centered.

"whoever does not accept himself is engrossed with himself."

oh Lord,

may i learn to have grace for myself, so that i may forget myself.

amen.

why. who.

"woman, he said, why are you weeping?
who is it you are looking for?"

-Jesus, after His mighty resurrection, to mary in her grief.

february 21.

"when you pass through the waters, I will be with you."

-the Lord, isaiah 43.

"can you learn about yourself without judging yourself?
will you just let yourself do that?"

-shea.

voice.

let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed
rejoice.
hide your face from my sins.

create in me a pure heart,
do not cast me from your
presence
or take your Holy Spirit
from me.

open my lips,
and my mouth will declare
your praise.

psalm 51, excerpts.

so many fires.

words are too wonderful for words. the vibrant
translation of things to ideas.

Lord, there are so many fires, so many words, in
my heart. it's going to take something i can't
even imagine, to put them all out.

-mary oliver.

forgiven.

"then he turned toward the woman and said to simon, 'do you see this woman? I came into your house. you did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. you did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time that I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. you did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. therefore I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven - as her great love has shown. but whoever has been forgiven little loves little." -Messiah Jesus, luke 7.

----

"but to me this is a slight matter, that i am judged by you or by any man. i do not even judge myself." -brother paul.

----

"be strong in the grace of Jesus." -brother paul.

here am i.

i want to be like elijah,
full of zeal.

i want to be like isaiah,
undone by the high and holy vision of God,
answering, 'here am i.'

i want to be like leah,
turning my wounds into praise.

becoming.

"what i loved in the beginning, i think, was mostly myself.
never mind that i had to, since somebody had to.
that was many years ago.
since then i have gone out from my confinements,
though with difficulty.

i mean the ones that thought to rule my heart.
i cast them out, i put them on the mush pile.
they will be nourishment somehow (everything is nourishment
somehow or another).

and i have become the child of the clouds, and of hope.
i have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.
i have become older and, cherishing what i have learned,
i have become younger.

and what do i risk to tell you this, which is all i know?
love yourself. then forget it. then, love the world."

(mary oliver)

----

Lord, i believe.
help my unbelief.

burden.

as prophets,

we are overwhelmed by our sympathy for God,
we are burdened by our sympathy for man.

as prophets,

we stand before the people and plead for God,
we stand before God and plead for the people.

as prophets,

we are wearied by the heaviness of sin,
we are carried by the force of this mighty Love.

"but now comes the greatest wonder that the world has ever known. in the very place where we have fallen away from God, where we have become dead and unreceptive to God, in our guilt, God's goodness searches us out, and is revealed to us again as the eternal promise of God, in Jesus Messiah, which far surpasses all guilt and all life. only the person who, in the darkness of guilt, of unfaithfulness, of enmity towards God, has felt himself or herself touched by the love which never ceases, which forgives everything, and which points beyond all misery to the world of God, only such a person really knows what God's goodness means."

-dietrich bonhoeffer.

-----

as God slowly leads me away from my murky fog of guilt into the piercing and gentle light of Jesus, my soul begins to live and move and find its being in His atmosphere of goodness.

and my heart beats, He is good, He is good, He is good.

amen.

Lord,

i will tear the heart of my soul in two
and You must lay therein
You must lay yourself
in the wounds of my soul.

-mechtild of magdeburg

something else entirely.

"A strange thing happened then. The Speaker agreed with her that she had made a mistake, and she knew when he said the words that it was true, that his judgement was correct. And yet she felt strangely healed, as if simply speaking her mistake were enough to purge some of the pain of it. For the first time, then, she caught a glimpse of what the power of speaking might be. It wasn't a matter of confession, penance, and absolution, like the priests offered. It was something else entirely. Telling the story of who she was, and then realizing that she was no longer the same person. That she had made a mistake, and the mistake changed her, and now she would not make the mistake again because she had become someone else, someone less afraid, someone more compassionate.

If I'm not that frightened girl who heard and dared not go, who am I? But the water flowing through the grillwork had no answers. Maybe she couldn't know who she was today. Maybe it was enough to know that she was no longer who she was before."

-orson scott card, speaker for the dead.

here am i.

the past 2 years came close to killing my hope.

time and again, the months and the days and the hours spent wrestling with sin and its pain knocked me hard to my knees.

and yet.

from this humble kneeling, i am learning to receive God's gift of glory, and come to know in full that it is stronger, fuller, and more vibrant than the rest, and that it will lift me up again, freely, and with everlasting attention.

I will.

I will wait for my renewal to come.

I will wait for my renewal to come.

I will wait for my renewal to come.

I will wait for my renewal to come.

I will wait for my renewal to come.

I will wait for my renewal to come.

I will wait for my renewal to come.

-----

but Lord, I don't know how to wait.

help.

on my account.

"God, you know my folly;
my guilty deeds are not hidden from You.
Let those who look to You, O Lord, God of hosts,
not be disappointed on my account..."

now go.

And the Lord said to him,

"Who gives man speech? Who makes him dumb or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go, and I will be with you as you speak and will instruct you what to say."

-the Lord encourages Moses, exodus 4.

okay.

I wish we were taught more often in this life that it's okay not to be okay sometimes.

2011

goals...

to THROW OFF everything that hinders and run with PERSEVERANCE this race marked out for me (us), and be STRONG in the grace of Jesus.

-----

hebrews 12. 2 timothy 2.

consuming fire.

why are we, as followers of Jesus, so afraid of our emotions?

not our fluffy, surface emotions, but our deepest, blackest, most powerful emotions. emotions like

fury.

lust.

deep loneliness.

jealousy.

and despair.

the world seems to think that when we feel these kind of deep emotions, we are to restrain them, because a follower of Jesus should not battle with things like LUST, or LONELINESS, or DESPAIR.

but to shove something aside is let it continue to control you, and when we fear our emotions, that means they have a power in our lives that they shouldn't. until we take the lid off and allow our emotions to be dealt with honestly, they will continue to drain us of energy and confuse our perspectives from the dark and shadowy corners of our souls where they reside.

facing our emotions, when done with and in the presence of Jesus, does not push us away from the Father, but hurls us at Him with deepest force.

if we battle this lust, this loneliness, this doubt, at the feet of the Father - if we let Him be a part of the process and the conversation - then our wounds will be bound up, our healing will come, and our perspective will be true.

there is much to be learned from our most powerful emotions. we do not serve a God of light and fluffy characterisitics.

our God is a consuming fire.

He is zealous. He is jealous. He is passionate and powerful and true.

and when we feel these things in ourselves and let Him channel our emotions into things that are good and pure and holy, we will not only understand Him better, but we will be changed.

bring them - your pain, your loneliness, your desperation, your despair, your doubt, your fury -to the feet of the Father.

be honest before Him in prayer.

feel what you feel and let Him teach you.

He understands our struggles.

He is not afraid of our darkness.

His pure and fiery attributes are stronger than anything that we can throw at Him.

let Him refine you today.

do not hide from Him who you truly are.

be honest.

be true.

He will wrestle it with you.

He will bind it up.

He will make it into something good,

something new.

-----

"therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire.” -hebrews 12, deuteronomy 4.