Scrivenery

February 12th

2012-02-12T07:19:00.000-08:00

When I read my own story, I so often wish I had better lines than my own.

Why couldn't I have said something more worshipful or adoring than "You are still here"?

Sigh.

I read these lines in the 139th Psalm:

"You have hedged me behind and before,
And laid Your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
It is high, I cannot attain it."
-Psalm 139:5-6

I thought, "Ah ha! Even David had to give up wondering on the mystery of it. It was too much, even for him."

I came across the words of a hymn as I was reading Waters on a Starry Night:

"When morning gilds the skies, my heart awakening cries, may Jesus Christ be praised!"

As usual, it gave me a start to see His name somewhere I hadn't expected; I felt a rush of secret pleasure. I know Him, I think to myself, with glee.

To the character in that book, Jesus was not personal. He was like a symbol: a cross and an empty tomb at Easter, and a star and a manger at Christmas.

Often, the first line of the hymn "My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine," is in my head. It just kind of lingers there; it has for weeks and weeks.

Two nights ago, I was resting in Him and meditating with pleasure on that phrase, yet again, and He interrupted me.

You are Mine, He said firmly. It is you that are Mine. I am the One that has you.

Over and over, He impressed this on me. I had to kind of catch my balance a little bit, and then I completely acknowledged it.

"I am entirely Yours," I told Him. "I have no good thing but You- my goodness is nothing apart from You. Whom have I in Heaven but You? And I desire nothing on earth but You."

(I like those lines from the psalms.)

The only reason why He is mine, is because I was created to be His. I can't help but notice that He has been teaching me this lately. It makes me wonder why.

But I think it partly explains why His desire is toward us- because we are first and foremost His possession, His portion, His thought, His expression, His own work.

"You are my God," I told Him one night, very earnestly and solemnly. "I have no other god but You."

And you are My girl, He replied immediately, with loving humor.

"I am my own person," I read in someone's blog and it was as though I had never heard the words before.

I can't say that anymore; I think it's only an illusion and a lonely one at that.

Or maybe it's just a stage of life that we walk through, to some degree or other- a line of thinking that we must learn in order to discard for something better and far more true.

Maybe, because we must first learn to possess ourselves before we can completely give ourselves away. This may especially be true for those of us who have been abused and had no healthy sense of self to begin with.

It makes me of something I read in Hidden Things:

"At any one moment in our lives we usually seek out a constituting other, a person, to serve as a kind of foil for our own identity. We find our identity through our relationship with another. They mirror this or that, and we either accept it or reject it...

"The genius of the first commandment was that by putting "one God before you," you were placed inside of one coherent world, with one center, one pattern, one realm of meaning. If you will allow me to use psychological language related to what we call salvation, let me put it this way: Having One who affirms us is a very good start for our ego structure and our growth as persons. God, for the believer, becomes the Ultimate Constituting Other...

"Without a significant other who is also The Significant Other, we are burdened with being our own center and circumference. That's pretty impossible, and futile if you try."
-Richard Rohr

Or, as C.S. Lewis puts it, and ever so much more beautifully:

"Each breath I drew let into me new terror, joy, overpowering sweetness. I was pierced through and through with the arrows of it. I was being unmade. I was no one. But that's little to say; rather, Psyche herself was, in a manner, no one. I loved her as I would once have thought it impossible to love, would have died any death for her. And yet, it was not, not now, she that really counted. Or if she counted, (and oh, gloriously she did) it was for another's sake. The earth and stars and sun, all that was or will be, existed for his sake. And he was coming. The most dreadful, the most beautiful, the only dread and the only beauty there is, was coming. The pillars on the far side of the pool flushed with his approach. I cast down my eyes."
-Till We Have Faces

February 10th, Later

2012-02-10T09:18:00.000-08:00

(This is what I didn't have the courage to post, the first time around.)

Reading Till We Have Faces also stirred up all my wonder at the presence of Jesus in my life.

I spent many hours yesterday thinking back through everything that has happened and everything that He has said to me. When I wrote even a tenth of it down, it made an extraordinary story of love and faithfulness.

Richard Rohr, in Hidden Things, writes:

"In a sense, the Christ is always too much for us. He's always "going ahead of us into Galilee" (Matthew 28:7). The Risen Christ is leading us into a future for which we're never, ever, ready. Only little by little do we become capable of mutuality, of communion, of pure presence."

Jesus has been teaching me this- He's been completing a lesson He began long ago.

When I, as a young teen, was up in the tower, begging for the appropriate love of Jesus, which I knew I lacked, Jesus reversed the whole game, and poured His love out on me. My resentment, terror and guilt was transformed by sheer gift.

It sent me out into the dark, sacred night to leap with joy over the grass. No matter what happened in my life afterward, I could not unlearn that lesson.

Last night, as I was getting ready for bed, I felt Jesus come up and put His arms around me and rest His head against mine. I felt, as I so often do, His loving possession of me. It is as though I am enfolded into His love.

I had to stand still, for a moment.

My wonder was almost beyond expression. Is it even humanly possible to take such things for granted, or to get used to experiencing them? The Prince of life, as Peter called Him- the very Son of God, demonstrates His love for me in such a way that I cannot avoid or deny or escape the knowledge of it.

"You are still here," I said, in a small voice.

Aren't I always here? He replied.

He always is, but there are times when I feel His love so strongly that I almost forget to breathe, and I must take a long, deep breath, and doing this settles me even more deeply into Him.

It got me thinking about mysteries, which made my head hurt.

I hold all mysteries, Jesus said firmly, His voice coming so swiftly and quietly.

Because the deep things belong to God.

All those years that I was being broken and healed, almost by the same strokes, I made myself little idols to sit in His place. I made them all in His image, because I longed for Him -I could not unlearn the lesson of His love- but I could not look Him in the face.

So I created relationships that were real and stories that I made up, characters that I imagined and men that I knew. But all they really were, were small guttering candles in a large, echoing space within me.

I didn't realize this until He Himself came, and then I realized the smallness of those symbols, how deaf and mute they were, sitting all topsy turvy in His seat. The living light of Him extinguished all those poor candles in a moment.

All it took was one true glimpse of Him, and I wrote this:

"I wanted to be in the crowd, so I could go running to Him and throw myself into His arms and I say, I see You! I see You! I belong to You! I'm Yours!"

And not only did Jesus hear this, but He actually caught me up in His arms and all the former things were no more.

But when I remembered them, I was so ashamed. It was as though I went off into a corner and threw sackcloth over my head. Jesus had to patiently coax me out, time and time again.

He had to teach me how to receive His love, because I had been programmed only to earn it.

He had to make everything new, and yet, each time I recognized the truth, it was as though, in some part of me, I had always known it.

The God of my salvation taught me very well and very patiently how to receive His love, so now I give myself over to Him. Now, when He comes, I yeild- I surrender to the knowledge that I am breathing His own breath, that my life is hidden in Him, and that He loves me beyond anything I can imagine or earn.

It's kind of like this:

"O Lord, You will give us peace, for You have done all our works for us.

O Lord our God, other lords than You have ruled us, but Your name alone is the One we honor.

They are dead, and will not live.

Their spirits will not return.

So You have punished and destroyed them.

You have caused them all to be forgotten."
-Isaiah 26:12-14

February 10th

2012-02-10T08:11:00.000-08:00

Well, reading C.S. Lewis caused my longing to flare up again, but I have managed to let the feeling flow out into the moment, like emptying buckets of water.

It led to some exquisitely painful moments of awareness and- if my metaphor were not a metaphor, some very soggy ground- but then the moment passed.

I receive these little "Daily Meditations" from Richard Rohr's website and yesterday, he was talking about the need to live without an answer, and without resolution. He suggested that the ability to live in the question -or the mystery- is important to spiritual growth.

That sure resonated with me. We know there is an answer, but rushing to find it ourselves may cheat us of learning something else, something possibly even more important than the question we first asked.

I was finishing up "Till We Have Faces," and came across this:

"No one will believe this who has not lived long and looked hard, so that he knows how suddenly a passion which has for years been wrapped round the whole heart will dry up and whither. Perhaps in the soul, as in the soil, those growths that show the brightest colours and put forth the most overpowering smell have not always the deepest root."

And horror filled my soul!

I thought fearfully, "My passion for Jesus is shallow! It must be, because it has a bright show! Therefore, it has no roots! It will pass away, it must. C.S. Lewis has all but said so. Oh my goodness, how will I keep Him, how can I keep Him?"

I'm making slight fun of myself here, but in the moment, it was a real fear.

You don't keep Me- I keep you, Jesus said firmly, into my whirling thoughts, and they all became still and calm.

"Right," I said, relieved and much more quietly. "That's right. I forgot that. You've kept me all this time. And my growth in You has been over almost the entire length of my life; it can't be that my roots are shallow after all that."

After that, I was able to finish the book without any further mishap. It's a great book.

Now I'm on to Waters on a Starry Night, by Elisabeth Ogilvie, which is also a great book, but in a much more undemanding way.

February 8th

2012-02-08T17:15:00.000-08:00

I found the following from Till We Have Faces, by C.S. Lewis:

"No, no, no," she said. "You don't understand. Not that kind of longing. It was when I was happiest that I longed most. It was on happy days when we were up there on the hills, the three of us, with the wind and the sunshine... where you couldn't see Glome or the palace. Do you remember? The colour and the smell and looking across at the Grey Mountains in the distance? And because it was so beautiful, it set me longing, always longing. Somewhere else there must be more of it. Everything seemed to be saying, Psyche, come! But I couldn't (not yet) come and I didn't know where I was to come to. It almost hurt me. I felt like a bird in a cage when the other birds of its kind are flying home."

February 8th

2012-02-08T06:04:00.000-08:00

I keep writing blogs and not posting them.

Here's one I wrote a few days ago:

So, last night, I was deeply involved in thinking through some line of thought, like I normally do. I forget even what it was that I was thinking through.

I could tell, even as I was working through it, that my logic was fuzzy and I wasn't making the right connections.

With a kind of self depreciating humor, I tossed the whole line of thought aside.

"That was going nowhere," I told Jesus.

I liked it, He said.

"Why?" I asked, immediately. "My line of thinking was full of mistakes, so how could You like it? And why would You tell me that?"

It's difficult to adjust myself to the encouragement of Jesus. I never believed that He might be encouraging.

I always thought that Jesus used only two methods- reward and punishment. If I did something good, I got blessed. If I did something bad, I got punished.

Kind of like a dog trainer.

To answer my question, Jesus drew to my attention first my heart and then Him.

I liked where it was coming from and where it was going, Jesus replied.

"All right," I said. "But I still don't understand why You would encourage me."

In response, Jesus showed me an image of a little girl, about four years old, standing next to me, and chattering on about something very important to her.

Jesus said, If your child shared with you something from the heart, would you condemn her for still being a child, or would you encourage her to continue growing?

I have to admit, when I understood what He was saying, it kind of shook me. Because, of course I wouldn't condemn a four year old for not thinking like an adult.

And yet, that was exactly what I had been expecting Him to do.

Instead, I would be delighted that she was thinking deeply at her own little level; I would not hit her over the head for not being at mine.

As she grew, I'd continue listening and guiding, as life went on. In fact, my ability to teach or guide her effectively would depend a great deal upon her trust in me, and my ability to meet her where she is.

There are certain things that Jesus has said to me over and over again, that He keeps on bringing to the forefront of my mind.

One is that we are His children, and He cannot love us less than a human father could love his children.

Jesus and the Father cannot love less authentically, less passionately, less warmly, less protectively, less tenderly, less faithfully or with less forgiveness than a human father could.

The human reflection cannot contain more meaning or value or depth than the divine reality from which it was cast, and to which it points.

February 6th

2012-02-06T09:49:00.000-08:00

I love this song.

February 6th

2012-02-06T06:49:00.000-08:00

A couple nights ago, I was reading in Luke, and I got to a parable and as usual, I didn't get the gist of it.

Sometimes reading those things is just like staring at a blank wall. It's like I'm too close up to see the pattern, or something.

I think: "I should know this. How can I not know what He's talking about in this?"

Then I noticed the first line again. It said, "And He spoke a parable to them."

A parable. A single parable. Suddenly, I realized the possibility that all those disjointed sayings might be pulled together to illustrate one cohesive concept.

So, I tried reading it like that, from Luke 6:39 to the end of the chapter.

And I saw it differently. Here's what I saw:

"And He also spoke a parable to them: “A blind man cannot guide a blind man, can he? Will they not both fall into a pit?"

So, I wondered anxiously, who is blind? How do we know who is blind?

How do I know I'm not blind? That would be a good thing to know, right?

Then I read further.

"A pupil is not above his teacher; but everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher."

Okay, so maybe a pupil who thinks he is above his teacher is blind. Who is Jesus talking to right here? He's talking to His disciples.

What do you want to bet that some of His disciples were trying to lead some of their fellow disciples?

Maybe even a few of them were all like: "Well, all this mercy and forgiveness is good so far as it goes, but eventually, people have to be made to be good. What Joe Disciple is doing is just not right, and if Jesus won't nip that in the bud, well, I will. And don't even get me started on all these sinners all around us all the time..."

Sounds familiar, right? I used to buy into that way of thinking, myself.

So, I kept reading.

"Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye."

My understanding opened right up. I'll bet some of Jesus' disciples were judging and condemning each other, because that is exactly what Jesus talked about just before He spoke this parable.

Also, having a beam in one's eye might very well lead to blindness, or at least some significant trouble seeing.

So, Jesus said, in essence, "Be like Me, your teacher."

And what was Jesus like? He was full of mercy and forgiveness- except for when He got around hypocritical religious authority.

So, I read on.

"For there is no good tree which produces bad fruit, nor, on the other hand, a bad tree which produces good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a briar bush."

I got frustrated. I thought, what fruit? I never get these darn fruit parables.

Then I remembered again: this is all still one parable- insofar as Jesus did not speak these parables to them, but a parable to them.

If that is true, than this is still illustrating the same concept.

So, a good tree produces mercy and forgiveness- grapes and figs, a bad tree produces judgment and condemnation- thorns and briars.

I read on.

"The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart."

So it might be that a person humbly comes to Jesus to take care of the beam in his eye, in order to deal with the blindness that such a condition might produce in him, and finds in Jesus mercy and forgiveness.

Then, that person has mercy and forgiveness flowing out of his good and humble heart, like good fruits from a good tree, as he conforms himself to Jesus' example.

In fact, maybe once that person is in that position, he actually is in a good position to help his brothers along, because he is able to come alongside them and lovingly help them in their troubles.

But it seems that the other man, blind from his beam but not acknowledging it, and therefore a hypocrite, brings forth judgment and condemnation and attempts to blindly lead his brothers by arrogantly telling them exactly how to shape up and fly right.

So I read on.

“Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?"

Another words, maybe Jesus is saying- don't just parrot what I say to others in order to control them, but actually take My words to heart, in order to transform your own life.

This made sense to me when I thought about Jesus' examples of leadership- which are always of service and humility.

So I read on.

"Everyone who comes to Me and hears My words and acts on them, I will show you whom he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock; and when a flood occurred, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who has heard and has not acted accordingly, is like a man who built a house on the ground without any foundation; and the torrent burst against it and immediately it collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great.”

I then saw this conclusion differently than before.

The humble disciple, who has not judged or condemned his brothers, but forgiven them and been merciful- as Jesus has been merciful and forgiving toward him- is not himself condemned or judged.

His house stands, because he has dug deep- he has laid open the deep places of his heart to Jesus and he leans on Jesus alone.

The arrogant blind man who has heard the words but never let them anywhere near his heart, only using them for power and position, is going to fall into his own ditch, and all his house with him.

Both of those conclusions have been true for me.

I have been arrogant. My life was a holy looking house built on the sands of religious performance, and I judged and condemned others who did not appear to be living up to my own holy standards.

Then that empty, lonely house fell, and the torrent washed it away.

But many waters cannot quench love.

"Come, all you who are not satisfied
as ruler in a lone, wallpapered room
full of mute birds, and flowers that falsely bloom,
and closets choked with dreams that long ago died!

Come, let us sweep the old streets–like a bride;
sweep out dead leaves with a relentless broom;
prepare for Spring, as though he were our groom
for whose light footstep eagerly we bide.

We’ll sweep out shadows, where the rats long fed;
sweep out our shame–and in its place we’ll make
a bower for love, a splendid marriage-bed
fragrant with flowers aquiver for the Spring.
And when he comes, our murdered dreams shall wake;
and when he comes, all the mute birds shall sing."

-Prothalamium, by Aaron Kramer

February 3rd

2012-02-03T07:55:00.000-08:00

I'm able to see something a little more clearly now.

Looking back, I see how Jesus entered my life and my absorption with Him eclipsed my life.

That line from the hymn, "Turn your eyes toward Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace," perfectly describes it.

But life doesn't go away and life isn't a side issue; it is the issue. So eventually, I experienced a kind of intense internal conflict.

When the time was right, Jesus perfectly resolved this conflict by teaching me to find Him in my own life.

So, it was as though Jesus took my life as I knew it away from me by absorbing it into Himself, and all I could see was Him.

And then He gave it back to me, but full of His own life.

Longing for Jesus drives me deeper into the exact time and place and people and tasks of this moment of my life, which means that I live in it fully and fully in Him at the same time. They are mutually fulfilling.

Looking back, I can see that He's been teaching me this all along, all my life.

First, I was taught about Jesus, but I had no idea how to live.

Then I fell from knowledge and learned how to live.

Then, I longed for Jesus Himself.

I found Him, but I forgot how to live.

Now my life is in Him.

I'll probably have to learn this again, and maybe even again. That's okay though, because each time, my understanding deepens.

"Isn't it a consolation to know that life is not a straight line? Many of us wish and have been told that is should be, but I haven't met a life yet that's a straight line toward God. And I have even met Mother Teresa! It's always getting the point and missing the point. It's God entering our lives and then fighting it, avoiding it, running from it. There is the moment of divine communion or intimacy, and then the pullback that says, "That's too good to be true. I must be making that up." Fortunately, God works with all of it, and that's called mercy or steadfast love."

-Richard Rohr, Hidden Things

February 2nd

2012-02-02T15:17:00.000-08:00

"To allow yourself to be God's beloved is to be God's beloved. To allow yourself to be chosen is to be chosen. To allow yourself to be blessed is to be blessed. It is so hard to accept being accepted, especially from God. It takes a certain kind of humility to surrender to it, and even more to persist in believing it. Any used persons know this to be true: God chooses and then uses whom God chooses, and their usability comes from their willingness to allow themselves to be chosen in the first place. What a paradox!

"God's love is constant and irrevocable; our part is to be open to it and let it transform us. There is absolutely nothing we can do to make God love us more than God already does; and there is absolutely nothing we can do to make God love us less. We are stuck with it! The only difference is between those who allow that and those who don't, but they both are equally and objectively the beloved. One just enjoys it and draws ever-new life from that realization.

"Even though it's been the story of my whole life, I don't fully believe it yet myself, because it still seems too much, too good, beyond my wildest hopes, maybe whistling in the dark, maybe wishful thinking, maybe "cheap grace," maybe my faulty theology. But then I read the accounts of the scriptural saints, and I meet saints in jails and hospitals, and their very lives tell me this is true. They are always sinners in recovery, and they know that God does not love them because they are good, but God loves them because God is good."

-Richard Rohr, Hidden Things

February 1st

2012-02-01T14:09:00.000-08:00

I ordered three books a week ago, and the first one arrived: Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, by Richard Rohr.

Right off the bat, I found this:

What is this awesome mystery
that is taking place within me?
I can find no words to express it;
my poor hand is unable to capture it
in describing the praise and glory that belongs
to the One who is above all praise,
and who transcends every word...
My intellect sees what has happened,
but it cannot explain it.
It can see, and wishes to explain,
but can find no word that will suffice;
for what it sees is invisible and entirely formless,
simple, completely uncompounded,
unbounded in its awesome greatness.
What I have seen is the totality recapitulated as one,
received not in essence but by participation.
Just as if you lit a flame from a flame,
it is the whole flame you receive.

-St. Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022)

I'm not entire sure what he means by "the totality recapitulated as one," but the rest of it is great.

I am really looking forward to reading this book.

February 1st

2012-02-01T06:12:00.000-08:00

Rabbit.

I figured something out yesterday.

It's like, God happens, and my heart understands it.

But, my mind has no idea what's going on and immediately starts scrambling around trying to make sense of it, and sometimes this takes me backward.

For example, recently I was trying to make this distinction between the stuff of life and God.

This meant that I was constantly categorizing my day.

Some things went into the desired "God" bin and others went into the necessary "stuff of life" bin.

I wanted to be near the "God" bin all the time, but that darn "stuff of life" bin kept getting in my way, which yesterday had me frustrated to the point of tears.

Finally, I called my dad and ranted and raved to him, and then I went for a walk.

"I don't want to find You in the things of life," I confessed to Jesus. "I just want You."

But I am in the things of this life, Jesus reminded me, with loving humor.

And I saw, all over again, the glistening stream as it poured, foaming and rushing, over the slabs of rock, and the oak trees, covered with green ivy, and the squirrels that ran, rustling over the dry leaves.

I remembered all over again that He created it, is in it all, and holding it all together and that it all speaks of Him.

I had to laugh.

And I am in you, Jesus added, lovingly, and tears welled up into my eyes at the simple joy of it.

I don't think there's a meaningful distinction between the life we are living and worshiping, knowing and loving God.

I think I knew this, but I guess I had to learn it all over again.

The second thing I learned was about the power of gratitude.

I'm not quite sure how this dawned on me yesterday, but for some reason, I started thinking in a new direction. I think I read something somewhere, another blog or something.

See, there's always been this part of me that doesn't believe a person is supposed to experience God in the way I do.

Therefore, my mind reasons, it cannot last. Sooner or later, I must go back to normal, which is feeling distant from Jesus and never hearing His voice or feeling His love and affection.

Increasing, I wonder if that was never meant to be "normal," but that's a blog for another time.

So anyway, because of this fear, my relationship with Jesus was plagued by a kind of persistent insecurity.

Yesterday, it occurred to me to thank Him for what is true, instead of anxiously reaching out for evidence that it was.

And, wow!

It was revolutionary.

Gratitude opens the heart right up to the presence of God.

It turns out that faith is all bound up in things like love, gratitude and joy. Faith is not apart from these things.

Last night, I was thinking back to the beginning of this whole journey, and how, on the second day, I went to Wal-Mart and was so deeply troubled by the upwelling of religious arrogance that I felt in me, in the presence of Jesus.

I remembered how I had struggled with the fact that Jesus was not suddenly and completely taking that out of me- He wasn't going to suddenly transform me as though snapping His fingers.

I had to learn to trust Jesus and His timing and His grace and His leading.

In fact, it was that night that Jesus gave me this passage, to explain:

"Whenever, though, they turn to face God as Moses did, God removes the veil and there they are—face-to-face! They suddenly recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We're free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of His face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like Him."
-II Corinthians 3:16-18

As I lay there thinking this over, Jesus spoke to me.

Look how far you've come with Me, He said quietly.

It was as though He were kneeling by the side of the bed, His head close to mine.

Joy immediately filled my soul. "Jesus!" I cried. "So far! So incredibly far! Because You are faithful, always faithful! And You are the most faithful when I am the most confused."

I will continue to faithfully guide you along, even into eternity, Jesus assured me.

"Always," I acknowledged. My heart was too full to speak anything more.

This morning, my little calendar says this:

"Sing a new song to the Lord,
for He has done wonderful deeds.
He has won a mighty victory by His power and holiness."
-Psalm 98:1

January 31st

2012-01-31T06:32:00.000-08:00

Keith and I are both sort of restless these days. We're waiting on so much.

We're waiting on his official orders for the new job, for one thing. It has to get processed like a move to another post would be,so it could be a few weeks.

Until then, he continues in his current position. Though he hasn't said anything, I think that kind of transition period is difficult.

Realisticaly speaking, it's probably going to be a rough transition all around. Apparently, during the interview, the man told Keith that there had been some shady stuff going on in the program before, so they cleaned house.

That's why the position opened up. He also told Keith that about thirty percent of the people in the Wounded Warrior Training program were just using the system.

We encountered that once before, actually, back in Kentucky, and it burned Keith up. I can't even describe how angry that made Keith. He still talks about it.

So, this new job is going to be emotionally challenging. But I think Keith is the perfect guy for it, because he's strict, demanding and yet he'll arrive an hour early just to coach a guy who needs help, like running with him two miles every morning.

Every time he's in an army school he ends up helping everyone else with the lessons and setting up practice tests for them.

And we're waiting on the tax returns, though that could get dropped into our bank account any time. Until then, it's like a large, tangled mess blocking the view forward, toward adoption.

Wait, wait! It arrived! Oh my goodness, so exciting!

Wow. We just paid the truck off.

I think this might actually be the year we start the adoption process. It's almost hard to believe.

January 30th

2012-01-30T10:25:00.000-08:00

I've been dwelling on this verse a lot lately:

"For He raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus."
-Ephesians 2:6

It's a lovely thing to think about and just rest in. Right now, we are just as much seated with Jesus as we are living down here.

There is no need to go searching for Jesus, because our very lives are hidden in Him, right where He is.

I've been understanding something in a new way lately, though I'm still very much thinking these things through, so I'm just sort of talking out loud.

I know that my spirit has been born again, that it is a new creation.

But, I think our souls are not. I've been learning that our souls are the mind- our reason and perception and consciousness, and the emotions.

I think this is why Paul says that we should renew our mind- because our mind and emotions hold all the pain and injuries and misconceptions of this current life, while our spirit holds the mind of Christ and is hidden in Him.

So, sometimes it's like we're holding two worldviews.

We're holding the eternal and lasting and true worldview- that we are the children of God, born in Him, that we are the righteousness of Christ and sanctified in Him and made perfect. This is the spiritual worldview.

But we're also holding the former worldview, the one of what was past- that we are imperfect, unacceptable, capable of perfecting ourselves, and the idea or hope we can find satisfaction and fulfillment in the things of this world. This is the carnal worldview.

The former worldview is no longer true, but our poor minds and emotions are kind of stuck there sometimes. This is, I think, the well spring for much of our confusion and distress in this life.

I think the more we can joyfully abandon ourselves to the eternal truths, to our true and lasting identities, the stronger that identity will become in our mind and emotions.

I think this is why guilt, shame and fear are not helpful in character development.

Our true character is in Christ. Out of unity in Him -abiding in Him- we produce the fruits of the spirit, which define our character and give glory to the Father.

There is no room or purpose for guilt, shame and fear in our unity in Christ.

I used to try and use these things like motivational tools -like Medieval monks who used to flay themselves over the shoulder with whips- but all this did was to reinforce my former identity.

They did nothing but hold me back. It was as though I were running from Jesus, instead of resting in Him.

It's very like the healing process from sexual abuse.

At a certain point, I had the choice to either embrace the emotions engendered by that abuse, thus perpetuating my identity as a victim, long after it had finished.

Or, I could release that identity and recognize that I am not there anymore, that it is not happening to me anymore and it doesn't define me, even if I still feel the echoes of the pain.

(Forgive me all my italics- the process of writing this out is causing my understanding of it to explode all over my head. Hence the italics)

Here's an even trickier part of this whole equation.

I'm leaning more and more toward the understanding that self will is of the mind.

Therefore, self will is carnal, not spiritual.

So, back in the day, when I tried with every once of my own self will to make myself acceptable to God, not only did I fail spectacularly in being acceptable, but I only managed to develop a toxic combination of shame and religious arrogance.

If I succeeded in something, I knew it was because I myself had subjected my own flesh or mind, by the strength of my self will.

Therefore, I could be self satisfied, thinking somehow that I had made myself more spiritually acceptable to God.

If I failed in something, I knew it was because I was a miserable sinner, subjected to the law of my flesh and mind and not spiritual enough to succeed.

See? I had drawn all the lines wrong, because I was drawing them myself. I couldn't reach spiritual perfection using carnal strength, and I certainly was not experiencing any intimacy, joy or life in my day to day relationship with Jesus.

When I gave up self will, and surrendered helpless into Jesus, He Himself drew all my lines. I think this may be one reason why Jesus said His strength is made perfect in weakness.

In Christ, we have faith expressed in love, and that not of ourselves, it is a gift of God, that no one may boast.

It makes me think of Paul saying this to those crazy Galatians:

"Listen! I, Paul, tell you this: If you are counting on circumcision to make you right with God, then Christ will be of no benefit to you. I’ll say it again. If you are trying to find favor with God by being circumcised, you must obey every regulation in the whole law of Moses. For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace.

But we who live by the Spirit eagerly wait to receive by faith the righteousness God has promised to us. For when we place our faith in Christ Jesus, there is no benefit in being circumcised or being uncircumcised. What is important is faith expressing itself in love."

-Galatians 5:2-6

It seems that it's either all free gift through the perfect and finished work of Jesus that we accept by faith expressed in love and that we live out through His Spirit, producing lovely fruits of the spirit to the glory of the Father or it's obedience to the entire law through self will, doomed to failure and leading to sin and death.

But I don't think it can be both.

January 29th

2012-01-29T08:55:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning full of a quiet joy.

Through the doors, I could see the band of gold around the horizon; it glowed between the white blinds.

When I opened the doors, it was as though I opened my heart to Him, and Jesus took me in His loving arms and I worshiped and adored Him.

The air was all clear and crisp, but not cold and the pool was a deep, still blue. Behind me, in the warm bedroom, Keith was all bundled up in the bedding.

My little calendar joyful proclaims:

"Praise Him; sun and moon!
Praise Him, all you twinkling stars!
Praise Him, skies above!"
-Psalm 148:3-4

Amen!

Yesterday, Keith and I spent almost the entire day outside, doing yard work and then grilling steaks for dinner. I spent the whole afternoon digging up the little flower bed around the our mailbox.

Knowing that we're going to be here for two more years has changed a lot of my perspective and now I want to invest some in the landscape. I often think of the future now, and how we may be bringing our children home to this house.

The ground in the flower bed was matted with heavy growth and roots, but I took the hoe and chopped it up into chunks, shook the dirt free of the roots, and tossed the weeds aside.

I pulled up the bricks that had edged it and cleared them of dead weeds. Then I stirred up all the soil, and put the bricks back in.

I still have dirt under my fingernails, but it looks so much better now. It's all ready for some colorful annuals, when ever the right time happens to be to plant in Georgia. I have to look that up.

In the evening, I was reading The Secret Ways, by Alistair MacLean- which is an ancient, battered and beloved book of mine- and I felt Jesus draw near to me.

It's as though He settles comfortably in with me, not come to talk or to teach, but just to be near, just because He loves His children and loves to be near them.

I love this- I love for Him to come, just to spend time with me, because He loves me and I am His.

My heart can instinctively and joyfully yield to Him, because Jesus is the God of my salvation, and He took away all my shame and fear. There is nothing in life better than Him, and I have no other god beside Him.

I think that loving Him is worshiping Him, and requiring Him as one's most basic necessity is to worship Him.

There is no earning of Him, no winning Him- Jesus is a gift. He comes freely, of His own will, and at the same time, He is always there.

I think it is impossible to prepare for Him to come, as though to clean house. He knows the house is dirty; He's all through it. He loves us anyway.

Jesus loves us just as we are. He wishes us to yield everything to Him, the broken, the dirty, the exhausted, the unfinished, the impossible.

He loves our company. He loves to be around us, each of us, whatever we are doing, He cares about it.

He is interested even in what I cook for dinner. That's not to say that Jesus has a right thing or a wrong thing for me to cook; it's just that He cares.

Why would He care about such a thing? I guess that, if He already has numbered the hairs on our head, it wouldn't be too much of a stress for Him to be interested in the day's menu.

All last night, I dreamed of children. I dreamed that I was working at a day care center with my beloved mentor Annie of Happy Valley, the day school where I worked when I was much younger.

In my dream, we were hosting a parent night, along with the children, so the entire building was full of people and companionship and warmth and the excitement and voices of scores of small children.

My love and ability flowed out of me in such an easy and natural way. Even my discipline was natural and loving and without angst.

The whole dream was full of joy- the joy of children and their funny and unique ways, the joy of easy companionship with my mentor and the joy of doing something that was challenging, creative and rewarding.

When I woke, the dream lingered with me. I leaned up against the warmth of Keith and thought of the upcoming adoption.

Whenever I think of adoption, I see a little girl.

I have no idea if we'll be matched with a little girl or not- whatever Jesus has planned is fine with me, but for some reason, I always see a little girl.

My thoughts wandered into the future and I thought, what happens to her when Keith and I are gone? She won't have any other family. We have to adopt two.

Unless, I thought to myself, she has her own family- gets married and has children of her own.

But what if, I thought to myself, she doesn't have her own family? What if she remains single? She'll be all alone in the world.

