The Altar

Today is an anniversary for me. It's my seven-years-of-life mark.

I try to remember to celebrate life on February 8th. I try to remember to look back on the life I've led since that day with honesty and reflection.

February 8th is my altar. I pass this way every year and take time to stop and remember that God holds my life in his hands. In my darkest, most sin-encrusted moment, he stooped down to lift me up. He entered my world of blackest night. He soothed away the pain and self-destructive anguish to lead me into blinding light.

Jesus is my rescuer. Jesus is the only one who sat with me during that long, tortured day. He is the only one who heard the wailing of my heart. He knows every thought, every wound, and every broken moment that led me there.

And he is merciful enough to whisper hope to a dead heart.

It seems significant to me that I am in the middle of a week of intentional communion.

Since communion is really about a life lived in the center of God's unforsaking love.

It's about knowing him. It's about being known.

For the last seven years I have been leaving new stones on this old altar. I've been reliving the sorrow and the joy of that day.

I hope I never forget. I hope February 8th never passes me by without me stilling my heart and remembering, with deep reverence, the King who saved me.

The King who is holy.

God's love makes me holy and whole.

His words evoke my beauty. Everything he says and does is designed to bring the best out of me. He dresses me in radiant white.

And Jesus loves me, this I know...

You Can Trust Me...

Seriously people, if you haven't discovered yoga yet I wonder how you stay sane!! Without yoga I would never catch my breath, never be released from my stressful depression, never enjoy the big and small movements of my own body, and never function as a human being.

Yoga is God's gift to my frail human life.

Holy Yoga in particular.

I took a class at a local studio this morning (not Holy Yoga, but ALL yoga is holy when Jesus is in your heart) and it was better than being medicated. :)

I walked in tense, overwhelmed, needy, and depressed. I walked out free, light, calm, and reminded AGAIN of who God is.

This is the theme of my life these days - remembrance. It is so easy for me to forget who God has been and what he has done. I am so selfishly forgetful. It's actually pretty annoying.

When I look back and see the trail of new life that has followed my chaotic footsteps I am so ashamed that I have forgotten him already. I would hate it if someone I loved regularly forgot about me. In fact, I have an idea what that feels like.

After my fabulous yoga class I went to church with my family, the words of my Jesus ringing in my heart, "You can trust me."

Trust is becoming my mantra. I can trust him. I can trust him. I can trust him.

Because I forget that too.

We run out of money, we can't pay our bills, we need a new car, etc.

Why are these things sitting on that holy throne in my life? Isn't that place already occupied?

Why do I obsess as if God has never provided money, food, cars, clothes... everything we have EVER needed?

Are we hungry? Are we homeless? Are we lacking in ANYTHING?

Seriously, I annoy the crap out of myself sometimes. Looking at my foolishness I am so aware that, if it were someone else, I would be preaching a message of trust to their face. But trust alludes me.

So, like I said, trust has become my mantra. I hear God reminding me all day long. I CAN trust him.

One thing Joe and I have been called to that requires an immense amount of trust is tithing. We haven't tithed in years. We haven't felt convicted about it. In fact it seems like, in some ways, God was teaching us to give from the heart. Every time we have ever tithed in the past it was from a space of obligation or guilt.

But we read Malachi the other day and were so challenged to give everything to the storehouse of God's kingdom. Would he not open the floodgates and pour out more than we could hold?

So, in church this morning I felt that same tugging, "You can trust me..." and I put in every dollar I had in my wallet. Fifty eight dollars. And it felt really good. Not guilt. Not obligation. Not pride. Just good. I felt expectant.

We came home from church still broke, still without enough money to cover our bills and our rent, but trusting.

And then someone came to buy the Durango. We've been trying to sell it so that we can use the money to fix Joe's work truck and then trade our other vehicle with my brother. Long story, but this is something I have struggled with trusting God for. And it happened today, when we've decided to trust God.

Even better, when cleaning out the Durango, I found a deposit envelope with seventy dollars cash in it. I don't really know where it came from, but there it was. More than I had put into the offering plate.

Jesus is doing something merciful, deep, and so, so powerful in me. My flesh is still there, fighting for control, but I've realized that communion is so freeing because it is Jesus' broken flesh that conquers mine. It is his spilled blood that keeps me from hemorrhaging when sin guts me.

And victory is this: I can trust him...

"God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life."
Psalm 51:10

The Week of Struggle

I would really like to believe that, in this holy pursuit, I would be holier. I'd like to feel kinder. I'd like to say that my flesh is dying away without a fight.

But that would all be a big, fat, nasty lie.

Because my flesh is thrashing around in an angry fight for survival.

I am testier. I am meaner. I am less patient. I am angry.

I feel rejected by everyone. I feel almost hopeless.

And I KNOW that my only option is fight it out; get to the end of this battle. Maybe there I will find some peace.

This is the hardest part - my only hope for freedom is to continually step away from that raging self-love and cling to the God who stands ON TOP of the crazy-ass waters.

