Doesn't that sound trendy? ;)
Believe me, I titled this post tongue-in-cheek, thinking about how "culturally relevant" it sounded - but God willing, it's not quite as full of hot air as it could be. :)
I read one of the most incredibly profound books while I was flying to and from the East Coast over the holidays, and I hope that if you get a chance, you will go to your nearest local bookstore and order a copy (if they don't already have it in stock). It's called SHIFT, by Peter Arnell. I could summarize it for you, but I think Peter does a way better job of it himself:
For a number of reasons, towards the end of 2011, I found myself increasingly un-Happy. Part of it, honestly, was just imbalance on my part - being too busy, being busy doing the wrong things, not having enough downtime to meet the needs of my inner introvert, and accidentally but subconsciously beginning to identify myself by what I do, and not by Whose I am. Reading Peter's book was inspiring and timely and as far as I can tell, God-orchestrated. (I mean, really - what was I doing in the business section of Barnes and Noble?! How did I end up there?!) Lol.
I came away from reading this book confident of two things: 1) change is possible; and 2) I'm going to need some help.
There are a lot of things in my life that I wish would just shift by themselves.
They're not going to.
If I want to see things change, I'm going to have to do something.
Some of the negatives are circumstances that I simply cannot do anything about, except pray. Only God can move those mountains, and if/when He's ready to, He will. But there are things I can change. Things I can control. Things I can do.
So as I took my annual beginning of the year retreat to finish Peter's book and pray over this coming year, here are the things I've determined that I would like to either see shift or to see God do in me, as we stand at this year's annual crossroads, choose a path and start walking into 2012:
1) I want to be more present.
- Paying attention to the moment.
- Really listening to people.
- Enjoying what I'm eating, and stopping when I'm full.
- Noticing nature; taking time to look at the stars.
2) I want to be more silent.
- Listening to what I'm actually thinking, and what it reveals about my heart.
- Listening for His voice; learning to know Him better.
3) I want to be more intentionally grateful.
- I need to write it down: what am I thankful for today?
4) I want to make some personal shifts in how I structure my lifestyle:
- Diet: I need to eat things that are good for me, that promote health.
- Exercise: I need to try to exercise at least 2x a week (if not more).
- Image: I've always wanted to dress with a little more style. This is my year to do a little bit of shopping - to buy clothes that flatter and fit. I will always be most comfortable in jeans and a sweatshirt, but as I start to eat better and exercise more, I know from experience that I will feel more confident, and I want to look it. I can't go nuts; my debt-reduction plan needs to stay in place - but I need to give myself permission to look nice. And I needed a new haircut. Which I got today. (And I feel fabulous.) :)
5) I want to read and study more. (Leadership books and stories.)
6) I want to write more. And maybe finally take the risk and see if I can sell it.
7) I want to go deeper with Jesus, and fall more in love with Him than I have ever been.
- Listen. Pray. Fast. Wait. Worship.
- Dwell in the shelter of the Most High.
- Walk into my calling.
- Live with purpose. Live with joy.
So that's the new reality; at least, it's what I'm hoping for this year. I don't know when/how/what it will all look like - but because He is with me on this journey, I know it's going to be full of adventure and fun and learning and grace, and an experience far greater than anything I can imagine now.
Please feel free to check in with me from time to time, and ask me how it's going. And go read the book. You won't regret it. :)
Happy New Year, friends. Be blessed.
Showing posts with label simple felicity: dream. Show all posts
Showing posts with label simple felicity: dream. Show all posts
full circle
It's been an amazing journey these past few years. In May of 2007, I spent a few hours in the seminary library, studying commentaries for fun, and wrestling with a certain but still somewhat ambiguous calling - coming to terms with my inner Donna Reed and realizing that in spite of my hesitancy to find out what it was, God's call on my life was much different than I'd dared to dream. In July of 2008, I preached my first official sermon on a Monday night at a young adult group - using a sermon illustration that has become Torch quasi-legend. (Remember that time I got chased by a buffalo? lol. So does everybody else...)
And today? Today I am headed back to the library to begin research for my first ever Sunday morning sermon.
(AHHHHH!!!!!!) I am excited and terrified all at once.
It's a little surreal, looking back, and still feeling a tiny shred of that old reluctance to step out - but feeling at the same time, in spite of that little bit of sheer terror, so incredibly confident that God has called me to do this.
Nonetheless, I am very grateful that I have a month to write, re-write, and re-write again. :)
Wish me luck! Or better yet - pray that I get out of the way and am quiet enough to hear what He's speaking thru the text, and can relay it effectively. :)
Thanks!
And today? Today I am headed back to the library to begin research for my first ever Sunday morning sermon.
(AHHHHH!!!!!!) I am excited and terrified all at once.
It's a little surreal, looking back, and still feeling a tiny shred of that old reluctance to step out - but feeling at the same time, in spite of that little bit of sheer terror, so incredibly confident that God has called me to do this.
Nonetheless, I am very grateful that I have a month to write, re-write, and re-write again. :)
Wish me luck! Or better yet - pray that I get out of the way and am quiet enough to hear what He's speaking thru the text, and can relay it effectively. :)
Thanks!
leaving the sidelines
I had an unusual dream a couple nights ago. In a lot of ways, it was just one of those standard, wow, my brain just super-imposed a lot of different things from my normal day-to-day life in a really strange way sort of dreams. But as I've been thinking it over the past couple of days, it seems to me that God was actually speaking through it.
I dreamed that a very good friend of mine from another church came to lead worship for Torch one day, but we weren't in a theatre; we were in a small stadium, complete with tiered seats, sections, and seating along the sides of the stage. Rehearsal was going well. I remember being extremely happy as conversations took place, watching friends from two distinct parts of my life connect and become friends and serve the Lord together. I also remember being extremely busy, running about, getting things done, answering questions, managing details - you know, all the stuff that usually makes up my pre-service Sunday mornings. :)
And then it was time. People were filling the seats, the lights were about to come up, and the service was about to start. The band walked onstage, and I took a seat at the side of the stage, expecting a birds' eye view, and wanting to be close to the action.
And then this gigantic tent popped up and covered the entire stage, and I couldn't see anything. I could hear the music, and I could see the packed room erupting in heart-felt worship, but I couldn't see a thing except the side of this ridiculous tent. It was so disappointing. A friend from the band came to sit with me when they were done, but she sat where she could see and we talked across a gap of a few chairs. She was sympathetic, which was nice, but it didn't help me see, or connect to anything that was going on in the room.
And then my alarm went off.
Weird, I thought - and laughed a little at some of the strange superimpositions. The tent in particular amused me because I knew where it came from in real life (it's small and plastic, lol). And I didn't really think anything of it, at first - but the dream kept re-surfacing in my head all day, and I found myself thinking about it again last night as we were praying at a leadership meeting.
And I feel like what the Lord is saying to me through it is this: I have a choice about where I sit.
How often do I choose to sit on the sidelines, watching what's going on around me, instead of getting smack in the middle of it? I'm not saying this is always a bad choice - as an introvert and a wallflower, I rather like it, and it's emotionally healthy to be there... sometimes. But how much do I miss, when I choose the sidelines? Where do I need to take a risk and sit right in the middle of things, becoming an active participant instead of a passive observer?
I'm not 100% sure what the answers to those questions are, but I think mostly it's the principle of the thing - simply being aware that, while heaven knows I'm knee-deep and in the center of a lot of things, there are probably areas where I need to step out a little more. Maybe I need to be a little more intentional about talking to people I don't know very well and asking them to tell their stories. Maybe I need to comment a little more often (instead of being a silent reader) on the amazing blogs that my friends (both those I've met and those I haven't) write. Maybe I need to be a little more proactive about just telling people how good God is, without waiting to be asked to tell my story.
Maybe? No, I do.
What about you? Where do you sit? And where do you want to?
lenten journeys: learning to breathe
Today is the first day of Lent, and as usual, I'm a little reflective. This is the beginning of a long season. 40 days (47 if you count Sundays) until we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus - one of the absolute best parts of the amazing Story we live in. I am looking forward to Holy Week! But between now and then.... 47 days.
Julie wrote a beautiful post this week about Lent and her journey with the practice of "giving something up" for Lent. Giving something up is, as she says, about sacrifice - but you're not supposed to do it just for the sake of doing it. The point is to allow the discipline of sacrificing something to be a tool in God's hands, to allow Him to transform you. It was a timely reminder as I begin my own Lenten journey: I am not giving up coffee and junk food and all the other various and sundry things I feel led to cut out of my diet just for the sake of doing it - nor even for the sake of becoming more healthy, tho that will likely happen. I am giving them up because the very act of doing so will teach me discipline and self-control and point me to Jesus, and in His presence, I will be changed for the better. I will become more of the person He means me to be. I will learn some things along this stretch of the road that, while it's possible I could learn elsewhere, I am choosing to learn here.
Lent often feels a little desert-like. I had a dream the other night, and in it was this vast desert-scape: mesas painted glorious shades of reds and browns and khakis, and tufts of dying grass. It was beautiful and barren. And I heard Him say, "I am the one who speaks life to the desert." And then I sensed, rather than saw, that it was all about to change. The desert was about to become a lush valley, full of trees in bloom and rushing streams. It was just about to happen...
And I believe this is part of what my journey this Lenten season will be - watching God speak life into me. It begins, I discovered this morning, with learning to breathe (again). Breathing out my contrition. Breathing in His mercy. Breathing out my frustration with how packed my schedule is right now. Breathing in His ability to walk with me through it and lead me to still waters, even in the midst of it all. Breathing out my whacked perspectives. Breathing in His wisdom. And sometimes - simply sitting still in the middle of all the chaos for 20 seconds and remembering to breathe. God once hovered over the chaos of the deep - and spoke life into it. So I pray with the words of this hymn:
Hover oe'r me, Holy Spirit,
Bathe my trembling heart and brow;
Fill me with Thy Hallowed Presence
Come, oh, come and fill me now.
