Life. the waking up, eating, sleeping, working life that takes small acts of obedience and faithful persistence. Life. As minutes and days and weeks go by, I fear that they will keep moving faster than I ever want them to unless I do the things that I don’t have time to do and love the people whom I have no energy to love.
I love to read. It takes me out of the realm of cold icy walkways and a dark windowless basement and as I curl up in a warm blanket and take in some steamy black coffee, there is something that only reading can bring about in my soul. A newness. A sense of okayness. That the world around me is bigger than me and that we are all creative and ingenious and really actually all similar in this big world. Reading is a way for me to look out of the window that is my life and see a big picture, a wide view of places and smells and sounds that I can sense and feel and live in for a while.
I know that I’m not very intellectual or traveled. I don’t have much more than the girl next to me, nothing more actually. I wish I could take pride in something like that – in my accomplishments, my successes, my travels and adventures, my goals and aspirations – but I am just me. Just as I am, quiet, contented, imperfectly okay.
To get by, to watch time without letting it slip away, to feel and not to merely experience but to create and be created by- that is my need.
What I don’t have is not what I need, what I need is to be more content with the things I have. To be disciplined in the time, the short time, that is mine- that doesn’t belong to my job or to my friendships or to my ministry. This is the time that I have to be faithful, to obey and not just to be waited upon by a God who longs for so much more from my life.
I love honesty. I hate honesty. The moment a secret is shared is a moment that I am responsible to follow up on that secret. This is the moment of accountability. I must face the music, must make the change, must cut the ties, say the hard things, leave something behind, take something up. Sometimes this is tough, because these deep hurts are often the most difficult to let heal, and there’s a difference between telling someone they’re hurting you and forgiving them.
Sometimes I think I will never heal. Other times I feel like I am all better. Yet I am realizing that being a better version of myself means that I must face the recurrent fears and struggles, longings and regrets, and take care of them one day at a time. There is no big HEAL. It comes slowly, sometimes painfully, over and over- during the best and worst times.
I feel that life is a gift. I know this when I hug my friend or look up at a six am moon- I smell it when the peppers and onions are on the skillet or when coffee is brewing in the early morning. I hear it on weekdays at five out my window when the church plays its old bell hymns and the mystery of it all makes me turn down the music and listen. Life is a gift and it is good, because God declared it to be when He created it all during the seven creative days. When He breathed life, He breathed smells and shapes and laughter and emotions, He breathed depth and sea-salt and contemplation and deep red walls in warm coffeehouses. That is why I love God. Because He makes life a gift to us and He also gives us a choice to embrace it or do it our own way.
“Breathe Me”
Help, I have done it again
I have been here many times before
Hurt myself again today
And, the worst part is there’s no-one else to blame
Be my friend
Hold me, wrap me up
Unfold me
I am small
I’m needy
Warm me up
And breathe me
Ouch I have lost myself again
Lost myself and I am nowhere to be found,
Yeah I think that I might break
I’ve lost myself again and I feel unsafe
Be my friend
Hold me, wrap me up
Unfold me
I am small
I’m needy
Warm me up
And breathe me
Be my friend
Hold me, wrap me up
Unfold me
I am small
I’m needy
Warm me up
And breathe me
His grace is sufficient.
I’ve exhausted every possible solution,
I’ve tried every last game there is to play.
In this search for the Christ-like perfection
I’m convinced I’ve only left my God ashamed
I cry, I wonder; can he hear my despair?
Afraid to lift my hands, afraid he doesn’t care.
And if he answers and I fall again
can I still be his daughter; can I still depend on him?
When I’m down searching every mistake, looking for new regrets.
sometimes I forget, I forget that his grace is sufficient for me.
that it’s deeper and wider than I can conceive.
His Grace is sufficient for me.
My convictions seem to fade with desperation,
my hope declines with each and every tear.
My sin an anchor and this grace just an illusion.
The gavels heavy and justice is near.
Up comes the light and finds the stains on my hands.
Up comes my pride, I hide, I know he won’t understand.
Cause it’s deeper than deep and it’s wider then wide.
why did I ever doubt? Now I’m dying inside.
His Grace is sufficient!
solo.
i have been reading the devotional called solo. it is a book designed to help develop the habit of lectio divina. For me, a person who is new to discipline, the devotions are specifically intended to help me begin what hopefully can be a lifelong pursuit.Though lectio divina emphasizes becoming familiar with God’s whole Word, rather than focusing on any particular part, there are specific devotions that have on many occasions guided me to just what I need.The Solo devos have really helped me to learn to listen to what God wants to say through His Word. Every seventh day is marked as a day of reflection, a time to sit back and let God guide thoughts and prayers back to themes and Scripture from the previous week.God always has something new to say, something fresh- though He is always the same, I continue to change a little bit every day as He shapes me into the person He designed for me to be.And so begins the journey.(some excerpts taken from Solo)jump.
i just watched an HBO documentary titled “Death In Gaza.”
It is a powerful documentary that reveals the culture of hate that permeates the West Bank and Gaza- generational hate- that perpetuates the perennial violence between Palestinians and Israelis.
James Miller (British filmmaker) started out in the city of Nablus (where as many as 80 percent of suicide bombings are planned), and followed reporter Saira Shah. In Gaza, they interview several young Palestinian children who have grown up trapped between the Israeli army and Palestinian militants as their world crumbles around them.
The irony in the story is that the film ends when James Miller is shot dead by an Israeli soldier in the Gaza Strip. Somehow Miller was caught up in the very story he was trying to capture.
