Living in the Moment

Sometimes God requires some really sticky, itchy things of us. Like living in the moment. Living in the moment is essentially, I would say, willingness to lay it down and say "Ok God, I am not in control of today. I am not in control of the future. I am not even in control of the next five minutes." My therapist Deb often says that the only thing she can claim control of is her own bladder. Too much? Sorry.

During prayer last week, I heard Pastor Joel say something to the effect of "God gives us vision and I need to remember that even when He gives the vision it doesn't belong to me. It still belongs to Him and I need to be careful not to run away with it in." (my paraphrase).

This resonates with me because so often God gives me a passion and a vision and then I think it is up to me to work it out in my own way. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even more it is a call on me to rely on God and watch HIM put the pieces together. My call is to be 1) in prayer and 2) obedient so that when He asks me to do something, I am able to hear His voice and because I have been in prayer and willing to follow His voice.

Living in the present can be tricky because it is UNCOMFORTABLE. Pastor Dave is always talking about living in the tension. It is often easy to miss out on what God is doing in the present because we are so busy focusing on what happened to us in the past or fearing the future. Living in the tension means that we sit and take in that uncomfortable feeling - whether it be the tension of the unknown or the tension of the process "being in process" (the tension of transition) or the tension of not having answers other than the fact that God is God and that is enough. Tension can be good. Really good.

There is a lot of tension in my life right now. I think it was maybe three weeks ago that Pastor Mark talked about pain and discomfort and staying in it rather than running away from it because beautiful things are birthed from pain. I think this is true.

So here's to living in the moment. Cheers!

Stamp on My Life

You have placed a stamp on my life
And I am forever Yours
If we are the church and I am Your wife
I trust You to open all the doors

How can I ever run from Your eternal promise
How can I go back once You have laid claim to me?
No longer a wanderlust, no longer hit or miss
Can't claim death once You have claimed eternity

Centered on the way You never move
Pulling on Your faithfullness and truth
Wearing into Your words like a wheel into a groove
Releasing the foundations of my old youth

So tired of what used to be called fame
Beauty and accolades fall on exhausted ears
I can scarcely remember how to play the old game
Oh blessed, cathartic tears

Desperately I cling to You
No longer just an hour but a lifetime of need
I look at You to know what is true
Your plant. Your water. Your sunshine. Your seed.

The God-Breathed, God-Activated Adventure

I feel like this is worth re-posting today......as I shake my head again and wonder.

I suppose part  of me – a rather large part – assumed that I would come back to the states and get over it. “It” being that something tangible and intangible….I assumed that I would at some point grow away from my experience rather than continue to grow toward it.

I knew, of course, that I’d had an impactful experience (the impact being on me) in Thailand but part of me truly believed that the intensity of the experience would just diminish and I would go back to my life.

I guess when God messes us up…..He doesn’t let us get clean again so easily.

It has now been over a month since I got back from Thailand and the return to my everyday life has not yet happened. I feel more free-fallen and at odds with everything comfortable than I ever have in my life. I look in the mirror and the woman staring back at me is not the same woman who took off for Bangkok on February 9, 2012.

God has been teaching me a lot. Ok, that is a massive understatement. Over the past four weeks I have gone through the emotional and spiritual ringer. In a good way. I had thought that I was devoted to God before, and that I was in a pretty good place. He has humbled me in a thousand ways: showing me that there is always another, bigger, different side to Him. There will always be another part of my life to lay down to Him. There will always be new ways to depend on Him. Always and forever, until the day that I die.

I think that the point of short-term missions is to produce long-term results, and that looks different for every person. For me, I will never stop loving the people of Thailand with a fierceness that kind of scares me. I will continue to give parts of myself to God that I don’t want to give – that I don’t even want Him to see – that I don’t even want to admit that I have.

Today I am asking myself: What is this God-Breathed, God Activated Adventure on which I have gotten myself?

