unveiled

sometimes,
love’s like this:

actions first,
feelings follow.

it’s a day.

i running late, 

i lose my temper at littles, 

i miss my people, 

and i can’t yet run.

the breathing, the cultivating, the eucharisteo - 

it’s not going so well.  

He beckons me, 

and i say yes.

i choose slow.

and they’re her words, 

but they’re straight from Him: 

“Don’t grieve that it’s gone, wonder that it was.

Laugh that you lived and dance that you dared.

Inhale that it happened — and it was grace.

And I memorize the light and the mess of us and the ABC’s of living and them all here and us right now and that — that is how to make the smallest life big and grand –

The best way to prepare for what’s ahead is to be present to what is now.

Be present to the gift of now.

And right then –

the sheer sheen of grace on everything lights.” 

So.

breathe in.  breathe out. 

“all is grace” as she says.   

let’s live this life He gives to the full.  

i don’t know what to say
but that i thought i was doing so well and then
today, she said to me the
words about my body that my broken and disordered
brain craves to hear and
its like the volume turned right
back up on those
voices and i wanted to not eat and to
run a hundred miles and
force my body to be thin.

i don’t know what to say
but that i confess it right out loud to
the friend, and she doesn’t condemn,
she just listens and she is the
Hands and the Feet
and the honest voice pointing the way
to Grace.

i don’t know what to say
but that He meets me,
and i breathe another breathe
and know that this thorn in
my side may never go away
but His Grace is sufficient for me.

“No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us.”

Simple. Beautiful. True.

Breathe it.
Pursue it.
Live it.

i find that i owe the world a great apology

for who am i to say

who you are, 

who you were,

and who you may become?

who am i to project my 

contrived notions of

what you do, 

what you feel, 

and what you hold most dear?

who am i to

shut you out, 

close my fists and my eyes 

and my heart to you?

who am i to restrict you and

keep you -

if only in my own mind - 

from love?

i can only offer what i promise is the sincerest of apologies

and this promise from a humbled heart:

if you will have me,

if you will still speak, 

i will listen.

if you will have me, 

i will open and not judge.

if you will have me, 

we could journey together, 

in all our messy beauty, 

in all the wonder of our brokenness,

and keep learning together.  

and the day came
when i was done with the rules,
done with the closed-fist pursuit of self-righteousness.

because i realized that this has become less about Him
and more about me -
my fears, my anxiety,
and my trust in myself to get things just right.
following the rules is
how i hide from my human-ness,
how i hold my breathe and
pretend that the brokenness isn’t there,
how i pretend that i have control.

i’m suffocating myself
and i’m suffocating others,
because we weren’t created to have it all together.

what i want to say to the world is this:

i am a mess and i am beautiful and i am okay.
you are a mess and you are beautiful and you are okay.
let’s let that unfurl and blossom and thrive in us.

today i thank Him for

the breathe of grace that is

holiness in the middle of hectic,

sacred in the middle of stress,

and the sanctuary of this place:

if i’m honest, 

honest down past the bones, into the marrow, 

what i want more than anything is

to have it all together

and

what i am more than anything is 

just a mess.

and this too, is grace.  

maybe its the sunshine of the morning,

or her poetry, sacred and sure.

maybe its the words spoken over dinner,   

or this un-systematic lenten practice. 

whatever it is, 

it makes the breathe come

piercing and sharp: 

what if i spend this whole life trying to get it perfect

and don’t really live at all?

i want it out - 

out of my lungs and my heart and my life - 

and i’m gasping and breathing it in over and over, 

and its piercing and stabbing the tender, broken places 

of my soul.

sometimes the breathe of grace hurts,

and all i can do is just breathe through it, 

force the air into my lungs, 

because i know that i need it.

i’m done suffocating myself,

all done “breathing just a little, and calling it a life”  

so no matter the pain, 

i’ll breathe in this grace, 

and hope to breathe it out.

i tell her that i’m suffocating and she writes about the mustard seeds

and i journey the week and come to the thought that 

maybe i am suffocating myself.

me, living with closed fist and breathe held, 

letting nothing out of my grasp, yes,

but also letting nothing in.  

“if you grasp and cling to life on your terms, you’ll lose it.”

i am grasping and clinging to these ideas of 

who He is and who i am 

and i’m trying to control things 

and i.  am.  suffocating.  myself.  

so i open, and breathe

and accept the grace 

and allow myself not to have it all together, right now.

and that’s when i really breathe and really come alive

and see these little mustard seeds of the kingdom everywhere.

it’s quite different that i thought it would be.