It is difficult even to begin trying to fathom the depths of bitterness that this conflict has sown- even harder to fathom that pain that our Father must feel for His kids. The filmmaker did alot of interviews with children; twelve-year-olds who knew how to use Klashnikovs and hand grenades. Children who grow up reciting the words of famous Jihadis. I cannot imagine life with such hatred, for both Israelis and Palestinians.
The difficulty is in the seeded layers of turmoil in this part of the world. The region has been in turmoil for more than fifty years. The Gaza Strip, and its Palestinian Arab population, fell under Israel’s control following the Six Day War of 1967. During a summit in 2000, Israel proposed handing control of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian leader, Yesser Arafat, ultimately rejected the deal. Since then, hardliners on both sides have gained ground.
Israeli citizens have been subjected to wave after wave of deadly terror attacks by Palestinian militants. In 2000, Israeli voters elected Ariel Sharon – a Prime Minister who promised to hunt out and kill suspected militants in Gaza and the West Bank.
I want to raise a white flag here. Solidarity for my brothers and sisters in the Middle East and all across the world. I don’t understand war, and I hope I will never have to. The world is big, but we are really the same.
We desire peace because God desires it. (Galatians 5:22)
TBCTGA part two.
my mom hates when i use acronyms, so Mom, this one’s for you. i want to continue with the post i had written yesterday about the Church. I’ve really been thinking about how the Body of Christ in it’s ‘right’ state should function in the midst of our culture. after studying the book of revelation and the seven churches that jesus speaks of, here’s some things i came up with:
- it’s about Christ. in the midst of all the hard work and patient endurance, the Bible studies and the right living, we must never forget our sole purpose- to glorify the Lord God our precious Savior.
- a persecuted Church is an accountable Church. God doesn’t promise the journey to be easy, but He promises that it will be worth it. we can not be afraid of the suffering, but instead remain faithful to Him through our suffering.
- don’t tolerate sin. this is such a difficult thought in our culture. Christ was the ultimate lover, yet He did not tolerate any of sin’s tricky schemes.
- love others, be faithful, and endure patiently together. as we grow to become more like Christ, we will also grow to understand our great need for redemption and grace as a Church, as a body working together to fulfill the Great Commission.
- works without faith is dead. most of us have heard the famous Scripture, “faith without works is dead,” but in rev3, Jesus says the opposite to the church in Sardis. whatever our reputation, we must always seek to be alive in Christ and bearing fruit always.
- persevere. love is about being hopeful when we can’t see, when we feel blind and frustrated. we must persevere through the rain in order for our branches to truly be revitalized after the storm.
- don’t be lukewarm. we must always look to God for fulfillment, we must listen to Christ’s correction and discipline- receiving it is a love-gift. Jesus asks the church in Laodicea to be “diligent and turn from your indifference.”
the broken Church that God adores.
I was reading this morning in Romans, and stumbled upon a verse in chapter 5.
The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
This seems like it should be the resounding theme of my life. In so desperate need of the infinite grace of God, that builds on itself when I need it most, I have to look at all these things in my life and fall down on my knees.
With the increasing sin, the increasing awareness of my dark-spotted heart, comes the increasing awareness that God is fully enough to fulfill all of my needs and keep me going when I am afraid that I am too weak to help anyone, let alone myself.
Romans 5 spoke measures to me today. Our broken Church, our broken body, is surpassingly more alive, undeniably more compassionate, because of the great sacrifice that was made through His body, through His perfect love that cannot be explain nor understood but is so simple that it brings all things under the scrutiny of a child’s faith. What I need more of is to not be so afraid of the politics of the Church, to not be so distraught by all of the legalism and the things I cannot change about the culture or the imperfection. I have to be okay with the simple Gospel.
The truth that I have been released from the law, but bound to the shed blood of Christ. My ransom was worth paying to Him.
new monasticism
The restoration of the church will surely come from a sort of new monasticism which has in common with the old only the uncompromising attitude of a life lived according to the Sermon on the Mount in the following of Christ. I believe it is now time to call people together to do this.
Deitrich Bonhoeffer
Taken from a letter written to his brother, Karl-Friedrich Bonhoeffer, on January 14, 1935.
I love this way of thinking that has become essential to the future effectiveness of our generation. Stillness. Peace. Quietness. Scripture memorization. I’m a little bit leary that this could become an excuse to ‘hide from’ the world and just pray for it from a place that is separated from it. But apart from that thought, I think it is beautiful.
Bonhoeffer wrote the words above in London, where he lived and ministered from 1933 to 1935. He had come to the conclusion that God was calling him back to Germany to organize resistance against Hitler, and Bonhoeffer’s strategy was to establish a small monastic community of brothers at Finken walde where pastors could be trained and the Sermon on the Mount outworked.
Bonhoeffer’s world was blighted by a growing evil. In 1933, the Nazis insisted that all Protestant churches should come under the control of the Third Reich. Those brave pastors who refused to submit were forced to go underground. In this stark context, Bonhoeffer recognized in Christ’s sermon on the Mount a subversive and revolutionary manifesto for a counter-cultural resistance that could be cultivated into a new form of monasticism.
What do you think about the ‘new monasticism’ that is becoming ever so popular among Christians in our generation?
these words were taken from ‘Punk Monk: New Monasticism and the Ancient Art of Breathing’ by Andy Freeman and Pete Greig.
people who have no value
This movie is called ‘God Grew Tired Of Us’. This amazing story follows three of the tens of thousands of Sudanese children who fled for their lives, trekked a thousand miles on foot without provisions, only to spend ten years in a Kenyan refugee camp. They were alone, without their family and without their parents, most of who had been killed. All they had was one another… and a tenacious hope for a better life. These three remarkable young men were sponsored by government and private agencies to come and make their home in the U.S. It makes the Darfur crisis personal instead of political and is just a great story. I highly recommend the movie!
