Series: Ten Aspects (7/7)

(for Thursday)

1) Something for which I am thankful.
That people let me contribute sometimes.

2) Something I learned.
I really (read: deeply, sorely) miss formal learning and being inspired.

3) Something I want to learn.

How to art (v.).

4) A reason to hope.
Some days are good, friends are great, the King reigns--and He is coming again!

5) An attribute of God's that I noticed.
He is beyond-words ultimate and He is God. 

Job knew it:

"If I have put my trust in gold or said to pure gold, 'You are my security,' if I have rejoiced over my great wealth, the fortune my hands had gained, if I have regarded the sun in its radiance or the moon moving in splendor, so that my heart was secretly enticed and my hand offered them a kiss of homage, then these also would be sins to be judged, for I would have been unfaithful to God on high." (31:24-28)

6) Something surprising.

An aquatic friend stopping by my workplace for a hug and a quick chinwag. 

7) Something new. 
Authentic Lebanese food (as authentic as you get outside Lebanon).

8) Something taken for granted.
My body.

9) Something difficult.
Buying up every last drop of contempt on the market and still not having enough to pour on all my pride.

10) Something fun.
Finding (and wrapping!) the needle-threadingest gift for a kind friend. (She did the gasp and the arms shot into the air. It happied me.)

Series: Ten Aspects (6/7)

(for Wednesday)

1) Something for which I am thankful.
That fab encouragement that comes from talking with other believers about things most important.

2) Something I learned.
My medication is not yet at a therapeutic doseage. In this case "therapeutic" seems to mean "helpful at all". I'm a little frustrated but I am supposed to trust my GP.

3) Something I want to learn.

How to improve my skills as a musician.

4) A reason to hope.
"Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us."

5) An attribute of God's that I noticed.
His sovereignty (which is sometimes the only flickering candle that splits the darkness). C.S. Lewis captured it magnificently in "The Horse and His Boy", as I read last night.

6) Something surprising.
How the team listens to me on non-technical things--and yesterday I could really know they had listened. 

We had sung half the chorus of "Be Unto Your Name" a cappella and at the end of the song I was contemplating whether we should keep full accompaniment throughout. I asked the team, "Have you guys read Revelation?" Cautious yeses and nods come back to me (no one wants "read" to be confused with "understood a mote of"). 

"Have you guys heard of the Lamb who was slain?" Confused silence. Then one pipes up, "You sound like [the preaching pastor]...!" Then more to himself than me, "Is that a rhetorical question...?"

I spilled. "I am legitimately ashamed of myself that I could sing, 'Holy, holy Lord God Almighty; worthy is the Lamb who was slain,' and not mean it and not think about the words." I fumbled something about how that isn't good enough and that we had better be mindful of this come Sunday. We had sounded weak, and vacant... like we were on autopilot. I thought better of it and asked them to sing the entire song again.

The difference was so marked it blew me away. And a non-singer began singing, too! That gave me confidence that it was the truth that had resonated, not my direction/authority!

It sounded like worship. It sounded full and passionate. It sounded perfect. Thanks be to God!

7) Something new.
Being referred to as "the Berlin wall" (for my musical standards). I'll take it.

8) Something taken for granted.
God's providence.

9) Something difficult.
Discerning when the help is not helping (or if it's the hard head that needs help).*
*halliteration

10) Something fun.
Reading on the couch, feet up and coffee nearby. 

Series: Ten Aspects (5/7)

1) Something for which I am thankful.
Grace. 

2) Something I learned.

Keeping my motives pure is about as easy as keeping sand out of my shoes when I've been at the beach (or just walked near it).

3) Something I want to learn.

Everything a good Bible college will teach me in a two-year period. 

4) A reason to hope.

"...since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God."

5) An attribute of God's that I noticed.

His perfection: He deserves the best.

6) Something surprising.
Burger King bought Tim Hortons. (Not the corporate merger, I mean the reigning monarch of Burgerdom purchased a double-double.)

7) Something new.

An olive branch out of left field (to mix metaphors absurdly)!!

8) Something taken for granted.
Those glorious nights when I used to sleep.

9) Something difficult.

Balance, balance, balance. 

10) Something fun.