Fill me now, fill me now,
Holy Spirit, fill me now.
Fill me with Thy Hallowed Presence,
Come, oh, come, and fill me now.
- Elwood H. Stokes, 1879
(c. Public Domain)
Come, oh, come, and fill me now. Amen.
*sidenote: courtesy of The Upper Room and The Uncluttered Heart, I found The Awkward Season this morning. I'll be using this as my devotional for Lent this year, if anyone wants to join me. (some of my thoughts here were sparked by her post this morning.)
*expletive deleted*
Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.
- Ephesians 5:1-4
This is actually a post about expletives, and it does actually have a few in it, so if you think it's possible you might be offended, please feel free to skip the rest of it. :)
I read those verses not too long ago, and the bit about not using obscenities or coarse joking sort of stuck with me. I have a few guy friends who tell some pretty bad jokes. They're funny - but they're in bad taste. Ok... now that I'm thinking about it, some of them are funny, but mostly they're in bad taste. And me? I tend to swear a little bit when I'm really frustrated, and it's starting to bug me. I'll use foreign swear words sometimes - "bugger" was my favorite for awhile - but words like that don't mean the same thing in the States as they do elsewhere, and so it doesn't really feel like swearing, tho I'm sure a proper English grandmother would be horrified. But recently I find the word "sh**" coming out a lot more often - when I'm late, when I make a mistake, when I drop something on my toe... and it's bothering me.
This is actually a post about expletives, and it does actually have a few in it, so if you think it's possible you might be offended, please feel free to skip the rest of it. :)
I read those verses not too long ago, and the bit about not using obscenities or coarse joking sort of stuck with me. I have a few guy friends who tell some pretty bad jokes. They're funny - but they're in bad taste. Ok... now that I'm thinking about it, some of them are funny, but mostly they're in bad taste. And me? I tend to swear a little bit when I'm really frustrated, and it's starting to bug me. I'll use foreign swear words sometimes - "bugger" was my favorite for awhile - but words like that don't mean the same thing in the States as they do elsewhere, and so it doesn't really feel like swearing, tho I'm sure a proper English grandmother would be horrified. But recently I find the word "sh**" coming out a lot more often - when I'm late, when I make a mistake, when I drop something on my toe... and it's bothering me.
"Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks," right? So where is this coming from? I'm not sure, but I am trying to delete those expletives from my vocabulary, with varying degrees of success - and if I feel the need to verbalize something, I'm trying to consciously at least say "Chitaqua" or "sassafras" instead of *expletive deleted* (which actually kind of makes me laugh...)
So as I've been thinking this through, and trying to discipline my tongue a little more, a friend of mine posted a link to a great xkcd cartoon. I've needed this reminder from the Lord, that obscenities simply aren't to be part of my normative speech patterns; I need to be more intentional about what I do and don't say, and I will keep working on it. But this cartoon reminded me of the extreme value that a well-placed expletive can have. I mean, even Paul swore once, to make a point:
But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, 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 and is by faith.
So as I've been thinking this through, and trying to discipline my tongue a little more, a friend of mine posted a link to a great xkcd cartoon. I've needed this reminder from the Lord, that obscenities simply aren't to be part of my normative speech patterns; I need to be more intentional about what I do and don't say, and I will keep working on it. But this cartoon reminded me of the extreme value that a well-placed expletive can have. I mean, even Paul swore once, to make a point:
But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, 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 and is by faith.
- Philippians 3:7-9
(I hear the Greek word for ... um, rubbish... isn't exactly translated correctly as rubbish. I think it's actually supposed to be ... sassafras, lol.)
So here is a classic reminder from Randall Munroe that sometimes a well-placed expletive really does say it all:
(I hear the Greek word for ... um, rubbish... isn't exactly translated correctly as rubbish. I think it's actually supposed to be ... sassafras, lol.)
So here is a classic reminder from Randall Munroe that sometimes a well-placed expletive really does say it all:
The true irony is that I needed to hear that too.... :)
fueling up for a long drive somewhere
I had the weirdest dream just before I woke up this morning. It was winter, and I lived in this big house with a courtyard, and it had snowed. My car was parked in this courtyard. I was all angsty with whomever else it was who lived in the house (the details leading up to this point are vague in my memory), and it was early morning. I left to go get breakfast at a restaurant nearby, and discovered my car was running on close to empty, but fortunately there was a gas station next door to the restaurant. Which, by the way, had big glass windows - everyone in the restaurant could see the happenings in the gas station parking lot.
So I get to the gas station, and I'm all out of sorts and tired and crabby, and I have trouble getting into a spot by a pump, and my car is still covered in snow. I get out of my car to pump gas, and suddenly I'm not sure about anything. Is this my car or someone else's? Which side is the gas tank on again? I dig thru the snow on the side of my car and find a cap that looks right, assume this is where the gas goes, swipe my card at the pump and start pumping gas. Only to realize a few minutes later, as I'm blinking blearily at my car, that this isn't right. I'm pumping gas into what I thought was the gas tank, but isn't - I'm at the front of my car, about a foot in front of the side mirror. I stop in embarrasment, hoping no one has noticed, and move toward the back of the car. Ah, here we go. I pop open the cap and start pumping gas again. It soon spills over, and I look in horror - I'm still not pumping gas into the right tank in my car! This one is just in front of the side mirror. What?! Finally I get to where my gas tank really is, and I can hear the gas sloshing into the empty tank. I am mortified - and by now, people are watching. I feel like the whole restaurant is watching, and certainly the other people at the pumps have noticed by now, and an attendant has come out of the gas station to see if he can help.
I explain the situation, in complete embarrassment, but am far more comfortable asking this kind stranger who might know the answers than I am about the prospect of going home and telling my mechanic what I've done. My biggest fear is that I've totally messed up the car - that putting gasoline in the wrong places will make it stop running, or worse, explode.
The attendant waits for me to finish pumping gas, and walks me thru what I've done. This first cap, he says, delivers fluid directly to the engine. A passerby jokes that hey, at least I was trying to be efficient - too bad it doesn't work that way. It won't hurt the car, says the attendant - it'll burn off really fast as I drive, and no, the car will not explode. This next cap, he explains (and keep in mind, all three really do look the same) is where all sorts of fluids are delivered to the engine -antifreeze, water, etc. This isn't the greatest place to put gas either - it'll mix with the other fluids and make them less productive, but the car will still work - just not as efficiently. I might want to talk to my mechanic about draining this tank and refilling all the compartments with the proper, undiluted-by-gasoline fluids - but I'll be okay to drive home and to the mechanic's at least. And he knows I'm embarrassed, but I really do need to tell the mechanic what happened and get my car cleaned out a bit so it will run more effectively.
This third cap, he says, is where gas really should go, and good job on finding it. Gas needs to be processed thru the established distribution system in my car to work the most efficiently. So long term, no damage, but my car will need some minor work to get in good shape again, and here, by the way, is the bill. It is expensive. This entire endeavor was way more costly than it needed to be...
It seems to me that God was trying to say something thru this dream, even if it was simply that I am trying to fuel myself, not with the wrong things, but maybe in the wrong ways, and that what I really need is to do it His way... but I'm wondering if any of you have any insights?
So I get to the gas station, and I'm all out of sorts and tired and crabby, and I have trouble getting into a spot by a pump, and my car is still covered in snow. I get out of my car to pump gas, and suddenly I'm not sure about anything. Is this my car or someone else's? Which side is the gas tank on again? I dig thru the snow on the side of my car and find a cap that looks right, assume this is where the gas goes, swipe my card at the pump and start pumping gas. Only to realize a few minutes later, as I'm blinking blearily at my car, that this isn't right. I'm pumping gas into what I thought was the gas tank, but isn't - I'm at the front of my car, about a foot in front of the side mirror. I stop in embarrasment, hoping no one has noticed, and move toward the back of the car. Ah, here we go. I pop open the cap and start pumping gas again. It soon spills over, and I look in horror - I'm still not pumping gas into the right tank in my car! This one is just in front of the side mirror. What?! Finally I get to where my gas tank really is, and I can hear the gas sloshing into the empty tank. I am mortified - and by now, people are watching. I feel like the whole restaurant is watching, and certainly the other people at the pumps have noticed by now, and an attendant has come out of the gas station to see if he can help.
I explain the situation, in complete embarrassment, but am far more comfortable asking this kind stranger who might know the answers than I am about the prospect of going home and telling my mechanic what I've done. My biggest fear is that I've totally messed up the car - that putting gasoline in the wrong places will make it stop running, or worse, explode.
The attendant waits for me to finish pumping gas, and walks me thru what I've done. This first cap, he says, delivers fluid directly to the engine. A passerby jokes that hey, at least I was trying to be efficient - too bad it doesn't work that way. It won't hurt the car, says the attendant - it'll burn off really fast as I drive, and no, the car will not explode. This next cap, he explains (and keep in mind, all three really do look the same) is where all sorts of fluids are delivered to the engine -antifreeze, water, etc. This isn't the greatest place to put gas either - it'll mix with the other fluids and make them less productive, but the car will still work - just not as efficiently. I might want to talk to my mechanic about draining this tank and refilling all the compartments with the proper, undiluted-by-gasoline fluids - but I'll be okay to drive home and to the mechanic's at least. And he knows I'm embarrassed, but I really do need to tell the mechanic what happened and get my car cleaned out a bit so it will run more effectively.
This third cap, he says, is where gas really should go, and good job on finding it. Gas needs to be processed thru the established distribution system in my car to work the most efficiently. So long term, no damage, but my car will need some minor work to get in good shape again, and here, by the way, is the bill. It is expensive. This entire endeavor was way more costly than it needed to be...
