the beautiful ones

along with some more of the gorgeous sunrise memories from last weekend,

I am going to lift my heart in praise for all of

the beautiful ones

that have profoundly touched my life in this past week:

for the heart of the man I love and who touches the lives of everyone he meets

for the joy of my sweet daughter who is tons of fun for everyone

for the precious-hearted son who yet seeks to understand the Jesus who died for him

for the young man who has touched us all…his senseless death a reminder of many beautiful years that will only be “what if’s”

for his brother beside him who must put back the pieces of his body and life

for a new friend who has been a gift already…sharing in pain and Him

for a church elder who would be vulnerable enough to shed tears and share heartbreak and hope in preparation for Communion

for the sweet friend who offered her family to share in Communion

for the young man saved from this world’s evils that now teaches my son about Jesus on Sunday mornings

for a little happy adopted one I could care for while his parents were fed the Word and had Communion

for a long lost friend who asks for prayer desiring God’s best and is willing to sacrifice for it

for a dear friend who trusts me enough to carry her in prayer in a dark, dark time

for a friend who is opening her heart even when it has been hurt…choosing to love and not harden

for an amazing woman who follows Jesus and encourages constantly amidst great betrayal and heartache

for the friends who care more about deep conversation than a football game

for many who are praying we can be ministers in the brokenness of so many young people’s grief

for family that shares a legacy of HEART for this broken world…and remind me what I am a part of

for a mama with Jesus who becomes more beautiful as I walk the road she walked with such grace and love

and for many, many more

most of all, for Jesus…who shows me more of Himself through these beautiful ones…

reflections of His infinite beauty  (#267-287)

   

the beautiful ones

let the pain…

let the pain cry from caverns unknown

let the pain furrow through heart’s callous

let the pain utter in gasping breaths

let the pain stand and walk and run

let the pain find another’s own

let the pain birth communion true

let the pain kneel and partake of him

let the pain knit together; make whole

let the pain rise in triune’s praise

AWA  11/7/2010

(thought it fitting that this came together on

a Sunday where i partook in communion)

a catalog poem (i think)

www.thehighcalling.org

let the pain…

Twenty Minutes Is Time Enough…

Time enough to take a break.

Time enough to allow a servant husband to take care of two children

and hit the sidewalk pavement hard with sneakers

pounding, pounding, pounding out

with each step the pent up emotions

and fragmented thoughts of a day

running into a week,

a month,

a year and

even more years.

Time enough to allow the Spirit to speak

into a crowded, over-worked mind.

Time enough to breathe out the tension

of neverending mommy demands

and breathe in the freedom of being loved.

Time enough to confess

the silly distractions

you crave

and plead for higher, deeper desires

to see a broken world made whole--

new lives for old.

Time enough to reflect on the journey...

days past and places risen to

and fallen from.

Time enough to recognize the passion

that once consumed life's work--

that longing to be loved.

Truly loved.

Time enough to see the flower of self

blooming before unworthy spectators

who were believed to be the tender of the soil.

Time enough to remember

the wilting of the petals

of a brightly blooming being

pleading for affirmation of its beauty.

Time enough to Praise.

Praise for falling petals

and crumbling stems

and all of the shattered hopes of former days.

Time enough to warm in innermost heart

upon the greatest of lessons learned.

Before the flower was a bud

or shoot or seed,

even without form,

only a thought--

there was Love.

Love itself to create all that is.

Seen outwardly.

Known inwardly.

Love to see the deepest ugliness

of the misshapen,

the roots that fail to spring up,

the stems that fail to stand,

the buds that do not open

and the petals that wilt before fully spread.

Love to defy the opinions

of all the unworthy ones

who were foolishly allowed

to behold.

To touch.

To know.

Love to have and to hold.

Love that is the source of life--

not the manipulator of it.

Twenty minutes is time enough

to know and be known.

Time Enough to love and be loved.

Time Enough to come back

with the same old sneakers,

and waiting needs of little ones,

but to have pounded

the pavement of memory

and to have the Spirit

touch His fingers

on the deep of the soul.

Time Enough to have a heart renewed

and a love re-kindled

because twenty sacred minutes

are a gift to the one who is loved

by Love itself.

AWA 5/2010 

Re-post for thehighcalling.org,

although not really a poem,

or a catalog one,

something like it. 

If you stumble upon,

hope you enjoy:)

Twenty Minutes Is Time Enough…

dying to words…the Word re-born

Words have been clamoring too much and often these days.