Stickers of cupcakes with moustaches--and friends who appreciate them. 

Series: Ten Aspects (4/7)

1) Something for which I am thankful.

That God called me to life. That God is able keep me from apostasy and that in the purest light of glory, not one of my faults will show.

2) Something I learned.

The season hasn't changed yet. 

3) Something I want to learn.

How to choose better.

4) A reason to hope.

(I know the context isn't right but) "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me." (John 14:1)

5) An attribute of God's that I noticed.
His bigness / His outside-of-time-ness / that He persists through or above all ages

.

.

.

which must mean He knows more than I do and that His order is good.

6) Something surprising.

How much embarrassment I feel over how little I work. I don't even know how to process it. 

7) Something new.

Evaluating a music theory book for a piano student. (I enjoyed it more than I should have.)

8) Something taken for granted.

Paid work!

9) Something difficult.

Pain with no name.

10) Something fun.

Tacos. (Not joking...they were truly delicious.)

"The Magician's Nephew" has sat on my unspeakably cluttered desk for ten days. Let's do this.

C.S. Lewis, he seems to be insightful and to write poignantly.

This, on prayer:

  "I am hungry," said Digory.
  "Well, tuck in," said Fledge [the horse], taking a big mouthful of grass. Then he raised his head, still chewing and with bits of grass sticking out on each side of his mouth like whiskers, and said, "Come on, you two. Don't be shy. There's plenty for us all."
  "But we can't eat grass," said Digory.
  "H'm, h'm," said Fledge, speaking with his mouth full. "Well--h'm--don't know quite what you'll do then. Very good grass too."
  Polly and Digory stared at one another in dismay.
  "Well I do think someone might have arranged about our meals," said Digory.
  "I'm sure Aslan would have, if you'd asked him, said Fledge.
  "Wouldn't he know without being asked?" said Polly.
  "I've no doubt he would," said the Horse (still with his mouth full). "But I've a sort of idea he likes to be asked." (178)

On hope:

For the rest of that day, whenever he looked at the things about him, and saw how ordinary and unmagical they were, he hardly dared to hope; but when he remembered the face of Aslan he did hope. (216)

On obedience:

  Aslan threw up his shaggy head, opened his mouth, and uttered a long, single note; not very loud, but full of power. Polly's heart jumped in her body when she heard it. She felt sure that it was a call, and that anyone who heard that call would want to obey it and (what's more) would be able to obey it, however many worlds and ages lay between. (163)

Lewis, C.S. "The Magician's Nephew." The Chronicles of Narnia. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2002. Print.

Series: Ten Aspects (3/7)

1) Something for which I am thankful.
A potential new (huge) shift in ministry.

2) Something I learned.
God's Word is amazing.

3) Something I want to learn.

How to see well. (How to "get it"!)

4) A reason to hope.
I lift my eyes up to the mountains--
  where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
  the Maker of heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot slip--
  he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed, he who watches over Israel
  will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord watches over you--
  the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
the sun will not harm you by day,
  nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all harm--
  he will watch over your life;
the Lord will watch over your coming and going
  both now and forevermore.

5) An attribute of God's that I noticed.
He is able.

6) Something surprising.
Someone I barely know picking up on my super-hero reference. "Yeah, classic Marvel," he says, without missing a beat.

7) Something new.

Making the acquaintance of the father of a dear friend (an honor I've been looking forward to for a while).

8) Something taken for granted.
Prayer. (I called to Him in a spot I never have and always should, and He really amazed me.)

9) Something difficult.

Praying humbly, dependently, and unrushedly before acting.

10) Something fun.
Choosing very deliberately to sit with people instead of isolating myself during our family worship service this morning. People can be nice. I chatted with three people I normally wouldn't and it was lovely conversation all. I feel blessed. I feel grateful that this interaction does not go under the "Relationship is Painful" column.

Series: Ten Aspects (2/7)

1) Something for which I am thankful.

Good friends (and deep conversation).

2) Something I learned.

Gossip is truly a malicious, greedy monster that grows (in maliciousness and greed) as it feeds. 

3) Something I want to learn.

How to say the right thing to the right people in the right words at the right time. (Sigh.)

4) A reason to hope.

Job didn't give up.

