please pardon my dust

"Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh." (2 Cor. 5:16)

In the beginning, God
created.

He created from dust
in His image, in
His own likeness.

He breathed His Life, putting
Word in empty mouth so that

He could have conversations.

"Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer." (2 Cor. 5:16)

In the beginning, God
created.

He created from dust
One in His image, in
very nature God.

He breathed His Life, putting
Word on silent Cross so that

He could have conversations.

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation." (2 Cor.17-19)

In the beginning, God
created.

He created from stone
a new soft heart, to
fill with His Spirit.

He breathed His Life, pulling
Word from empty tomb so that

He could have conversations.

Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.” (Rev. 21:1-5)

In the beginning, God
created.

He created new dust for
heaven and earth to
fill with His presence.

He brought His Life, sending
Word to reap the old so that

He could dwell with man and
have conversations.

The air was heavy most of the day here. Thickened with tension, fraught with child cries and voices that I know are not in the air but in my head.

Cries that carried need. Voices that carried shame.

I stepped silent around them, breathing hard, breathing deep, swallowing cries and frustration and the internal screams not meant for air.

I planned and re-planned and worked and re-worked and accomplished absolutely nothing at all because I was too distraught to move beyond necessity today, because my back ached and my head ached and my eyes ached from the unshed tears behind them, tears held back by confused anger. Anger held in, stopped up by fear.

...

"Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage." (Gal. 5:1)

Stand fast...

The words catch on the fear in my throat, choking me. How dare I think that I should stand fast?

I know this Gospel. I know this grace. I know what redemption is. I know what it means that I am reconciled to God.

Yet I hold Him at arm's length. Close enough to keep an eye on what He is doing, far enough to keep Him from tearing my heart open. I want to give my all to Him - really, I do - but the fear that thickens the air, that holds back the tears, the fear traps me. I utter the words on repeat, "I don't want to..." because I don't know what else to say.

Everything is "Christ, but..." in my head today. I feel that the Cross is not enough. That His coming was nothing, really.

But everything that is not of Him must be stripped away.

Even the good I mean to do.

...

The words spin and scatter and gather and fly now. They come with tears as I begin to pour my heart into the air that is heavy. They spill out and speak desire that is good, fear that is caging, wild hope that is true.

"You ran well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?" (Gal. 5:7)

Yes. I ran well. I know I have lived this Truth, that in Christ I live and move and have my being.

My being that is too small for this great God. My being that is dying to dress up a little more, deliver a little more, surrender a little more before I come before Him. Oh, I do not want to need His mercy this time! I want to like the me I bring to Him.

So He lets me stew and watches me fall, waiting to catch my frightened heart.

"You ran well..."

"Stand fast."

I gather my courage. More words spill before Him, and before my husband who came early to hold me, to listen to me breathe hard and fast and hurt and scared. Words about prayer, about inviting God into our house, about doing only the things He has set before me now instead of preparing for China and martyrdom in thirty years when I just know He will require it of me.

...

My testimony is this: Jesus Christ and Him crucified. This is the grace, the Gospel, the mercy, the Redemption I own.

Here, I am not trapped. Jesus despised the shame He bore - MY shame - and He does not impute it to me.

I am not what I want to be. I am what I am, by the grace of God.

And what I am is a mess. What I am does not take the photos I want to take. What I am does not (and cannot most times) do the housework I want to do. What I am is too often afraid to love. What I am does not stop the words when they should be stopped, does not speak them when they should be spoken.

What I am is dust. Dust, and a broken heart.

...

"For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. (2 Cor. 5:1-7)

If you read my blog and think I am something, know this the truth: I am nothing.

I have spent much of the past weeks soul-searching - as much as one can soul-search beneath the constant hue and cry of my two - and I know that what I give and what I do and what I write will not be what I am hoping to give and do and write.

Because you see, I have been patterning my nothing after others who have done what I wish to do, and in the end it comes to nothing without Jesus for me, and my yoke of bondage is my own misplaced desire to be like them and not like me who God created and re-created and called good. If we all say the same thing, we become shadows of one another, and the best and brightest shadow is still a shadow - when we are really earthen vessels filled with the weight of a glory that is not meant to be earthbound.

He is so much There, and does not seem to be here at all. Yet the things that my heart knows call me to walk into what my eyes do not see, and my mess is propelled forward by faith into a Life I dare not seek in my own strength - who am I to know what Holy and Righteous is?

"For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." (2 Cor. 5:21)

...

I cannot live the future now.

God asks this of me today (and I have been afraid to listen): to draw near to Him. To look at Him. To open my heart to an intimacy to take me beyond the limits of my imagination so that I will know that whether I live or die, I will be in Him.

There is a question that has been niggling at me recently, an inane question that offers more direction than I thought I needed: "Am I a blogger who writes or a writer who blogs?"

Tonight, as the words come, I know the answer.

I am a writer who blogs, and it is time for me to step back into my place - MY place - and write again, instead of trying the "blogging" thing.

Several months ago, I went searching for a community who knows God - and I found it. I found you. And you and you and you. And I have been deepened and encouraged, and I hope it will continue.

But I may not be commenting so much on other blogs as I have. I may not reply to every email or track my stats or link up elsewhere or follow too many prompts or Tweet endless links as I have.

I suspect the nature of my posts will change a bit too - when I write, I write for me; I write what is deep; I write what is Him in my dust. I have nothing else.

The voices tell me that is "self-centered," but I am feeling stronger this evening, more ready to stand, more ready to claim the free that is mine in Jesus so I may bow at the throne of Grace - instead of ducking my head, anticipating the blow.

...

What does it mean, that God destroyed the gap between Heaven and earth when Jesus became man and died and rose again?

Death, where is your victory?

I breathe out slow now. Long, and slow. A sigh, but not a sigh. An acknowledgment. That God created me the way He meant. That He does not mean to crush me, but to guard me, to hold me safe in His love. That the being I have in Christ is so much glory and not so much dust.

My flesh and my heart fail.

The groaning is a given.

My spirit is waiting for that face-to-face conversation. The one where I see Him. The one where I become like Him.

God, that's gonna be so good...





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Qavah

There are a lot of "oughts" in my brain just now.

