Soil Forever Tilled

To move in step with You I must abandon myself

And I can no longer see myself through my eyes

I can barely recall why I used to regard my plan with such esteem, why I used to try to circumvent Your plan with such stealth

Why did I used to replace Your truth with my silly lies?

I am in such a broken place and I need Your utterance

I need You to speak on my behalf

There is a difference between yearning for what I want and just yearning for You: I am learning that there is no such thing as contingencies and there is no such thing as clairvoyance

Makes me wonder how many times in one calendar day I make You laugh

I used to think that purpose was so nebulous and mission was ill-defined

That my life just really wasn’t that important

I may not be able to do take-backs or push rewind

However, I can speak truth and I can name the elephant

I can follow the sound of Your voice to the ends of the earth

And I will

This life is filled with sorrow and filled with mirth

Yet through the seasons I learn to be still

Surrender is a choice and also a posture to be learned for the rest of days

Funny how I thought it would be a quota filled

Something I will learn in a million ways

A soil forever tilled.

Everybody Had a Breaking Point

Everybody has a breaking point. My breaking point has been about a month in coming.


A relationship with God ebbs and flows through different seasons just like any other relationship. However, the relationship with God adds a different dynamic, because it requires complete surrender. Absolute surrender. Surrender past the point when you didn't think you had anything left to give....and then He asks you to give more. He asks you to do more. He asks you to operate in a space wherein you are no longer using your own strength but you are utterly reliant on Him for your day to day.


Surrender past the point when you think that you are absolutely exhausted and unable to surrender that thing - that thing you can't live without. That vice you can't survive without. That piece of control you thought that you had. Those delusions and illusions. And then He asks you to give them up. 


I find that I am in a period of surrender.......and  I am not the only one. God is doing something interesting and exciting around here. I'm not sure what - but I feel an anticipation that can only be God-breathed and God-activated.


We are doing a churchwide fast starting July 14th. This could not have come at a better time for me. As I have been learning firsthand - thanks to Pastors Heather and Mark and Romans 8 - my humanity is fundamentally at odds with what God is trying to do in my life. I need to fast and pray and hear from God. I think that the practice of fasting and being quiet gives God an opportunity to speak to me in ways that He would not otherwise have in my chaotic, over-committed, loud, and busy life.


Not sure what the take-away is here.......but I do know that there have been many, many times over the past month or so when I have said to myself "What would I do if I didn't have God?" 


Seriously - what would I do if I didn't have God?  Yes - the journey is intense and the surrender is hard, but without Him I would be without purpose, without mission, without vision....and without a host of other things.


So yeah- everybody has a breaking point, but God is there to redeem that brokenness, and I would rather be here than anywhere else.

God Given Zen

Changes whispers through life and before you know it everything looks different

The unknown is ahead and the you don’t recognize what just happened - at some point control was forsaken

Perhaps it never existed…perhaps I thought that fantasy was heaven-sent

Perhaps it is no longer even my choice which road is to be taken

I lay at the foot of the cross and I ask God why

Why did You suffer for me so that I could fight You at every turn of Your perfect plan?

Sometimes I hear beautiful people’s awful stories and it makes me want to cry

Makes me wonder where I can find the justice of Your hand.

Juxtaposed and yet so simple

Is my silly human heart

I fight You and yet I love You so fiercely

Lord, You are dance, You are beauty, You are art

How many times can I lay down my life to submit to You?

Over and over and over again

Learning the same lessons and struggling to discover something new

And rest in Your God-given zen

Letting Go

How do I make peace with the next steps when I thrive in the present day?
Perhaps the wheel turns too quickly and my fear overtakes logic
May I find some peace when I get on my face and pray?
Is there any space to be wishy washy, leery or nostalgic?

Missions aftermath burns me with a passion that will never cease
Today fills me with a joy that burns so bright
When aftermath turns into present is there some sort of release?
Or is there just more burning, more yearning, more purporse- more light?

Perhaps they are one and the same
If today and tomorrow and yesterday belong to God can I let go of one more piece?
Can I let go of knowing? Of my heart? My well being? Of protecting myself? Competing for needs? Release the foray?
Will the struggle end and I let go of my lease?