5) An attribute of God that impressed me.

His patience. I am slow to learn and short on trust.

6) Something surprising.

How good this exercise has been already. I love the challenge. I love a writing challenge.

7) Something new.

A book very narrowly focussed on something I'm struggling with. (It will be nice to read someone who "gets it" but arduous to filter worldview errors without losing all helpful content.)

8) Something taken for granted.

My iPhone. What. It does so much!

9) Something difficult.

Feeling tired after sleeping for 11 hours.

10) Something fun.

Watching some Marx Brothers films (and bonus shorts from the 1930s and '40s). I forgot how much I enjoy their humor.

Series: Ten Aspects (1/7)

Intro:

Lately I have been thinking that it would be fun (and fruitful) to set some writing challenges for myself. I expect them to get more and more difficult and I want to use someone else's ideas (I have just the book but it's in my office and I am not). To start, however, it will be a simple challenge that I drummed up yesterday evening.

The plan is to write briefly on ten preset aspects of my day, I suppose to help me be more attentive but ultimately to help me worship. I hope the categories will force me to think deeply instead of being able to rattle off whatever I want (like a normal blog post). Here goes. (Since I fell asleep early, this is Friday's entry.)

Body:

1) Something for which I am thankful.

Paid work--and the twenty extra hours this week.

2) Something I learned.

McDonald's coffee is somehow NOT terrible. (I can't explain how shocked I was.)

3) Something I want to learn.

How to have discipline without legalism when it comes to reading the Word daily.

4) A reason to hope.

Finding a way to try one of the more difficult suggestions an RN made to me. If nothing else, it is reducing my guilt.

5) An attribute of God that impressed me.

He is knowable. We can know Him.

6) Something surprising.

A colleague called me instead of sending a message through our scheduling software because he thought the note I left was funny. (He basically wanted to say "LOL" on the phone--not to actually laugh but to say those letters--and to further the joke.) I am surprised to be a receptionist that is somewhat known as an individual.

7) Something new.

Understanding the breadth of how I can enjoy the Lord's company.

8) Something taken for granted.

What the public library gives me access to (for free).

9) Something difficult.

Not being rude (in my head) to coworkers when I see they've done something utterly foolish.

10) Something fun.

A terribly cheesy but awesome joke I crafted, shortly after waking up. I'm still plotting its début. It makes me laugh.

I just wrote a forty-five-dollar cheque for something I thought was free.

When I called earlier this afternoon to find out why I was charged (because I really thought I shouldn't be), the clerk told me that I should have been charged twice...so she's putting a second invoice in the mail. Sigh.

I didn't know that private citizens always pay $45 (we actually "co-pay" with OHIP) for ambulance rides. I would have taken a taxi. Even from the outskirts of the city, I'm not sure it could breach forty-five.


As I resigned myself to the situation, I was reminded of another one in which I paid a bigger price than anticipated but was able to swallow it reasonably well given the service rendered and the lesson learned. I now know only to accept an ambulance when there are no other (sensible) options. In 2008 I called a friend in Ontario from a payphone in the UK using my credit card. The bill was around $95 for about ten or fifteen minutes of talk.


It was probably 4am my time because I remember it being a reasonable time to ring someone in the Eastern Standard Time zone. I had left some friends' house shortly after 1am and, finding myself locked out of my flat, I decided to stay out until morning instead of knocking to wake a flatmate up or going back to the house of the friends I had just been with who were undoubtedly still awake. I figured the airport would be free to access and would not close before morning. So I took the shuttle. And I remember loitering a bit...I remember wishing I had a reason to be there because I find airports otherwise exhilarating. I slipped into the Common Prayer room (or Multi-Faith room) or whatever it's called but I don't think I could focus or could stand the quiet. I don't know.


At the friends' house, we had watched a girl across the alleyway try to hang herself. (The police broke down the door shortly after and she was unsuccessful.) I think that on an ordinary night I would have knocked to be let in or gone back to the other people's house. But on that night I just couldn't. I called my Ontario friend because, I suppose, I needed someone to talk to. What a painful, shattering, hollowing, numbing, overwhelming, dissociative night. When I got the bill for the phone call I was a little surprised but I thought I was not going to be too bothered about the cost of having a warm, friendly voice at the end of the line. I was in one of the most impersonal/transient locations we have in our society (beat out by only what? a bus station? a hotel lobby? a waiting room?) and I suppose I was considerably shaken by watching that young girl try to take her life.



