80 by strength

these are random ramblings from a journal entry I didn’t even remember writing. thought I’d share.

 

Growing up, maturing, learning

they sound so romantic

Times looked forward to from our youngest days

“when I grow up…” uttered from the lips of innocent children

“you’re so mature…” from onlooking elders

Our young minds cannot help but understand we are dealing with the realm of virtue

Something holy, something great, something mysterious, only nobly attained

And yet as it comes our most natural reaction is to turn and hide our faces

“but can’t you do it for me?”

escapes the mouths of toddlers

learning, learning, learning

our lives are made up of learning, from our first breath to our last

we dwell in a classroom which doesn’t take a break

No  lunch time, no snack, no recess, no nap

only moving steadily onward or tragically falling back

And there again we are still learning, being conditioned to one way or another

conforming to a path

“young minds are so impressionable,” is a saying which rings true,

and when pondered long enough we realize our lives are a vapor

and the 80 years we live by strength, in comparison to the eternity we will all live

whether in glory or damnation…

makes each one of us young.

writer’s block

I have it. So much so that I’m not even sure you can still consider me a writer. It’s been years and I can’t write a thing. Toss up a word of prayer if you think about it. I really miss writing poetry. It makes my heart come alive.

looking for a city

Just about one week ago I began to feel, for the first time since moving back to Colorado, how very real distance is. I began to experience the sting of space and time separating me from some of the people I love most dearly. It was rough. Not ball my eyes out rough, more like, “man, growing up and living life can get hard sometimes,” rough. You see, prior to having this feeling the Lord had been talking to me quite a bit about goodbyes and broken relationships and as a result I am becoming more and more convinced that they are supposed to be foreign to us.

The Father has been talking to me about how he didn’t create us with the capacity for goodbyes or broken relationships. When He created man, He created man for relationship with Himself and with each other. Those relationships were never supposed to end. They were meant to go on for all of eternity, growing closer and closer in the bonds of love, faithfulness, commitment, and loyalty. Then we fell. Everything changed, everything. Suddenly separation between God and man broke in upon the earth and with it separation between man and man. And here we were, left with the consequences of our choices, trying to live with something we simply do not have the capacity for. No wonder it is so crushing when somebody moves, or dies, or breaks up, or gets a divorce or, or, or…the list goes on and on. It does damage to our souls. IT HURTS.

So as I’ve talked to the Lord about the pain in my own heart, His response has been simple…and beautiful. It is this, “right now your spirit is bearing witness to the fact that something is wrong. You weren’t created for this.” How hopeful! We weren’t created for this! And what He is about doing on the earth right now is restoring all things, bringing everything back to the way it was supposed to be. Making all things new, making the wrong things right again.

One day I will live in the same city as my friends, my brothers and sisters in Christ here in Colorado and there in Kansas City alike. One day I will get to be with  Christina, Sarah, Audra, Tany, Jessica, JoJo, Kurie, Murph, John Mark, Zack, Carrie, Trisha, Ethan, David, Cortney, Jonathan, Chuck, Peter, Brian, etc. etc. etc. all at the same time. And not only will I get to be in the same city as ALL of them (as well as all those I love just as much and wasn’t able to list because the list was getting ridiculously long anyhow) but in that city we will be in the presence of the Lord, unrestrained, unrestricted, and we will know as we are known and love more deeply than we ever believed possible. It’s going to be glorious.

I am looking for a city.

Psalm 139:11-12

There is an ache inside me

a pain too deep for words

it’s where my rebellion meets my desire to love You

it’s where my self preservation meets Your command to die daily

it’s where faith meets unbelief

surely the darkness will overcome

surely I’m not strong enough

one day my shaking fist and raging heart will win and push You away

one day my weakness will be too much for You to bear….

but, Oh! how the night shall be light all around me!

for darkness is not dark to You

and there is nothing in me so weak it can overcome Your strength

“If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me,
   and the light about me be night,’
even the darkness is not dark to you;
   the night is bright as the day,
   for darkness is as light with you.”

muevete

-I have moved an average of twice a year for the past 4 years…It feels kind of like this-

 

 

 

confidence in love is beautiful

Today I was hanging out with my beautiful nieces; Lily and I were playing the guitar and singing. She asked me to sing a princess song so I told her I would write a song about her….after about five minutes of her dancing and spinning and giggling while I sang her this song I made up on the spot telling her she is beautiful and that I love her I asked her to write me a song. The first words her little mouth sang were “auntie beans loves me…” She could have said anything there. She could have told me I was silly, she could have listed a number of attributes she felt were admirable, and in fact she did go on to do a little bit of both…but the very first thing she said, the first thing she thought about when she thought about me was that I love her. She is confident in my love, and that moved my heart way more than her telling me I am beautiful or nice or fun to be around or wise or any other thing she could have listed.

Jesus is like that. He loves us to have confidence in His love. His child simply saying “Jesus loves me.” That’s what I think about when I think of Jesus…yes He is beautiful, wise, humble, powerful, worthy…Yes He is God….but that which first comes to mind is how great His love is toward me. I know He is more moved by His children’s confidence in His love than I am by Lily’s confidence in my love…infinitely more moved.

