Whether This, Whether That

"Therefore my brothers and sister .... stand firm in the Lord this way!
... I have learned to be content in any circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret to being content in any and every situation, whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in wait. I can do all this through Him who gives me strength."
(Philippians 4).

It's been a long week. Rather, a long month. Sometimes the hits just keep on coming and my first reaction is "how could I live life better? How could I be a better version of myself? Maybe then my bank account wouldn't bounce, I wouldn't experience emotional pain, and my life would be blissfully without worry or pinch."
Well, that's crap.
Truth is, no matter how well I play it and how well-prepared I am sometimes unexpected expenses just blow out my bank account and I couldn't have done a better job. Or, I have to learn a lesson of emotional depth and tears are sometimes just a part of relationship. Sometimes, often times, being a three-dimensional person means living a three-dimensional life.
So when I get done whining and spinning and trying to intellectualize it and finally just sit down in front of God, He reminds me of Paul.
Paul was an interesting character, wasn't he? He didn't seem to take the time to navel-gaze and worry about how all of the terrible things that were happening to him were going to affect him. He wrote to encourage the Corinthians and the Philippians. Now, I don't pretend to be a Biblical scholar or be able to pull it all into context but if this guy could focus on the church while he was imprisoned he is pretty cool in my book.
And he speaks to me on a day like today. A day when my entire life feels like a logistical nightmare....and says "I have had much and I have had little and you know what? Either way it doesn't matter."

Whether this, or whether that.

Whether rich or poor. Whether educated or not. Whether employed or not. The point is that the foundation is not "whether this or whether that." The foundation is God.
It is so simple.
Ok -I'm not saying that I do this well. In fact, today I feel like a faith loser. I freaked out over something manageable by people. What if I had been faced by something manageable by only God?

 But, I can always go back to Philippians 4 and know where the truth lies.

The truth lies in God. Not "whether this or whether that."
Breathe out. Good thing, huh?

Beauty For Ashes

Often I wonder what is my place in God's plan. Not because I am trying to be complex or esoteric but because I find His ways so opposite of my ways........and then I remember that it's not a matter of figuring it out so much as in being patient and obedient. This is so hard. Being patient and obedient requires me to sit still and wait - to trust that His silence is better than all of my talking. To trust that His apparent lack of action is better than any of my silly plans.

In times of uncertainty and discomfort I have to remember that He promised me so many things - and He doesn't break promises. He just doesn't.
He promised me freedom from fear. He promised me that He would never leave.
And He promised me Beauty for Ashes.



There must  be more space in God's plan
More space than I have imagined
I have made room in my life to be saturated by both God and man
So long to one corner I have been pinned.

Longing for redemption through vengeance
Perhaps, just perhaps, beauty for ashes is the way
How can I possibly go back to change past circumstance
It is no longer my price to pay

You say that You want to excavate my heart
And make beauty where ashes used to lie
Is it necessary to tear my flesh apart?
So that the way I used to feel can die?

What does redemption look like in Your eyes?
My heart be beautiful to You?
To do away with a lifetime of lies?
In order to learn about what is true?

Lord I am so tired of carrying around a bag filled with ashes
Far too weary for my aching body to hold
I know sometimes I learn in the lines and dashes
Lord I am meek today so please be bold

Isaiah 61:3

Tearing Me Apart

I act like it is all about me versus you, good versus evil

Victim versus Perpetrator

It’s just not that simple

If life were that easy I wouldn’t be haunted, I wouldn’t struggle, wouldn’t wish for any other time instead of now……..later God, later!

Inextricably linked for my entire life. Side by side in emotional bondage, in sexual commonality, in shared pain

If I am  free where does that leave you?

And where do I go from here? Who am I without this crimson stain?

What if I actually believe that the lies are not true?

It is not as easy as me versus you

If I leave you and let you go I have to look at myself as well

It’s not as easy as what I am supposed to do

It’s what I am being called to let go of – not anything priced out, nothing left to sell

My Abba says priceless and I argue tainted and shamed

Being truthful about self-loathing is part of the process?

My Abba says free and I argue ugly and chained

I never wanted to look at this stuff again and yet here it is in my face – just asking for release and progress

The reality is that it has already been claimed and no longer belongs to me

Why do I hold on to it with such fierceness and tenacity?

Abba You ask me to be somebody that maybe I don’t want to be

You ask me to keep walking when I don’t have clarity

Obedience without having any idea what is next

And valuing my privacy You ask me to be transparent with a bleeding heart

You ask me to be blunt when I want to live in subtext

Oh, Abba………you are tearing me apart.

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.