Empty shelves and rooms that echo

It's strange how packing up a few things can leave a room feeling so different, that hallow ringing that lingers after even the faintest sound.  Sitting across from an empty shelf void of its usual adornment of plants and books.  It's moving day tomorrow.  I never would have thought that my time at the Alhambra House would be so short lived but I am very excited for the changes Jesus is bringing about and know that this comes from his good and gracious hands.  Thoughts run between reflections of the past year and hope filled anticipation for the road ahead.  Tis bitter-sweet for sure.  But I trust it is for good and glory.  So...last night in the Alhambra House.

Desires of the Heart

So softly did the time slip up upon me, or so it feels after three chaotic days of settling things at work, running errands and working through unexpected obstacles as I now spend a quiet morning praying, reading and journaling before heading to the airport in a few hours.  This morning I was reading Psalm 20 and 21.  In both of these the Psalmist talks of God granting the desires of his heart, of the blessing of good things given.  Today I set out to take hold of a gift, the gracious granting of a long held desire.  Years, then months, weeks, days, and now a few hours.

This morning I will fly to Manchester where I will meet a team of Jesus folks who have been planning and working together in preparation for this upcoming 2 weeks.  After a few short days there, it's on to Ukraine, first flying into Kiev, then taking a train to Konotop to the Hearts of Love center.  There it's 6 days of vacation Bible school, relationship building and all out fun.  The added pleasure comes in the prospect of opportunities to provide therapy, training and consultation for children with special needs and their families, both at the center and on home visits throughout the community.  I don't think I'd mind if my "real" job was traveling, sharing the Gospel with folks, and doing therapy.  For 10 years I've hoped for a day such as this, and six years ago seeing this specific opportunity out there and desiring that one day this day would come.  Some college and grad school in there to prepare, days such as these a motivation for sure.  And here it is.  A relaxed morning, an (almost) packed suitcase, a restful heart.  I feel I'm in a "sweet spot" today.  Grateful for all the organization, work and preparations that I don't even have a clue about that have made today and the weeks to follow possible.  Thankful for this gift from Jesus.

How deeply, King Jesus, I need Your Spirit for only in You is there power, salvation, strength and victory.  I cannot love without you, I cannot serve selflessly and for the good of another unless you work in this rebellious heart.  I lay myself before you and ask that You receive all the glory, all the praise.  Thank you for this amazing gift.  Oh, that I would rejoice and celebrate the goodness and grace you give, King Jesus.  Amen.

Waking from...delusion

I don't know how else to describe the feeling that it is to feel as if you are awaking from a dream, the reality that you experienced turns out to be an illusion and what is real and true, to this you have been blind.  The Bible says that Jesus opens blind heart and unstops deaf ears.  Well my spiritual eyes and ears were pretty mislead to think that what I perceived was reality.  There is so much to unpack, of which i shall not write for now, but let me just say, Jesus is gracious and my prayer is that I would come to know him as he rightly is.  However I ask to know the incomprehensible and all powerful, infinite God who exists apart from all and through all things exist...but I want to be close to Him more than ever and I am so grateful for Him opening me the way he has at this time and for the people He is using in my life, their patience, their grace - reflections of the Father.

So having got way off track, I now identify in a whole new way with Martha and her exasperation with Mary sitting at Jesus' feet.  Grace is for everybody and we all need it desperately, especially if we think otherwise.  That would be me it turns out.

In a book called Scandalous Freedom, the author Brown talks about when we focus on getting better, no on really gets all that much better; what we really learn is that we can't really get all that much better.  But if our primary aim is to know Jesus (to sit at His feet) whether or not we are getting better isn't the point anymore (if we do get any better it's all Him, but even if we don't, He still loves us).