I wanted to tell her the Truth. I wanted to be her friend and share the Good News with her. I hated that she was there in that position, that she wanted to go that way. I hated it. I just wanted to sit with her. She's just a girl! I would have sat as long as it took and I would have given everything I had.

Today this makes sense to me.

Since email became a reasonably popular thing (at the same time I was making friends outside the city, province, country in which I lived), I've quite wondered whether it's possible to miss someone. It's not a note sent by messenger on horseback or by sea. Email was mind-bogglingly fast when we were grasping it. So when long-distance calls weren't that cheap and no one was texting, how would we miss someone if we could hear from them in as little time as it took them to type a response and will it courriered (i.e. click "Send")?

I remember feeling weirdly about writing in an email that I missed a friend, or missed hanging out with them, or missed doing x with them. What is to miss? You're in contact right now!

Even in texts one can say it, and sometimes on the phone (if one is brave enough to be so vulnerable). 

I remember inwardly objecting to someone's pronouncement when we saw one another that they had missed me. "We just IMed last week!" I thought, almost hurt that they didn't remember.

But... it's different. 

I've learned to defer to my gut, to that weird human thing that I can't rationalise. Maybe the sociologists and the psychologists get it. 

Seeing someone you care about is different from--and superior to--every other kind of connection. (To be fair to our visually impaired population, let's say "being with" someone you care about.)

You know you know it. Me, I don't get it, but it's a thing. And yes, I love the mystery.

PART I:

Today I saw a friend that I haven't seen in about one year. I didn't know he would be in town and it was not easy for me to be back in G in time. In fact, it stressed me out so much that I questioned the decision every step of the four-hour journey. I needed this time off. We can just email. How will this be worth it?

I walk in to the office with my million of awkward and unforgivingly heavy bags, and my friend has heard my entry and moved to stand up.

I'd thought I would have a moment to drop the bags in my office and then consciously switch from Travel Brain to People Brain before I saw him but instead I was caught off-guard. 

I'm so glad I was! I had no time to craft a response or monitor body language or filter a thing. So my face broke out into a smile that seemed to cast a bright beam halfway down the hallway. I mean I was hyper-aware it was obnoxious. I mean I felt muscles in my face that I haven't felt in a while (because I don't smile as much as I used to and rarely smile so deeply).

[In the tiny corner of my mind that was able to think about anything else, I tentatively decreed that I'm-glad-to-see-you smiles are a specific brand. Can't engage those facial muscles in any other circumstance. (I think the I'm-proud-of-you and I-really-love-you smiles are similarly unique.)]

I couldn't even stop it and I wasn't bothered. I figured that if I were ever on the receiving end of such an expression, I'd be OK with it running its course. 

I insisted on putting my 48 bags down before we hugged. It was good to see you. It was good to see you. 

PART II:

At my lowest point, if I'm sad, weak, and drowning, I'm evaluating the damage to my kneecap from dropping desperately to the floor to plead with the King for mercy. I'm looking for Him. I'm looking for a rescue. I'm that beggar calling out for his very life in the middle of a stony, imposing, impossible courtroom.

(At a lowest point when I'm angry, loathesome, and cagey, I'm hunting for matches to destroy my citizenship papers because I don't want this high life. I don't want this trying and fighting and choosing well and trusting.)

When the weight of the adult gorilla on my chest (the "low point") squeezes all my other fight out, I lurch forward and bend at the ankle. Crack! I'm on my knees begging. (Now, my literal position is usually a bit of rocking while hugging a pillow and gasp-sobbing.)

But in my mind's eye, when I'm so stuck and so low and so alone like that, my arms shoot up and the fingers wiggle eagerly. In my mind's eye I'm looking up, between where those wiggling fingers extend. I'm not an infant but I feel like a needy child, waiting and waiting to be scooped up and embraced.

In my sad, desperate lows I feel as though I'm repeatedly extending my arms and wiggling my fingers for my Father to pick me up and hold me. Draw Your arms so tight that I can't move. I have nowhere else to be. And there's heartache like nothing else in creation. 