Let Your Heaven Live On Earth

 

This is the end of a lifetime of begging to be second rate

Of apologizing for things I didn’t do

For taking on more things than I can fit on my plate

Biting off more than I can chew

A lifetime of hiding behind other persons and things

And saying sorry just for being me

It boils and brews and I can hardly contain the anger it brings

My skin peels off of my face and suddenly there is somebody else who – before I just couldn’t see

How I’ve hidden my face to hide what you did to me

Why has it been all of this time that I have been so ashamed?

It’s you that should be hiding in misery

I am not the one to be blamed

Oh Abba I am just undone and totally, utterly, completely at the end of myself

How can I bemoan being healthy, sanctified and clean

A new beginning and a new perspective and feelings that I didn’t even know that I felt

Is this how it feels to be redeemed?

Sometimes all that it takes to see reality is to take the scales off of my own eyes

Why have I allowed the scales for so long?

Forgiveness is a double miracle – both for me and the ones I despise

To refuse to ask is the only way to go wrong

Oh Abba seal my heart and let me stand on Your head

That I may know my worth

Put my self-loathing and my shame to bed

Let Your Heaven live on earth.

Redemption Means Forgiveness? Really?

I hate you so much it is hard to breathe

And I don’t want to forgive you

Do you hear me? I hate you and I don’t want to forgive you.

I blame Adam and I blame Eve

Why should I forgive you? Why?

I know the age-old Christian reasoning and it falls so hollow on my ears

It is not like I don’t think about it and it’s not like I don’t try

I don’t have any deep wisdom. I have no wise words. I truly have nothing but hurt and tears.

My rage goes so deep and I don’t know if it can ever be soothed and released

Do you know how long it took me to admit that I was even angry?

I don’t even want to admit that you are a human being  - perhaps it is true that my dressed is wrinkled and my pants have never been creased

But at least I have not raped a child just for kicks and then pretended to be sanguine

Fuck you, dude. I wish you were deceased.

My Abba calls me to forgive me. He pulls at my heart and asks me to let it go

I fight and I writhe and I don’t want to forgive you.

I don’t even want to start. I don’t want to throw the initial throw

I want you to be miserable and locked up and everything else that you deserve for what you do.

Some things should never happen. Some things bring hell to earth

Pastors should never be rapists. Fact.

Little girls should never have love and joy and imagination replaced with dearth

Little girls should always be protected and not cracked.

Abba – here I am so full of rage

And not particularly apologetic about it or sorry

I have no idea what to do to put You and me on the same page

Redemption is birthed by forgiveness? Really? Fine. Then YOU are going to have to tell me a new story.

Wait and See

I twist and turn and my heart is divided
My passion is pitted against my fear
Was there ever a time in history when heaven and human collided?
Oh Lord, cause a curve in my heart that dies to be linear

If you call me I am sure I will answer....
Or will I find a way to pretend you never called?
I struggle and hid behind my own self-doubt and I'm certain it doesn't make this process go any faster
I'm terrified, Abba, that if You pull at my thread I will start to unwind and find out that I don't have a court or even a ball

What do You want from me? What do You want from me? What do You want from me?
I scream into the night
I try wrapping my mind around the idea that I must submit in order to be free
That first there was dark and then there was light

It is an old refrain, yet finds a way to be relevant and new
"I decrease so that He may increase."
I'm just not sure what to do
So that the tentacles of my old, worn-out plan will cease

Control is death to a growing sapling
And Lord, I want to be Your tree
I am really not sure what is happening
Lord, please give me the gift of "wait and see."

WHO AM I?

Who am I to say no to You?

Who am I to pretend that You fit into my life and not the other way around?

Who am I to think that I dictate what is true?

Who am I to think that I am the one who is crowned?

Oh, Abba, forgive me my foolish pride

You are so much bigger than I could have conceived even yesterday

I throw up my hands and admit that I am just along for the ride

Teach me to worship. Teach me to serve. Teach me to pray

If You want every last piece of me – down to the very last part of me that I didn’t even know I have

Lord – just take it.

Who am I to say You can’t love me that much? That You can’t restore me that way? That I’m not worth the lot You gave

Lord – I’m so humbled by Your greatness. Take my heart and just break it.

