The Unspoken Speaks

She is there

She waits

With her head down

She waits

Not knowing if she is giving up

Or taking a break

Sick from all the unspokens

All the filters, the mazes

The weaves and blind turns

She is naeusous 

Motion sick

She used to love roller coasters 

Now they are too real

The ins and outs and upside downs

The yes's and no's 

The supposed to's the shows

The grudges felt but not heard or spoken

The vibration, the tremor of her voice

Coming from the inside out

She has a choice

She purges. She lets go

The ride slows down

She can see, she can feel

She lifts her head

It is real. 

She is here.

Alive and dead

Empty and fed

Proverbs 17 Woman

The highest woman on the ladder, who can find.  

The one with the scars is the most divine.  

Except for the scars are on the inside for none to see.  

For all the Yes’s she gave in word and deed.

What does she lack?  No one knows

Except for the stains on her sheets and pillows.

Proverbs 17 women who can find

The most noble, hardworking, and divine

She gets up before the sun and takes care of everyone

But what does she do when the day is done?

Does she lay under the stars and wonder who is there

If she says No, will someone up there will still care?

The highest on the ladder, who can see

She is too high, even for me.

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

I believe in LOVE

I believe in a thing called LOVE.  I believe that it is the most powerful thing that we will ever encounter here on this side of heaven.  We were made to love and to be loved.  We are all looking for it.  Its like we are all in this race striving to find this one thing, and we are all looking in different places, and there are all these things dressed up as love that have us fooled.  Yes we are fools for love, we do crazy things for it.  What do you think love is?  Do you think it is just a feeling, is it sexual attraction, is it something that makes you feel good?  What do you truly love in your life, how do you want to be loved?  These are questions that I ponder in myself and those around me.  Do any of us really know what love is, I’m not really sure, but we all want to know and experience it, we want to have it or be in it.  It’s like this common denominator that we all share, that’s maybe why our culture is based off of romance and sexuality, it’s like we have fallen into this false sense of the meaning of Love.

There are songs, movies, and endless advertisements enticing us into the idea of love, but it is so much more than what the media portrays it to be.  Love is the most intense, transforming being on this earth, it has the power to completely change people and circumstances for the good and to make someone become fully alive, it raises the dead to life, and enables the blind to truly see.  Do you know what I mean, it is miraculous!  When you fall in love with someone you don’t have to force yourself to do things for that person, it is just part of your being, it just pours over.  Yes I know that love is a choice, that phrase has been beaten into my head by my father from a very young age, but WOW when you choose to love beyond yourself and your own desires and wants, when you see this powerful force outside of yourself, you are put in pain, there is a lack of comfort, somedays you feel like a ragdoll, but oh boy do you come to life, you start to realize your purpose, why you have been put on this earth.  When your blind eyes begin to see that you are extravagantly LOVED by Love Himself and you were made to Love as Love has loved you, WOW, talk about a revelation, talk about a life change, talk about the Lame beginning to walk!  Can I get an AMEN. 

Oh how I long and pray that we will stop being fools for love, for falling for the prostitute of love here on this earth and we start to have the guts to go for the real thing, LOVE himself.  Yes it is a hard road, it is the narrow way, and the path less traveled, but what a brilliant journey it is, chasing Love through this earth, finding Him in every moment through every eye and every sunset.  I have something to tell you: Love is here folks.  Love is beckoning each beloved person on this earth, Love is knocking on your door.  Love might seem so far from you at this moment but that could be no FARther from the Truth.

Wake up world.  Close your eyes to the seductress of our times and open them to the Light of Love.  You are a child of Love, a child of GOD.  I beg of you to find this Light and kindle it with the Love of your Savior, this light, your life was not created to be put out by this dark world, but to overcome and together we shall fan a flame that will conquer death and life itself!

FREEEEEEEEEDOM

Free...Freedom...Freely. What is Freedom? Who is free? What does it take to be free?

My online dictionary says...Free-dom (n.): the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action.