There are words strung out in phrases, slipping "shoulds" and "need tos" and "haven'ts" and "didn'ts" mingling into restless, accusing syntax to bypass the grace I know with the other things.

The "you're not enough." The "you can't." The long lecture about standing too firm, too proud, the castigation for my humanity, the convenient oversight of the dirt and grime and splattering red of the Cross.

So many are giving so much up for Lent. So many care here and give there. So many pursue this or that with passion and drive that seems untouched by the weights I am wishing to throw aside. Weights that I am not even certain I may throw aside.

I try to live. I'm trying to gain my balance here. But I am an all or nothing person, and it seems I am wading through some quagmire in a valley of decision. Decision that has no clear direction. "Give something up." "Do more here." "Let's not do this." "I need to try that."

The voices are loud and insistent. They are not God's, I think. They drive me away from still.

I am not one to give much credence to spiritual attack. I generally try to ignore it, continue on my way, keeping my eyes away from it. But I'm living in a thin place right now. The photo above tells more than I wish to tell, yet it says so much that I have to say, that I can't admit, that I must admit or disappear.

There are places in me I dare not go without my strong God. There are cracks in my armor - not my Christ-armor - my own protective walls, the ones that must come crashing down in me before He will have all of me, before it will be all joy to embrace Him as my very great reward.

Fear has footholds in me yet; he drives me inward, makes me cower, curl into myself, poking and prodding until I lash out with the only defense the attack has left available to me - anger. Fury.

Where is your grace now? The voices taunt, and I try not to fall, hold back my tears, for I cannot be broken, they cannot break me.

I look for Jesus. This is my year of dust. Of looking at mine, of seeking His, for He became dust too. His wilderness was forty days long. Israel wandered forty years. How long is my own to last?

Why, oh why do I fight for this freedom?

I am being pressed. I am perplexed. I am persecuted. Yet I am not crushed. I do not despair. I am not alone.

How can I know these things and still struggle so within myself?

"It is your own fault." The hissing prods me, bidding vague decision. "You could end this. Just choose what you know is right!"

But right is not something I know so very well anymore. Right and Life are far from each other at times, when Christ is my life and right blocks my view of Him.

It seems the very air I breathe is murky. The light is shadowed.

Too often, I have surrounded myself with people, with voices that tell me the right. Too often I take their word instead of His, and even the good causes me to stumble. I am so weak; I cannot be strong like some. I used to think that I could. I used to think that having the right answer was enough.

Answers are cold. And they are often empty.

Everything inside cries for touch. Not for child-touch, need-touch. God knows I've had too much of that lately. I almost push them away to make room for full-touch, giving-touch.

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, thou art with me.

With rod and staff He offers comfort. I receive it deep. I need both to steady, to guide, to hem me behind and before.

The light pierces now, sun in a baby's eyes as he emerges from the womb. Glorious light.

You have laid Your hand upon me.

It is so warm.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Love Today

Wednesday.

The week is blurred on both sides; it is only the moment that comes into focus, like a permanent shallow depth-of-field.

I hear the windchimes outside the house that will be ours for only a few more weeks. Already, we are moving stuff three streets over to our new/old/new house. Pete needs to put in the lighting there. We need more hours in a day.

But the windchimes are singing here today. Loudly. The wind that blew out the clouds overnight and brought the sun in this morning is determined and cold, frolicking as if spring is here, teasing.

I'm a little disoriented. Wistfully disoriented, I think. I feel a bit trapped inside my body today; I am annoyed with my physical limitations. The world is blurred. I am awkward. My legs don't work very well. Neither does my voice. I am weak today.

I've cleaned my inbox, quieted enough to string answers together and reply to a few letters. I don't sleep well in daylight so I haven't napped; I slept until 9:30 this morning, because Pete stayed home to help with the little ones. Now he is feeling ill, and the babies are sleeping.

Finally, I am alone with my thoughts.

...

Wednesday.

Ann Voskamp is hosting her "Walk With Him Wednesday." I have been thinking of how to love like Jesus, but all I can scribble here (is it scribbling to type the words, really?) is vivid memory-etching from Sunday's dim-lit worship, nameless faces, hearts indwelt by Christ.

He came to be me, came to be them, that we might all be washed in grace, clothed together in His righteous. I don't know them. I didn't have to know them. I didn't have to be hurt by them or forgive them to recognize Him in them.

The Motrin has eased the throat-pain now. I try not to be distracted by the fresh chill. I turn up the heat.

Ann has written of love during her family's sick time. I didn't know when I began this post. "One can't love too much," she says. But one can love too little. I am not good at this sort of love. Giving or receiving it. Both require stepping outside of oneself. And that is hard to do, when I am falling apart, body and mind.

But not soul. I can't remember the last time I felt well. I pull myself up, remember my mom's encouragement - "endurance," she has offered me many times. "Sometimes, you just have to get through it."

She is right. The living cannot just stop. Time goes on. Needs don't go away.

I wish for someone to bring a meal tonight. I think I can manage it, though, if I stand long enough. I need to get it before the baby wakes again to eat.

The loving can't stop for weakness.

It endures, doesn't it?

I remember the strep infection I got when Piper was four weeks old. I had a fever, 104 degrees. I was barely conscious, still waking to nurse her, burning hot flesh against my husband in bed, freezing too deep to get warm.

This is not so bad as it was then.

The sun is setting. Day is nearly finished. We'll be up for a few more hours with Bredon's colic now.

...

Wednesday.

Loving like Jesus. It must be done here, in the now - whether I am ready or not. This is how He loved. His eternal God-love met with flesh-limitation, and He sought rest too, bearing burdens, yielding His body to meet our desperate need, giving His life as He traveled with no place to lay His head.

It must be done in today, this loving like Him, leaving yesterday's failures there, taking no thought for tomorrow's grace not-yet-measured.

This love seems stronger than all the other times I love. It is life-giving, life-laying-down. It requires much, more than I know how to give; I grasp what strength I have and hope He will bridge the difference.

And if He doesn't? Well, I know about that. That's when I free-fall. That's when trusting His heart gives me strength to say anyway that "God is good, isn't He?" Sometimes that is more of a question than a statement. And sometimes it is just what I know, because I know His love deep now.