She will always have Me, Jesus said, in His so familiar and dear voice.

"Jesus!" I said, joyfully. His voice changed my entire perspective. "Of course she will! She has You even now, whoever she is. She always will."

Isn't this so kind of Him? He quieted even my fear about my imaginary children with an eternal truth.

Or maybe Jesus is starting to prepare my heart with this lovely truth far ahead of time, knowing I'll need to hear it and rely on it many times in the coming years.

January 28th

2012-01-28T07:25:00.000-08:00

Gosh, life would be sweet if I could just take my own advice! Heh.

These last few days, I've felt a growing sense of peace and contentment in my life.

This passage keeps coming into my mind:

"To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven"
-Ecclesiastes 3:1

And then I found this, and read it in many different translations. Ecclesiastes is just a tricky book, but this passage is so haunting, somehow:

"What do people really get for all their hard work? I have seen the burden God has placed on us all. Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God.

"And I know that whatever God does is final. Nothing can be added to it or taken from it. God’s purpose is that people should fear him. What is happening now has happened before, and what will happen in the future has happened before, because God makes the same things happen over and over again."
-Ecclesiastes 3:9-15 New Living Translation

And yet, the Father is the same that joyfully proclaims to Israel,

"Do not remember the former things,
Nor consider the things of old.
Behold, I will do a new thing,
Now it shall spring forth;
Shall you not know it?
I will even make a road in the wilderness
And rivers in the desert."
-Isaiah 43:18-21

And at the end of time, it is the Father who declares in complete triumph-

"Behold, I make all things new."

Ah, paradox. My God is a beautiful mystery and so is His book.

Keith is outside, the sleeves of his flannel shirt rolled up, washing the vehicles, as he loves to do on a sunny Saturday morning. The sudsy water washes down the driveway, reflecting the winter blue of the sky.

I am inside, listening to Van Morrison, drinking coffee and wondering about the mysteries and love and ways of God- which I probably always will do.

I can't help myself. It was how I was made, because it was the good pleasure of Jesus to make me this way. How I do love Him for it.

January 27th

2012-01-27T11:22:00.000-08:00

For a friend, concerning God-

I couldn't take anyone else with me on my own journey. I had to be alone with God.

My journey did not seriously begin until I found the courage to be openly, outrageously and unapologetically furious at God.

I think our current state in life is always necessary preparation for the next one, so the more deeply we can live in this moment, the more freely and deeply we can live in the next.

Condemning self judgment serves no spiritual purpose- it's not the same thing as clarity or true humility.

I found myself, in my spiritual journey, becoming more and more childlike. This came as a relief to me.

I cried a lot.

I asked God a crap ton of questions- little ones, big ones. I just pester Him a lot.

I learned He is a patient and subtle Teacher with a great sense of humor.

Solitude and contemplation usually led to swift spiritual growth.

I found myself craving the outdoors.

Fear blocked my ability to both hear and understand the voice of God.

Shame blocked my ability to be open to the presence of God.

Being completely vulnerable and real was usually how I found my way out of this.

Out of necessity, I developed a high comfort level with paradox. Like coffee, it's an acquired taste, but after a while I couldn't go through a single day without a healthy serving of it.

Anytime I felt myself capable of greater forgiveness, I leaped at it, and experienced awesome amounts of freedom in doing so.

This was so pleasurable that I sometimes search around in my head for anyone that I possibly forgive for anything.

Anything that came up in the silence that caused me shame or discomfort, I tossed over to God like a bean bag. I just let it go into Him.

I continually confirmed in my spirit and mind that I belonged completely and unequivocally to God - to the light- and that the darkness had no weight and no voice and no traction.

If I heard something and I wasn't sure if it was the voice of God, I handed it back to Him.

I knew that if it was God, He would lovingly repeat it to me again, in another way.

If it didn't come from Him, He would make it go away.

In this way, whatever was true slowly gained weight in my spirit, while that which was not true gradually faded away.

Confusion and distress always resulted in greater understanding, so I try now to simply ride it out.

Sometimes that's easier said than done.

Publicly sharing my journey caused intense short term anxiety, but long term value.

Once I had given it away, I could see it more clearly, and was sometimes able to see beyond it.

I searched out and connected to people who were on the same journey.

I temporarily put aside anything or any voice that increased my shame or fear.

I believe now that Jesus is lovingly guiding us into the truth all our lives.

Since Jesus Himself is the truth, we are actually growing into greater intimacy with Him.

Any time we declare that we have the whole truth, we have shut down the possibility of growing more deeply and intimately into God.

The greatest thing, the everlasting thing, is selfless love.

January 25th

2012-01-25T12:37:00.000-08:00

Here's some other stuff I've been thinking about lately. This is actually what I was going to blog about, but I got temporarily side tracked by that other blog.

Growing up, I absorbed a lot of teaching about the importance of remaining separate from the world. I understood this to mean that I should never participate in pop culture.

I believe this type of thinking is fairly common to the traditional Christian experience. Unfortunately, in my case, it led to fear, arrogance and isolationism.

As I hit my early twenties, I questioned and discarded this whole line of thinking.

For one thing, I was already completely tainted by the world, so there was now no more hope for me.

Guilt and despair aside, I thought then that it was an unproductive doctrine based on fear.

I wanted to engage life, not hide from it, and I hoped that this authenticity, even with its scars, would be a better witness than the false front I had hidden behind earlier in my life.

Now, however, it seems that I have come almost full circle.

"If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. You do not belong to the world. I have chosen you out of the world and the world hates you," Jesus says, in John 15:19

This may explain why I have been feeling as I have- I am feeling the reality of not being a part of this world.

But I no longer believe that "the world" refers to pop culture, or any culture at all.

I think now that it's a spiritual reality, not a physical reality.

"I have been crucified with Christ," Paul declares, Galatians 2:20, "it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."

We don't live in the world, because we live in Christ. The life of Christ in us is what sets us apart, sets us free from sin and is the promise of greater things to come.

That way, we are in the world, but not of the world.

Still, I wrestle with this. My heart doesn't lie here, but how does it serve Jesus, or others, if I spend my entire life longing for some place I'm not?

I know He said that anyone who does not hate his own life is not worthy of Him, but surely He doesn't mean that literally?

Didn't Jesus come to give us life, and that more abundantly?

I was thinking about this, and it occurred to me that maybe it's our former life that we hate- the dead in our own works and lost in the dark life.

And why wouldn't we hate that life? It's a miserable way to live.

We cast that away -we lose our life- and we follow Jesus, and He gives us His life, abundantly. Along with, surprise, a fair amount of sorrow and suffering.

When I first was reading through the gospels, I noticed how many times Jesus talked about staying awake, and watching.

At one point as I was reading along, I felt Jesus check me at one of those verses.

Staying awake is not the same as staying afraid, Jesus said.

And oh my goodness! I realized that I had been doing that. Every time He said to stay awake or to watch, I myself was reading be afraid, be very afraid!

Obedient to my own incorrect interpretation, each time I read such a verse or parable, fear and dread would fill my heart.

"Well, if it doesn't mean stay afraid, what does it mean?" I asked Jesus.

But He didn't answer me then.

Now, I am wondering if maybe staying awake is to be full of longing for Jesus while at the same time, alive in His Spirit where He has planted us- here and now, in the world.

That definitely requires us to stay awake. It is impossible to live like that on autopilot.

In fact, it's impossible to live like that at all, without Him living in us.

January 25th

2012-01-25T06:48:00.000-08:00

One of the blogs I read this morning described a young woman who heard the call of Jesus and went to Uganda for a mission trip, ended up staying there and adopting fourteen orphans.

Wow, did I ever feel like a slob after reading that.

Actually, it fit right in to this new pattern of condemnation I've been moving through lately.

The condemning thought is this-

If Jesus has given you all this overflowing grace and love, why are you giving back so little? Why aren't you moving to Africa and adopting over a dozen orphans? Or giving a Bible study, at the very least?

Or something. Instead of sitting here like a bump on a log, absorbing everything Jesus gives and then wanting more, and worst of all, not becoming perfect to reward Him for His considerable investment.

That's the kind of thinking that keeps coming back to me lately.

When I brought this up to Jesus this morning, feeling desperately guilty, His answer was very simple.

I did not call you to that, He said.

That should be fine, right? But it's not fine. I keep thinking I should be doing more.

What should I be doing, I ask Him. Why aren't I suffering more? Why aren't You asking more from me?

And He turns my heart first to my husband, and to my writing and to the prospect of adoption.

It's so easy to get caught up in this incredibly guilty feeling. But I've been considering the idea that most of Jesus' ministries are small, personal ministries.

They are centered around people's hearts, and homes and conversations and friendships. They are small communities of individual, unique people who were planted in each other's lives for a reason.

Every once in a while, Jesus calls one of us to something visibly extraordinary. But that doesn't seem to be very often.

Most of us seem to live perfectly ordinary lives, but just because they seem to be ordinary does not mean that Jesus is not using them in His own extraordinary way.

Jesus has clearly called me to a certain kind of ministry. Who am I to say to God that it is not enough, that His plan is not perfect, just because I am feeling guilty and envious of someone else's calling?

For some mysterious purpose of His own, Jesus has reached down into my life and lit me up like a torch. I don't know why. I may never know why in this life time.

But I must stay where He asks me to stay and do those things that He has prepared for me to do, even if I think they are very small things. Jesus leads, even on those paths of righteousness.

You know what would happen if I tried to lead? Not much, that's what. I'd burn out, become exhausted, bewildered and lost.

I may not adopt fourteen orphans from Uganda, but it's very likely that I'll adopt one or two from Columbia, if it's according to His plan.

January 24th

2012-01-24T10:04:00.000-08:00

This morning, I found this on facebook:

"Lord, I am yours,
and I must belong to no one but you.
My soul is yours,
and must live only by you.
My will is yours,
and must love only for you.
I must love you as my first cause,
since I am from you.
I must love you as my end and rest,
since I am for you.
I must love you more than my own being,
since my being subsists by you.
I must love you more than myself,
since I am all yours and all in you."

-Francis de Sales

Yesterday, Keith came home early after five hours of working in the motor pool, laying out tanks for inspection in the pouring rain. He was soaked to the skin.

We curled up together and watched some TV, had left over lasagna for dinner and went to bed early.

In the quiet night, Jesus was very close to me. It was as though I were enclosed and held up and surrounded by His love. I surrendered my tattered, torn and confused self completely to Him, and was comforted.

I have a hard time describing my experiences. They come out sounding so dry. But I can't capture them every well in words. What I'm experiencing is happening in my spirit, and it's alive with emotion and nuance.

The entire time that I am speaking with or resting in Jesus, my whole being is full of worship and adoration. This doesn't come across very well in words.

This sort of experience used to throw me for a loop, but now I welcome it with open arms. It is exactly this sort of experience that makes it impossible for me not to long for Him.

When Jesus spoke, His voice was full of love.

What did you learn today? He asked me.

This is a question He frequently asks me at the end of the day, which is interesting, because He was with me the entire time. But usually, thinking back over it helps me understand it better.

Last night, as I thought back over the day, it seemed like a wasteland of nothing but confusion and dissatisfaction.

"Not very much," I was sorry to admit. One thing occurred to me. "I learned all over again I'm an incredibly emotional person."

I made you that way, Jesus said.

"Yes, I am Your creation," I affirmed, feeling better about myself.

I thought of the walk I had taken in the rain, and the swollen river in the park, and how in the afternoon I had been dissatisfied with the television, with my writing, and hadn't wanted to read anything, even the Scriptures.

"I learned that my longing for You can make the entire day miserable," I confessed, feeling very badly about this.

Instead of judging me, Jesus sympathized with me. He reminded me that He also is waiting and He knows what it is like to feel longing. He is waiting for the time when His judgments will make all things right, and there is no more pain and no more sorrow, and He can wipe away every tear.

Even after all this time, and seeing it in the Scriptures, and experiencing it in my own life, I still have a hard time recognizing the fact that we make a huge emotional impact on God.

My mind tends to get stuck on the erroneous idea that God is impervious to us- it probably has to do with my childhood. But Jesus is not impervious to us- His heart is wide open.

But I have to learn this lesson over and over again.

Sometimes I think we run up against the same things over and over again because of those gently winding paths of righteousness. As we go around and around, we see the same pit or boulder, and maybe get discouraged.

But we aren't seeing it in the same way- we actually have a slightly higher perspective on it than the last time we came across it, only it's so subtle we may not realize it at first.

Sooner or later, it will drop from view entirely and we will forget about it. Sometimes Jesus reminds me of just such a thing- something that I have forgotten, because it has ceased to trouble me. And it fills me with wonder to see how far He has taken me.

I remembered yesterday that faith grows by being stretched out of its comfort zone. So, feeling stretched and confused can actually be a sign of impending growth. I hope so.

Weeks ago, I asked Jesus to help me balance my longing for Him with the ability to live fully in my present life, which He has given me like a gift.

Clearly, I'm still very much a work in progress in this, but I know Jesus will continue to teach me.

January 23rd

2012-01-23T07:19:00.000-08:00

I've been walking through a lot of confusion lately. I don't care how valuable I know it to be- I don't like being in the middle.

It would be nice if I could pretend to be better than I am- more trusting, more obedient, more intelligent and quick to grasp these things, but I won't. If I did, I would be lying.

I'm still wrestling with how much of these experiences are my responsibility, for one thing. You know, I've been wrestling with this the entire time, and all I have is paradox.

A few nights ago, I was filled with such longing to know Him without this through-the-glass-darkly crap that I wept. It hurt.

"Why am I like this?" I cried out to Jesus, in desperation. "What do You want from me?"

I did not get an answer in words. What I got was a glimpse of His own suffering, through and with me.

I told Jesus yesterday that I wanted to test Him, to see if He would abandon me if I turned my back to Him, but I wasn't doing that, not because I wanted to be obedient, but because I doubted if He would keep me or not, if I did that.

So, I was being brutally honest. Which is scary, I know, but I didn't reach this level of intimacy with God by sugar coating anything.

I didn't get a clear answer, other than His love and understanding. It's not as if my thoughts ever take Him by surprise.

Later, I sat in bed and read the psalms and my thoughts wandered.

I thought about traditional Christianity and for some reason, I thought of Ann of Green Gables.

As an adult, in the later books, she seemed to personify traditional Christianity for me- having good character traits with just enough quirky personality flaws to make her interesting, having a working and almost poetic knowledge of Scriptures and a charitable feeling for the community and, above all, a respectful distance from a kind but formal God.

I was tempted by this form of Christianity. I thought to myself, absently, "That sounds like such a pleasant and undemanding way to relate to God."

And, unexpectedly, Jesus spoke to me, His voice in my spirit clear and quiet.

Not for you, Jesus said.

Allll- riiighty then. Not for me the pleasant and formal distance.

No, apparently Jesus wants us up close and personal, with all the messiness that implies, with all the unanswered questions worked through together, over time.

I'm beginning to wonder that maybe Jesus answers our questions through messy and challenging experiences as opposed to a simple answer because He wants our knowledge to be built into who we are, not just dropped into our heads.

I returned to the psalms, and I read this:

"To You, O LORD, I lift up my soul.
O my God, I trust in You;
Let me not be ashamed;
Let not my enemies triumph over me.
Indeed, let no one who waits on You be ashamed;
Let those be ashamed who deal treacherously without cause."
Psalm 25:1-3

I read that over and over again, and as I did, I felt Jesus very close to me.

The psalm continued:

"Show me Your ways, O LORD;
Teach me Your paths.
Lead me in Your truth and teach me,
For You are the God of my salvation;
On You I wait all the day."
Psalm 25:4-5

Those words just reverberated in me. I reached out for Jesus, and He bent His head toward me and I whispered those requests right into His ear.

It gave me the shivers. I knew absolutely that He would answer me, and that the growing understanding of those answers would continue to shape my life.

This morning, when I stood at the open French doors, I looked up at the sky all swirled with layer upon layer of silver gray cloud.

I thought of Jesus somewhere high above that smothering mess of atmosphere- aloof and removed.

I am not up there, Jesus told me, His voice full of tender love.

He drew my yearning heart down from the clouds and back to the present, to the messy reality, to me, where He lives.

But only for the time being- one day, this cloudy curtain will get drawn back, and I will see Him as He is. I will know fully, even as now I am fully known.

January 20th

2012-01-20T07:41:00.000-08:00

I don't have too much time to write, because Keith's father and step-mother will be arriving for a weekend visit around noon.

The house is pretty much in tip top shape, with just a few things to be tweaked into place.

Yesterday, Keith had an appointment with one of the highest ranking Non-Commissioned Officers on post, for the job opening.

He said eight other guys were there, having already made it through other interviews, and now completing for the three open slots.

The guy took all their records, disappeared and then reappeared and sent five guys home. But not Keith, because he got the job!

This is exciting stuff, because it means we're here for a solid two years and Keith gets a pay raise. So that is a huge open door for adoption.

The next step is paying off the HD, so we can use it to back the adoption loan, and free up the money that otherwise would have gone into the payments on it.

Realistically speaking, that's probably going to take about three more months.

I don't know how I feel about all this.

It's exciting, but I've been excited before, and it came to nothing. I'm trying not to look too far into the future, because that's a recipe for trouble and besides, the only clear message about the whole situation that Jesus gave me was to take everything one step at a time.

But maybe our children will actually live with us, in this very house! It's possible.

It's possible that the spare bedroom might actually become a bedroom, and that we might actually have to childproof everything, and live in a perpetual clutter of toys and have a step stool in the bathroom for when they brush their teeth, and I'll get nothing done and have to give up on my writing for... oh, ten years or so.

I wouldn't mind.

January 18th

2012-01-18T06:34:00.000-08:00

Last night Keith had guard duty, so I was on my own in the evening. I tried watching some TV, but nothing was holding my attention, so I watched a documentary on Netflix.

Afterward, I felt Jesus nudge me to spend quiet time with Him, so I willingly turned the TV off and got ready for bed.

There was a lot of stuff to go over with Jesus, from everything that had happened that day, starting with my intense feelings of discouragement and confusion in the early morning, and all the things I had learned in the late afternoon.

In bed, I sat for a few moments just talking to Jesus, before reading. It was so quiet and calm. I felt Him very close to me.

When I opened the Bible, I found I was at the first letter from Peter. As I was reading along, I got to this phrase:

"In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love."
I Peter 1:6-8a

As usual, that phrase, "Whom, having not seen, you love," just caught me like a hook and I was stuck there.

I can just see Peter's wonder and awe, all over again, at the fact that he is catching men for Jesus, just as Jesus had said he would.

And these men and women have never met Jesus in person, have never known Him or heard His voice or listened to His teaching, and yet, they love Him.

But Peter had seen Jesus, of course. Peter had been very close to Jesus, for three and a half years. Peter knew Jesus.

This thought produced in me a great longing and sorrow, which I offered up to Jesus.

And Jesus said, you know Me.

"No, I don't," I sighed. "I could never really know You. You're God."

You know Me, Jesus insisted.

I hesitated to contradict Jesus, but I couldn't understand what He meant; I didn't understand how it could be true.

"But I never knew You in person like..."

The flesh profits nothing, Jesus said, interrupting my thought.

I paused, and marveled. Jesus was quoting Himself, from the passage where He had declared that His flesh and blood were true food, and may of His disciples left Him.

He had said to them, "It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak are spirit and they are life." (John 6:63)

Even as I was beginning to grasp what He meant, Jesus reminded me, very clearly, of what He had said to the disciples that last night:

"However, I am telling you nothing but the truth when I say it is profitable (good, expedient, advantageous) for you that I go away. Because if I do not go away, the Comforter (Counselor, Helper, Advocate, Intercessor, Strengthener, Standby) will not come to you [into close fellowship with you]; but if I go away, I will send Him to you [to be in close fellowship with you]."
John 16:7, Amplified Bible

But you know what? I still didn't fully understand. I wasn't getting it, because my mind was so stuck on wanting to know Jesus in person.

I finished reading the rest of that book, then I read some of John and then I flipped to Luke and read about the start of Jesus' ministry.

I read about how He sat in Peter's boat, teaching the multitudes on the shore. And then, afterwards, Jesus says to Peter:

"Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” (Luke 5:4b)

Oh my goodness. That phrase just went on ringing and ringing in my head like bells. I repeated it to myself over and over again, wondering.

Launch out into the deep...

How beautiful that sounds, beautiful and almost scary. Into the deep... What deep? What catch?

By this time, I was so tired that I couldn't read anymore, so I put the Bible away and called Keith to say goodnight.

When the light was out, I lay in the dark, resting in the close and loving presence of Jesus, thinking over everything I had read.

I thought about those words Jesus had said to me: you know Me.

Finally, I got it. I realized that, compared to how I had known Him before, I did know Him very well. I knew His voice and even sometimes felt His emotion.

My relationship with Him had exploded out into all directions and into such deep places, because I was growing more and more into the profound and deep truth that Jesus lives in me and I in Him.

That is an intimate way of knowing Him- even more than knowing Him in person. Knowing Jesus this ways leads to a huge catch of understanding and growth.

Then I was filled with wonder and adoration.

It is like this:

"But as it is written:

“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God."

I Corinthians 2:10-12

January 16th

2012-01-16T07:35:00.000-08:00

My dad's facebook page is just such a reservoir of interesting and great things! This morning, I found this:

"Faith has nothing to do with our ability to concentrate on God for at least five uninterrupted minutes; faith is my glorious awakening to the fact that my Maker is mindful of me! He cannot get me out of his mind!"

Francois Du Toit.

Oh, so beautifully true! Jesus has more than once assured me that His desire for me is far greater than my desire for Him.

Sometimes I worry that if I stop "being" a certain way, I'll stop experiencing His love and intimacy and He reminds me that it was He that came to me, not the other way around.

He did not come because I was "being" any certain kind of way, but simply because I was His and He has a plan for my life beyond what I can grasp or understand right now.

"You didn't choose me, remember; I chose you, and put you in the world to produce fruit, fruit that won't spoil," He says. (John 15:16, The Message)

It's such a paradox, isn't? I've often wondered if intimacy with God develops in one a high comfort level with paradox. I have certainly found it to be true, myself.

Here's another thing I've been thinking about: I've been wondering in a new way if every stage of our lives is necessary to reach the next one, so that there's no point in judging ourselves for being at a certain place or at a certain level of understanding.

One simply cannot reach the end without going through the middle, and so long as we are in the world, we are in the middle.

It makes me think of this:

"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."

I Thessalonians 5:16-18

I don't like being in the middle; it's very uncomfortable. But I think that it's in the middle where all the riches are; in the middle of depression, or suffering, or limitation, or confusion, or anger.

Trying to skip over those things means that we never really reach the end; we just put everything on hold- trying very hard to live in denial for as long as possible.

I did that for so, so long. I put off my anger at God and asking and facing the tough questions.

But you know what? I wasn't ready then.

I had to go through the middle. I couldn't be stronger or more wise than I truly was; I still can't be.

But I can trust my Good Shepherd. I can even rejoice and give thanks for where I am in my life. I can do this because I can completely trust my Savior.

In each moment, I am in open and living communication with Jesus, even in my pain and sorrow and suffering and confusion, I am open to Him.

I can trust that Jesus will never let me out of His hand, that He will never stop His transforming work in my life and that He will get me where I need to go.

It's like this:

"The Lord is my Shepherd. I will have everything I need.

He lets me rest in fields of green grass. He leads me beside the quiet waters.

He makes me strong again. He leads me in the way of living right with Himself which brings honor to His name.

Yes, even if I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not be afraid of anything, because You are with me.

You have a walking stick with which to guide and one with which to help. These comfort me.

You are making a table of food ready for me in front of those who hate me.

You have poured oil on my head.

I have everything I need.

For sure, You will give me goodness and loving-kindness all the days of my life.

Then I will live with You in Your house forever."

-Psalm 23, New Life Version

January 15th

2012-01-15T09:21:00.000-08:00

Found this on my dad's facebook page this morning:

From the cowardice that shrinks from new truths,
from the laziness that is content with half truths,
and from the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
O God of truth, deliver us.

By Rabbi Mordechai M. Kaplan

Amen!

I wish always to be just His child, sitting close to Jesus, and learning and listening- nothing more and nothing less.

January 13th

2012-01-13T13:35:00.000-08:00

Have you ever noticed how Jesus is sometimes making as though He is going to pass on by?

I noticed this, this afternoon as I was reading along in Luke.

"Then they drew near to the village where they were going, and He indicated that He would have gone farther.

"But they constrained Him, saying, “Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.”

"And He went in to stay with them."
-Luke 24:28-29

Sometimes, it's as though He's asking how much of Him one wants.

Are we satisfied that we've had a lovely time walking along with Him or will we invite Him in further? In fact, not just invite, but constrain.

The same word is used in Young's Literal Translation. The definition of constrain is: to force, compel or oblige.

However, in this story, they did not know it was Jesus when they constrained Him, and as soon as they recognized Him, Jesus left them, for a time.

Still, it's interesting to think about. It makes me think of Jesus saying this:

"Then, teaching them more about prayer, He used this story: “Suppose you went to a friend’s house at midnight, wanting to borrow three loaves of bread. You say to him, ‘A friend of mine has just arrived for a visit, and I have nothing for him to eat.' And suppose he calls out from his bedroom, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is locked for the night, and my family and I are all in bed. I can’t help you.’ But I tell you this—though he won’t do it for friendship’s sake, if you keep knocking long enough, he will get up and give you whatever you need because of your shameless persistence.

“And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

“You fathers—if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead? Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.”
Luke 11:5-13

January 13th

2012-01-13T09:29:00.000-08:00

It feels like I haven't blogged in forever!

I have been caught up in some intense hunger for reading and studying of the Bible these last few days, and as the lessons are new to me, I'm just not confident about blogging about them. I'm still trying to understand everything.

Each day is like a whole new adventure in Jesus. I wake up in the morning and think, "Where in the world is He going to take me today? What will I learn? What will I do?"

Yesterday, I got so caught up in this study that in the evening, I realized that I was missing Jesus.

"I miss You!" I told Him, wistfully. "I feel like I haven't spent any time with You today."

You've been reading My Word all day long, Jesus reminded me, with tender humor.

"Yeah, but that's not the same as spending time with You," I replied.

You went on a walk with Me and talked to Me a mile a minute about all the things you've been learning, Jesus said with the same tender love.

"Yeah, but that was for just... maybe an hour. I want more of You," I insisted.

So I kept tugging on Him and asking Him and reaching out to Jesus, in my spirit. And that night, I got to just hang out with Jesus and spend some quality time with Him.

I'm constantly asking Jesus for more of Him. I want to understand Him better, to see Him and hear Him more clearly.

Jesus is constantly answering those prayers, but He told me that if I heard Him more clearly, my faith wouldn't be able to grow.

"Alright," I said, resigned. "I understand, I get it. Faith is very important. It must grow. I'll suffer along in this confusion if it means long term good things and because I know You are always in control and will faithfully lead me along."

Jesus is the author of my faith- and that faith came to me as a gift from the Father Himself. So, I am in good hands, for sure.

This morning, I flipped my little calendar and read this:

"I give You thanks, O Lord, with all my heart... I bow before Your holy temple as I worship. I will give thanks to Your name for Your unfailing love and faithfulness, because Your promises are backed by all the honor of Your Name."
Psalm 138:1-2

Only, when I read that, I thought, "I am His holy temple! He lives in me!"

So, you might say, that I throw the whole temple down in joy and love before Jesus, to worship Him.

Who knew life could be so exciting without even leaving the house except to walk in the park?

In the meantime, Keith has begun his last training mission. His higher-ups realized that no one but Keith knew how to run the darn things, and that they'd better start training someone else to take his place, when he came down on orders.

He is in the running for another job, as Platoon Sergeant in another company. If he got the job, we would stay here for a guaranteed two years.

We don't exactly love Georgia, but we love the idea of staying anywhere for another two years, since we are coming, slowly, closer and closer to beginning the adoption plans. If Keith got the job, it would be a huge piece that would fall into place for us.

I feel very peaceful and relaxed about the whole thing- I know that everything will happen as Jesus plans it to happen, one day at a time. One day at a time is very do-able.

January 10th

2012-01-10T07:23:00.000-08:00

I remember one quiet, sunny afternoon -I must have been between fourteen and sixteen years of age- when I went creeping quietly up the stairs to the gallery of the Sanctuary building.

The Sanctuary was a very special building for the church that I grew up in. It was used for large meetings and on Sundays for worship services.

It had two galleries that overlooked the main room and large glass windows that let in the blue sky and in the summer, the sight of green leaves moving in the wind.

No one was supposed to go in the Sanctuary, but for some reason I was drawn there that day. Even at that age, I had the vague idea that maybe I could find God in that building, more than in any other place.

The stairs creaked, so I went up the side, clinging to the rail and then stepped cautiously out to the edge of the gallery.

I could look down over the rows and rows of chairs and the raised platform where the pulpit stood. All was hushed and empty.

I began to pray, earnestly and passionately, that God make me like a sturdy oak tree, with my roots planted so deeply in Him that nothing could ever shake me loose.

As I prayed, I felt this growing desire to lift my hands into the air.

This was a strange urge. I was not raised in a church where we lifted our hands; it was not a part of how we praised or worshiped God, that I can remember.

However, the urge grew so strong that I simply had to give in to it. Cautiously, I lifted both my hands up into the air, palms out.

Doing this caused me to feel vulnerable and open, but I had hardly a moment to experience those sensations before I felt God take my hands in His.

A holy awe swept over me like goosebumps.

That was the first time I ever felt God's touch. When this memory came back to me several weeks ago, it increased my understanding that God was calling me to Himself all my life.

There is no other reason for me to have done that, or to have prayed like that. No one asked me to; no one knew where I was.

One night a few weeks ago, as I was resting in Jesus, I was thinking about my childhood, and how much I had liked to go out in the evening.

Especially on windy or snowy nights, I liked to be outside in the weather. I would stand under the street light and watch the snow flakes falling endlessly through the halo of golden light.

I remembered the mysterious beauty of shadows in the night, how it softened all the land and the woods and how the wind breathed over all of it.

As I remembered this, Jesus said to me, I was in the wind.

Wonder and understanding dawned in my mind, as I heard Him say this. It made perfect sense to me.

"I knew it!" I cried, in delight. "I knew You were! That's why I out there; I was looking for You."

"He makes His home on the waters. He makes the clouds His wagon. He rides on the wings of the wind. He makes the winds carry His news. He makes His helpers a burning fire."
Psalm 104:3-4

I think that Jesus is talking to us all our lives, all the time, but we only recognize a few of the times, especially after we've become an adult.

Sometimes I think He's hard to recognize simply because of how much love He has for us- we're so often expecting something different.

It's like we hear a knock on the door- Someone is calling our name! Eagerly we go to open the door and there's this scruffy looking Person standing there, with unloosed sandal straps, unwashed, scarred hands and no place to lay His head. He smells like sheep.

The love in His eyes is almost unbearable, because He sees right through us.

We don't understand how He can love us that much. It hurts. It takes away from us anything else we had ever held on to, anything else that had ever defined us.

In that one moment, in the light of that love, we know that all our good works are meaningless, all our accomplishments nothing more than sandcastles. We are looking in the face of God and we have nothing to offer Him.

He sees everything we are not, and everything we have tried to hide, even from ourselves and He loves us absolutely, completely. We know that if we let Him in, we will be undone by that love.

So we look away. Urgently, we dig in our pocket for some loose change and we tell Him that there's a homeless shelter on down the road, in the center of town. We don't look in His eyes as we speak.

Then we close the door, and we think, with desperation, about the next thing we must do, and the next, and the next and then it's dinner time and there's no time think. We don't pause to consider why that's such a relief.

In bed that night, we decide that on Sunday, we'll donate some money to the church homeless fund. This comforts us, and we fall asleep.

I have done this to Jesus countless times. Countless times I have closed the door in His face, because I could not recognize or accept His love.

But He keeps on knocking- that's the thing.

Then one day, that pestering Stranger comes by and we are so exhausted and our back is so strained and our hands are so aching with all the things we have tried to carry and tried to hold on to and tried to hold at bay, that we must lean against the doorjamb. We are so ashamed that we cannot lift our eyes to Him.

And that scruffy, loving Shepherd opens His arms to us, and when He does, we drop everything and go running to Him like children.

And then we are found. There is laughter and warmth at our house; there is so much to talk about, so much to say.

He stays with us, each day and each night. He makes the garden grow up all around the house and He makes the house snug and warm against the storms outside.

In the evening, when we sit curled peacefully up against Him, He tells us stories and teaches us, and the light shines out all the windows and the open doors.

January 8th

2012-01-08T12:14:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I read this:

"Then He (Jesus) came to Bethsaida; and they brought a blind man to Him, and begged Him to touch him. So He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the town."

