted to follow where Jesus was leading him and he followed him into this current, which is our town and our church and his ministry there. I don’t really like to cry in public, so I held it in.

I’ve been off for a while now, but the last few weeks have been almost more than I can handle. I haven’t felt like me and I haven’t had time to think and I feel like I’ve just been floating and watching life happen.

On Sunday I realized that it is because Daniel and I aren’t in “the current”. That is the deeper waters we are being called to. That is where the Lord is asking us to be. We just have no idea what or where it is. Change is coming and we have no idea what to expect.

I have tried a lot of things for a lot of years. I’ve led bible studies, campaigner groups, planned fundraising events, made food for hundreds of people, monthly challenges, given tons of money away. And Daniel has done the same. Right now we are more involved in ministry than we have been since we’ve known each other. And, still, we feel the urging of the Lord for something different.

I have some friends that are amazing. I’ve mentioned them on here plenty. (their daughter is Riley who is literally changing the world by giving people water) They are moving to Peru in January. They have found the current and they are jumping in. It has been an honor to read their blog and see their obedience.

I don’t think Peru is our current. In fact, I think right now all we know is what our current is not. Suburbia. In the South. Not our current.

So, for now, we wait. We wait with hearts that are restless and anxious. Hearts that are excited and hopeful for the future and devastated at realizing our lives will not look like they do now forever. We wait and soak up every ounce of community we can because we are quite sure that no one on earth has the kind of community we have right now and we don’t want to waste one second of it. We want to soak in every ounce of the kind of love that our dear, dear friends and family are drenching us in so that we can pour that love on other people wherever we end up. For now, we wait and there is a great amount of fear that is overtaking the process. Fear that is making it hard to function some days. Fear of what’s to come. We are longing for direction and change, but we are extremely aware that sometimes the move of the Lord is quite difficult.

Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers."

Luke 22:31

block.

2010-09-13T17:05:00.001-04:00

As in writer’s. And major. I apologize for nothing new. It’s coming.

gomer.

2010-09-07T11:08:00.001-04:00

“Think not, my son, that God's great river
Of love flows simply to the sea,
He aims not straight, but to deliver
The wayward soul like you and me.
Follow the current where it goes.
With love and grace it ever flows”

-excerpt from “Hosea & Gomer” by John Piper

She was dirty. Beautiful, desired, and dirty. Desired by all who needed a night of passion or release or fantasy. She was never taken home. She never met the mother. She never woke up to the warmth of arms around her, but always to an empty side of the bed.

And the Lord chose her for him. To be his wife. To bear his children. In sickness and in health, until they were parted by death. She promised to be there, to be good. To never stray and cling only to him. And I am sure she meant to.

But the nights away started to call her. The sounds were too good to resist. And the feeling of being desired by all consumed her. And she, little by little, strayed until she was gone.

The whoring caught up with her, leaving her haggard and used. No more desire or beauty, all that was left was dirty. She could find no work on her own, so they offered her a way out. An auction of her own body. She sat on the block. Naked. Used. Alone. Dirty.

He came for her. Bought her as his own. Covered her nakedness with the warmth of his arms. Wooed her in the wilderness like they were teenagers. He spoke tenderly over her- of her beauty and worth. He made her his wife. He chose her all over again. In her ugliness. In her naked shame. In her dirt.

His love is like a river, winding through all of our dirt. It won’t miss us. It aims not for the sea, but to deliver. Over and over and over again that love will choose us, chase us, purchase us, woo us, forgive us. Even when we are dirty. Even when we mean to do well. And like that, the river of deliverance sweeps in and we start all over again. New. Fresh. Clean.

him.

2010-08-31T15:35:00.001-04:00

“This is the only thing you have that will ever be your eternal joy is Him. That’s what you get. That’s the gospel: you get Him.”

-Matt Chandler-

“Oh praise the One who paid my debt and raised this life up from the dead. Oh praise the One who paid my debt and raised this life up from the dead.”

The problem with making bold theological statements discrediting theology like “theology takes away the experience, person and relationship” is that you might kind of look like an ass. Well, here I am. Looking like an ass.