I feel horrid that I can't see Him and be with Him. It matters. I want to be with You!

After the ache makes me cry harder, I usually calm down a little, somehow enjoying the thought that we only get to "miss" Him once. Just once and then we're forever seeing and being with. That sounds OK. That sounds okay. I can't wait to see You.

something worth writing about

I'm catching more subtleties within The Chronicles of Narnia than I expected to but this one seems extra clev (and extra subtle):


"Silence, sir!" said Uncle Andrew, bringing his hand down on the table. "I will not be talked to like that by a little, dirty, schoolboy. You don't understand. I am the great scholar, the magician, the adept, who is doing the experiment. Of course I need subjects to do it on. Bless my soul, you'll be telling me next that I ought to have asked the guinea-pigs' permission before I used them! No great wisdom can be reached without sacrifice. But the idea of my going myself is ridiculous. It's like asking a general to fight as a common soldier. Supposing I got killed, what would become of my life's work?" (26)

---

Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

Accordingly, it was not in spite of but because of His consciousness of his divine origin and destination, that He rose from supper, and assumed the dress and posture of a slave; for a servant in truth He was, being none other than the ideal Servant delineated in Isaiah's prophecy who was destined to 'pour out his soul unto death'. He laid aside his garments (4) even He was as to "lay aside" His life. He tied a slave's apron round Him, poured water into a basin, and proceeded to wash His disciples' feet and wipe them clean with the towel, the outward badge of His servitude.

Christ Jesus:

  Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
  rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.


The New International Version Study Bible. Ed. Kenneth L. Barker. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011. (John 13:3-5.)
Ibid. (Philippians 2:5b-7.)
Lewis, C.S. "The Magician's Nephew." The Chronicles of Narnia. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2002. Print. 26.
R. V. G. Tasker. Ed. "John". Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1988. 155. Print.

what if (x3)

Could you tell me?

I'm not sure if I failed the week. I'm not sure if "the week" is actually over because it's Friday morning as I type but I'm headed back to the city I live in because of an unexpected meeting. 

Am I any more relaxed? Was that week any good? Will anything be different as I resume normal duties/activities next week? 

Where

  is

    that -- Sovereign Lord (my own Heavenly Father) who can give me the answer?

  -or comfort me until He does?

Maybe I can hazard that I'm not MORE stressed than I would have been, had I not taken time off. Maybe a couple days of sleeping in and "accomplishing" little was good for me. Maybe this kind of supposing isn't helping.

There were good parts. I suppose I regret little.

I think I finally hit it.

It's the middle of Thursday but I think I'm finally getting to the spot I wanted to get this week. A comfortable spot to work & play, a good (VERY GOOD) coffee, a hearty breakfast, and both wireless and a wall socket to let my laptop let me blog. Great. (It's a bit ironical that now what I feel like doing most is reading but that's OK.)


I got a really great email from my counsellor this morning. Her opening line was "Well, you still have a sense of humor which is always a good sign!" It made me happy, firstly because I didn't know she had a sense of humor. [Cheeky wink.] It's also happy that she was replying to my reply to her email whose subject line was "checking in". Since my weirdo pseudo-crisis a couple weeks ago she's been regularly emailing to see what kind of shape I'm in. I appreciate it greatly.

She gave me some advice and answered a question in a way I don't fully like but that I think is good. I'm happy to trust her professional opinion. I think she sidewaysly validated me. Yesterday a friend said, "you're not lazy," before piling up a few other premises to make her point... I instinctively laughed aloud at the first part because I felt like she was saying, "you don't have curly hair," in a very peculiarly matter-of-fact way. She sounded like it wasn't hard to deduce. She has no idea. I have enough idea not to start blogging that out right now. Second Chronicles is calling. Ha...I didn't realise how fab it is til just now that I'm reading both the Chronicles in the Old Testament and the Chronicles of Narnia this week.

:)


I shouldn't be so happy. I'm supposed to be having a crisis. I haven't had a meltdown since Saturday. Now the B-52s are playing in this coffee shop. What is my life?

Post-snowpocalyptic captains.