Tonight I set out on a walk.  I had asked the Lord if I could get away for a few days, basically I wanted to hide from some things happening in my life.  And though I was still hoping to go, I sensed him inviting me not to go away if the reason was to hide.  So as i'm walking I meet a former neighbor I hadn't seen in a long time; that was fun and his family had been on my mind.  Another lap around the park and we pass again, this time chatting a little bit more.  I notice a softball game going on in a corner of the park and just hang out there for a while to watch.  In the end, besides considering jointing a softball league, I got to have a pretty cool chat with a guy also there watching.  A friend of the coach, he was just there for the evening and within minutes we were talking about things of grace. Having grown up in the church and having a pastor for a dad, he too had struggled with feeling that weight of trying to be better, that mustering up the appearance of goodness in one's own strength.  I absolutely love that things Jesus has been teaching me were relevant and timely to that conversation.  Then to top it all off as I headed home in the evening twilight, I run into my neighbor again, this time with his whole family and it was just sweetness to see them again.  This month I will be teaching a ballet workshop and really wanted to invite their girls, so it was perfect timing and I love that what was just a walk and talking to Jesus turned in to.  It was sweet and refreshing encouragement.

The Spiritual Discipline....of Composting?

Well dear reader, yes, the spiritual discipline of composting.  What on earth is that! (You might be thinking).  I remember reading Henry Nouwen's Genesee Diary and being amazed at the way God would teach him through daily, mundane tasks at the monastery.  The little things that he saw God in - I looked at that and thought, "wow, to be that 'spiritual' or close to God or whatever".  Well, let me just tell you, God finds the funniest things sometimes to reveal truth to us. And for me this weekend it was my pile of decomposing greens out in the compost heap. I think a spiritual discipline is something that we enter into for the sake of purposing to know Jesus better.  For example fasting points us to our dependence on him and creates space where we listen and know Jesus more. So why not composting?

I'm very new to composting, pretty green you might say (haha).  My composting lecturer (yes, I did attend a composting lecture that was fantastic by the way) did mention that summer composting in Phoenix can be tricky. So the composting isn't going as smoothly as I imagined my greens and coffee grounds turning into lovely sweet smelling compost. But hey, good things are growing out of it.  Composting is hard work in the summer; I break a good sweat turning that heap routinely.  I'm attempting hot composting where the internal breaking down the the materials and the right combination of elements create this fantastic heat and result in a the nutrient rich stuff for the garden later (at least that is the idea).

So let me try to set this up for you: On my counter is a green ceramic collecting canister for the compost materials from my kitchen.  In the top of the lid is this black charcoal filter that is suppose to help with the smell.  So Saturday night I was at a fabulous concert singing my lungs out to Jesus.  He was telling me all sorts of truth and bestowing gracious freedom as we worked through some stuff there.  And as I looked up at the ceiling in this place, well it looked a lot like the inside of the compost canister lid and I had this thought, "Huh! I'm in the compost bin!" and then came the truth part

I was someone else's refuse, rejected and thrown away; seen to have no purpose.  To them I was not good enough, I had nothing they valued.  But Jesus sees it differently.  He scooped me up and put me in His compost bin.  Things get broken down in there. And if it's a good mix, they really aren't recognizable anymore when they emerge because they've been transformed  He's working it, turning it, sometimes letting it get hot.  But when He is finished, what once was someone else' broken and discarded trash will bring life to the rest of the garden.  


So now every time I put something in the collecting canister, or take the whole thing out and add it to the bin out back, or I struggle to turn the pile, I will think of the glorious thing that God is doing. That he had different plans for me and that His work will pay off.

I get really excited about composting, even though I'm pretty terrible at it.  But God's a master Gardener and since I don't have to be perfect, I laugh at my efforts and smile with a dirt smudged face at my Father and rejoice that He's making beautiful things.

A Story

 (Just wanted to share with you a picture that God revealed to me recently in exposing some things in my heart and showing me how He is saving me.  I hope that you see His grace in this and realize His amazing love)

Sweet smelling, freshly turned earth cool and damp beneath bare feet.  Daylight is just coming.  All is still.  It is quiet and faint gray light reveals a soft fog hanging over the gardens.  Lush beautiful gardens, some bursting with blossoms, others laden with juicy globular fruits just at the cusp of perfection.  There are those where amid the toiled ground little seeds are just beginning to sprout, and in others, amid aged tendrils and cragged old trees the bright green buds of delicate green leaves are just appearing against the weathered bark.  But in this particular spot of earth, there is only turned up dry soil.  Something grew here once - something once treasured. 

