in LoVe TrUsT FeAr

...its all the same because they all require all of me in that space, in that moment, and
they all also give me more chances to be there again...& that's ok. what is important to remember is that they cannot exist without one another and we do not exist with out them, because then where would FaiTh and hope enter in.

especially when  :

We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain,  where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek. 

Hebrews 6:19-20 TNiV

This entry is actually a true exchange of encouragement during a time of waiting...the "in fear and trembling" kind of waiting...that we all need to make room for and as surely as we are there we find others who are willing to wait there with us -

Thanks SiSteR. Not sure that you even know, I guess I kind of have assumed that you get caught up on our stuff through others. This reminds me that even if that's true...a word from the heart of a person, even through email is so good. This word from you certainly comes at a time of extreme waiting for our family. My husband resigned, mutually but terribly unfortunately, from his job and business partner of a start up company over a YEAR ago. We had a severance, that quickly ran out, as we tried to keep our home in my dream area of the city and keep our oldest of 3 girls, Adelaine from having to switch schools...again. waiting on the Lord, because i did not want those things to be affected, not my security. Surely his plan was to keep us and provide for us there. As our hope and money was depleted, we found that leaving the house was inevitable in order to keep Adelaine in school. So as you know the situation, we had to break an agreement, what relationship that was left and that security.
SiSteR, We moved in to a warehouse with a family of 8 and a drifter on troost-in the HOOOOOD- next to an adult theater!? We had news of a possible job, but no confirmation, and no other place to go. Some families of our impact group and many others offered, so we would not have been on the streets.  We couldn't make a commitment or get a lease for that matter, so trying community living seemed like a good place to not be alone in this.

As it became harder to know what to do, living in community actually became suffocating, with too many people, and too much space, even though it was a really cool warehouse and it could be so good at times.  Then the job my husband ended up taking, for peanuts with a promise of pay at the end of the project began to take a nose dive. He actually had hopes that it would become a way to be able to do what he left to do, building a community from within vs developing a pocket book.  And after he had done his part, fully restoring it to where he promised-they let him go two weeks before that pay would take place. We were kind of hit hard by this one, no severance not even a full paycheck?! and we could no longer afford to live this way, we needed a space to think and be our family, only. All i can muster up to ask is "what is happening here?"

and in the middle of all of this i am finding that during this time, as hard and crazy place that it seems to be-I was feeling a new sense of trust that overcame personal fears that I have known my whole life.

It looks ridiculous, and feels so strange. At this point we still had no home, no job, no way to put Adelaine back in that school & it was somehow ok. Really no turmoil over those things, just living everyday, finding that EVERY true need gets met, by so much more than I asked for. So deeply, uprooted, that new life is all that will be known from here on out. I'm missing a bunch in between...like a few of those needs a house we get to rent from people who needed it to be filled, $ for Adelaine to get to go to school, a friend gives him handiwork regularly, even if it sometimes means raking leaves, we have had groceries delivered nearly every week, friends took us out for their anniversary dinner, so much prayer and so much more- last week, I was hitting bottom, in this waiting room, and seriously cried out-Lord, what would make this better is to fix our freaking dryer (help me, help me, help me)...as piles of clothes hang on all the banisters, and rails, and more piles.  My husband doesn't know this at the time-well actually rarely is he ever just aware of my state of mind unless i do voice it - but since I have tried to not complain, a lot, he decides to help someone else move - when I am having a breakdown and need him home?! Really. So when he comes home with a dryer, guess where you can find me...back on the waiting room floor. (thank you, thank you, thank you)
So another word aside, back early in the year when it was announced that Isaac was coming for the summer, interiorly, i kept hearing, "just wait for Isaac to come"-and what he spoke about while he was here as a pastor for the interim, was so true to where we were and that he mentioned Anne Lamott's prayers whom I was reading at that time, & haven't put down since
... Help me help me help me...thank you thank you thank you ...
I can see why that was good for me to hear - it was what was happening.
And there has been no change, a few phone calls of hope, and maybe if we decided moving was an actual option there could be big change outwardly. But we just feel that waiting this out-yes in fear and trembling-is going to be where the deepest movement is really going to happen for our family's freedom and true incarnational transformation to keep pushing through.  Even if when it kills us, everyday, sister.
Like this morning, If there is anything, that i have held above ground during this whole time, it would be my girls and husband. Just keeping us together, safe and healthy, has been my personal challenge as a mom. It's hard when it looks like we are falling apart, and maybe naive or unprepared. But living day to day in faith is all of those things in practice! No one knows until they've been there, eh?
This week, I haven't even thought about Christmas because Adelaine's birthday is Saturday, and just thinking about how to do that creatively is taking all I have. When I falter, i admit, it's here, trying to make things as normal as possible-like it matters, or that there is even a normal? But I want her to enjoy her birthday?! I get a call from a friend who says she is dropping off a little something-each year their family makes homemade apple butter and we so look forward to this call! So she comes in all bundled up with a huge smile and a card-no apple butter? A gift card for target and the grocery store. Happy birthday Adelaine! Oh, did I mention a carload full of gifts for our entire family! ALL from a generous anonymous giver who asked her to deliver it to us... this stuff happens to other people.
So when that question creeps in..."what is happening here?" i see this, these things happening in the good and the bad - THE most direct way for God's inbreaking to occur in me, is through the well being of my family-and honestly i can say its not about the gifts...it is about THE gift, Him. He knows how to take our little requests and give us what we do truly NEED-leaving us to feel overwhelmed that we get SO much.