My entire life I have, deep within me, believed the gospel to be about me. Sure, it was the glory and majesty and honor and healing of the Lord, but it happened in me. Part of me felt like I was really offering him something when I offered him my heart. For years I believed that my salvation came from my decision to follow him. And he was waiting on edge to see if I would accept his offer, ready to throw a party if so or to plan another camp or good sermon or book or course of pursuit if not. As if believing in him and choosing him was a favor I was doing for him because he had done so much for me.

I say it all the time, but once again, I’m afraid I missed it. I’ve missed him. I have missed the joy of knowing that my salvation has to do with only one thing: Him. His rescue. His glory. His healing. It wasn’t my choice to be rescued. It was his. His to pursue me. His to fight for me. His to love me more than I ever deserved. His to heal and restore places long devastated. He was not waiting on edge, hoping that I would accept. He knew, before I was spark in my parents’ brain, that I would be his. That over and over again he would chase me to my depths. That he would rescue me from my junk. That he would spin me and mold me in my mother’s womb and spend a lifetime continuing to change me and mold me into someone who looks more like him. His move became my rescue.

And the deep, deep honor comes in knowing that I didn’t do him any favors. That all of my good and bad and ugly are nothing. That he is everything. That for all of time I have him. For years that thought was terrifying—it didn’t feel like joy and it didn’t feel like a gift. It felt scary. And maybe boring. And a little disheartening. But then, by his spinning and changing and molding, I fell deeply and madly in love. And that, my friends is the gospel. He paid my debt. He rescued me. Not really for my own good. But to give himself to me. To you.

Don’t miss it. He has always and will always be the prize. Not your well being or happiness or eternal security. He is the prize. And he is all we will ever know of perfect.

megs.

2010-08-30T14:09:00.003-04:00

“Take my life, Lord, mold me
Take my mind, Lord, and console me
Take my hear, Lord, and hold it to your chest
Sing to me your melodies of love
And quiet me with your holy love
and rejoice over me with singing
Quiet me with your holy love
and rejoice over me with singing.”

She is my most constant friend. I have no memory of life without her. We’ve only lived in the same city once…only in the same state for a few years in college. But I don’t have a friend that knows me more deeply than she does. We have never had a secret. She taught me how to be honest and real. I have trusted her my entire life. She knows all of my junk and she has chosen to love me through every single stupid choice I’ve made or was made for me. And I know hers. So, in honor of my dear friend, here are my favorite pieces of our lives together:
*As kids, Drew and I spent our summers at Windy Gap (a Young Life camp in NC that our dad worked at), where Megs and her family lived. We had the time of our lives at that camp. We ran, walked on crutches, covered ourselves in coal and ash and danced near a waterfall, slept outside to count the shooting stars, learned how to back dive, had birthday parties by the pool, punched boys in the face, sang at the top of our lungs to try and get on Ed Cash live recordings, rolled down giant hills, jumped off of rocks, rode horses (some of us), swam until we were wrinkled and exhausted, dressed up like pioneers and Indians, slid down creeks in the mountains, pet llamas that were nasty, idolized college girls who loved us, crushed on college boys who thought were ridiculous, kissed boys at the zip line, told on people who kissed boys at the zip line, followed our moms to every outlet store and TJ Maxx known to man, and dreamed about opening an orphanage together. We were kids together. She has my childhood.
*One night at a dock under the stars, I laid in her lap and wept for all that I had no idea how to work through. For me, it was the beginning of a long , hard road to healing. I started that journey with my longest friend.
*In a booth in some restaurant in Knoxville, with so many tears it was hard for her to talk, Megs asked me if I would let her carry my baby in her belly when I was ready to have one. It might sound weird to you. But I was told for years that I could never have children. And that wasn’t ok with her. And she decided that she would do whatever she could to make that possible for me. She was that day, as she has been most days of my life, a clear and beautiful picture of the Christ who offered us everything—even his body, for his glory and our joy.
*She stood next to me when I married the greatest boy I had ever met. Two years later, I did the same for her. It was one of the most fun days of my life—and one of the greatest honors I’ve known.
*A few Septembers ago, my boys came roaring into the world way too early. I thought they were going to die. The nurse after my surgery told me I’d be lucky if they were home by Christmas. I was devastated in a way I have never known before. Hysterical. Inconsolable. And, while I was in the recovery room Megs walked in. Like she owned the place (that is how she always walks in). She came in because she knew I needed her. She cried really hard with me. And she laughed when I got to tell her that one of those tiny, precious boys was named for she and EJ, for Austin and Graham and Benny and Ann and Robert. Her family. My family.
Megs became a mom this summer. There is nothing more perfect for my sweet friend than to become a mom. She has more laughter, wisdom, beauty, light, compassion, generosity, peace, hope, encouragement, and life to offer that little girl than there will ever be time for. I can’t wait to tell that little girl that I am her mom’s longest friend. That she is the luckiest girl in the whole world because her mom is the most real person I know. And that her mom and her sweet dad (who every time I say his name I cry a little because I prayed for him for so long and he is better than I ever imagined) will never ever give up on her.
I have been learning for weeks about the God who sticks. Megs is who teaches me very clearly what that means….she is my friend who sticks.

