Lenten Freedom

So I fasted from sugar for lent. This is the first time I've fasted from anything during lent. So I wondered what it would... unearth? At first all I noticed was how much I missed sugar, how excutiating it was to smell chocolate or fresh-baked rolls. I decided to place scripture in sugar's old spot - get a belly full of God.

As the days rolled on the sugar tension eased and some questions started to rise up. What was is like for Jesus to enter into this wilderness experience? Was fasting something he'd practiced? Did he intend to fast from food or was he simply dependent on what the Father was providing and food currently wasn't provided?

I also noticed that fasting from sugar for the sake of knowing Christ was far different that fasting from sugar for the sake of my pants size. My motivation and my internal dialogue was different.

As Easter began to draw near I noticed a sense of freedom. Pete and I have been considering some food changes in our household - this time for the sake of our brains. These changes include cutting out sugar and simple carbs. As I began this fast I couldn't wait to get back to eating sugar. Now I find that sugar's hold on me has greatly decreased. Before this lenten experience considering food changes would have been quite difficult. I did partake in sugar on Sunday but it didn't thrill me. What thrilled me was knowing that my Hope is alive.

So I'm wondering... what else? Sugar was a god in my life. There are others. "Wow, I couldn't really imagine living without that." What things do I think that about? Maybe there's freedom beyond those as well. You think?

Restoration

Restoration
comes
to
those
long
devastated.

Judy Hougen spoke those words yesterday during her sermon. They rang within me. I repeated them over and over hoping to remember them, hoping to impress them on my heart, hoping for hope.

I am waking up. I am beginning to see new things. I am being called out of passivity and death into life. I am being transformed. I am finding out who He is and who I am. But there is so much new-ness. As the wind of God blows in my life I am experiencing the waves of resistance. Today I feel like the boat is swamped and we might be going down.

I've been waking each morning with the sense of being overwhelmed, behind, "under it". Today it was there again but I invited God into all of these places. I even invited him into the ways I have been escaping and trying to soothe these aches. I'm not sure what will happen from here. Perhaps today will be a day of tears.

This coming alive is painful.

Culture Culture

The tools of our trade aren't for marketing or manipulation, but they are for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture. We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ. Our tools are ready at hand for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience into maturity. 2 Cor 10:4

The Corinthians brought their massively corrupt culture into their church. Our culture is also massively corrupt. Hmmm....

I'm guessing that there are ways we are doing the same. I'm personally feeling called to humility. Less to a "storm the gates" posture and more toward a quiet, listening, dependent posture. Not in passivity but with intention.

Lavish Love

God-
I am amazed at you! You bring such joy! what a journey of discovery - I'm finding you to be real, present, flowing, a river of gifts and love. I want to dive in and splash and drink and laugh and enjoy.

I used to think you were stingy. Now I see your lavish ways. You love lavishly. You give gifts lavishly.

I feel something rising... I've been holding myself back. I'm not sure but I think that I've been waiting for meanness or coldness to be revealed... just when I trusted.

But you love me. You are intimately involved in my training, my up-bringing. I'm reeling from the sweetness of your instruction. My heart is bursting with joy!

I Cor chapter 4 brought on this prayer. Here I will include verses 7-8 (message translation).

For who do you know that really knows you, knows your heart? And even if they did, is there anything they would discover in you that you could take credit for? Isn't everything you have and everything you are sheer gifts from God? So what's the point of all this comparing and competing? You already have all you need. You already have more access to God than you can handle. Without bringing either Apollos or me into it, you're sitting on top of the world -- at least God's world -- and we're right there, sitting alongside you!

Sweet Desire

These faint wavering far-travell'd gleams
Coming from your country, fill me with care. That scent,
That sweet stabbing, as at the song of thrush,
That leap of the heart--too like thy seem
To another air; unlike as well
So that I am dazed with doubt. As a dungeoned man
Who has heard the hinge on the hook turning
Often. Always that opened door
Let new tormentors in. If now at last
It open again, but outward, offering free way,
(His kind one come, with comfort) he
Yet shrinks, in his straw, struggling backward,
From his dear, from his door, into the dark'st corner,
Furthest from freedom. So, fearing, I
Taste not but with trembling. I was tricked before.
All the heraldry of heaven, holy monsters,
With hazardous and dim half-likeness taunt
Long-haunted men. The like is not the same.
Always evil was an ape. I know.
Who passes to paradise, within that pure border
Finds there, refashioned, all that he fled from here.
And yet...
But what's the use? For yield I must,
Though long delayed, at last must dare
To give over, to be eased of my iron casing,
Molten at thy melody, as men of snow
In solar smile. Slow-paced I come,
Yielding by inches. And yet, oh Lord, and yet,
--Oh Lord, let not likeness fool me again.

Sweet Desire by C. S. Lewis

Many Thanks

Dearest Catherine Duncan,
I squandered my chance to thank you in person. Regretting that.

