I've neglected this little blog a while... But recently I prayed that I might find my own words again, rather than simply retweeting those belonging to everyone else. God told me that this writing thing is about remembering who I am and who He is and what He made me to be and how I'm in His image and a million other things. Also? He suggested I get my butt in gear and type.
Five minutes of writing seems like a good place to start again. Gently does it.
I am hungry for community. So hungry it hurts, because it never seems to come. The never is maybe a lie, because sometimes it takes time. I get so tired of holding out my heart and having people not be interested. I want to have people to do life with, to share a joke and to share tears. I want to be able to love people and serve people and go for coffee and change the world. Love has to be the thing. (Oh look, there's my word for 2012...) Loving people and not having them love you back is a hard thing. Jesus has an abundance of love for me, and oh how I love Him, love Him, love Him. Is it so bad to want a hug once in a while? Just to be held, just to hold someone, their heart, their dreams, so that they can go out into the world and change it?
Community with Jesus at its heart is a light to this hurting world where individualism runs rampant, and silently, slowly chokes the life out of all of us. We are made for relationship by a beautiful, loving God, and loneliness silently kills the soul. I pray for a loveplace that goes to the hurting and broken and lonely with open arms and just says, 'Welcome... We will love you.'
Stop.
five minute friday with Lisa-Jo at The Gypsy Mama - come and play?
I read today that depression empties you, and renders you unable to absorb that which will satisfy. And that feels true, especially of today. I chose today as a rest day, a precious day off, and it has been grey and unsatisfying. No rest, just... Emptiness. I cleaned the house, contemplated some laundry, had a small theological discussion on my doorstep when two Jehovah's Witnesses came a-calling. There is a hollowness to today, and it creates an ache and hollows out my bones until all the strength is gone.
There is a paradox here, though. Because also? I pray for emptiness. That there would be less of me, less of my desires and the things that cannot satisfy, and more of Him. Of His love, His mercy, His heart for this world. I want to empty my life of the things that do not satisfy, and make room for more of Him. I must become less so that He can become more. Marriage and babies have often captivated my thoughtlife, but this week, heavy with revelation, has seen me lay that down. I can get married or I can not [regardless of the fact it often feels like it's not possible] but the point of my life is to bring freedom for the captives, cast out demons, heal the sick and raise the dead. That is what I am for, He is what I am for, and He is well worth being empty for.
five minutes, no editing
linked up with Lisa-Jo at The Gypsy Mama
five minutes with no editing...linked with Lisa-Jo at The Gypsy Mama
It sometimes requires grit, this loving God and loving people thing. It is not an easy thing to face the reality of a Kingdom battle that fights from victory and yet still has the losses and the casualties of a war not yet won. A prophetic whisper tells of what might be, and it is hard to bear alone. This burden is not mine to carry - it is His - but still I must hold it and pray it. I am not alone never ever, but knowing that God is there is sometimes less comforting than a hand that I can hold. I cannot and do not want to live a life separate from God and His love and the sacrifice that that demands. He did not compromise when it came to me - Jesus saved me and restored me and (beyond my comprehension) loves me. Wholly. Walking away from my calling [a calling I cannot yet entirely articulate, beyond a deep yearning to change the world so that it is His will and His love that rules and reigns, so that hearts are healed and made whole and people are set free from all that binds them] would be a compromise. Where else would I go? Where else could I go?
Five minutes, no editing. Linked with Lisa-Jo at The Gypsy Mama
Go.
Living tender in this world is a tough thing to do. It is a hard, hard world, so full of brokenness. It is so hard to live with a heart exposed to the sharpness of the world, hard to write out my heart, my life, even in the hidden place that is this blog. I haven't written in weeks because there are healing places that are tender and that I don't want to expose. I am falling more and more in love with Jesus as I get to know Him better through the stunning teaching I am being blessed with as part of my Soul61 year. The more I love Him, the more I want to run out into the world and talk about Him, extraordinary freedom-bringer that He is. I want to pray for my brothers and sisters and see them freed and equipped to run out into the world and take on the injustice that runs rife and breaks my heart as surely as it breaks the heart of my heavenly Daddy. I want to shape the church so that it is living loved, and can love living, running wild and free and Spirit-filled. I want to live the tender years of youth through all the ages to the days when my knees creak as I bow in worship, entirely tender-hearted and on fire for Him.
Stop.
I am woman, hear me roar.
The image that brings to mind is that of a mother lion, protecting her cubs, fiercely and fearlessly. There is something in that that I identify with, deep in my spirit. I want to protect those I hold dear with a maternal fierceness, and I can't fight it. I want to bear their burdens, hold their hopes and dreams, and kiss and pray away their hurts. I want to speak life and be a source of comfort, a safe place to which people can run. I want to be able to build up and to nurture and to send my beloveds out into the world, knowing that they are loved.
But there is more. The lion in my heart wants to roar at the world and see it changed. I want to fight injustice, and leave the bad guys trembling in the face of my strength and sharp teeth. I want to lose my fear of the fight, and see people set free to fly and be the precious people they were created to be by the One who loves us all and sent His one and only precious son. I can do none of this alone.
Without my Daddy, I am just a little cub, mewling in the dark.
Written for Five Minute Friday, with Lisa-Jo at The Gypsy Mama.
I want to live my life with my heart and arms wide open, and that gets hard and hurty and painful. I want to live with my eyes wide open to all the injustice in this God-with-us (not god-forsaken) world, and have it go straight to my heart so that all I can do is love and love and love until somehow the pain ceases. I want to be open to His will for me, for my life and not fight it, but sometimes I think that I know best and I want to fight what He says. I am in a time of pruning again again again and it hurts and would probably hurt the less if I stopped fighting. I know that pruning cuts out what is bad and leaves open space for new growth, healthy growth, something stronger and better, but still I am fighting it. I want to be open to Him, not my will, but His, and submit like a young girl submitted to bearing and birthing God-with-us over 2000 years ago. That is how I want to walk out the last days of 2011, and walk into 2012, and I am terrified.
Linked up with Lisa-Jo at The Gypsy Mama for Five Minute Friday. Won't you join in?
Five minutes. No editing.
These are the days I want to remember. There is much being made of this new start, and all the excitement and change that will follow. Having just moved to Watford and started Soul61, there is currently a magical quality to the proceedings, that seems to say that all things are possible and we are in a land of infinite wonder. Partly this is the honeymoon period... We are getting to know each other and this new place, and things have yet to get 'real'. For me, at least. I am building relationships and that is all well and good and beautiful, but I have not yet felt safe enough to be vulnerable.
This will be a year to remember. A year of challenge, of stretching, of pushing far beyond my boundaries. It would be a travesty to treat this any other way. Why then am I still aware of the darkness on the edge of my vision? The somehow constant threat of falling back into that place of pain and rage and hurt? My Daddy is good, so good, and He has brought me to this place. His strength is made perfect in my weakness, and I will hide in Him and I will be safe. That is, my heart will be safe with Him as my protector. The rest I will risk for His sake...