We just have to be there, in that waiting room, flat faced, arms wide open, sprawled all out all over that floor.

Is this what you were thinking when you say:


"Waiting has been a common thread in what I have heard from the Father in the last few months, it struck me again as shared on Sunday and then boom, again this AM.  But what I loved about this passage was that the Lord sometimes give us no choice but to wait. And when the waiting is hard, He gives us one another. So if you have felt the pain in waiting of late, know that you are not alone, I for one count it a blessing to wait along side of you. Thank you all for the part you play in my life and may this be encouragement to you that we are in this together, no matter how hard and dirty and gritty life gets.  He made us for community and real growth happens as we forage together as a family, a chosen family. "

If so...yes. Indeed he has made us for community and real growth does happen as we forage together as a family, a chosen family."

bLeSSeD Be,
cHaRiTy!

(the entry was in response to this)

On Dec 13, 2010, at 8:36 PM, :

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

I usually like to share words of encouragement in person, but this morning as I spent some time in the lectionary old testament reading, I felt this great desire to share it with all of you, as individuals, as groups of leaders, and as my beloved community.  Most of you I know and all of you I honor and respect for the time and talent you so generously give to ensure our faith community grows and thrives.  I know we have all felt the stress and strain of the last year as we have foraged what for many of us is a new type of journey without a lead pastor. As our friend and I spent some time in prayer together last night,  I realized that indeed when we communicate with one another as belivers about our lives, our comunion with the Father and how the Holy Spirit is moving, that it is incredibly encouraging and for whatever reason I have been remiss in sharing over this last year and I am resolving to change that.
So this morning the old testament passage was Isaiah 8:16-9:1and what struck me was chapter 8 vs 17 "I will wait for the Lord, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob.  I will put my trust in him."                 Waiting has been a common thread in what I have heard from the Father in the last few months, it struck me again as shared on Sunday and then boom, again this AM.  But what I loved about this passage was that the Lord sometimes give us no choice but to wait. And when the waiting is hard, He gives us one another. So if you have felt the pain in waiting of late, know that you are not alone, I for one count it a blessing to wait along side of you. Thank you all for the part you play in my life and may this be encouragement to you that we are in this together, no matter how hard and dirty and gritty life gets.  He made us for community and real growth happens as we forage together as a family, a chosen family.

humbly,
SiSteR

is screaming that THERE IS NOTHING OK ABOUT ANY OF THIS!

and i know that it has nothing to do with insecurity, emotional or financial instability, or even the fear of needing to know a thing.
because do you know what?
i. KNOW. this. fear.

this fear is so familiar to me. i have spent an entire lifetime avoiding this fear. but i know it. hidden it so deep that its the only thing visible in the darkest times.  but i mercifully know it.

still all i want is to just be o.k.

and then i am reminded that just o.k. is not what i am made to be.... or marked to become...

and yes. i KNOW this, too.  and it is so familiar to me. and i have spent an entire lifetime avoiding this gift. and i know it. and i have hidden it so deep that its the only thing visible in the darkest times. but truthfully i know it.

and then comfort comes even still as everything inside of me is screaming that THERE IS NOTHING OK ABOUT ANY OF THIS!