...

Wednesday.

The learning to love like Jesus happens quiet. It is not glamorous like I'd hoped. It is daily, kairos framed in chronos.

Kairos because it is outside time, because Christ-love never fails. Kairos because Jesus is God, God has no beginning or end; God is Love - I cannot fathom the infinite.

I grab another water bottle from beneath my desk. I need to keep drinking, swallowing help over my sore throat, so Bredon can have enough to eat. It is nearly dinner time.

Time to love, I think.

------------------------


This post also linked at Holy Experience for Walk With Him Wednesday.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Not Yet Ready, But Love...

Having a little driving time is good for me. I think better as the world passes by, with the movement of car on pavement, with music and lyrics of God-songs telling and retelling about Him, about life, about me.

On my way from my midwife appointment yesterday (at which I discovered that all the contractions I've had haven't been for nothing - I was 4cm dilated!), I was listening again to Vicky Beeching's song, Captivated.

"May my life be one unbroken gaze fixed upon the beauty of Your face..."

Her lyric got caught in the web that is my pregnant brain and took a rabbit trail into the video I shared in the link above.

Instead of seeing myself gazing at Jesus, I saw Him living His life, engaging with others, pursuing and treasuring relationship. I saw how much He valued the ones He loved.

I'm not one to rush out and do things for the sake of doing them. Most of the time, I simply don't have the resources to pour me out the way I often feel that I must. But sometimes, I hold myself back from giving of myself, unready in my heart or in my sense of the proper timing, unwilling to be a hypocrite for the sake of appearances, willing to sacrifice my image for authenticity.

As I looked at Jesus' interactions with those in His life, I couldn't help but acknowledge how little I look like Him sometimes. He poured Himself out ALL the time, it seemed. I am lucky if I can admit to doing it at all for my family.

Mentally, I was ready to check out from this train of thought. There was too much room for guilt, for inadequacy, for failure, for condemnation.

But in His way (God is so gentle with me, it's astounding...), He brought my vision to Cana, in view of Jesus' face when His mother brought the wine situation to Him. I heard His voice, a little strained, unready and uncalled to display Himself in the ministry that would soon consume His whole life.

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Now both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding. And when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.”

Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.”

His mother said to the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.”

Now there were set there six waterpots of stone, according to the manner of purification of the Jews, containing twenty or thirty gallons apiece. Jesus said to them, “Fill the waterpots with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. And He said to them, “Draw some out now, and take it to the master of the feast.” And they took it.

When the master of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom. And he said to him, “Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guests have well drunk, then the inferior. You have kept the good wine until now!”

- John 2:1-10

"My hour has not yet come." It is not yet time... I'm not ready...

Yet for love of her, for her trust in His provision, He gave of Himself in spite of it.

I am too often afraid of Jesus until I look into His love.

I may not have much to give right now; I may be unsure of timing, uncertain of my own heart, of the depth of my love for God and for my family.

But I have been given an earthen-vessel Treasure that He means to pour out - how do I know it won't be the best wine at the wedding?

...

Today is my second "Leftovers" post, and MckLink-up for readers to share your own reposts. I posted the above post at 2:00 a.m., December 17, 2009, two hours before my water broke for Bredon's birth. Obviously, this post got a little overlooked in the "I'm in labor" and "We had a baby!" hoopla. It is one that keeps coming back for me, though so I thought I would post it a bit more currently.

NOTE - I am offering "Leftovers" as an opportunity to justify reposting a post you love. You're welcome to join this carnival of original unoriginality (since you've already said it!) here at my blog - just follow the steps below:

*REPOST a favorite blog post at your blog
*Please kindly INCLUDE A LINK to my blog in your repost ;-)
*LINK the direct link for your repost (not the original post) into the McLinky I will provide here.
*LEAVE A COMMENT so I know you're there.

Hopefully, in two weeks, when I host "Leftovers" again (yeesh, people, if you have a nicer, more poetic, romantic name for it, leave a comment - NOBODY likes leftovers, right?), I will try and have an irresistible button for you (with CODE!) to add to your repost.







(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Glory - A Ramble

Spring starts in January here. I love that the warm weather doesn't wait, that we get to breathe spring while the light still carries its gorgeous winter roses around.

It's our third day sunny since our last bout with clouds. My eyes chase the light still, trying to save it, satiate myself with it.

Sometimes I think that I will miss the sun when God creates a new heaven and a new earth and lights it all up with His glory. I have never seen His glory, so I scrabble through dust after familiar beauty, beauty subjected to frustration because of me, because of Him, because of hope.

I think it will be like a smile, like waking up to my baby's happy, when his eyes light up as he sees me and he grins big. Or like saying "yes" to my Piper when she wants something special from me and her eyes dance with excitement and I miss her regular color because there are so many other colors sparking around in her deep eyes. Or like looking deep into soft, bright brown love that spills over innocent and deep and full from my husband's heart.

How can I describe light, describe glory? Words are not enough, not in any language. Perhaps aching on my knees, raising up my hands, closing my eyes, turning my head toward it to feel it, embrace it, welcome it, welcome Him...

I wonder what Jesus remembered of His glory when He came. I consider today His suffering, the dust He walked in, the dust He became, the dust He loved in loving us. He traded glory for sunlight and moonlight, for sorrow, for fellowship in our lives here.

How homesick He must have been, acquainting Himself so intimately with our grief.

Becoming like Him means becoming less, but not in the way we think it, not in the way we try to shut us down and ward us off in pursuit of His perfection. Becoming less - it means imitating Him, turning away from our own familiar light, choosing dust, choosing human, letting God be God - embracing the weight of His glory in our weakness, in our foolishness.

I think I can see it in my heart sometimes when I am broken, every knee bowing before Jesus, the Son of Man who is the Son of eternal God - who set aside His glory, who made Himself nothing, who humbled Himself before us - US! - and died. Eternal God chose death and died like us, died for us, bearing all the weight of all our griefs and sins and sorrows.

Even He knelt before God and asked not to bear it, but "Your will, Father, not Mine..."