I'm killing time in the concourse of the TIFF Bell Lightbox building before my show at 9pm. I'll be glad for it, I think. Between air conditioning and the weather seeming to forget what month it is, I'll be glad to bring in a hot chocolate with me.

Today has been weird. Yesterday was weird. Sigh. God is good.

Weird things, hard things, and good things. I'm starting to think I have no idea what this week is about. I'm starting to become very scared I'll waste it. I won't get this much time off for months and months... Probably not til next summer. I'm starting to think it was unwise to schedule so many social interactions. I'm not sure if I need to dig or if I need to chill. Lord.... help a brother out.

I've spent a little time with the toddler... Enough to make my vision blur with liquid, enough to be tired out after 20 or 30 minutes in reflection and in a workbook I'm trying. I realised only about an hour ago that the goal of this week cannot be to fix all my problems. It cannot be. (I'm relieved.) But how to make it not for naught, I'm not sure.

(How do sailors measure distance, again?)

If nothing else, I want to get a better view. I want to see what has happened, what is happening, and what I need in the future. I want help. I want so much help. I want to figure out what I'm doing wrong and what I ought to be doing. 

The train ride was super fun. C.S. Lewis' work is nothing to sneeze at. I guess I did say (to myself) that the only "product" for this week should be to sharpen my saw. I'll have to work that one out. I'll have to seek God's direction. I could probably head up now.

I'm excited.

I'm excited. I'm "very enthusiastic and eager", says the New American Oxford Dictionary. 

I know, I know, I know... Not everything is smooth sailing... The week won't be perfect or painless but I'm still excited.

I'm going on vacation.

I'm going on vacation! I don't think I've ever done it. Yes--hitherto, I have travelled to see friends/family or to celebrate marriage ceremonies and then if I get to swim, buy postcards, not punch in at the office during those days, so be it. What's that called? A pseudo-vacation by default? By-product?

Doesn't matter.

This is different because I wanted it for ONLY a break. Only a break. Only not working, only doing what I enjoy and what I think is important. I should be saying "vocational" work because I do plan to give myself space to engage with heart things and memory things and hard things as they crop up. They crop up all the time and there's usually reason to tuck them away again.

But this week, if they come out big, I'll sit with them. And I'll have time/space to recover.

I'm so excited.

I have packed no fewer than nine books, two journals, and ten new pens.

I'M BORROWING A FRIEND'S LAPTOP SO I CAN BLOG LIKE A BOSS.

This week will be so good--yes, even with my ups and downs. Even with my down-down-downs. I expect them. Of course they will come. But I think I may be better able to weather them because there is NOTHING pressing to obligate me to sidestep or truncate or minimise. (A book I was reading earlier today likened trauma triggers to a screaming two-year-old in a playpen in the middle of your living room as you try to watch TV. The more you struggle to hear your programme and ignore the shrieks, the louder the child becomes, the more it needs your attention.) So... this week I can switch the telly off and I can attend to the toddler. I don't know what that poor kid needs but he's going hoarse.

Another reason to be excited? My first date with Mr Clive Staples. Yes, folks, you heard it here first. I've never read C.S. Lewis and I'm going to embark this week!

I thought that by the end of this post I'd be able to describe the happy-joy-peaceesque thing in me that wants this week so badly, but I haven't found the words yet. Maybe it is that my perfectionist work-til-you're-worth-something boss has finally relented. Maybe getting permission to take a vacation for the first time ever is getting close to admitting that I work hard. Maybe I work hard. Maybe I've worked hard enough for long enough that IT IS OK for me to take a break.

This is going to be weird. I haven't even left yet and already baggage is a-croppin'!

I'm taking the train in the morning. Not because I need to but because I enjoy train rides so, so much. I guess I should get to sleep.

:)

8)

8D

it's just before 8am

And I'm already ready to cry.
(If they made emoticons with watery smiles, I would type one here.)   :}

I got a break from the darkness for about a day-and-a-half that ended around 5pm yesterday. It didn't surprise me as it descended but it did suck.

I'm so angry.



I'm at work, making my way through a non-urgent but highly helpful task (one of my favorite kinds of task) and I have "God, please get me out of this" on repeat in the background. It's been on repeat since about 6pm yesterday. I feel stuck like I've never felt. I'm so angry... I'm going to be scared soon if I don't find moorings or sliver of light.