You came two nights ago and shared your heart with us, your very self. You spoke with us as a friend, with down-to-earth-i-ness. I've been captured with the beauty of the spirit that was behind all you shared. What humility, patience, gentleness God has grown in you -- what Christ-likeness! You see Christ in the face of those you serve and I saw Christ in the face of you. The life you engage in draws me and terrifies me. You've put feet on your trust of God.

Thank you, thank you for all you shared.

(Jan, would you please email this to Catherine? I would be much obliged.)

Wrapped in red... and white

I've been missing from blogland for a while. I feel like I've been missing from much of life lately. You see, we've been painting... and painting... and painting some more. We decided to re-do our family room. When we started in there was all of this energy and excitement. The paint is called cherry cobbler. cute. The first coat looked like hot pink lipstick. Yikes! But after THREE more coats it finally looks like the blood color we were after. We finished that a week ago. Then we started painting the trim on doors (4) and windows (2) white. There's also a large bookshelf and three other just made shelves that all need to be painted - white. We're only about half way done with this white stuff.

Pete seems to enjoy teasing about my propensity to UNDERestimate the time it takes to complete a task. I kinda thought we could dig in and complete the task in a week. But here we are going into week 3. Oh well. I guess we're in this for the long haul.

This is strangely familiar. So much of life feels exciting and amazing at the beginning but then comes the realization that much more time and energy will be required.

Here's the prayer that's been with me on my painting journey.
I pause, Father, to commune with you. Help me to be still and know that you are God. Ease awhile any tense muscles or strained nerves or wrought-up emotions. Let me be relaxed in body and calm in spirit so that I may be more responsive to your presence. I pause, Father to commune with you... Amen. Roy E. Dickerson in Daily Prayer Companion

So I invite you, God, into our creative expression, into our aching muscles, into our long process. Be in every brush-stroke.

jigsaw puzzler

I've shared with some friends this idea that my life is a jigsaw puzzle and that God recently banged his fist down on my card table upsetting all my pieces.

I've been working so hard at putting it all back together again. As the pieces begin to click into place I realize, to my horror, that it's not the same puzzle, the picture's different and I've lost the box lid. Damn, now what?

To make matters worse, I've begun to realize that this change has affected the old ways I used to connect to others - they don't fit either. Again, now what?

me thinks it's time to trust another maybe?

In Solitude

In solitude we can slowly unmask the illusion of our posessiveness and discover in the center of our own self that we are not what we can conquer, but what is given to us. In solitude we can listen to the voice of him who spoke to us before we could speak a word, who healed us before we could make any gesture to help, who set us free long before we could free others, and who loved us long before we could give love to anyone. It is in this solitude that we discover that being is more important than having, and that we are worth more than the result of our efforts. In solitude we discover that our life is not a possession to be defended, but a gift to be shared. It's there we recognize that the healing words we speak are not just our own, but are given to us; that the love we can express is part of a greater love, and that the new life we bring forth is not a property to cling to, but a gift to be received. --From Out of Solitude by Henri J. Nouwen

This calls out in me a desire to yield, to rest, and to be very gentle with myself.

Coming True

The water rose above my head
The next thing I remember I was carried down the stream
Left me washed up on that shore
But the power of the flood still burned inside of me
It’s the way of the fire
It’s the way of the fire
I took the first step without fear
I didn’t see the danger of what the stream could do
Then I felt the undertow
Of all the things I asked for coming true
It’s the way of the fire
(Just one step into the flame)
It’s the way of the fire
(He starts consuming everything)
And it’s all gonna’ burn
(I’m refined and strengthened by)
The way of the fire
I don’t know how long I have been
Lying in the stillness staring up at blue
But I hear the voice within
Say “Come back in the water”, and I do
And the river’s rise is a scary thing
But it always runs downstream
The way of the fire

written by Jill Phillips and Andy Gullahorn

Focus

Focus on your situation, your $or lack thereof, your job trouble, your weariness, relationships or fears about relationships. Focus on your failings, your disappointments, or even your desires. -- the enemy.

Focus on me. It's only you and me. -- God

I've been doing a lot of driving

Wondering about surrender, trust, rest, boundaries.

I like to have a plan, know what to expect. Things are supposed to go a certain way. A+B should equal C. Can you see my white nuckles holding tightly to the stearing wheel?

I've been noticing that as we've been maneuvering through our life together (my husband and I) I've been doing a lot of convincing, controlling, owning things that aren't mine. Rats! not a fun realization.

What if I could learn to float down the river? Maybe I could learn to lose my sense of expectation and need for control. Maybe I could grow in trust of him who holds all of this and knows what I need. Maybe I could surrender to his knowing where it's all going and how it will end up. Ah, but that would require believing his heart toward me was gentle and caring. I question that sometimes. I find at times that I still believe in harsh, cold, angry GOD. I thought I had lost him, squashed him, routed him out long ago. How did he get back in here?

Still needing more of loving, gentle, forgiving, big-daddy God. Imagine that.