I learn to yield. I learn that obedience results not from subjection or domination but comes by way of submission, by way of humbling, by way of opening my empty up to Him, offering my vessel-dust to be filled with glory.

Sometimes I think I'll miss the sunlight. But I have a feeling I won't notice its absence for looking at Jesus.

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

- Phil. 2:5-11

(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Jesus for My Children

He makes my small hands look large with his tiny.

Sometimes he looks up at me when I'm doing something or saying something, and I look down and catch his wide-eyed wonder.

And he smiles. Just for me right now. Goofy smiles for giggling. Happy smiles for flying. "I want to stay up smiles" that come by night-light late when I'd much rather be sleeping than rocking. Smiles that make me feel so loved when he meets my eyes as if he is talking to me, sharing his little happy heart.

I think he likes me.

This amazes me.

Already he is growing. Already his skin is losing that new-baby softness. Already his weak is stronger, his eyes are brighter, his voice is louder.

My heart is planting dreams, hoping stories for my children, for our family, praying laughter and conversation and silliness and dancing and happy and together-growth. I picture my children talking to each other, saying one another's names.

Names that we chose for them...

I imagine Piper's first crush, Bredon's first ballgame, girls' night out, boys' time...

I think we should get a dog. A family needs a dog. That would really annoy our house cats. They would so deserve it.

How will I talk about Jesus with my children? I am only beginning to learn. If you ask Piper who made her, half the time her answer is "Mickey Mouse."

She is a silly.

We read to them before we go to bed. We go to bed at the same time right now, with Piper needing her normal and Bredon up late with evening colic.

I want them to know about God. To know how He makes me who I am, who I don't realize I am until I think about it.

I realize it takes courage to stand in Jesus and say "I am human; I am justified. I am dead to sin and alive to God now." I have been gaining that courage to live so free.

I feel so very young sometimes. So unready to be the mother that I am now.

I notice my hands as I hold my children.

They don't know how small I feel. They don't know that I am only me for them because of Jesus loving me.

I think sharing that love with them doesn't have to frighten me. It is just His bigger hand on my tiny.

Every day I pray for grace.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Rescued

We came to the sea, and tears blurred vision, word-echoes muffled wave-sound on sand as more of me fell away. As if the wind moving the surf could sweep me into the water for washing.

Had I done enough, surrendered enough, opened myself enough to Him?

Wrapping arms around myself, I tried to breathe.

I felt utterly alone.

Had God abandoned me? Was He holding Him back from me because I had failed Him?

------------------------

I'm at (in)Courage today. Click over for the rest of the story.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Eve's Redemption

Eve was created to be Adam's helpmeet, his ezer kenegdo, his strong helper, his life saver. But it was Eve who was deceived by Satan, who took of the fruit, who offered it to Adam.

Adam's life saver offered him death instead of life.

And she is blamed for this, for the entrance of sin and death into the world, and her daughters are blamed for this. She is abused and rejected and dominated and subjected and devalued by Adam.

But where Adam blames Eve, the woman God gave him to be his help, God held Adam responsible for his own choice, and in Adam, all man is under sin. All who are born of his seed are born into his death.

How devastated Eve must have been! She had betrayed Adam, succumbed to Satan's deception, failed at the thing for which she had been created. She was a life saver who had invited death for her husband. I live with this sense of inadequacy every day.

This Christmas season, as I was preparing to give birth to my son, as I visited and revisited Mary's experience, I discovered something more than Eve's failure. It was in Mary that Eve finally met her full potential, finally realized the reason for which she had been created.

In Mary, Eve delivered the Son of the Holy Spirit, slain before the foundation of the world for Adam's sin. She birthed Jesus, the second Adam, God-in-the-flesh who would not only save her, but who would be her husband's salvation.

Through the pain-filled birth of a baby, by the sword of death that pierced her heart as she watched her God-Son die in Adam's stead, Eve found her redemption.

Eve had failed, and miserably - but God... Ezer kenegdo indeed...

--------------------------

Tomorrow: Related thoughts on Adam... (Because Pete and I got to talking, and I wanted this to be a short post... Maybe I'll make Pete guest post - or at least take the credit for his train of thought here!)

And you just must forgive the continued use of baby pictures here. I've got a one-track mind behind the camera right now.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Two

These are my children. I cannot help the absolute wonder I feel looking at them together like this, learning each other in the way babies do, with a simple acceptance that "you must be part of my life now."

Sometimes, it takes seeing it like this, through my lens, processed before my eyes and under my hand, to make it real.

Is this what God felt at creation, I wonder? Was it a capture of something He had dreamed about, had foreknown? Or was it at incarnation, when He clothed Himself with the dust He'd made to live and be and feel as we do?

What glory He gave up to become a man, a helpless infant. What glory does He now deserve? Can we possibly know its measure within the bounds of our human imagination? Even imagination is not enough to describe Him.

What is man, that He is mindful of him?

Two lives given to me, two little faces that bear some of my image, two little hearts to steal my heart, and love that takes my breath away...

I am not enough for this - but oh, how beautiful!







(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Not Yet Ready, But Love...

Having a little driving time is good for me. I think better as the world passes by, with the movement of car on pavement, with music and lyrics of God-songs telling and retelling about Him, about life, about me.

On my way from my midwife appointment yesterday (at which I discovered that all the contractions I've had haven't been for nothing - I was 4cm dilated!), I was listening again to Vicky Beeching's song, Captivated.

"May my life be one unbroken gaze fixed upon the beauty of Your face..."

Her lyric got caught in the web that is my pregnant brain and took a rabbit trail into the video I shared in the link above.

Instead of seeing myself gazing at Jesus, I saw Him living His life, engaging with others, pursuing and treasuring relationship. I saw how much He valued the ones He loved.

I'm not one to rush out and do things for the sake of doing them. Most of the time, I simply don't have the resources to pour me out the way I often feel that I must. But sometimes, I hold myself back from giving of myself, unready in my heart or in my sense of the proper timing, unwilling to be a hypocrite for the sake of appearances, willing to sacrifice my image for authenticity.

As I looked at Jesus' interactions with those in His life, I couldn't help but acknowledge how little I look like Him sometimes. He poured Himself out ALL the time, it seemed. I am lucky if I can admit to doing it at all for my family.