Mark 8:22-23

The twenty third verse continues on, but my whole attention stopped at the last sentence.

Imagine being blind and having Jesus take you by the hand- your outstretched fingers securely enclosed His warm and calloused hand.

For some reason, I imagined it being very quiet, and hot with the sun of mid day.

And all one can hear is the distant bleating of sheep and the voices of some neighbor women drifting through their open window, and maybe the sound of the wind on the hills around the village.

There are the smells of stones baking in the sun, and sheep dung. There must have been the smell of fish and water, because it was a fishing village, and the smell of unwashed men.

The blind man- would he have walked along slowly, clinging to the hand of Jesus, this mysterious Teacher and his only hope? Perhaps behind them walked the blind man's friends and the disciples, maybe talking together quietly.

Maybe, as soon as Jesus took his hand, the blind man would have forgotten all his anxieties, his desperate hopes and even his suffering. Maybe everything in him would have become quiet and still, and warm from the sun.

If Jesus spoke to him, the voice of Jesus, as He directed the blind man along the path, would have been so quiet and calm, and somehow so dearly familiar, that I doubt the blind man would have startled.

But perhaps he would have been surprised when Jesus stopped leading him.

Maybe, he would have thought, "Are we here already?"

And maybe, when he looked up to see men as trees, walking, and then looked up again, to see everyone plainly in the light of day, that light could not compare to the light that had already dawned within him, as soon as he took the hand of Jesus.

"I will bring the blind by a way they did not know;
I will lead them in paths they have not known.
I will make darkness light before them,
And crooked places straight.
These things I will do for them,
And not forsake them."

Isaiah 42:16

January 7th

2012-01-07T11:30:00.000-08:00

Last night I finished Matthew and began reading Mark.

That gospel is kind of cute, because everything happens, like immediately! Right away! Whatever happens to be happening, Jesus is just, on it.

I was curled up on the bed, reading. It was as though I were reading in Jesus' arms, leaning back against Him, His head close to mine as we read together.

"To what shall we liken the Kingdom of God?" Jesus asked, in a musing voice, His eyes alight with the quiet pleasure of the story teller. "Or with what parable shall we picture it?"

"To what?" I asked Him, feeling cozy and happy. "To what shall we compare it, Jesus?"

To a mustard seed, it turns out.

"...which," Jesus said to me, His voice so quietly captivating, "when it is sown on the ground, is smaller than all the seeds of the earth; but when it is sown, it grows up and becomes greater than all herbs, and shoots out large branches, so that the birds of the air may nest under its shade."

I pondered this lovely image for a bit, and then we read on.

We reached the part about the man of the tombs, who begs to follow Jesus, and Jesus did not permit him.

I was lost in thought at this, thinking that, if that were me, I would have left for home just brokenly sobbing, dejected.

I saw myself stumbling around through the tombs, heading home, unable to see for my tears and wondering about why I could not come with Him.

I did not say that to you, Jesus reminded me, interrupting my thoughts with His loving humor.

Love flowed through me, releasing me from my thoughts. I took a deep breath of relief and yielded back into Jesus' loving presence.

"No," I said happily remembering. "You did not say that to me. You will always be close to me."

I was always close to him, Jesus told me, and delight and wonder filled me again.

"Of course You were!" I agreed, realizing it. "He would have left and found You living in and loving him, right in his heart, all his life."

It is Keith's birthday weekend, and so far today he has had a pizza omelet- yes, I did combine two of his favorite foods- and we have cruised the car lots in the HD. He got several compliments on his truck and almost bought a Jeep.

We had sloppy hamburgers for lunch, and fries with barbecue sauce, and then we went to the off road dealership and then to the store for steak and potatoes and a strawberry ice cream cake.

He received a string of decorative John Deere lights from my parents, and they are now proudly displayed over the fireplace mantel.

Tomorrow we are hitting the ATV trails, and I sincerely hope that the rest of the south does not also have the same plan in mind. Surely not.

January 6th

2012-01-06T07:31:00.000-08:00

A huge amount of anxiety has been lifted off me, concerning my blog. I seem to have reached a new perspective on it.

In the four years since I've been blogging, I've been slowly and steadily moving away from the standard use and idea of a blog.

In the same way, I myself have been moving away from society's idea of normal and been able, more and more, to just be myself.

Most recently, I have been freed from a whole network of old and crippling ideas and beliefs, and led further into the presence and grace and Person of God. True to form, I took my blog with me.

Soren Kierkegaard said "Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom."

How true that is! It is not pleasant, not pleasant at all. Eventually, however, one gets a head for heights.

The last couple of days, I have been really drawn to the gospel of Matthew. I find this a challenging gospel. I do not understand so many things that Jesus is doing and saying.

Like Paul said:

"Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!

“For who has known the mind of the LORD?
Or who has become His counselor?”

“Or who has first given to Him
And it shall be repaid to him?”

For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.
-Romans 11:33-36

That's a good place to start, when it comes to God.

Still, I am enjoying this gospel. Even when I don't understand Him, I find Jesus irresistibly attractive.

I have learned that His context is always love. Even His anger and frustration flows out of His love. His mysterious purposes are founded on love.

And oh!

To see Jesus go away by Himself, and throw Himself face first on the ground, and cry out "O My Father..."

I fell in love with Him just a thousand times more.

January 5th

2012-01-05T11:24:00.000-08:00

It's funny how posting an experience alters my own perception of it.

Reading my story over again, it was as though I saw my response to Jesus in a new light. I thought, "Whoa. What kind of crazy person just instinctively answers like that?"

I think it's because I fell in love with the Person of God, and not the religion around Him.

Like, if Jesus had said to me, "You have My religion; you follow My religion each moment of every day, and on Sundays, you get to go to church," I would have ended up sobbing at the top of the stairs and been crippled with depression for the rest of the holiday season, if not the rest of my life.

I could never have answered as I did if Jesus had not, for a long time before, been filling my heart and my life with His love. So my answer is really no credit to me whatsoever, and all credit to His work and His altogether lovely and irresistible nature.

I felt so peaceful and centered yesterday that I decided I wouldn't go for a walk, but when I finished my blog, Jesus said, Come out with Me; we'll listen to the second half of Handel's Messiah.

Joy and delight filled me; I knew exactly what He meant.

When I walk, I like to listen to Handel's Messiah. When I leave the door, I begin with "Comfort Ye My People."

By the time I reach a stretch of solemn, towering pines, their branches filtering the sunlight, the ground gold and green from the needles, I'm hearing "Goodwill towards men," which has more than once caused me to cry from the simple joy of it.

However, by the time I get home, I have reached the songs which describe the Passion of Christ. It's excruciating to listen to those songs, and on more than one occasion, I have skipped over them.

Yesterday, I did not. So many times I wanted to put my hands over my ears. The worst is when they mock Him as He hangs on the cross. I just can't understand it. Isn't it enough that they should kill Him? Must they then actually mock Him as He's dying?

And the things they say to Him, the Son of God! And what is Jesus doing, while this is happening? He is forgiving the ones that crucified Him, He taking care of His grief stricken mother and He is reassuring the thief that hangs next to Him.

As I listened to this, sorrow and grief filled me. When I reached the song, "Thy Rebuke Has Broken His Heart," I had to keep taking deep breaths because of the heaviness that weighed down on me. Tears filled my eyes.

This entire time, of course, Jesus was right beside me; we walked along together. I don't know if this is true or not, but I like to think that, by opening my heart to those songs and moving through the grief, in a small way, I feel like I can keep vigil with Him.

The best part about doing this is, of course, reaching the end. As soon as I heard the chords for "But Thou Didst Not Leave His Soul In Hell," my heart lifted. Indescribable joy filled me; my tears changed to tears of joy.

Even the landscape was transformed. It glittered and shone with light; light poured down through the bare branches of the winter trees. The light was dazzling on the road.

"Is it over already?" I asked Jesus, with disbelieving joy. And then I felt guilty, for thinking His passion was short lived, and He reminded me of this:

"A woman, when she gives birth to a child, has grief (anguish, agony) because her time has come. But when she has delivered the child, she no longer remembers her pain (trouble, anguish) because she is so glad that a man (a child, a human being) has been born into the world.

"So for the present you are also in sorrow (in distress and depressed); but I will see you again and [then] your hearts will rejoice, and no one can take from you your joy (gladness, delight)." (John 16:21-22)

Worship and love poured out of me, as I walked along the road. And then I was listening to "Lift Up Your Heads, O Ye Gates." It paints such a gorgeous pictures of Jesus' triumphant return to His Father, having conquered death once and for all. I felt shy, because Jesus is the King of Glory, and the Lord of Hosts.

I carried you with Me through those gates, Jesus said.

I thought that was an extraordinary thing for Him to say, and I didn't see how it could possibly be true.

So, He reminded me of this:

"If then you have been raised with Christ [to a new life, thus sharing His resurrection from the dead], aim at and seek the [rich, eternal treasures] that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. And set your minds and keep them set on what is above (the higher things), not on the things that are on the earth.

"For [as far as this world is concerned] you have died, and your [new, real] life is hidden with Christ in God."
-Colossians 3:1-3, Amplified Bible

I'm still pondering this thought. I never thought about it quite like that before; that, just as He died carrying our sins, He rose again carrying our redeemed and new lives safely with Him, and through the everlasting gates.

"But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!) For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus. So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus."

-Ephesians 2:4-7

January 4th

2012-01-04T06:45:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning filled with a peaceful expectancy.

An e-mail from a friend of the heart filled me with peace and joy. What she had to say was just perfect.

Now I feel a further sense of freedom and comfort. If you are still reading my blog, I'm going to guess that it's because I talk about Jesus.

So talk about Him I will.

On Christmas day, I learned that my sister in law is pregnant with her third child.

When I heard this, I felt numb. I felt a false and empty smile linger on my face. I moved around the room mechanically, not really seeing anything in front of me.

Keith and I were very quiet as we drove back to his father's house, for Christmas festivities there.

I dreaded it. Between the two families, with my infant nephew, two little nieces and now the new baby on the way, there would naturally be a great deal of baby talk. There would be talk of labor and which car seats are best and feeding schedules.

That is all a foreign language to me. I have nothing whatsoever to add to such conversations.

Since it was no secret that this third pregnancy wasn't planned, and as we are talking about the Indiana boys here, there would be countless jokes about the inefficiency -or completely lack of- birth control.

This is, of course, worse than ironic for Keith and I. We would end up standing on the outskirts of the laughing group, holding our drinks, with the looks on our faces something between bewilderment and pain.

"Wouldn't it be great if they had a little boy this time?" I asked Keith, my voice small and hopeful.

"That would be," he said, heartily- I heard the effort behind it.

When we pulled up in the driveway, I went straight upstairs, grateful that we had a guestroom. I had put off wrapping the presents until the very last minute, so I busied myself with that task in the quiet room.

I felt my peace returning to me as I tucked and taped and tagged. When I was done, I stood with an armful of gifts and made my way out to the landing.

Happy voices drifted up from downstairs. The front door and windows were swagged with greenery; it was looped all down the stair rail, entwined with white lights.

I paused there for a moment. As I had for the entire visit, I felt the close and loving presence of Jesus. For the first time since hearing the announcement, I felt up to talking with Him about it.

"Why?" I asked Jesus quietly. "Why are You making me a barren woman?"

"You have Me in abundance; all through your heart and in your life," Jesus replied.

At His words, joy flared up in my spirit; joy leaped up like a flame. I knew His words to be so true and I remembered how deeply I cherished His presence. My joy at remembering this consumed all my sorrow and regret.

"You, You, You!" I cried with joyful abandon. "I choose You, every time, over every thing. Let my life be what it must and let me have You. So be it."

I went down the stairs with a light heart and put the packages down. Then I took my little nephew and cuddled him in my arms. He had that little baby smell- warm and clean and fuzzy headed.

He's an adorable little boy, but he was suffering from a raspy cough. He curled up on my chest and tried to sleep, but his cough kept troubling him.

It hurt to watch- so young and helpless and innocent, and already caught up in the suffering of life. I reached out to Jesus and I felt His presence surround me. I felt Him put His arms around the little boy and I. We were rocked in the arms of Jesus, filled with peace and love like a sweet, heavy balm.

And I knew then that the little boy was not suffering alone; Jesus was in it with Him, suffering right alongside of him. No matter what happened in his life, Jesus would be with him, just as He is with all of us.

It dawned on me, in a new way, that Jesus Himself had been born human- had allowed Himself to be as helpless and humble as the infant in my arms. It was so huge and so astonishing that I could scarcely wrap my mind around it.

I think there can be no greater love or courage or humility than His. No wonder His Father loves and delights in Him so.

It turned out to be the best Christmas Keith and I have had with his family. There was so much laughter and peace and just this feeling of warm ease.

Now I have to wrap this up so I can switch to working on Torii. I'm determined this year to have it complete and polished, even if I have no idea how or when it will ever be published.

That story holds my heart and soul, I tell you what.

January 3rd

2012-01-03T11:48:00.000-08:00

I went for a walk and I had an insight into my conflict over my blog.

I remembered, or realized, that Jesus is teaching me to align what is temporary with what is eternal. That is how my spirit is sharpened and grows the best.

My spirit and heart are new in Christ. But my earthly self -that part that is passing away- must be gently and lovingly and consistently drawn into alignment with what is eternal.

The passing-away-self wants what is earthly. The true me, the eternal me, wants what is eternal. I feel these conflicting desires.

This conflict has the potential to bring about incredible growth in me, I believe, when I surrender myself to Jesus. It's surrendering the old way of being for the truth and life that I have in Christ that causes myself to grow and deepen.

Little by little, with Jesus renewing my mind and strengthening my spirit, the old me aligns with the eternal.

If this were easy, there would be no growth. Instead, this lasts all one's life- there is always a choice to surrender more deeply to Jesus- to what is eternal, to what it real and lasting.

The other part is that it's just not easy to be so vulnerable about my walk with Jesus. I wouldn't do this if I didn't feel with such certainty that He wishes me to do so. This was not my plan for my blog, that is for sure.

How would my faith grow, if I knew for certain what His long term plan was, or what He was doing with what I offered Him?

Whenever I go through one of these "I wish my life/blog were normal" phases, that desire always ends up being swallowed up by my deeper and more overwhelming desire for God. I can't resist Him for very long.

I read this, this afternoon, and it deeply fed my soul:

"But if God Himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of Him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won't know what we're talking about. But for you who welcome Him, in whom He dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God's terms. It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, He'll do the same thing in you that He did in Jesus, bringing you alive to Himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and He does, as surely as He did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With His Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ's!

"So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!

"This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?"

-Romans 8:9-15, The Message

January 3rd

2012-01-03T05:50:00.000-08:00

I feel conflicted about my blog.

After about three months of talking so persistently and so outrageously about Jesus, I have about five readers left.

I wish I could say that I was so deeply spiritual and above it all that this doesn't touch me, but I can't lie. I feel sad about this.

I wonder, should I have talked about Him less? Should I have hidden the way in which I know Him?

If I go on talking about Jesus in the way I do, will I end up merely talking to myself, in a big empty space?

This whole walking by faith thing can be very unsatisfactory at times. How's that for an understatement?

I woke up this morning to a quiet house. I drank it in. I wandered around in a sort of happy bliss, taking in the stillness, the silence, the calm blue light of dawn.

The windows drew me on every side, with their vistas of a light filled landscape, pale blues and ambers and silver tipped grasses lit up like torches by the rising sun.

I woke up hungry for Jesus. My hunger for Him never ebbs.

Almost, I have resigned myself to this fact. Sometimes still I wonder why this is- why I am never satisfied, why I always want more, and deeper and more present.

Then I realize that the answer doesn't matter, anyway. What matters is that it is true.

So I cried out to Jesus and begged Him and poured out my heart to Him and He opened my heart to His presence, and I drank it in like the light.

Then I flipped over my little calendar and read this:

"O Lord, You have examined my heart and know everything about me. You know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord. You both precede and follow me. You place Your hand of blessing on my head."
-Psalm 139:1, 4-5

January 1st

2012-01-01T09:24:00.000-08:00

I've been playing with my blog design- I still haven't gotten the colors right yet.

The Christmas tree is down, and in its place is the treadmill- and so the new year begins.

I am worn out- just worn right the heck out. I have had a great deal of blog material, but just no time or peace to pull my thoughts together.

Yesterday, I thought it was the last day of leave, and it wasn't. (I got my days mixed up.)

And then today, I thought it was the last day of leave, and guess what? It isn't.

Tomorrow is the last day.

"This is the leave that never ends," sang my husband, teasingly, "it just goes on and on, my friend!"

What a way to be serenaded in the morning, I tell you what.

Yesterday, we went ATV riding.

I offered to go, thinking it would be a nice, quiet little outing- or, as quiet as riding on a 4 wheeler enhanced by the deep throated rumble of a chrome exhaust could be- but, natually, it was not a nice, quiet outing.

Hundreds of the good citizens of Alabama and Georgia had also loaded up their four wheel drive machines and decided to tear up the tracks and get muddy on New Year's Eve.

There were mud slicks full of yellow, glossy water, shirtless country boys with rubber boots riding on stripped down lawn mowers, small children on tiny ATVs making circles in the parking lot and country girls with high heeled cowboy boots and string shirts watching the mayhem in the mudpit, where jacked up trucks were vying for glory in the churning waters.

The trails were full of entire families travelling in packs, radios strapped down to the handle bars and coolers on the back. Other families had set up camp on huge car trailers over looking the mud pit, a row of camp chairs unfolded, beer cans and sun glasses in use.

They all whooped and hollered when some poor fool in a monster truck got stuck. Huge sprays of mud were whirled up, glistening, in the air, as the massive tires spun in the muck.

Country boys stood on their hoods and watched, shouting advice in their slow, southern drawel, or sludged through the pit, high deep in mud, to inspect the engine and see what they could do.

It was something to see, alright. Keith was in his element; he was as excited as a school boy. His face lit up with joy as soon as he saw the crouds. I got soaked and mud splattered with the best of them, and ate French fries from the venders and wore Keith's ball cap.

We left around four in the afternoon- one can only imagine the mayhem that must have occured as evening fell across the mud slick trails in the back woods of Alabama, on New Year's Eve, under the headlights of a hundred ATVs, side by sides, razors, dune buggies and Jeeps.

That was yesterday.

Yesterday night, around eight o'clock, I couldn't stay up any longer. I took myself to bed to rest until midnight. I was woken up at 11:42 by an exuberant husband who made me the strongest screwdriver I have ever attempted to sip.

I sat down on the sofa, feeling about seventy years old, and was hit in the face by the barrage of New Year's mayhem at Time's Square, NYC. Even filtered through the television screen, I kept wanting to recoil.

The neighbors let of scores and scores of fireworks in the cul-de-sac. The bitter smoke drifted into through the loose windowsills and made me wonder if the house had caught on fire, as I stood in the dark kitchen, getting a glass of water.

This morning, the tarmac is scattered with tattered pieces of paper and ends of string. It's a cloudy, dull day and the sounds of the television seep around the edges of my ear phones.

Maybe the sun will come out tomorrow. In the meantime, a chorus from Les Miserables is echoing in my head:

"One more dawn, One more day, One day more!"

Oh dear, sweet Army-

Reclaim your errent soldier and native son, and put him to the honorable tasks for which you have so admirably fit him, and which is so suitable to his nature.

Return him to me in time for dinner.

Sincerely yours,

his loving spouse,

Mrs. Indiana

P.S. Please find enclosed all his gear.

December 28th

2011-12-28T10:09:00.000-08:00

This song has really been speaking to my heart lately. I heard it on the radio on the way back down to Indiana, and it made me cry.

Look Heart, No Hands, by Randy Travis

I remember how it used to feel
Ridin' down ol' two mile hill
Tennis shoes up on the handlebars
Payin' no mind to them passin' cars
No doubts, no fears
Just like when you are here

No chains, no strings
No fences, no walls
No net, just you
To catch me when I fall
Look heart, no hands

Took a little time to get up to speed
To find the confidence and strength I'd need
To just let go and reach for the sky
You know, sometimes it felt I could fly
No doubts, no fears
Just like when you are here

It doesn't take much
Just a smile or a touch
And I'm a kid again
I can almost feel that wind

No chains, no strings
No fences, no walls
No net, just you
To catch me when I fall
Look heart, no hands

December 28th

2011-12-28T07:37:00.000-08:00

Lately, I've been thinking about this verse:

Those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me. And because they love me, my Father will love them. And I will love them and reveal myself to each of them.”
John 14:21

This is not an idle promise on the part of Jesus.

I remember first reading this, and just discarding it, with a kind of weary despair.

That's because I was confused as to what His commandments were- the Bible is full of laws- and I knew absolutely my own inability to be obedient to them.

I figured I would never be able to love Jesus the right way. I would have to muddle through somehow.

Then, this fall, when I read it again, it hooked me right away. Jesus will reveal Himself?

The Amplified Bible put it like this, in brackets:

I will let Myself be clearly seen by him and make Myself real to him.

Whoa.

I wanted that- I wanted that very badly. And as I grew in understanding, I learned that Jesus has two commandments: to love God with all one's heart, soul, strength and mind, and to love others as oneself.

Note, by the way, that it's to love God with all the heart, soul, strength and mind that you have available, not more than you have.

One offers up all that one has, even if it's a little strength, even if it's a broken heart, even if its a wounded soul or a confused mind.

One can lean one's whole self into these commandments, because upon these commandments hang all the rest of them.

Knowing that simplified things for me.

So I begged Jesus to enable me to love others as myself, so that I could keep His commandments, so that I could see Him more and more clearly.

Quite unsurprisingly, Jesus has been answering this prayer. He has been doing it in an unexpected way- which, I am learning, is very typical of Him.

He began to teach me, over and over again, that I could not love others well if I could not love myself. And I could not learn to love myself on my own- I had to let Jesus love me.

Jesus has been teaching me to drop my self judgments. They do me no good. If I am going to love others unconditionally, I must first love myself to that degree.

This is hard to do. I used to have a different system going.

In the previous system, I tried and failed. To make up for my failure, I judged and then punished myself. Then I tried again, only to fail yet again. Then I judged myself more harshly and punished myself more stringently.

This old system does not want, to borrow a phrase from Dylan Thomas, to go quietly into that good night. It burns and raves.

However, that system is no match for the love of God, which is the most dynamic force in all of creation. Nothing can stand before it- certainly not my crummy old system, which gets dissolved by love.

Consequently, I have in fact, been seeing Jesus more and more clearly. He is breathtakingly real to me.

Note that none of this happened by my own efforts. I did not try on my own to love others. If I had, I would have failed miserably.

I did nothing but ask for love, and when it came, I learned to surrender myself more and more deeply to that love. In surrendering to love, I mirrored that love out to others around me.

We were created by Love, we are kept by Love and we mirror that love back out, to the very One that created us, and to those around us.

When we do this, we see God.

It's a perfect system.

December 24th

2011-12-24T12:14:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve. I've always loved Christmas Eve.

I'm up in Indiana, by the way. Keith's back was so much better we decided to head up after all.

I've been wanting to blog this for a while, but with travel and all, I haven't had a chance. I've just been carrying it around in my heart, so I wouldn't forget.

After I wrote the blog about the third chapter of John, I wanted immediately to write more like that, just because it was such a pleasurable thing to write.

Who knows what it was really like- but just illustrating it with words was so satisfying, even if the words can't do justice to the reality.

So, in bed that night, I was thinking through all the other scenes in John, thinking which one I might chose. But none of them had that "spark" or inspiration that let me know I could actually write it out.

As usual, I was resting in the close and loving presence of Christ, so I said to Him, "You're not in any of these."

That may sound strange, because the whole book is about Him, so of course He's in it. But what I meant was that I didn't see Him as vividly in those other scenes.

He said, That's because I'm right here.

"Yes, Jesus," I said, with a kind of humble joy.

I like this response- the response He's teaching my heart to say- I like it much better than my old response, which was to flatly deny His grace and love out of a deep feeling of unworthiness.

For a while there, I began saying, "Yes, Lord," as a sort of automatic response to His voice and it wasn't long before I felt Him check me.

Jesus reminded me of how I had used to hide my true self behind my religious behavior, and among those behaviors was using the title "Lord."

Which is a completely appropriate title- He is the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. But He didn't want me to go back to hiding behind the formality of the title.

When I was first getting used to having Him so close and real, one night, I used the phrase "I worship You," as opposed to the outflow of my heart, that springs up like a song without words. It was as though I were trying that phrase out for the first time, and it did feel a little stiff to me.

When I said "I worship You," I felt Jesus draw even closer to me. I felt His tender love of me, and most surprisingly, I felt His loving humor.

He said tenderly, How formal my little one is tonight!

That was the first time I ever experienced His loving humor. It took me so by surprise- that was not at all the response I had been expecting from Him. But, oh! How it made me love Him more.

It's like He said to the woman at the well:

"It's who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That's the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration."
John 4:23-24, The Message

Tonight and tomorrow, we celebrate our God with us. Not far away, not unreachable, not aloof- He is with us.

Our God is living with us, suffering right alongside of us, speaking to us, teaching us and above all, loving us in each moment of each day, right where we are in our life.

How could we not worship Him in adoration, in the truth of who we are and who He is?

Let every heart prepare Him room!

December 21st

2011-12-21T10:05:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite chapters in John is the third chapter.

When I read the first half of that chapter now, I like to imagine how it might have been. This is what I like to imagine:

As I begin to read, walls spring up around me, stone walls, dimly lit by a small, smoldering fire. There are dark shadows draping walls, floor, ceiling. It's warm and quiet in the room, and it seems to be full of people not clearly seen.

Some of them are asleep on mats. But two or three are awake, and sitting by the fire. They are talking quietly. There is the sound of their voices and of men breathing and the wind outside the walls.

It is late at night, but not so late that they are dizzy with exhaustion- just late enough to talk with hushed voices and long, peaceful pauses.

But there comes a knock on the door- heads lift and turn, the sleepers stir. Everyone looks at each other. Who could this be?

Someone pads over and opens the door, and leads in an unexpected visitor. His name is Nicodemus. He's a Pharisee- a leader among the Jews.

He is sneaking in under cover of night to speak face to face with Jesus, the Teacher who is creating such an uproar, stirring up such questions and hopes and fears.

Nicodemus settles himself cautiously down beside the fire and his eye search the face of Jesus, who sits across from him.

A few of the disciples are close at hand, listening and watching. The room is so quiet that they can hear the soft sound of a burning log falling into the coals, sending up a little cloud of sparks.

The first thing Nicodemus says is a confession, one that had perhaps grown more and more heavy on his mind as time had passed. It is perhaps the very reason why he had come- why he had had to come, despite the risks.

"Teacher," he said, humbly, “we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.”

The Teacher from Nazareth leans forward slightly, His eyes intent upon Nicodemus's face. Jesus' voice is resonate with grace, but it has a quiet and unshakable authority. He goes straight to the heart of the matter, knowing the heart of the man before Him.

Jesus says, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

A puzzled look springs into Nicodemus's eyes. He frowns slightly, as he tries to think this unconventional thought through. Could the Teacher be speaking literally?

Every man in that room longs for the Kingdom of God to come. What their Teacher has to say about this is of utmost importance to them, and He has just thrown them a curve ball.

"How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asks at last, groping for meaning. "Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?"

Jesus' voice is full of certainty when He answers - it clear that He is not expounding on a theory, or building a case.

“Most assuredly I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."

Jesus sees the questioning, half disbelieving look in Nicodemus' face, and it makes Him smile. Jesus knows Nicodemus very well, and loves him.

"Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again," Jesus continues, His eyes twinkling.

As He so often does, He uses an illustration to help open their understanding- "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

As Jesus speaks, He gestures unconsciously with His hands; they are the roughened hands of a laborer. Every eye is on him, wondering and considering what He is saying.

Unbidden, memories of the wind come to them, shaking the leaves of the olive trees silver before the rain and carrying the scent of water.

They remember the wind splintering the surface of the lake into shimmering light and sometimes driving it up into terrifying billows of water, pelting them with hard drops of rain.

Nicodemus breaks the spell by his desperate need to understand something concrete, for an answer that he can make sense of. Why won't He just speak sense, Nicodemus wonders?

"How can these things be?" he asks Jesus, his eyes pleading.

“Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things?" Jesus asks him gently. He leans forward, one hand on His knee. When He speaks, His voice reverberates with a mysterious depth; it causes the men to sit perfectly still, their eyes riveted on Him.

"Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen," Jesus says, in that voice that causes their souls to wake and stir, "and you do not receive Our witness. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?"

Almost, the men have forgotten to breathe. The darkness in the room is full of a kind of sacred stillness.

Their minds are on the verge of some deep secret of God, some plan, some idea so wonderful, so unexpected, so extraordinary, that one no but God had ever dared consider it, or put it in motion. Almost, they can grasp it, but it eludes them.

"No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven," Jesus speaks quietly into the stillness, one hand gesturing towards Himself, "that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life."

Jesus pauses, watching the faces of the men around Him, to be sure they have taken in what He has been saying. They are watching Jesus of Nazareth with wondering eyes, hope dawning there with each word He speaks.

Jesus leans forward, His own eyes alight with the pleasure of speaking this truth out loud, to those that were with Him in that room, and to everyone else that would ever hear them.

"For God so loved the world," Jesus discloses, His voice full of unshakable joy, "that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world," He continues, gesturing to emphasize the importance of the distinction, aware of the misconception He knows they harbor, "but that the world through Him might be saved."

Might be saved, they wonder? The world? The whole world? Weren't they just talking about the nation of Israel?

“He who believes in Him," Jesus continues, gesturing to Himself, "is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."

Jesus' voice grows soft with sorrow, with regret. He leans back, His eyes shadowed. He looks tired, all of a sudden.

"And this is the condemnation," the Teacher explains- "that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed."

He sighs deeply; the men stir, as though coming out of a spell. Jesus looks at them fondly and continues speaking to them now in a different tone of voice. He looks at Nicodemus.

"But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God,” Jesus says to him, and smiles.

I think Nicodemus must have left that house walking like a drunk man, unsteady on his feet. Wonder must have filled him- he wouldn't have known whether he wanted to cry or to shout for joy.

Anyway, that's what I like to imagine.

December 21st

2011-12-21T10:02:00.000-08:00

Peaceful.

December 19th, Later

2011-12-19T11:18:00.000-08:00

On my walk, I was so thirsting for stillness that I didn't even take along my music. I wanted nothing but the sound of the wind, the dry scrape of leaves along the road, the rustle as squirrels darted from tree to tree and the chirp and burble of birds hidden in the bare branches.

The sky was a pale winter blue, banded by clouds that sometimes passed over the sun, casting the hillsides into shadow. But under the sun, all the fallen leaves glistened like polished bronze.

When my walk had taken me full circle, I clambered down the flat rocks that form a stream bed. The stream pours around the rocks, separating into three or four different thin sheets of water that join back together further downstream.

Usually, the water level is low enough that I can leap over each branch with ease. Sometimes it's not, and I must make my way further down, to an easier crossing point.

Today, I crossed over all but the last rivulet, the one which is the deepest and the fastest. It creates a little curl of water that spills into white foam. Bubbles of foam float on down, gliding over the rippling water.

The sound of the water falling was so lovely that I paused, and then knelt down with my hands dangling easily between my knees. I leaned forward a little, listening and watching the water run. It was hot, and I had tied my fleece around my waist; I could feel the sun on the back of my white shirt.

The endless quiet gurgle of water brought back an old memory. Until I was three, I lived with my parents in upstate New York- farming country. My grandfather had a dairy farm, and my father helped him run it.

Up the valley was a sheep farm owned by the church I grew up in, and church services were held there on Sunday mornings.

Above the church building was a pond banked by a stone wall, and water from the pond trickled endlessly and brightly down the moss-green stones.

It was a lovely, deep and soothing sound. The water itself was a murky and mysterious golden green. Light glinted off the fall of water.

The grass was a rich, deep green and over shading the pond were trees- were they willow trees? I almost think they were, but I can't remember exactly.

The water disappeared under the dirt driveway and then reappeared in another little fall and then wound its way down the hillside, toward the sheep pasture.

All this sensory memory came back to me, as I knelt by a rill of water this morning, under the hot sun. With the memory came the strong and loving presence of Christ- He was all bound up with the memory itself.

I realized that He had been with me, even then, and rejoicing in the beauty of His creation, and deeply loving me. Christ had been there, seeing that place not only as it truly was, but as it was through my own child's eyes.

He tenderly knows and understands our point of view, our memories- everything, in fact, that go into making us who we are. There is no one else that will ever know us better than He does- because only Christ can see from the heart outward.

December 19th

2011-12-19T09:00:00.000-08:00

I just sent a camo wearing husband out the door for the second day in a row- he's on his way to the ATV trails with two of his friends.