Here in this valley there is Gardener who give to each a plot of earth; a small garden of their own, to tend and nourish.  A place to get some dirt under fingernails and feel the grass squish between toes.  And there is nothing that delights Him more than to come and garden alongside, to lend His expert hand under which even the hardest of soil brings forth graceful blooms. 

This place of earth- this empty upturned plot.  “This had been my garden!” screamed my bitter soul.  Through my tears and furrowed brow, my clenched teeth and shaking fist, I blamed the Gardener. “For years I tended to it, sacrificed for it.  Didn’t I do it for You even (or so I claimed)!!!  How dare you come and rip out all that I toiled over and gave my life to!”  I crossed my arms and stuck out my lip to pout.

The memory of that day racing through my mind:  I saw myself nourishing the tendrils of a vine, clearing some dead leaves away from a fresh sprout. I thought to myself, “I was doing a good job.  My garden was growing much faster than many of the others.  But the Gardener never would praise my garden like I’d overhear Him do to others” whined my self-righteous heart.  “When he walked by, he never came in and helped me work like I saw Him sometimes do in others” and I wrinkled up my nose in determined disdain. 

The images filled my mind again.  That morning when suddenly to my horror, with his great hands the Gardener stormed into my garden and  began to yank apart my garden, going at the roots, striking the earth with his plow he leveled that plot of earth, its surfaced furrowed and open like my broken heart.  My eyes were fixed on the crushed remains of my garden.  Did I not notice?  Could I not see?    

I sat there in the dirt and wept.  Through blazing sun and torrents of rain that would leave me splattered with mud, I moped along.  The Gardener would come by and invite me come work with Him.  “I hate you!” screamed my heart! “How unfair you’ve been!  Why did you do this to me?!” I wouldn’t look Him in the face, “I’ll give Him what He deserves” was what I thought.  “What nerve to offer me a second hand place in someone else’s garden!” I scoffed. 

And so time passed and I lived in the shadow of my ruined garden.   But one day, I don’t what was different, something in the Wind seemed to rouse me from my sleep.  It moved me that morning well before dawn to rise and walk out to the gardens. 

And as I came near to that empty plot, just nearby through the gray, I saw Him.  He was working in a garden I felt I had not noticed in a long time, or that it was so close to mine.  He looked almost weary and sad there in the almost dark, bent over and working.  And as I tried to tiptoe past, for the first time in all that while my eyes met His.  Everything seemed to suck in my breath and I couldn’t move; I couldn’t breath and the world stood still.  He gazed deeply into my heart, and like a spotlight in a cave, Something pierced the hard soil of my soul.

 “Darling”, Oh, He spoke so soft and tender.  I hadn’t realized how much I had longed to hear Him speak to me like that “I’m glad you are here”, He said and a smile turned the corner of His lip.  But I saw tears glisten in His eyes.  I began to feel small and fragile.  And all that I had built up in my mind of who He was fell to pieces and I began to tremble.  “Why…Why did this happen?” I stammered softly dropping my eyes to the ground.

 “Let me show you something, Dear One” He said and slipped His strong arm around my shoulder and moved me to where He had been working.  Oh that touch!  I am glad He moved me for my feet felt rooted there.

 “Here.” He suddenly spoke, stopping in that little garden plot that felt a little familiar for some reason where small sprouts were just peeping out of the carefully tended earth.  “This, was the garden I intended for you”. 

My head shot up in an instant. I looked bewildered at his face.  “You see right there, at the edge of this garden” He pointed and I looked.  There was my little bare patch of dirt all crusty and now appearing harsh and cold.  “I don’t understand” I said, “I..I..just wanted to please  you! Didn’t I?” “Oh Dear One” He smiled a sad but loving smile,” you were an eager little girl.  I loved to watch the fire in you.  When I gave you this garden, oh I remember well...”  and with a happy, dreamy look in His eyes He continued. “You threw your arms around my neck and you twirled about.  So happily you began to prepare the soil.  But the seeds come in season, and you were full of dreams for what your garden would be.  Ah.  Now I had created that garden for you and what would be best for you.  But one day a little sprout, coming up faster, caught your eye. It was there at the edge of the garden” He pointed to a little stone that marked the boundary, and I remembered well seeing that little shoot and being delighted that something was finally growing in my garden. 