It seems to me that God was trying to say something thru this dream, even if it was simply that I am trying to fuel myself, not with the wrong things, but maybe in the wrong ways, and that what I really need is to do it His way... but I'm wondering if any of you have any insights?
home sweet home
I've always had this vague sense of homesickness... At times it gets place-specific: West Michigan, San Diego, New England...and yes, even Africa, tho I've yet to get there. At other times it gets situation-specific - wishing for an actual house of my own, wanting to rearrange my furniture or paint the walls a different color, dreaming about having a family someday. But most of the time it's just sort of vaguely there. I'm homesick. For something. I don't really know what. For heaven, definitely... but for something between now and then, too - something between eternal life as I know it today and eternal life as I'll know it on the other side of death.
I found out yesterday that this might actually be normal.
I'm in this book-study group called Joshua's Army with my church - once a month we read a book and get together and have dinner and talk about the book. The goal of the course is to, as our pastor puts it, graduate us with the right tools in our toolbox to build a solid, God-honoring life and to lead our community well. So to that end, we're reading everything from books on leadership to intercessory prayer to relationships. This month's book for the girls is "Finding Your Purpose as a Mom: How to Build Your Home on Holy Ground" by Donna Otto. I'm not sure I would have ever picked it up. But it's got some good stuff in it, even for those of us who aren't moms. In the chapter I've just finished, she writes about how having a vision for what your home could look like helps you to make the smaller daily decisions that will lead you to it, much the way having a picture to refer to on the front of the puzzle box helps you put a puzzle together, and how each of us will find that we do actually have a vision for what we'd like our home to look like, whether we've thought much about it or not, because God has built an "essential homesickness into every human soul." (p. 36)
You have no idea how relieved I was to hear that. I'm supposed to be homesick.
Ultimately I think that "essential homesickness" she speaks of is really just a deep longing for things to be the way they were always meant to be. Walking with God in the cool of the evening in the Garden He made for us - in the Paradise of God. And we've never known that, actually, tho if we do walk with God we've caught glimpses here and there, and we do have a sense, deep down, that we'll know it when we see it, and it'll be perfect. "It's not supposed to be like this." An old friend and mentor said that when he was preaching once on the way sin wrecks our lives and our need for mercy, and I can still hear him say it... and there are moments in life when that phrase so definitely applies - and we know it's not supposed to be like this because we know it was supposed to be different. Better. Right. And whatever just happened wasn't right. But if we were home... if we could only get home... it would be okay again.
And that's life. Journeying home. Thank God for the journey, and all we learn on it, but, oh, Jesus - thank You that we're on the way to Home... to You. And that You walk with us every step of the way.
It's a strange thing this longing for home I have, tho - because while I've always had it, I've also always had this restless wanderlust - a need to travel, a need to go places and do things and have adventures... as long as I could come back... to somewhere, someone, something I could call home... I've written about it before - in April of 2007 to be exact. And it was funny, re-reading that post - there are parts of it that are still true and parts of it that aren't. I still want to go see the world and write about it... maybe I should go be a travel journalist or something... but that American dream? 2.5 kids and the white picket fence? Not so much anymore...
And that's not something I ever thought I would say.
I've always wanted that. That was my big career ambition. Get married, settle down, have a family, be happy. And then, a couple of years ago, I started coming to terms with my inner Donna Reed, and started to dare to believe that God might actually have something in addition to that for me. But now... I just don't know. It hit me yesterday that even if I got married next year, and had kids straight off (which is SO not likely to happen), I would be 40 when my oldest was in kindergarten. I'd be in my 60s when they started graduating from college... That's not what I wanted. That wasn't the dream....
So maybe it's time for a new dream...? I'm not sure. There's a part of me that doesn't want to let it go at all. That still wants to hope for "happily-ever-after" - or at least the real-life version of it that comes with people being human. But part of me says, "Hap, maybe it's time to just let it go. Go see the world. Do something with your life."
And I am, actually. Being a part of this church plant is incredibly exciting, and I feel like, at least for now, God's said to put down roots here. That these next few years will be incredible and fruitful, and foundational to something else. But that someday, that train I dreamed about last June will pull out of the station, and I will know that it's time to jump off, and who knows what's waiting at that end of that trail? Destiny? Maybe. Tho I think I'm already living into that here. I don't know. All I know is I'm incredibly homesick this morning...and I wish I knew what I was homesick for...
I found out yesterday that this might actually be normal.
I'm in this book-study group called Joshua's Army with my church - once a month we read a book and get together and have dinner and talk about the book. The goal of the course is to, as our pastor puts it, graduate us with the right tools in our toolbox to build a solid, God-honoring life and to lead our community well. So to that end, we're reading everything from books on leadership to intercessory prayer to relationships. This month's book for the girls is "Finding Your Purpose as a Mom: How to Build Your Home on Holy Ground" by Donna Otto. I'm not sure I would have ever picked it up. But it's got some good stuff in it, even for those of us who aren't moms. In the chapter I've just finished, she writes about how having a vision for what your home could look like helps you to make the smaller daily decisions that will lead you to it, much the way having a picture to refer to on the front of the puzzle box helps you put a puzzle together, and how each of us will find that we do actually have a vision for what we'd like our home to look like, whether we've thought much about it or not, because God has built an "essential homesickness into every human soul." (p. 36)
You have no idea how relieved I was to hear that. I'm supposed to be homesick.
Ultimately I think that "essential homesickness" she speaks of is really just a deep longing for things to be the way they were always meant to be. Walking with God in the cool of the evening in the Garden He made for us - in the Paradise of God. And we've never known that, actually, tho if we do walk with God we've caught glimpses here and there, and we do have a sense, deep down, that we'll know it when we see it, and it'll be perfect. "It's not supposed to be like this." An old friend and mentor said that when he was preaching once on the way sin wrecks our lives and our need for mercy, and I can still hear him say it... and there are moments in life when that phrase so definitely applies - and we know it's not supposed to be like this because we know it was supposed to be different. Better. Right. And whatever just happened wasn't right. But if we were home... if we could only get home... it would be okay again.
And that's life. Journeying home. Thank God for the journey, and all we learn on it, but, oh, Jesus - thank You that we're on the way to Home... to You. And that You walk with us every step of the way.
It's a strange thing this longing for home I have, tho - because while I've always had it, I've also always had this restless wanderlust - a need to travel, a need to go places and do things and have adventures... as long as I could come back... to somewhere, someone, something I could call home... I've written about it before - in April of 2007 to be exact. And it was funny, re-reading that post - there are parts of it that are still true and parts of it that aren't. I still want to go see the world and write about it... maybe I should go be a travel journalist or something... but that American dream? 2.5 kids and the white picket fence? Not so much anymore...
And that's not something I ever thought I would say.
I've always wanted that. That was my big career ambition. Get married, settle down, have a family, be happy. And then, a couple of years ago, I started coming to terms with my inner Donna Reed, and started to dare to believe that God might actually have something in addition to that for me. But now... I just don't know. It hit me yesterday that even if I got married next year, and had kids straight off (which is SO not likely to happen), I would be 40 when my oldest was in kindergarten. I'd be in my 60s when they started graduating from college... That's not what I wanted. That wasn't the dream....
So maybe it's time for a new dream...? I'm not sure. There's a part of me that doesn't want to let it go at all. That still wants to hope for "happily-ever-after" - or at least the real-life version of it that comes with people being human. But part of me says, "Hap, maybe it's time to just let it go. Go see the world. Do something with your life."
And I am, actually. Being a part of this church plant is incredibly exciting, and I feel like, at least for now, God's said to put down roots here. That these next few years will be incredible and fruitful, and foundational to something else. But that someday, that train I dreamed about last June will pull out of the station, and I will know that it's time to jump off, and who knows what's waiting at that end of that trail? Destiny? Maybe. Tho I think I'm already living into that here. I don't know. All I know is I'm incredibly homesick this morning...and I wish I knew what I was homesick for...
institutional whatnot
Manuela asked me the other day if I was in or out of the institutional church, and referenced the fact that my oh-so-informative profile lists my "industry" as "religion." I have to say that really, I think that's kind of funny, tho there's a sense in which it's true, but I guess it all does bear a little more explanation, especially for a few of my newer readers, and actually for almost all of you, as I have some rather exciting news, which I can finally share. ;)
The past year has been quite a journey. I am rather amazed at some of the unexpected twists and turns my road has taken; I would not have seen any of this coming. So Sara - remember how about a year ago you said my life would look totally different by Christmas? I stand by what I said - you are too prophetic... lol. :)
I left what I suppose you would call the "institutional church" last May. I didn't mean to. It was sort of an accident. I wrestled with it some over the summer (I wrote about it here), but for the past few months I have been pretty much at peace with it. A year ago I started leading worship every other week for my church - but between that and grad school and working full time and being the worship director for Torch - I was too busy. All of the things I was doing for God were taking so much time that I didn't have enough time to spend at His feet, and I, to put it quite simply, burned out. So I quit. I quit pretty much everything I was doing except my job and what I do for Torch. I started biking. I took a week-long road trip with Jesus. And what started as just taking a break from the Sunday morning routine ended up being a more permanent thing. I just never went back.
But what I said in that post about Torch was very true - it has been enough. Torch was the college and young adult group at my church, and I've been its worship director for almost two years. We have a Monday night service, and on Tuesday nights I go to what we call mini-church - a small group, essentially, just a few people who get together and talk about life and study the Bible together. Every other Thursday I go to a more formal study group called Fierce, and we meet with our pastor and study things like prophetic ministry and teaching. Once a month a larger group called Joshua's Army, which is many of the core leaders of our ministry, meets for dinner and talks about a book - we've read books about everything from leadership to finances to pursuing a deeper walk with God. Add in all the phone conversations and dinners and hang-out nights and outreach projects and prayer meetings, etc. - and it's been church. Church, in many, many ways, as it should be. We pray, worship, work, play, live, study, laugh and cry together. Are we perfect? Far from it. But this amazing group of people with whom I've been doing ministry are my church family.
