The Waiting Song

Come, let us tend the garden of my heart, You, to whom it belongs.

Though it tarries yet, Your word remains

‘neath the soil of my inmost being.

The early rains and the late rains shall be pleased to make their way from heaven;

my harvest shall yield its increase

to You, my Beloved, You to whom it belongs.

  


I do not wane in the waiting, but set my face upon Jerusalem.

Come, let us tend the garden of my heart, You, to whom it belongs.

 Hebrews 6:7; James 5:7-11; Psalm 85:12; Habakkuk 2:3-4

Spirit of Adoption

I was anxious and heartbroken over my failure to steward well the much that I’ve been given. I always seem to fail. ‘I should be here,’ I think. I began to succumb to the dark waters of guilt.

I sat down at my piano, desperate for an answer. Playing a C chord and singing in the Spirit, I was lost in the Father’s heart. To whom much is given, much will be required, yes. But instead of showing me a picture of the unfaithful servant getting cut to pieces or even of the wise and faithful servant being blessed, I saw a child, before forgotten and hungry, now adopted in the arms of a father. Secure. Loved. The smile on his face contained no ounce of fear. Not one. But a knowing that he was approved of by unconditional love.

Lord, grant us the grace to know this Spirit of adoption in all we do.

Zima

The children were asleep. I waited for him to find his way home again, the hearth his beacon calling. The storm would come in the early hours of the morning; we wouldn’t hear the stars falling. I stoked the fire, the sound of a bull’s bellow drifting in and out of my consciousness. I poured a glass of red wine for my lover, my friend.

As I resigned my hope to receive him from the long hunt—it had been two weeks—the door cracked open. Its sound startled the silence.

No words filled the space between us, but we danced. When his blue eyes met mine, we sat at the old table with knit-lace on top. We sipped the wine and knew that the paucity of the hunt imperiled our subsistence.

Zima, Zima,

Your cloak of white reveals the truth.
What is true?

*the word 'zima' means winter in Slavic languages

health update

I had of my liver done in august. The radiologist saw a spot. Because of its shape, he and my doctors are not sure if it was contrast fluid that hadn’t spread out or the spreading of what was in my pancreas. My parents were nervous to tell me. But the contrast of who the Lord has made me compared to who I was when I got similar news in the summer of 2013 is so amazing. It is such a testament to the sovereignty and faithfulness of the Rock of my salvation. It was as if my mother was telling me the weather for the coming weekend. It didn’t shake me. Because I cannot be shaken. Not because I am mighty. But because my God is. After the phone call, I began worshiping the Lord (Kristene Dimarco’s new album=YES). As I declared the excellencies of him who called me out of the darkness into his marvelous light, I was overwhelmed with the image of my body being like the prison in which Paul and Silas stood as they sang praises to the Lord in their midnight hour. It often feels like I’m a prisoner to my dying body, the chemicals that need to be balanced by three medications daily, cancer. But, oh, awake, my soul, to praise the Lord. Inwardly, I am being renewed day by day. No bondage of this world could ever keep me from worshipping the Lord God Almighty.

As some believers laid hands on me to pray, I began to weep. Not because I was scared, or nervous, or doubting. But because, as I gazed upon the face of Jesus, I knew if was okay to be weak. Whether it is just contrast fluid or more cancer, I never walk alone. My brothers and sisters are here to lift my arms as the battle wages on in the valley. If the road I am to walk involves more pain, then amen. Let the glory of the Lord shine forth from my wounds. When I am weak, he is strong. Let his name be famous on the earth, for he is a good God. A mighty one who will save.

Suffering-Submission

I've been thinking about the glamour of the far and near sides of suffering-submission, but what about the middle of it?

I remember the first late nights after being told there was cancer in my body driving around listening to 90s rap (I was 18) getting pumped up to fight for my life, fight for Jesus. But the glitter faded at 4am on a hospital bed when my arms were bleeding or when I rejected my feeding tube and wretched and wretched.

At the altar we say yes to go to the ends of the earth, but what happens when you get rejected from the missions school now you’re working a part time job? What happens?

We say Jesus.

We scream it, cry it, whisper it. We lift up the name of Jesus because it is for this purpose we have been called.

He said, "Come." + some pictures

The wind trilled; the sea mist rose. Not to harm me, but to prove me. He reached out his hand and touched my forehead. An anointing of perfect peace. I stepped further into the storm, but it was no longer a storm to me.

"He said, 'Come.' So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus." Matthew 14:29

p.s. here are some pics from a little sunset hiking trip!



Doesn't look that cool in this picture, but this is a giant, frozen waterfall. A GIANT, FROZEN WATERFALL



The snow helped me out a little, and I got to take a few short-cuts on the way down :-)

Crack-Seal Mechanisms

I went to a time of soaking prayer, last night, and, for the brief period that the Celtic soundscapes did not elicit in me sweeping visions of horseback and gallantry, I sat contending for a way. I saw a vision of a rock through which a vein of water was slowly and powerfully moving. Later brushing up on my knowledge of natural hydraulic fractures, I reveled in the wonder of a substance like water cleaving its way through a force like rock. “When the confining pressure is too great, or when brittle-ductile rheological conditions predominate, vein formation occurs via crack-seal mechanisms.” I felt the pressure of the Living Water all around me, carrying me as it proceeded through the sheer rock bed. “I will make a way for you.”

Whatever impossible way you need made, exete pistin theou! Have the faith of God because that glorious Spirit lives in you.