Last night I caught a glimpse of the seed that eventually makes people walk away from their faith. I'm sat on the floor half-crying, begging and begging and begging God to let me get it out, whatever this big, angry, intense, painful something is... PLEASE... let me get it out. And He didn't detonate the charge coiled around the bars of my prison door. He didn't do what I thought I needed. I could see how chronic pain or chronic confusion makes people want to turn their back on God, thinking He doesn't care, He doesn't see, He doesn't understand.

O Lord, don't let me be that guy.
Don't let me be that guy.


You are so good and I know it.


[Editor's note: In doing a brief review before posting, the fragment "Christ, who is your life," popped into my head as I wrote about moorings and needing a sliver of light. My original words were that I'm going to be scared if something doesn't give. I wrote that I didn't know what was wrong but that I needed help and it sounded too desperate and exaggerated and broken-record-ly. So I changed it to be more accurate to how I feel, despite sounding more poetic. As the image clicked, I heard that Scripture fragment and my friends at Bible Gateway provided the context. I typed it out below, and as I read/imbibed it, I felt my inner anger/tension drop from a 9 to a 7. As I type this editor's note, I can hear the steady hissing as the pressure continues to evacuate. Thanks be to God. Good Word. There is hope.]

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your heart on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden in Christ with God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:1-4)

There is hope!

John, I think I understand you.

I don't understand you as well as I'd like to and I don't understand you as well as I will in the future, Lord willing, but sometimes I get you.

Every now and then, while organising the lyrics slides for our corporate worship, I feel strongly compelled to alter the composer's original punctuation. This afternoon I was reviewing these words:

And so with thankfulness and faith we rise
to respond and to remember
our call to follow in the steps of Christ
as His body here on earth.
As we share in His suffering
we proclaim Christ will come again
and we'll join in the feast of Heav'n
around the table of the King. 

And it seemed almost morally wrong to keep an exclamation point from the sixth line. Sometimes Biblical authors (like John) appear to have added their exclamation points from the gut because they're minding their own business writing a letter when they're mercilessly ambushed by worship!

How can you know life's most profound thankfulness, how can you have faith in Christ, how can you be able to rise and respond and remember the great privilege and joy it is to operate as His body here on earth...

How can you share in His suffering (a great privilege and joy), how can you know that these light and momentary troubles are achieving an eternal glory that far outweighs them all, how can you know that your present suffering is not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us...

and then PROCLAIM that Christ, the Messiah, the Lamb, the Conquering King, the only one Who is Good, will--come--again...

and NOT use that little line-and-dot etching that signifies "intensity of emotion, loudness, etc."??

!!

How?!


AND... we'll join in the feast of Heaven around the table of the King.


Selah and amen!

A Note on Regal Dining.

re: "the feast of Heaven around the table of the King"

When Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David, he bowed down to pay him honor.

David said, "Mephibosheth!"

"At your service," he replied.

"Don't be afraid," David said to him, "for I will surely show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan. I will restore to you all the land that belonged to your grandfather Saul, and you will always eat at my table."

Mephibosheth bowed down and said, "What is your servant, that you should notice a dead dog like me?"

Then the king summoned Ziba, Saul's steward, and said to him, "I have given your master's grandson everything that belonged to Saul and his family. You and your sons and your servants are to farm the land for him and bring in the crops, so that your master's grandson may be provided for. And Mephibosheth, grandson of your master, will always eat at my table." (Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants.)

Then Ziba said to the king, "Your servant will do whatever my lord the king commands his servants to do." So Mephibosheth ate at David's table like one of the king's sons.

Mephibosheth had a young son named Mika, and all the members of Ziba's household were servants of Mephibosheth. And Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, because he always ate at the king's table; he was lame in both feet.


  Selah.

    Amen.

! ! !

Keith Getty, Kristyn Getty, Stuart Townend. "Behold the Lamb (Communion Hymn)". Awaken the Dawn. Thankyou Music, 2009.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/exclamation+point?s=t
The New International Version Study Bible. Ed. Kenneth L. Barker. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011. (II Samuel 9:6-13).