And now they're officially so. As of January 1st, Torch is no longer a ministry under the umbrella of a larger church, but is, in fact, a church plant! For awhile, nothing will look all that different - we will still meet on Mondays rather than on the weekends, and we will still do everything else that we've been doing. But this summer we'll start weekend services, and who knows what God will do with us? :)
It's going to be one exciting journey.
So, yes. I've been "out" of the IC for awhile, and now I guess I'm back "in" again - and yet... I haven't been out of it, either, because really, at the end of the day, the church has never been a building, or a place to go. The church, as the song says, is really just people... You know the old fingerplay: This is the church, this is the steeple, open the doors, but where are the people? Well, God willing, they're out there. Living life, being a community that radically loves each other and reaches out to be the hands and feet of Christ to their friends and neighbors. I know that where Torch wants to be. And while I am dreaming of the day that we have our own space - a place to gather and to worship - a place to store all my chord charts other than my closet (lol) - and a place from which to send people out (all over the world!) - in the meantime, it's actually kind of cool to not have a building. Tho not having an address makes filling out some of the paperwork a bit interesting... ;)
The past year has been quite a journey. I am rather amazed at some of the unexpected twists and turns my road has taken; I would not have seen any of this coming. So Sara - remember how about a year ago you said my life would look totally different by Christmas? I stand by what I said - you are too prophetic... lol. :)
I left what I suppose you would call the "institutional church" last May. I didn't mean to. It was sort of an accident. I wrestled with it some over the summer (I wrote about it here), but for the past few months I have been pretty much at peace with it. A year ago I started leading worship every other week for my church - but between that and grad school and working full time and being the worship director for Torch - I was too busy. All of the things I was doing for God were taking so much time that I didn't have enough time to spend at His feet, and I, to put it quite simply, burned out. So I quit. I quit pretty much everything I was doing except my job and what I do for Torch. I started biking. I took a week-long road trip with Jesus. And what started as just taking a break from the Sunday morning routine ended up being a more permanent thing. I just never went back.
But what I said in that post about Torch was very true - it has been enough. Torch was the college and young adult group at my church, and I've been its worship director for almost two years. We have a Monday night service, and on Tuesday nights I go to what we call mini-church - a small group, essentially, just a few people who get together and talk about life and study the Bible together. Every other Thursday I go to a more formal study group called Fierce, and we meet with our pastor and study things like prophetic ministry and teaching. Once a month a larger group called Joshua's Army, which is many of the core leaders of our ministry, meets for dinner and talks about a book - we've read books about everything from leadership to finances to pursuing a deeper walk with God. Add in all the phone conversations and dinners and hang-out nights and outreach projects and prayer meetings, etc. - and it's been church. Church, in many, many ways, as it should be. We pray, worship, work, play, live, study, laugh and cry together. Are we perfect? Far from it. But this amazing group of people with whom I've been doing ministry are my church family.
And now they're officially so. As of January 1st, Torch is no longer a ministry under the umbrella of a larger church, but is, in fact, a church plant! For awhile, nothing will look all that different - we will still meet on Mondays rather than on the weekends, and we will still do everything else that we've been doing. But this summer we'll start weekend services, and who knows what God will do with us? :)
It's going to be one exciting journey.
So, yes. I've been "out" of the IC for awhile, and now I guess I'm back "in" again - and yet... I haven't been out of it, either, because really, at the end of the day, the church has never been a building, or a place to go. The church, as the song says, is really just people... You know the old fingerplay: This is the church, this is the steeple, open the doors, but where are the people? Well, God willing, they're out there. Living life, being a community that radically loves each other and reaches out to be the hands and feet of Christ to their friends and neighbors. I know that where Torch wants to be. And while I am dreaming of the day that we have our own space - a place to gather and to worship - a place to store all my chord charts other than my closet (lol) - and a place from which to send people out (all over the world!) - in the meantime, it's actually kind of cool to not have a building. Tho not having an address makes filling out some of the paperwork a bit interesting... ;)
beth: the richness of God's Word
How can a young man keep his way pure?
By living according to Your word.
I seek You with all my heart;
do not let me stray from Your commands.
I have hidden Your word in my heart
that I might not sin against You.
Praise be to You, O Lord;
teach me Your decrees.
With my lips I recount
all the laws that come from Your mouth.
I rejoice in following Your statutes
as one rejoices in great riches.
I meditate on Your precepts
and consider Your ways.
I delight in Your decrees;
I will not neglect Your word.
- Psalm 119:9-16
I had a dream a couple of weeks ago that I can't stop thinking about. Some friends and I were walking down this country lane, just talking and enjoying the day together, and suddenly I noticed an object laying in the road as we walked past. "Hold up a sec, you guys," I called, as I turned around to go back and pick it up. To my surprise, it was my old study Bible, tho the cover was missing now, and it looked rather beat up. As I stood again and turned around, suddenly scattered all over the road there were Bibles, covered in the dust of the road, and my friends were going around, picking them up, and together we collected as many as we could, with the intent of returning them to their owners as quickly as we could, so they could be used again.
As I've prayed about it, it seems to me that one of the things God was speaking to me through that dream is part of the answer to my prayer for understanding of my purpose and my calling. It's about restoring God's Word to people - returning it to its rightful place in our lives, in a sense. My Bible in that dream had been neglected, abused, forgotten, left to collect dust, and trampled a bit on a road - which in both dreams and metaphor generally seems to represent the idea of "journey," or life. In the dream, as soon as my Bible had been restored to me, I was able to see the other Bibles on the road. And in real life I know every one of those people I was with in the dream to be men and women who esteem God's Word highly, and it was sweet to know that this call, this task I've been given, was a shared task.
I love the imagery in these verses - the simplicity of the questions, and the answer. How do I live a good life? How do I keep my way pure? How do I not sin? By doing it God's way, and not mine.
"I rejoice in following Your statutes as one rejoices in great riches."
What if we really believed that? What if we really felt that way? What if, instead of just saying that God's Word is a treasure, we lived out that truth? What if we truly were that glad to have God's Word with us - to read it, to memorize it, to talk about it everywhere we go and all the time (Deuteronomy 6:4-9), to think about it, and to do what it says (James 1:22-25)?
"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all that he had and bought that field." - Matthew 13:44
I want to treasure God's Word that much. "I delight in Your decrees; I will not neglect Your word."
Teach me to delight in Your word. Amen.
By living according to Your word.
I seek You with all my heart;
do not let me stray from Your commands.
I have hidden Your word in my heart
that I might not sin against You.
Praise be to You, O Lord;
teach me Your decrees.
With my lips I recount
all the laws that come from Your mouth.
I rejoice in following Your statutes
as one rejoices in great riches.
I meditate on Your precepts
and consider Your ways.
I delight in Your decrees;
I will not neglect Your word.
- Psalm 119:9-16
I had a dream a couple of weeks ago that I can't stop thinking about. Some friends and I were walking down this country lane, just talking and enjoying the day together, and suddenly I noticed an object laying in the road as we walked past. "Hold up a sec, you guys," I called, as I turned around to go back and pick it up. To my surprise, it was my old study Bible, tho the cover was missing now, and it looked rather beat up. As I stood again and turned around, suddenly scattered all over the road there were Bibles, covered in the dust of the road, and my friends were going around, picking them up, and together we collected as many as we could, with the intent of returning them to their owners as quickly as we could, so they could be used again.
As I've prayed about it, it seems to me that one of the things God was speaking to me through that dream is part of the answer to my prayer for understanding of my purpose and my calling. It's about restoring God's Word to people - returning it to its rightful place in our lives, in a sense. My Bible in that dream had been neglected, abused, forgotten, left to collect dust, and trampled a bit on a road - which in both dreams and metaphor generally seems to represent the idea of "journey," or life. In the dream, as soon as my Bible had been restored to me, I was able to see the other Bibles on the road. And in real life I know every one of those people I was with in the dream to be men and women who esteem God's Word highly, and it was sweet to know that this call, this task I've been given, was a shared task.
I love the imagery in these verses - the simplicity of the questions, and the answer. How do I live a good life? How do I keep my way pure? How do I not sin? By doing it God's way, and not mine.
"I rejoice in following Your statutes as one rejoices in great riches."
What if we really believed that? What if we really felt that way? What if, instead of just saying that God's Word is a treasure, we lived out that truth? What if we truly were that glad to have God's Word with us - to read it, to memorize it, to talk about it everywhere we go and all the time (Deuteronomy 6:4-9), to think about it, and to do what it says (James 1:22-25)?
"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all that he had and bought that field." - Matthew 13:44
I want to treasure God's Word that much. "I delight in Your decrees; I will not neglect Your word."
Teach me to delight in Your word. Amen.
whatever the morning version of "the gloaming" is...
i'm sure there's a word for it, but i don't know what it is. in the evening, when the world looks like this, it's called "the gloaming." it's not evening - at least not here. but this is my favorite time of day - i think it always has been. it's my favorite time of year to be awake at this time of the day, too. there's just something about this early hour, just before the sun comes up, especially when there's snow on the ground, when everything is tinted the deepest shades of blue... anything could happen when the world looks like this. star-crossed lovers could reunite. fairy godmothers could exist. it's magical, this moment just before daylight. more so than ever on a day like today, when there's a light snow falling, and the world all around is hushed. anything could happen... and it's not even Wednesday... ;)
a rather strange dream
So a couple of nights ago I had what I've been terming a nightmare, but now I'm really starting to wonder. I can't shake this one. And last night I was telling a friend about it and she had a little bit of insight into it that made me think, you know, maybe there was more to this than I knew... so I thought I'd throw it out there, as best as I can remember it, and see what you all thought...
At the beginning of the dream, I am someone else, and I am married to this guy named Andrew. Andrew and I are in the backstage area of a theatre owned by a magician, who is walking with us onto the stage. The floor is the traditional black, and the backdrop is charcoal gray, and all around the edges of the stage there's this mist - there is nothing to see in this dream world but the stage area - very much like the concept in Shakespeare's As You Like It: "all the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players..."
