It seems that everything is changing, now.  Life is never stagnant.  It's exciting and scary at the same time. There are choices and no clear answers, yet.  I want to know.  To understand.

  So I'm waiting. Trying to stay grounded, focused and in prayer.

"I once thought, "I would like to feel the contours of these times with my fingertips." I was sitting at my desk with no idea what to make of life...And then I was suddenly flung into one of many flashpoints of human suffering.  And there, in the faces of people, in a thousand gestures,small changes of expression, life stories, I was suddenly able to read our age....Surrounded by my writers and poets and the flowers on my desk I loved life...There was simply one great, meaningful whole. Will I be able to describe all that one day? So that others can feel too how lovely and worth living and just-yes, just-life really is?"

-From Etty Hillesum: An Interrupted Life the Diaries, 1941-1943 and Letters from Westerbork 

Life is always beautiful, I'm learning.  It may not always be pleasant.  It may not always be entirely clear which direction it will go but when broken down into moments, moments of just cleaving, and when one knows that 'great, meaningful whole', there can be a peace and even a new view of tragedy, a sort of hushed acceptance.

My natural reaction, in times like these, is to isolate, go inward and shy from the unknown.  But I find I'm not doing that.  I'm open and waiting for what God has to bring.  I'm seeing that He sees me and that it's okay.

I was reading John 4 today, struck by the fact that Jesus, when He spoke to the Samaritan woman, immediately exposed her sin. Candidly, matter-of- factly but leaving out judgement.  It seems like judgement was not His purpose.  Rather, He wanted her to know that He knew her.

How often does this scene play out between Jesus and me?  How often does He ask something of me and I respond that I can not give, given who He is and who I am ( or am not).  And He says, "Well, ask of me then and I will give to you...so that you will know, then, how to give." And He shows me that He knows exactly who I really am here on earth.  What I have done, or what I have not done.  And contends that, still, He is offering Himself to me.

The Living Water flows and it is mine to take, to never thirst again.

Teresa of Avila, in Interior Castle, says that, "It is no small pity, and should cause us no little shame, that, through our own fault, we do not understand ourselves, or know who we are. Would it not be a sign of great ignorance...if a person were asked who he was and could not say..."

She speaks of our souls and the lack of care we give to them, that our bodies are where we place most of our interest rather than on the inner man.  And how true this is. I know who I am because I know Who created me and Who lives within me.  I cannot know the future but I can know that God knows me intimately and loves me and blesses me and this means everything.  It means that in the midst, of all I never thought would happen, I can come here and share, still, because I am known.




-new beginnings
-being known, being seen
-opportunities
-time to write
-revelation
-flowers on a desk
-birds chirping
-snoring dog
-treasures every where
-courage given


With Ann because it's Monday

There is an opportunity here to grow.  Will I take it?  Can I take it - this pressure building?  I taste choices here, questions and know somehow that there are answers which are more right than others, though the question is not a trick.  I want sometimes, someone else to answer the question so I reword it and pose it, when it is within. I want to take it out, give the responsibility to someone else.  Because the consequences scare me on both sides.  I'm afraid to listen.  To be called upon.  To heed the call.  Sometimes there's no easy answer.  Sometimes waiting is hard.  So I kind of dance around the truth, not seeing the Truth dance over me.  And the opportunity is lofty, high and I don't know if I can reach.  But I guess it's just climbing.  One foot in front of the other. Day by day.

I'm not entirely sure what I can at this point in my life - this very immediate point - bring to the table or even what table I'm attempting to bring something to.

Really, what I'm doing is prayerfully coming here because my heart is wildly experiencing something so brand new and it seems that maybe if I work it out here, something will come of it.

I have said that, for me, the thirties have brought into my life an element that I had not expected and maybe this is all the more true at this very moment.  Because I am working out a new identity.  And at the same time, asking God to be the one to work that identity out.  And honestly, it's scary.

There was something very safe and comforting about the practice of contentment and quiet submission in my twenties.  And now suddenly I find myself single but with children. This is not a slight thing.  Because without the marriage part of mothering, a giant piece of what a woman has attempted to attain is now under question.  Of course, my job as a mother is the same.  But with the housewife role stripped, this woman within, flounders a bit for herself.  And this, may be one huge reason against divorce.  It is unnatural to the way of things in a family setting.  And yet it is what it is.  And here I am, mapping out this new course.  Somehow.  I'm barely touching the surface of it all because my mind has barely touched the surface of it all.