"Deuces," he declared yesterday, before he kissed me.

I'm guessing it means awesome? He'd clearly already switched over into guy speak. I could hear them out in the front yard, whooping and hollering and revving machines.

This is because, even when tankers go to play, they still want to ride machines and make a lot of noise and possibly tear up some of the scenery.

Today, they have one of their wives with them, so they may or may not go a little easier. I would have gone, but I have a headache.

Besides, it's my only chance to have the house to myself for a little while.

Oh my goodness, it's the mornings that are the most challenging. Usually, my mornings are still and quiet. I don't even listen to music. I hardly turn on any lights but the Christmas lights; I move around in the soft glow and shadows of my clean kitchen.

I like to watch the glow of dawn in the sky- I like to watch it grow brighter and brighter, and to watch for the band of early morning sunlight as it first strikes the wall.

What Keith loves to do is to turn on the TV and watch sitcoms from the eighties. They evoke in him the same feeling that a beloved book evokes in me- a sense of coming home, of seeing old friends.

So, before sunrise, the house is filled now with canned laughter, ridiculously stupid jokes and the sound of bratty children being cute. All the electric lights are on, glaring off of surfaces.

Then, suddenly, it's 10 am and the kitchen smells like toast and eggs and bacon and the sink is full of dishes. I haven't written a thing, I can't pull together one coherent thought, I'm still in my pajamas and my coffee is getting cold.

And I don't even have kids!

I keep leaning back into Christ, feeling exhausted and stretched thin, and ridiculous. Everything washes away and I am still and loved and centered.

Then I return to my task, thankful beyond words that He is with me, walking with me day by day and not judging me for my silliness or my terrible attitude or my weakness.

This morning, in a desperate attempt to create peace, I cleaned- as if clean surfaces could equal simple quietness, or dishes put away could be as refreshing as solitude.

I read this in Christy: "One of Miss Alice's Quaker sayings was apropos: 'Such and such a person is meant to be my bundle.'"

I put the book down and thought about how few "bundles" I had in my life. Shouldn't there be more people that I was meant to love and carry?

Clearly, I'm still stuck on this idea that Christ doesn't take into account our nature, the very nature that He Himself created, when He leads us in our lives. I persist in having this idea of a universal Christian life that we must all mold ourselves to, instead of all being diverse parts of Christ's body, each with a different strength and calling, and each loving in our own way, in the way that we were created to love.

"How come I don't have many bundles?" I asked Him, feeling guilty.

Your writing is your bundle, He said.

Like, surprise, Jenny! Christ did not make you a solitary, creative writer and then expect you to develop and carry scores of personal relationships as part of your calling. Calling me to do the very thing that He equipped me for- now that would just make too much sense, clearly.

Now I'd better wrap this up and go for a nice long walk, before my number one and best bundle returns, mud splattered, blue eyed and ready for kisses, a cocktail and a thundrously loud movie, enhanced by his top of the line surround sound system.

December 17th

2011-12-17T15:05:00.000-08:00

We survived Walmart on Super Saturday- if that doesn't speak well for a marriage, I don't know what does.

Actually, it wasn't as bad as I was expecting. I expected full on madness, with weeping and cart bashing in the isles, as small children wailed and adults grabbed up the last of whatever toy is hot on the market right now.

Surprisingly, everyone was well behaved, if a little strained around the eyes.

I got eggnog flavored creamer, and ricotta cheese to make Keith's new favorite dish- baked stuffed manicotti, and another roast and big fat steaks to grill, because the temperature was in the seventies today, and why not grill during Christmas time?

What could be more festive than standing around outside in bare feet, grilling steaks and drinking margaritas on the patio?

Hot cocoa with marshmallows, you say? Roasted chestnuts? Turkey?

Ha.

I see people walking around outside with coats and sometimes even scarves on and I wonder.

Are they doing that just out of a feeling of nostalgia for winter wear? Do they feel left out of the tailored styles of outerwear and accessories that the rest of the country get to parade around in this time of the year?

It wouldn't suprise me- I'm starting to do the same thing. Sometimes I go into the closet and just run my hand along my entire row of silk lined wool skirts and heave a sigh. Today, I wore black tights just because.

I rediscovered the 16th Psalm recently:

Keep me, O God, for I am safe in You.

I said to the Lord, “You are my Lord.
All the good things I have come from You.”

As for those in the land who belong to You,
they are the great ones in whom is all my joy.

Those who have traded for another god bring many troubles on themselves.
I will not take part in their altar gifts of blood.
And I will not take their names upon my lips.

The Lord is all that I am to receive,
and my cup.

My future is in Your hands.
The land given to me is good.
Yes, my share is beautiful to me.

I will give honor and thanks to the Lord,
Who has told me what to do.
Yes, even at night my mind teaches me.

I have placed the Lord always in front of me.
Because He is at my right hand,
I will not be moved.

And so my heart is glad.
My soul is full of joy.
My body also will rest without fear.

For You will not give me over to the grave.
And You will not allow Your Holy One
to return to dust.

You will show me the way of life.
Being with You is to be full of joy.
In Your right hand there is happiness forever.

December 16th

2011-12-16T07:36:00.000-08:00

I feel tired this morning, despite the fact that I slept pretty well last night. I could have slept in this morning another good hour or so.

The temperature changed from chilly and damp to warm and dry pretty much overnight, and I think it's given me a head cold. I feel all stuffy and raspy.

Today is my last day of quiet, and Keith's last day of missions. After this, he will be home until after New Year's Day.

So, to recap, my high energy, gregarious, loud and loving husband will be home, all day, for weeks, with his quiet, contemplative, low energy wife. Together, all day, in one house. Oh boy.

I think good scheduling will help- I will go for a nice, long solitary walk in the mornings, and in the afternoons, I will devote several hours to hanging out with him in the garage, which is his favorite thing.

I'll go to bed early, so I can have quiet time there, which I enjoy and we will go on day trips in the truck, just to cruise around and look at the lights or stop by a car dealership, because who doesn't love to just stop in a car dealership and outwit the salesperson?

Keith's back is doing much better. The MRI showed that he has a bulging disk in his lower back, but that it's going back into place and should continue to heal so long as he takes good care of himself. He's managing that better than he normally would.

"You're not so young anymore," the doctor told him.

Still, I have the strong feeling that even this will not prevent him from going out on the trails on his ATV this vacation.

Last night, I was reading Christy, by Catherine Marshall. I love that book. I came across this passage:

"Then the unexpected happened. Another series of thoughts- quite apart from the fear ones- swirled upwards as though out of some deep cavern from the depths of a sea of churning memories and ideas. The new ideas surfaced into my conscious mind with peculiar clarity. And whereas the panic had been so chaotic these were orderly thoughts, presented to me with slow deliberation...

It was not a case of Miss Alice adjusting. You know that. You have watched her listening and waiting. Get your attention of the problem- yes, even off your stomach- and look at Me. I am greater than any problem. Light follows light. You are about to discover this for yourself.

Then my own mind took over again. Had I prayed? No, not consciously. Then how odd that I no longer felt alone in my difficulty. And this intimate understanding of all that had been troubling me, with humor thrown in. The humor was the last thing I expected."

I sat in bed and felt deeply comforted. "Thank you, Father," I said. "I love how You provide for me from all over, from many directions."

Sometimes, I just feel so strange, and reading that passage took off the sharp edge of my strangeness. The author, Catherine Marshall, must have experienced God speaking in the same way I have, or else she could not have described it so well- even to the humor of God, which is so unexpected, though of course, we do have the platypus to give us some hint of it.

I loved this passage as well:

"That longin' inside me burned and ached and cried for something, I didn't rightly know what. Then one day- seems like 'twas only a week ago- I was goin' acrost the foot log bridge, along that path windin' through the thickets and the blackberry brambles. And at one certain point- I could show you where- why, He met me. Somethin' happened to me there. It was simple-like, but clear as mornin' light. I says to Him, 'Lord,' I says, 'I don't rightly know whether I'm gonna live or die, but it don't make no differ. From here on, my life belongs to You.'

"And it did, too, for a fact. From that day I could feel His love a-feedin' my starvin', thirstin' soul. And the more I tried given' His love away to my young'uns and my man and the neighbor-folks, the more love He gave back to me. Reminded me of openin' up a spring: first, a muddy trickle. Then a leetle stream, gettin' stronger and clearer with every day that passed."

I’m getting better at not simply pushing away what He says to me. It’s odd, because at first glance, a person would think that saying to God- “That can’t be for me” or “I’m not good enough” or “that’s too much riches or love or what have you…”- you’d think, saying those things would be humility in action.

But it’s not, I'm learning. It’s a weird form of pride. It’s a way for me to stay in control- it’s like having a stiff neck. In essence, I’m saying to God, “I’d rather rightfully suffer alone than surrender to You and the free gift I have not earned.”

It’s like I'm saying to God, “My judgment in this matter is better than Yours.”

Clearly, Jesus does not want us to suffer alone. Clearly, He does not want us to get what we rightfully deserve. He wants to lavishly bestow His gifts of love and grace and mercy and comfort on our lives; He wants us to say, "Yes, Lord. I accept."

Every time I say those words, I feel a profound sense of humility, because I know with certainty that I don't deserve with He's giving me, but still I yield to His gift. And then I feel an upwelling of love and gratitude and wonder.

So, a couple nights ago, when I was reading along in Isaiah and came across this: "I, even I, am He who comforts you." (Isaiah 51:12) I did not discard it or push it aside or say that it could not be meant for me, when I clearly knew that it was. I surrendered to it, though it was so huge and so astonishing to me.

This kind of response pleases Him very much, I can't help but notice.

Now I'm going to go and give the house a good cleaning. I might as well go orderly and polished into the coming chaos.

December 15th

2011-12-15T08:15:00.000-08:00

I found this on Facebook and thought it was just lovely:

The tree of life my soul hath seen,
Laden with fruit and always green:
The trees of nature fruitless be
Compared with Christ the apple tree.

His beauty doth all things excel:
By faith I know, but ne'er can tell
The glory which I now can see
In Jesus Christ the apple tree.

For happiness I long have sought,
And pleasure dearly I have bought:
I missed of all; but now I see
'Tis found in Christ the apple tree.

I'm weary with my former toil,
Here I will sit and rest awhile:
Under the shadow I will be,
Of Jesus Christ the apple tree.

This fruit doth make my soul to thrive,
It keeps my dying faith alive;
Which makes my soul in haste to be
With Jesus Christ the apple tree.

-Anonymous
"Divine Hymns or Spiritual Songs" 1784

December 14th

2011-12-14T11:13:00.000-08:00

It's been occurring to me lately how many things that I said I believed as a Christian, but as it turns out, wasn't actually taking very seriously.

It seems to me that we've been given some of the most mind blowing promises and identities the world could ever imagine, but speaking for myself, instead of walking around dizzy with the glory of it, I neatly packaged it all up and put it away for later.

For some reason, I used to have this mindset that God wanted us to "muddle through somehow", as the song goes. As though, essentially, it's just us chickens down here.

I persisted in only reading the Bible, as though I didn't have the Author standing right beside me, available for questions and an actual, living, growing, personal relationship.

If a single verse "spoke" to me, I was all excited- I felt like God spoke to me. I did not expect or look for anything more from Him than that.

I had heard, so much, all my life about how Jesus is a personal Savior, and about my Christian walk, and how Jesus is my friend, etc.

Was I taking that seriously before? No, not really- or only sporadically. It turns out I was believing more in the slogans than the living Truth behind it.

I didn't really believe Jesus was my friend. Who was I kidding? He was my Judge! A judge can't be a friend. God can't be a friend- that's craziness.

I had difficulty with this idea of relationship because, as it turns out, He's not so much standing beside us, as He is in our hearts. And I distrusted and was suspicious of my heart.

When I shut my heart down- out of fear or shame or distrust, or all three- I closed off the channel by which Jesus most often speaks, and as I was not in open communication, it was hard to be in a growing and authentic relationship.

What complicated things further is that I was so worried about getting some thing wrong, as though that would be devastating, as opposed to merely inevitable. Of course I got stuff wrong! That's not the point. I think the point is to allow Christ to grow us deeper into Him and into knowledge of Him.

I used to focus on everything in the Bible that told me what to do. I liked that. That seemed pretty cut and dry to me- fairly easy to understand. I liked being told what to do and then trying like heck to do it, even if it left me exhausted, burned out and lonely.

The parts of the Bible that talked about who I was in Christ- I largely skipped over those. I wasn't quite sure what to do with all that. I packaged it away; I put it into the back of my mind and gave up considering it.

And so, for a long time, I ended up glossing over or missing the heart of the matter.

Now that I've opened up my heart, everything else has opened up as well- my ability to understand, slowly, more and more of what Jesus said in the Scriptures, my ability to love others, my ability to love myself and my ability to love and hear Him.

I guess, when all is said and done, I would rather be dizzy with the reality of Him, than safe in my neatly packaged box.

December 13th

2011-12-13T10:33:00.000-08:00

This is so lovely.

December 13th

2011-12-13T08:49:00.000-08:00

Last night around midnight, a weary and bone sore soldier climbed into bed with me and caught about four hours sleep. Then his alarm rang and he had to drag himself out of bed and back into the damp and chilly field.

He's asleep on the couch at the moment, in a warm pile of afghan and pillows. He had an MRI earlier, to try and see what is wrong with his back.

I suspect a great deal is wrong with his back. The doctor should call us later today and tell us the result of the scans.

It's possible that the damage will be so great that the Army will officially move Keith to another line of work- one that does not require so much demanding physical activity. Tankers end up ruining their bodies very quickly, because of the nature of their work.

So we are waiting on that whole situation, and I do not think we will be doing any travelling this Christmas season, because of his back pain. We will have a quiet little Christmas at home. I think it will be the first time we won't be travelling anywhere.

I have a small pot roast that I will prepare for dinner and I have dug trusty old Jenkins out from the back room and set him up on the table.

Keith wants head rests and arm covers for the couches, so I will attempt to make some out of pieces of soft, thin leather. I suspect that I will end up ruining quite a few needles in the process. I really am not a crafty person, but I will try.

Blogging has been taking up all my emotional energy, so I haven't been able to work too much on my other writing lately, but yesterday I pulled out my story and crafted the second and third chapters.

I have no idea where I'm going with that story. Actually, that's not entirely true. I'm beginning to see a glimpse of how it could all come together. The emotional work it will require is intimidating.

I also reread a bit of Torii. I saw how vibrant and beautifully detailed that story is- maybe a little too much detail. My distance from the story, due to the length of time since I've last read it, enabled me to edit away a lot of the superfluous description.

I see a lot of things differently lately. Lately, I read one of the many times where Jesus says, If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father. (John 14:9)

And I just had to stop, right there, and consider exactly what He was saying. As I contemplated it, it was as if an old and massive edifice -already cracked and damaged- began to crumble and fall completely away to dust.

My old image of God the Father just fell away. I didn't like it at first. It was a little terrifying. I suddenly saw God differently.

He's not some crabby old patriarch, up there, with a long white beard and a lightening fork in one hand- thunderous, displeased and threatening.

If Jesus revealed God to us, and that is what Jesus said He did, then we have this astonishing and almost unbelievable translation of who God is.

This is God- our God is self sacrificing. He is humble. He is moved to tears at our pain and grief. His longing is to heal and restore and to teach and to guide. He takes joy in creating, in pleasure, in life. He is love itself.

He is literally slow to get angry. He stores His anger up for long, long periods of time. He prefers to be turned aside from His anger, even when His cause is just and right, as it always is. God is merciful, takes no pleasure in any one's death, and is unwilling that any should perish.

God could crush us- instead, He pleads with us. We rightfully earned death, but He died for us. We turn our backs to Him- He goes on speaking to us. The sight of His glory would kill us- He put on humanity, and walked among us.

God was born into poverty and hard labor. He got tired and bruised and worn out. He got sweaty and dirty and crushed in the crowds. People jeered at Him. No one understood Him. People hated Him. His own family thought He was mad.

His closest friends betrayed Him, denied Him and couldn't stay awake even to keep watch with Him. His own people shouted out for Him to be put to death.

He died the most humiliating and painful death possible. People mocked and jeered at God even as He hung on the cross, dying.

When He rose again, He appeared first to a formerly demon possessed woman. He told Thomas to actually put his hands in the scars. He broke bread and cooked us breakfast.

That's God. That's what our God looks like.

December 12th

2011-12-12T06:17:00.000-08:00

Keith's training mission began yesterday, and all day long the cannon fire from the tanks shook the house.

In the morning, before he had to leave, he paced around the house with restless energy, continually checking his pockets and ticking items off his mental checklist for the hundredth time.

I later learned that, while in his hurry in the shower, instead of grabbing his shampoo, he accidentally picked up my Scarlet Blossom Fine Fragrance Elixir body wash.

He didn't realize this until he had lathered his head and began to get a sinking feeling at the growing cloud of delicious scent.

"Oh crap," he muttered to himself.

This must have been why he smelled so good when he kissed me goodbye at the door.

"Can I stay home with you?" he asked, beseechingly, on the doorstep.

"Go tear some crap up," I told him cheerfully. "You know you love it."

No doubt the delicate scent of scarlet blossoms quickly gave way to the smell of sweat, grease and cannon fire, against which I'm sure the elixir couldn't stand a chance.

I got to stay home and blog, and mend some items and watch HGTV and generally enjoy the peace and quiet- except for when the windowpanes rattled.

This morning, I saw this on my dad's facebook page, and loved it:

This is the irrational season
When love blooms bright and wild,
Had Mary been filled with reason
There'd have been no room for the child.

"After Annunciation"
-Madeleine L'Engle

So, a couple days ago, I was rereading John, but I read a part of John that I haven't in a while, basically the second part of that book.
I noticed this, when Jesus says:

If you keep My commandments [if you continue to obey My instructions], you will abide in My love and live on in it, just as I have obeyed My Father's commandments and live on in His love.
John 15:10

It seems that there is a difference between having God's love and abiding in God's love. We all have God's love- because the Father loved the world while we were yet sinners. So, we have His love.

But we can also make ourselves at home in it. In order to make ourselves at home in it, we must keep His commandments, which is to love Him and our neighbors.

So, it seems that in order to dwell in love, we must give out love.

Isn't that interesting?

I noticed something else, too. When Jesus said that one of the disciples would betray Him, the other disciples looked at one another and discussed among themselves who it could be.

Jesus was right there- in the flesh, in person, right there! They could see Him and hear Him and touch Him.

And yet their first instinct was to ask one another. Why?

That's not the first time, either. The disciples are often discussing among themselves what He could have meant by something He said. They seem to be frequently huddling.

Why? Jesus was right there. They could have asked Him anything!

Why wouldn't they just have asked Him?

Actually, come to think of it, it was when they felt they might have done something wrong that they tended to huddle.

Like, when they forgot the bread, and Jesus was warning them about the yeast of the Pharisees. They felt guilty about forgetting the bread, so instead of asking Jesus what He meant, they huddled together and worried.

Or when they were arguing along the road about who would be greatest. When He asked them about it, they clammed up. They didn't want to ask Him straight out.

Here's another thing I've been thinking about- in the parable of the prodigal son, at the end, the father says to his oldest son, "My son, you have always been with me and everything that I have is yours."

I can't help but think that if the eldest son had wanted to, he could have put his hoe down, gone in search of his father, and said, "Dad! I love you! I miss you! I'm working my butt off out there in the field and you know what? I just want to spend some time with you. Let's kill the fatted calf! Let's go fishing! Let's hang together."

I bet the father would have been overjoyed and opened his arms to his oldest son.

And they would have gone fishing, or something.

December 11th

2011-12-11T08:56:00.000-08:00

So, this is normally a blog that would remain private.

However, I'm going to go ahead and share it.

But I will buffer it with the following quotes-

"This is lovely."
-Mom

"The common experience of those who have achieved a state of grace, on whom "this new life from heaven" has been bestowed, is one of amazement at their condition..."
-M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled

"Divine union itself was the goal, not private moral perfection. Life was not a courtroom for Jesus, but a living room, kitchen, and bedroom. Whatever worked to bring us to relationship was to be used, and Jesus used it–because he knew God did the same. Jesus made human life a dialogue with the divine..."
-Richard Rohr

"For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."
Isaiah 9:6

So, yesterday evening, I was just at the end of my rope, feeling frayed and worn thin and miserable. I had raging headache and I was exhausted.

I went to bed early. Even then, I felt the presence of Christ close by me.

"Don't talk to me!" I snapped at Him in the quiet room. "I can't take any more of Your mercy!"

It makes me laugh now, but at the time, I was serious. Sometimes His loving kindness just drives me nuts. I don't understand why He doesn't punish me, why He doesn't get angry at me, why He doesn't just shout at me.

"Why is it that my behavior doesn't drive You away?" I asked, desperate. "How can You stand to be around me when I'm like this? I'm not good enough, my behavior isn't good enough for You."

It wasn't because of your good behavior that I came to you in the first place, He said.

He reminded me, all over again, that it is His part to give and my part is to receive, to surrender, to yield. I can't stand apart from Him to fix myself- I must yield to Him and let Him do that work. How many times must I relearn this lesson? I suspect my entire life.

When He calls to me, I remember that He wept over Jerusalem, so great was His longing to gather her children up under His wings, and so great was His sorrow that they would have no part of it and what would soon befall them.

All day long, He says, I have held out My hands to a stubborn people.

When I think of these things, I forget about my unworthy state. I forget my failures. I remember only that He is meek and lowly of heart, and will not compel anyone to come- He invites. He calls to me with open arms, and I must go to Him, because I belong to Him. I am His.

I surrendered, as the hymn says:

Just as I am - Thy love unknown
Has broken every barrier down;
Now to be Thine, yea, Thine alone,
-O Lamb of God, I come!
Charlotte Elliott, 1835

I went to bed and read some of the psalms, but I was so tired, eventually I had to just put the book down and rest in His healing love.

I was full of peace, within and without. It was as though I was being warmly sheltered under the shadow of His wings, close to His heart. All my wounds and all the tightly wound up places inside me eased into the warmth of His love.

We have a Christmas tree in the bedroom, a green one with colored lights, and when I put out the lamp, the room was full of the lovely, peach colored glow from the blended reds and yellows, greens and blues that pooled together in the darkness.

Lynn was curled up at my feet, a quiet, breathing lump of warm fur, and through the walls, I could hear the quiet murmur of the movie Keith was watching in the living room, where he was happily calling and texting everyone he knew with his new iphone.

Into this peace stole a fear that had been growing in me for some time. This is the fear that one day, I'll wake up and find His presence gone.

I don't know how I could survive if I lost that deep and living connection that I have with Him, in my spirit, now that I have known it.

I decided to give voice to this fear, instead of wrestling with it alone. I felt His strong and loving desire that I should pour out my fear to Him, to release it to Him. So I did.

"I'm scared You'll leave me!" I cried. "I'm scared one day You'll take Your presence away from me. I can't live without You. I won't be able to bear it."

I am your life, He said. You have My Spirit. I cannot take Myself away from you- if I did, you would die, and I have promised you that in Me, you would find eternal life. You cannot lose Me; your life is bound up with Mine.

I was so deeply resting in Him that the fact that He answered me so clearly, and with such detail, did not amaze me as much as it might otherwise have done.

"But what about David!" I protested. "You took Your presence away from him, and he had Your Spirit poured out on him."

You are born of My Spirit, Jesus said.

As He said this, in my mind I saw a fleeting image of the three crosses standing silhouetted against the sky, on the top of the hill- I saw the empty tomb. They weren't unfamiliar images to me- He just brought them back to my remembrance.

It took me a while to digest what He was saying, even though this was actually not new information- I'd understood these concepts long before, only now they were sinking deeper into me.

I kept bringing up different avenues of thought, and He kept patiently taking me back to the heart of the concept- that my spirit was His Spirit, and therefore, I could not be severed from Him.

It all made sense to me, by that time. But still, I doubted. I still worried that one day, I would wake up, bereft of His loving presence.

I cried out in my heart, "Continually help my unbelief!"

And He caught me up in His arms and poured out His love on me.

I just will never understand how He works. I don't understand His love or His grace or His mercy and compassion. But it seems safe to say that He loves us to call on Him and to yeild to His love and to lean into His strength.

"How precious is Your steadfast love, O God!
The children of mankind take refuge
in the shadow of Your wings.

They feast on the abundance of Your house,
and You give them to drink
from the river of Your delights.

For with You is the fountain of life;
in Your light do we see light!"
Psalm 36:7-9

December 9th

2011-12-09T07:16:00.000-08:00

So, last night I finished reading The Road Less Traveled, by M. Scott Peck, and as I got to the end, I kept coming across bits of it that seemed cool to share on facebook.

Then I didn't think any more about it, because it was time to get ready for bed. Keith is experiencing a lot of back pain and didn't sleep well and his training mission officially begins today, so neither he nor I got much sleep last night. Poor guy- he really needed his sleep, too.

I got up, made coffee, lit the Christmas lights and sat down at the computer. I checked up on hotmail, facebook, all that.

Then I had this niggling sensation that there was something I was supposed to do. After I paused and was still for a moment, I remembered -that book!- so I went and got it from the bedroom, where I'd left it the night before.

Back I sat at the computer, book in hand, with no idea what exactly I was supposed to share from it. I began perusing it, remembering all the cool things I'd been learning.

Something for Dad, I thought, with pleasure. This is his kind of thing, too. I found the end of the book, and the paragraph that had particularly caught my attention.

But what to post? And where? And how much? I got caught up in these details and agonized over them.

This confusion I pushed through, going with my instincts, with trust. I posted what I felt was the heart of it in a message to Dad.

And voila, it spoke to Dad! And he passed it on to one of his friends, and it spoke perfectly to him too.

I sat back and marvelled. It was a perfect example of what M. Scott Peck would call the synchronicity of grace.

After I marvelled, I got nervous. "But what if I had ignored my instinct?" I asked Christ. "Why didn't You speak to me more clearly? I could have completely ignored the whole thing. The whole experience was tenuous."

He reminded me of a lesson He has been teaching me lately- that He doesn't actually require our help.

If He was hungry, He would not tell us. His arm is not shortened in anyway, that He cannot save.

He is God; we are not. All the power and ability and plans and purpose belong to and with Him; His resources are infinite.

What He does, it seems, is that He invites us to work alongside Him. He is always inviting us to do this.

Christ is like a master gardener, at work in a huge and beautiful garden. He knows exactly what He is doing. The seasons, the weather, the growing patterns, the feeding, pruning and care of everything belong in His expert hands.

We can come alongside Him and help, right where we are in our lives, right where He planted us. Granted, we help like small children, that is to say, our help is not necessarily help, so much as it is company.

He loves to have us around, happily digging in the dirt with our small trowels, getting dirt on our hands and walking beside Him, talking and learning and watching.

Like children, we get really excited about some things and terribly disappointed about other things. Our mistakes seem crushing to us, our victories seem momentous.

Jesus, like any loving parent, shares in these griefs and joys. He kneels down beside us, puts His arm around our shoulders and empathizes. He listens and then He teaches, and on we go, together, to the next thing, our hand in His.

Our helping Him, I'm learning, is not so much good for others, or good for Him, as it is good for us. When we participate in His loving work, it helps us grow deeper in Him.

What He does with our efforts, we may never know in this lifetime. We don't get to see the big picture here.

But I'm sure it's a beautiful one.

December 8th

2011-12-08T08:45:00.000-08:00

I love this song.

I'm ready to stop running, let myself be caught
Stop pretending, let myself be known
I'm ready to stop hiding, let myself be found
Held safe and sound, in Your loving arms

So hold me close in Your arms of mercy
Look inside, show me what You see
Touch my life, and I will stop my searching
And find that place in You, that waits for me

Whatever I held onto, I'm ready to let go
Burn my bridges, and dance within the flames
All of my wrong choices have lead my heart back home
To the love that swallows up my pain

So hold me close in Your arms of mercy
Look inside, show me what You see
Touch my life, and I will stop my searching
And find that place in You, that waits for me

I can see You've been there all along
You've reached into my recklessness
And filled me with Your song

So hold me close in Your arms of mercy
Look inside, show me what You see
Touch my life, and I will stop my searching
And find that place in You, that waits for me

December 7th

2011-12-07T07:48:00.000-08:00

Oh my goodness, I am having such a hard time today!

I stood in the kitchen, just filled with self judgment and impatience at myself. With sarcasm and deep frustration at myself, I said to Christ, You should write Your instructions down in stone somewhere and hang it on the wall, so I can have it front of my face all the time! Otherwise, I'm never going to keep it in mind!

He touched my heart. He said, I've written everything you need to know on your heart. You carry it around with you.

I melted; my body physically drooped. Oh my goodness, how can we explain His mercy or grace? We cannot.

I keep reaching out to Him, in exhaustion and frustration, expecting to feel judgment and impatience, and what do I feel instead? Compassion, overwhelming, personal and understanding compassion.

He says to me, many are the plans of men, but it's the Lord's will that prevails. He says, it's okay to be confused and have many plans, My purpose will come shining through, because I am God and that is how I work.

His mercy and loving kindness, they last forever.

Now I'm going to go and finish cleaning the house. Darn this rain. Maybe I'll go out in the rain anyway.

December 6th

2011-12-06T03:55:00.000-08:00

Wow, I had such a rough night last night! I've never written anything so personal or anything that made me feel so vulnerable as my last two blogs- especially yesterday's. But both, one day after the other! Phew!

I had to take two Tums, just to quiet the intense anxiety in my stomach. I knew it was going to be a bad night, just like I knew He wanted me to post the blog.

I lay in bed last night just completely drained. It's one thing to work through the lessons themselves. But then to work through them again in writing, and then to put them out in public, that is hugely emotionally demanding.

Then I worried that people might think I wasn't grateful for my life or that I was depressed or something. I worried about that all night long.

I'm really not. I love my quiet life. I love my husband and my comfortable house and my writing. I have interesting things to think about and to write about.

It's just that, everything that makes life worth living is Jesus. He is the source of everything good- He is life and love itself. Knowing Him enriches life, while at the same time pulls my heart toward Him, like an irresistible gravitational pull. It's just that I'll never be fully satisfied until I see His face.

I had to get up and call my dad. "I'm experiencing post-blog anxiety," I told him, and hearing his rich laughter was good therapy.

I talked to my mom. "I wrote about it all," I told her. "I put it all out there."

"Oh good, dear!" she exclaimed. "It was so rich and precious. I'm sure it will help someone."

Talking to them really helped. So did the Tums.
I got up at five in the morning, and logged on to facebook. Lo and behold, my uncle had posted on my wall, bless his heart, so the very first thing I read was positive feedback about my blog.

Maybe now I can go back to blogging about cooking! That was great, that was fun times...

Ha.

December 5th

2011-12-05T12:26:00.000-08:00

On December 1st, I wrote this:

"I remembered how He had been slowly coaxing me closer and closer to Him, lovingly and faithfully..."

But I have yet to actually describe what that looked like or felt like. Now I going to tell the back story. This will be a long blog.

In late September, when I began blogging about Him, I felt Jesus near me as a vague, loving presence that hovered near me- the same way that I would sometimes experience Him during a worship service, for example.

Even this was incredible to me, though. I could actually sense Him, in my spirit. I could feel His love for me, and hear Him as He spoke to my heart.

However, one night, I felt Him come down and actually take me in His arms. This was not a vague expression of His love- it was personal and distinct. Jesus was actually cradling my spirit in His embrace. There was no distance.

It shocked me. I pushed right away from Him. It was as though I drew a line in the spiritual sand.

I said, You are God. Your role is to be on the throne, elevated, and to reach down with graceful condescension to me, your humble and undeserving creature.

There is a distance between us! It is a proper distance! You are God! Your behavior must reflect the proper distance.

However, it's quite clear that Jesus is not interested in the human idea of proper distance, or even the human idea of proper God-like behavior. He frequently breaks the rules. He eats with dirty hands, He works on the Sabbath, He makes a ruckus in the temple, He talks to shameful, Samaritan women- gasp!- and He allows prostitutes to wash His feet with their hair.

He squanders hugely valuable jars of ointment, He washes His disciple's feet, He refuses to condemn. He touches lepers with His bare hands. He says things like, the first shall be last and the last shall be first. He defends Mary and refuses to send her back to do women's work- she gets to stay and listen to Him.

He forgave the Roman soldiers as they were in the very act of crucifying Him, He turned the water used for ritual purification into heady wine, He tore the temple curtain in two.

He is frequently asking us impossible things.

"How shall we feed all these people, Phillip?" He asks- I can't help but think with a twinkle in His eye. Poor Phillip! I can just see him begin to stutter.

"If you want to be perfect, go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

"But who do you think I am?" He asks.

It seems that He is always asking us that.

