Ouch...

It is amazing how one short conversation can pierce so deeply. They're only words...but oh Lord...so many of them have been spoken...by me....to me....it's hard to forget. I try to forgive...I hope I'm forgiven. Broken so many times, I'm not sure it can mend again...oh, jeez....owie, ouch, dang...it hurts...

There's only one place to go...everytime...Only the Healer will do...


Savior I come
Quiet my soul remember
Redemptions hill
Where Your blood was spilled
For my ransom
Everything I once held dear
I count it all as lost

Lead me to the cross
Where Your love poured out
Bring me to my knees
Lord I lay me down

Rid me of myself
I belong to You
Lead me, lead me
to the cross

To your heart
To your heart
Lead me to your heart
Lead me to your heart

Simplicity

I don't lead a simple life...I don't think many do. It's complicated and messy...and busy. Relationships are imperfect. There is pain in people's lives...people I love dearly. Plans don't work out the way you want them to. And when they do work out, they are all on the same weekend and you may end up regret making some of them. Just sayin'... Then there are the hopes and dreams; some get dashed and some become more beautiful than you ever imagined, but Lordy, they take a lot of work either way. Romance is desired, but there are precious few sweet moments of it.

I think while life is complicated we do have moments of simplicity...so beautiful and often unexpected that they steal your breath away. And they may come at the oddest times. It takes some skill to recognize them, but once you look for them, they do appear. And they are treasures.
My simplicity....


Coffee with cream and buttered toast in the kitchen on a quiet Sunday morning with nowhere to go. The sun shining through the open window and the sound of chickadees twittering in one ear and the soft rumble of my husband's snores in the other...









A dark, solitary, early morning after a dark, emotional, painful night in the Argentine desert, and the blackness lifted, in numerous ways, by the sun rising bringing the brightest most orange light ever seen, soooo large in the sky and bringing with it a promise of the constancy of God...

Laying in an open field in the middle of a summer night shivering from the dew damp ground beneath, swathed in blankets and huddled with some of the dearest young women in the world, staring up at a pitch black sky, littered with innumerable pinpricks of light, murmuring of inconsequentional, silly and life changing things....




Relaxing in a recliner on a Sunday evening after a busy weekend, and hearing the sounds of young people...laughing, praying, crying, reading God's word....drifting up from the downstairs rec room...knowing they could be a hundred other places but they choose here...with each other...to be where you are...

A family dinner, where all are gathered after having been long apart...not all is calm or even right between each other...but all are together within the walls of the place we call home, and while not always easy...it is the only time that home is right...when they are all there, safe for the moment. And there is a sweet possibility of hope for something better for us all...

There have been a hundred other moments where the sweet simplicity...the sweet truth of the moment is so profound, my heart expands to a point I don't believe my body could bear. And I feel all the complexity and importance in what we do from day to day fade to just these simple, precious treasures....life is really not that complex at all.

Finished...

John 19: V29-30
A jar of sour wine was sitting there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put it on a hyssop branch, and held it up to his lips. When Jesus had tasted it, he said, "It is finished!" Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit

Have you ever given a thought as to how you would like to die? I mean we are all going to do it, so it would be nice if we had a say in the matter…even if we really don’t. There are a thousand at least, if not a million ways to go. You could choose the adventurers death….lost in the Bermuda triangle and a storm drowns you, or in your attempt to climb Mount Everest you freeze to death. Maybe you want a romantic death….collapsing of a broken heart only to have your love return barely before it beats its last. No one I am sure would choose a lingering death from a wasting disease or a tragic death in a car accident or a natural disaster…or a terrorist attack, or a brutal murder of passion. Truthfully there is no adventure, or romance or beauty in death. It is the end a body, a beautiful creation made to live…and it strives to live even the harshest of circumstances. The intricate workings of the human body strive to outlive cancer, catastrophe, and even old age. As my 90+ grandmother lay in her hospital bed, her body succumbing to congenital heart failure, it took weeks for her to pass away, her body slowly shutting down, circulation, breathing, heartbeats….but it kept on trying to do what it was meant to…and yet pulling back bit by bit as it gave in to expiry. I think her soul was long ready to leave this world before her body was…it was a painful separation. I saw my mom die from complications due to cancer…and a baby of a friend perish as he gave into the many ills his little body was born with….there is no glamour in death…just loss. So how really do I want to do this…this dying to this world? Can you do it well?



How Jesus died….far too soon….is the most brutal of deaths…and in a way no one would choose. But the most incredible amazing thing is…He did choose it. And He chose it as atonement for sin…and even more incredible, He chose it not to save Himself, for our sake, for your sake. He was the only man to choose the time and true manner of His death. Some of you will says suicide is a choice, and while it is, it is also a mutation of death born on twisted lies that bring skewed thinking. I believe that it is an enemy that uses suicide to murder and destroy. This cannot be called a personal choice. It is not of God. When Jesus gave up His earthly life, He knew He had accomplished what He came to do, and it was finished. And I do not want His choice to be in vain. I want to live Holy, set apart to do His work so others may know who He is. He CHOSE not only to die, but to suffer and die for me, so I want to live now. This life is a poor substitute to the one He sacrificed for me, but I want to live my life in a way that honours and glorifies Him and His sacrifice. I want to sail through the Bermuda Triangle to the other side, climb Mount Everest, I want to avoid or survive disease, tragedy, and catastrophe, and I want to LOVE people, look into their eyes and say it loud and clear, ‘I love you’ and mean it with every fibre of my being…and I want to do it to my last breath…whenever that is. If I could choose…I would fall asleep one night in my 90s, never to arise again, with a smile on my face, and whispering, ‘It is finished’ knowing my time here is done and I did all I could to bring glory to the sacrifice He gave.

It's gonna rain sometimes...

Just how can I make it better...all better? You would think after all this time...I'm 48 1/2 years old...I would have learned that I cannot fix it all. I don't even know if it is an admirable trait any longer to want to fix it up. I have two parts of me at war...equally strong...and in the moments of utter grief or anger or frustration or determination, when my human heart strains to fix things, to pick it up, whatever the ill and mold it to what I need it to be to find relief...for the suffering around me, for the ill will of another against me or mine own, for justice or mercy where there just is NONE...in those moments, my Spirit-filled heart says NO...STOP... GIVE IT UP.

The whisper comes to my ear in the gently falling rain, or in the howling wind, or in the bitter cold...and says, 'Give it to Me...it is Mine to work out in human hearts...not yours to solve, beloved. You, my darling child, must just love...that is what I call you to.'

But why love and have no power to fix that which is wrong??? Why???

I would bear it all willingly...so many times I have bourne my own struggles, that I know...believe that I could do it for others...

'No,' He whispers...'I have already bourne it...it is finished...'

What arrogance I have, what gall...to think I could be Him...I feel pitifully insignificant and ineffective...and so I should be compared to Him.

I know my place....my calling...it is hidden in the Spirit-filled heart of mine, the one that struggles with my human heart of great will...it is my calling to be His conduit of love, to pour it out until dry...and point the way to Him, who never runs dry.

It is a good place...the best calling....I really would not have it any other way...it's just freakin' hard for the human heart of me to understand.