Mentally, I was ready to check out from this train of thought. There was too much room for guilt, for inadequacy, for failure, for condemnation.

But in His way (God is so gentle with me, it's astounding...), He brought my vision to Cana, in view of Jesus' face when His mother brought the wine situation to Him. I heard His voice, a little strained, unready and uncalled to display Himself in the ministry that would soon consume His whole life.

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Now both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding. And when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.”

Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.”

His mother said to the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.”

Now there were set there six waterpots of stone, according to the manner of purification of the Jews, containing twenty or thirty gallons apiece. Jesus said to them, “Fill the waterpots with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. And He said to them, “Draw some out now, and take it to the master of the feast.” And they took it.

When the master of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom. And he said to him, “Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guests have well drunk, then the inferior. You have kept the good wine until now!”

- John 2:1-10

"My hour has not yet come." It is not yet time... I'm not ready...

Yet for love of her, for her trust in His provision, He gave of Himself in spite of it.

I am too often afraid of Jesus until I look into His love.

I may not have much to give right now; I may be unsure of timing, uncertain of my own heart, of the depth of my love for God and for my family.

But I have been given an earthen-vessel Treasure that He means to pour out - how do I know it won't be the best wine at the wedding?





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

A Long Comment - The Cost of the Gift

Katdish, one of my new blog friends, guest-posted over on Peter Pollock's blog today, and I started to leave a comment that grew into a book, so I thought I'd post my thoughts on her post here, instead of filling their writing space with all my hot air.

--------------------------

I told my sister yesterday that one of the most incredible things I have gained in this last year of waiting for God is a deep understanding of my own need for a Savior. Every day.

When I began seeking Him, I wanted to do it "right," to understand and surrender to Him daily, constantly engaging and remembering the magnitude of what He'd done for me. But it got old. Really old.

You see, the Gospel has no value to you until you yourself have need of good news. It's not about doing right. It's about hope. It's about a Savior who came to clothe us in His own God-holy so that we are not destroyed.

You know how it goes, though. The more I tried to grow and change to be like Him, the less I saw of Him, the harder I fought against what I believed to be His will for me.

It wasn't until He brought an end to my own efforts to please Him - and still loved me! - that I saw what I had been doing. I realized I wasn't just lukewarm - I wasn't even ever burning for Him! My "passion" for Him was wrapped up in my own idea of right and righteous and holy - and from my own perspective, I was better than you all!

I tumbled off my own god-stool and hit the ground, HARD.

Once I realized I could not shape or drive my own passion, could not justify myself, could not sanctify myself, I found myself looking up at God, going, "now what?"

"Wait on the Lord," He said. "I will complete the work I have begun in you." There was a whole lotta "I love you" in there too. The kind of "I love you" that said, "I have shown you my love in this, that I sent My beloved Son into your flesh and let Him die your death."

It no longer works for me to write or think or approach anyone with the perspective that I am anything. I can't get around the incredible heart-aching daily understanding that I have absolutely nothing to offer God or anybody else if Jesus didn't live and die and arise. I have SUCH need. Sometimes it seems that all I am is need.

It is not remembering the cost that has changed me. It is the recognition of my own desperate need for redemption - and His loving desperation to redeem me. This everyday remembrance of grace both humbles and ignites.

I wrote once that real love means entering into the life of another, looking through his eyes, feeling with his heart, walking in his shoes, dying his death. This, Jesus did for me. This, I am only beginning to learn to do for Him.

At this point in my life, it's not the "cost of the purse" that makes the difference to me. It's how much I need the thing. That, and the fact that the need has been met.

I can't believe His incredible grace.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

By Grace - A Restless Heart Seeks Rest

An Anonymous Critique

You are. such. a navelgazer. which means. self focused. always thinking. about yourself. under. the guise. of thinking. about God.

sorry, kelly. i'm leaving. never to read your blog again.

You failed.

-MI

Words that greeted me from my inbox this morning, an anonymous comment left on Monday's rather brain-fogged post. Cruel words calculated to wreak heart-havoc. A voice of accusation, condemnation, dismissal.

They sink deep.

I've heard them before.

They don't affect me the way they once did.

I know they don't carry the weight of Jesus-come-in-the-flesh-to-die-and-be-raised-to-Life-again. The spirit behind the words doesn't understand grace that frees to cling to a Savior.

I know what I am. I am a navel-gazer. I am self-focused. I am human.

But I don't seek to disguise myself by talking about God. Really, the fact that I talk about Him at all gives testimony to His work in me.


A Place in God's Heart

You see, about a year ago, I gave up altogether on God. The idea of being crucified with Christ, of having everything I wanted stripped away from me with no promise of reward but God Himself - there was no appeal in it. Why should I try to serve and love Someone whose stated care for me is entirely based in His own glory?

I almost hated Him then for wanting to use me when I had the sense that the God of the Universe did not really care about me at all.

Thus my heart was grieved,
And I was vexed in my mind.
I was so foolish and ignorant;
I was like a beast before You.

- Psalm 73:21-22

God destroyed my limited concept of Him. My world went silent, a strained silent listlessness that gradually eased into "wait."

In the waiting, I began to see that He is more than I can define. Or understand. Or manipulate. Or control.

And I saw something else. That His love for me prompted God to come to earth as a Man and die. For me.

Yes, I am self-focused.

We who love Him love because He first loved us, and gave Himself for us. If we are all honest, we must admit that our only point of reference for the reality of His love is - and must be - based in our own experience and understanding of what He did for us individually.

To say otherwise is to leave our humanity behind. To dismiss our need for grace. To grasp equality with God. To raise ourselves to a position to judge the weak and the fool that God has chosen for Himself.

I am the weak. I am the fool.

Yet I am not ashamed.


Good News Most Sufficient

"I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ..."

- Philippians 1:6

To be holy as Jesus is holy, to be perfect and complete in God's sight, this is a work no one knows how to complete but the God who Himself is perfect. It must be His work, for all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.

The knowledge burns within my soul as I scribble here my daily ponderings, my rambles, my random. As a fool, I do not seek to cloak myself or my sin; as weak, I do not try to hide my questions or my oft-misplaced desires.

