As the page turns...

A new year's coming. I must be getting old. I've barely gotten used to 2012! It's gonna be a big year ahead. Some pretty major changes, which I'll probably be sharing a bit about soon. (No, not getting married or anything.) :P

It was a good Christmas. I think some of the tragedies - Newtown and other things closer to home - actually helped get the focus on spiritual things rather than on the fluffy stuff. To think about others rather than ourselves.

Sometimes the greatest gifts are the smallest things. The things we already have, but perhaps need to rediscover. The cozy, quiet room downstairs. The spontaneous gifts from small friends. The thrift store finds.

There's this wanting to hold onto time that's so quickly slipping away. I dream sometimes of driving, unable to stop. There's a terror in it - a realization that I'm no longer in control. Waking reality is much the same. No matter how hard I press the brakes, I cannot change the speed of life, but only the speed I live.

I realize life's shortness when I look ahead to eternity. I realize its importance when I look and see those traveling with me.

I want to be "all there." I want to show people that they matter. I want to be willing to slow down, to make conversation deeper than the "how are you" and "good, how bout you?" that repeats without meaning week after week. I want to do hard things. I want to stop wishing other people would change, and simply live how Christ has called me to live.

I want to glory in the small things, in the joy and illumination of thinking God's thoughts after Him, in making things with my hands, in enjoying beauty and creativity.

I'm thankful for the gospel of grace. Without it, I would be doomed to fail in any resolution I could make. I'll still fail, and fail often, but thanks be to God, I am made perfect in Him! Looking to Him is the reason for hope; He is the one I follow even when I realize I can never follow perfectly. Anything good achieved through me is His gift, His work.

Thanks be to God.

Singing in the Rain

November. Many years, just the name of this month makes me want to say, "no." No November, thank you kindly. No cold, dark, wet, grey. No midterms or group project presentations or sprinting to the bus on dark mornings, lugging books like a bedraggled camel while balancing my umbrella and hoping my socks will dry before it's time to come home again.

But if I said no to November, there wouldn't be the joy of watching these last few leaves fall to the ground in bright, crunchy carpets. There wouldn't be the wonder of seeing the sky shine bright blue through thinning branches in the midst of weeks of rain. I wouldn't have had the joy and fun of watching the kids on Wednesday night, building marshmallow and spaghetti towers of babel, and laughing along with them.

The trees on my university campus - so beautiful! Photo credit - Nelson.

Things have been getting busier and busier. I haven't been as disciplined as I should be. My courses aren't as interesting as I thought they'd be. Many dear friends, church family, and family, face serious trials. Sometimes I just feel helpless... helpless... in the face of hurts that only God, and only truly knowing Him, can heal. But there are jewels found amidst suffering. There is forgiveness. There is the incredible joy of eternal life even when flesh wastes away. But still, the wound of life is raw. There is forgiveness rejected despite desperate prayers. There are choices made that tear apart fragile faith. Sometimes life draws my eyes to stray from His goodness.

November. Just another month in this short life. Yet in His perspective, it comes down to being "His possession - to the praise of His glory." (Eph 1:14) In God's economy, it's not about good and bad, but about giving everything to Him. Just spending a couple moments reading scriptures, remembering who I am, who He is - that's what brings it all back to joy - pure joy - because He measures out every circumstance for good.

Sometimes I still wish I could say no to November, but the beauty He will bring is worth it all - for it's no less than His Glory.

Home

I love my home.

I love the smell of fresh bread as it's being pulled from the oven.

I love the warmth of flannel sheets that cocoon me on chilly mornings.

I love the smiles and laughter and inside jokes that are part of knowing someone forever.

I love the memories created here.

Home means comfort; acceptance; a place to belong and feel safe; a place where I grow and my mistakes are covered by love. I've learned to value this place and these people highly. God has blessed us.

And to give me greater blessing, He asks me to forsake it. No, not to forsake in the sense of abandonment or ceasing to love, but to consider all things as secondary to following Him. To serve and love even more for His sake. And yes, to be willing to step beyond comfort.

"And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life." (Matt 19:29)

If we are not "at home" everywhere He leads us, we are not in a spiritual state that is prepared for heaven.

Christ himself must become our home. He must become everything. Is it any wonder that scripture describes God in the terms of almost every human relationship? He is our brother, friend, father, healer, guide, bridegroom, king, master, shepherd, saviour, teacher, and the list goes on. He is our shelter, food, drink, and comfort. He is the one who clothes us with His righteousness!

When we realize this earth is not our home, nothing can hold us back from Him. All places will be home, for His glory is our refuge. We will be ready when He calls us away from that which we have at once renounced and embraced for His sake, and will fly with the joy of fulfillment to the presence of Him who was our only vision.

I'm writing this because, well, I'm a wimp sometimes. I need to remember, not just when it's fresh and real to me, but when my soul faces tumult and doubt. I am inspired by the words of Paul in Philippians 3:7-12

But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.

I love Paul's postscript there - "not that I have already obtained all this".... but that "Christ Jesus took hold of me."

It's about knowing Christ. It's about coming back to the Father who waits with arms wide open! (Luke 15) Home is where Jesus lives - and whenever my heart surrenders to Him, I am home.

A Life

This is just a poem I jotted down one night (I very rarely write poetry, as I'm really not a poet, but this is how the words came). I journal a lot, so this poem is, on the surface, about writing. On a deeper level, however, it's a metaphor for a life that struggles to make sense of itself, but prays to "write" the things that count.


My heart is full, the page is white,
And words make shadows in the night.
They float through mists like birds aflight,
But phantoms cannot catch the light.

Thought runs swiftly into feeling,
Tumbling, into darkness reeling,
Words are quickly over-keeling,
Senseless things, devoid of meaning.

The page lifts up its gentle face,
Still pure as winter's white embrace.
I close the book and breathe a prayer:
May gold, not dross, be written there.

River Flow

make my heart a quiet river,

flowing deep

springs rise up to water the earth

God's green earth

where seeds are planted

and grow

by water and the spirit

they will grow

they will grow

water, spirit, and the blood,

which opens hearts to flow again

broken hearts to flow anew

make my heart a quiet river,

flowing deep