Pages

Friday, August 28, 2009

Cooped Up.

I have been struggling with a nasty illnes for about a week now. So, I am staying cooped up and am getting close to cabin fever. I need to go out today, only to get a load of lysol and pick Eli up from school. You know how you start to just think about all the germs floating around, don't do that, it's depressing. So I am just earnestly praying my family doesn't get it. If they don't, God gets ALL the glory, because it will be a miracle. If they do, He gets glory anyway.

So, as my head is floating and my eyes are blurry, I have nothing witty, creative or thought provoking to say...nor do I have the energy to copy a page out of a Brennan Manning book (even though I could everyday and it would revolutionize your and my thinking).

So, back to bed I go for another hour until I can grab that Lysol.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Excerpt from The Furious Longing of God

"And then a moment in Jesus' life that is more shrouded in mystery, denser with misunderstanding and incomprehensibility than perhaps any other.
Jesus, the eternally beloved Son of the Father, is abandoned by His Abba. Sin appears to have its way over the entire world. For the first time since He was an infant, Jesus feels Himself to be without the sustaining presence of His Abba, and inner bleakness of forsaken aloneness in the desolation of abandonment.
In a scream that surely split the sky:
My God, My Abba. Why, Why Have You Forsaken Me Now?

St. John of the Cross said it will never ever be given to any human heart to understand the depth of desolation, utter abandonment, indescribable, loneliness and complete forsakenness that lay behind Jesus' cry. But even in that cry, there is no indication that Jesus ever lost trust or hope or confidence in His Abba.

After 35 years of praying over the passion and death narratives in Luke's gospel, French biblical scholar Pierre Benoit believed that the Abba of Jesus spoke to His Son as He hung naked, nailed to the wood with spit dripping down His face, His body bathed in blood. And Benoit believes the words Abba spoke were words from the Hebrew Scriptures, Song of Songs 2:10-14

Come now, my love. My lovely one.
Come.

For You, the winter has passed
the snows are over and gone
The flowers appear in the land,
the season of joyful songs has come.

The cooing of the turtledove is heard in our land

Come now, my love. My lovely on.
Come. "

-Brennan Manning

Thursday, August 13, 2009

so good.

I am sitting...all is quiet...so I type.

Hmmm...what shall I type about, there is SO much swirling in my head, I mean so much. Ah yes, just picked a thought to land on.

This past week our church has been having a series of worship services in the evening. They were really,really great. Can I be honest, without people jumping all over me (spiritually that is? I felt very oppressed when I went in. It makes sense, I mean, Satan doesn't stay out of churches, and I tried to make a conscious "cleansing" effort each night. I am not saying that the Lord wasn't there, because He was, but just putting it out there. I really have just thought of this as I have begun typing...so random.

ANYWAY, that is not what I wanted to write about, but it sets the stage. Tuesday, a friend prayed for me that God would come to me with joy. I nodded in agreement and then flinched a little. Am I not joyful? Well, I would never say that people think that of me, or I of myself. So I started looking at people who approached me.
-Yep, I would say she's joyful
-oh, absolutely joyful, always with a smile and a compliment, heartfelt at that.
-Oh my, yes she bubbles over with joy, not happiness, true joy.

Man, I want to be joyful.

Anytime people are asked what they think of me, the words that come out are honest, truthful...not happy,joyful,full of life. What happened to me along the way? I used to be able to say I was a happy person, now, I'm an honest person? YIKES!

Audretta told me a few days ago about a sermon her pastor gave, about the fruit of gentleness. In it he said that this is a fruit of the spirit, available to everyone, it's not a gift that some have and others don't. WHAM! That hit me. I use that excuse all the time, for most of the fruits.
-Patience, is not something I possess (um, it should be)
-I am not a person of gentleness (whose fault is that)

I realize that I do not evoke most fruits of the spirit. Gosh, is that humbling. So, for the next, however long it takes, I am going to yearn to possess and express those fruits.

Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, goodness, gentleness,faithfulness and self-control. I am commanded to live those out, as they are already given to me.

So good when God hits you where it hurts.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

raw

I wishing I were talking about my diet. I would love to be able to eat raw, all the time...but alas, lack of discipline and funding, and house full or kids raised on hot dogs and chicken nuggets, leaves me here.

So, by raw, I mean myself.

I feel stripped down, to my core, my soul. I have been broken, empty, overwhelmed and worn out, but this is different. I have nothing left, and yet, I am beginning to be filled.

It all started in April, when the Brooks family dropped the bomb, the Mother bomb...they were leaving. (cursor, just sitting and blinking as I think...it still stings). It has all worked out for the good of them that love the Lord, but it is still painful, that dull pain that is constant and everywhere. Today on the phone, it sharpened as I realized how much I miss my friend. It THROBS, when Eli daily asks for Simon to come over, or how he is saving half of his cookie for Simon. It hurts. I don't want it to go away though, it reminds me how much they mean to our family and how much I love and am loved.

But pair that with other circumstances in our life right now...and I am raw. But have realized so much in the past few days. As I lay face down before the Lord, seeking direction for myself and others, I have noticed that my soul is speaking, not me. My soul that longs for it's creator and knows more than I know, or ever thought I knew. My soul that has seen my God...not my spirit or my gut...but my soul. Enveloped and inhabited by the Spirit of a living God, it is ministering to me.

When my mind, my gut, my heart; have nothing left...all is quiet.

My soul begins to sing, a song of knowing, a song of trusting...a song of love that it has experienced.

I am raw, but I am not defeated.