When I consider God, I do consider myself. I consider who I am in relation to Him, who He is in relation to me. And He often calls me to realize Him outside of me, but even this leads back to my heart, which responds to Him with worship. I am at times undone by Him.

Every word I speak is not His. One post from my blog does not encompass the whole story of this girl who once wanted to be something for God. Her story got rearranged. Now, she knows He will be God in spite of her.

And yet He died for her. He has chosen her to know Him. Given her this faith that she could not dredge up in a million years of trying. Predestined her to good works. Given her His Spirit as a seal upon her heart.

Oh yes, I have failed. Oh, thank GOD I have failed.

You see, I know all is not lost.

I have been redeemed already. I am being sanctified. I may give thanks for self-focused things when I am brain-fogged and still learning to speak again of God. I may live my whole life in the dust that I am and walk by this faith He has given that He Himself is my perfection, knowing that Jesus became sin for me so that I could become the righteousness of God in Him.

This is all my glory, this Christ who took on flesh. He is the Good News that brings me boldly to the throne of Grace to freely obtain mercy I have not deserved.


Faith Not My Own

"Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

- Romans 8:8-11

It would be ludicrous for me to say that this reckoning happens overnight. It would be a lie for me to say that I am every day overwhelmed by this Gospel.

But this Eternal God, the Alpha and Omega I AM who is both Beginning and End - He does not live on my daily schedule. He exists outside of time, and His work begun in me is His to complete.

I feel like a child before Him sometimes. Puttering around at His feet, living in my dailiness, changing diapers, writing words from my limited perspective, cleaning house, preparing for a new baby, learning to pray, learning to notice His goodness in my life and giving only small, self-focused thanks when He gives me something I want.

By the grace of God, I am what I am.

"Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.

"What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

"Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

- Romans 8:26-35, 37-39

I - who am nothing - have known His faithfulness, so much greater than my small faith, faithful from this God who swears by Himself and keeps His Word.

I am willing to wait for His promise. And this, I know, is Him in me.

Forgive my earth-puttering, please. He is still at work.

------------------------


This post also linked at Holy Experience for Walk With Him Wednesday. It is a little off-topic, but this is what His advent means for me, how it changes my life. This is why I seek Him.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Under Grace

Growing in Grace

Does "growing in grace" mean that I am to grow in my understanding of grace, or does it mean that I am to grow up into Christ covered by grace? Perhaps it's both, for growing in my understanding of grace is essential to releasing myself into it for God to complete His work, perfecting in me the image of His Son.

Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation—as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.

You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked; but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.

- 2 Peter 3:14-18

To Him Be the Glory

Sometimes I wonder what effect my choices really have on what God thinks of me. I don't think He needs me to be one way or another - after all, I didn't choose Him - He chose me. Not only did He choose me, He called me out for His own glory, just as He did not call others out for His own glory.

Pete and I have been reading through Genesis with Piper before bed. She's not really interested yet - Abraham and Isaac and Jacob are right up there with Mickey Mouse and Curious George in her estimation. While she may not be engaged, her parents have been talking a bit about the lives of these three men.

Abraham had a relationship in which he walked with God. Isaac seemed to do okay without thinking much about it. Then there was Jacob, who really was a scumbag when Esau appeared to have a sense of honor. Yet God said elsewhere, "Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated."

Why would God choose a deceiver like Jacob? Why would He appear as an anonymous man and wrestle with him, tell Jacob he had prevailed against God and man, bless him and care for him, even though he was pretty self-focused and disinterested in relationship with God, except when he needed Him?


A Relational Center

When I was growing up, I asked my dad what made us different from other people who believed in God - what set us apart from the "religious" and authenticated our faith? His answer, "We have a personal relationship with the Lord."

I know now that is a more radical concept than I believed then. Even people who talk about "personal relationship" are too often focused on a legalized approach to "right and wrong" without considering our Helper, the Holy Spirit, sent for us after Jesus' return to heaven. So many churches I have attended preach right and wrong, simply assuming God-relationship. But the insidious fact of this legalism is the neglect of the Gospel, and the Gospel is everything.

The whole point of Jesus' Cross-work was to reconcile us for relationship with God. This relationship is made possible by His Spirit, speaking to us the mind of the Father, teaching us eternal things Jesus didn't have time to teach in His short ministry here on earth.

Too many times, I have wasted spirit-energy in self-searching instead of trusting God to search my heart as only He can do. Too many times, I have trolled down a do/don't list that tells me how to make God happy with me instead of reconciling myself dead to sin and alive to God.

Too many times, I have overlooked the fact that I have been crucified with Christ. Instead, I choose to wear a sin-cloak that is no longer mine to wear, thinking that I can get light out of an LED flashlight I'm throwing randomly around in the dark.


What Shall We Say, Then?

The choice that is left to me is not simply right or wrong. It is life or death. If I believe Jesus, I may choose to consider myself dead to sin and alive to God, or I may choose to subject myself again to a yoke of bondage.

God has much to do in me yet, but He knows and remembers what I often forget in my sincere but sometimes-too-pressured desire to please Him - that I am dust. That my dust cannot handle all of His Godness at once.

I need to grow beneath the shelter of Christ-grace: my death His, my sin His, His righteousness mine, His life mine. Even my faith is not of myself - it is the gift of God - and why should He have chosen to bestow it on me?





(Images © Informal Moments Photography)

The Word - a Meditation on John 1

In the beginning...

It was the right place to start, the same place the story of our being had begun when Moses had written it long before. But his story was different. It was about the world, but it wasn't. It was about a Man, the God-Man whose love he had known.

In the beginning was the Word...

The Word, a Person, not inscribed on any page, inscribed on every page, 33 years and eons of being that would never be written, for all the volumes in all the world could not contain Him.

The Word was with God, and the Word was God...

I imagine his pen, pausing over the scratched-ink words he'd written, imagining his Friend at the beginning, spinning world and universe and tree and flower and heart in His image, sense his wonder as he repeats himself:

He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.

Telling His story, telling our story, the part we didn't know from Moses' telling, the redemption planned from the very foundation of the world, set from the beginning of time, the defeat of Satan before he ever deceived Eve, drew Adam into sin.