He wouldn't leave me alone! He kept coming up close and taking me in His arms. And when I say that, I mean, I could sense Christ right there. When He put His hand to my face, I saw the scars. I could rest my head against His chest and all but hear His heart beating.

At first, I lay very, very still. This is what a human creature does when the Son of God is holding them in His arms. One holds very, very still.

Finally, I yielded to Him. I wrote this on October 28th:

"I decided I would no longer defer. I said, I agree, I accept. That is how You see me, that is who I am to You. I yield to this, I won't push it or You away any longer.

"Unsurprisingly, this delighted and moved Him very much. I'm learning that we can make a significant emotional dent in God."

After that, I became more and more comfortable being that close to Christ. I got so that I could lean back into Him and rest. I got so that I could confidently lift up my arms to Him in wonder and adoration. Each time, He never fails to catch me up close to Him and love on me.

Frequently, I feel His hand under my chin, tipping my head up to Him. This often happens when I am caught up in self condemnation. Sometimes I simply throw my arms around Him, bury my face in His robes and inhale, because He smells delicious. At night, I sleep in His arms and during the day, He is always beside me.

Well, after a few weeks of this, I began to increasingly wonder if maybe He was getting ready to take me home. I mean, how else to explain it?

Each time I thought this, I would chide myself for being morbid and hand the thought over to Him.

Finally, I couldn't take it any more.

"Am I going to die?" I asked Him straight out, on one of our walks.

"I come that you might have life, and that more abundantly," He replied, with humor. I knew He was teasing me, just a little. It is an extraordinary thing to be teased by the Son of God.

"Fine! Be obtuse! I get it. But why are You like this with me? Why? Why, why, why? What am I supposed to do with all this, anyway?" I was like a small child, tugging incessantly on His sleeve.

"Because you're Mine, and I want you close to Me," He replied.

And what could I say to that?

You might reasonably suppose that with all this, I would be satisfied to bursting. So you would think, but it is not so.

On November 21st, I wrote this:

"So, last night I was suffused with sheer longing, unbearable longing, wordless long. It crippled my soul. I had no words for this longing- I just poured it out to Him. I don't know what it is I want-

"So too the [Holy] Spirit comes to our aid and bears us up in our weakness; for we do not know what prayer to offer nor how to offer it worthily as we ought, but the Spirit Himself goes to meet our supplication and pleads in our behalf with unspeakable yearnings and groanings too deep for utterance."
Romans 8:26

What more do I want from Him? Why can't I just be satisfied?"

But I couldn't be; I began to long, more and more intensely, to be with Christ. I blogged about this. What I didn't blog about was how much I continued to wonder if maybe my time really was up.

Finally, Christ helped me put it into perspective. It was the same night that He set me free from that old understanding of judgment for reward.

That night, I was exhausted after having worked my way through that old fear and so I went to bed early to read. I read a book written by a woman who experienced a vivid vision of heaven after her body medically died and before the medical team resuscitated her. It's called "Embraced by the Light."

I drank this book up. At midnight, while Keith quietly snored away beside me, I got near the end of the book. At that point, she knew that she had to go back to her life. She still had work left for her to do, before she could go home for good.

As I read this part, in my quiet, lamp lit room, I knew what Christ was saying to me. I too had work left to finish before I could go home. I put the book down and looked over at Keith, peaceful and asleep next to me. I thought of my writing and the children that might be waiting to be adopted.

Jesus did not even have to ask me directly; I simply said, "Okay."

And I began to cry, for the second time that night. My grief at having to continue separated from Him was so great that I lay there sobbing and wiping the tears away with the back of my hand.

I kept telling myself,-but I'll always have Christ right next to me, in my spirit! He's very close to me!

But this couldn't stop the upwelling of grief; I had to simply sob until I had poured it all out. I was sobbing in His arms. I felt light all through me and all through the room. I felt as if Heaven were about as close to me as the ceiling of the room.

I cried again in the morning, when I wrote to my mom about it. I felt fragile and full of light that entire day, as if I were a paper lamp shade. I still feel like crying every time I think about the experience.

Our work in this life is to love each other, and to deepen in our relationship with God. We love the people that are given to us to love- our work is to give ourselves away.

We give ourselves away to Christ and we give ourselves away to others, and doing so is frequently one and the same thing. In doing so, we come as close to Him as we possibly can, in this life.

And then we get to go home.

December 4th

2011-12-04T07:26:00.000-08:00

I had quite an experience night before last. That night I read an article that talked about how Christians will be judged according to their works in life.

The article talked about how our lives are going to be tested by fire, and only gold, silver and jewels will remain- the hay, wood and straw will be burned up. Then we'll be rewarded based on how much the work of our life survives the fire.

This is not a new idea to me. I grew up learning that my life was expected to be the epitome of Christian living- pure gold. Pure gold equaled unparalleled purity, purity of mind, body and spirit, and complete devotion to God.

Striving for personal purity and perfection led to gold, but cheap grace led to hay and straw. Such Christians, I was taught, would have their life and their flimsy deeds burned up and they would escape with their bare lives, in shame, in front of God, Jesus and the congregation of saints.

As you can imagine, this was a very real and horrifying prospect for me. I didn't want to disappoint Jesus, first of all. I didn't want to live a worthless, selfish life based on cheap grace. I wanted a life of gold, based on my striving for perfection, wrestling with the flesh and being God's pure and conquering Christian soldier.

Also as you can imagine, when I failed spectacularly in my life and had to rely on grace, I resigned myself to public shame in front of Christ at the final judgment.

You might say, Jenny, why didn’t you just give up the entire teaching?

I would have to say, first, because I have a deep and lasting reverence for God and the things of God, and second, because I didn’t trust myself to correct or negate the teaching- I don't have that kind of authority.

I pushed it out of the realm of anything I could change and stopped actively thinking about it. It simply stayed lodged in the back of my mind.

And that was how things stayed until the night before last, when I remembered this teaching. At first, my terror was so great that my body was physically rigid- my shoulders went up to my ears and my back was stiff.

I felt so much terror that I couldn’t hear what Jesus was saying to me, though I felt Him very close to me. I felt His love and tenderness and concern for me, but I couldn’t hear Him.

So He calmed me through music. I listened to Handel's Messiah. The profound and yet simple truth that those songs contain sunk into me and loosened the fear. I was able to start thinking more clearly, and I began to hear Him.

He said, go back to the text. I really didn't want to go back to the heart of my fear. I would have preferred to continue ignoring it, but I went there, because He was with me.

This is it, in the Amplified Bible:

But if anyone builds upon the Foundation, whether it be with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw,

The work of each [one] will become [plainly, openly] known (shown for what it is); for the day [of Christ] will disclose and declare it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test and critically appraise the character and worth of the work each person has done.

If the work which any person has built on this Foundation [any product of his efforts whatever] survives [this test], he will get his reward.
I Corinthians 3:12-14

I got terrified all over again.

Jesus said, look at the whole chapter. So I did.

I won’t cut and paste the whole thing, but Paul was talking to the church at Corinth about religious factions that had opened up among them. It seemed that Paul was telling them that because they were dividing themselves according to human leaders, they were still immature Christians.

Then he went on to talk about this judgment for reward. So then I wondered why Paul wasn't more specific here. Why did he have to use a metaphor? Why couldn’t he had just said, straight out, what gold, silver and jewels represented?

I begged Jesus to show me. What was the gold? What was gold in our lives? It must be the most important thing, the best thing we could use in our walk with God.

What was the thing He wanted from us the most, wanted our lives the most to reflect, the thing that would glorify Him the best?

Jesus pulled my remembrance back to His teaching. Here‘s what He taught:

"So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples."
John 13:34-35

“This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
John 15:12-13

“You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. This is my command: Love each other."
John 15:16-17

At this point, wonder and joy were beginning to fill my soul as a huge burden of fear and shame was being lifted, and I knew exactly where to look next- in the very same book that held the original passage that had so terrified me.

Paul says:
“But now let me show you a way of life that is best of all.

If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing.

If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! But when full understanding comes, these partial things will become useless.

When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.
I Corinthians 12:31, 13:1-3, 8-13

A life of selfless love, built upon Christ, is what withstands the fire. Works of faith, hope and love will last forever.

Tears began to run down my face as I wept from the sheer relief and joy of it. I sat in front of the computer screen just openly crying.

As I cried, Jesus whispered into my heart:

You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

His law is love and His gospel is peace.
-O Holy Night, John Sullivan Dwight

December 2nd

2011-12-02T14:56:00.000-08:00

December 2nd

2011-12-02T08:48:00.000-08:00

I found this in a psalm last night:

"The one thing I ask of the Lord—

the thing I seek most—

is to live in the house of the Lord

all the days of my life,

delighting in the Lord’s perfections

and meditating in His Temple.

For He will conceal me there when troubles come;

He will hide me in his sanctuary.

He will place me out of reach on a high rock.

Hear me as I pray, O Lord.

Be merciful and answer me!

My heart has heard You say,

“Come and talk with Me.”

And my heart responds,

“Lord, I am coming.”

Psalm 27:4-5, 7-8

December 1st

2011-12-01T08:11:00.000-08:00

It is December- gird your loins.

I've been blogging for over four years now. That is a long time. That is a long and very public record of my interior and exterior life.

Never would I have expected to be making my spiritual journey public, either. That would never have occurred to me. Firstly, because I would have thought that journey nonexistent and secondly because there's just no way I would have thought myself capable of talking about God.

I still don't think that I am, but early on, back in October, I read this:

"Here's another way to put it: You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I'm putting you on a light stand. Now that I've put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven."
Matthew 5:14-16, The Message

So, here I am- writing and sounding like an absolutely cah-ray-zee person.

Occasionally, I forget how I came to be so close to Him. That happened a couple nights ago. I was resting in the close and loving presence of Jesus and suddenly, I was caught up in sheer terror.

What was I doing? I wondered, all of a sudden. How dare I come so close to God? It wasn't respectful! I wasn't good enough for this sort of fellowship! How on earth did I think it was okay to just come right up to God and nestle in, as though He were my own personal security blanket?

I withdrew from Him in selfconscious horror. I didn't want to talk to Him, because I was afraid this would be one of those times when He wouldn't answer, and that would just make it worse. I could feel Jesus still right there, patient and waiting.

Gingerly, I started thinking things through, one thing at a time. I remembered how, over the past two months, He had patiently and powerfully dismantled my shame and my fear, right at their source. I remembered how He had been slowly coaxing me closer and closer to Him, lovingly and faithfully.

I thought of how He had poured out His presence on me, and how He had walked me through the entire Bible, so that I could see glimpses of Him and His Father all through it.

I thought about how He had laid aside His glory and honor, and came down and suffered to be born human. He lived a life of poverty and obedience. He suffered violence and unspeakable pain and suffering, He who knew no sin became sin, and died, and rose again. He was faithful and true, and completely finished His Father's work.

Through His suffering, He purchased sons and daughters to God. The travail of His soul brought forth our new lives in Him.

I thought to myself, it is ridiculous to think that after all this, Christ would prefer a respectful distance from His own family, the family that He purchased with His own blood. Jesus must wish, like any parent, to hold His children close.

Then I wondered at myself, that just because of one stray thought, one moment of fear, I would push Jesus away, would give up being close to Him. Of course I'm not worthy! I never was; it was never about that. It was about His creation, His redemption and His desire for me.

I'm learning that I can either look at myself, or I can look at God. If I look at myself, I feel despair, fear and shame. If I look at God, I not only see Him, but I see the way He looks at me. He sees me as a finished work in Him.

So then, I paused, right on the edge. "And You don't want me terrified and far away from You, do You?" I asked, my voice becoming tentative at the end, aware that He was right there, listening, watching and waiting. "Do You?" I asked again, timidly.

And He came down like fire. I felt fire rush through me from the top of my head to the soles of my feet, and then the sensation faded away and I was just as I normally am, warm and cozy and wrapped up in Christ.

It is as though He is teaching me this:

"May Christ through your faith [actually] dwell (settle down, abide, make His permanent home) in your hearts! May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love,

That you may have the power and be strong to apprehend and grasp with all the saints [God's devoted people, the experience of that love] what is the breadth and length and height and depth [of it];

[That you may really come] to know [practically, through experience for yourselves] the love of Christ, which far surpasses mere knowledge [without experience]; that you may be filled [through all your being] unto all the fullness of God [may have the richest measure of the divine Presence, and become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself]!
Ephesians 3:17-19, Amplified Bible

November 29th

2011-11-29T09:14:00.000-08:00

I am filled with a kind of nervous energy today, as though charged with static electricity. I fear that to brush my hair will ignite a shower of sparks.

I think this is residual energy from working on my story yesterday. That story takes incredible amounts of energy, because I actually have no idea how to ask the question. In fact, frequently I feel certain that I have no idea what I am doing.

In order to write, I have to pull something out of what appears to be nothing at all. There's vast amounts of material- my entire childhood! And yet there is nothing but chaos, a jumble of memories and impressions.

In order to ask the question, I must sort through everything to find what was most important, and then ask why it was important- what it means, or vise versa. I'm not sure which comes first.

So it's like I have to screw my eyes shut and just write- just reach down blind into my subconscious and pull up from the depths some mysterious object, only now recognized, and then place it in the right order and in its proper setting.

Despite all this, I suspect that I have written the first chapter and am ready to rewrite the second.

In order to burn off excess energy, I have deep cleaned the bathroom, and plan to cook a Mexican casserole and to bake cookies and possibly muffins, and to finish the Christmas decorations.

That should do it, don't you think?

In the meantime, I read Psalm 116 again, and how beautiful is this psalm in the New Living Translation?

Here are the first nine verses of it:

I love the Lord because he hears my voice
and my prayer for mercy.
Because he bends down to listen,
I will pray as long as I have breath!
Death wrapped its ropes around me;
the terrors of the grave overtook me.
I saw only trouble and sorrow.
Then I called on the name of the Lord:
“Please, Lord, save me!”
How kind the Lord is! How good he is!
So merciful, this God of ours!
The Lord protects those of childlike faith;
I was facing death, and he saved me.
Let my soul be at rest again,
for the Lord has been good to me.
He has saved me from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling.
And so I walk in the Lord’s presence
as I live here on earth!

November 28th

2011-11-28T08:30:00.000-08:00

I have a confession to make: I am listening to Kenny G right. now. Oh yes.

My only excuse is that I first listened to this music when I was young and impressionable, and didn't know any better and the music dug a groove into my brain that remained ever after. Since then I must, from time to time and furtively, satisfy my craving for cheese-filled emo sax.

It's raining and outside my windows everything is slowly being filled by a soft pearly light as the sun rises unseen. The headlights of neighbors pulling out for their morning commute slide across the road in a long slick of yellow light.

Oh beautiful solitude! Oh lovely quiet house, how I love thee!

I saw a quote on facebook, it said: "A solitude is the audience-chamber of God." Walter Savage Landor said that, and I agree.

Sometime before our trip to Indiana, I was praying about it and before I had finished my worried sentence, He said, "I've gone up ahead of you."

I was all flustered. That's the not the first time He's interrupted me while I was still talking to Him. The first time I got down right annoyed at Christ for doing that. Now I pause, marvel and regroup.

He was with me, up there. For some reason, I was worried that He wouldn't be- almost as though I expected the presence of God to be a purely localized phenomenon.

In my mother-in-law's house there were pictures of Jesus all over the place. I was familiar with those pictures from childhood- the picture of Jesus standing and knocking on the door, the picture of Jesus with serenely folded hands, praying in the garden of Gethsemane. There was one picture of just His hands, outstretched, as though He were saying, take My hand.

The pictures actually bothered me, but only because they were merely pictures. Behind them was nothing but the paper they were printed on, and behind that the sheetrock of the wall and empty space. Jesus is not in those pictures, though they seemed to contain Him.

Many times during the trip I was drawn to the doors or windows, all but putting my nose to the glass, and longed and longed to go out, out into the solitude- to shake off the noise and bustle around me and step into the silence that is full of Him, the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

I could not- it would be too rude. I had to turn away and be once more in the midst. He was there too, near me in the warmth and voices and TV sounds, but I couldn't concentrate on Him the way I can in the silence.

(What do you want to bet, that if I had been born in the middle ages, I would have ended up happily secluded in a nunnery, eating gruel, copying Bibles and decorating the edges with gold gilt, all content with my vow of silence, the passing seasons and the sound of the wind whistling in the corners?)

At night, I threw myself into Him with desperation. The first night, I was filled with extraordinary relief- You were with me! You were with me the whole time! I declared to Him, with joy. But oh, tomorrow... what will I do tomorrow, when I am exhausted and have even less resource to make it through?

And I felt myself cradled in His arms, as though I were very small, so I knew He would be carrying me the next day.

The next day, a conversation occured between Keith and his mom that was very healing for both of them, and the room was full of the presence of God. It was so full of light that the sharp edges of the objects disappeared into the haze of it.

As it happened, I marveled. Then the light and the warmth faded away and we were just people in a small apartment, talking.

Yesterday, as I was busying myself with cleaning and decorating the house for Christmas, I felt this incredible longing for Him. It was as though I were carrying the longing around inside of me. I kept thinking, I'll get this one thing more done, and then I'll stop and deal with this longing.

But then I couldn't stand it anymore, so I stopped everything in sheer desperation and I read again Psalm 63, that begins:

"O God, You are my God, earnestly will I seek You; my inner self thirsts for You, my flesh longs and is faint for You, in a dry and weary land where no water is."

When I feel such a longing for God, I am very thankful for the Psalms, which contain such phrases as:

"As the hart pants and longs for the water brooks, so I pant and long for You, O God.
My inner self thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?

"Deep calls to deep at the thunder of Your waterspouts; all Your breakers and Your rolling waves have gone over me."
Psalm 42:1-2, 7

"My soul yearns, yes, even pines and is homesick for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out and sing for joy to the living God."
Psalm 84:2

"Whom have I in heaven but You? And I have no delight or desire on earth besides You.

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the Rock and firm Strength of my heart and my Portion forever."
Psalm 73:25-26

"I love the Lord, because He has heard my voice and my supplications. Because He has inclined His ear to me, therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live."
Psalm 116:1-2

November 27th

2011-11-27T07:39:00.000-08:00

We are back. My body is still sore from two days of eight hour car travel and two nights on the air mattress. The morning sun is falling through the blinds and I am wearing the flannel PJs that my parents got me for my birthday.

I opened the present early, not wanting to pad around in someone else's house wearing Keith's ancient T shirt and mismatched, stained PJ pants that I normally wear to bed.

Yesterday morning, before we left Indiana, I didn't bother to brush my hair; I just left it in the braid that I'd slept in. I thought I looked pretty normal until we stopped somewhere in Tennessee and I saw myself in the streaky mirror.

The loose strands of my extremely long hair had been whipped up like an airy chiffon all around my face. What remained of the braid itself looked like road kill.

That's when I understood the strange looks I'd been getting at the gas station. I down right frightened some meek, middle aged woman with coiffed hair and soft leather handbag later on during the day, when my hair had had time to get worse.

Returning from the restroom, I made a bee line across the tarmac to the dusty Civic, weighed down with luggage and the speakers Keith had purchased from his brother.

Through the bug streaked windshield, I could see Keith and the dim outline of the dogs, their heads hanging over the front seats. I felt an upwelling of affection for the little group that awaited me, dog breath and all.

"Hello, family," I said cheerfully, opening my door.

"Hello, woman," Keith replied affectionately.

He picked up the stuff that I had been carrying on my lap, to make room for me to sit down in my spot.

Our car rejoined the stream of fellow Americans who were returning home from family get togethers and cramped sleeping arrangements one day early, hoping to avoid the traffic on Sunday. We flipped down the visors against the glare of the late November sun and settled in for the long haul.

Thanksgiving itself went well. We left the house at four thirty in the morning and did not see the sun until we'd reached the Chattanooga valley. By noon, we'd reached southern Indiana and our first turkey dinner of the day.

That dinner we ate on couches, casually, with the dogs underfoot amid decorative ivy plants, ruffled curtains and a welcoming apple motif in the kitchen.

I met the newest member of the family, a handsome little fellow with adorable red hair and the Indiana family chin. He got passed around a lot and was very tolerant of all the attention.

One of Keith's brothers couldn't eat anything but mashed potato because he'd smashed the left side of his face with a maul, trying to detach a tire from its rim by whaling on it.

The heavy hammer hit the rubber and sprung back into his cheek bones, fracturing two of them and causing his entire face to swell up to twice its size.

Eventually, we all alighted from there and regrouped at the second household for more turkey dinner, this time in a much more formal setting.

That house sits ensconced in a solid and quiet setting of rolling green fields, amid other prosperous Hoosiers who have build red brink houses with two or three car garages and multiple roof angles.

This house and its setting are as welcoming as a leather Lay-Z-Boy recliner. We left the dogs in the two and a half car garage and headed into a house scented by holiday cooking.

There was a walnut studded cheese ball on the bar in the game room, a display of ceramic pumpkins behind the glass cabinets in the kitchen and a football game on the huge TV above the fireplace.

Although I feel at home in this house, I retreated to my usual bolt hole- the love seat where the magazine basket is placed, heaped with holiday Crate and Barrel and Coldwater Creek catalogues. These, and a woman's devotional Bible, NIV and a book on heaven were my reading material.

I began in retail, made my way quickly through paradise and ended up in Exodus, fascinated as usual by the exchanges between the Lord God Almighty and Moses.

People swirled around me in little knots, gathering and regathering in the kitchen or the game room, or beside the bar, to make another whiskey cocktail.

We ate smoky and spicy chicken wings, a specialty of Keith's dad and then Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings, a specialty of Keith's step mother, both equally delicious. Then the family got down to the real business of the night- the Indiana family poker game.

It was a good Thanksgiving and now we are home and I am about to turn thirty four. At thirty four, the age of forty emerges from the shadows of the far distant future and becomes a distinct possibility. Maybe by then I'll have finished my darn story.

November 23rd

2011-11-23T07:02:00.000-08:00

I have packing that I must do, and laundry and various other things that I have already forgotten. The empty suitcase waits upon the bed.

A couple nights ago, I was reading in John -what a surprise- and it struck me, all of a sudden, that the first words John recorded Jesus as saying are: What do you seek?

He said that to two of John the Baptist's disciples who had started following Him.

Jesus turns and asks them that, in His voice, a voice full of compassion and quiet authority- what do you seek?

It turns out the disciples wanted to know where He was staying.

They could have asked Him about knowledge or confirmation -show us a sign, people are always asking Jesus, to His sorrow- but these guys did not ask anything like that. They just wanted to know where He lived.

That really struck me. If you know where God is, then you can stay with Him. You know where to go to find Him. If you want to know where He lives, it's probably because you want to be there as well.

Once you know where God lives, then you have the rest of your life to ask Him questions and to get to know Him.

Did Jesus give them detailed directions to where He was staying? No. He said: Come and see.

How like Jesus! How rarely He ever gives us a detailed map- we walk by faith. Instead, He said, follow Me. He says, come along with Me and I will show you.

It made me think of this:

"Tell me, O you whom I love,
Where you feed your flock,
Where you make it rest at noon.
For why should I be as one who veils herself
By the flocks of your companions?"

"If you do not know, O fairest among women,
Follow in the footsteps of the flock,
And feed your little goats
Beside the shepherds' tents."
Song of Solomon 1:7-8

Another words, come and see. Because, as it turns out, it's not about where He is staying. He stays with us, after all.

Instead, it's about where He is taking us. We get to know Him along the way.

November 22nd

2011-11-22T13:26:00.000-08:00

I sent the first five pages of my newest story to my writer friend.

That story gets worked on slowly, by the way. Achingly slowly. In fact, I downright avoid the thing.

However, I had managed five pages or so, so I sent them. He called me back. He said, "Clearly you know how to write and need no instruction on the art of writing."

(This compliment I quite obviously memorized, from sheer delight.)

However, he gave me two tasks. One was to describe myself. He said I described so completely what I was seeing that he could not see myself in it at all.

I must be able to step in and out of my own skin, in a pleasing and well rounded way, so the reader sees first the child seeing, and then the sight itself, or visa versa, or simultaneously. Just so long as there are both things to see.

That was the easier task. The second task was to connect the dots. He said from reading my descriptions he knew that I was seeing what lay below the surface, but I wasn't allowing myself to actually talk about what was under the surface.

He said, ask the question.

That's the harder task.

He sent me the memoir, An American Childhood, by Annie Dillard. I keep turning down the corners of pages as I go along:

"I was too aware to do this, and had done it anyway. What could touch me now? For what were the people on Penn Avenue to me, or what was I to myself, really, but a witness to any boldness I could muster, or any cowardice if it came to that, any giving up on heaven for the sake of dignity on earth? I had not seen a great deal accomplished in the name of dignity, ever."

Last night we experienced the Night of the Living Cockroach, which is a thriller. In this thriller, one's unsuspecting husband, in his cotton shorts and clean socks, turns back the newly washed sheets. There he finds a cockroach all of two inches long, glistening in the light and making with all haste for the headboard.

The next scene, with compassionate editing for the sake of the husband, will be focused conveniently on the paper lamp shade. Note the soothing light, with its narrow creases of amber and white, and attendant oblong shadow cast against the wall. We will use but one adjective for this scene and that adjective is: vehement.

Next, all is chaos as the villain is insulted, searched for and threatened, but never found. Mattresses must be upended, dogs must be uprooted, and headboards pried from the wall. Pillows, made buoyant by passion, are tossed through the air.

Poison foam was sprayed upon every surface, and then sprayed again. Some people put lavender scent on their pillows; last night, we slept with insect killer haunting our troubled dreams. Even in our shallow sleep, the edges of the mattress loomed large.

In the morning, we found the dead body of our interloper. He lay upon his back by the French doors, as if, in his death throes, he had tried with fading instinct to make for the great outdoors and sweet, sweet freedom.

No such luck for him. If his relatives live nearby, let this be a lesson to them- no one here wants a sequel.

It is settled. We are heading up to Indiana for Thanksgiving.

This afternoon I rested my arms on the back of the couch and surveyed my reclining husband, who was peaceably watching Netflix. "What?" he asked.

"Are you ready?"

"For what?"

"For the holidays."

The light died in his eyes. "No," he said gravely, and then began to chuckle, shaking his head slowly. "No. Not at all. Are you?"

"No. No way."

Ready or not, here it comes.

November 21st

2011-11-21T06:40:00.000-08:00

A couple days ago, I read an awesome blog that had this quote in it:

"In my deepest wound I saw Your glory and it dazzled me." St. Augustine, Confessions

It starting me thinking about my wounds. Specifically, I've been thinking about my first marriage. It's not my deepest wound, but I have less understanding and acceptance of this wound than I have of my sexual abuse or infertility.

For years I have been conflicted about it- torn between a lingering resentment at God for not keeping me safe like I thought He promised He would do, and a hatred of myself- for my weakness, for my stupid choices, for my selfishness and for my naivete.

Yesterday, I was thinking about it again. I was wondering again why God, in His mercy, had not sent me a good man- like the one I have now. He could have just sent me a good man, and all pain would have been spared.

That's where I paused, as an unlikely thought hit me. What would it have been like, if I had married a merciful, Godly man at that point in my life? Wouldn't I have sublimated my desire and longing for God into my love of this man?

I certainly would have. I would have felt no need to search desperately for God in truth, in reality, in the ruins of everything that I had thought made me valuable to Him.

I bet I would have just leaned on my husband's religion, on his experience and definitions- because that is my default place, that is what I naturally tend to do.

Instead, in one swift blow, I lost all my cherished guide marks, all the religious routes I had leaned on and all the easy answers.

I had to come to Him with nothing to offer Him but my sinful, unreliable self.

I had to come to Him in conflict, knowing there might never be any answers at all- not in this life.

I had to come to Him alone, and from sheer longing- not to impress anyone else or to get their approval, not to conform to someone else's idea and not to acquire blessings, but simply because I could not live without Him.

And I found Him.

So, last night, for the first time in my life, I thanked Christ, fervently and genuinely, for my abusive and failed marriage. I let go of my earthly expectations of what I felt He should have done. I let go of my judgment about how I felt I should have behaved.

I thanked Him instead for what was true- that through the experience, I was thrown on a path that would lead me straight into His arms and into a relationship with Him that was based on authenticity, pure need and without formula or ritual.

My marriage and divorce was, in fact, one of the best things that ever happened to me. That's an example of what happens when God's redemptive powers hit our failures. He doesn't just forgive us- He transforms the entire experience.

In fact, it's a little something like this (although, unlike Paul, I initially lost everything because of sin, not expressly for the sake of Christ):

"But whatever former things I had that might have been gains to me, I have come to consider as [one combined] loss for Christ's sake.

Yes, furthermore, I count everything as loss compared to the possession of the priceless privilege (the overwhelming preciousness, the surpassing worth, and supreme advantage) of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord and of progressively becoming more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him [of perceiving and recognizing and understanding Him more fully and clearly]. For His sake I have lost everything and consider it all to be mere rubbish (refuse, dregs), in order that I may win (gain) Christ (the Anointed One),

And that I may [actually] be found and known as in Him, not having any [self-achieved] righteousness that can be called my own, based on my obedience to the Law's demands (ritualistic uprightness and supposed right standing with God thus acquired), but possessing that [genuine righteousness] which comes through faith in Christ (the Anointed One), the [truly] right standing with God, which comes from God by [saving] faith."
Philippians 3:7-9, Amplified Bible

November 19th

2011-11-19T07:42:00.000-08:00

I was rereading M. Scott Peck's A Bed By the Window, which by the way is an awesome book, and I read this part:

"Mrs. Simonton glanced at the office door through her tears to make sure it was shut. Not caring otherwise, knowing the staff might hear something strange, she looked over at the couch as if God Himself were sitting there smirking, and she hit her fist on the desk. "I don't trust You," she half screamed. "I've never trusted You. You've never deserved it, and I don't intend to begin trusting You now!"'

And on my goodness, I remembered so clearly reading that book and having that character's courageous and unsettling authenticity with God just really resonate with me. I loved reading it, the first time. It knocked something loose in me.

Last night, when I reread it, I had to put the book down and rest my head against the back of the couch, just thinking about it. I felt Him very close to me, as I was thinking about it.

"You loved me even then!" I said to Him, in wonder.

"Of course," He replied. "I love you as you are."

"But I was full of anger and mistrust."

"I want you as you really are, not as you wish to be," He said.

This is a really hard concept for me to grasp, but as I tested it fully, it must be true. Because He really did love me, all those years I kept Him at arm's length, out of mistrust and shame and fear. It didn't phase Him; He was relentless in His love.

I'm learning more and more not to hide things from Him. It's pointless anyway; He knows it all. To let it go, to acknowledge its reality, is such a freeing and therapeutic thing to do, I've found.

So, then I went back to reading my book and I got to this part:

"Well, I do believe in God."

"So?"

"So I talk to God and He talks to me. I talked to Him a great deal last night. I asked Him what could be done to help Heather. His answer to me was very clear."

I had to pause at that part too. I thought about the strangeness of talking to God and having Him reply. It's unconventional and comes out sounding grandiose no matter how I try and write it, although its perfectly obvious that He doesn't talk to me about anything really important- at least, anything that would be important to anyone else. He's not talking to me about the world or His plans or anything like that- He just talks to me about me.

Then I thought about it this way. For the most part, we relate to God through faith, while in this life. Now God can come down and shatter our phantom reality with His overwhelming reality, but He doesn't usually choose to. It seems to me that He lets us choose the size of the opening by which we experience Him- the window of our faith.

If we open the window wide, we present Him with a wide opportunity to interact with us. If we keep it narrow, for whatever reason, usually He respects our boundaries, unless for some reason of His own, He comes in full of grace and truth and expands us on His own. Which it seems to me He does sometimes, thank God! Otherwise, sometimes we'd be stuck.

Other times, maybe He gives us a deep longing and the longing is so great that we open all the windows, because we can't standing living in the smallness anymore. In that case, we find that we must have more of Him, and we will risk transparency to do so.

That's what it's been like for me. My thirst for God is so great that I must throw open all the windows and all the doors. Also, the deeper I go with Him, the more rooms inside myself I throw open for Him, because I know He's been inside them anyway. So I might as well be bold, you know?

I can't take the credit for this longing, because He placed it in me. He made me this way; I just yield to it. But I love it and I love Him and I love Him for making me this way.

There's a lot of risks inherent in talking to God, it seems to me, when I think about it. (One is that other people may think you are bag lady crazy.) But when I can surrender into Him and into the risk, and talk anyway, I have opened the window to actually hearing Him.

It's just simple trust, that is all. It's not some form of Super Spirituality or ultra perfection or anything else silly like that. All it is, is being quiet in Him with a kind of childlike trust.

