One More Sleep

"Keep company with those who make you better."  English Proverb

One more sleep

a 3 hour and a bit train ride

and 

a much welcomed respite

from the cares of life

Can't wait for down time with my sista Charmaine, hubby Andrew

niece and nephew...Mikaela and Anderson:)

The Subtle Persistence of Hope

I'm undone

again

the complete intersection

of this course and my life

continues to disrupt my soul

I have accepted this

it's necessary and good and haunting and consuming

but there will be healing

one day

The "subtle persistence of hope" is the phrase from yesterday that echos in the recesses of my mind and heart.

  

I have experienced this. 

Hope that is microscopic at best...where at times I require a magnifying glass to notice it's presence.  And persistent?  Oh yes!  I have over 450 entries recorded in my journals  of this subtle persistence of hope.  It was the thread that stretched from one anguished day to the next.

But what ever happened to grandiose, and splashy?  Hope realized?  Hope fulfilled?

What happened to water becoming wine?
Why not take my demon of depression and cast IT into some farm-fed swine and leave them to suffer endlessly?
And what about Lazarus...the one you loved so much?
It was only a few days until you raised him from the dead and the glory was Yours.
But me?
You loved me too, and yet three years of "existing", not living was mine to endure.
And three more years of inching-along recovery that has never been fully realized...

Does it really take that long for You to be glorified???

I'm "supposed" to be content with the subtle persistence of hope.
I thought I was.
 And yet the memories are being unearthed and I can either sift through the ruins
or shovel it all back into that dark- night- of- the- soul -abyss.  

But I know what happens to buried questions, confusion and pain.
It remains.
Enshrouded in grave clothes yes, but still breathing like some taunting ghost.

I don't know why the subtle persistence of hope in those years of torment was not enough.
Why it is not enough for me today.
After all...I endured...I chose life...I survived!!!!
Why does my soul still yearn for something more?  

This is the healing path we journey together, God and I.  

I am disarmed, no longer fighting for relief.
Even within the gnawing questions there is a quiet calm, allowing me to live with the questions.

Perhaps it is this subtle persistence of hope that will unveil the answers one day.

The Healing Path

A calming of my mind

a settling of my soul

this is not a harsh road I have been made to stumble down

but a healing path He has invited me to walk

an intimate journey we take together

"Jehovah-rophe...I follow Your lead"

Not Alone

Must I always return home on Tuesday afternoons with a churning in my stomach and turmoil in my mind and soul?

This is so not what I expected as I was anticipating "The Theology of Suffering" course.  I expected a challenge, yes, a stretching within, a resonating of my spirit with what was being taught, but not this.

And I'm not entirely aware of what "this" entails.  I began this journey having felt that I had made peace with my own seasons of suffering.  There had been a mostly restful place where the redemption of my pain was realized and lived out and where the mystery of God was acknowledged and accepted.  I had ceased fighting with God.  The "why's" no longer required an answer.

But this seems to all have been disrupted in the last week.  At times I am wrestling, angry and questioning God.  A turmoil within, a loneliness and lostness has begun to visit my soul. A crack has formed, or perhaps was there before and I was unaware, in this trust relationship God and I have forged together.

I am finding myself tripping over the crack.

I am afraid.  This is familiar, but unwelcome territory.

But I am not truly alone.  He is here.

Earlier in the day I listened to a statement from Chuck Swindoll--

"Our questions make us dependent"

His words caught my attention.  My questions...my searching,  is not a failure on my part, but rather the reason I must press into this Sovereign One.  I am dependent on His leading me through this maze I stepped into last week.

Psalm 139 reminds me I am not alone...in any of the thoughts and emotions that have been stirred within me.

"O Lord, You have searched me and known me,

You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

You understand my thought from afar.

You scrutinize my path and my lying down,

And are intimately acquainted with all my ways.

Even before there is a word on my tongue,

Behold, O Lord, You know it all,.

You enclose me behind and before,

And laid Your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

It is too high, I cannot attain to it."

Verses 1-6

I am on a journey without a road map but not without a Guide.   I don't know where He is leading me or for what purpose the path has been set out.

But I will continue to follow.

Enclosed behind and before--

God--Your hand upon me.

I am surrounded,

"held" captive,

trapped by God!

          Oh the comfort of being

covered in the security

of the Sovereign. 

Based on Psalm 139:5

July 2007

The Theology of Suffering

It both soothes my soul and disrupts it

I am at home and in a foreign land
I find a restfulness within as well as challenge

My thoughts expand--and yet somehow shrink

I am in community but alone

There is voice to my suffering and silence to my voice

I yearn to hear more and want to hide

Yesterday I began my course, "The Theology of Suffering".  The above articulates best what is rushing through my being.  I feel privileged...grateful, to be a part of this course.  The professor is a gifted, gentle, humble man of whom I instantly felt a kinship with. He speaks my language.  

Lucy, in "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe says of Aslan, "He is good, but He's not safe."  If I may transfer these words to this course, it would read, "It is good....so very good, but it's not safe."

There is a very real sense of the ground we are treading on, being holy.  First and foremost, this is God's domain.  This reality and mystery of suffering, as much as we may dialogue and wrestle with it, lies in the hands of this God we worship.  But further, is the awareness that there is something sacred, yes, holy, about sifting through the darkened maze of suffering, whether it be another classmate, or a stranger beyond the four walls of our room.

This is no place for the glib, cliche answers that are too often placed as bandaids on our open wounds.  No, this is a place where each word, each expression of thought will be carefully offered.  Where respect and grace and empathy will become our own healing ointment as we engage with one other.

We were challenged to be surprised.  Surprised by how God may desire to shape us and grow us through the coming weeks.  

