November 7, 2014
I haven't posted for awhile... I was doing my devotions this morning and just felt led that instead of writing something new, to share what has been going on the past month or so... So we'll see how far I get before I need to actually go get other stuff done ;)
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Monday Oct. 13, 2014
Not sure where to begin today. The past weekend has been such a whirlwind of activity that today's quiet and rest has come a little bit as a shock. Although I typically don't like working nights since it takes time from being with Jason, I am thankful for the rest of today.
Feels like a small victory has been won with my success at the pottery show this weekend. Head is full of new dreams and ideas and I am eager to start my own little business of whimsy and wonder. Just not sure on the timing and place just yet.
Today's lesson is on servanthood and I feel I am too scattered and too deficient to think of serving at Your side in Your kingdom. Jason and I have missed two Sundays between Grandpa's funeral and the show and Jason will be missing of all of October from Gravitate and me most of it. I feel I have been less focused on being and more focused on doing - but suddenly excited about new possibilities and new futures. I could be very happy owning our own little shop of whimsy!!
So I feel my brain is not at all on Your kingdom or the good of the people who truly make it up. Today's opening prayer seems very appropros then...
"Our God, Sovereign Lord and master of all creation, in this hour let us hear again your call, always inviting us to serve by your side in your kingdom work. Equip us, Lord to serve you well, in the spirit and power of Christ. Amen."
And today's reading in the gospel: John 13:1-11 about Christ washing Peter's feet also encourages me to sit back. Settle in. Be filled. And trust You to move in and through me to accomplish Your will.
My feet are heavy Father - caked with the concern and worries of world - chief of which my worries that I cannot (and will not) get all of this right. That I will screw something up irrevocably and regret it all my life... in the very least - for awhile.
"Thus, the most practical wisdom any of us can grow, and the perennial reason for religion, is the strength to love life in the face of death, to respond 'amen' to our history." - John Carmody, How to Make it Through the Day
"Lord, not just my feet - but my hands and my head!"
"The one who has bathed does not need to wash except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean."
Wash my feet Lord of my worries and fears driven by my inability to control all things, my inability to see all things my inability to be all things... My inability to be You.
Help me to surrender that burden over to You who can see all things, can do all things, can fix all things, and works out all things to good - even if I do notunderstand how.
Forgive me Father of my doubts and fears and distrations and wash me clean. Help me to trust that You will handle it all. Equip me and show me Lord how I might best serve You and Your kingdom to Your glory. Amen.
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October 15, 2014
Woke up this morning with nowhere specific I needed to be at a certain time and nothing very pressing I needed to do... And it felt marvelous. Soaking in some of the quiet before the urgent "Go, Go, Go" voice starts again.
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October 23, 2014
Been having a hard time lately. Head is full of many dark things. Could be because we are considering a night in discussion on the sex slave trade at Gravitate and I have always had a particularly hard time with that topic... not because it deeply disturbs me - though it does - but because I also have a morbid curiosity that disturbs me more. Why do men do what they do? What are they thinking when they are confronted with a room of broken, tired, crying girls - are they completely untouched? Do the girls fight - and if they do - does that just anger the men? Is it better if they don't fight? And if they don't - then is the pay off for not fighting worth it?
Maybe they threaten hurt or harm to the other girls you are close to if you are a fighter.
That would probably do me in if I were a fighter... I guess I just have a hard time imagining a world where that is your life and there is no escape... But I feel lie many of these girls come from lives/cultures where they are almost raised to expect there will never be an escape from that kind-of abuse.
I feel like today's readings are tailored to my fears and my thoughts. Not to direct me away from them - which is probably more my hope - but to approach them from another angle.
Psalm 139 reminds me that in my deepest fears and darkness - my wonderings that are linked to my worries: what if it were me in that place - that even there You are with me. That nothing could separate me from You - and that in that darkness I could ask of You to provide me Your Word and Your presence so that I could be light and hope even in a place as dark and hopeless as that.
The reading about silence reminds me that in my consuming chatter about all of this that I need to be still and quiet before You - to meditate on You - to consume my thoughts with You if I hope to escape the darkness of my own brain.
Acts 9:10-18 urges me to go even where I am afraid. To be like Ananias - a willing servant even if it feels like I'm walking into a trap - to set the captive free - to remove the sales off of people's eyes - to bring them to restoration even if their stories seem to be impossible stores of redemption.
Father - I do know not what You would have me do - or where You would have me go - but I want to be a willing vessel. Help my heart to be open and receptive. To go where You ask me to go. To be filled with You to overflowing where ever I am - and to be broken and spilled out if that is what You ask. None of us is truly broken - Christ was already broken for us - and though everything about us may break - physically, emotionally, mentally - there is a part of us that no man - no demon - no ruler of power or authority can break in us... If God is for us, who could stand against us? You have hidden me away inside of You and to You I may always fly. In this world you will have trouble - but take heart - I have overcome the world.
Let me be still before You Lord. Help me to be still before You and be filled to overflowing with Your presence. Amen.
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November 3, 2014
I come to Your Word hungry today. It feels like my life has been full of many things and I have not been wanting to come to You - but feel that I am starving for some light - some hope - some life - some good.
I do not feel like a decent follower Father - a decent person - but a poor excuse for one. Running from one side of my life to the other like a hamster in a cage and I am frustrated with You but feel too... incapable? too... empty handed to really pursue change.
What do I need?
What do I want?
I don't think I can honestly answer those questions but I find they always drive me back here. Back to You. Looking for the answers.
I feel that would be a good thing were the answers easily there...
But first the clamor of so many more unanswered questions must fall silent and be put to rest before I hear You clearly at all... and then dimly - as one sees through a veiled mirror.
Why can't things be clearer?
Simpler?
Less murky?
I feel You leave too many holes for us to figure out - too many inefficiencies and cracks where all my doubts and insecurities come flooding through and drown out all that You are trying to establish and build in my life.
It's like the foundation is there - I need only to believe in it - but it wavers in time with my inconsistencies and is no foundation at all.
Give me faith that of a mustard seed that I might believe at all!
Give me life that I might truly live!
Freedom that I might truly breathe.
Fill me up Father - leave me not destitute and empty and desperate.
Have pity upon me grasping onto anything that seems to give my life form - even if it is shapeless and meaningless - and love me anyways.
I am here this morning because I have no where else to go - and I do not know where You will take me... only that I am looking for something to follow.
You promise life. You promise new beginnings. You promise good. You promise so many things that I am not sure I believe in - but I am hoping in because I am looking for something Father. Something to believe in to help me put one foot in front of the other. To exist without dying only... to be able to have life...
I need more than what I have now and I do not even know what I need.
But help me Father - if You can - if You will - if You are there - Help me Father to find it. Perhaps in You? But Somewhere.
Amen.
