The title to my favorite song this Christmas....

God is with us.

The four words that have the power and beauty to change every moment.

process

This life, therefore,
is not righteousness but growth in righteousness,
not health but healing
not being but becoming,
not rest but exercise.

We are not yet what we shall be,
but we are growing toward it.
The process is not yet finished but it is going on.
This is not the end but it is the road.
All does not yet gleam in glory
but all is being purified.

- Martin Luther

petition

Be Near
- Shane Barnard

You are all
big and small
beautiful
and wonderful
to trust in grace through faith
but i'm asking to taste...

for dark is light to You
depths are height to You
far is near
but Lord, i need to hear from You

be near, oh God
be near, oh God of us
Your nearness is to us our good
be near, oh God
be near, oh God of us
Your nearness is to us our good, our good

Your fullness is mine
revelation divine
but, o, to taste
to know much more than a page
to feel Your embrace...

for dark is light to You
the depths are height to You
far is near, but Lord
i need to hear from You

be near, oh God
be near, oh God of us
Your nearness is to us our good

invisible children

I'm not even sure how to introduce this post. I know Africa is in crisis. I know it houses many orphans in its borders. I had no idea of what happened last Christmas. I don't watch or read much news, but I'm generally exposed to various major media sources and I've seen nothing of this history until today. I know that an evil dictator is kidnapping children and causing them to be soldiers in his rebel army, but I had no idea my generation was speaking out and raising awareness and support to this degree.



Please take the thirty minutes and watch this documentary all the way through. Let it get to your heart. Let it effect your world. Pass this information on to people you know who could take part. Take part in whatever way you can - talk about it, give, go. The April 25th event has groups in Philadelphia, Harrisburg and Pittsburg. Link, post to facebook, embed the video on your sites.....Pray! This movement started with three guys who like to make movies. If we can rally around an effort to recycle or do a can drive for a local food bank, or fill a hundred plastic Easter eggs with candy for a community event, we can do something about these children who are being abused, mutliated and killed.

good redefined

"Do you understand that, motivated by love alone, your God became your slave in the Upper Room?

Were you grieved by the divine command to Abraham that he slay his only begotton Isaac on Mt. Moriah? Were you relieved when the angel intervened, Abraham's hand was stayed and the sacrifice was not carried out? Have you forgotten that on Good Friday no angel intervened? That sacrifice was carried out, and it was my heart that was broken.

Are you aware that I had to raise jesus from the dead on Easter morning because my love is everlasting? Are you serenely confident that I will raise you too, My adopted child?

Faith means you want God and want to want nothing else."

The Ragamuffin Gospel - Brennan Manning

in the mood....

This time of year puts me in the mood for romance. The colors. The music. The foods. The holidays. One problem. There's no one to share it with. Ok. Clarification. No guy.

I love my girlfriends. Like most, I would assert that mine are the best. Each one shares a unique part of who I am. I shared a delightful evening with two of my favorites last Thursday. We ate at Panera and people watched and told stories and laughed and analyzed to our hearts content. We got to discussing this very topic.

I thought about how our longings are echoes of what could have been in Eden, but also what is possible when we live well and wholly. We decided that instead of sitting around moping, binging on chocolate and missing the beauty of this season, we were going to discover our own romance. We are loved by the Creator of the universe. The guy who commands nations with his word, brings life with his touch, and died to set us free.

I read this in my Bible a few minutes ago.

"God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors (and boy are my parents are a living exhibit of this). And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver. He paid for you with the precious life blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. God chose him for this purpose long before the world began, but now, in these final days, he was sent to the earth for all to see. And he did this for you."

A few paragraphs back it says, "You love him even though you have never seen him, you trust him; and even now you are happy with a glorious, inexpressable joy. Your reward for trusting him will be the salvation of your souls."

He (the guy writing, Peter) is so right. Ever love someone for no reason? You just can't help yourself? I have. I also love this being I have never seen. Most days probably couldn't give a succinct answer why. I just do. I keep talking to him. I want to figure him out. I get frustrated when I can't but at the same time love the mystery it offers.

So my girls and I made a plan. In the retelling, it sounds odd, corny, for lack of better description. But when you want something that's unavailable, you either waste time in the wanting or you replace the desire with something viable. We decided to wait well for our guys. We decided to hope with joy. We decided to find romance in the One who knows us best. Over the next weeks until the end of the year, we are going to do one thing per week to pursue romance.

week 1 - this week) Go on a date. Go to a coffee shop, or park, anywhere different than usual. Just sit and be with God in that new place.
week 2) Ask a new get-to-know-you question. Write it down and listen for the answer.
week 3) Write a love letter or poem to God describing all the things you love best.
week 4) Call another girlfriend and tell them all the things you've discovered so far.
week 5) Reread one of his love letters - the same one - every day.
week 6) Go for a walk together either in a crowded city or alone in the country.
week 7 - Christmas) Do something together for someone else. Ask God to reveal his heart for someone in a specific way then make them something or do something unexpected for them that reaches that need.
week 8) Create something (art/photos/food) to represent the aspect of God that He revealed over these last couple months.

I plan to do this with my friends over hot drinks and of course, chocolate.
Save the date girls.
Saturday evening. January 3. 6pm-?
God. Love. Art.

jellyfish

There’s a jellyfish on my back today. And its tentacles wrap around my throat and into my eyes and ears. I curl up in my ultra-soft blue and white polka-dot bathrobe, but it turns to sand paper on my skin, so I snatch it off and throw it’s warmth into a heap on the floor.

It’s September. These viruses are supposed to wait until it’s cold outside, so cocoa and bathrobes are welcome friends, not prickly enemies.