Already, I am this and more. 

God of the impossible--

The days before me lie waiting--fresh as new fallen snow
Mystery colors the pages of the unknown
Expectation of the plans You have for me spur me to turn to another calender year
Still..the stains which linger from days past creep into my hopes and accentuate my fears

I invite You--God of the impossible
to walk ahead of me
     alongside
          behind
Encircling all of me

May I be as Mary--
a willing servant to the impossibilities You can fashion through me

May I have faith which moves beyond Sarah's--
believing there is nothing beyond the power that is in You

And may I praise as Jeremiah--
Your "great power...Your outstretched arm",
claiming "nothing is too difficult for You."

This is my prayer
     my earnest plea
For the glory and honor and worship
of You alone
Amen.

Verse for 2013
"Nothing will be impossible with God."  Luke 1:37

A Pictorial Christmas 2012

Longtime friend...Kenny

 

Our new Family!!!

Yeah!!!  Hunter Boots

My thankyou gift for helping with the wedding:)

A whip cream `gift from the 2 on the right:)

 

Zoe:)

 

Mikaela...a young lady

 

Merry Christmas

"Joy to the world, the Lord is come!

Let earth receive Her King

Let every heart prepare Him room

And heav'n and nature sing."

Welcome to Our World

We all long for that "perfect" Christmas

To sing from our toes "it's the most wonderful time of the year".

We cringe to hear of brief lives cut short

And how the lonely hours of many are exaggerated

It seemed this year would be my escape from the ugliness of life

Even as the circumstances were unfolding I so desperately wanted to press

life's delete button

To run away from the hurt

To turn the lights up brighter on the tree

To somehow erase what had just occurred.

This morning, during our Christmas Communion Service our

pastor spoke of our coming Lord's birth

How He came to "wrap around our injured flesh."

Gripping words for my injured, wounded soul.

A way to describe all that I have been wading through.

 Communion brought fresh, deep gratitude

My own private, quiet moment to remember and give humble thanks for His sacrifice

His willingness to come to me
For me!

His measureless gift of wrapping His very life around,
not just my injured flesh
but my own flawed, broken, sin-sick soul.
There is no greater gift

In a symbolic way we wait for His coming just days from now

But very much drawing upon the beautiful reality of 

Immanuel God-with-us 

in the midst of the messiness of living

Still we await We His future coming

when our injured, wounded selves will be made whole.

Hallelujah!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCJVztqFJNU 

Welcome to Our World

Tears are falling, hearts are breaking

How we need to hear from God

You've been promised, we've been waiting

Welcome Holy Child

Welcome Holy Child

Hope that you don't mind our manger

How I wish we would have known

But long-awaited Holy Stranger

Make Yourself at home

Please make yourself at home

Bring Your peace into our violence

Bid our hungry souls be filled

Word now breaking Heaven's silence

Welcome to our World

Welcome to our World

Fragile finger sent to heal us

Tender brow prepared for thorn

Tiny heart whose blood will save us

Unto us is born

Unto us is born

So wrap our injured flesh around You

Breathe our air and walk our sod

Rob our sin and make us holy

Perfect Son of God

Perfect Son of God

Welcome to our World

Amy Grant

The Gift of Tender Mercy

This day, oh this hard day...

I have struggled to keep perspective and been sadly losing that fight.

I have sought to keep God in focus but my vision so blurred.

I have endeavored not to worry and no sooner have I reorganized my thoughts than the churning within reappears.

And that "keeping space" I so purposefully plan into my days, has been far too small these past 24 hours.

But I love how God's Word can cover me like a blanket...how it appears fresh and timely in the midst of all I am wading through.

It's the words of Zacharias' Prophecy introducing John in Luke 1:76-78a which capture my thoughts--

"And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;

For you will go on before the Lord to prepare His ways;

To give His people the knowledge of salvation

By the forgiveness of their sins,

Because of the tender mercy of our God..."

Can there be a more calming truth for my turmoil?  My sin seems ever before me and how discouraging it is to wage this battle against self.  Yet Luke reminds me of the unfolding purpose of Christ's coming...the very event we are anticipating this Advent season.  

Salvation, forgiveness and the "tender mercy of my God" ...how lavish a gift.

Rest oh weary soul.

The Keeping Space

I'm a person who seeks NOT to be busy.  

In fact I have often said that I choose to rebel against the frantic pace 

our society deems necessary or important or perhaps, "just the way it is".

There are those who recognize the need to have margin in their life.  

I'm thinking of it as "the keeping space".  

It's that empty space I need to have in my life so that I can hear the Spirit's voice. 

I grab on to how Henri Nouwen describes this in 

an excerpt in my Advent Devotional from

"A Spirituality for Living".

He calls it a discipline, but not the way we often think of discipline.

"...in the spiritual life, the word discipline means,

'the effort to create some space in which God can act.'"

Oh that's so beautiful.

So inviting and calming.

I so need this space.

Henri goes on to explain...

"Discipline means to prevent everything in our lives

from being filled up.

Discipline means that somewhere we're not occupied,

and certainly not preoccupied.

Discipline means to create space in which

something can happen that we hadn't planned or counted on.

Discipline helps us to follow the voice of the Spirit,

who wants to lead us to new places, new people,

and new forms of service."

This space is something I am extra conscious of in this Christmas season.

So much vies for my attention, my time, my thoughts.

And if I"m not careful,

if I'm not daily "keeping space" to allow God to act,

then I lose perspective, serenity and an open heart.

So whether it is a shopping list in hand

or a meal I'm preparing

or an "intrusion" into my day

I'm in want of that "keeping space"

and a God-who-is-with-me

to speak and guide and invite me into the dance.