Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transparent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world. ~ Sara Ban Breathnach
Each week I end worship by saying: The Living Christ wants you to take him from this space into life "out there". He wants/he encourages you to laugh and to love and then to laugh some more. To listen and to learn. To have opinions AND to respect the opinions of others. To be honest. To do little things like saying, "Please" and "Thank You." To be a friend. But most importantly to be the unique and gifted child you were each created to be.
This morning, I've read my devotions and a few pages in Ann's book, but.... that's about as much as my mind will hold at the moment. I think this is one of those times Jesus is asking/encouraging me to "Laugh"....
I am with you in all that you do, even in the most menial task, I am always aware of you, concerned with every detail of your life... Sarah Young, Jesus Calling
I discovered this video yesterday and I sat.... I watched.... I listened.... I pondered.....
Sarah uses scripture to write her devotions as though Jesus himself is speaking to me. Today she continues saying:
Nothing escapes My notice - not even the number of hairs on your head. However, your awareness of My Presence falters and flickers; as a result, your life experience feels fragmented. When your focus is broad enough to include Me in your thoughts, you feel safe and complete. When your perception narrows so that problems or details fill your consciousness, you feel empty and incomplete.
Learn to look steadily at me in all your moments and all your circumstances. Though the world is unstable and in flux, you can experience continuity through your uninterrupted awareness of My Presence. Fix your gaze on what is unseen, even as the visible world parades before your eyes.
The question in the video, "Would you have come that night.... do I have room...?
I've been working through Ann's book and asking where God is in these hard eucharisteo moments.... moments that seem to be unending.
My mom sharing the plight of two life long friends who are in nursing homes....wondering "Why" as their bodies fail them yet they remain here. Why....
A woman I will be visiting later today who lost her grip on "life" many years ago and now lies in a hospital bed with a questionable diagnosis on life.
A young man and his family with whom I will pray with today who wants to be a vital part of society, but because of an accident faces yet one more surgery today...
Brunch with a wonderful group of women, who each holds the reality that their bodies are no longer 30, loved ones are experiencing difficulties in health, time, questions....
Four young women who have my heart and who each hold unbelievable tensions, questions, schedules....and I am helpless to help....
OMG....I sound like Job!
Before I leave today I think I will read through God's response to Job for when I read Job, not in terms of human suffering but in terms of the limits of my understanding, I am reminded.... I am reassured that:
Nothing escapes My notice...Learn to look steadily at Me in all your moments and all your circumstances...Fix your gaze on what is unseen, even as the visible world parades before your eyes.
I have been holding on to this image for weeks. Besides reading Job before I leave today, I think I may print this out and put it on the dash of my car...just as a reminder.
Unlike the Job character, I know the rest of the story....
I so appreciate this song by Faith Hill, A Baby Changes Everything. It, like all these images I have included today remind me that Jesus is Emmanuel...God WITH me.....
This video reminds me that we have romanticized the nativity story. I journaled a few days ago that there would have been pain, tears, uncertainty, loss.... by those who gave of themselves to be used so that God could come and live among us. Lord! Help me to embrace the truth that you are within and between all that I see, all that I hold, all that I carry..... Lord, through the power of your Spirit, help me to give thanks in the circumstances I will be carrying this day.....AMEN!
That which seems evil, is it a cloud to bring rain, to bring a greater good to the whole of the world? Who would ever know the greater graces of comfort and perseverance, mercy and forgiveness, patience and courage, if no shadows fell over a life?
Ann continues to read through her cards containing verses of scripture:
See now that I, I am He, and there is no god besides Me; It is I who put to death and give life. I have wounded and it is I who heals... ~ Deuteronomy 32:39
Ann writes that these words reconfigure the battle field under her feet.
I grip the card and I know all our days are struggle and warfare (Job 14:14) and that the spirit-to-spirit combat I endlessly wage with Satan is this ferocious thrash for joy. He sneers at all the things that seem to have gone hideously mad in this sin-drunk world, and I gasp to say God is good.
Jesus said, "Your eye is a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is good, your whole body is filled with light. But when your eye is bad, your whole body is filled with darkness. And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, deep that darkness is!" (Matthew 6:22-23)
Today I read with horror the story of a father who attached a tire jack to his 2 y.o. daughter's car seat and then threw her/car seat and all into a river....she was awake.
I've a two y.o. grandson....
I wanted to scream.... but to whom? ..... to what?
Ann believes that if Satan can keep her eyes from the Word, her eyesight is too poor to read the light - to fill with light.
Bad eyes fill with darkness so heavy the soul aches because empty is never truly empty; empty is only a full, deepening darkness. So this is what it has to be. Eve in the Garden, Satan's hiss tickling the ear, 'Did God actually say...?'