You pay such close attention to me and I know that it is me You came to save.

Out of the overflow of Your heart comes the overflow of my heart

And I long to be just more in step with You

How could I have come this far and still feel like I don’t know where to start?

Abba – teach me who to be – not just what to do.

Closing Time

Inside out I turn all of the factors around and around in my head

What did he say? What did she say? What does everybody around me think?
What would happen if I decided to look to You instead

I'll tell you what - it would look a whole lot more real - and this ship called denial would start to sink

Oh, Lord - tell me - how did I ever think that I knew You before today?

How did I ever think that You were so small?

How did I ever think that this is about whether I go or whether I stay?

Abiding in You is synonymous with responding to Your call

"Closing time. I don't have to go home but I can't stay here."

Sometimes the implications of obedience are a little more scary than anticipated

Yet the walk is not divided and the call is not unclear

It's just that my spirit is a little more berated

Oh, Lord - I'm not even sure I want to know

Anything beyond the next five minutes

I don't covet your script - this is Your show

You have the special ability to stretch me way beyond my limits

May I be simple in my request?

Never, never leave me

I cannot do this alone, not even at my best

If You promise to stay by my side, I won't beg You to leave me be.

Just Another Day

Is vulnerability and transparency fodder for ridicule?

The one who seeks to kill may not be very smart but he has the trick of repetition down very well

My old paradigms pound at my skull and bray at me with the stubbornness of a mule

When does the new become the normal? Shifting minds, shifting hearts, shifting spirit – only time will tell

My God is so big and His universe is so expansive – it’s almost like I never knew before today

I never saw things as so great and the possibilities as so endless

I am so amazed at YOUR grace and YOUR power and YOUR mercy and YOUR goodness Abba – I don’t even know what to say

I truly don’t know why my spirit struggles against You when in Your arms I long to rest

Father – one thing I pledge to You forever  as I lay down my life once more

I will not go back and choose my own way

Honoring You, Loving You, and Serving YOU, my Abba, is MY CHANCE to even the score

Teach me how to serve You. Teach me how to seek You. Teach me how to pray.

One day my strife for perfection will be replaced by the twinkle in Your eyes

One day my bitterness will be melted by Your miracle

Some day, maybe tomorrow, my hands will be Your hands to touch a soul that cries

Abba, Your dance is all things beautiful, interesting, abstract, straightforward and lyrical

Today is just another day of mine that belongs to You

Just another day, Abba What would you like me to do?

MISSIONS AFTERMATH

I try to make it so difficult: so linear and shaped and at the same time so passionate and poetic

My left brain and my right brain cannot coexist- I get overwhelmed by the holistic version of myself

I feel so silly when I realize that I have pigeonhole you to make myself comfortable and by the same token made my own life so much more narrow and hectic

If I can’t see you as a whole person it’s no wonder that I completely short circuit my own wealth

I get so exhausted of my own ridiculous games and yet sometimes I just don’t know how to stop

Except to just quit moving and breathe

Sometimes there is absolutely no answer to pain and confusion other than to just let it be and eventually your knees will drop

Only my Abba can handle the overflow when I start to seethe

It’s so hard to give a “put together” response when I am emotionally drained and spiritually moving and physically incredibly uncertain

I absolutely have no idea what is next and the social and cultural construct demands that I have a plan in place

I don’t have a plan – all I have to offer is an aching heart and a desire and a whole lot of need – what will Abba do with this non-plan

I need to time to think. I need some time to cry. I need some emotional space.

I feel so lost and incompetent and my inabilities feel so much larger than my gifts

I find myself wandering in a land with too many questions and too few answers

Yet my Abba says “wait and see” and I want to scream and shake my fists

I want to be able to execute something well orchestrated with the ease and grace of dancers

Yet a small voice speaks to me. “It’s not about you.”

Sometimes I hate that voice

I know that it is true

And I have a choice.

Calm down and follow along

In the grace of God’s plan and feel the pinch of the discomfort and the pain of the unknown and the divine chaos

Counterintuitive and at the same time strong

Without Him I would, in the truest sense, be lost.