I can't help but notice that the closer I draw to Him, the younger I feel myself to be. Part of myself doesn't like this- I want the dignity of being an adult. Another part of me finds this completely delightful and right, and a profound relief.

Of course I want to be perfect for Him. A part of me wishes to present my perfection to Him like a lovely gift that He's so grateful for. But that's not how it works- not for me, anyway. For me, it's the other way round. When I try and reverse it, and work on my own perfection for Him, all I do is turn my back on Him so I can get myself in good working order, as it were.

When I'm wrestling with this- with self judgment or some imperfection or fear or something else that hurts and bothers me, it's as though I were a child holding something sharp or jagged and stubbornly trying to make it better. And Christ touches my shoulder, to remind me and with relief, I turn to Him and I give it up to Him. He throws it as far away from us as the east is from the west and remembers it no more.

Then He picks me up in His arms and carries me and I am safe and home again. And I am so very grateful for it.

November 17th

2011-11-17T07:04:00.000-08:00

I write at least two blogs to every one that I publish, lately. I just don't have the courage to be that open. But here is one I wrote yesterday that I will post.

I think rainstorms in autumn are the best kind of rainstorms. Yesterday evening it rained; Keith and I stood at the back step to watch it. The rain and the wind were tearing off hundreds and hundreds of copper red leaves.

The ragged leaves were drifting down in great gusts through the rain. The sky and the air and the back yard were full of leaves. They brushed past my hands and fell right onto the door step.

I can pretty much read my entire way through the Bible now. I see things I never saw before. If one reads the Bible in fear or shame, it's very hard to catch even a little of its meaning. It's like reading it with a self imposed veil, or through a very warped lens.

Any time I felt bad about myself, any time I felt guilty or shameful, I embraced this as if it were from God. No wonder I have so many religious wounds. Good lord. So, reading the Bible was excruciating.

It amazes me, when I think back on it. I was a virgin, for goodness sake- well, I thought I was. I hadn't even held hands with a boy. Where on earth was my shame coming from when I read about maintaining sexual purity? My sexual abuse, of course.

It just amazes me now. There was no reason for me to feel shame- I was innocent! I wasn't sexually sinning! There was no reason for condemnation.

Yet I still felt condemnation and I embraced it whole heartedly. This is an awful bondage, a horrible, internal prison.

But now I can read through the Bible, thinking about each thing. And it is full of wondrous things.

There is a great deal that I don't understand but my teacher is Jesus Himself. So, when I see stuff I don't understand, I say, I'm not at that lesson yet, and I hand it to Him. If I feel scared, He takes me in His arms, and I remember that I'm all bound up in Him- my life, my right standing with God, my faith- everything flows from and is kept in Him. He is the very Wisdom of God.

I love to read in John when He says, you call Me Teacher and Lord, and it is right that you do, for so I am.(John 13:13)

So He is- He really is! He is my Teacher and my Lord. I like to call Him Lord, but I like best to call Him that at night, when He is close to me and I am resting in His tender and loving presence. Because then it is thrilling to know that my Lord and my God loves me and delights in me.

If I don't find Him close, I seek Him out. I cry out to Him, in my spirit, and He answers me. Sometimes I say His name just because I love to say His name, just because I must, because I can. Because He is there and listening and I can reach out to Him.

In the morning, when I wake, the first thing I do is to reach out to Him, to be sure He is there. I want Him always there. Hello, I tell Him. Hello, hello, hello!

It is like this:

O God, You are my God, earnestly will I seek You; my inner self thirsts for You, my flesh longs and is faint for You, in a dry and weary land where no water is.
So I have looked upon You in the sanctuary to see Your power and Your glory.
Because Your loving-kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You.
So will I bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name.
My whole being shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips
When I remember You upon my bed and meditate on You in the night watches.
For You have been my help, and in the shadow of Your wings will I rejoice.
My whole being follows hard after You and clings closely to You; Your right hand upholds me.
Psalm 63:1-8

November 15th

2011-11-15T09:44:00.000-08:00

A couple nights ago, I was thinking about the extraordinary relationship between Christ and His Father. I love to think about this; I find it beautiful and beyond understanding. I like to think about these things:

"The Lord possessed Me at the beginning of His work, the first of His acts of old. Ages ago, I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths, I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water.
"...then I was beside Him, like a master workman, and I was daily His delight, rejoicing before Him always, rejoicing in His inhabited world, and delighting in the children of man."
Proverbs 8:22-24, 30-31

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him and without Him was not anything made that was made."
John 1:1-3

"I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to me, "You are my Son; today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will make the nations Your heritage, and the ends of the earth Your possession."
Psalm 2:7-8

""For to which of the angels did God ever say, "You are My Son, today I have begotten You"?
"Or again, "I will be to Him a father and He shall be to Me a son."
"And to which of the angels has He ever said, "Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for your feet."
Hebrews 1:5,13

"Then Jesus answered and said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel."
John 5:19-20

So, I was just resting in these things, thinking about them, and Jesus said to me, the Father loves you as much as He loves me.

And I was so appalled! I thought that could not possibly be true at all; nothing could possibly mean as much to God as His own uniquely begotten Son.

He said, reread My prayer before I was crucified.

So the next day, I did. I read this:

"I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world."
John 17:22-24 TNIV

Then I realized that of course the Father must love us as much as He loves Christ, because He gave Christ up to death for our sakes. And Christ went willingly, freely giving up the glory and honor He had with His Father, in order to be born human and to die in our sins.

^"But it was the will of the Lord to crush Him, causing Him to suffer. Because He gives His life as a gift on the altar for sin, He will see His children. Days will be added to His life, and the will of the Lord will do well in His hand. He will see what the suffering of His soul brings, and will be pleased. By what He knows, the One Who is right and good, My Servant, will carry the punishment of many and He will carry their sins. So I will give Him a share among the great. He will divide the riches with the strong, because He gave up His life. They thought of Him as One Who broke the Law. Yet He Himself carried the sin of many, and prayed for the sinners.
Isaiah 53:10-12, New Life Version

I spent the entire day pretty much just stunned, just in a haze of wonder. It's so much that I can't take it all in for very long. The plans of God are beyond all understanding and we are all caught up in them, at the very heart of them, and all those plans are overflowing and abounding with love.

So then, we have to exclaim, along with Paul:

"What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Romans 8:31-39, NIV

November 13th

2011-11-13T06:50:00.000-08:00

We did not go up to Indiana this weekend after all; it turns out we couldn't take Keith's mom down with us or visit her very often. But she is doing better and we plan to go up there for Thanksgiving.

Ok, so, yesterday I had the house to myself while Keith worked on Max. I was very much enjoying my nice long and quiet afternoon in the middle of a hectic four day weekend.

I was settled comfortably and deeply into the couch, my bare feet up on the dusty coffee table, watching Shadowlands. I'd seen it before, but I'd forgotten how good it was.

A pot of tea had been brewed and beside me was an opened bag of chips and in my lap was a small bowl of sour cream.

I was all set to completely blow my diet in a luxurious splurge of fatty foods while movie watching when my phone rang.

It was Keith calling, informing me that the work on Max was much more difficult than he'd anticipated, even with three guys helping, and he'd invited all of them, plus their families, over for dinner in a few hours.

He wanted me to pick up four ready made pizzas from Walmart and have them and the house ready for guests.

It was about three in the afternoon, the house was in a state of general and wide spread neglect and I was wearing a shirt with a hole in it. I hadn't brushed my hair or showered yet that day.

My head was like a broken Rolodex; constantly flipping and never stopping long enough to impart actual information. Sensing my impaired state of mind, Keith said that he would pick up the pizzas himself, then he had to ring off to get back to work.

"I love you," he said.

I did not say it back. I put the phone back in my pocket and kept taking a step in one direction and then stopping and taking a step in another, constantly beset by the multitude of things I had to get done. Grimly, I set my teeth.

"I'm going to be hospitable!" I goaded myself. "It's in the Bible. It must be done. It will be done. Go, do it! Clean the bathroom!"

"But my movie!' I wailed. "My chips! I have time... I can finish the movie, surely..."

"The bathrooms!" I told myself, implacably. "The floors. The counters. The bedroom. Turn the movie off. And be glad about it! Jesus is watching you right this minute! Stop having such a bad attitude about the whole thing. This is a chance to serve. Do it and be happy about it, damn it."

Heaving a sigh, I tried to wrestle myself into a happier state of mind while trying to find the remote. But fortunately for me, Jesus was watching and right there. You are angry, He reminded me. This reminder came with absolutely no sense of guilt, merely freedom.

So, feeling a little like Richard Gere in Pretty Woman, I said with careful deliberation: "I am very angry at Keith."

The girls perked their ears up and looked at me. I looked down at them.

"I am very angry at Daddy," I told them, with more force.

Then I roared at the ceiling in a huge outburst of massive anger and frustration and then I laughed, shook my shoulders free of it, turned off the TV and put my snacks away.

While listening to Dire Straits, Tom Petty, Pink Floyd and U2 streaming at very loud volume from Pandora, I vacuumed, dusted, Windexed, bleached, polished and rearranged almost everything in the house. I even picked up the pizzas myself.

By the time Keith got home with the guests, the house gleamed with polish and candles and smelled of pumpkin cookies. The pizzas were in the oven and I was wearing a presentable shirt and my hair was brushed.

When Keith got in the door, the pride on his face was almost palpable. He took a quick shower to wash off the grease and grime and then found me in the kitchen. He pulled me into his arms.

"You are beautiful and the house is beautiful and I love you," he whispered into my ear.

This time I said it back. And then I went and was hospitable.

November 11th

2011-11-11T11:41:00.000-08:00

I'm glad my veteran is home with me this morning, researching ways to improve our computer and scribbling unintelligible things down on a note pad while listening to helpful instructional videos.

He's wearing a brand new, bright red tee shirt that reads "Callahan's Auto Parts." That shirt is one of ten that he ordered last week and had been waiting eagerly for all day yesterday. He has a Cool Aid smile tee shirt, the "Not Made in China" shirt and many, many others.

The clutch went out in his work truck, Max. Today we must pick up the new part and go grocery shopping together. This means that when it comes to checking out, I'll find a few unexpected items in the cart. Keith will be just as amazed as I.

"Where did this come from?" he will wonder, shaking his head. "Who would have put this in here?"

We'll purchase it anyway, of course, despite the mystery.

It dropped thirty degrees last night and when we woke up, the lawn was smothered in silver frost. It was cool enough in the house that I put my house robe on over my PJs. As I did, I noticed the dogs getting all excited and underfoot, with much tail wagging and eager expressions.

"Crazy little dogs!" I muttered. "What on earth do you think is going to happen?"

Then I remembered that in Kentucky, where we did not have a fenced in back yard, I had been forced to get up and walk them at all hours of the day and night. Very frequently, I was wearing my robe.

This experience must have taught them that the house robe equals going outside, smelling things, barking and remarking their territory, all very exciting and worthy activities.

In the interests of research, I spent all yesterday afternoon reading through a lot of my very, very old diaries. In particular, I read the one that spanned my graduation trip to England, when I was eighteen, all the way to my divorce from Bill. My last entry is dated October 1998, so that was... thirteen years ago?

All those thirteen years and I never once reread that thing. I couldn't, because the diary describes some of the worst years of my life. That diary was like a little time bomb, just quietly ticking away in my plastic storage bin.

But I guess by rereading it at last, I defused it. I'm still processing everything that came up for me as I read it. The thing that stood out to me the most were the entries I wrote about Jesus. In fact, my jaw dropped on more than one occasion as I read through the diary.

I had no idea. I had forgotten it all- I blacked it right out. I made myself forget, because the transition from who I had been to who I was when I married my ex husband was so steep and so horrific. I couldn't explain it. It took me years to heal from it.

I was eighteen years old when I wrote this:

"Dear Jesus," I wrote, back in mid September of 1996, "I read about You today and how the people followed You only because You gave them free meals. At least the crowd that followed You after You fed the 5,000. Then when You spoke of the important stuff- You being the Bread of Heaven, they grumbled and left You..."

Oh, that just makes me laugh out loud. Oh my goodness. What's hilarious is that, a month ago, when I was rereading the Gospels for the first time in a long time, I had the exact same reaction to that scene.

Here's another one:

"Dear Jesus,
I love You. You are close to me- You will never leave me. You will see to all my needs. You guide me along paths of righteousness for Your name's sake. You are faithful to keep me bound close to You. You have placed me like a seal over your heart, like a seal over Your arm. You are the author and finisher of my faith."

Whoa Nellie. That explains a lot, don't you think? That beautifully illuminates everything I've been experiencing lately.

When I finished that diary, I read a much older one. By the time I was sixteen, I was starting to develop an actual relationship with God.

How I did this is a complete mystery to me. Parts of the diary just show up, alive and beautiful, in the tangle of religious thought and self condemnation. Where on earth did they come from? How did I know that?

In April of 1994, when I was sixteen, I wrote this:

"So, at the same time as I discover this, I'm rejoicing in another kind of newness. It adds up to create a sense of wonder or a feeling like I'm a baby, just learning to walk, or like the disciple who walked on water. If he looked away from Jesus, he sank. I sink, but I look to Jesus every time the water reaches my ankles. Then I come to my senses and and I'm borne back up, forgiven, loved and helped to keep going. All I have to do is look to Jesus and He takes care of it.

"I am created just to please God. In one way it's humbling, in another it's more exciting than I have yet imagined.

"Well, this spiritual high will go, but God will still love and care for me as He does right now, and my roots in Christ will be deeper."

Reading this stuff just fills me with awe. It gave me the shivers. Isn't life mysterious? Isn't it beautiful? Our entire life, He is drawing us to Him with cords of love, cords that can never be broken.

November 10th

2011-11-10T06:07:00.000-08:00

Well, I heard from my father's friend, the professional writer. He called me yesterday afternoon.

Basically, what it is, is that I have someone who will get my book published, provided I can write one. He presented me with this huge opportunity just as a gift. He said to me, you have the ability, the life experience and the point of view- write it, and I will help you publish it.

I gathered that I could write any type of novel I felt like, but it would need to be either fiction or memoir, not fantasy. His publisher friend is open to novels from an evangelical view point- apparently, she is working with a few such authors.

He said that the trick is to get the first book published, after that I could pretty much write anything I wanted. So, if I can get something really good out now, later I can hopefully get Torii published, once I've got it as it should be.

This time I managed not to say "oh my gosh" as often as the last time, but I sure felt like saying it. I can't say that I was cool and collected, but I was less of a spaz, so that's good.

Now I'm all paralyzed and my head is still spinning. I have this incredible opportunity. What should I do? What should I write? How should I format it? What should be my theme? What should be my plot line?

I can't write about my entire life, because it's just too much material for one novel. I have to narrow stuff down. Should I narrow down in advance, or should I just free write until a theme appears?

I talked with my dad and he had some good ideas. He thought I could try and find an overarching metaphor for the entire story, to help define it.

Also, we talked about making a list of all the important or defining emotional moments or junctions in my life and then writing out each of them like chapters and head them up with a quote that sums up that period or experience.

I'm going to start there and see what happens.

I don't think I can make it fiction. I can't find a fiction that would properly illustrate or capture the reality- apparently for me it's either complete fantasy or true to life, with no middle ground. Or maybe I can, after I've got some ideas in order.

Well, I guess I should stop worrying about it and just start working on it.

November 9th

2011-11-09T15:21:00.000-08:00

There is this park that is very near our house. It's full of trimmed lawns and stately trees and little winding paths.

A stream runs through it and there is a vintage disc golf course laid out under the trees. No one ever plays, but the iron baskets, painted a pale green, are in good shape and stand invitingly along the gentle slopes.

There are lovely, long views of hillsides and autumn color, with glimpses of still water through the trees.

Here and there, built into the hillsides, are stone steps. Sometimes they lead to a shady spot with a picnic table and a stone grill.

Sometimes they don't go anywhere at all, they just are. They just rest there in the grassy slope, scattered over with leaves and moss grown, and above them is nothing but a copse of trees.

There's one place in particular, with a round, flat lawn, bordered by a very low stone wall. The curve of this wall divides the thick grass from the shallow waters of a marshy pond that lie on the other side of it. The lawn rises up into a wooden hill and against the hill is a stone grill, under the thick shade of an oak tree.

I go walking there every day I can now. I like to go in the morning, when the light is still horizontal, making bright bands of sunlight and shade across the grass. The grass here is still green, almost as green as summer.

I don't walk alone. It's as though, as soon as I shut the front door behind me, I feel Him come alongside and take my hand, and we walk along together.

Sometimes we say nothing. Sometimes I just lean my spirit right into Him, in love and worship. I guess that's like another way of saying, I lift my heart up to Him. Only it's not up, because He's right beside me. It's as though He has His arm around my shoulders and I am leaning against Him.

And I just soak Him in, His presence and His love, and I think about Him. I think with joy and wonder, He is the Holy One of God! The Anointed! The King of glory!

And my soul is just flooded with wonder that He is right beside me, and I belong to Him. I'm under His authority, and called by His name. He claims me completely. This is the most delightful sensation and I abandon myself to the joy of it.

I keep thinking of this- I think it's a verse- He satisfies the longing soul. I suppose I'm thinking of it because I'm finding it to be so very true.

Ah ha! It is a verse. It's from a psalm, to be exact:

Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good!
For His mercy endures forever.
Let the redeemed of the LORD say so,
Whom He has redeemed from the hand of the enemy,
And gathered out of the lands,
From the east and from the west,
From the north and from the south.

They wandered in the wilderness in a desolate way;
They found no city to dwell in.
Hungry and thirsty,
Their soul fainted in them.
Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble,
And He delivered them out of their distresses.
And He led them forth by the right way,
That they might go to a city for a dwelling place.
Oh, that men would give thanks to the LORD for His goodness,
And for His wonderful works to the children of men!
For He satisfies the longing soul,
And fills the hungry soul with goodness.
Psalm 107:1-9

November 8th

2011-11-08T04:59:00.000-08:00

I was having such a good morning. I got up at six thirty, feeling all smug and pleased with myself, despite the fact that it was the time change and not my industry that got me there, and stood outside on the front step and watched the sun rise.

It was lovely. There were tiny swallows flying and darting about in the ragged, golden trees to my left and the clouds above were pink and gold and white and grey. I wondered why some of the clouds never took on any color. Also, I stood there barefoot- that's how mild it is out here.

Then I went inside and the house smelled richly of coffee and was warm and quiet. I settled down at my desk and proceeded with the day. Everything was going swimmingly until I logged on to check my credit card balance.

Now, I knew that there had been some additional purchases in the last week or so- they weren't any surprise to me. However, it does seem clear that in this area, my deficiencies in math are to my distinct disadvantage, for I clearly do not add up the total correctly in advance.

I stared at the amount with disbelief and horror and growing anger. Feeling the anger taking hold, I instinctively began to pull it in, doing the spiritual equivalent of looking over my shoulder to see if Christ had noticed it at all- like, nothing to see over here! All's quiet on the western front, and all... Money! Pfft! I scoff at the stuff!

Then I remembered that I was invited to express my emotion, and not tamp it down so tightly. So I ended up shouting out loud and doing a little angry dance in my chair while shaking my clenched fists at the ceiling.

And then I paid the credit card. And because I had given myself permission to be really ridiculously, even childishly angry, I was able to then move past that and be honestly grateful that we have money to pay it off, and to pay our bills, and to buy stuff.

Also, this means that when Keith calls, innocently expecting to hear the dulcet tones of his loving wife wishing him good morning, he will not hear, instead, the screeching rasp of an angry fishwife who is going to hunt him down and hit him over the head with a greasy fry pan.

So that works out for Keith, too.

November 7th

2011-11-07T06:34:00.000-08:00

Today is a cloudy, quiet Monday. I have the bedding in the wash, as is usual, and must clean the floors.

Yesterday, we went to church.

I have a hard time describing church. Or maybe what is more true, is that I have a hard time thinking about or experiencing church.

Certain things about church I love very much, and enjoy. This church has a chant that goes like this:

Leader: Who do we believe is the Christ?

People: We believe Jesus is the Christ, the Anointed One of God, the firstborn of all creation, the firstborn from the dead, in whom all things hold together, in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell by the power of the Spirit. Christ is the head of the body, the church, and by the blood of the cross reconciles all things to God. Amen.

I also love dressing up and walking across the church through a beautiful fall day. I love the joyful solemnity of the church service. I love hearing the hymns- the hymns were mind blowing to me. It's so real, I guess is why.

We sang: I love You, Lord, and I lift my voice to worship You. O my soul, rejoice. Take joy, my King, in what You hear- may it be a sweet, sweet sound in Your ear.

And we sang: Jesus, draw me close, closer, Lord to You. Let the world around me fade away... for I desire to worship and obey.

They also sang Blessed Assurance and He Who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.

These songs knocked my socks off. Singing such things out loud filled me with wonder and shyness and joy. I felt dizzy. It awesome to have been doing that all week long and then get to sing about it out loud, with a whole group of people who know what the song is talking about, and also had experienced being close to and belonging to Him.

That's what I love about church. Other things confuse me and to be honest, I don't agree with some of what they say. But that's alright. I don't have to agree with them in order to worship God with them. We're all only human anyway, and I certainly don't think that I have it all put together. No way.

Keith's mother is having some serious health problems and we may be driving up to Indiana to pick her up and bring her down here, to stay for a couple weeks. This may not happen, but if it does, I will have to search for the guest bed under the mound of army gear that's currently and cleverly disguising it from the untrained eye.

My father's friend, the professional writer, is going to be calling me sometime this week about a book idea. I guess his friend, the publisher, is looking for a certain type of novel, and he thinks I could write just such a novel. I guess it would be based off my life, sort of autobiographical, but not completely.

I sort of started on such a thing, just to see what it would feel like. And the answer to that is- it feels painful and it's slow going.

I reread Torii and it captivated me. I didn't realize until then exactly how well I had done at capturing Christ's love in the person of Tenshio. That was my intent all along, but goodness. I remembered all those times I offered the story to Christ, over and over again, as I was writing it and as I was thinking about it.

But it needs such a dreadful amount of work.

Keith did so well running his training mission that his CO has made him mission commander of every single training mission from here on out, which is a very dubious honor. It will run the poor guy right into the gound, but he's already preparing for the next round of training missions.

Hopefully soon he will put in his packet for becoming a recruiter and we will be heading off in that direction. I guess everyone but Keith and fifteen other guys in his company have received orders, most of them to go to Korea for a year, so we are waiting to see if Keith won't come down on the same orders himself.

If he's accepted into the recruiter school, then he won't have to go to Korea- if indeed, the Army in all its wisdom is thinking of sending him there. If he did end up going there, I would move back to Colorado and we'd have to push back adoption plans for yet another year or more.

So, things are kind of up in the air. That's what's new over here at the Indiana household. Now the sun has come out again, and I'm going to go for a walk.

November 4th

2011-11-04T08:38:00.000-07:00

As usual, about twelve hours after posting my latest blog post, I got the anxiety and dread that comes later, even though I'd originally written that post three days ago and had been writing and thinking about it on and off all that time.

So, I was offering my anxiety to Christ yet again and He said gently, don't you trust Me?

And I said, I trust You, but the blog was faulty and could have been written much better. It's faulty material.

He said, do you think faulty material will prevent Me from bringing about My purpose in it?

And then I felt peaceful, because I knew faulty material could not stop the purpose of God. What He purposes, happens. And He is used to working with faulty material- in fact, He prefers broken, humble hearts and cracked pots. Thank goodness.

A few days ago, I was reading something and agonizing about it and how I could never do that, but feeling convinced that I should, and He said, clearly and firmly- I did not make you an apostle.

Oh the relief that swept through me! Am I the only person that does this? Surely not. I can't be the only person that just, without thinking about it, takes on everything. Not because we think we are capable, but because, for some reason, we begin to think we should.

Since then, He's been explaining, over and over, in many different ways, that no one person can be everything written about in the Bible- which is yet another of those bizarre and irrational thoughts that used to be wedged unconsciously in the back of my mind, causing disquiet and guilt.

We each have or do one or two things. We have one or maybe two gifts- we have one or maybe two roles. Maybe someone out there is called and equipped to be doing many, many things and God bless that person. I am not them.

Since then, I have been able to become more and more joyfully me, in His presence. I understand that Christ made me to be myself because it pleased Him to do so. And since it pleases Him, it must please me! How joyfully simple it can be, when I look at it that way.

November 3rd

2011-11-03T05:42:00.000-07:00

I watched a homecoming video for a family who adopted a newborn through domestic adoption. I didn't feel too much angst until the video showed them coming home. They were the shiny, happy people. And I felt so, so weird.

"Why can't I be normal?" I whined to God. "How come I didn't get a normal life?" (It's easier to complain about that than to process my grief at continuing infertile.)

This wishing-I-were-normal is a refrain I keep coming back to, time after time. For long periods of time I'm happy in and sometimes even proud of my singular personality.

Then my uniqueness seems just... weird, especially lately, in the way I relate to God. I wrote a blog post two days ago, but I had to delete it because I had a sudden panic attack about how weird it was. I thought, "I can't share this; it's too unusual."

We went to church on Sunday; it was a United Methodist church. Growing up, I'd the vague idea that United Methodist churches were so liberal you might as well consider them the spawn of satan... Ok, I exaggerate a tad, but you get the idea.

They are not, actually. They're pretty straight laced and... well, methodical. I had the weirdest idea that while in church we would talk about Jesus. I was kind of looking forward to it. I was hoping to be in a group of people who all knew Him and had a relationship with Him.

But we didn't really talk about Him much. He didn't really come up as a subject. Don't get me wrong, they were all very nice people. They exuded niceness. I liked being there. I liked singing about how we'll gather at the river. They gave us a mug and some of them stopped by the house and gave us a loaf of bread. They looked like a new set of grandparents.

However, I think that experience actually heightened my sense of isolation. I have friends and family that I can write or talk to about Him, but I guess I was hoping for a sense of joyful community, you know?

It's that time of the month too, and my emotions are all over the chart, as usual. I've been finding it really challenging to experience sorrow, frustration, impatience and anger while in the presence of Christ. It just instinctively feels as though this must be insulting to Him.

Yesterday morning, I was wrestling with my negative emotions and I felt Him saying to me, read the Psalms. So I did, and I couldn't help but notice that David's emotions were all over the chart as well, sometimes even in just one psalm.

I said, ok, I see what You are saying.

Then He said, come outside, come walk with Me.

So I went. And we were walking along and He started explaining to me about rhythms, how everything He made has one, the seasons and my life as well. He explained to me that it's alright to slow down; He build periods and cycles of rest into everything He created.

He explained that this period of time when I've been doing so much reading and studying and which as been so wonderful, is going to naturally and rightly merge into a new season of life, probably back into finishing my story. My story keeps coming back into my heart lately.

I told Him that I was nervous if I stopped doing all this studying and Bible reading that I wouldn't find Him so close and real like I have. (It's amazing how quickly and persistently I want to put the living God into a nice, neat little box.)

He assured me that He would be guiding our relationship right along; it would continue to deepen and expand all through my life through every season and change. In everything and every place my life took me, He would teach me how to find Him present and available.

As we walked, I kept thinking of this phrase: practising the presence of God. I knew that phrase, or something like it, was the title of a book. When I got home, I googled it. It was a book written by a monk.

This monk also experienced the constant, loving and personal presence of God in much the same way I have. We related to Him in much the same way, only Brother Laurence had thirty years experience in walking that way and was therefore much, much better at it.

It relieved a lot of my sense of isolation and weirdness. Though, I guess relating to a seventeenth century monk is maybe not the most normal thing in the world... heh.

At a certain point, when I was getting all frustrated at myself that Brother Laurence's techniques weren't working for me, Christ gently reminded me that I'm not a monk... Good to remember.

It's getting a little easier just being in my negative emotion and in Christ at the same time. It feels a little like not fighting something any more... like, admitting to what it true and then resting in it.

He really and truly empathizes with me- He actually carried all my sorrows- but I can't experience it unless I admit to feeling the emotion myself, and then connect to Him in that place of emotional authenticity. If that makes any sense. Anyway, that's what I've been learning lately.

October 30th

2011-10-30T11:42:00.000-07:00

This morning I read something that caused me some confusion and distress. It caused me to remember very distinctly my old anxieties and deep seated fears regarding religion, and for a moment or two, I could not for the life of me remember how I had found my way out of them.

I got all anxious. I couldn't control the anxiety on my own, so instead of fighting that losing battle any longer, I simply handed the anxiety, along with myself and my questions, right over to Him. I just handed Him the whole mess, like a tangled ball of yarn.

No matter how badly tangled I am, He's always tender and loving when He takes it from me. It's as though I were a very young child. He takes me on His lap and starts lovingly unwinding me from the anxiety, or fear, or self hatred or whatever it is that I got tangled up in.

So, when I was quiet, He said, "I Myself lead you in the paths of righteousness, for My name's sake. You don't lead, even in doing good. I lead you into the good works that I have laid up for you to do."

This is a lesson He's been teaching me for the past couple days. It's the path of righteousness, not the four lane highway. It's not "I run wildly, desperately on ahead of Him on the paths of righteousness, while He follows, driving me on and on." It's a narrow path and He leads like a shepherd.

Recently, I watched a documentary on the 23rd Psalm. In it, the narrator said that Jewish scholars sometimes translate the word "path" as "circles." These circles refer to the circling paths that wind around and around the hills that shepherds lead their flocks up.

Slowly, circle after circle, the flock winds its way up the hill. They go slowly so that the sheep can graze along the way. They don't go barreling straight up the mountainside to the top, but they do get there, in a natural and peaceful way.

Everything that frightens me and any failure and any shortcoming, those things cause me to yield into Jesus and His work. I surrender myself to Him. This means that my short comings actually draw me nearer to Him, instead of driving me away.

Before, when I thought I myself had to subdue the flesh or perfect myself or however you want to put it- back then, my imperfections caused me shame and exhaustion and frustration and resentment. I kept putting distance between myself and Him, so that I could wrestle with myself in decent privacy, as it were.

Now there's no barrier, there's no distance. My life is His life. I can't live apart from Him. My weakness and inability are swallowed up in His infinite ability and boundless strength.

I thought I would look up a verse I vaguely remembered, so I logged onto Biblegateway, and right there, before I ever searched, I read this:

"“Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish! We don't play the major role. If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.” Ephesians 2:8-9 MSG

Also, recently I rediscovered this old hymn and I love it even more now:

"Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.

This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.

Perfect submission, all is at rest,
I in my Savior am happy and blest,
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love."

Blessed Assurance, by Francis J.Crosby, 1873

October 28th

2011-10-28T07:58:00.000-07:00

There is a cockroach under a glass on my kitchen counter. I captured him last night, and I'm still not quite sure what to do with him. I shrink from killing the creature. Besides, it's too large. The very thought of.... ugh. No way.

I think I will slip a paper under the glass and then release it into the wild. Naturally, this means it will merely make its way back into the house, but oh well. If I meet him again, I'll just have to name him and set out his own pet dish by the sink.

Our friends are coming by this evening; Keith bought a new war game that he wants to demonstrate to his buddy.

I have beef stew and biscuits planned for dinner, and the pumpkin cookies that I made earlier. They turned out well and I have managed to limit myself to two cookies per day, which really is very good.

I had such a moving insight yesterday evening. It was of something very simple, and of something I already knew, but it just came together in a new way. I was reading this passage:

"However, I am not in search of honor for Myself. [I do not seek and am not aiming for My own glory.] There is One Who [looks after that; He] seeks [My glory], and He is the Judge.

I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, if anyone observes My teaching [lives in accordance with My message, keeps My word], he will by no means ever see and experience death.

The Jews said to Him, Now we know that You are under the power of a demon (insane). Abraham died, and also the prophets, yet You say, If a man keeps My word, he will never taste of death into all eternity.

Are You greater than our father Abraham? He died, and all the prophets died! Who do You make Yourself out to be?

Jesus answered, If I were to glorify Myself (magnify, praise, and honor Myself), I would have no real glory, for My glory would be nothing and worthless. [My honor must come to Me from My Father.] It is My Father Who glorifies Me [Who extols Me, magnifies, and praises Me], of Whom you say that He is your God."
John 8:50-54, AMP

So, I read this, and I thought, when they asked Him who He was, why did He respond as He did? He didn't answer them straight out. I've actually wondered this many times before. (Though He does eventually declare that before Abraham existed, I AM. Which is a spine tingling thing to hear Him say.)

Then I realized that He could have declared to them who He is. He is the Son of God! He could have suddenly called down legions of angels, He could have made the earth shake or stopped the winds or thrown the Temple to rubble, if He wished.

Instead, He says that He will not glorify Himself, for that would mean nothing, would be worthless. He rests completely in the knowledge that His glory comes from His Father alone, as a gift. Jesus stays faithful to the message His Father sent Him to give.

