get yourself friends that remind you of good on your bad days

get yourself friends that remind you of bad when you regret good things

I wish sometimes I could write down the compliments
the praise, the joyous words -
I can't swallow them in front of you -
but I'll keep them for late, alone in my room.
Reading then over and over
until I believe I'm enough
to accept them

Beautifully Stitched

Taken with Inspiration from Exodus 34-40

"The Beautifully Stitched garments for the priests to wear while ministering in the Holy Place" Exodus 39:41 (NLT)

*Beautifully Stitched is replaced by finely worked, tightly twisted, finely woven depending on the translation.

[Scene]: This is post-ten commandment era, Moses went back up on Mt. Sinai to create a renewed covenant with the Lord. He spend 40 days and night on the mountain without eating or drinking and came back literally glowing from the presence of God upon him. He returns he speaks to the people (Exodus 38:26 tells us there were 603,550 men over the age of 20).

36:2 says that when Moses spoke to the people their "hearts were stirred to do the work."

We know how it is to have our hearts stirred for the work of the Lord, that's why so many churches and organizations exist in this city, because our hearts are stirred to do His work here.

Through the Lords guidance through Moses the people were guided to make a temps for the Lord, using their talents to create.

Those with the talents to weave - created fabric
                                     to build - built
With each talent (goldsmithing, framing) there was work to be done for the Lord and everyone gave.

Over 25 times in this passage words are used to describe the way this work was done: beautiful, skillfully, finely, tightly - but why?

I think it is because creating - we can do on our own, serving - we can do on our own.
But in order to create things beautiful, I believe we need the Holy Spirit's involvement.

The Lord was inspiring them (and is inspiring us) to go further than just task, go beyond service and create beauty and tightly woven bonds in all we do.

Note: Maybe you don't weave, or build, or goldsmith, but Romans 12 talks about everyone using their gifts for the Glory of God. If your gift is Prophesying they should prophesies. If it is service, they should serve; if giving, contribute generously; if it is mercy, do so cheerfully. 

The people in this passage had their hearts so stirred by the Lord to give that it (36:6-7) says that they had to be restrained from giving because what they had given was sufficient for the work they were to do and more.

What if we as a city, looked like that? What if we had to be restrained from giving because the resources we were given outweighed our ability to deploy them?

The parallels between us and this church are strong. Our hearts have been stirred, we have much to give and much to offer. Moses did not go to his top 10 head men and create this temple alone. As I said earlier, there were 600,000 other people that he involved to deploy their talents and gifts to the work of the Lord.

We are the ringleaders, the weavers, which God is using to create a beautifully stitched fabric in this city.

Note: Exodus 39:1 talks about the fabrics being created from three strands (flax, goat hair, and thread). Egyptian fabric was found from this time period that was as soft and beautiful as silk, those who found it actually thought it was silk initially. It was put under a microscope for further investigation it was found that the fabric was not silk, it was woven of three strands. 

Besides the biblical implications of three strands, I feel like I have been given the divine thought of the three strands being this city. The churches, non-profits, and communities coming together and being so beautifully woven together that we are like silk coming together and creating an environment that is a temple for the Lord to reside in. We are coming together with His holy prompting and plans and creating something beautifully stitched.

I say all that to just encourage and inspire you to coming to let the Holy Spirit to work in you and stir up you hearts. Create a new covenant with the Lord and create something beyond what we could do on our own. With Him we can create something lovely and beautifully stitched, like the garments worn in the presence of the Lord. Tightly woven in all we do.

A Little Like Heaven

Sometimes moments just stand in your mind. It feels like nothing else in the world matters except what you're doing right then and there. Sometimes there's no doubt that those moments come from Jesus.

Like today, sitting around a campfire holding a little girl who hand a handful of flowers picked just for her. Surrounded by sticky handed kids asking for just one more marshmallow. Sharing stories of who caught the biggest fish, fed the cutest goat, shot the furthest arrow. There was joy in these kids faces that isn't seen many other places.



And in that moment it was like a little shadow of heaven. I wish I could take you all into that moment and you could feel it too, it was like the world all stopped but the music in the background.

There's no place I'd rather be, 
No place I'd rather be, 
Than here in Your Love, Here in Your Love. 

In allegory to heaven in The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis says it well:

 The reason we loved the old narnia [earth, here today] is that sometimes it looked a little like this [heaven]. 

Today looked a little like heaven.

Peace

“Peace isn’t the absence of conflict. It’s the presence of God.”

-          Carey Nieuwhof

The more I learn about peace the less I see it as a destination. It’s not something you arrive at or something you achieve.

I feel like a lot of times in life we think that, like other desired traits, we can do enough to have peace. And on the contrary, that circumstances can pull us further away from peace. We use language when we talk about peace that confirms this:

“Are you at peace with ____ ?”

“______ is stealing my peace.”

“I’m just not in a peaceful place.”

I think the biggest thing that is going to create a more peaceful reality within us is realizing that peace is not a destination - Peace is a presence within us. More specifically, Peace is the presence of God.

The bible shows this in John 20:

“…Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ … Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.’ And when he has said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’.”

 (John 20:19b, 21-22)

If you look at the language of this passage it is saying “Peace be with you”. Or in other words “Be with Peace”

When you invite someone to come somewhere with you do you say, “Be with the beach”? or “Be with me”?

A lot of times, I feel like we forget that Christ is less interested in religion and more interested in relationship. We get caught up thinking that we can do enough to get to a point of peace, of joy, of security. But the bible teaches something different. It teaches that He is (our) peace, joy, security.

We are looking for a where and what when we should be looking at the Who.

I don’t think it is a coincidence that He speaks, “Peace be with you,” moments before breathing the Holy Spirit into His disciples.