A tangled mess of lies, fears, standards, self-seeking, life-ebbing words. 


Too many and too few.


Too few of the weighty words.  The words that have meaning.


Too little silence to digest the words I need.


Reminding me I will ever be dying to words. My words and all the cheap and flimsy that have overtaken our world.


Wanting perspective I knew it would bring,
I picked up my faithful Henri Nouwen Reader
and took in his thoughts regarding “Words and Silence”.


(for anyone coming from thehighcalling.org , this first paragraph especially speaks to technology overload…words in so many directions)


Here is a sampling:


“Words…have lost their creative power. Their limitless multiplication has made us lose confidence in words and caused us to think more often than not, ‘They are just words.’  The word no longer communicates, no longer fosters communion, no longer creates community, and therefore no longer gives life.


“Silence is the home of the word.  Silence gives strength and fruitfulness to the word.  We can even say that words are meant to disclose the mystery of the silence from which they come. 


(of the Desert Fathers) “ …the word is the instrument of the present world and silence is the mystery of the future world.  If a word is to bear fruit, it must be spoken from the future world into the present world.


“Out of eternal silence God spoke the Word, and through this Word created and recreated the world.  In the beginning God spoke the land, the sea and the sky…finally, God spoke man and woman.  Then, in the fullness of time, God’s Word, through whom all had been created, became flesh and gave power to all who believe to become the children of God.   In all this, the word of God does not break the silence of God, but rather unfolds the immeasurable richness of that silence…” 
The Way of the Heart p. 57-59 of the Reader


How often have my own words been ‘just words’?


They’ve fallen far short of the redemptive power of the One True Word.  They have come out of much noisy striving and not the silence.  His glorious, rich silence.


Many years ago, with full dreams and mighty plans words were life.  My words. The life I wanted to live.   Though full of the right things and the courage to speak them, I believed that it would be my words that would change others…that made me, me.  I crafted and painted and etched and spent myself giving life to these words.  I believed I had a heart big enough to pour out through them. 


To change the world.


Then the world I believed would come to be…evaporated.  The love I poured into the dreams I held dear manifested in the words shared was taken away forever.  


My words had failed.


I left my disintegrated dreams and saw the end of the power of my words.  My heart was raw and knew a pain deeper…


I put one foot in front of the other and my words dried up.  I now realize I was being brought through the painful process of dying to words. my words. all the words that pass away.


And in another realm, the words I continued to pour into prayers for those I loved…for the healing of a most beloved mother even before that great, vast, horrid thing called cancer came…were not answered as my heart believed and my prayerful words pleaded.  


Their pouring out was followed by the wasting away of a life, and the letting go of the last hold I had on words that could change.


Then followed a dying…an eight and a half year silence where words would not meet pen and paper or form page along with the joy they once brought in their making, forming, and crafting.


I sought to live the words I once said.  I refused to write what I knew would not change.  I asked for something new.  The silence was at work.


There were stirrings. Words designed to show me a heart I couldn’t understand—they eked out slowly…spurts of something…glimmers of what comes after dying to words. The kingdom of words, my words and the meaningless ones that roam, a shambles…making room for the Kingdom of the The One True Word.

I’m still crippled and I falter as I seek to pour out an offering of words that center upon that Eternal Word.


But, by His Grace…I’ve learned to die.

Die to my words—seeing how impotent they are without the breath, the Glory, the Great Mystery of He who spoke out of eternal Silence.  And continues to speak the only life ever known…before all time began, til now, and for all time to come and this moment’s too.

It is with a commitment to dying…dying daily, even moment by moment, with each word penned, prayed, pondered, perceived or projected that I walk this way of the Word.


 Living the Word is impossible unless I know it.  I have to write it on my heart and ask that this perfect, beautiful, infallible Word would penetrate all of the polluted layers that come from living in this world of the fake, flimsy and fallible that fade.


So in this spirit I join Ann and the like-minded and hearted at Holy Experience in Memorizing More, Much, Multiplying the Word Manifold in all that is this way we walk.

His Word I’ve written upon my heart and type in memory…that speak to dying to my words and all that is me and my heart and soul are thirsty for many more to be written upon it:
“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”  John 1:1 (I’m going to start memorizing all of this!)
“For me to live is Christ, to die is gain.”  Philippians 1:21
“I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.  The life I live I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.”  Galatians 2:20
“But when the time had fully come, God sent His Son born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law that we might receive the full rights of sons.” Galatians 4:6-7
“Those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.  To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.  The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God for it does not submit to God’s law indeed it cannot.  Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”  Romans 8: 5-8
Currently memorizing…writing on my heart:
Psalms 37 (have v.1-7 so far!)
John 1

dying to words…the Word re-born

Oh, It’s Daddy’s Vacuum!