Jesus loves us.

how did that get there?!?!

Lies. I believe so many of them….most of the time I don’t even realize I am believing a lie, infact it isn’t generally until somebody speaks the truth to me personally. Let me explain…it hits me not when somebody is sitting across from me telling me a general truth, but rather when they look at me and say something to the effect of “He is a father who is near you, He didn’t leave like your biological one..” and then I burst into tears.

“wait what?!?! how did that get there?!?!?! I do feel like He left…I didn’t even realize I felt like that…and just a second, I don’t ever even think about my biological father, he doesn’t have an effect on how I view God…” but the fact is that he does. Or rather he did…that specific example happened a long time ago.

Well, anyhow I’m thinking about all of this because it happened again today, just 45 minutes ago I was a blubbering mess on the phone as one of my dear friends spoke truth over me…truth I didn’t even realize I needed to hear as badly as I did….and now its hitting me:  it is absolutely essential that those lies are exposed and that the truth of who God is and who we are to Him is rooted in our hearts…but you know what? It doesn’t have to happen that way, it doesn’t have to come like a total shock to us, it doesn’t have to hit us like a freight train we couldn’t hear or see coming, it doesn’t have to leave us reeling. The Lord longs for us to be rooted and grounded in Him, the spirit of wisdom and revelation resting on us, giving us full assurance  of who we are…giving us true belief of the truth deep within our souls..a real understanding of who He is in all of His glory and who we are to Him. And if He desires it then we can place ourselves before Him and ask Him to show us, constantly. We can boldly approach the throne of grace and know that we are praying a prayer that He will answer because it is in accordance with His will when we say “tell me who I am to you…” and we can know before we pray that prayer that He will probably show us some lies that we didn’t realize were there…and even though the specific lie might shock us, and how it was lodged in our heart might make us scratch our heads, the fact that the darkness of lies has been exposed in us is not shocking, because we just asked Him to do it.  Then insead of reeling with wonder we can exult in praise immediately and not hours after the fact.

Yes, this is what I’m going to do….I’m going to take this identity stuff seriously and I’m going to set myself infront of God and know that He will speak, know that He will show me things, and know that He is making me whole. Where did that come from? Oh, you know just an answer to my asking…

Thank you Jesus for being faithful to show me even when I haven’t asked…I know you will meet me when I do.

2 things….

1. It hits me every once in a while that I actually moved. I know this is probably getting old to you all….but it hits me in a fresh way every so often…”I actually moved….I’m not just waiting to go back….life is totally different” as you can probably guess tonight is one of those nights

2. I will be posting a blog about my Easter weekend experience probably on monday, it I get the time….it’s been an incredible one and I need to process and make sure I remember it. Best way to do that? write….

okay that’s all…i’ll keep you posted

I stink at memorization

I stink at Bible memorization…this is a fact. Proverbs 1:1-7 is owning me. OWNING. Which I suppose is an appropriate action for the word of God, however I am annoyed that I just can’t seem to memorize it. What’s funny is that I have had this exact conversation THRICE today…THRICE…are you ready? Here is the conversation:

“you know what is fascinating? the capacity of the brain…I mean, think about how many songs you know every word to, and names and, well, numbers when you were ten and cell phones didn’t do it for you…and we don’t use even HALF of our brain…wow!”

Then I remembered my brain can’t seem to hold proverbs 1:1-7. There can only be one conclusion: I stink at memorization…or I haven’t spent enough time on it (ok that’s probably the one). crap. off to spend some time saying…or rather reading writing singing saying praying (RWSSP) the first seven verses of proverbs.

leaning on the everlasting arms

My heart knows this to be true: You never change. Everything else is shaken to the ground but You are constant. Everything else changes with the slightest wind but You are a strong tower. Though I be relocated, as relationships grow, as relationships die, though my own emotions and perceptions are fickle and alter from one moment to the next my confidence is found in the One who is the same yesterday, today and forever.

It is beautiful the way the world is set up. It is weak, and fragile, prone to breaking down yet ruled by a steadfast loving, merciful, just God. The human heart is the same, and in the tumult of unrelenting circumstances, be they favorable or horrifying we are tossed about with no hope lest we find refuge…lest we lean. Leaning achieves for us the end goal anyhow-what we were made for: complete dependence on and intimacy with the One who formed us.

I love His ways. I love the brilliance of this plan, and as I find myself aware of being thrust into the middle of it I will take comfort in knowing this is how it was meant to be…this is the divine design…the “intimacy conspiracy,” and I will give way.

 

What a fellowship, what a joy divine,
Leaning on the everlasting arms;
What a blessedness, what a peace is mine,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.
Leaning, leaning,
Safe and secure from all alarms;
Leaning, leaning,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.

Oh, how sweet to walk in this pilgrim way,
Leaning on the everlasting arms;
Oh, how bright the path grows from day to day,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.
Leaning, leaning,
Safe and secure from all alarms;
Leaning, leaning,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.

What have I to dread, what have I to fear,
Leaning on the everlasting arms;
I have blessed peace with my Lord so near,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.
Leaning, leaning,
Safe and secure from all alarms;
Leaning, leaning,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.