The magician leaves, and Andrew and I find ourselves alone on the stage, exploring a bit (although there is pretty much nothing there) and suddenly I can't find Andrew. And I am calling and calling, and he doesn't answer, and I start to panic. And then there's a series of people who come onstage and they're all playing a part but they won't talk to me and they won't tell me their names and they won't answer my questions or tell me where Andrew is, and they all have this blankness to their expressions. You can't meet their eyes because there is nothing behind them - they say our eyes are the windows to our souls? These people didn't seem to have souls... They were just empty shell people, like on Camazotz.
At one point there is a little girl playing stage-right and I go over to her and I start talking to her, thinking maybe because she's young I can get her to break character and talk to me, and I am trying to get her to tell me her name. "Patricia," I say, feeling like I've been given this insight. "You look like a Patricia. Is that right?" And then the girl's "mother" comes over, and I don't remember what was said, but I think it was probably something to the effect of, "you need to leave her alone and we're not supposed to tell you our names, so stop asking all these questions" and then Patricia asks me, "well, what's your name?" (And it's like this has been the plan all along, that the two of them would trap me into answering this question, and the magician is behind it and I can sense this.) But I stop and I look at her, and I step out of character and just get real, and I look straight into her eyes and with great sincerity and compassion I tell her, "My name is Happy." And the woman gets so angry and she (or it? or something?! there was this silent roaring sound - yes, i just said silent sound... i really don't know how to describe this) just reached in and took my identity. I was still me, somehow - but she took something very essential to who I am, and there was this teetering moment, like it was possible this was how you became an empty shell person, and I could have in that moment, but I was fighting it and refused to do it, even though I'd lost something so valuable to me.
And then I woke up, shaking, terrified, feeling really gicky, and I had such a hard time waking up. Even just wandering around my apartment, I was still half-asleep but trying to wake up so that I would not fall asleep and find out what happened next. I didn't want to know.
So that's the dream...
My friend found it significant that the only person in the dream whose name I knew for sure was Andrew. She said that "Andrew" means wisdom. I actually looked it up today in a couple of places, and maybe it does, but what I found is that it means "manly" or "warrior." I'm not sure that isn't just as significant. "Patricia" is the female form of "Patrick" and means "nobleman" (from the word "patrician").
So in the dream, I've can't find the person who's supposed to fight for me or defend me, and I turn to someone who seems like they should be the sort of person who does what's right...? in a "world" controlled by someone known to be a master of illusion...
I don't know. Still not sure what to make of it. Could have been a nightmare. Could have been prophetic. (a prophetic nightmare?) Or it could have been the pizza... No idea. Thoughts?
At the beginning of the dream, I am someone else, and I am married to this guy named Andrew. Andrew and I are in the backstage area of a theatre owned by a magician, who is walking with us onto the stage. The floor is the traditional black, and the backdrop is charcoal gray, and all around the edges of the stage there's this mist - there is nothing to see in this dream world but the stage area - very much like the concept in Shakespeare's As You Like It: "all the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players..."
The magician leaves, and Andrew and I find ourselves alone on the stage, exploring a bit (although there is pretty much nothing there) and suddenly I can't find Andrew. And I am calling and calling, and he doesn't answer, and I start to panic. And then there's a series of people who come onstage and they're all playing a part but they won't talk to me and they won't tell me their names and they won't answer my questions or tell me where Andrew is, and they all have this blankness to their expressions. You can't meet their eyes because there is nothing behind them - they say our eyes are the windows to our souls? These people didn't seem to have souls... They were just empty shell people, like on Camazotz.
At one point there is a little girl playing stage-right and I go over to her and I start talking to her, thinking maybe because she's young I can get her to break character and talk to me, and I am trying to get her to tell me her name. "Patricia," I say, feeling like I've been given this insight. "You look like a Patricia. Is that right?" And then the girl's "mother" comes over, and I don't remember what was said, but I think it was probably something to the effect of, "you need to leave her alone and we're not supposed to tell you our names, so stop asking all these questions" and then Patricia asks me, "well, what's your name?" (And it's like this has been the plan all along, that the two of them would trap me into answering this question, and the magician is behind it and I can sense this.) But I stop and I look at her, and I step out of character and just get real, and I look straight into her eyes and with great sincerity and compassion I tell her, "My name is Happy." And the woman gets so angry and she (or it? or something?! there was this silent roaring sound - yes, i just said silent sound... i really don't know how to describe this) just reached in and took my identity. I was still me, somehow - but she took something very essential to who I am, and there was this teetering moment, like it was possible this was how you became an empty shell person, and I could have in that moment, but I was fighting it and refused to do it, even though I'd lost something so valuable to me.
And then I woke up, shaking, terrified, feeling really gicky, and I had such a hard time waking up. Even just wandering around my apartment, I was still half-asleep but trying to wake up so that I would not fall asleep and find out what happened next. I didn't want to know.
So that's the dream...
My friend found it significant that the only person in the dream whose name I knew for sure was Andrew. She said that "Andrew" means wisdom. I actually looked it up today in a couple of places, and maybe it does, but what I found is that it means "manly" or "warrior." I'm not sure that isn't just as significant. "Patricia" is the female form of "Patrick" and means "nobleman" (from the word "patrician").
So in the dream, I've can't find the person who's supposed to fight for me or defend me, and I turn to someone who seems like they should be the sort of person who does what's right...? in a "world" controlled by someone known to be a master of illusion...
I don't know. Still not sure what to make of it. Could have been a nightmare. Could have been prophetic. (a prophetic nightmare?) Or it could have been the pizza... No idea. Thoughts?
tricyles and broken nails
We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming for something I found rather interesting and fun... (don't worry, I'll get back to the trip soon - Day 4 was the highlight, in my book!) :) But this was just too good not to blog about.
So I had one of those nights last night - you know, the kind where you make yourself go to bed because it's late, and you ought to... and then you just lay there. Blinking. Wishing you were asleep. Thinking about all the things you could be doing that would be more productive than laying here in the dark thinking about all things you could be doing and blinking, wishing you were asleep. And then two hours later you wake up, realize you were asleep, and then lay there some more, wishing you were still asleep... I did eventually fall back asleep, and just before I woke up (1/2 an hour before my alarm?!?! after a night like that? oy. and oh, yes, there's already coffee, here at my kitchen table at 5:17am.... that time stamp down there is not kidding - I really did get up at 5:00am today) I had the coolest dream.
There was this conference - I think it was on different aspects of worship, maybe? Not sure - but my friend Cheryl was scheduled to be one of the conference speakers - Jenn, too. Neither one of them had the least idea what they were going to speaking on, and pretty much figured it out on the fly. Jenn, I am pretty sure, spoke on sacred dance or something. Cheryl taught on the practical technical dimensions of pulling off a Sunday morning service. The conference was held in an outdoor amphitheater, and there were a lot of people there, all of whom played various roles in the church.
Following the conference, there was a retreat of some sort at this small, out-of-the-way, relatively obscure little church with an outdated building (you know the kind - the ones that were constructed in the early 70s and never remodeled... this one had a craft room that doubled as storage closet, and to put anything away you had to interrupt the kids working on their projects and fold up the tables to get into the room...). Cheryl was speaking at this retreat too, and she was closing her session with worship. Sometime before the session, she taught me the chords to this new song she wanted to teach. She was really excited about teaching it, and she played piano and I played guitar - except I was borrowing someone else's guitar - one that belonged to the church - and the strings were all rusty and not tight enough, and it wouldn't stay in tune, and I was so afraid that a string would break and hit me in the face - which is bad enough, but with all the rust, it would've been worse. Someone offered to loan me their guitar, but the wood and the strings were totally warped and it wasn't any good either. So I'm telling Cheryl that I need to go get my own guitar, and she's all confused about why that would take any time the way I'm explaining that it will - because mine has been sitting there, the whole time, completely in tune and ready to play. I felt a little foolish, and excused myself anyway, and told her I'd be back in a few.
Well, as dreams go, I'm not sure where I went, but the next thing I remember is running late and trying to get back to the conference before the session starts, because I know Cheryl's probably internally freaking out about me not being there yet - but I'm driving along, and these two cars whip out around me, one on the left and one on the right, and then they stop, right in the middle of the road, and these two high-school-aged boys that were driving get out, and I'm not even sure what they were doing, but I went around them, and I was like, yo, next time could you maybe just pull over? And I kept going, but now, instead of being in my car, I was riding a tricycle, and I was way late, now. And I tried running down the sidewalk without the tricycle, but I had all this stuff, including my guitar, and it wasn't any faster, and I didn't want to just leave the tricycle there in the middle of the sidewalk, so I tried scooting along - you know, when you grab the handlebars and push off with one foot while you're standing on that otherwise purposeless step on the back - and then my sister came along and I think she might have actually taken the tricycle, and tried to get me to go faster because the session was starting - and she rode right through a newly constructed section of sidewalk. (I think there may have been someone else along at this point in the dream, but I can't remember who, or when or why they got there.)
It wasn't just any old sidewalk either - on the sides it was regular cement, but in the center it was all these large square red brick-like tiles - very precise - someone had spent a lot of time making this look nice, and it was all still wet cement. And now there was this three-wheeled track driving crazy through the whole thing... The woman who was laying the sidewalk was down in a ditch at the side of it, and she started to yell, then took a deep breath, and said, "no, hon, it's alright. i can fix it," and waved my sister on. But she kept talking under her breath, and said something that caught my attention - something about dead-end jobs and leaving them - and I asked her about it, if what she'd just said was true of her -and she ended up telling me her story - how she'd been doing this job for years but felt so stuck in it, and had finally just taken the risk and quit - and how she didn't have a clue what she was going to do now. She didn't have a plan. She'd just quit. And I spoke into her life, and told her that she was going to be okay, and that God would take of her, and that He was proud of her for setting off on a road that would be freer and would help her to find who she was always meant to be. And she climbed out of the ditch, and we hugged (her name was Pam) and it was such a cool appointment with destiny, you know? Like I was just supposed to be there. So she starts asking me about myself, where I was going, etc. and someone comes flying out of the church to tell me that the worship part of the session is starting and they need me now.