This evening, as I’m getting ready to leave, my little blond-haired three year-old love comes through the hallway to the bathroom where I am.  As he sees the vacuum in the hall he exclaims,
“Oh it’s Daddy’s Vacuum!”
At first I get a little defensive and think, “Hey, I vacuum too!” 
And then I pause and am reminded of how sweet it is that my son is learning from his daddy the bigs and the littles. 


He is learning…
…to love high school students and embrace them unreservedly.
…Daddy knows his way around the kitchen (almost;) as well as mommy.
…to be a man after God’s own heart.
…Daddy’s can work through grocery lists with kids in cart.
…to open his heart to everyone he meets…and the Good News is always ready to be shared.
…Daddy loves him enough to meet his need—even in the middle of the night.
…to pray for the needs of others at any point in the day.
…and that Daddy’s Vacuum too!
I wasn’t able to grab the button, but this was posted for “Chatting At the Sky’s”
Tuesdays Unwrapped…you can join too!

Oh, It’s Daddy’s Vacuum!

this broken one

it’s happening right now

that muddled mess,

called ‘deceiving heart’

receiving UNtruth

instead of truth.

i’m calling it what it is.

A LIE.

“You are unlovable—

you are not worthy of it.”

tears are flowing

as i voice

and purge

this venom.

more tears.

i’m praying for a river

for it is

a great purging

that must be done.

wounded heart

that hurts

and longs

and struggles

for acceptance.

why must this darkness

still haunt me?

i long for it

to be cast aside

forever

and for all that is true

to be mine.

for the Love that has come

and sees

and ever cares

to rest within me

unshakable.

unmovable.

stayed.

oh Cure for the poisoned

hold your cup to my lips.

drinking in

course through my veins.

blood that fills heart

be the healing for

this broken one.

AWA 11/1/2010

One Stop Wednesday at http://oneshotpoetry.blogspot.com/

this broken one

Opportunities to Behold…Reflected Glory

I received the third of an amazing set of gifts this past weekend…a third sunrise in less than a month (here is a poem inspired by the first two that came in a weekend with girlfriends away at the ocean).  It came unexpectedly as I had brought our two little children for the second night of a youth retreat where my husband was.  These are great opportunities but difficult to navigate and can often leave me discouraged at all of the ministering to the students I am NOT able to do, instead of being thankful for the gift of being together and how a loving family and marriage ministers to this broken world.

 

So in the morning, tired and weary, I went to see IF there was a good view of the sunrise at the camp. How could I have wondered IF?  Of beautiful course our glorious, gracious, extravagant Abba Father God would have had such a gift!

Sealed in my heart and with a wonderful set of pictures, it has given me pause to think of the Reflected Glory that I daily behold…
-each child’s smile that reflects a God who enjoys
- a husband’s grace that reflects a God who forgives
-tearful pleas that reach my ears that reflect a God who hears
-beauty beheld that reflects a groaning creation longing to be set free by a Redeeming God
-adorable, round chubby cuteness that is a magnet for young people to whom we minister that reflects a God who delights
-little eyes still moist that melt my heart and reflect a God who has compassion

  -a dancing one year-old that reflects a God who inhabits praise
-an ache for a friend that pulls me into hard praying and reflects a Risen Savior who “ever lives to intercede”
-an endless cycle of doubts, fears and frustrations poured out to Him that reflects a God who promises to “finish the good work He has begun”
-every beautiful thing that squeezes my heart and expands its longing that reflect a God who is All the Glory Forever and Ever Amen.

(#256-266)

“Oh Lord, this new morning I praise You that ‘in this glass dimly’ (I Corinthians 13) there are myriad opportunities to behold.  Behold Exquisite Beauty.  And yet its deepest soul touch is but a reflection of all that will be seen and known on that Glorious Day and forevermore when we see you face to face…and in some great mystery I cannot comprehend--in the beholding of this reflection, that Glory which is infinitely full and complete somehow is deepened…and the beholder becomes like Him who is All Glory.”

 

 

Hallelujah! What a Saviour!  What a Redeeming God!  What a One to Behold!

 

(also linked to the Blog Carnival at Bridget Chumbley’s)

Opportunities to Behold…Reflected Glory