If the husband is to be the head of the household, the manifestation, in a way, of Christ's love for his wife (even if this was an unsuccessful endeavor) and he is then gone, then in many ways woman is now face to face with the real Christ and there is the Lord's face, asking the woman a question.

How can it be that I felt for so many years, that I was already walking alone with Christ and now that I truly am, feel that I must not have been, then before?  Marriage served as a protection.  Faulty, but there in its own sort of way.  And now I totter, here, ungrounded, the world beckoning in its beguiling way as never before, the Lord in His quiet manner offering peace which surpasses all understanding.  My flesh has risen to its occasion, if only with temptation and I feel compelled to say that Every Woman's Battle is not every woman's battle until it is.  And I am not merely talking about sexual temptation.  I am talking about the cry of the spirit to hide until these storms have passed and the skin prickling with whispers of freedom, forgetting that it is the truth which truly liberates.

I feel that as a Christian writer, my work will never be the same.  That there will be more than ever, many who must turn their face as I speak, the words unable to penetrate, the experiences I have to offer, unrelatable to many.  But still, I must write. Bring this struggle and its beauty to life on page and that requires a raw honesty that in actuality loses audience.

Brand new idols are showing their face,begging for worship and I have to choose, hourly now who I will serve.  I also have to be willing to confess that this is the case. That new territory is being trudged and that though I know where my help comes from, there are times my hand reaches toward a mirage or a mirror.

And maybe, if I can bring this fight in its authenticity to this small table, in a minor way and with few gritty details but at least the essence, then I, myself, will find sustenance and perhaps, just perhaps, if it is God's will, one woman might find some little thing here which brings her closer to her Maker.

The view from my backyard:  Beauty can always be found.

"We see more than we can say.  The trees stand like guards of the Everlasting."

!

"How could we have lived in the shadow of greatness and defied it?"

-From Man's Quest for God by Abraham Joshua Heschel

Wordless Wednesday

I have not wanted to come here.

But then I read this.  So, I try.

I have thought that this new life phase might mean the end of this one here.  Because in the midst of a marital separation which looks to be permanent, I'm catapulted right out of the Christian mommy blog world - I feel. At least,hurled away from any housewife claim or title. So, I am an average what? now?

And what am I to say?  Here?

But....

"The language of religion is the vehicle of collective experience and it is meaningful only when it speaks of experience and addresses itself to experience." - Dorothee Soelle

I've tried very hard to be real even if at times I insisted on vagueness. And so, now, though thoughts are plenty, there's not much I feel I can liberally express.  Except that, though one major piece of who I am has changed, the whole of who I am is still hid in Christ.  I am admitting, confessing even, that the piece that's been shorn feels like a very big deal in terms of writing as a Christian.  Not writing, in general, because elsewhere, I've been free to do that therapeutic, dark writing to work it out.  But here, I had established a sort of something that I wanted and was true to its time.  But it's all different now.

I want to speak as a Romanticist rather than a Realist but idealism gives way to how things are and so require a different language.  I'm learning it.  But I'm also steadfastly holding to my first love.  Trying not to anticipate His body as my final judge and just hold fast instead to unconditional love.

So there you have it.  A big confession.  And maybe I am still to come here.  At least, for today.

And I am still thankful:

- for knowing where to turn
- for knowing the author of my salvation
-for strength and honesty
-poetry, brilliant by True and Annika
-protection
-for children who still can somehow laugh because I can still somehow laugh
-the gift of teaching children
-friends who call because they care
-the babies learning Spanish from Dora - ha!
-the tools of recovery
-other's words which have helped me through
-the Word
 

That I will know

"Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb ¹² and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

 ¹³ They asked her, “Woman,^[a] why are you crying?”

   “They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” ¹⁴ At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

 ¹⁵ He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

   Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

 ¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Mary.” John 20:10-16 (TNIV)

On Sunday, testimonies were given.  One woman shared that like Mary Magdalene, her Jesus had been dead. She said, she had grown up in a religion which left Jesus on the cross and that eventually, she realized that she no longer believed.  Until she heard Jesus speak her name. Not literally, not audibly; but discernibly and she knew that He was alive. 

I shared yesterday, that I have struggled with doubt, that I have felt the emptiness, the loneliness of unanswered prayers.  Of a Jesus who seems absent at best and dead or nonexistent in the worst moments.

But, too, I have heard my name spoken by the one who is closer than a brother. And might it be that like Mary, there have been times, even, when I face Him and I don't recognize Him. When I weep, not realizing He is standing before me.

"Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles^[a] from Jerusalem. ¹⁴ They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. ¹⁵ As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; ¹⁶ but they were kept from recognizing him.

 ¹⁷ He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?”

   They stood still, their faces downcast. ¹⁸ One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days?”

   ¹⁹ “What things?” he asked.

   “About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. ²⁰The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; ²¹ but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place.²² In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning ²³ but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. ²⁴ Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.”

 ²⁵ He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! ²⁶ Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?”²⁷ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

 ²⁸ As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. ²⁹ But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them.

 ³⁰ When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. ³¹ Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. ³² They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

 ³³ They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together ³⁴and saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” ³⁵ Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread. Luke 24:13-35(TNIV)

Not recognizing him, still they urged him to stay with them.  Communing with him, their eyes were open and after his departure they realized they should have known Him.  "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us...and opened the Scriptures to us?"  So it is with us.  Often we experience this heart burning and credit it not to the Source.  It is not until later we realize.  

In Mark 16:12-13 the same story says,   "Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country."

So though God is the same yesterday as today, could it be that because He can take on different forms sometimes we are so caught up looking for Him as He appeared to us in the past that we miss Him in the  present?

I pray the eyes of my heart will be open. That I will sit at the table He has invited me to and commune with Him.  That as Jesus' body was broken, and as He continues to break bread with me, to open the Scriptures to me, that the Word might come alive in my heart and my soul and that I will know that it is with Him that I daily walk.

He is risen!

At service last night, our pastor read from the Bible about the Last Supper. Today, I can't seem to find the specific version or gospel he read from but I thought I heard the words, 'Jesus looked at them'. And then it seems my mind finished that sentence with the words,  'with compassion' which is apparently somewhere else in scripture... but I think God knew that's what I needed to hear.  What I needed to take away from the sermon. This idea of Jesus looking at those he loved with compassion, knowing the pain he was about to endure but feeling their coming pain as well.  He knew he would soon be crucified.  That he would be placed in a tomb... and that it was going to look very bleak, very dark and very hopeless.

"It was just before the Passover Feast.  Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father.  Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love." -John 13:1 NIV

He then washes their feet, which is symbolic of the cleansing which we receive by accepting Him, made possible only by His sacrifice.  It shows, too, His servant's heart and is a lesson to us as to how we are to love.

But beyond this, I can imagine Jesus showering those He loved with His love, knowing full well the agony they were to endure in the next few days. He knew that they would feel abandoned and hopeless.  That they would doubt.  They would now question if He was who He said He was.

 I can sometimes identify with that hopelessness. That desperate plea of, "I want so much for you to be who you say you are."

There have been times in my life where I have thought, "God. I need you to be real. But I just don't know if you are."

These times come when to my weak eyes, all seems dark. And I'm not feeling his presence. I'm not getting answers.  The way ahead does not seem clear.  And so there's this need.  This emotion which becomes a prayer offered up out of hope, out of obedience: "I have  hinged my whole life on Your existence and Your truth. I am nothing without You. Oh, God, please be real."  

Jesus knew His disciples would experience something similar. He knows beforehand when I will.  But He also knew that right when it looked the darkest, and as if all hope was lost, He would rise victoriously.  He knew that the darkness was necessary for the miracle.  For the healing.  The Resurrection.

He tells them as plainly as He can.

 He says, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in me...I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to where I am going." John 14: 1,4 NIV.

 And his disciples debate him. Thomas basically says, "Uh, no we don't."

Jesus answers, "Believe me when I say that I m in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least in the evidence of the miracles themselves."John 14:11 NIV

I hear him say to me, "Try and remember when it's dark what you've seen. The miracles I've performed in your life already."

"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you...Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." John 14:27 NIV

"Now I am going to him who sent me....  Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. But I tell you the truth:  it is for your good that I am going away....I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear." John 16:5-7,12

And again they don't get it.  And He goes to the cross. And is buried. And they doubt, and they seem to forget what He told them.

And I, too, can forget. I experience these dark times where I feel like it's hopeless. Like maybe I had it all wrong. And I forget what He's done for me in the past. That He left with me peace, That it is all for my good.  That He cannot reveal it all to me right now.

But today, the day after we celebrated His Resurrection, I am reminding myself of past miracles. I am resting in the knowledge of all He has told me in the past. I am trusting that anything which appears bleak can be conquered by Him who conquered the grave.


Favourite photo monday