LoveLoveLove

I woke up at 6:30 this morning... now it's nearly 8.
I woke up because I had a dream about a friend... Its wasn't a happy dream.

After being awake and not being able to go back to sleep (I think it was cause my heart was pounding so violently!) I signed into Facebook and was just catching up with a few emails etc and then my friend updated their status... So I signed into the Instant Messenger and we had an awesome talk... He's really struggling with some things right now and it was good to talk with him, even if it was just for a short time...

After he signed out to go to bed, I was also talking to another friend who was crazy-excited about Jesus! She was just typing away about all these things... I shared about how I'd been in a bit of a funk recently and that now I felt slight breakthrough...
I said how I feel like I'm breaking out of my chrysalis and every now and then I get a glorious glimpse of sunlight and breathe in the fresh air... and then fall back into the cocoon thing...
She said how it was just a season and how I just needed to cling onto HOPE and LOVE.
I told her how sometimes I felt like they were on this bar that I just couldn't reach sometimes... That sometimes it seemed like they were this metal pole that was playing a game that was the opposite of the chicken limbo and that the bar just got higher and higher and further and further out of reach.
Then I laughed and shared this random picture that I got:
Ok, you know those metal poles that people use to do those pull up things? I think they're called chin ups...
And you know in the movies there's always the one little guy that can't do it?
So, that's me.
And then you know how sometimes you get the kind other guy who picks up the weak kid and holds them up and moves them up and down? Taking all of the strain... but the little guy is the one holding onto the pole...
So the big, strong, kind guy... That's like Jesus.
Most girls I know HATE being picked up and carried... I know I sure as heck do.
But I guess that's all we need to do is to give permission for Jesus to be our strong superhero type guy and pick us up and hold us up to the bar of hope and love... Let's face it... If he's got the whole world in His hands, it's not like He can't hold our weight too!

Love has been coming up a lot in these 2 hours that I've been awake... Even in my dream actually...
But yeah, blogs about it... conversation (well, IM anyway!)... thoughts...
Sometimes it's really easy for 1 Corinthians to become cliche... But i think it's one of the most incredible verses and it's one I know I definately need to be reminded of more often!

The Way of Love

1 If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. 2If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. 3-7If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

8-10Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

11When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

12We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

13But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

(The Message Bible)

Blessings in the Desert Places/Battle Spaces

It's time for a new blog.
I just got that feeling tonight... I'm havn't decided exactly what to write yet though!
I've been sick and in bed for most of 5 days with high fever, back and hip pains, coughing, headaches... blah blah.
I've slept more than I previously thought humanly possible... and thought more than I have in a long time. Some thought processes have been somewhat delusional, but there's been some good stuff in there too...!
I havn't blogged in a while because I guess I havn't known what to say... I've been in a, and maybe still am in, a funk.
Some of it's self inflicted probably.
And I don't really wish to go into details about a lot of it...
But
it's been an interesting couple of weeks... That's for sure!

A lot of stuff within my heart that I wasn't very aware of has been brought to the fore front of my consciousness and knowing how or where or when to deal with things is a battle within itself!
I have so many questions and things I need to find out... Maybe that's part of my female prerogative... but too, I need to find the balance of getting answers to some questions and being ok with never knowing the answers to others... Right now, the second option doesn't make me happy! But such is life...

I love that even in the midst of our desert places/battle spaces God can still bless above and beyond what we even need though!
When I was in Hamlin, NY I was reminded of a desire I'd hidden somewhere deep in my heart to play piano... A dream of mine is to be able to lead worship using a piano... There's just something about it that touches my soul like nothing else!
So I started to play... I would close the door (thus providing a "false sense of security" as Jenessa called it!) and just play... I would ask for help sometimes and sometimes I would just play for probably what was to every one else obnoxious amounts of time!
But even if I'm playing the same thing over and over and over again, I get lost... Time has no effect...
One day maybe in October I was on the phone to my mum in England and asked if we could get a piano, knowing the answer ahead of time would be a big No.
It was.

Within the first few days of being home at the end of the month my mum said to me how the day I'd asked her over the phone about the piano, dad had come home from work saying he'd got a phonecall from an old friend asking if we wanted a piano... And he'd said yes...!

Well, after a lot of phone calls and organisation, yesterday my dad calls up late afternoon asking if we'd cleared a space cause they were on their way over with a piano. When I asked how big of a space, he said "well... it's quite big"
So dad's information to us before this day was only that it would need tuning and that it was an upright.

So the van pulls up outside the house and dad, Levi and a family friend Paul come inside the house to assess the space that mum and I had cleared in the front room...In between my coughing and blowing my nose, I told him the story of the timing of his phone call and he said "You do know it's a grand piano right?!"
um... excuse me?
I told him he was lying.
so they brought the top of it in to prove it, and to find a space.
The space mum and I had cleared would have been more than adaquate for an upright...normal piano... but a grand?! really?
That had always been one of my secret dreams.
We decided it wasn't fair to take up the majority of the living room with a piano so we fixed a space in the study... and the men got to work.
And now in my house there is an old grand piano... I don't even know what date it was made... it looks out of place as anything, it takes up ridiculous amounts of space, its got a few chips... but I love it! It has so much character!
Its just been lying in someones outside shed for a long time so we're waiting for it to adjust (so the keys stop sticking) before getting a someone to come and tune it...
but seriously...
who gets given a grand piano?!

The Quest

Monday 1st December

The shaking has subsided.
The weight has lifted.
Hope has fallen from Heaven and touched my soul.

Peace tentatively embraces my skin.
I am so sure of forgiveness and mercy...
yet I almost anticipate feeling the shame again.

But I will not let it.
I will fight.
I must fight.

I have to choose to believe
and not feel.

The consequences are enough alone
without guilt inviting itself into my conscience.