People fight for it. Some die for it. I think William Wallace (Braveheart) knows a little bit about Freedom. While watching this movie I long to believe in something this much. Right before he was headed to get tortured and beheaded he was praying to God in shackles, "I am so afraid.......give me the strength". While getting tortured and mocked all they wanted was for him to say mercy or to surrender and it would all stop, but as he looked at the faces in the crowd he caught the eye of a child. He was reminded of what he was suffering for in the face of a child. And then comes the scene FREEEEEEEDDDDDOOOOOOOOOOOMMMM yelled from the depths of his soul. Guaranteed everyone in that crowd questioned what they believed in, what they were living for, and wanted what this man had after witnessing this heart cry in the face of opposition from all sides. The paradox is that the very thing he was fighting for was already his according to the definition above.

Check out the link to the clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hce-Xvp1gm8

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that someone else is more important than fear.

William Wallace is much like Jesus, but not perfect and didn't die for the sins of the world and didn't raise from the dead, but you know what I mean. William Wallace I should say is a man just like us (but a bit more chiseled), but believed in something so much that he was willing to die for it. I want to believe in Jesus so much that I am willing to die for him. I have been crucified with Christ in His death so that His spirit may live in me. The same Spirit that rose Christ from the dead is living in me right now!!! The same Spirit of the God Almighty is living in me!!! me?? mee!!! That is why I consider death to be gain, and to live is Christ!!! Since I am now not my own, since I have died with Christ and my sinful nature, I am free to live as Christ. I am free from being everything else that the world wants me to be, I am free from human approval and the need for success, I am free! Why do I feel so afraid? I am so afraid, but am comforted to know that throughout Scripture God reminded His children over and over:

Do not be afraid, take courage.

Do not fear for the Lord your God is with you.

Do not be afraid for I am with you.

Do not be afraid of them for I am with you and will rescue you.

Don't be afraid just believe.

The Lord is my helper I will not be afraid.

Be strong and courageous Do not be terrified Do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go...

BUT PERFECT LOVE DRIVES OUT FEAR - 1 John 4:19

In James it says that Elijah was a man just like us....BUT....he prayed fervently. Elijah was scared, Moses was scared, Joshua was scared, Peter was scared...these great men of God had to be reminded by God to not be afraid, and they did that through prayer without ceasing, through clinging to a promise that their heavenly Father had made to them and acting on that promise in the face of all their fears! This is where they experienced the Truth itself...this is where they experienced the Living God working through their mortal bodies!! MIRACLES because they really believed in this God they were willing to risk everything for Him, they walked by FAITH and not by what they could see.

I had a dream the other night (no I'm not about to go MLK on you, don't worry) that I was in a concentration camp, and I was being forced to do things that I didn't want to do, I was a slave, and was tortured. Then I had found a way out of the camp and had escaped. I thought that I would feel free but I actually felt more a slave than ever. I could not relax and was in chains of overwhelming fear that I would get caught and have to return to the camp. I believe that this is what the Israelites felt when they escaped from Egypt and were headed for the Promised Land. They wanted to go back to slavery and had forgotten why they escaped in the first place, they had forgotten the place that they were headed, the place filled with milk and honey.

I have to remind myself daily of where I have come from and where I am going. Jesus has brought me from death to life, from darkness to light!! I am going to be standing in front of the Almighty God soon. Me! I am!? Heaven is not just some story or dream or made up place...it is real and I am going! I am going to worship my creator in a perfect heaven with perfect love where He is going to wipe away every tear, and there is going to be no more injustice, sin, and suffering!! I am now an alien in this land. I am not my own. This is not my home. The greatest mission ever given was from Jesus to His people, His Body, The Church..."you will receive POWER when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be MY witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth". AND so I will seek to overcome my day to day fears and be reminded of my brother in Christ who writes, "I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me, the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace".

I pray, O God, that I may know You and love You, so that I may rejoice in You. And if I cannot do so fully in this life may I progress gradually until it comes to fullness. Let the knowledge of You grow in me here, and there (in heaven) be made complete; let Your love grow in me here and there be made complete, so that here my joy may be great in hope, and there by complete in reality. Lord, by Your Son You command, or rather, counsel us to ask and You promise that we shall receive so that our 'joy may be complete.' I ask, Lord, as You counsel through our admirable counsellor. May I receive what You promise through Your truth so that my 'joy may be complete.' God of truth, I ask that I may receive so that my 'joy may be complete.' Until then let my mind meditate on it, let my tongue speak of it, let my heart love it, let my mouth preach it. Let my soul hunger for it, let my flesh thirst for it, my whole being desire it, until I enter into the 'joy of the Lord,' who is God, Three in One, 'blessed forever. amen'

-ANSELM