You know, I have been raised in the church. I grew up attending Sunday School, Youth Group, Young Adult classes....until I began teaching classes myself. Yet, I continue to be amazed, and somewhat alarmed, by how little I know and how much there is still to learn, to study, to reflect upon....
I sometimes wonder if that is one of the weaknesses of the Church today.... this spiritual illiteracy that I feel within myself and notice in many others.
The world around me is dark! It is much darker than I even realize because I live within its darkness. I have been lulled into "thinking" I see, that I know the Light....
It is so easy to become a lazy Child of God.
Holding all that has gone wrong in her life and within the life of others, Ann writes:
Not using anything to bend the light of this world so I can read my own messy days? Spray on another layer of graffiti; worthless.
So, I have been ambushed.
Without God's Word as a lens, the world warps.
Ann slips her scripture card back into her pocket, thus "slipping on her glasses."
Sigh.....
I'm stepping through the season of Advent. I'm reading stories I have heard all my life! I "know" these stories so well, I don't even need the Bible to tell these stories.
Yet, after all my Advent seasons, this Advent I am wondering if I "know" the main character of the story as well as I know his story?
I am grateful for authors like AnnVoskamp, Joyce Rupp, Phil Gulley, Eugene Peterson....and so many others who challenge me to continually check my eyesight.... to continually challenge me to ask hard questions.....
At the same time, I am grateful for my parents and grandparents, for Sunday School teachers and professors, for friends and for those joining me on my journey. I am grateful because through them and within them I have the hope and the courage to pause and look hard in the mirror....
In other words, it is taking an entire village to raise this Child of God! : )
"Surely the Lord is in this place and I was not aware of it!" ~ Genesis 28:11-16
: ) My congregation is becoming a bit edgy. They want to sing Christmas carols and I am doing my best to resist the pressure to please and to sit within this season of Advent. Advent, is the time of waiting, of watching, of seeking. In some ways it is an uncomfortable place to be, waiting.... I'm not surprised these good people want to skip over this time of waiting and jump right into the glory and excitement of Christmas.
Still, we are called to be still, to be patient, to watch.... To be like Jacob and discover that the Lord is in this place!
Sarah Young writes in Jesus Calling,
"His discovery was not only for him but for all who seek Me. Whenever you feel distant from Me, say: 'Surely the Lord is in this place!' Then, ask Me to give you awareness of My Presence. This is a prayer that I delight to answer."
In Chapter 5, Ann writes of her son's injury and her own struggles during this time. She gives Levi two Tylenol and then goes looking for medicine of her own which is in the form of cards with Bible verses.
Surely, just as I have intended so it has happened, and just as I have planned so it will stand. Isaiah 14:24 (NASB)
A good God plans everything. EVERYTHING. So a good God can only...make plans for good? He only gives good gifts? A thing of evil cannot be created by a good God?(Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts, p 88)
(groan....)
Such a question to hold on a Monday morning!
It is still black as ink outside. The light from my lamps cast shadows when it hits my chair.... Ann reflects that a shadow is an empty space, a hole in the light.
Evil is all that lacks the goodness of God, a willful choice to turn away from the full goodness of God to that empty of His goodness.
All God makes is good. Can it be that, that which seems to oppose the will of God actually is used of Him to accomplish the will of God? That which seems evil only seems so because of perspective, the way the eyes see the shadows. Above the clouds, light never stops shining.(Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts, p 88)
Still, what perspective sees good in a child suffering abuse, a young mother dying of cancer, a violent storm that claims lives...
The sun is just beginning to rise and faint light is coming through my blinds. Light is pushing out the darkness that has surrounded me. Julian of Norwich wrote:
See that I am God. See that I am in everything. See that I do everything. See that I have never stopped ordering my works, nor ever shall, eternally. See that I lead everything on to the conclusion I ordained for it before time began, by the same power, wisdom and love with whivh I made it. How can anything be amiss?
Perspective.
How I see.
Ann holds similar thoughts and remembers the death of her baby sister. She sees the tombstone in her mind's eye...
I won't shield God from my anguish by claiming He's not involved in the ache of this world and Satan prowls but he's a lion on a leash and the God who governs all can be shouted at when I bruise, and I can cry and I can howl and He embraces the David-hearts who pound hard on His heart with their grief and I can moan deep that He did this - and He did.' (Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts, p 89)
Perspective.
I don't know. I struggle with Ann's thought that "God does...." Yet, to disagree takes power away from an Almighty God.
Yesterday we read Chapters 38-41 in Job. Reading Job has been a blessing, an eye opening experience...a challenge to my perspective.
In Chapter 38 God finally responds to Job and quiets Job's friends with the direct question:
2 “Who is this that obscures my
plans
with words without knowledge?
If I read Job as a book that tells of human suffering, God's response is cold and harsh. However, I have learned that reading Job as a story that tells of the limits of human understanding, changes my perspective.