I’ve been shaken to the core.
Everything I thought was, isn’t
who I thought I was, I guess I’m not...
But maybe I am.

I need an increase.
An increase of admirable things.
A decrease of selfishness.

Things have to change now.
I wish I knew what and how.
I wish I could draw a map of my life onto some blank paper
and see the directions to the grand finale.

I am not strong.
But I am not weak.
I do not claim to know everything.
But my brain is not empty.

There are parts of me which are obviously torn,

parts of my soul which have subtle flaws.
But I am on a quest for freedom,
A quest for the wounds which have stung me for so long
to be gone.
Not just forgotten about
or swept under the rug
But to be healed from the inside out.

Why is it almost embarrassing to be real?
Why is openness so seemingly problematic?
Why is vulnerability so apparently complex?
Why is it just plain difficult to accept that I am loved?
Oh, the complexity of simplicity.

I can’t give when I have nothing.
Do I have nothing?
Is that really it?
Am I void? Am I just a deserted space?

Why is it so much easier for the bad to almost overwhelm the good?
The battle is won.
Why is it still being fought?

I feel the sting of sin resting constantly on my skin.
What door did I open to let this nonsense in?
GET OFF ME.

My eyes are heavy
But I need my mind to be alert.
I need to choose to place my thoughts above what I see before me.
To fix my thoughts on... not me.

I feel as though I need a new perspective, a different reality
but maybe I just need to change the angle of my vision.

It’s funny how even when I feel right again
I feel like my eyes look dull,
like a light got switched off...

But I know the truth.

I know that mountains have been and will be moved.
My mountains may look like fear
and pride
and disgrace...
But mustard seeds are full of fire and life.

Maybe this is the part before the crescendo.
Maybe before and after soaring heights there has to be a low.
Maybe... Just maybe the foundations are shaking
so that the debris can be cleared before the next big thing...

As I sit here and think about a multitude of things
I am suddenly nearly almost overwhelmed
with a quietness.
A graceful peace.
A boldness.
A spark of new interest.
A powerful stillness.

I change my fear of the unknown, to
trust.
Trusting beyond what I see and feel.
Choosing to believe what I know to be real.

The tightness in my chest is trying to return
but I will fight for each breathe
until I don’t need to anymore.

In through the nose...
Out through the mouth...

Everything else fades into oblivion...
I might not know exactly how to feel
or what to do,
But suddenly, that’s just ok.

Prayer.

Friday 28^th November 2008

I can’t quite formulate thoughts right now enough to think,
So I’m gonna write.
But I don’t know how to start.
I don’t know where to start.
My soul hurts.
I can’t stop the salty water from falling out of my soul and running down my cheeks.

Consider this my prayer.

Father forgive me for I have sinned.
And the worst part is that I blatantly disobeyed you.
All I know in my heart is that I find rest in You.
But my mind is going in between being numb
and thinking of three thousand things at once.

Help me Jesus.

Show me how to reflect you even now, even in the midst of this seemingly dark place.
Give me strength to fight.
Create in me a clean heart... A pure heart.
Give me understanding... Why did I do such a series of stupid things?
How do I learn from, without holding on to?
How do I praise you through this storm without feeling like a hypocrite?
I’m not even worthy to be in your presence, so would it be wrong of me to keep seeking it?
In my head I know that I should seek and worship you at ALL times...

So Jesus,
Silence the fear. Silence the doubt. Silence the unforgiveness. Silence the confusion.
Silence the ignorance. Silence the condemnation. Silence the judgement.
Silence the over analysing. Silence the panic. Silence the pity.

Remind me what hope is, what it means.
Show me how to keep my heart from turning to stone,
from blocking out every good thing.

Take me to the root;
to the cause and reason of my actions
and show me what I need to do to get rid of it.
Because I will do whatever it takes.
I will not give up.
I will not stop fighting.
Be my strength. Be my source.

I feel like I’m suffocating.
You breathed life into me in the beginning
so would it be rude of me to ask You
to fill my lungs again?

You turned water into wine and walked on the ocean.
You fed 5,000 and gave sight to the blind.
You dined with the outcasts of society.
You were fully man yet complete divinity.

The miracles I need go more along the lines of needing peace.
To see change.
For every wounded part of me to be restored
For every breath that I even take to bring glory to not me,
but You.
To be an accurate representation of You
King Jesus.

The miracles I need go more along the lines of being forgiven
Not by you. I believe you forgave me when I asked...
But by those whom I have done wrong by.
For relationships to be restored.
Not necessarily to the way things were before,
because change is important, change is inevitable
But to the point of being able to talk
back to the point of being able to laugh
To the point of being able to cry and share dreams and fears once more.
To the point of the awkwardness being gone.

Show me how to forgive myself.

I need a miracle of the heart.

I want to surrender... But show me what, show me how
Let me start by giving you me again.
I choose You.
Let Hallelujah run through my veins.
Let every breath I take make you proud
I want to hear your voice so loudly within my being
that it resonates
and rings as clear as it rings true.

I dishonoured You. I brought disgrace to Your Holy name.
Yet my portion is not pain, it is not shame.
I don’t need to be afraid.
Show me how to deal with the consequence of my sin
yet live fully covered by the grace
that only You give.

I choose to know that you love me regardless of what I do.
I can’t help but love you.
I am drowning in a lake of confusion
yet saturated in grace – goodness that I by no means deserve.

Tear down the walls that I seem to be effortlessly building
around my heart.
Fling each stone as far away from me as You can.

Rescue me from my subconscious.
Rescue me from every arrow that is being flung at me.
Rescue me from weariness.
Rescue me.
Keep my heart malleable.
Keep my mind alert.
Keep my heart open and ready.

Jesus, you invade my soul.
Immerse me in your love.