{  "everything will be okay in the end. if it's not okay, it's not the end." –unknown }

Fear of the Inexplicable

" But fear of the inexplicable has not alone impoverished the existence of the individual; the relationship between one human being and another has also been cramped by it, as though it had been lifted out of the riverbed of endless possibilities and set down in a fallow spot on the bank, to which nothing happens. For it is not inertia alone that is responsible for human relationships repeating themselves from case to case, indescribably monotonous and unrenewed: it is shyness before any sort of new,unforeseeable experience with which one does not think oneself able to cope. But only someone who is ready for everything, who excludes nothing, not even the most enigmatical, will live the relation to another as something alive and will himself draw exhaustively from his own existence. For if we think of this existence of the individual as a larger or smaller room, it appears evident that most people learn to know only a corner of their room, a place by the window, a strip of floor on which they walk up and down. Thus they have a certain security. And yet that dangerous insecurity is so much more human which drives the prisoners in Poe's stories to feel out the shapes of their horrible dungeons and not be strangers to the unspeakable terror of their abode. We, however, are not prisoners. No traps or snares are set about us, and there is nothing which should intimidate or worry us. We are set down in life as in the element to which we best correspond, and over and above this we have through thousands of years of accommodation become so like this life, that when we hold still we are, through a happy mimicry,scarcely to be distinguished from all that surrounds us. We have no reason to mistrust our world, for it is not against us. Has it terrors, they are our terrors; has it abysses, those abuses belong to us; are dangers at hand, we must try to love them. And if only we arrange our life according to that principle which counsels us that we must always hold to the difficult, then that which now still seems to us the most alien will become what we most trust and find most faithful. How should we be able to forget those ancient myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us. " Rainer Maria Rilke  ....i am just TOO aLiVe to be perfect.  perfection IS a form of protection of our fears of what is inexplicable in our lives? R.i.P. Reassurance PeRfecT PROTEST  ...and then i just have to honor this uprooting in me that has occurred merely since yesterday and which i believe may be monumental in marking a new season for me, because i can no longer ignore the rumblings from within or even think that  these words are going to do no less than haunt me evermore ... or until i simply acknowledge this awareness of all that is thoroughly interconnected -  from this particular work of collected words, random thoughts, unintentional happenings, postings from certain sites, peculiar images, and undeveloped ideas - is what causes the rising in my soul to scream for freedom, and in a way that reminds me that this freedom isn't nor hasn't been so far removed that i won't be able to recognize it. it may not be the same freedom that i believe i have and do experience, but it will be a freedom that springs out of me, more faithfully and with a strength that i am sure is beyond everything i have ever known.   for whatever its worth, and with absolute inexplicable belief, today is different, and without any reservation, i am ready to do what ever it takes to make this happen, beginning with every little thing that matters to me.

May all that is unforgiven in you
Be released.

May your fears yield
Their deepest tranquillities.

May all that is unlived in you
Blossom into a future
Graced with love.

...i signed up for my first online e-course that just happens to be titled "Practicing Spirituality with John O'Donohue". really?! it is one of those things that is truly the holy spirit at work on behalf of me. the last entry i wrote here was a blessing from his book "To Bless The Space Between Us". at the time it felt like the best entry to date and that it would be the beginning of a million more but then something got stuck, i kept feeling like my life was on pause and i was waiting for it to be reset to play, but then it wasn't and then that feeling began to settle in and it felt like it would be the last entry that could possibly come out of this being.

that was april.

our life has been in transition since november, mainly due to our decision to scale back so that my husband could begin doing work of his heart. that meant we would need to seriously make some changes in the lifestyle that we currently lived, being very well provided for financially, at least. a quite comfortable, safe, secure, LoVeLy life. i was all over it! this has to be what God wanted for us, we were doing it for the good of the kingdom, for His people. it was true, i was at peace, friends and family were thrown off by how positive i was and that I was not worried. that, we are all familiar with, in me. since the day i was born...well, since the time i started to believe that i needed to be my own protector and provider...it was not me, certainly, not that me. but it was a truer me, and i was A FreaKiN 'live.
until april.
the decisions we were making were not typical of our ways up to this point. basically, we were living day to day, minute to minute fully on God to provide for us. for worriers, which i am, making decisions doesn't come easily...simple choices are usually painfully made, replayed a variety of ways, and monumental once it occurs... then re-evaluated and immediately followed by remorse which is held deeply in reserve, for the upcoming opportunities to be met with indecision and seeking others (typically falling to my husband, but then honestly anyone else trustworthy by my standards and nearby, usually is suitable) help to make decisions, ultimately relying on them to just do the deciding. to be so laissez–faire with some fairly significant changes could be seen as careless and irresponsible at times. two more characteristics of who i am to the core, careFULL and RE-E-esponsible. but again, i knew that it would be okay because this was what kingdom life is meant to be, right?
until april.
for some reason april was the month i was looking forward to, my Estimated Time of Arrival, our lives would be saved just in time. we were not going to lose everything, we were giving it all away, this was going to be our resurrection with Jesus. and i knew with my whole heart that He was going to do it without relocating. time was running out, soon it was the 11th hour. but i know how this part of the story ends. it will be okay. then the 11th hour and 59th second.


oh, no. i know how this part of the story ends

he doesn't take the cup away?

he doesn't take the cup away.

clock strikes 12

oh, no...this is not easter? it's april but its not easter.