So I go dashing into the multi-purpose room to discover that it is a very small retreat - less than 20 people on folding chairs gathered around one end of the room where Cheryl is standing at her keyboard playing the new song, and I drop all my stuff on the floor (at a perfectly quiet moment in the song, so everyone heard it, but hey, at least it was on the beat, right?) and Jake's there and looks at me funny, like, "where have you been? this is so not like you?" and I'm looking around and most of the people there are from his dad's church. I just sort of grin, fix my guitar strap, plug in, and step up to the mic - we're at the chorus - and the room just erupts in worship - and I discover that not only are my fingernails too long to hit the strings properly, but one of them is all torn up and keeps getting snagged on the strings. I make it about half-way through the song and finally just give up. There's no way I can keep playing. And then the music transitions into "Come, Now Is The Time To Worship" - and that song talks about coming just as you are to worship... (completely late, frazzled, unprepared, and with broken nails?!), so I did - and as I woke up, I said, "Okay..." :) So here I am for the day, God, just as I am, to worship...
That was a crazy dream... and it feels (again) like there are dimensions that are probably just stuff from life - but others that might be God trying to tell me something... Time will tell, I guess. :)
So I had one of those nights last night - you know, the kind where you make yourself go to bed because it's late, and you ought to... and then you just lay there. Blinking. Wishing you were asleep. Thinking about all the things you could be doing that would be more productive than laying here in the dark thinking about all things you could be doing and blinking, wishing you were asleep. And then two hours later you wake up, realize you were asleep, and then lay there some more, wishing you were still asleep... I did eventually fall back asleep, and just before I woke up (1/2 an hour before my alarm?!?! after a night like that? oy. and oh, yes, there's already coffee, here at my kitchen table at 5:17am.... that time stamp down there is not kidding - I really did get up at 5:00am today) I had the coolest dream.
There was this conference - I think it was on different aspects of worship, maybe? Not sure - but my friend Cheryl was scheduled to be one of the conference speakers - Jenn, too. Neither one of them had the least idea what they were going to speaking on, and pretty much figured it out on the fly. Jenn, I am pretty sure, spoke on sacred dance or something. Cheryl taught on the practical technical dimensions of pulling off a Sunday morning service. The conference was held in an outdoor amphitheater, and there were a lot of people there, all of whom played various roles in the church.
Following the conference, there was a retreat of some sort at this small, out-of-the-way, relatively obscure little church with an outdated building (you know the kind - the ones that were constructed in the early 70s and never remodeled... this one had a craft room that doubled as storage closet, and to put anything away you had to interrupt the kids working on their projects and fold up the tables to get into the room...). Cheryl was speaking at this retreat too, and she was closing her session with worship. Sometime before the session, she taught me the chords to this new song she wanted to teach. She was really excited about teaching it, and she played piano and I played guitar - except I was borrowing someone else's guitar - one that belonged to the church - and the strings were all rusty and not tight enough, and it wouldn't stay in tune, and I was so afraid that a string would break and hit me in the face - which is bad enough, but with all the rust, it would've been worse. Someone offered to loan me their guitar, but the wood and the strings were totally warped and it wasn't any good either. So I'm telling Cheryl that I need to go get my own guitar, and she's all confused about why that would take any time the way I'm explaining that it will - because mine has been sitting there, the whole time, completely in tune and ready to play. I felt a little foolish, and excused myself anyway, and told her I'd be back in a few.
Well, as dreams go, I'm not sure where I went, but the next thing I remember is running late and trying to get back to the conference before the session starts, because I know Cheryl's probably internally freaking out about me not being there yet - but I'm driving along, and these two cars whip out around me, one on the left and one on the right, and then they stop, right in the middle of the road, and these two high-school-aged boys that were driving get out, and I'm not even sure what they were doing, but I went around them, and I was like, yo, next time could you maybe just pull over? And I kept going, but now, instead of being in my car, I was riding a tricycle, and I was way late, now. And I tried running down the sidewalk without the tricycle, but I had all this stuff, including my guitar, and it wasn't any faster, and I didn't want to just leave the tricycle there in the middle of the sidewalk, so I tried scooting along - you know, when you grab the handlebars and push off with one foot while you're standing on that otherwise purposeless step on the back - and then my sister came along and I think she might have actually taken the tricycle, and tried to get me to go faster because the session was starting - and she rode right through a newly constructed section of sidewalk. (I think there may have been someone else along at this point in the dream, but I can't remember who, or when or why they got there.)
It wasn't just any old sidewalk either - on the sides it was regular cement, but in the center it was all these large square red brick-like tiles - very precise - someone had spent a lot of time making this look nice, and it was all still wet cement. And now there was this three-wheeled track driving crazy through the whole thing... The woman who was laying the sidewalk was down in a ditch at the side of it, and she started to yell, then took a deep breath, and said, "no, hon, it's alright. i can fix it," and waved my sister on. But she kept talking under her breath, and said something that caught my attention - something about dead-end jobs and leaving them - and I asked her about it, if what she'd just said was true of her -and she ended up telling me her story - how she'd been doing this job for years but felt so stuck in it, and had finally just taken the risk and quit - and how she didn't have a clue what she was going to do now. She didn't have a plan. She'd just quit. And I spoke into her life, and told her that she was going to be okay, and that God would take of her, and that He was proud of her for setting off on a road that would be freer and would help her to find who she was always meant to be. And she climbed out of the ditch, and we hugged (her name was Pam) and it was such a cool appointment with destiny, you know? Like I was just supposed to be there. So she starts asking me about myself, where I was going, etc. and someone comes flying out of the church to tell me that the worship part of the session is starting and they need me now.
So I go dashing into the multi-purpose room to discover that it is a very small retreat - less than 20 people on folding chairs gathered around one end of the room where Cheryl is standing at her keyboard playing the new song, and I drop all my stuff on the floor (at a perfectly quiet moment in the song, so everyone heard it, but hey, at least it was on the beat, right?) and Jake's there and looks at me funny, like, "where have you been? this is so not like you?" and I'm looking around and most of the people there are from his dad's church. I just sort of grin, fix my guitar strap, plug in, and step up to the mic - we're at the chorus - and the room just erupts in worship - and I discover that not only are my fingernails too long to hit the strings properly, but one of them is all torn up and keeps getting snagged on the strings. I make it about half-way through the song and finally just give up. There's no way I can keep playing. And then the music transitions into "Come, Now Is The Time To Worship" - and that song talks about coming just as you are to worship... (completely late, frazzled, unprepared, and with broken nails?!), so I did - and as I woke up, I said, "Okay..." :) So here I am for the day, God, just as I am, to worship...
That was a crazy dream... and it feels (again) like there are dimensions that are probably just stuff from life - but others that might be God trying to tell me something... Time will tell, I guess. :)
leaving on a fast train
except it was actually going fairly slowly when I jumped off, which turned out to be a good thing...
A recent conversation with Ruth over at grains of truth about the prophetic and particularly how it relates to inquiring of the Lord about specific things got me thinking about a dream I had this winter. I've asked God for visions and dreams at different points in my walk, and sometimes He's said yes, and other times He's said no, and sometimes they've come unbidden. (Sara was there when I woke up from the first one. It was quite a morning.) I very rarely remember my dreams when I wake up unless they're weird or prophetic - and I can still count on one hand the number of dreams I've had that I would label prophetic. But this one... It came during a season this winter in which I was asking God to speak to me through my dreams, and He was generally saying, "Hap, you don't sleep enough as it is - why would I wake you up? We'll talk in the morning..."
I'd actually forgotten all about it, until a friend of mine was talking about a series of dreams she had where she was in various train stations - and all of a sudden it came flooding back in great detail, and I felt it was extremely important to write it down. It still seems to me, months later, like there is something that God wants to say to me through this:
The station was in a wooded area - I believe it was a sunny day. Felt like it was the middle of nowhere, dirt/sand road leading up to the station through a tunnel of trees, tho my sense is it was not so far from some sort of smaller town. Wide platform, nice building, wood floors, lots of windows - nice. The kind of train station you don't mind waiting about in.
I was ready to leave wherever I'd been, and this was the way I was going. It wasn't an "oh, I've got to get out of here" panic-type departure but it was more of a quiet "it's time to go and I'm happy about this" sort of thing.
So the train comes and we all get on, and it's fairly spacious, not crowded or anything, but it doesn't leave right away. It just sits there. We're not sure why it's not moving, but it's not, and so everyone's hanging out and being really good sports about it (no one was in a hurry at all), and we're all getting to know the other people on the train. I remember there were two really nice older ladies and some guy nearby us that I was talking with, and we were talking about where I was going, I think, but I don't remember anything about it now. Finally the train starts to pull out of the station, and as it's picking up speed, all of a sudden, I yell, "WAIT!!! WAIT!! I have to get OFF!" - and again, it wasn't panic or anything, but I just knew that I knew that I knew that I needed to get off the train. The conviction was intense - not an awful "i'm in the wrong place" sort of thing, but just a really, really strong belief that I needed to get off.
Well, the engineer wouldn't stop the train, but the conductor opened the doors while the train was moving, and I jumped out, and the people on the train were all cheering me on, even though they totally didn't understand why I was getting off. They all wished me well and waved as the train disappeared down the tracks, and I put my backpack on, and started hiking up the road, away from the station and into the woods.
I'd be curious to know if any of you have any insight into this...