He is quite different than i thought He would be - 

quite different than these ideas to which i’ve been clinging.

and it’s okay.

it’s okay for me to not have all the answers or know everything about Him.

because this knowing Him started out as a holy and high calling, 

and quickly became a way to manipulate and control Him, 

(pitiful and shameful as that may be)

and because in closing my fists and holding my breathe, 

not only have i missed out on parts of Him, of His fullness and abundance,

i’ve also lost what i was trying so hard to hold onto.  

so it’s okay

for me to not be in control -

because i never really was anyway, 

as was whispered to me over the table in her living room: 

“you aren’t controlling this,

this is controlling you.”  

and i confess it and i am free and i can breathe

grace, in and out.  

i just couldn’t choose. 

there were so many things i need to fix

and so many goals to accomplish.

all good and noble things - 

like cultivating authenticity, 

and memorizing scripture, 

and practicing gratitude, 

and ceasing complaining - 

and i got overwhelmed.

and then i realized - 

lent isn’t about fixing anything.

fixing is all about me and my efforts.

lent is about opening myself and receiving

that which i can’t do for myself,

that which has been done for me.  

so lent this year is a little of this and a little of that - 

opening the hands and 

staying in the moment and 

being authentic: 

breathing in this grace

so i can breathe it back out.  

“By faith Moses left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw Him who is invisible.”

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?

- phone calls with mary evelyn that go late into the night

- alarm clocks 

- making it through my run this morning

- my mother picking up the phone and offering wisdom

- hard conversations where i admit my flaws and failures

- speaking the truth in love to myself because the truth has been spoken to me

- quote-sharing texts from valerie

- mid-morning naps when He covers my heart and mind with peace

- friends who bring grace and gatorade

- a day of sweet rest

- early bedtimes

- new mercies in the morning 

What wouldn’t I give, to just once more
stand with my people
in the sacred, still space
of stained glass windows and candles flickering,
and worship together,
feeling that,
in just this moment,
“on earth as it is in heaven”
is real, and alive, and happening.

But going back isn’t a thing,
and I don’t know what the future may hold.
So I pray and long for new community here in this life,
and moreso for the day
when we’ll stand before the Throne
and sing and see -
see Him face to face.

“High King of Heaven,
my victory won.
May I reach heaven’s joys,
O bright Heaven’s Sun!
Heart of my own heart,
whatever befalls,
still be my vision,
O Ruler of all.”

“God is educating you; that’s why you must never drop out. He’s treating you as dear children. This trouble you’re in isn’t punishment; it’s training, the normal experience of children. Only irresponsible parents leave children to fend for themselves. Would you prefer an irresponsible God? We respect our own parents for training and not spoiling us, so why not embrace God’s training so we can truly live? While we were children, our parents did what seemed best to them. But God is doing what is best for us, training us to live God’s holy best. At the time, discipline isn’t much fun. It always feels like it’s going against the grain. Later, of course, it pays off handsomely, for it’s the well-trained who find themselves mature in their relationship with God.”

Hebrews 12:6-11

My heart is so full from Passion 2013,
and moreso from Jesus,
that when I sit down to write and just have no words.

So I look at the past two posts and see,
really see,
how He was already awakening my heart to justice and
calling me to take my place in the Justice Generation
and be in it to end it.

So as a starting point of processing the
explosion of my heart and soul that’s happened
in the past four days,
I’d like to re-post,
because these are just two of the things that are making my heart explode right now:

The Word: Luke 9:26
“Jesus said,’You can’t put God’s kingdom off till tomorrow. Seize the day!”

And This Song, which is making me weep for the 27 million enslaved around the world.

“Do you hear the people sing, lost in the valley of the night?
It is the music of a people who are climbing to the Light.
For the wretched of the earth, there is a Flame that never dies.
Even the darkest night will end and the Son will rise!”
“Will you join in our crusade, who will be strong and stand with me?
Somewhere beyond the barricade is there a world you long to see?
Do you hear the people sing, say do you hear the distant drums?
It is the future that we bring when tomorrow comes!
Tomorrow comes!”

So to finish and to quote the song we sang in the Dome:
“All of heaven shouts, let the future begin!”

enditmovement.com

“Jesus said…You can’t put God’s kingdom off till tomorrow. Seize the day”

Luke 9:62 MSG

i am poised to run, 

to run away, again.

its ironic that i use the word poised

because Lord knows i’m anything but poised right now.

but i digress.  

so there i am, on the corner of 21st,

and that’s when He whispers, 

sweetly and majestically, 

“Run to Me, for I am your home.”

sometimes,
i whisper-wonder
what it would be like
if i stopped trying so hard,
and just let God love me.

From Jesus Calling by Sarah Young

December 8

“Your needs and My riches are a perfect fit. I never meant for you to be self-sufficient. Instead, I designed you to need Me not only for daily bread but also for fulfillment of deep yearnings. I carefully crafted your longings and feelings of incompleteness, to point you to Me. Therefore, do not try to bury or deny these feelings. Beware also of trying to pacify these longings with lesser gods: people, possessions, power.

Come to Me in all your neediness, with defenses down and with desire to be blessed. As you spend time in My Presence, your deepest longings are fulfilled. Rejoice in your neediness, which enables you to find intimate completion in Me.”

And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.
—Philippians 4:19

My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
—Colossians 2:2–3

So we come to the end,
and my soul is in tatters.

I need Him,
desperatley.