...it is good freaking friday

we pack our boxes, a family of 5. no place to go, but the boxes are packed. we had offers from other families to come stay with them, one family has 6 children, has relocated to the inner city, and has been remodeling a warehouse space in hopes of creating a life of community. that could be interesting, what a generous offer but we just need a place to transition, a place to rest, so that we can get on our feet again...we are not looking for a home.

so here it is july, we have been living in a warehouse, in the inner city for nearly 2 months. good days find our family of 5 sharing a table with a family of 8. laundry gets done for 13. children are playing around the clock. the older ones care for the younger ones. men work together. moms share a cup and the cares of our hearts, feeling at home. of course there are moments of discomfort, but then we walk out the door...not to beautiful century old charming homes that have been cared for with children swinging from the strong limbs of the best trees beneath the shade they give, year round as dogs being walked lap refreshingly from overflowing streams trickling from freshly watered green lawns. we step out to centuries of brokenness that has landed on the souls of the people on the street, children finding ways to endure the heat and cold as they await the arrival of the metro, on benches marked by another hoping not to be seen in the dark but to be known by their unique colorful words, the dogs around here bark loudly from behind ten foot high fences as the homeless hopelessly swagger by...restless...so thirsty...waiting for water...

and then i ask how in this world, on this earth, in america, at work, at church, around the corner, on our front steps, in our homes ... can we bless and be so blessed with this space between us?

...what if

discontent is not necessarily a sign of sinFULLness

what if

discontent is more of a sign of lifeLESSness

that there is life stirring inside of us
that there is something happening in the rumblings
that comes only out of that place from our heart,from our own soul
that it comes to remind us that being content is not the place for joy
that the joy we know comes from the Lord

and that that life is more than a job, an opportunity, an end result
it is about transformation and growth

so when discontent surfaces, it is most important to pay close attention to it
for it is in this space where the body can listen to the soul, the flesh can hear the spirit

...FuLL
WHaT...is
...is SO much
...For You
...only
through...
...is ME
with you, here, in...
to listen for...
silence...
...silence

Isaiah 6:1-9

"Love consumes us only in the measure of our self-surrender."
St. Therese of Lisieux

...The oNe true thing that you know when you see it, your soul is certain to open up to. You can not remember what it was like To be without it, or maybe it is that you can never forget what it was like to be without it. the eternal journey begins hoping and believing you will be met there once more, again and again. we only need to keep in mind that LoVe is Here. what matters above all is that we come and see, and be with. i know LoVe because I have been LoVed. i LoVe because i have also known LoVe...

BeLoVeD
Be LoVed
Be LoVe
LoVe
Be

...simply: Be with LoVe

"You never know what may cause them. The sight of the Atlantic Ocean can do it, or a piece of music, or a face you've never seen before. A pair of somebody's old shoes can do it...You can never be sure. But of this you can be sure. Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go next."
• Frederick Buechner •

(This was originally introduced to me by tim keel : as always his insightful thoughts inspire and encourage me, read how these words resonated in his life, they can be found @timkeel.com.)

...i have always been fairly sensitive, in my family, i have typically been considered fragile. one of the things my siblings were pretty successful in doing for me, was to be careful not to hurt my feelings-even my younger sister would say she knew in that way that she may be the youngest, but i was the baby (most tender-hearted) of the family.

As i grew older, i found tearing up in situations caused others to respond to me in all kinds of unexpected ways...in first grade when i was reprimanded for talking too much in class, i cried...the teacher could tell i was sorry and allowed me to go to recess unpunished. Then in fourth grade, when Mr. Johnson gave me detention, for talking too much in class, he found it very hard to keep me afterwards because of my "big ole crocodile tears". and of course getting pulled over by a policeman has provided opportunities to make use of a couple of kleenex, however, it was purely natural, and not 100% foolproof-I've had my share of speeding tickets nonetheless. i'm not saying these outpourings were meant to be manipulative, just that even at an early age, i noticed that other people could be affected by my vulnerability.

