H O P E

There has been a tragic number of suicides in the Nashville area this past month.  I wanted to write a bit on this awful torment with hope that is ripping these beautifully broken people from our world.

No one commits suicide because they are hopeless.  They commit suicide to kill the hope that refuses to die inside of them.  The hope that comes with each breathe in and breathe out.  Hope will not stop fighting to live.  It is painful to hope.  To hope that we won’t leave lonely with this person again, to hope that there is good in the world, to hope that that good will find us, to hope to find a husband, to hope to have a child through previous miscarriages, to hope that this next surgery will get the cancer out, to hope that I will love being at my job tomorrow, to hope that someone will find me worth being with, to hope that someone will come when I call, to hope that the kids at school won’t make fun of me again.  It is painful to hope because the hope can leave us disappointed and heartbroken, the hope can make us feel stupid or like there is something wrong for wanting, like we are misfits or outcasts.  

Why would we have this hope for something or in something that never seems to be met, or met fully? 

Hope stirs inside of us the need to grieve for all the “not yets” that we experience here on this earth.  If we don’t have people that are familiar with grief and that can hold a space to allow us to grieve our hearts, we become sick and we begin to practice hopelessness. We make fun of hope, we turn it into a childish memory that no longer exists for us.  Life is mostly mundane, a rhythm of night and day with moments of great splendor and fulfillment but always with a side of sadness for that which is not met.  

My hope for you reading this is that you will continue to practice listening with each breathe in and out what the child inside of you is saying, is hoping for, and is needing.  That child is dying to be heard in your hopelessness.  That child is resilient and will not stop tugging on your shirt to come and play in the field of dreams, where life is tragic and God is faithful.  I beckon you to return to how you were made, return to the child inside of you, return to your heart that is beating, pumping oxygen rich blood through your veins, and your lungs which receive deeply and pour out with the faith of the next inhale.  There are many stories in there waiting, hoping to be told.  Do you want to live or just survive?  There is a part of you that wants to live if you are reading this blog.  Start a conversation with that part of you today!

Kenyan Kingdoms

I wrote a poem on how Kenya showed me what the Kingdom of God is like…

The Kingdom of God is like a little orphan boy in rags showing up day after day, rain or shine, walking for miles at times to hear and get a hug from his new friends that have something to give him that he knows nothing about.

The Kingdom of God is like the rainfall that will bring a small poor village floods of destruction but will pour down something else that they never thought possible; as one by one they begin to dance in it and the very thing that was bringing them into a deeper poverty was catapulting them into a mystery of the wealthiest life.

The Kingdom of God is like feeling like you have nothing left to give, feeling so dry in a desert place and pushing forward, it’s like you are having dreams of a streaming river so you press on not knowing if you are starting to become delusional or if that dream was even real; then you see it from a far.  You see the river, the water that you have been dreaming of and craving and thirsting for, and it all begins to make a little more sense and then its gone again and you press on, because that little glimpse reminded you of why you were still walking and what was soon to become reality.

The Kingdom of God is like being overtaken in your deepest fear and pushing past it to find something in yourself that you have never trusted before and barely knew existed, to find a power that is only to be found with complete surrender

The Kingdom of God is like a child finding shelter and comfort from the storm in your arms, under your umbrella, in your presence, when you find in the simplest ways that you are capable of being that person to another precious life in this world only because your heavenly Father has been that for you over and over again.

The kingdom of God is like seeing an elder man walk to the front of the church after preaching the message the Lord put on your heart and watch as this man, after a long life of running, goes to His knees in front of everyone and cries for mercy.

The Kingdom of Heaven is like living like no one is watching, but ONE.

I hope you all get a chance to dance in the rain and experience the kingdom this weekend!

Monday Musings

How to Read Backwards

The end. The price is paid.  It is finished.

The sparrow for a penny you say,

What does that make me?

You have numbered the hairs on my head,

Do I come at a price?

How many shekels does he pay

Did I do a good job

Do I get a tip? A raise?

I must increase my worth he whispers.

So it’s a fixed price you say.

I don’t feel fixed.

I feel broken. In fact.

Let’s talk facts.

You came to fix me right?

Like the coldplay song.

You have come to fix my insides of the net worth’s that entangle me

The rise and the falls and

You remain the same

The breath in and the breath out 

Through the receiving and the giving

The input and the output

The day and the night

The joy and the pain

Your death and Your life.

They are all the same

The cost remains the same.

And the cost is great.

The cost is found in the third cry of the crow

The call of a son for His father

The final breath out upon the earth…

So he says I am 50 shekels

For him to turn on me, for my very soul.

He can have my body, but

My soul will never be his.

My soul belongs to someone he has not known in a long time.

He spoke to you when he was a boy, 

You are now a stranger to him.

That is why he can pay for my net worth but 

It will never be fixed for him

Until he talks facts with that old stranger

Watch the birds of the air

They will lead you

To the Raise you are looking for, 

That I searched for in you, 

Once upon a time…

- paid for prophet