I believe the Holy Spirit is the peace that we’ve been trying to reach, and He’s been inside us the whole time.

How else would you explain peace in the cancer ward? At the funeral? In the heat of the worst situations of peoples lives?

Do you think they’ve reached a place of peace? or maybe it’s that they just know the embodiment of 

Peace in the Holy Spirit freely given to them by our good, good Father. 

I Chose You.

If you were to ask me if Africa was everything I expected it would be, the answer would be no.

Honestly, after ten years of waiting for something, I didn't exactly know what to expect - and I thought about that a lot as checks and well wishes came in, as the team began preparing and I started praying and letting God prepare my heart, as I went out to lunch and coffee with some of you and you graciously prayed over me and that my hands would be used, as I packed my bags; but I never could quite come up with an answer?

And as I was there I found myself asking in the few quiet moments that I had

"What in the world am I doing here?"

followed each time by a shrug up to God and my semi-control-freak self left with nothing but leaving my hands lifted and open and saying, "Here, I don't know, this is Yours."

And I really didn't know. And the days never ended with clarity. The days ended with exhaustion, utter exhaustion.

Luckily I didn't have huge portions of time to figure out what my "purpose" was in Kenya between organizing medications for the clinic, blowing up inflatables for games, attempting to put together kites (I'm convinced you need an engineering degree to do so properly), and spending as much time as possible with the precious children I had the opportunity to meet, and fighting some bug I picked up on the planes over. In the absence of these things I was still in school full time - and trying to turn in assignments via Kenyan internet. So, yes, utter exhaustion.

The week went by in a blink. I met kids who broke my heart each time they hugged me. And then I was leaving. And ten years of dreaming was over. And I really had no idea how to feel about that.

For the next few days I was kind of in a Kenya blur. And my brain really started to pick apart the "Why" behind me going.

And the devil really started attacking me, making me feel like my time there was useless, like I needed to work this next year to reimburse those who supported me, like my Africa calling was a delusion and I was worthless.

And I listened to him and my heart was broken in a bad way and it was a week after I got home that I first admitted that I wasn't at peace when a friend asked if Kenya was "everything I hoped it would be" and I started sobbing as I choked out no.

It wasn't until I had admitted that my expectations weren't met that God began to remind me that His plan is not dependent on my agenda. And He began to show me moment in which He used me.

I was reminded that I didn't choose to go on this trip, that He chose me.

"...but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and your fruit should abide..." John 15:16

He chose me. He graciously provided all my funding (through some of you beautiful people). He caused safe arrival and health and energy day after day. He kept me encouraged and ready.

And as I stopped listening to the devils lies and started focusing on God's plan I realized that I was:

Encouragement and love and thousands of hugs and "I love you"s for little boys and girls that maybe don't hear that everyday.

Energy to teach baseball and jump rope and push kids on swings. To stay up and write letters by flashlight for these kids.

 

Strength to listen to stories that I couldn't even imagine living through and the strength to not break from them, but to see strength, to give strength, and to love them through it.

A testimony on Sunday morning that spoke of God's like shining in dark times in life, that may have touched lives and shown that darkness comes in all shapes and sizes and the devil knows how to break us, but God will always be our strength and light.

 

Medicine to the most impoverished community I've seen, that maybe won't rid chronic diseases or give someone 100 years to live, but gave them today, and honestly, none of us are even promised that.

Smiles and hope to children of the God I love and serve.

 

The love and story of Jesus, and His saving grace, to people who maybe had never heard it before.

 

And really, if one ear heard that from my lips or saw that in my life than every second, every drop of sweat, every penny donated was more than worth it.

I expected to change someone or something - but instead, I was changed.

Maybe Africa wasn't what I expected it to be. But it was a story, chapter, page in my life that God wrote reminding me of His grace and how He can use broken, selfish, stubborn people who want the next five years planned out and handed to them, to live out His plans for sharing His love with this broken world. And that's something I won't forget.

Spotlight Breakdown

When I looked in the mirror last night I saw the face of an insecure thirteen year old girl looking back at me. 

It was one of those weird moments, like when you write a word so many times that you don't recognize it anymore, I didn't recognize me. I saw a little girl lost in the grocery store and the one crying on the tile gym floor and the one watching her life disappear through the rear window of an old gold minivan. 

I wasn't strong. I wasn't independent. I had eyes full of regrets and pain and unresolved brokenness. The superglue was wearing apart, I wasn't holding myself together. All the things I prided myself in being we're as worn away as the eyeliner I had put on flippantly at that morning stoplight.

And I had to admit I'm not ok. 

It's funny how Satan works. You don't even realize all the pieces are falling out of place. You don't see the shots taken at your heart, the speakers in your head, the soundtracks of all the things you never wanted to hear being put together carefully and cleverly and then all at once when you've been weakened to the point of submission, he yells action and the bright lights hit your face and you realize that your to-done list of moving on has a sequel and you're once again the star of your very own insecurities. 

Congratulations. An Oscar to you for the most realistic breakdown of the year. 

But the most twisted part of it all is that when the breakdown is over and the crew is gone and lights shut off you're left alone with those speakers they conveniently left in your head. 

I think the worst part isn't the building of the Trojan horse, it's not the betrayal, it's not the initial, blood warming attack. It's that it's left there. It's that it's written about in the history books of your head. It's that you survived it just enough to lay there at night and listen to that record playing on repeat whispering, "you failed, you failed, you're not enough and you won't be and this happy little fantasy you're living out is just going to be another disappointment in your life because that's all your worth." 

It's the twisted Grimm brothers ending to my spotlit breakdown. 

It's the voices I can't mute because I've lost the remote. 

...hey Jesus, can you mute them? 

Is there a sledgehammer handy to smash them once and for all?