“You began to focus so much on that little sprout and others that began to come up nearby.  You diligently watered them.  But you were no longer in the garden I gave you, and you didn’t realize what you were tending”  His gaze firmly held mine and that was the Moment.

There is a feeling that comes after a whirlwind, after a sudden realization.  When suddenly the world seems to stop and center in and grow very still, and something hits your consciousness and knocks the wind out of your understanding.  Everything that you once understood and believed to be reality is tuned over on its head and dumped out on the ground.  And it trickles away and dissolves into the sand in a second shorter than you could imagine; it simply vanishes like the wind.  Everything you held onto, your basis for argument, your claim to being right…it seemed solid! Infallible! Then suddenly for a moment it is mist, a vapor, and now it’s gone.  That is the Moment when you must pause and consider.

 I suddenly realized, as the dawn began to grow lighter,  that what I had been tending was not life- giving trees and fruit and blossoms and vegetables…but deadly weeds and poisonous truffles!  And with my mouth open in shock and a feeling of horror, I realized that for all those years I was tending my way to death, for had the harvest come and I had been allowed to eat the fruit of my toils, I would have died! And as I began to weep, I realized with what great love the Gardener had come that day, knowing I would hate what He did to me,  and ripped death away from me.  I stood and stared at that empty space.  I could feel His loving eyes on me.

 “I’m so sorry” I whispered, “I didn’t tend the garden you gave me”.  I could feel Him smile and he placed his hands on my shoulders and turned me just so slight and gentle.  I realized we were standing in the garden He had given me, and all around I could tell it had been lovingly tended.  The shoots were very small, but someone had been spending hours tending my garden.  My eyes met His with a questioning gaze and He smiled.  “Beloved, so many times I know your heart hoped for me to come to your death-garden and praise the work you were doing.  But I loved you too much to praise your foolishness, and so it is I who have tended your garden, your life-garden.  It is small and young, and much work needs yet to be done. But I will help you, I will teach you, and I will be with you as you tend your garden”.

My shoulders slumped as if I had just let go of a very heavy weight; all that bitterness melted into the earth beneath me.  All that time I never saw, yet blindly thought I did.  And all the while, the Gardener patiently worked.  He gently kissed my head and went back to work.  I stood at the edge between my two gardens for a moment and took a deep breath, and heaved a big sigh.  And will a small shake of my head, and a smile in my heart,  I turned away from that empty plot of earth and faced the rising sun at it burst over the horizon exploding forth in crimson and gold yet it’s light falling so gently on the sprouts in my garden that were just beginning to appear.

Righteous? Really?

Recently I have been praying that Jesus would make my need for grace more a reality for me - to help me see my sin and depravity as it really is so that I have a greater recognition of my dependence on His grace - that I would see my place at the foot of the Cross.  In self-righteousness I was blind to the sin in my life.  Truth says:

"We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away" (Isaiah 64:6)

"Though I say to the righteous that he shall surely live, yet if he trusts in his righteousness and does injustice, none of his righteous deeds shall be remembered, but in his injustice that he has done he shall die." (Ezekiel 33:13)

“None is righteous, no, not one" (Romans 3:10)

As the Spirit is answering this prayer and searching out and exposing the hidden things in me, it is no lovely thing to be confronted with sin.  The ugliness that lurks in my flesh is appalling to me, it's embarrassing and gross.  Truth says that if I trust in the "good" I have done and yet sin even a bit, that the "good" won't be remembered.  (I've heard people say that they've been "good enough", that the good outweighs the bad.  One sin though annuls all the "good").  And Romans clearly says that no one is righteous, so all of our potentially good things are not remembered.  And even those "righteous" things we did, those are even filthy to God who is perfect and Holy.  