A recent conversation with Ruth over at grains of truth about the prophetic and particularly how it relates to inquiring of the Lord about specific things got me thinking about a dream I had this winter. I've asked God for visions and dreams at different points in my walk, and sometimes He's said yes, and other times He's said no, and sometimes they've come unbidden. (Sara was there when I woke up from the first one. It was quite a morning.) I very rarely remember my dreams when I wake up unless they're weird or prophetic - and I can still count on one hand the number of dreams I've had that I would label prophetic. But this one... It came during a season this winter in which I was asking God to speak to me through my dreams, and He was generally saying, "Hap, you don't sleep enough as it is - why would I wake you up? We'll talk in the morning..."
I'd actually forgotten all about it, until a friend of mine was talking about a series of dreams she had where she was in various train stations - and all of a sudden it came flooding back in great detail, and I felt it was extremely important to write it down. It still seems to me, months later, like there is something that God wants to say to me through this:
The station was in a wooded area - I believe it was a sunny day. Felt like it was the middle of nowhere, dirt/sand road leading up to the station through a tunnel of trees, tho my sense is it was not so far from some sort of smaller town. Wide platform, nice building, wood floors, lots of windows - nice. The kind of train station you don't mind waiting about in.
I was ready to leave wherever I'd been, and this was the way I was going. It wasn't an "oh, I've got to get out of here" panic-type departure but it was more of a quiet "it's time to go and I'm happy about this" sort of thing.
So the train comes and we all get on, and it's fairly spacious, not crowded or anything, but it doesn't leave right away. It just sits there. We're not sure why it's not moving, but it's not, and so everyone's hanging out and being really good sports about it (no one was in a hurry at all), and we're all getting to know the other people on the train. I remember there were two really nice older ladies and some guy nearby us that I was talking with, and we were talking about where I was going, I think, but I don't remember anything about it now. Finally the train starts to pull out of the station, and as it's picking up speed, all of a sudden, I yell, "WAIT!!! WAIT!! I have to get OFF!" - and again, it wasn't panic or anything, but I just knew that I knew that I knew that I needed to get off the train. The conviction was intense - not an awful "i'm in the wrong place" sort of thing, but just a really, really strong belief that I needed to get off.
Well, the engineer wouldn't stop the train, but the conductor opened the doors while the train was moving, and I jumped out, and the people on the train were all cheering me on, even though they totally didn't understand why I was getting off. They all wished me well and waved as the train disappeared down the tracks, and I put my backpack on, and started hiking up the road, away from the station and into the woods.
I'd be curious to know if any of you have any insight into this...
better late than never...
My first syncroblog (and if I finish it before midnight and it actually makes it in, I'll be impressed, but better late than never, right?)! Glenn over at re-dreaming the dream suggested this one, and I like it - and I have time - so here we are. :)
The questions are:
1) How are you doing?
2) What are you doing?
3) What are you learning?
4) What are you dreaming about?
How am I doing?
Alright, I guess. It's been a relatively quiet couple of days, and that's been nice. I'm tired (this is nothing new) but I'm also staying up late blogging instead of going to sleep on time... having the ability to stay up and embrace my nightowl tendencies because I can rather than because there's tons of work looming over my head that must be done is really nice, and I'm enjoying it. I also got to go to Torch and just chill tonight - no responsibilities, just good hang out time with friends, and the chance to come and worship barefoot in the back of the room - a rare gift for worship leader, and one I treasure greatly when I get it. :)
What am I doing?
Staying up late, blogging... :) Eating tortilla chips. Unwinding at the end of a good day. Processing through some things - some of which are really good and some of which, well, I'd like to not be processing through them, but there it is, and I'll learn from it, so... :P
Life in general: working a lot, but i love my job in the summer, so it's mostly cool. thinking about maybe getting around to cleaning out that last box of junkmail. organizing things for Torch. leading worship a lot... got to be in the band for a women's retreat this weekend, and it was really, really fun. NOT studying. YAY!!! Catching up on my reading - for fun.
What am I learning?
How to hear His voice clearly. How to be still and wait. How to trust. The beauty to be found in brokenness and humility. How to truly love someone. How to truly love God. Confidence. The truth of God's amazing love for me. How many lies I've believed for too long - and God's truth over and against them. To value His truth above all else. A love for His Word. This could go on forever... (the list, and the things on it...)
A lot of lessons I've learned before. But kind of like algebra, there always seems to be a new level, or a new kind of something that replaces it- new things to learn based on the things from the first lesson. I'm getting it. Slowly but surely. Better late than never, right?
What am I dreaming about?
Honestly? Someday. The Someday when everything is better. The Someday when the lion and the lamb truly do lay down and sleep in the same meadow. The Someday when all is restored to what it was meant to be.... There are microcosmic levels on which I am dreaming about that... but I want the Big Someday, too - the day when Jesus has come back and reigns on the earth, and everything has gotten all sorted out.
On a much more personal level- I am dreaming about another Someday - the Someday when God has finally sorted me out - and I know who I am and how I'm wired, and I'm doing exactly whatever it is I'm supposed to be doing....
lol... look at that. 10 minutes to spare. I could have said so much more...
The questions are:
1) How are you doing?
2) What are you doing?
3) What are you learning?
4) What are you dreaming about?
How am I doing?
Alright, I guess. It's been a relatively quiet couple of days, and that's been nice. I'm tired (this is nothing new) but I'm also staying up late blogging instead of going to sleep on time... having the ability to stay up and embrace my nightowl tendencies because I can rather than because there's tons of work looming over my head that must be done is really nice, and I'm enjoying it. I also got to go to Torch and just chill tonight - no responsibilities, just good hang out time with friends, and the chance to come and worship barefoot in the back of the room - a rare gift for worship leader, and one I treasure greatly when I get it. :)
What am I doing?
Staying up late, blogging... :) Eating tortilla chips. Unwinding at the end of a good day. Processing through some things - some of which are really good and some of which, well, I'd like to not be processing through them, but there it is, and I'll learn from it, so... :P
Life in general: working a lot, but i love my job in the summer, so it's mostly cool. thinking about maybe getting around to cleaning out that last box of junkmail. organizing things for Torch. leading worship a lot... got to be in the band for a women's retreat this weekend, and it was really, really fun. NOT studying. YAY!!! Catching up on my reading - for fun.
What am I learning?
How to hear His voice clearly. How to be still and wait. How to trust. The beauty to be found in brokenness and humility. How to truly love someone. How to truly love God. Confidence. The truth of God's amazing love for me. How many lies I've believed for too long - and God's truth over and against them. To value His truth above all else. A love for His Word. This could go on forever... (the list, and the things on it...)
A lot of lessons I've learned before. But kind of like algebra, there always seems to be a new level, or a new kind of something that replaces it- new things to learn based on the things from the first lesson. I'm getting it. Slowly but surely. Better late than never, right?
What am I dreaming about?
Honestly? Someday. The Someday when everything is better. The Someday when the lion and the lamb truly do lay down and sleep in the same meadow. The Someday when all is restored to what it was meant to be.... There are microcosmic levels on which I am dreaming about that... but I want the Big Someday, too - the day when Jesus has come back and reigns on the earth, and everything has gotten all sorted out.
On a much more personal level- I am dreaming about another Someday - the Someday when God has finally sorted me out - and I know who I am and how I'm wired, and I'm doing exactly whatever it is I'm supposed to be doing....
lol... look at that. 10 minutes to spare. I could have said so much more...
the lionization of roses
To lionize something is to attribute an extreme amount of importance or significance to it. People lionize celebrities, or places like Stonehenge and the Eiffel Tower...
I have lionized roses.
I've always loved them, ever since I was a little kid. Ha, I've just remembered an elementary school Easter where I so wanted my picture (you know, the annual Easter dress/bonnet picture) taken in front of our rosebush. I can see the snapshot in my head - me and my sister and my mom with her arms around us, in front of the bushes. They smelled so wonderful.
Years ago, when I first started leading worship, a friend of mine had given me a necklace and a matching set of earrings shaped like silver roses. I wore them almost every time I led worship for awhile, and I felt such an... I don't know, it was just right to put them on as I headed out the door to church. Kind of like taking my shoes off. It was just something I was supposed to do.
Fast forward to October of this past year - 2007. Second Friday, I believe. Our leadership team for Torch meets each month (in theory) and we were taking turns going about and telling each other what we felt God was calling us to, what our gift mixes were, and how we were wired, and then people got to give us feedback on whether they thought we'd discerned rightly or not. It was pretty cool, actually. I happened to be up that particular night, and I shared all the usual things about worship leading and missions and whatnot, but startled even myself by saying that I felt God was calling me to teach, and discovered it was true as I said it aloud.
My friend Veggie (yes, really) kicked off the feedback portion of the discussion by saying, "Happy, you're a really complex person." And everyone busted up laughing. (I'm still honestly not quite sure how to take that... I mean, I know it's true, but seriously...) :)
And Jake later that evening walked out of the meeting with me, and said, "You know, when Veggie said that, at first I thought, 'yeah, you're kind of like an onion... only that would imply that you're spicy and you make people cry, and that's not true. No... really, I know it's kind of cheesy, but the image that comes to mind is that of a rose. It's absolutely beautiful in its bud form, but as it unfolds petal by petal it just becomes more and more beautiful. And that's who you are."
Wow. That's cool...
Last winter I went to an interesting little church, and everyone in the meeting that particular night had a vision of some sort during the worship time and shared it (it was a small meeting). I didn't say anything, being a visitor, but on the way home, Jake asked me, "so what did you see?"
Part of what I saw was a pool in an ancient city, and I was sitting at the edge of it, and behind it and over my head was this lattice thing, and vines were beginning to grow over it. And then a couple of months ago there was a night (around the time I was having all those flashbacks to old memories) during which I had a strange experience... it was like I was looking at all those memories through a telescope, but over the whole image was superimposed that lattice, and over it were rapidly growing vines that were just covered in roses...
I've prayed off and on for a couple of months now, asking God what that was about, and I think I've finally come to understand. The lattice is His love and His word (the vertical and horizontal dimensions of the framework) - and the vines are my identity in Christ. And every rose is an aspect of my personality, finally beginning to bloom.