Then I realized that He is meek. I never saw that aspect of His personality in quite that way before. Now I see it. He defers constantly, continuously, to His Father, His Father's message and His Father's work.

He is not in search of honor for Himself! What a statement for the Son of God to say. Astoundingly, despite His high position, power and glory His Father's given Him, He is, by character, meek and humble of heart. That is how He describes Himself.

Then, I searched out other verses, and they made this incredible picture (no doubt heavily influenced by Handel's Messiah!)-

"My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him.

He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care."
Isaiah 53:2-3

"The Sovereign Lord has given me his words of wisdom, so that I know how to comfort the weary. Morning by morning he wakens me and opens my understanding to his will. The Sovereign Lord has spoken to me, and I have listened. I have not rebelled or turned away.

I offered my back to those who beat me and my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard. I did not hide my face from mockery and spitting. Because the Sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be disgraced.

Therefore, I have set my face like a stone, determined to do his will. And I know that I will not be put to shame."
Isaiah 50:4:7

"He always had the nature of God, but he did not think that by force he should try to remain equal with God. Instead of this, of his own free will he gave up all he had, and took the nature of a servant. He became like a human being and appeared in human likeness. He was humble and walked the path of obedience all the way to death— his death on the cross.

For this reason God raised him to the highest place above and gave him the name that is greater than any other name. And so, in honor of the name of Jesus all beings in heaven, on earth, and in the world below will fall on their knees, and all will openly proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
Phillipians 2:6-11 GNT

It was as though I had a sudden glimpse right into His heart, and it just took my breath away. It just astounded me. It made me worship Him in loving adoration.

I think He loves to be found out, He loves to be searched out, to be required above all else. It must be, because all through the Bible it says to seek your God with all your heart and He will be found by you, and then cleave to Him.

Recently, as I was reading the Gospel of John, I remembered something I had read about ealier, (I forget where) concerning John. Jesus loved all His disciples. (Duh!) He didn't love John more; there's no way He could love any of us any more than He already does. His love for each of us is overflowing and uniquely expressed for us- that is, He has a unique relationship with each of us. Each of us is irreplaceable to Him.

What John did was to claim Jesus's love as his own identity. So, when John wrote his Gospel, he referred to himself as "the disciple Jesus loved" because that was the identity most important to John, and all his life, he never forgot that love. Which is a beautiful act of worship, I can't help but think.

It's right there, that identity belongs to all of us. We can claim it, we can make ourselves at home in it, as Jesus invites us to do.

We could sign all our letters, "the person Jesus dearly loves," with impunity. We could even answer telephone calls with it, if we liked: "This is the girl Jesus dearly loves speaking, how can I help you today?"

How would that be, for a conversation starter? We'd have to watch out, though, or we'd end up constantly referring to ourselves in the third person, and that might be a little confusing.

Anyway, the housewife Jesus dearly loves has to go and clean the bathroom before the house guests arrive, so I'd better finish this up... :)

October 26th

2011-10-26T09:28:00.000-07:00

I stocked up on Halloween candy yesterday. Boy, is that stuff expensive! I stuffed an entire plastic bag and it cost me over thirty dollars.

I was worried- we live in this small, brick ranch neighborhood and we've seen flocks of children come out at twilight to play pick up basketball, so I suspect that crowds will come out on Halloween night.

I really don't want to run out of candy. I suspect egging is a real possibility around here.

Keith's last day of his mission is today. His gout has flared up, he has a cold and he's worn right down. His CO told him to take today off, but Keith insisted on limping in anyway.

He did consent to sleeping in, so I was able to feed him a nourishing breakfast of blueberry bagel sandwich with cream cheese, strawberry preserves, egg and cheddar cheese. This is his current breakfast favorite.

Let me tell you, there is nothing, nothing like rereading Isaiah to improve one's already great enjoyment of Handel's Messiah. And reading Isaiah while listening to said music? Whoa Nellie. That's a heck of a lot of Messianic prophesy right there.

However, taken as a whole, reading from Judges onward is much like reading the Silmarillian. Stories that should be entire books in themselves take up mere paragraphs. Nothing is explained properly. Everything starts out awesome and splendid, and then inexorably becomes worse with small pockets of relief which in the end get wiped out.

But it's fascinating and beautiful to see that even as the earthly kingdom was crumbling away and being carried off and generally falling into corruption and ruin, the prophets were full of visions and promises of a new kingdom. I love seeing glimpses of Jesus all through the Old Testament.

I read in a blog this morning about how mainstream modern Christian culture has such a tendency to focus on the immutability of God that they tend to forget His emotional nature and consequently, suppress their own emotions, feeling the need to be stoic under all circumstances.

I empathized with this, as I blogged about before. Reading the Old Testament over again has really opened my eyes. He is overflowing with emotion. There is hardly a moment or event that does not draw from His heart a deep upwelling of grief or sorrow or compassion or love or passionate longing or yearning pity or deeply burning anger that is slow to build and quickly expressed, and followed by healing and restoration.

Sometimes when I'm terrified (and that would be often), Christ reminds me that it's His righteousness that I'm wearing and there is no need to be afraid. And then I found this, which I thought was beautiful:

"I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul will exult in my God; for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels."
Isaiah 61:10

Once or twice I said to Him how glad I was not to have been born back then, under the old covenant. His response was immediate- He said, even then, you would have been Mine, even then, you would have been called by My Name and heard My voice.

Like, when you are His person, you are His person, you know? There is no getting away from His love. He will hunt you down (in the best way possible), He will heal you and He will love on you. He is irresistible.

"Even as [in His love] He chose us [actually picked us out for Himself as His own] in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy (consecrated and set apart for Him) and blameless in His sight, even above reproach, before Him in love.

For He foreordained us (destined us, planned in love for us) to be adopted (revealed) as His own children through Jesus Christ, in accordance with the purpose of His will [because it pleased Him and was His kind intent]--

[So that we might be] to the praise and the commendation of His glorious grace (favor and mercy), which He so freely bestowed on us in the Beloved."
Ephesians 1:4-6

Today, I'm going to try and make pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and then I'm going to try and not eat a lot of them. We'll see how that goes.

October 23rd

2011-10-23T05:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I wandered outside with an apple, and sat in the camp chair in the sun. My head was so full of the stuff I'd read.

A lot of the Old Testament is ancient and weird, but through it all, He keeps impressing on me how much He values us. That's the ongoing theme.

I keep pushing back against this theme. Last night it occurred to me how much I argue with Him; I wonder where He finds the patience to put up with me.

One night, maybe two weeks ago, He told me to read the Song of Songs.

"No way!" I said. "There is no way I can read that with You right here. I can read that when I can pretend that You are up in heaven, attending to other business. But I just can't with You reading right over my shoulder like You do."

So I didn't. That night, He said to me again, "Read the Song of Songs. You're caught up in shame and reading that book is the way out."

I knew He was right, so that morning, I forced myself to read it. I literally read it with my hand over my face, reading between my fingers. And I skimmed a lot of it.

It did take away a lot of my shame, and then I read it a second time, and that was easier. That's when I remembered praying to Him that He keep me as a seal, that I blogged about much earlier.

I was flabbergasted to remember how easily I used to read that book and how naturally I just claimed it for myself. It didn't seem presumptuous, it just felt natural.

When I read it again more recently, He said, "This applies to you- this is part of your identity in Me."

"No way!" I argued. "I'm not Your bride; that would be absurd and arrogant. Anyway, the church as a whole is Your bride."

"Yes, but I'm not taking to Myself a building and I'm not in love with a faceless mob- I love people as individuals."

Clearly, He wants a relationship and a love that is so intense and so real that He can be overcome by the sight of it. It's obvious when one thinks about it. I mean, we ourselves want that, when we think about love. God's love is not a passive emotion- it's up welling with life and passion and creative ability.

I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around it, though. I wonder why I keep thinking that He prefers a formal and stilted relationship with us, as opposed to a passionate, organic relationship, but even now I keep going back to the former, and clearly erroneous, idea.

I think because I keep mixing up holy with formal and they are not at all the same. He's holy and passionate at the same time- I see that so clearly all through the Old Testament. What an intense combination it is! I am so looking forward to reading the Gospels again, after having read through all that. I think it's going to blow my mind. It does in little pieces even now.

I wonder sometimes why He doesn't just throw His hands in the air and be all, "This woman! She argues with me at every turn! I tell her how much I love her, how much she means to Me- I back my point up with scripture, and she still argues!"

Except that I think He's used to it. That sort of thing happens a lot, I can't help but notice. He talks to someone and their usual response is "Not me!" or "No way!" or "Come again?" At first, anyway.

He purchases for us an identity and a place with Him through His death and resurrection, and we frequently say, "No, no, it can't be a free gift. That can't be for me. You must need something more than mere acceptance from me. I can't mean that much to You."

Yesterday, after I ate my apple, I came inside and watched some TV. I was watching Extreme Home Makeover and it was starting to make me cry, the way the show normally does. I told Him, I have to change the channel, or I'm going to bawl my eyes out.

(Yes. I talk to Him even when I watch TV. I am certifiably insane.)

"You can let go of your emotions," He replied. "You don't have to hold onto them so tight. You don't have to try and hide them from Me."

That took me by surprised. I suddenly realized how tightly I do hold on to them, almost as if I were ashamed of them, or something. I also realized how He did not do the same with His own emotions.

I said, "That's so gracious of You. What a lovely invitation. I'll have to think about that. Let me get back to You on that... In the meantime, I'd better change the channel..."

Where would we be, if He wasn't as patient and gracious and merciful as He is? The fact of the matter is, the more I know of Him, the more I love Him and the more I love Him, the more I want to know of Him.

I just keep thinking to myself, why wait until the next life to know Him? Why wait for some kind of earthly perfection, which will never come, to be close to Him? I don't want to wait. I empathize with Jacob, who grappled on to Him and wouldn't let go. Except that I don't want just a blessing, I want Him.

That story astounded me, by the way. What a story that is. He could crush us so easily, but instead, He touches us and leaves a mark we'll never be able to forget.

I told Him last night I was glad there were still places in me that I had yet to yield to Him, because I can look forward to the pleasure of that yielding when the time comes. Eventually, I'll bawl my eyes out in His arms and it will be good.

In the meantime, I fall asleep in His arms. I get up in the night, and He is still with me. When I'm frightened, I feel myself enclosed by the shadow of His wings. I wake up in the morning, and He is with me. I look out at the dawn and I think, He is the Bright and Morning Star, and the Light of the world.

I sit down before the computer and think with pleasure and anticipation, what will He show me today? What are the things I will do for Him today? And I am busy learning and doing and then He tells me, rest. And I rest.

And then Keith comes home and I think, this is my husband! What a good life I have! It is filled with good things.

And when my head is dizzy and I am worn out and puzzled and disappointed with myself, I take a deep breath and bring Him to mind. I gratefully heave all that stuff onto Him and He graciously and easily takes it all.

At night, I stay up, whispering with Him in the dark about everything that He has shown me that day. I think, He is my Creator! In Him everything moves and lives and has its being. Everything is held together by Him.

I think, this is my Friend, my Redeemer, the Son of Man, the Son of David, Emmanuel. In the dark, I call forth all His names in wonder, and I think about what each of them means, to the best of my earthly ability. I recall that I am His precious belonging, one He purchased to Himself, one He keeps safe, and makes to lie down in green pastures and leads beside the still waters.

What a God we serve! His love for us is just beyond understanding.

October 20th

2011-10-20T06:54:00.000-07:00

We shut all the windows and turned on the furnace yesterday evening. This morning, I had to turn on all the lights in order to see what I was doing.

There's a scarlet cardinal outside on the front lawn- he blends in with the leaves scattered across the grass. The sky above has that deep quality of blue that it only gets this time of the year.

Keith is mission commander of yet another training mission- it's his eighth one. I have to keep this in mind when I call him. He's completely in the "let's get this done and done right and done right away" mode of thinking. So, if I absentmindedly call, looking vaguely for encouragement and sympathy, about, say, the window that is jammed, I find instead brisk instructions barked out over the phone. And then he has to go, because something else needs his attention.

When he comes home, he is worn out and exhausted. As soon as he's settled on the couch, I crawl up next to him and snuggle in. His phone rings two or three times an hour, at least- even late into the night. He's up at three in the morning and sometimes doesn't get home until seven in the evening. He tries to stay up so he can play his video game or watch tv, but he starts falling asleep after about an hour, the poor guy.

I'm so aware of the good things that surround me. Yesterday, in the late afternoon, I walked outside into the thin sunlight and just watched the blue sky and the wind in the leaves. Life is good.

I've branched out from the New Testament to the Old Testament- very old stomping grounds for me, and full of pitfalls and ghosts. But I'm not reading by myself, so it's as though I see it from both the old perspective and the new one.

This whole time, I keep expecting life to go back to normal. But now I realize that it never will. It's so strange that although I know from past experience that life is change, still, my own growth takes me by surprise. Like- wait a minute!- there's still more to learn, to understand? Who knew!

October 17th

2011-10-17T09:15:00.000-07:00

It's beginning to make sense to me, in a new way, why Jesus says to keep our worries limited to one day at a time. One day is a human sized portion of life- to try and take on all the rest of it at once is just too daunting.

One day alone can contain all the agony of defeat and all the thrill of victory more up close and personal than any one remembered year.

This morning, when I logged onto the Biblegateway, I found this verse. It was in the NIV, but I switched it to the Amplified Bible, because it's just more beautiful in that version:

"The secret [of the sweet, satisfying companionship] of the Lord have they who fear (revere and worship) Him, and He will show them His covenant and reveal to them its [deep, inner] meaning.

My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for He will pluck my feet out of the net."
Psalm 25:14-15

I was logging on to look up this verse:

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of sympathy (pity and mercy) and the God [Who is the Source] of every comfort (consolation and encouragement), Who comforts (consoles and encourages) us in every trouble (calamity and affliction), so that we may also be able to comfort (console and encourage) those who are in any kind of trouble or distress, with the comfort (consolation and encouragement) with which we ourselves are comforted (consoled and encouraged) by God."
II Corinthians 1:3-4

Isn't that beautiful? I wonder how many verses in the Bible just lie there in waiting, ready to blossom open into a deeper understanding at the right time.

Lately, I've been telling Him that I wish He had put more in the way of the Gospels in the Bible. I wish I could see more of what He did and said. When I bring this up to Christ, He tells me that I can see and know Him, living, in my own life. He's writing a living story with my life and He's all through it, right with me. It's not a story that many people will ever know, but it's still Authored by Him.

Then, this morning, I read this:

For we are God's [own] handiwork (His workmanship), recreated in Christ Jesus, [born anew] that we may do those good works which God predestined (planned beforehand) for us [taking paths which He prepared ahead of time], that we should walk in them [living the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us to live].
Ephesians 2:10

(What a mind blowing book Ephesians is, by the way! My goodness.)

And He reminds me that it was better that He should go away, so that the Comforter could come.

And He is comforting! I used to read that and think, yes, yes, in theory, His is comforting- in practise, He is demanding. But it was my own awful self judgement that was demanding- it was the implacable law that was demanding. Jesus Himself is comforting.

When He teaches and guides me, He is loving and gentle. When He corrects me, I hardly know it, it's so natural and loving. It's as though He actually were a Good Shepherd! Who knew.

The things He asks us to do, I am realizing, are just common sense. The fruit of the Spirit are principles to live out and grow into, as opposed to specific rules that we follow.

At the end of the day, as I'm lying there in the dark, beating up on myself, He steps in and contradicts me left and right. He really is comforting and encouraging, in very practical and specific ways.

Actually, for a while last night I was so lost in self condemnation that I kept myself away from Him. That's the major problem with self condemnation, in my experience. My shame cuts Him out. And that's very unfortunate-

"For we do not have a High Priest Who is unable to understand and sympathize and have a shared feeling with our weaknesses and infirmities and liability to the assaults of temptation, but One Who has been tempted in every respect as we are, yet without sinning.

Let us then fearlessly and confidently and boldly draw near to the throne of grace (the throne of God's unmerited favor to us sinners), that we may receive mercy [for our failures] and find grace to help in good time for every need [appropriate help and well-timed help, coming just when we need it]."
Hebrews 4:15-16

Fearlessly and confidently and boldly! Wow. But did He suffer as He did for less than that? Did He die so that we could timidly and shamefully and fearfully entreat Him from a safe distance?

No, clearly. He prefers us to be confident in Him and close to Him, leaning on Him and talking with Him and casting all our cares upon Him. We do this one day at a time.

October 15th

2011-10-15T10:45:00.000-07:00

It's actually cold outside this morning! Okay, so it's not really cold- it's actually closer to chilly, but still. There's one red tree in the neighborhood so far, but the trees and shrubs behind our fence are slowly turning yellow, one leaf at a time.

The pool person still comes, don't ask me why. Only a person from the far northern latitudes, like Norway or Greenland could think our pool a pleasant place of relaxation and exercise at its current temperature. And then only after a really, really hot sauna.

I worked on Torii yesterday. I was afraid that I would have forgotten where I was or what I was doing, but I remembered how I was unraveling and then knitting it back together. I got a lot done- I'm almost through with the massive rewrite that takes out the dog sled journey and replaces it with one by sea.

I have been discovering that, for me, it's much easier to understand the Bible if I read it one book at a time, as opposed to one chapter at a time. Chapter by chapter, it's harder to understand the building themes and main points.

Of course, there's no one way to read it, but just for myself, reading it book by book has really opened up my understanding of it.

It's also really helpful to know who wrote it and the audience they were writing it for.

I've branched out into the books of the New Testament, bit by bit. I can only do so much before I'm overwhelmed by information and concepts, and all my old baggage that He is taking away now, piece by piece.

I've been familiar with the Bible my whole life, but I don't think I ever really... saw it or experienced it as well as I am now, and as it is, I'm far from understanding it now. I don't think a person ever really can completely understand it.

And then, after I get overwhelmed, I like to go back and read the gospel of John. I like just thinking about what is true of Him- like the fact that He is my God, but also my Brother. How amazing is that? How amazing is it that we are in the family of God Himself? And not in any temporary or merely symbolic way, but actually born again, born of the Spirit.

So, when I begin to say the first part of the Lord's Prayer, I get struck by the wonder of it- "Our Father..." it begins. I'm saying it with Christ, and together we are saying "Our Father..." His Father is also my Father! How incredible! How vast and unknowable and beyond anything I could ever deserve or earn by my small human actions.

And I like to think about how Christ is the only and uniquely begotten Son of God. The very nature of God is to be in relationship to Himself. And, from reading John, one gets this glimpse of an incredibly loving relationship between them.

Jesus is always doing only the thing that pleases His Father, because He loves His Father. And His Father is always glorifying and loving His Son, because He loves His Son, and does His will. Jesus is giving God the glory, and God is giving Him the glory and so on and so forth.

In a documentary recently, I watched the story of Abraham about to sacrifice his only son. God told Abraham to take his son, his only son, whom he loved, and give his life to God. Of course, at the last minute, God stops him and spares his son.

It struck me right to the heart, because what God spared Abraham, He did not spare Himself. He did not spare His only and uniquely begotten Son from being slain. He didn't stretch forth His hand and say, Stop! This is my only begotten Son, whom I love and in whom I am well pleased. You won't touch a hair on His head.

There was no ram in the thicket for Jesus- no one else could shoulder that load, no one else could lay down their life, in order to take it up again. He had to pass through it and drink the cup right to the dregs. The mercy that God extended to Abraham's son, He did not extend to His own.

Of course, we know why. It's so that, together with Christ, we can say, "Our Father."

October 14th

2011-10-14T05:54:00.000-07:00

I am still having just the hardest time trying to figure out how to blog about my life lately. I just feel so unqualified to talk about God, and yet that is almost all that I think about.

I'm pretty sure that today I'm going to get back into Torii. I've been re reading it, and I really like it, but oh my goodness! It needs so much work.

In the meantime, this is something I've been mulling over-

Recently, I was reading the story where Jesus is walking on water and terrifies His guys, who are struggling against the storm in the boat.

And Peter, in a moment of courage, says, if it's really You, call me to come to You.

Christ says, Come ahead.

And Peter begins walking across the water to Him. But he looks away and sees the wind and the waves and his terror envelopes him.

It doesn't say, but maybe, in that moment, he can't think how he got there and the sheer impossibility of where he is swamps his human mind like the waves do his feet and then his knees as he sinks in.

He cried, Lord, save me.

And without hesitation, Christ grasps hold of his hand and pulls Peter out of the water.

"Faint-heart, what got into you?" is how the Message translates Christ's words to Peter. This translation makes me smile every time. It just seems such a fond and tender thing to say.

And it makes me think of this verse from the letter to those crazy Galatians:

"For [if we are] in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith activated and energized and expressed and working through love."

I like that phrase very much- faith expressed in love. It seems that was what Peter was expressing. By faith he walked over the water- but I'll bet he left the boat out of love. Anyway, that's why I would have left it.

Being in His presence is a little like walking on water. I can't see Him, but I know that He is there. If I look away from Him and focus on what I see around me, or what I am in my own strength, it's as though I begin to sink into that. I feel scared and overwhelmed.

Then I call out to Him and it turns out that Christ is right there. He was right there all along. He takes my hand and pulls me right up close to Him.

If we ask if we can come to Him, He will say, By all means, come here. We can come right up to Him; we can walk right over the water to Him.

Naturally, this causes me to love Him even more.

I like how John put it so simply: "We love Him, because first He loved us."

October 11th

2011-10-11T11:02:00.000-07:00

What has happened to my blog? Seriously.

A week and a half ago, I was happily blogging away about writing, with the occasional blog post dedicated to anime and church experiences thrown in for good measure.

Every time I look back and wonder what the heck happened, I remember writing these words:

"It feels like the church wants to play three important roles in my life: to be a direct pipeline to God, to be a translation for His voice and to verify that my actions are acceptable.

The problem is, I grow increasingly jealous of those roles; I want them for Christ."

I cannot help but think there is a correlation between what I blogged then and how I began to experience Him, beginning the very next day.

But it's much more than that. I can look back further, even in just this blog, and see how my experience and understanding of God has grown. I remember in Kentucky, being incredibly, overwhelmingly angry at Him, and how terrifying that felt.

I remember blogging about the "right religious program" and then wondering if it was possible just to live in the question, as it were. To not be sure about the "right" way, but to just surrender oneself to God regardless, in faith and hope.

I couldn't sustain it, because my shame and fear were too overwhelming for my own strength. I backed away.

Still, I continued to experience moments of incredible grace and love. For example, during the church service about how God disciplines those that He loves, I felt Christ's love surround me and quiet my fears. He said that I don't have to worry about making my case to the Heavenly Father, that was His job.

When we moved here, we started looking for church. I wanted a sense of community, but at a deeper level, I wanted to confront my old and very deeply embedded fears and shame that kept me so tightly bound. That's why I kept going, even when it was painful. I didn't want my personal status quo anymore, I wanted to be free of it.

The problem was, I couldn't free myself from it- not on my own. So, now I am realizing, Christ came and did the work Himself. It throws me into the most incredible awe.

Lately, I just keep thinking that ultimately, the purpose of life is to know God. For me, this is what makes everything good in my life even better, and everything bad in my life endurable. Growing in knowledge of Him holds all of my life together. It's the common, golden thread that makes its way through every experience and every stage of my life.

October 10th

2011-10-10T08:35:00.000-07:00

Another soft, rainy morning! I love these mornings.

It's been dawning on me lately, the multitude of thoughts and beliefs that are out there and available, even just within the Christian community. One person says it's this way and another person experiences it another way.

It's mind boggling, really. It makes me start to feel all anxious and confused, as if not sure in which direction to go. Then, it's as though I want Jesus to lay everything out for me, like a detailed map, with routes in different colors and a way to measure distance and what belongs where and how.

And I keep hearing Him say, Just keep looking at Me. Never mind what other people are doing or how they are living their life; that's between Myself and them. I want you to stay right here, in Me- I am enough for you.

So, I was thinking and thinking about that this morning, and how well that suited me and how much comfort that held. It's such a relief not to have to figure everything out. If I live out the truth He is leading me into, that's a good testimony. I just live in Him.

So, I was reading, and I came across this:

My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you've been given. You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him. You're deeply rooted in him. You're well constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you've been taught. School's out; quit studying the subject and start living it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving.

Watch out for people who try to dazzle you with big words and intellectual double-talk. They want to drag you off into endless arguments that never amount to anything. They spread their ideas through the empty traditions of human beings and the empty superstitions of spirit beings. But that's not the way of Christ. Everything of God gets expressed in him, so you can see and hear him clearly. You don't need a telescope, a microscope, or a horoscope to realize the fullness of Christ, and the emptiness of the universe without him. When you come to him, that fullness comes together for you, too. His power extends over everything.
Colossians 2:6-10

Isn't that marvelous? When I read it, I laughed out loud. Keith was over playing a video game and asked me what was so funny. But it wasn't so much that it was funny, as it was just so joyfully liberating.

He is just so good.

October 9th

2011-10-09T06:57:00.000-07:00

It's a lovely, soft and rainy morning.

I keep thinking, I really have to stop talking about how I experience God or people really are going to think I've gone off the deep end. This probably reflects as much my own amazement as anything else.

When I was growing up in the Christian church, I learned that it was possible to experience the presence of God- usually in church, though not always. I also learned about hearing the voice of God. I learned that this can be through a verse, or something is impressed on our hearts- which I think means through our spirit, or by some outside source that confirms our internal question.

I was very familiar with these things growing up. I was cautioned though, to double check everything I might have "heard" to the Bible, to verify that it was from God. I still do that, actually, and I like it best when He speaks to me through verses, though He has many ways of communicating with us.

So, what I am experiencing is not actually all that strange, it's just that, I've never experienced it in such a prolonged way- like, day after day and night after night. And never with such tender and loving attention to detail.

And when I say that I heard Christ speak, just in case you are wondering, I am not actually hearing a voice. I hear Him in my spirit, as He illuminates an idea or concept for me.

And lots of times, I ask Him things and don't get an exact reply. He's not like a Ouija board or a Magic Eight ball- I can't shake Him until the right answer comes out.

I was talking to my dad this morning about a particular quandary and Dad said "Why don't you try asking Him?"

And I was all, "I did, but He didn't answer and I can't conjure Him. He's sovereign."

Dad laughed. "Darn! You mean, you can't control God?"

"I know, right? What's up with that?"

As C.S. Lewis has said so well- He's not a tame lion.

But we can talk to Him, and He hears us. And He is right next to us, whether we feel Him or not. And even when He does not answer, He cares intimately about what we are saying and feeling. He doesn't forget anything we tell Him.

That alone is such wealth! The fact that sometimes, He speaks directly to us, in our heart or spirit, or whatever, is beyond amazing.

October 8th

2011-10-08T13:00:00.000-07:00

So yesterday we had guests over.

For some reason, the wife's usual negativity really, really hurt- worse than usual. In fact, I found myself on the verge of tears on more than one occasion.

For some other reason, I felt as if this were a failure on my part. I kept asking Christ, "Why aren't I doing better? Why am I actually doing worse? This is horrible. I have to pull myself together. This is a train wreck."

By the time I went to bed, I felt as if I were bruised, bleeding and battered on the inside. I felt as if I'd done nothing but let Him down; just one mistake after another. When I went to bed, I just started pouring out my distress.

The first thing He said to me was: "I empathize. I was insulted, scorned and deliberately misunderstood as well."

My first and overpowering instinct at this was to feel outraged on His behalf. I was all, "How can You even compare Your incredible anguish to my slight suffering?"

It actually took me a little while to get over the outrage so that I could accept the comfort He was offering me. I kept wanting to chide Him for making light of His own suffering, when all I had was a slightly bruised ego. And that should surely be good for me, right?

But He didn't see it that way. He didn't diminish my pain- He acknowledged it. It occurs to me now that something cannot be healed unless it is first recognized.

I thought about how I usually respond to her. I usually just push away what she is saying, which is in essence, to pretend. In a way, it is diminishing her. I am sort of saying, "What you say and what you are do not matter to me. I am impervious to you."

Whereas, if I respond honestly to her by giving voice and expression to my pain, that's giving both her and myself the gift of authenticity, at the very least. It doesn't resolve the situation, but it dignifies it with reality. And that surely is heading in the right direction.

Surely in the end, authenticity is more an act of love that false and impervious cheerfulness.

I'm still thinking this over. It a hard one to wrap one's mind around.

But still, I had to ask, why do I keep failing?

I do, too. A hundred times a day, I feel as if I have failed. I used to judge myself viciously for these things, just beat up on myself.

Two days into this whole process, I had done this for like the twentieth time, and I heard Him speak sternly to me for the first time ever. But it was still loving.

I don't think I've ever before experienced sternness and love both genuinely combined. It was actually incredibly relieving.

He said, "Enough. No more judging yourself. All judgements and the whole business of judging were given to me."

It was as though I were a child, and I had a stick and was using it to hit myself over the head. It was as though He said, "Surrender the stick! No more stick for you! Now let's start over."

Now I no longer beat myself up, but I still feel bad. Each time, I reach out to Him. It's wordless now. It's a swift process of yeilding back into Him. Immediately, I feel refreshed and relieved. But I do this about a hundred times a day.

When I asked Him why I had to do this so often, He replied, "Because you're human."

What a surprise, right? It made me laugh. Then He reminded me of how much I'd already grown.

I understand now, more and more, why John described Him as full of grace and truth.

I read this verse in the Bible, it says, "Who taught God? What school did He go to, to learn Justice?"

I thought about that. He didn't have to learn justice, because He is justice. The same with love and compassion and mercy. He didn't have to learn these things, because they flow out of who He is.

So, He doesn't run out. It doesn't tax Him. He loves the work of restoring and healing us.

October 6th

2011-10-06T15:18:00.000-07:00

I keep wondering what this blog must sound like to someone who hasn't had a Christian background. I can see someone being all, "Aww! Isn't that cute. She so longs to experience God that she's making him up. That's kind of adorable... and a little creepy."

I think I would think that too. Only, then I would begin to wonder, what if He is real? What if she is talking to Him? What if it's possible to talk to God? Oh my goodness. I must look into this.

Heh.

And I have to blog about it or I will burst.

Okay, maybe not literally, but I would end up talking to the dogs, at great length and with great animation, about how amazing Christ is. And that's just not the same.

So, last night I was reading about the part where Christ said, "I am the Vine; you are the branches. Whoever lives in Me and I in him bears much (abundant) fruit. However, apart from Me [cut off from vital union with Me] you can do nothing."

And fear gripped me. I thought, Oh no! What if I'm not producing fruit?? I'll be cast off! Thrown away!! Burned!!!

Which is another prime example of why I used to never, ever read the Bible.

Then I wondered, what is this fruit, exactly? I vaguely remembered something about fruits of the spirit from Sunday School lessons of long ago, but I couldn't bring them to mind.

So I googled it.

I saw a link that had the typical kind of thinking about this topic, the approach that I am familiar with:

"Do you see these fruits in your life?" it asked, ominously. "How much of these can you identify?"

So, as gingerly as possible, I skimmed over that link, looking only for the verse. It was in Galatians, chapter 5.

My heart sank. I had a bad feeling about Galatians. It would be one of those books of the Bible that talk about the wretchedness of my condition and how full of sin and vice I am.

And it was late at night, and I wasn't up for directly re-engaging another old pattern of condemning thought.

Still though, I looked it up. Here's what I found:

"Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.

I am emphatic about this. The moment any one of you submits to circumcision or any other rule-keeping system, at that same moment Christ's hard-won gift of freedom is squandered. I repeat my warning: The person who accepts the ways of circumcision trades all the advantages of the free life in Christ for the obligations of the slave life of the law. I suspect you would never intend this, but this is what happens. When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace. Meanwhile we expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit. For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love." Galatians 5:1-3

So... I'm just sitting there, stunned. Stunned. I had to pound the desk with my fist a couple times. I had to read it over and over again.

Then I read some more.

"You crazy Galatians! Did someone put a hex on you? Have you taken leave of your senses? Something crazy has happened, for it's obvious that you no longer have the crucified Jesus in clear focus in your lives. His sacrifice on the cross was certainly set before you clearly enough.

Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God's Message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren't smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it? Did you go through this whole painful learning process for nothing? It is not yet a total loss, but it certainly will be if you keep this up!

Answer this question: Does the God who lavishly provides you with his own presence, his Holy Spirit, working things in your lives you could never do for yourselves, does he do these things because of your strenuous moral striving or because you trust him to do them in you?"
Galatians 3:1-5

I was torn between jumping up and down out of sheer joy and pounding my head against the wall out of sheer frustration. It was here all my life, and I never got this before. I never understood it, and it was always right there.

I had to pull up facebook and virtually yell at my poor dad, who happened to be on line, thank goodness.