So as God continues to search out and expose sin in my life, I have been thinking and praying on some things.  First, do I weep over sin because I am sincerely broken over that sin and it's offense to God, or am I just weeping from embarrassment and the thought that others will think less of me? Do I rely on my own ability to "fix" these problems, or do I depend on the Spirit's power to transform and redeem me? Do I believe that is possible?  I am trying to take these things to people in my life who really love Jesus to confess and repent.  That is a hard thing to do. I had no idea how physically and emotionally taxing yesturday would be as Jesus kept instructing me to confess these things He is showing me until it was all dragged into the light.  But I'm finding grace there at His cross, expressed through His word, through people who hear my sin and struggles and love me still, evidencing in flesh and blood the covenant, unfailing love of Jesus. 

We are fools to think we don't belong at the foot of the cross just as much as every other sinner.  But it is at the cross where the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7).  I don't think that has sunk in yet.  All sin.  And this is something done for me.  I am powerless to do this.  It is purely the grace of a King who loved so greatly that He took all that sin, all that putrid disgusting perversion of goodness, on Himself, bore an excruciating death, and rose in victory over all sin, so that any grossness in me finds death in the victory and power of Christ.  So if my sin is exposed and I am seen as the true wreck I am so that the grace and glory and power of Jesus might be revealed more clearly and exalted more greatly, then okay. 

Dress us up

God has moved in ways beyond my expectation and presumptions, both in the last months, my life overall, and shall I say in history.  He is so graciously showing me sweeter depths of His love and grace.  There is a song by John Mark McMillan with lyrics that say "Dress us up in your righteousness...Dress us up in the blood of your Son who opened up His veins so that we can overcome, death and the grave in the power of His love..." (see this link for the lyrics).  I've been thinking about that.  That it is Jesus, our groom, that dresses us in white.  I was thinking of a bride.  One of the things the Spirit has been revealing to me is pride, and my arrogant self-exaltation as god of my life, declaring my own righteousness.  This is not truth, not did it leave any room for grace from which to love and serve others.  So to use the bridal example, if I did everything right (and of course I was setting the standards for rightness it seems) then God would have to give me the perfecting ending (in this case a perfect marriage) and I could wear white on my wedding because I had not broken any of the rules (I had made).  But get this.  It is the Bridegroom that dresses us, head to toe, in white.  Not for what we have done or not done, but because of Him.  If you read the Prodigal Son, I battle Elder Brother Syndrome.  That angst that I feel in my flesh that the rebellious kid gets a party?  When "I did everything you asked!"  Ah.  But I do not know the Father then.  It is not our "good behavior" that merits His approval or blessing.  He's just gracious and generous and good!  I was talking with my dear roommate who God has totally put in my life to mortify my flesh and exalt His glory.  If we go by my list of rules for "perfection", she broke all of them.  But get this.  We both wear white to the wedding.  Because Jesus, the Bridegroom who pursues and loves us, dresses us up in His righteousness.  So rebellious or religious, both of us sinners, stand in perfect holiness before God in Jesus through His finished work on the cross.  And we stand in that alone. 

So about having a roommate.  Growing up I was told (a lie) that as a woman, I needed to be able to "stand on my own".  That I should live alone for at least a year before ever getting married or something.  That I needed to be able to support myself, know "who I am".  That kind of thing.  Now, the women in my life who told me that, I know they meant well. It's a life philosophy that leads to a lived theology.  It's just not one that originates in Jesus or His Word, so it's not the one I choose to live by anymore.  Living alone, you get to be "god" of your home.  I learned to control my space and really, be selfish. (I'm not saying you are selfish if you live alone.  Please hear me out).  But if we really want to put to death the things that are contrary to Jesus, those things in our flesh, giving myself a little "kingdom" isn't a good remedy.  But go live with one or more people also pursuing Jesus and His Kingdom over your life, and that flesh will be mortified.  Instead of finding myself, I find more of Christ. Instead of selfishness, I learn generosity.  Instead of controlling and getting to say what goes, I give up my rights to serve someone else.  I recommend roommates- people to press you on to the goal of knowing Jesus. 

So those are the thoughts for this morning and all the time I have before this day gets into full swing.  I'm praying for you.