In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

As he wrote, searing pain at what he had seen mingled with joyful incredulity, sunset and sunrise at once, beginning and end tangled up in I Am, Alpha and Omega, incarnation and Resurrection, the Son of Man who was God who was Life and Light, who was his Friend, Jesus.

He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Spirit-born again into God-inheritance, drawn by something higher than reason, redemption greater than the fulfillment of the Law - the words flowed faster now, passion-driven, aching with understanding that had seemingly dawned too late for him.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth... And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.

Breath stopped for just a moment as he penned words Jesus Himself had spoken and realization wakened fresh so that he thought his heart would burst with the aching wonder of what he had seen.

All this time, He, John, had been walking with God.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

tension

A friend whose heart I love asked recently if I am ever torn between writing and photography.

I answer that sometimes I am one, sometimes I am the other - I feel so much, so deeply. I write to express feeling I have that seeks words, write to discover what it is I am thinking. As I write, I become.

It is when I do not feel at all that I go looking for the pictures, stretched like a string on a violin, waiting taut for the stroke of the Master's bow, the touch of His fingers creating melody for the lyric of me. This is when I simply am.

These last few weeks have been picture times, woven in color and gray and white, in glorious simplicity and straightforward complexity that offers no words for becoming, just moments for living.

And I am human, seeming to focus too much here, too little there, on a pendulum swing I can't resist because this is what being means. This is what it is to have a soul that is alive, a Spirit teaching God-acknowledgment and thought-captivity, always searching for evidence of Him placed around me so my glory may be in knowing God, that He is the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness on the earth.

I feel nothing and everything at once, and there is too much for me to grasp, so I rest and putter and pause and ponder and wish there were something at once more and less profound so I could define it, me, Him - and get back to what I want to do tomorrow. Yet I am aware there is much I don't know, much I don't understand, much for me to wonder at about His Holy - what do I really know?

Sometimes I confuse settling for rest and put passion away. The daily tired begs for smaller vision; Jesus felt this too, walking dusty through one crowd of expectations into crucified obedience - into which I am called. His Spirit in me seeks that oneness with the Father which He knew, which He prayed for me.

Oh how I begin to understand the unsettled ache of His desire...

God.

Today I am stretched among worlds
I dangle here with my arms between beauty
and capture
and life and art.
The colors of life You have given me
and a world who does not see
and a world who does see.
To left or to right
or to upward or downward,
I decide where to turn
And I don't.
I am stretched out and frozen
And hoping my reach won't exceed
The boundaries of Your dream
for me.
I discover and revel
In glories here
But I don't wish to trade
Your Life
for these that I hold in my hands.

So if You have a purpose
In stretching this heart to claim
All the world for Your own
In words
or in pictures;
In colors to frame
All I can of Your love here in time;
Or in touching a small hand,
And sharing a moment
Uncaptured
But full and alive -
I need grace and elastic
And You to sustain
And seconds and seconds and seconds.
I open my hands
And stretch out these arms
I hold all I can see up to You
to capture
So I can be free

And stretch out my life to hold You.

- A Repost from Dec. 20, 2008

(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

One Unbroken Gaze - A Prayer

what a week I have lived, trying
since Sunday-success to make up lost time
like running the wrong direction
on an automated, forward-moving walkway, missing

love waiting for me, begging for my heart.

"there is too much to do," I say, "just
give me a minute more" and the minutes fly as
I get no further from where I began

And the trying is more than I can do so
I go away from grace and find me

empty,
swollen
with baby and with tears and with
disappointed expectations.

So I confess, and Love holds me free as
I ache down from my own pedestal,

still again in uncertainty
certain He is more than my need, more than my
limited gaze may see, that
trailing bit of God-Glory

Then I see Him, laughing, joyful
dust-and-God
tried in every way as I have been, in all ways
common to me, even bearing my heart-wounds
as God's heart broke.

"It is too much," I offer, unsure
of tomorrow-work, too afraid I am not doing
my part
to hold up His end of the bargain

Then, "I will finish the work I began,"
His joy grabs breath, for
He is alive

in my waiting.

I ask for so little, I think, but
He has more for me than
adequate situations that suit my
earth-fancy

and I am mere living sacrifice,
my life a prayer,
His song

about what my Author is doing today as He
moves my terminal-walkway toward
His heart

so I can fly.

-------------------------------

NOTE: I don't often watch or use artwork that portrays someone's impression of Jesus, but I decided to make a rare exception for this video today. Sometimes, it is only the Incarnation that reminds me that the God of the universe loves me, that He knows what it is to be bound by time after living eternal outside time, that ache of His created-image in me.

There were elements of this video that really touched me in conjunction with the song, Vicky Beeching's Captivated, that really spoke to me of Jesus' humanity, that gave me a small picture of the sort of Man He was, that painted a picture of how He must have affected His friends. I stare with them, half-wishing I had been there with Him then, grasping driving-down-the-road faith that brought me to quiet-praise yesterday as I got out of the house for a bit.

With Boldness and Meekness and Fear

"But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear..." (1 Peter 3:15)

I know what my hope is. But I am afraid to explain it. My answers (when I am asked) are short, given with the apologetic fashion I've adopted to protect myself from argument and offense. I am as afraid to defend my reason for hope as I often am embarrassed to speak the name of Jesus, even in writing.

Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech— unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away. But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

- 2 Cor. 3:12-18

I know this freedom. I know this Lord. But I am not as bold as I think He wants me to be. My "meekness," such as it is, is of the mouse variety. I close my mouth when His words burn within me; I do not disclose the passion that drives me.

I am ashamed of the freedom. Ashamed of the grace. Ashamed to set aside the letter and speak of Spirit-life. I am not responsible for your response.

I know the Gospel is not merely a seven-step "plan of salvation." I know the good news of the Gospel is Jesus Christ and Him crucified and raised to life. I know it is freedom and hope and joy and relationship with the only true God. I know it is walking in the Spirit away from the old that I was. I know the good news is that I have been justified; God has declared me righteous in His Son. I am dead to sin, alive to God.