You wouldn't believe how many times roses/flowers have come up in the past few weeks. Jake randomly posting on my Facebook wall "every rose has its thorns." (yeeeeaaaahhhhh... sorry about that; I'm working on it, really!) Quotes in Elisabeth Elliot's Passion and Purity. Something my pastor said last Sunday. Jill Briscoe reading something on the radio last weekend from someone else about the way some flowers exude a stronger fragrance when their petals are completely crushed. (Roses can be like that. Their bushes also need to be vigorously pruned in order to help them grow...)
And this amazing Ansel Adams photo of a rose growing through a piece of driftwood...
I had a dream a couple of months ago, which didn't, after all, mean what I thought it did - but in the dream there was this lion walking around and he was wearing a crown. In the crown, instead of the jewel you might expect as the centerpiece, was a single live rose, and it was in full bloom.
I am the rose in the Lion's crown, and I am blooming...
One petal unfolding at a time, I am becoming who I was always meant to be. It's taken a good deal of investment - time, energy, sunlight, fertilizer (a.k.a.: sh*t.... lol!) , love.... but it's working. I am becoming the rose I was meant to be.... and I am worth waiting for.
That's a revelation I have truly come to treasure.
I have lionized roses.
I've always loved them, ever since I was a little kid. Ha, I've just remembered an elementary school Easter where I so wanted my picture (you know, the annual Easter dress/bonnet picture) taken in front of our rosebush. I can see the snapshot in my head - me and my sister and my mom with her arms around us, in front of the bushes. They smelled so wonderful.
Years ago, when I first started leading worship, a friend of mine had given me a necklace and a matching set of earrings shaped like silver roses. I wore them almost every time I led worship for awhile, and I felt such an... I don't know, it was just right to put them on as I headed out the door to church. Kind of like taking my shoes off. It was just something I was supposed to do.
Fast forward to October of this past year - 2007. Second Friday, I believe. Our leadership team for Torch meets each month (in theory) and we were taking turns going about and telling each other what we felt God was calling us to, what our gift mixes were, and how we were wired, and then people got to give us feedback on whether they thought we'd discerned rightly or not. It was pretty cool, actually. I happened to be up that particular night, and I shared all the usual things about worship leading and missions and whatnot, but startled even myself by saying that I felt God was calling me to teach, and discovered it was true as I said it aloud.
My friend Veggie (yes, really) kicked off the feedback portion of the discussion by saying, "Happy, you're a really complex person." And everyone busted up laughing. (I'm still honestly not quite sure how to take that... I mean, I know it's true, but seriously...) :)
And Jake later that evening walked out of the meeting with me, and said, "You know, when Veggie said that, at first I thought, 'yeah, you're kind of like an onion... only that would imply that you're spicy and you make people cry, and that's not true. No... really, I know it's kind of cheesy, but the image that comes to mind is that of a rose. It's absolutely beautiful in its bud form, but as it unfolds petal by petal it just becomes more and more beautiful. And that's who you are."
Wow. That's cool...
Last winter I went to an interesting little church, and everyone in the meeting that particular night had a vision of some sort during the worship time and shared it (it was a small meeting). I didn't say anything, being a visitor, but on the way home, Jake asked me, "so what did you see?"
Part of what I saw was a pool in an ancient city, and I was sitting at the edge of it, and behind it and over my head was this lattice thing, and vines were beginning to grow over it. And then a couple of months ago there was a night (around the time I was having all those flashbacks to old memories) during which I had a strange experience... it was like I was looking at all those memories through a telescope, but over the whole image was superimposed that lattice, and over it were rapidly growing vines that were just covered in roses...
I've prayed off and on for a couple of months now, asking God what that was about, and I think I've finally come to understand. The lattice is His love and His word (the vertical and horizontal dimensions of the framework) - and the vines are my identity in Christ. And every rose is an aspect of my personality, finally beginning to bloom.
You wouldn't believe how many times roses/flowers have come up in the past few weeks. Jake randomly posting on my Facebook wall "every rose has its thorns." (yeeeeaaaahhhhh... sorry about that; I'm working on it, really!) Quotes in Elisabeth Elliot's Passion and Purity. Something my pastor said last Sunday. Jill Briscoe reading something on the radio last weekend from someone else about the way some flowers exude a stronger fragrance when their petals are completely crushed. (Roses can be like that. Their bushes also need to be vigorously pruned in order to help them grow...)
And this amazing Ansel Adams photo of a rose growing through a piece of driftwood...
I had a dream a couple of months ago, which didn't, after all, mean what I thought it did - but in the dream there was this lion walking around and he was wearing a crown. In the crown, instead of the jewel you might expect as the centerpiece, was a single live rose, and it was in full bloom.
I am the rose in the Lion's crown, and I am blooming...
One petal unfolding at a time, I am becoming who I was always meant to be. It's taken a good deal of investment - time, energy, sunlight, fertilizer (a.k.a.: sh*t.... lol!) , love.... but it's working. I am becoming the rose I was meant to be.... and I am worth waiting for.
That's a revelation I have truly come to treasure.
the bucket list
One of my silent readers, whom I have sneakily tracked down - (not really - I just followed a link one day, landed on his blog, and found the Shift on his blogroll - nice picture, by the way, John) - has posted what he refers to as "The Bucket List." Apparently there's a new kick going around because of the movie by that name for people to write their own lists... a "bucket list" (in case you didn't know) is a list of things you want to do before you, um... kick the proverbial bucket.
So just for fun, here's mine:
(and somebody ask me when I'm 80 if I've done it all) :)
1. I want to learn to fly a plane - one of the old-fashioned puddle-jumper type bi-planes. Not because I really want to be an African bush pilot per se, but because at some point when I'm in Africa (or anywhere really) and the stakes are high, time is pressing, and our pilot is nowhere to be found, or sick, or wounded - I want to be the one person in our small crew who can say, "oh, it's okay - I'll fly the plane" and wow everyone with my amazing secret talent as I rescue us from what might have been certain death. (lol... whatever. I just like to fly and I think it would be fun.)
2. I want to write a book. Maybe a story, maybe just a "here's what I've learned in my life" sort of a book... I don't know. I just want to write... something.
3. I want to see the world. Africa (especially South Africa). India. Italy - 6 weeks, at least. I want to go to Tuscany on my honeymoon. (I want to have a honeymoon... someday.) Austria - 3 weeks in Vienna. Switzerland. Germany - again, especially Berlin. London. Wales. Belfast. New Zealand. Australia to visit Rachel and Heather. I want to go back to Albania, even just for a visit. Stratford-von-Avon - in England and Canada. Prince Edward Island. Hawaii.
4. I want to own a horse. Just for awhile. And go riding every day. For maybe a year.
5. I want to own a house with a wood-burning fireplace, and comfy couches, and have friends over all the time.
6. I want to own a house with 17 bedrooms. And for all my kids to have friends that pretty much live with us. (and that don't mind cleaning all the bathrooms a house that big would have to have)
7. I want to adopt a dozen kids. Emotionally, if not legally. :)
8. I want to take 6 months off from my entire life and just travel. (This is different from #3 because I'd envisioned that as periodic vacations. This would be more of a "get in the car or hop in the plane and just go, and figure out where I'm going when I get there" sort of a thing. Could be cross-country, could be world travel, who knows?)
9. I want to bike across Montana.
10. I want to die knowing that I didn't waste this life. That I lived every moment I possibly could to the fullest. That I did what I needed to do, spent time where I needed to spend it, and knew who I needed to know - for their sakes and for mine. And that grace covered everything at which I failed. (That, at least, I know will get checked off the bucket list. Thank you, Jesus.)
There's probably more, but I think that's a good start, anyway. :)
So just for fun, here's mine:
(and somebody ask me when I'm 80 if I've done it all) :)
1. I want to learn to fly a plane - one of the old-fashioned puddle-jumper type bi-planes. Not because I really want to be an African bush pilot per se, but because at some point when I'm in Africa (or anywhere really) and the stakes are high, time is pressing, and our pilot is nowhere to be found, or sick, or wounded - I want to be the one person in our small crew who can say, "oh, it's okay - I'll fly the plane" and wow everyone with my amazing secret talent as I rescue us from what might have been certain death. (lol... whatever. I just like to fly and I think it would be fun.)
2. I want to write a book. Maybe a story, maybe just a "here's what I've learned in my life" sort of a book... I don't know. I just want to write... something.
3. I want to see the world. Africa (especially South Africa). India. Italy - 6 weeks, at least. I want to go to Tuscany on my honeymoon. (I want to have a honeymoon... someday.) Austria - 3 weeks in Vienna. Switzerland. Germany - again, especially Berlin. London. Wales. Belfast. New Zealand. Australia to visit Rachel and Heather. I want to go back to Albania, even just for a visit. Stratford-von-Avon - in England and Canada. Prince Edward Island. Hawaii.
4. I want to own a horse. Just for awhile. And go riding every day. For maybe a year.
5. I want to own a house with a wood-burning fireplace, and comfy couches, and have friends over all the time.
6. I want to own a house with 17 bedrooms. And for all my kids to have friends that pretty much live with us. (and that don't mind cleaning all the bathrooms a house that big would have to have)
7. I want to adopt a dozen kids. Emotionally, if not legally. :)
8. I want to take 6 months off from my entire life and just travel. (This is different from #3 because I'd envisioned that as periodic vacations. This would be more of a "get in the car or hop in the plane and just go, and figure out where I'm going when I get there" sort of a thing. Could be cross-country, could be world travel, who knows?)
9. I want to bike across Montana.
10. I want to die knowing that I didn't waste this life. That I lived every moment I possibly could to the fullest. That I did what I needed to do, spent time where I needed to spend it, and knew who I needed to know - for their sakes and for mine. And that grace covered everything at which I failed. (That, at least, I know will get checked off the bucket list. Thank you, Jesus.)
There's probably more, but I think that's a good start, anyway. :)
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