In Chapter 42 Job humbly responds:
2 “I know that
you can do all things; no
purpose of yours can be thwarted. 3 You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without
knowledge?’ Surely I
spoke of things I did not understand, things
too wonderful for me to know.
Ann writes she can feel God holding her as she expresses her grief, like a flailing child tired in her Father's arms as he whispers in her ear:
Are your ways My ways, child. Can you eat My manna, sustain on My mystery? Can you believe that I tenderly, tirelessly work all for the best good of the whole world - because My flame of love for you can never, ever be quenched?
Sometimes, Ann writes, we need time to answer the hard eucharisteo and I cannot disagree. Some times, the darkness is to dark and I cannot see the light chasing the shadows. Still, during this season of Advent I am encouraged to wait, to seek, to be still......
The season of Advent prepares my heart once again to be open to the truth that God loved me so much that he was willing to come and live in my midst....Emmanuel. When I can fully embrace this truth, then the eyes of my heart are opened and I see in a new way..... My perspective has been changed.....
I smile as I considered her words and insight on the word "HOPE."
I thought how some of my posts recently have felt a bit dark as I journal through Ann Voskamp's book, One Thousand Gifts. Yet, I believe it is my strong sense of Hope that enables me to have the courage to sit with some of these difficult questions.
So, in the spirit of my Radical Ramblings Sister, this morning I am not cracking Ann's book, I am simply smiling and enjoying the Hope of this Advent Season.
I am celebrating that Hope because within this Hope, I know Joy, Love, and Peace.
The woods spell out words. I need a lens to read them. Every dark woods has words. And every moment is a message from The Word-God who can't stop writing His heart. ~ Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts
I just happened upon this video today...and was touched. It spoke to the busyness and the chaos that is so much a part of my world... The "stuff" that is part of my world, yet I often simply "walk through blindly."
A couple of years ago I had cataract surgery on both. Now, this surgery was SUPPOSED to remove the cataracts AND give me perfect vision, something I had not enjoyed since pre-school days.
It didn't.
The surgeon made mistakes and for months I struggled with poor eyesight until I finally canned the surgeon and returned to my original optometrist. She immediately diagnosed the problem and put contacts in my eyes. I can still remember my excitement. I even called the optometrist's office to exclaim, "I can see the numbers on license plates!!!"
Ann shares a similar story of asking her dad why anyone would bother putting a sign up in their woods if no one could make out the words.
She was taken to see an optometrist. and the next time she went past the woods she saw the words "as clear as a bell and I read them plain:
Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. (Acts 16:31 KJV)
The woods spell out words. I need a lens to read them. Every dark woods has words. And every moment is a message from The Word-God who can't stop writing His heart. But who can read His messages?
These few sentences caused me to stop and consider.
Just recently I listened to, what I labeled as "horrific" stories, of some individuals and families.
A fourth grader who had heart surgery this week and will need ANOTHER halo screwed into his head in 2012 to correct something about how his head does/does not grow.
A young mother given a few months to live.
A young man facing another surgery to correct injuries from an accident....a surgery that promises to be painful but does not promise to offer relief.
If God is writing His heart in the world, what do these words spell out?
I've been reading the book of Job. In 33:13-14 one of Job's friends say:
God is far greater than any human.So how dare you haul him into court, and then
complain that he won't answer your charges?God always answers, one way or another, even
when people don't recognize his presence. (MSG)
1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the
skies proclaim the work of his hands. 2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night
after night they reveal knowledge. 3 They have no speech, they use no words; no sound
is heard from them. (NIV)
Hebrews 4:12...God's words making a careful incision into a life, blade words that kindly cut the tissue back to where soul and spirit join, tenderly laying bare the intents of the heart:
God's word is alive and working and is sharper than a
double-edged sword. It cuts all the way into us, where the soul and the spirit
are joined, to the center of our joints and bones. And it judges the thoughts
and feelings in our hearts. (NCV)
Yesterday, I was frustrated trying to figure something out. One of my daughters jokingly said, "Mom, there should be an 'App for that'."
This morning I am wondering, "Is there an App for all the pain I hear and see?"
Considering all the words written in the world, Ann to wondered how to deal with the pain in her own life, in the lives of others.
I hold the medicine bottle, but have I found pills for the pain?
To read His message in moments, I'll need to read His passion on the page; wear the lens of the Word, to read His writing in the world. Only the Word is the answer to rightly reading the world, because TheWord has nail-scarred hands that cup our face close, wipe away the tears running down, has eyes to look deep into our brimming ache, and whisper, 'I know, I know.' The passion on the page is a Person, and the lens I wear of the Word is not abstract idea but the eyes of the God-Man who came and knows the pain. (Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts, p 87)
Some heavy thoughts for me to consider and hold this morning.
Good Morning America is on and I can hear about words regarding devastating winds, war, economy.... I wonder, "How does the Word read the world?"