A few moments ago I stood in my bathroom, foggy from the shower, and asked Jesus for healing. Graciously, He reminded me of Himself. My next thoughts were that I could not begin to imagine how His body must have felt as He was beat beyond recognition, hungry, bruised, had razor thorns jammed above his eyebrows, iron spikes holding him to His death, every bone disconnected from its neighbor, was thirsty, and alone. In this moment I want to crawl out of my skin and come back to it later. He allowed the iron spikes of my hatred and rejection to hold Him to his Father’s will of love.

In Hawaii I met a beautiful sister who had faced beating, strangling and death by bombing from the hands of her closest family and friends. The light in her eyes was captivating as she told of answering her accusers with sweet words of loyalty to her Jesus, not herself. Suffering has made her the most joyful and beautiful person I know.

I think I am healed, far beyond what I can think or imagine.

Isaiah 53: 5
But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed.

Romans 7:24-25
Wretched (one) that I am!
Who will deliver me from this body of death?
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

God Encounters

This past week was comprised of our third annual trip to CFO camp. (For the curious cats who want to know what that is go here to the camp association or here to learn about the founder.) I joined in this tradition as a staff member of House of His Creation, and go to family camp with all our girls is what we do the last week of June.

The summary is:
YEAR ONE 2006:
Seasoned campers: participating in exuberant praising, worshipping, speaking in tongues, dancing, praising some more making friends, reacquainting with old ones
Me: watching from the outside in, thinking, "is this exprsssion and emotion ok? It looks awesome, but seriously"; gingerly accepting all the enthusiastic welcome, keeping track of our grumpy girls and encouraging them to participate, and worshipping and learning right along with everyone else.

YEAR TWO 2007:
Seasoned campers: see year one only add in one formerly grumpy resident who is attending of her own free will just after graduation from our program and from high school
Me: worshipping, praising some more, making friends, reacquainting with old ones, keeping track of this years residents and seeking to keep the bad boys away from them, learning to recognize when God speaks directly to me and receiving some specific, amazing prophetic prayer as a result.

YEAR THREE 2008:
Seasoned campers: see year one...once again including the same resident who is attending in joy seeking God and His refuge from the crush of daily life as she knows it
Me: I will never be the same. Prayers said throughout all my Christian life came together in a few short days..."show me your glory", "break me so you can use me", "set me free from this body of sin"...I'm sure there are others, but the precedence to the freedom and release included not only the last week of fighting some intense warfare and losing some of those battles, but also weeks and months of teaching on grace and the Holy Spirit and my position in Christ. I can never do justice to what has changed in me this week. I could rewrite this post a huindred times and still be frustrated at how I cannot portray God. The best summary I can come up with at present is that when I, you, get to the place where you are flat on your face before God....yes, literally, telling Him it is all too much and you simply cannot, you are in a better place than you have ever been.

This past week deepened my perspective on community, accountability, the arts in worship, sovereignty, and freedom in Christ. I will have to come back to some of those individually. My mind and soul are still absorbing it all. God meets us in our everyday. Not a shocking statement....but how often do we truly see all the nuances of His presence? His sound? His feel? Yes, even His smell? So until I am anointed with eloquence or just honesty, enjoy some pictures and pray that, as promised, "He will complete what HE has begun in me."

Oh yes...and all three girls with us this year participated with ease and enjoyment.

Echoes of Eden

9.11.08
1.24pm
An old draft...
no idea it intent or the original inpsiration...
thought about cumpling it into wad for the trash....
final thought at the end.

"Cursed is the strong one
who depends on mere humans,
Who thinks he can make it on muscle alone
and sets God aside as dead weight.
He's like a tumbleweed on the prairie,
out of touch with the good earth.
He lives rootless and aimless
in a land where nothing grows.

But blessed is the man who trusts me, God,
the woman who sticks with God.
They're like trees replanted in Eden,
putting down roots near the rivers—
Never a worry through the hottest of summers,
never dropping a leaf,
Serene and calm through droughts,
bearing fresh fruit every season.

The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful,
a puzzle that no one can figure out.
But I, God, search the heart
and examine the mind.
I get to the heart of the human.
I get to the root of things.
I treat them as they really are,
not as they pretend to be.

Like a cowbird that cheats by laying its eggs
in another bird's nest
Is the person who gets rich by cheating.
When the eggs hatch, the deceit is exposed.
What a fool he'll look like then!

From early on your Sanctuary was set high,
a throne of glory, exalted!
O God, you're the hope of Israel.
All who leave you end up as fools,
Deserters with nothing to show for their lives,
who walk off from God, fountain of living waters—
and wind up dead!

God, pick up the pieces.
Put me back together again.
You are my praise!"

God still sees past the fig leaves.

jesus rescue me

Well, sometimes my life just don't make sense at all
When the mountains look so big and my faith just seems so small
So hold me Jesus, 'cause I'm shaking like a leaf
You have been King of my glory
Won't You be my Prince of Peace

And I wake up in the night and feel the dark
It's so hot inside my soul I swear there must be blisters on my heart
So hold me Jesus, 'cause I'm shaking like a leaf
You have been King of my glory
Won't You be my Prince of Peace

Surrender don't come natural to me
I'd rather fight You for something I don't really want
Than to take what You give that I need
And I've beat my head against so many walls
Now I'm falling down, I'm falling on my knees

And this Salvation Army band Is playing this hymn
And Your grace rings out so deep It makes my resistance seem so thin
So hold me Jesus, 'cause I'm shaking like a leaf
You have been King of my glory
Won't You be my Prince of Peace

You have been King of my glory
Won't You be my Prince of Peace

- rich mullins

Jesus I need you to be bigger than me today.
Break these chains that hold me down.
Trade my selfishness for the life of Your Spirit
Increase my passion for you.
Let it outweigh everything else.