But later in life, this ability to "turn on the waterworks" was not as socially acceptable. My parents were very strong emotional role models. i saw my mother cry a handful of times in my life. My stepDad was ironclad, bone dry. Mostly, the times that they found me among my personal puddles, i wasn't dying, injured, or scarred physically-i'm actually fairly stronghearted and can take most things in stride. My feelings however, have Undoubtedly known one primary place of residency, my sleeves. There are only so many times can you be told to pull yourself together and act your age - before you begin to hold it in. This was just their way of protecting me and helping me understand that other people could be affected by my vulnerability.

Years of training myself to keep it together have gone by. until years recently, i allowed myself a good cry, on occassion. But I noticed it seeping back out during a morning prayer between services among the church staff. These tears reminded me of the ones that fell after the birth of my first daughter. They just came, I could not hold them back, and they felt...good. Then I noticed that the lumps in my throat softened during sweet times, and i am now comforted in the way my cheeks become moistened by the streams that seem to flow frequently. Much more often than I ever imagined letting happen. But this passage reminds me that i am not in control of this phenomena, these joy drops from the midst of lifes circumstances, that permeates this being.

...so when i hear a grown man from our community share a story about hurt and healing, and apologizing for his tears...i have one response-it is my honor, brother.
...And then i am reminded, how other people could be affected by my vulnerability, and to that i also say... it is truly my honor.

....in a flea market.

No, really. Maybe because I can find something in each booth that actually could have been found in my childhood home. The golden Pyrex with the floral print, Tupperware, ATARI, tin tv trays folded up-with each peek, hoping to reveal the "Dukes of Hazzard" one that I regret exchanging for "My Little Pony", record albums that could have been played on our turntable system/buffet during the holidays, cement mixing bowls, mushrooms & roosters....

I feel comfort among these things. Things that belonged to people. Things people took care of. Things people forgot about. Things that remind me of things i have forgotten, taken care of and once owned myself.

Funny because I spent a lot of time, effort and a few bucks trying to make my way towards a new life, full of new things with new people. How those old things reminded me that life had so much more to offer. I did not need to take any of it with me. It wouldn't be missed.
But if we do not carry forward these things from our past, faithfully, If only in memory, we will be the ones overlooked, forgotten & mistreated. We will leave no trace of who we are and who we have been. Although, the past has put a mark on us, begun to rust us from the outside in & from the inside out, we've become nearly irrecognizable...torn, damaged far from mint condition.

There is hope, hope that we can be rediscovered, created into a new thing. Now apart of a something uniquely created to be treasured and shared in as many ways as we could imagine possible. To be formed by the One who cares deeply, and loves unconditionally. He saw us then, He loved us there, He sees us now & He loves us so much. So much, He not only asks us, but entrusts us to help carry that Love to others, but first He asks us to help Him in seeing them and taking notice of ourselves, too.

God invites us to be apart of restoration through His love...The earth that He created and is still being re-created is a flea market, His people have been broken, discarded, used and forgotten...look around and see how much And who is there to love

“My God, when you really begin to peer into something, a simple object, and realize the profound meaning of that thing - if you have an emotion about it, there’s no end,” Andrew Wyeth

my favorite painting of Wyeth's is titled
"Wind From the Sea".
it is a still life portrait-
a portrait of a person's character, without that person actually being in the painting.

this intrigues me, as i wonder what still life would so intricately represent me, as he has so richly captured the very essence of who he believed Christina to be. it also requires further reflection that there was a painter who saw her in this way. a painter known best for painting only what he is most familiar with and connected to. i am willing to suggest, that even the way he did see her was quite possibly more than she saw of herself, at least portrayed in such a mysterious way. it is apparent to me, from this perspective of who she is, that he was inspired by her spirit from with in. the meaning lies not in what is merely seen or even in what has been painted onto the canvas, in as much as what emotions are evoked out of the feeling you receive from it, both as a whole, truly haunting, but then also in part. there is movement in the breeze, entering in through the opened window. invited. the use of earthy, dark, meloncholy colors, anchor that sense of stillness. waiting. yet a path that seems to have no specific destination, offering an assurance of being at the center of it all. arrived.

if i am to be honest with continuing in a search of "what" might dipict me with similar depth and profound knowledge of my soul, i must also, more importantly, be just as curious to come to know the identity of this One who claims to know me so deeply...