I was all: "HAVE YOU READ GALATIANS???? OH MY GOD!!!!!! WHERE HAS THIS BEEN ALL MY LIFE????"

Poor dad.

And just because I haven't thrown enough Galatians at you, here's some more:

"Have some of you noticed that we are not yet perfect? (No great surprise, right?) And are you ready to make the accusation that since people like me, who go through Christ in order to get things right with God, aren't perfectly virtuous, Christ must therefore be an accessory to sin? The accusation is frivolous. If I was "trying to be good," I would be rebuilding the same old barn that I tore down. I would be acting as a charlatan.

What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn't work. So I quit being a "law man" so that I could be God's man. Christ's life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not "mine," but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.

Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God's grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily."
Galatians 2:17-21 The Message

I highly recommend reading the entire book. It does also talk about the fruits of the spirit, and I was rather taken aback to realize that... wait for it... I actually recognized some of them in my character.

Of course, I can't take any credit for them... thankfully!

Oh, and, "You crazy Galatians!" is now my new and awesome catch phrase.

October 5th

2011-10-05T06:41:00.000-07:00

So, last night, as we were all snuggled up in bed, Keith said, "Tell me a good story out of the Bible. But it has to be a good one!"

Like, he was afraid I would go off on a story that proved he was a miserable person and living his life all wrong, which is exactly what I was afraid of finding in there as well.

The problem was, I had a hard time trying to put into words what I was learning. The same goes for this blog. I find it increasingly difficult to articulate my experiences.

You know why, in my stories, I always have the main character fall in love with someone who is not entirely human? It's because, from the time I was a young girl, I was intoxicated with the idea that I was loved by God Himself. I just can't think of anything more thrilling than that.

I still can't.

I used to think I would have to wait until the next life before I could be near Him. Now I know I was wrong.

I used to think that following the rules was the same as following Him. Now I know I was wrong. I follow Him because I can't keep the rules, no one of us can. He could, and because He lives in us, the rules are satisfied through Him. He will continuously transform my life from the inside out.

I used to think He was put off by my human nature. What a thing to think! He's the author of my human nature! He understands me better than I understand myself.

I used to think that He was callous toward my physical body, and that He valued only my spiritual being. Now I know I was wrong.

These five or so days have been a time of intense healing. He did not hesitate to reach right down into the heart of my wounds. He poured out His love in ways that were tender and practical, as well as in ways that were beyond understanding.

It was as though I saw Him! I read verses I've read many times before, only this time, they were alive. He was peeling back layer after layer of shame and fear.
At some point yesterday, I remembered that I used to read the Song of Songs. I remembered specifically one phrase: Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm. I remembered how passionately I had prayed that.

Yesterday, He told me, "I heard you. I never forgot."

I wish I could blog better about how I am feeling, but I can't. Anyway, my life hasn't radically changed. It's almost the same outward life. He did not lay any awful or unnatural burden on me. I do everything that I used to do, only it means more and I feel more joy in doing it.

At some point here, I'll start writing again, and who knows how Torii will be impacted by all this.

But I don't have to worry about tomorrow. I have all of today to live in.

October 3rd

2011-10-03T06:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning, as I sat down to work on this blog, I was all, I can't sling another one at them! And by the way, when is everything going to go back to normal? Besides, what if I'm making You look ridiculous? Who am I to say what You're like?

I don't want it to go back to normal. I never want it to. But I could write a blog about how Keith and I went to the Aquarium, and it was the first time he ever saw a shark.

...or I could blog about how God told me to take a jacket with me.

How do you know it was God? you may well ask. Well, I talk to myself so much, believe me, I know the sound of my own voice. And He's been talking to me so much lately that I'm getting really good at recognizing His. Besides, as His sheep, we know His voice and will follow Him, but the voice of a stranger we will run from.

Did I take the jacket? No. I was all, I'm fine! It's warm out. But that's sweet of you.

Guess what? Big surprise- Atlanta was cold.

Was He angry? Not at all. He was with me just the same, only I was cold. But I've been amazed to realize how practical He is. He cares about the stuff of daily life.

Sometimes I think, I must be boring Him, or that He must be getting tired of constantly being drawn into my internal dialogue.

So I checked in on that. Immediately He said that His thoughts toward me were so vast they were beyond counting and I wasn't tiring Him out in the least.

How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!
If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.
Psalm 139:17-18

So, last night, I decided I should pray the Lord's Prayer. So I settled in and I was all, "Let's pray the Lord's Prayer!"

And He said, "Why, little one? Why should we do that?"

I was taken aback. After all, that's the prayer He Himself taught! So I told Him, because we had the night before, and it had been a really great experience, so shouldn't we repeat the experience?

"Why do you think that, little one?" He asked me again.

I was floored. I realized that I had been about to set up a ritual. I thought sadly of all those nights I'd knelt down by the side of the bed, folded my hands, and prayed by rote and then got up feeling almost as guilty and ineffective as I'd had before I'd prayed.

How sadly and unnecessarily empty that had been, I had known it was even then. And yet, I had been chained by my guilt to that position, and to those words. Even when I stopped doing it, I felt guilty. Even when I knew by faith, and sometimes experience, that Christ was with me in every moment, I still felt guilty for not "formally" or ritually praying.

It reminded me of when He went up the mountain, and was transfigured, and is talking to Moses and Elijah. And Peter, babbling in fear, says, "This is awesome! This is great! Let's set up little houses (booths, tents) for each of you!" (I paraphrase, of course.)

Peter doesn't end up doing that, of course, because he follows Jesus down the mountain.

I realized that no matter how great the last moment was, it's better to stay with Jesus than hang back and build a little monument to the past, or to celebrate it with a little ritual. Peter could have built a little house as an act of love and worship, but Jesus wouldn't have been living in it. He would have been out and about, doing His work amid the people.

Who knew that following Christ would actually contain so much living, breathing freedom?

"The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn't deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.

Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life.
Romans 8:4-5, The Message

September 30th

2011-09-30T09:16:00.000-07:00

Last night, sometime hard to describe and intense happened to me. It was as though, in my heart, Christ did exactly what this verse said He would do:

"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed and qualified me to preach the Gospel of good tidings to the meek, the poor, and afflicted; He has sent me to bind up and heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the [physical and spiritual] captives and the opening of the prison and of the eyes to those who are bound..."
Isaiah 61:1

Last night I was recognizing and mourning all my wounds. I saw how captive my spirit had been, how heavy and burdened. He gave me a voice and a safe passage for the intense anger I held toward what had held me captive.

Almost I could thank Him for the depth of my wounds, because, through them, I can experience the depth of His tenderness.

So. Yesterday I read the gospel of Matthew. Jesus is brusque in that gospel!

Eventually, I got exceedingly nervous. I thought, if He ever talked to me like that, I would curl up in a tiny little ball and die. I got more and more tense as I read along.

I thought, I'd better stop asking all these questions. Maybe I'm being like Nicodemus, who asked questions to avoid the truth he already was on the verge of grasping.

Or maybe Jesus is just going to lose all patience with me and ask me, "Do you still not understand? How is it that you still don't understand this? Are you being willfully stupid?"

This is a horrible thing to worry about. It is this sort of morbid thought, and worse, that used to pervade my Christianity when I was younger. I expected nothing but anger, judgment, impatience, unending demands and exasperation.

Eventually, I had to stop the whole reading. I couldn't take the fear anymore. So then Christ said over and over again to me a whole succession of thoughts.

First, that He spoke to different people in different ways, in ways that related to who they were, and that He would never speak to me in the same way that He would speak to a rough and tumble fisherman and a grown man. He reminded me that a bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not put out.

I never thought about that possibility before, that He might have spoken to people in different ways. I considered it. I realized that, for example, the way He spoke to the sinful woman who washed His feet with her hair was different from the way He spoke to Zacchaeus, for example.

It seems obvious now that I think about it, because He's a personal God and He relates to each of us right where we are, in the language of our hearts.

But I said, give me a verse to reassure me that You're not losing patience with my pestering You. I want a verse.

So He said, "I'll tell you a story. There once was a corrupt Judge..."

I laughed out loud. My love for Him came bursting up out of me like a fountain. I knew that story. He only had to say the first line, and I knew exactly what He was saying to me.

Of course, the widow was pestering for justice, and I'm pestering for understanding, but the principle is the same: constant pestering is rewarded.

We are like gifts to Christ, I realized yesterday. We're given to Him and He delights in us. He heals the wounds we received from living in an imperfect world and He brings us into the fullness of what He wishes us to be. He does it patiently and lovingly and creatively, over the entire course of our life.

He came to us, not when we were perfect or acceptible, but in our sin, and in our pain and imperfection, He comes. Even our anger won't frighten Him away. The language of our hearts that even we have no words for, He understands perfectly.

It is like this:

The Lord is my Shepherd [to feed, guide, and shield me], I shall not lack.

He makes me lie down in [fresh, tender] green pastures; He leads me beside the still and restful waters.

He refreshes and restores my life (my self); He leads me in the paths of righteousness [uprightness and right standing with Him--not for my earning it, but] for His name's sake.

Yes, though I walk through the [deep, sunless] valley of the shadow of death, I will fear or dread no evil, for You are with me; Your rod [to protect] and Your staff [to guide], they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with [a]oil; my [brimming] cup runs over.

Surely or only goodness, mercy, and unfailing love shall follow me all the days of my life, and through the length of my days the house of the Lord [and His presence] shall be my dwelling place.
Psalm 23

September 29th

2011-09-29T06:51:00.000-07:00

I'm coming back to earth, bit by bit. I keep thinking about how much and how I can put into words everything that I feel.

I went to WalMart to pick up a ready to bake pizza. Every thing looked new to me, as though I were seeing it for the first time. I was in awe of the colors and the movement.

And it was like I was in two parts.

And one part of me was just noticing people. People were everywhere. They came in all shapes and sizes and ages and attitudes. The mother behind me was frazzled, her child persistent. The man in front of me was thin and stooped and buying stuff for tacos. The guy at the cash register was frustrated and harried.

I was in awe of these people, of their reality, their bewildering uniqueness. I thought, it was people like these that crushed Christ on every side as He walked through their town, or followed Him out to the barren places. Real, normal, day to day people. These people, His people.

He loves them, not from a distance, or in theory, but exactly right where they are, as they are dressed, in the attitudes that they have, with all that they are.

But there was another part of me. And that part of me was religiously judgmental of everything that I saw, and arrogant. And every time I felt this arrogance lift its head in me, I felt horror and embarrassment.

I thought, here I am, in the very presence of Christ, and a part of me is wanting to religiously judge people and lift myself above them. The bitter irony of it just grieved me and horrified me.

Every time I felt this awful arrogance, I threw myself down before Him and cried to Him to take it away from me and to forgive me. But mostly, for the love of God, to take it away from me. And I would yield myself over and into Him and I would feel the weight of it come off me.

But it happened over and over again.

In the night, I lay siege to Him with my questions. I like the night, the quietness of the night. All my attention and inner ear are open. I pester Him incessantly and keep myself up. I am like a giddy four year old at a sleep over.

Then I began to understand why I was feeling that way and where it was coming from. But still I asked Him, why won't you take it away? It's so unsightly. He brought to mind an old remembered verse about how we are gradually being made into His image, and immediately I was comforted, even though I couldn't remember that verse very well.

So this morning, I looked the verse up. This is it in the Message:

Whenever, though, they turn to face God as Moses did, God removes the veil and there they are—face-to-face! They suddenly recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We're free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.
2 Corinthians 3:16-18

Astounding, yes? Here it is in the Amplified Bible:

But whenever a person turns [in repentance] to the Lord, the veil is stripped off and taken away.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (emancipation from bondage, freedom).

And all of us, as with unveiled face, [because we] continued to behold [in the Word of God] as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are constantly being transfigured into His very own image in ever increasing splendor and from one degree of glory to another; [for this comes] from the Lord [Who is] the Spirit.
2 Corinthians 3:16-18

He is so elegantly, perfectly articulate. He is so on point, as it were.

After a while, I had read all of Mark and Luke and John. So I decided, why not venture a little outwards? So I read I John.

I was astounded to realize that all John was saying was everything that Jesus had said to John. This is such an elementary thing; of course that's true. I just never realized it before.

But there were some weird things in I John that I didn't understand. When I came across them, I was all, what the heck is he saying? What could he possibly mean by that? I didn't understand them in any version.

But I had learned something earlier. After I wrote the blog about how He carried His own words for me, I thought, how do I know if that's true? I don't know that there's any Biblical context for that. That's a weird thing to say He's doing.

Then I got all worried, like, I was expected to know and understand everything all at once. I used to believe that, of all things. Poor me. No wonder my Christianity was crushing the life out of me.

So, in the morning, I got up and eventually finished reading whatever Gospel it was that I was in the middle of at the time. (It was Luke) And it was at the part where Christ had already risen from the dead and met the two disciples as they were walking along the road. And He explained the scriptures to them, and joins them for dinner and then vanishes.

And they say to each other, why didn't we know it was Him? Didn't our hearts burn within us as He opened up the scriptures to us?"

And I just stared at the phrase and felt wonder all through me. If He chooses to leave some scriptures closed to me, that's His business. I don't have to worry about it.

In fact, it's like this:

"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."
Matthew 11:28-30, The Message

September 28th

2011-09-28T08:24:00.000-07:00

I had an extraordinary experience yesterday.

In the morning, I started using the BibleGateway to look up verses about the early church, and I found some interesting things. However, it was exhausting me and the whole time, I wanted to forget it and just read the gospel of John.

For many years, that was the only part of the Bible I could ever read at all. In fact, sometimes I could only read the one chapter about the Good Shepherd.

Finally, I was all, forget this. I'm going to go spend some time with Christ.

And oh my. First I read John in The Message version of the Bible, which was beautiful. For example:

"Every person the Father gives me eventually comes running to me. And once that person is with me, I hold on and don't let go. I came down from heaven not to follow my own whim but to accomplish the will of the One who sent me.

"This, in a nutshell, is that will: that everything handed over to me by the Father be completed—not a single detail missed—and at the wrap-up of time I have everything and everyone put together, upright and whole. This is what my Father wants: that anyone who sees the Son and trusts who he is and what he does and then aligns with him will enter real life, eternal life. My part is to put them on their feet alive and whole at the completion of time."
John 6:37-40

Right, yes? Beautiful. So, then I read it over again, with the Amplified version of the Bible:

All whom My Father gives (entrusts) to Me will come to Me; and the one who comes to Me I will most certainly not cast out [I will never, no never, reject one of them who comes to Me].

For I have come down from heaven not to do My own will and purpose but to do the will and purpose of Him Who sent Me.

And this is the will of Him Who sent Me, that I should not lose any of all that He has given Me, but that I should give new life and raise [them all] up at the last day.

For this is My Father's will and His purpose, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in and cleaves to and trusts in and relies on Him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up [from the dead] at the last day.
John 6:37-40

So then I was captivated. I kept putting my hands over my face, like, oh my goodness! He's so full of emotion. He was angry and tender and loving and frustrated and anguished. Sometimes He's bitingly intelligent and I stand amazed at His wit. Sometimes He seems weird and absentminded, like when He's drawing in the dust, or making a paste out saliva.

Lots of times I can't understand Him. Why would He make the poor, innocent fig tree wither? Could it help that it didn't have any figs? But a god you could completely understand wouldn't be God at all.

I just keep getting blown away by what I was seeing. I kept thinking, that was God. God said that. God felt that. They said that to God.

Like this:

They said, "Where is this so-called Father of yours?"

Jesus said, "You're looking right at me and you don't see me. How do you expect to see the Father? If you knew me, you would at the same time know the Father."
-John 8:15

The Message is the only version that translates it this way, but it broke my heart. I saw Christ in the temple, with His arms wide, saying, "I'm right here. I AM. I am your God, your creator, standing here in front of you and you don't see Me."

I wanted to be in the crowd, so I could go running to Him and throw myself into His arms and I say, I see You! I see You! I belong to You! I'm Yours!

I don't think I ever realized that Jesus prayed before He was taken away. I read it, and I was blown away. My skin was tingling. He was interceding for His Own; I heard His very words. He prayed for me.

And now I am coming to You; I say these things while I am still in the world, so that My joy may be made full and complete and perfect in them [that they may experience My delight fulfilled in them, that My enjoyment may be perfected in their own souls, that they may have My gladness within them, filling their hearts].

I have given and delivered to them Your word (message) and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world [do not belong to the world], just as I am not of the world.

I do not ask that You will take them out of the world, but that You will keep and protect them from the evil one.

And so for their sake and on their behalf I sanctify (dedicate, consecrate) Myself, that they also may be sanctified (dedicated, consecrated, made holy) in the Truth.

Neither for these alone do I pray [it is not for their sake only that I make this request], but also for all those who will ever come to believe in (trust in, cling to, rely on) Me through their word and teaching,

That they all may be one, [just] as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be one in Us, so that the world may believe and be convinced that You have sent Me.
John 17:13-15, 19-21

I got jealous a lot. I want to be like the disciple that was reclining with his head on Christ's shoulder at the last supper. I wanted to be able to tip my head up and whisper a question in His ear and have Him answer me.

Except that frequently, I do. Anyone can. Well, not in the flesh like that. But I can lean my whole self into Him and whisper a question and He does answer me.

Sometimes His answer is a loving silence that I can't translate very well in words. Like, He's saying, you'll have to leave the answer to that in Me for now; I'll guide you into that further on down the road, but I love that you wonder about it.

Sometimes it's an actual answer. Like, He speaks to me.

I was dancing around the kitchen on tiptoes as I made spaghetti. I loved all over my husband as soon as he got in the door. The man didn't know what to do with me.

I kept waking up last night with this feeling of warm delight all through me and then I would remember again. God was with me. Christ was in me, and I in Him. He was present and available. I have my being through Him.

We can't love Christ in the flesh, because His body isn't down here anymore. Obviously. Instead or because of, or simultaneously, we love the people around us here, and loving them is loving Him. Anyway, that's the conclusion I came to. Our acts of service to each other are really acts of service to Him. Or they can be.

I used to read the Gospel and hear nothing but condemnation. Even when Christ spoke directly to the Pharisees, I thought He must be talking about me, and my sinful heart, which was full of decay while the outward part of me looked deceptively attractive.

I thought, I am a miserable creature and cannot come close to Him. I told myself it is a terrible covetous sin that I wish to be.

How bound up I was in self hatred! No wonder I couldn't read the Bible. It was nothing but a lash for my soul.

Come to think of it, I don't even know how it was that I got free of that. I still read things that cut, but instead of hurting myself with them, I give them over to Him.

Sometimes, He explains them to me. Sometimes I then put the explanation right out of mind, because I can't accept His grace.

Other times, He doesn't explain them, but there is a peaceful rest, because He is carrying His own words for me, if that makes sense. He's holding on to them, until I can understand them.

I'm so grateful that I'm alive, that I exist, so that I can know Him. The fact that God is as He is, and that He made me as I am, is astounding to me. His love of us is beyond understanding.

September 26th

2011-09-26T07:31:00.000-07:00

I feel very blah today.

I was reading this blog about a woman that's been on the infertility journey for almost seven years. Pretty much her entire thirties. They tried everything., including a surrogate mother. That pregnancy didn't take either.

Then, the couple tried to adopt, and the local police chief in Vietnam refuses to sign the papers releasing the children. So, this couple, along with other couples who've adopted children from that orphanage, have been stuck in limbo for almost three years. Their son was seven months when he was matched to them, he was 36 months at the last blog post of hers that I read.

Can you imagine that woman's pain? Holy crap. But she sounds tough and resilient and uses humor a lot to stay sane.

We went to Denny's instead of to church yesterday. I'm trying to get some clarity on why it is I want to attend a church anyway, before trying another one. Despite the weirdness of the small Baptist church, I liked being recognized there. I felt like I was part of a community.

I think that's why I want to go to church, despite my very hermit-ish tendencies. But my developing religious and spiritual philosophies do not fly well within the traditional church environment. It takes me right to the crux of my confusion.

I have powerful internal voices telling me that I'm sinful, back slidden and unacceptable. These voices gain power within the church, because so frequently, the church's message agrees with the voices.

Simultaneously, those old and inbred voices are telling me that I can't understand God outside the context of religious authority. The very idea that I could is blasphemous, ridiculous, laughable.

Then I have another voice reminding me that what I'm feeling isn't conviction, it's condemnation; it's an ancient condemnation that I'll never placate by any action of mine.

I keep getting the feeling that the church wants me to be in submission to it- to its pastor and its unique group dynamics. It feels like the church wants to play three important roles in my life: to be a direct pipeline to God, to be a translation for His voice and to verify that my actions are acceptable.

The problem is, I grow increasingly jealous of those roles; I want them for Christ. I think that He, not the church, is my pipeline to God. I think that He is the Word, and I think that through Him my life and my actions are redeemed. He is the one that teaches me how to live my life.

When I attend church, I participate in a set emotional ritual. I should come to church feeling good that I have presented my physical person properly to the church, with the acceptable and necessary equipment. I can feel especially good about myself if I attended my small/life group earlier.

Once church begins, I should feel bad that I have sinned during the week and that I have not prayed enough, read my Bible enough, or gone to the Wednesday prayer/study group. Or, if I did, that I did not pray out loud or that I did not read the assigned section in my study book, or that I had doubts or questions that I knew were unacceptable.

During worship service, I should repent and go with the emotional flow. I must work myself up, using the lights and the sounds, to reach the acceptable fever pitch.

Then, before the emotions have a chance to wear off, they pass around the offering/tithes plate/bag and I give tithes but I feel guilty because I haven't given an offering. Or, I don't give the full tithes and I know that I'm sinning big time.

However, I get a burst of pride and accomplishment when I put my envelope in the bag. No else knows what I'm giving, but they can see that I do. In the eyes of the church, I'm acceptable.

Then I prepare to humbly take in what the pastor is teaching me. I busily scribble notes in my study guide. I look up the verses in my Bible. I Participate.

At the alter call, I feel how miserable is my state and how far I have yet to go, and how infrequently I feel the presence of God in my daily life, which is full of HGTV, loading the dishwasher and early morning commutes to work.

I repent, but I'm not brave enough to go up to the front of the church. I feel bad, but I pour out my heart as best I can on my own.

Or maybe I'm desperate enough that I do go down to the front. I'm deeply humbled and yet exulted. I'm a dear daughter of the church. I say that I want to receive more of God. I receive the laying on of hands and lots of impassioned prayer.

Then I walk out. I feel emptied, clear and sparkling like a goblet washed with Cascade. By that evening, however, already I feel the film of the world shifting down over me. I read an extra chapter of the Bible to try and desperately hold on to it.

Maybe I pray longer. Maybe I skip my favorite show. Maybe I get addicted to denying myself things in order to feel good about myself. I go on religious purges like other people go on diets. Maybe I'm immune to all this and I just go to church because I always have.

Church is like a club. It has membership dues, initiation rites, and ceremonies. It has standards for membership and a vertical authority system. Some rites are for members only, others are open to guests as well. We look up over the backs of every one's heads up to the pastor, who is the only one who can look us in the face.

When I attend church, I'm directly engaging these old, powerful patterns of belief and behavior. It's exhausting and it's stressful. It's frightening to live in the question, instead of leap at the answer.

But how weak is Christ, anyway? Is He so weak that the people who question church slip right out of His grasp? Is He chained to the pulpit like a dog on a leash? Is He so obtuse that He can't talk to people's hearts without the church's official translation?

Is the devil so powerful that he can pretend to be Christ, and speak lies into people's hearts, and Christ just stands there off to the side, wringing His scarred hands in consternation, unable to free His son or daughter from deception, because that person isn't in church?

I think not. I think it's terrible to believe so. I think the real church is vast and invisibile to the world. The world doesn't recognize it, because it's organized according to people's hearts. It doesn't have political sway or a collection plate or a dress code. It's made up of all those bruised and broken hearts that hunger after Christ where ever they happen to be, inside or outside of a church building.

September 22nd

2011-09-22T08:35:00.000-07:00

How can it be this close to the end of this month? I thought it just began.

Also, when the hell is it ever going to become cool? I mean, less than scorching hot is always welcome, but when the hell are we going to see cool temperatures down here?

It's still freakin' hot and humid during the day. Long into the evening, when one is trying to get to sleep, one is panting like a dog and refusing to turn on the A/C, because it's mid September, for god's sake. And the electricity rates are still doubled. I'd rather sweat into the sheets than be taken to the cleaners.

Wait... wait... I think I just felt a cool breeze.

Ok, so, I've been watching a fair amount of truly crappy anime. That's because I ran out of the ten percent that's worth watching and keep venturing out into venues I normally avoid, like high school dramas and let's ride in the large mechanical war machines and save earth from the other political faction that no one understands because its too freakin' complicated to follow, all while we're still thirteen years old, with pink hair.

Therefore, I feel equipped to make a list of the top absolutely necessary character types for any anime. It doesn't matter if this is set in ancient Japan or deepest space- any anime worth its salt must have these characters.

Naive guy/girl-

This is the star of the show. Typically, they are built small, especially if they are a guy. Slight, doe eyed, sometimes downright bony naifs lead the plot by their good natured or down right ignorant passions. "Let's save the village!" "My dad didn't lie about his space career!" "Let's bring our mother back from the dead using forbidden magic!"

Slowly, their innocence is ripped from them as they face increasingly trying times, like having their bodies ripped apart, forcing them to wear mechanical suits, or searching out magic beads before the demons find them and become uber demons or watching their mentor/father/sibling/village die.

Jaded guy-

This is the other type of hero, the anti hero. He has hair that looks like a neon paint splatter, or it's just straight black. He typically dresses as though he came from a 1980's music video. If fact, in between being uncaring and laid back, he sometimes actually does play the guitar.

Sometimes he's a detective. Other times, he's the bastard son of the king of the vampires and a human woman and rides a mechanical horse. Or he's a whip skinny, remarkably agile guy in a tuxedo suit that comes fully equipped with insta-guns. Don't be fooled, though, because he actually does care. Children will usually make this evident.

Oversexed, older woman-

(And by older, I mean, she might be all of twenty.) This character is easily recognizable by her size double G bosoms. They are always very much on display and may even come with their own sound effects. Her moral compass is usually a little skewed, probably from carrying around all that weight up front.

She either tells it like it is, and gets off on beating up smaller guys, or she's a complete idiot and runs into things, like walls or other characters. Fortunately, she's got lots of padding.

Even though she's the most obviously sexy and mature character, she will almost never fall in love. If she does, it usually ends badly, usually by her trying to kill her lover, or being rejected by him, as he chooses the doe eyed naif over her more ample attractions.

Grey haired guy-

Every anime has one of these, but he can be tricky to pin down. The hair can be long or short. In rare cases, it might be blue or white.

He might be the sneaky, suave, sadistic bad guy who smiles ever so slightly as someone dies. He could be the sentient data life form that's moving through the internet, when he isn't animating grey haired humanoid clones.

He could be the full fledged dog demon with one arm and a mysterious furry ruff over his shoulder who wanders around seemingly aimlessly with a servile toad at his ankles. In this case, he will have a sword that can bring people back from the dead, but he won't use it, because he's mean that way.

Sometimes naif guy has grey hair, which can throw a person off. I could go on and on. Which ever way it goes, you can be fairly certain that grey haired guy isn't going to talk much, won't explain his history and will probably be deadly. He may even die.

Child-

Animes have them, usually to try and convince you that the hero/heroine really isn't a child, by contrasting them to someone who's six. Yes, compared to six, twelve does seem old. Almost always, this is a girl child and she's ultra cute.

She has the whole doe eyed thing down, in fact, her eyes take up a full third of her face. She's all dressed in ruffles and her voice is so high pitched that it can break glass. Or, she hardly talks at all. Sometimes she likes to cook, with mixed results. Often, she's an orphan.

The following are a few events you can almost always look forward to enjoying while watching anime:

-A glimpse of some poor girl's panties. No matter how much running, jumping, sitting, killing or kicking they know they're going to do, they never change out of their six inch, pleated skirt.

-Somebody dying, but not really. Oh wait, no. Really. They're dead. Wait... Maybe not.

-Girls playing volleyball in swimsuit bottoms and sweatshirt tops.

-Pink pony tails.

-The completely unnecessary shower scene.

-The never ending panorama of easily disposable bad guys so the group can practise their skills before taking on the undead sorcerer, greedy politician, monster demon, zombie laden science lab or ultra advanced mech suit.

If it's a samurai anime, then be prepared to watch seppuku. Also, at some point, some one's arm will be cut off with a spray of gore.

Also, be prepared for there to be no romance at all. If anyone is falling in love with anyone else in a samurai anime, no one is admitting to it.

There will probably be some key, romantic scene which will be the trigger for the rest of the anime, and you will be guaranteed to miss it completely, because all they did was stand on the same veranda together for a moment while the cicadas chirped.

Unless it's Ninja Scroll. But that's ninjas, which is a whole different category of anime.

Ah, anime. I make fun of it, but a person can clearly see how it's influenced my writing. I remember the first time I saw one. I was at my aunt and uncle's house and they had cable- specifically, they had the Cartoon Network.

Someone had left it on one morning, and I was just in time to watch an episode with a blue haired, cool and removed character pull his girl into his arms and kiss her deeply before tossing her into the escape capsule and hitting the button without getting in himself.

Oh, the drama! I was hooked, I tell you, hooked. I was entranced as I watched the girl press her face to the glass as the escape capsule slid away. Blue haired guy just stood there, composed, removed, implacable. Then the space station blew up.

I still don't know what anime that was, or what happened in the end. But it remains forever enshrined in my memory; time has not taken away the thrill of that kiss.

September 21st

2011-09-21T07:40:00.000-07:00

It's so bad that I give writing advice and yet have never been published. Heh.

But, for what it's worth, here are a few more tips I've found helpful.

Keep a style sheet. My editor friend turned me on to this. Just keep a running list of mistakes you find yourself making over and over again. Post it somewhere where you can see it. It helps you become more aware of them.

If you are stuck, here is a list of possible things to unblock you, from least severe to total writer's block.

1. Stop writing and check facebook. Just don't get stuck there for hours- I know that's easier said than done.

2. Stop writing and move around. I wash the dishes, or switch the laundry.

3. Change the music. Sometimes music in a different mood calls up a new inspiration.

4. Stop and reread what you've written so far. If that doesn't work, go back further. Start at the very beginning. Bring to mind your vision for the story, the thing you want to convey above all, the thing you love the most about it.

5. Open up a brand new sheet and start hammering out the plot, or arrange what you already have by plot points.

6. Blog about it or bounce ideas off someone.

7. If you are really well and truly stuck, like I was when I was wrestling with the stupid road, stop writing altogether for a day or so. Just push it right out of your mind. Have faith in your subconscious. It will be hard at work, bubbling away back there.

Sooner or later, it will spit an idea out at you. But you have to leave it alone for a while for it to do it's thing. So watch a movie or read a book or do your homework or whatever. Just stop thinking about it for a little while.

8. If you've done this for a couple of days, and still nothing, open a new sheet and just do stream of consciousness writing. Just write whatever the hell the comes into your head. Or start a brand new story. The point is to keep writing. Never stop writing out of sheer discouragement.

I've gotten my rewrite up to the library. It's such a massive jigsaw puzzle. I'm constantly moving around bits of the original dialogue and description into new settings. I like the results, though. I think it's much better this way.

Before, the story was a narrow, sometimes illogical or unnatural channel as I drove it mercilessly from start to finish. Now I can take that original channel and reroute and widen it.

It's that time of the month, and boy, are the hormones savage. Women's bodies are at the mercy of such a messy chemistry.

Today I feel like crying for no reason. Yesterday, when Keith spent a hundred and fifty dollars more than anticipated, it was a very close thing before I could restrain myself from throwing something at him.

He looked over at my face and recoiled. He gave a little nervous laugh. "I shouldn't be afraid of you!" he insisted.

Poor guy. He should not be. Though, I wonder if all men are just a little bit scared of their wives during this time of the month... Anyhow, I threw over the anger instead and crawled up on the couch with him.

I still think spending that much money was completely unnecessary, but that's one of those topics of conversations that will, for the sake of marriage, remain closed indefinitely.

Last night, I had a whole series of dreams, but I only remember parts of the last of them.

In that dream, I was conceiving children, but they had mortal abnormalities that caused them to die before they were born. It was something to do with their hearts; their hearts weren't strong enough to keep them alive.

Then I conceived three children, and the doctor told me that two would actually live, but the third would not. She was excited for me, because of the two that would live.

I could see them, and as I watched, the third one increasingly struggled to breathe until finally, he had no more strength and died. It happened so slowly. There was nothing I could do.

I still felt incredible joy at the fact that the other two were living. I kept touching them to make sure they were alive.

I'll bet that dream is why I felt like crying this morning.