But I do not speak. I am afraid. Afraid of years of teaching, of the control system we've put in place to keep us on the "straight-and-narrow," so aware of "the other side of God's love" - you know, the judgment part that we live in, ducking around beneath His radar, trying to be good.

He chooses the weak and the fool to display His glory. The mad ones who will live extravagantly, giving themselves away for Him, humbling themselves for glorious Christ-slavery, instead of self-or-other-approved righteousness.

God has given me a war-horse image of meekness, of the restraint of the freeing grace He gives. Held back by the bit, every muscle poised, straining ahead into the fray, guided by his master, powerful, capable, dangerous, meek. This is the meekness with which Jesus chased the money-changers from His Father's house.

The explanation is full, but simple. It is all Jesus.

Lord, may I not be ashamed to speak of what I know of You.

"...For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more." (Luke 12:48b)





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

On Being

It is during my times of greatest change that I feel most threatened at the prospect of losing my identity. Here, the innocent remark from a friend sparks an internal war between truth and my feelings of betrayal. Here, the not-knowing becomes the only enemy, and I fight for control of my destiny. As if I believe I can own my destiny. I want to be, to exist in this void.

And God is "I Am" and I live and move and have my being in Him, and I resent Him for that some days, and others I quietly acknowledge that I am glad to fall into Him and let Him live for me because I'm too tired to hold onto me anymore.

I am like the wind, like the mountains, too free-spirited, too wild, yet I understand that He has made me this way for His purpose, and He does not desire my captivity - merely the love of my whole heart. Merely. I say it as if it is a simple thing, and simple it is, if I will let it be simple, if I will thank Him for the void and trust His creating hand for my today and my yesterday and my tomorrow. He is, after all, the God who makes the crooked paths straight and leads the blind in ways they do not know.

I know I will always be a restless heart, for I am always seeking more of Him and He is always changing my perspective and stepping outside the bigger and bigger boxes I make for Him. His words burn and ache inside of me and bring life that I do not understand and cannot question, and I am broken and whole at once and I ache to see Him as He is so I may be who I am meant to be.

Already, I feel Him creating new love in me, freeing me from my pursuit of one thing so that I know it is all right to pursue another, but the release of that one thing is the release of a part of the being I have assumed, as if I am laying down a part of my armor in my fight for my destiny. I am more exposed, more vulnerable, more able to love, more afraid to give my affirmation than I should be, for I am not truly threatened by those who ask it.

But perfect love casts out fear, and I am new at throwing myself into His love and trusting Him with who I am as the me that knows His voice struggles against the me that must know and control who I am. My testimony is Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, and I am nothing without Him, and everything that I am that is worth anything is Him, because God chose the weak and the fools who would let Him be their God. And He is not ashamed to be their God because they live and move in Him, through all the change and all the being that they didn't choose as they walked by faith that was solid and sure and nothing at all like a blind leap into the dark.

I remember these others who have gone before, my cloud of witnesses, those who spent years with Him in the wilderness before they learned of grace to teach it, who wandered years after Him across plains and desert looking for Canaan, who died believing His promise that He would give them everything they longed for. He waited to give them the promise, but I know the fullness of it in Jesus, and in my own wilderness I learn of His grace for me, and I learn of His grace for others, and vulnerable me learns more of love without fear.

To find rest in Him, this is my destiny, seared upon my soul by the only Word that brings light into darkness and reaps where it seems nothing has been sown. I seek and I don't seek, but every day I am changed, and my heart is changed, and I want to love and to rest here in this void and trust His love for me. Who I am is no longer the point; I cannot define my identity for myself, for He has become more in me than I knew.

All my being is to be found in His "I AM" and, oddly, I don't resent Him for this. What, after all, would I really be without Him?

brightness after rain

"He is like the light of morning at sunrise on a cloudless morning, like the brightness after rain that brings the grass from the earth." (2 Sam. 23:4)


Oh, God must be so beautiful!

This was the way my morning began, a quick dash outside for photos before Pete left for work, putting off my shower 'til later, finding joy in the morning, and enchantment where I least expected it.

It's been a lovely day, and I am so tired, but I feel rested. My fingers are barely typing for the cool air that was warm earlier, tossing my new living room curtains, enchanting Piper, and mercilessly teasing our now-house cat.

Last night, it stormed. I stayed up late, reading L'Engle's The Irrational Season until my eyes wouldn't stay open, wondering that God became man as Jesus, remembering how He calmed the storm, deciding not to be afraid of the thunder, jumping anyway, wishing the lightning away. L'Engle's words sank in soft and deep: "When I think of the incredible, incomprehensible sweep of creation above me, I have the strange reaction of feeling fully alive. Rather than feeling lost and unimportant and meaningless, set against galaxies which go beyond the reach of the furthest telescopes, I feel that my life has meaning. Perhaps I should feel insignificant, but instead I feel a soaring in my heart that the God who could create all this - and out of nothing - can still count the hairs of my head." (L'Engle, The Irrational Season, p. 11)

A God who knew ahead the whisper of my conversation with Pete, the quiet "you weren't ready" pinging soft off the walls of my heart. And I reached tentatively for trust, and rest, and fell asleep, and woke up to today. To the moment. To a couple of hours with a babysitter and getting things done. And now to a blog post that is only half-coherent, but written.

Weary and Coming to Jesus

I am very tired today. I went looking for a photo for my photo project this morning, and Piper pulled a bud off the camellia bush and crushed it. It makes for a lovely restful image, doesn't it?


Wow. I suppose this counts as a post. I guess I'm blogging again. Ironically short break. *sigh* Yes, I'm an addict. Actually, no, I have a napping child. And thinking time. And a photo that was perfect to post for my mood today.

I needed to step back a bit to refocus my writing, not so much for what I've been putting here, but for God to reset my heart and my passion on Jesus, since this is really where all the deeper theological/spiritual/wonderful abundant life stuff I've been posting comes from. You know, imperfect, unsurrendered, incomplete naked ME standing perfect and complete before God the Father covered up in Jesus.

I've got a couple of posts in the works (cute kid, recipes, at least one good deep post, and some random), but for today, I'm gotta rest. And yes, I said it that way on purpose.

"I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.

"All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." (Mt. 11:25-28, NKJV)