You ask me, Abba, to stand on truth.
To be honest and forthright and believe you have my best
You painstakingly unclench my fist and tell me to walk away from my youth
That you have a plan for the rest

I will never know lest I jump off the cliff
Dive away from what was
Take what is flexible from what used to be stiff
Because you are God and not just because

Today my heart breaks to grieve what was
So necessary to embrace what is and what may be
Its so amazing to see what God does
Every day I walk forward and I am free

To Lose

To lose you is to grieve you

Elastic drama pulls at my waist

The hype and the memory pulls me closer yet further from what is true

I can hear you but I cannot see your face

How many times have I grieved you- wishing that you are somebody that you will never be?

Wishing that you would put me first

To love me?

Out of the overflow of your heart to still look at me when I am at my worst?

Your promises falter and my anger rises

I am no longer a child

I cannot hedge these bets – no more ups and downs and surprises

Your malice is not mild

To lose you is rather, to simply let you go

And stop wishing on a star

Oh how many places I wish I could go

To avoid facing who you are

To lose you is to speak truth

To stop pretending life isn’t real

To look fully in the face of my youth

To stop avoiding how I feel

To lose you is to sob and to understand

That it is not the end of it all

My Abba has something more rich and more amazing for me planned

He heals so I can be ready for His call.

Transitions.

Perhaps the tide has turned
It is time to move forward and I am not sure why
Part of my heart is grieved and I do not know what I have earned
Not sure what makes me want to cry

It always hurts to cut ties with take-backs
No more take-backs. No more wishing on a star
No more blaming others for what I lack
I am who I am simply because of who YOU are

Moving forward is so scary when you don't know what is ahead
Living in the moment I find joy and rest
I can only walk as far as YOU have led
I can only pray for YOUR best

Perhaps the moon is closer and the stars are brighter now
Or perhaps the difference is in my eyes
I'll open up as much as my heart will allow
To see where tenderness lies

Lord, Abba, my Maker, my Healer, my Redeemer, my Friend
Where is the sunrise without Your grace?
Straight, crooked, beginning, end
May YOUR face shine right through my face

Today is a New Day, Eh?

I was blessed to be in a room of leaders this week. A room of trailblazers and of extremely brave people. These people caused me to reflect, to take a look at my own life, to emote, to grieve, and to hope and pray that I can be a little more like Christ as a result.

My church hosted a seminar this week called "Grace, Truth, and Homosexuality." During this seminar there were a panel of people from my church who talked about their journey dealing with homosexuality. The people on the panel were people who are friends of mine, people that I know very little, and people that I don't know at all.

I must say that I am extremely proud of my church. One, for have the decency, the forethought and the faith to open up a dialogue about this issue. Two (the leaders) for having the humility to say that they don't have the answers, they understand that this is a messy issue, and that the larger and more important issue is about loving Christ, not about pointing about faults in one another.

The panelists told their stories and I was absolutely riveted. There is just so much that, uneducated, we are left to assume. I feel like the blessing that the panelists bestowed on us was telling us the truth about homosexuality. They told us the truth about their stories, their backgrounds, their issues. They were transparent and vulnerable and that is what made it so powerful.

Something that grieved me incredibly is that they all expressed how terrified they were to talk about homosexuality in the context of church and small group relationship among their Christian friends - which in theory is the last place that they should be rejected. This only reinforces the idea that we should be lovers and accepting of the broken because that is what we all are and we all deal with something or another. How is one struggle so different or merit some sort of different type of treatment? It doesn't. The church has for so long failed at accepting things with which it is uncomfortable but I believe the tide is changing and a precedent has been set.

I found myself touched and grieved looking at my own life not just because what the panelists said was so incredibly relevant to us as a culture, but because it is so incredibly relevant to me as a person. As a person who has experienced relational and sexual brokenness as a result of abuse and gone through the same types of identity and connectedness struggles expressed by members of the panel, I was really struck by how these types of brokenness tend to stem from the same types of issues. Identity or lack thereof. A desperate need to be recognized by a parent or both parents. A desperate need for connection. Growing into adulthood and sexualizing those needs. I have been there. How many others have been there? How many others are there now?

I don't know what comes next, but I do know that this is only the beginning. There are other issues on the 'do not read' list that need to be open to dialogue. For example - when I was going through my journey of recovery I would have loved to have somebody be open and vulnerable about their journey with sexual abuse. What other issues can we strip of fear and shame and allow God to set people free?

Today is a new day, eh?