prayer.

2010-08-23T15:49:00.002-04:00

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote this prayer for his fellow inmates in a Nazi concentration camp. It is as beautiful as it is sobering.
MORNING PRAYER
O God, early in the morning I cry to you.
Help me to pray
And to concentrate my thoughts on you:
I cannot do this alone.
In me there is darkness,
But with you there is light;
I am lonely, but you do not leave me;
I am feeble in heart, but with you there is help;
I am restless, but with you there is peace.
In me there is bitterness, but with you there is patience;
I do not understand your ways,
But you know the way for me…
Restore me to liberty,
And enable me to live now
That I may answer before you and before me.
Lord, whatever this day may bring,
Your name be praised.

brighter.

2010-08-16T16:13:00.001-04:00

O Love that will not let me go
I rest my weary soul in thee
I give thee back the life I owe
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be

O Light that foll’west all my way
I yield my flick’ring torch to thee
My heart restores its borrowed ray
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be

O Cross that liftest up my head
I dare not ask to fly from thee
I lay in dust life’s glory dead
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be

-George Matheson, hymn-

Today, my sons started preschool . I am so excited for them to have a few hours every week away from Daniel and I to begin to discover who they are and who they want to be when we are not around. All four of us prayed together with so much gratefulness that we have a God who goes before us and behind us and with us. I prayed desperately for that same God to save my little boys’ tiny souls…to grow them into oaks of righteousness.to remove from them the spirit of timidity and replace it with the confidence of sonship from their Abba Father...that as they grow they will be a planting of his glory. It has been a sentimental morning.

I am reminded again as my little boys walk into their little classroom that I believe in the God who sticks. He is the Love that will not let us go. Please, stick to them. Please, do not let them go.

And then, I beg the same for myself. Please do not let me go. Even though I say a lot of bad words. And I have a heart that is gross. And I am frivolous, hurtful, and completely obsessed with myself. Please do not give up on me.

I love the second verse of the song above. It has been my reminder that all I have—in spirit and body, is borrowed from a creator. All I have was always meant for him. And with him, shines all the brighter.

He will not let me go.

carter.

2010-08-06T15:08:00.002-04:00

To give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the LORD,that he may be glorified.

Isaiah 61:3

I’ve only known him a day. But he’s incredible. The provision, timing, and sovereignty of the Lord are all over this little boy. I think he was my favorite holiday present this year. For months it has been so much fun to think about him and pray for him and watch his mommy’s belly get bigger. He has no idea what he has been born into. He has no clue about his dad’s courage and his mom’s ridiculous strength. He doesn’t know how much fun his sister is. He has no idea how loved he is by so many people. All he knows is warmth. Hunger. His mommy’s breath in and out, bringing life and comfort. And I hope laughter. Because we do it a lot.
Welcome to the world, Carter Steven Reynolds. You matter so much to our little family. We have been waiting for you and hoping for you for so long. The verse above is mine for Camp and Grahambo. I pray often that they will become oaks of righteousness…a planting all for the glory of the lord. I have prayed the same for you. The first part of the verse gives me tears because you, little boy, are a way that the Lord has brought beauty and gladness and praise to all of us after a very crazy and hard 18 months. You, little boy, are a clear picture of the fingerprints of our creator all over our world and our lives…a reminder that he is intentionally and mercifully involved. Welcome to the world.