So, in an effort to strangle my desire to let my selfish behavior reign again, I am writing this post. Because, if I put it out there with bold words, then the funky cloud that I am shrinking behind will dissipate. I will be forced to stop obsessing over my foolish behavior, my Popeye-strong desire to defend myself, and my equally strong desire to crawl under the covers and stay there.

This week is about communion.

This week is about the One who was broken, hidden away, and found again.

This week is about the old rituals that become the new celebrations.

This week is about remembering who I am.

This week is about remembering who GOD is.

And this week is, for whatever reason, is the week of my great struggle.

I am trusting that this week will also prove to be the week of my great encounter.

I am, without a doubt, still a big, fleshy mess, but I am setting my gaze on the Father...

My hope in his son...

My life in his spirit...

Help me, Jesus. You are the only Way....

Light

It's Thursday again. I really wanted to spread the last week out into this week. I didn't want to give up the meditation... the heyschasm.

But I've decided to not grip the good thing so tightly that I strangle it.

So, on to communion.

And, hopefully, I will find that fasting, prayer and meditation follow me here.

Because, shouldn't they all fit together? Shouldn't they all be a part of every day of our lives?

I am experiencing so much brokenness today. These spiritual practices are opening up a desperately hungry hole inside of me. I am becoming so much more aware of my incredible need.

I am a needy person. Needier than I want to admit.

And, this morning in yoga, I found myself in that breath prayer of the desert fathers...

"Jesus, have mercy on me."

In a glorious, freeing, sharp and wounding moment the Light of God burst out over my life and I was horrified at what it exposed. In that one moment I saw who I have been. Beneath all of my yearning, longing, studying, hoping, tears and obedience to God runs a grotesquely pulsating vein of self love.

Duh.

I'm human, I know. It shouldn't be such a shock to see such selfishness alive in me.

But I do SO MUCH for others....

I make GOOD decisions....

I say HOLY things....

I always ask God to humble me...

Ick.

In that one, startling moment it became so very clear to me that I do what I want to do. I ultimately serve me. I think of what I need and if someone steps on my toes I flare up and walk away.

I want to live a free life. I really, really do.

But I chafe at change. I get angry when others are inconsiderate of me.

I live in my flesh and scramble for the spirit.

I realize too that God didn't reveal this in me to shame me. This wasn't to put me in my place.

Because I can TRUST God.

I am being reminded of who God is; of what he has done for me.

And, like a friend I've abandoned, my true friend is only showing me how far I've wandered.

I've been looking for God. I've been fasting and praying and meditating. I've been returning to the roots of my faith. I've been reliving what drew me to him in the first place.

Love. Ah, love.

And, in my longing for holy fear, I've found it.

Love resting in the folds of reverence.

Love blended into every color of my world.

It's his love that brought the sunshine back into my soul.

It's his love that exposed what lurked there.

And it is his love, his rescuing love, that will heal the brokenness I have inflicted.

I can trust his love.

The Other Kind of Fear

I'm thinking a lot about the fear of the Lord lately.

I think that this is one of those things most often mis-interpreted. I remember hearing Oprah say once that she stopped putting her faith solely in God because her pastor said that God is a jealous God... and she thought, "God is jealous of ME?!" For whatever reason it never occurred to her that God was jealous FOR her.... and she lost faith.

This is like that.

We could lose faith over that word... fear.

It sounds disturbing. Why does God wants us to be afraid of him? How do you fear someone you are supposed to love? It just doesn't seems like pieces to the same puzzle.

Fear?

But, for whatever reason, I've been thinking about it all the time. I'm even finding myself hungry for it... whatever it is.

I've discovered that this kind of fear is not the kind of fear that makes you run screaming from the big, scary monster hunting you. It isn't the kind of fear that sells horror movies. It isn't the kind of fear you feel when you know that your boss doesn't really like you and might fire you, or make you look bad, at any moment. And it isn't the kind of fear you feel when you know that other people don't like what you are doing...

This kind of fear is better known as reverence.

And reverence isn't an often used word in every day life. Reverence seems to fit in better with stained glass windows and hymnals.

When I was younger I was very judgemental of other Christian beliefs. I said I wasn't, but I was. I thought that the best way to worship God was with loud music, dancing in the aisle and boisterous praying. I had no interest whatsoever in worship services where people read out loud or sang old, old songs. They were boring and dated. God had moved on. I was sure of it.

And then I lost myself a little bit. I ended a very bad relationship and moved far away from my entire community to a little island in the Puget Sound. I lived with my aunt, uncle and cousin. Basically I was home by myself all day. Most days I took long walks, sat out by the water, or just sat in the living room, looking out over the water, and trying to process my broken heart. I cried a lot.

And I forgot how to pray. I just couldn't recall how to get passionate enough.

I tried to go to church at the small community church on the island. It was, after all, the kind of service God liked best. But I felt emptier when I left than I had when I entered.

So, I started going to church with my aunt and my cousin. They were Episcopalian. Their church was nestled into lots of soft, green trees just off the highway. It had wooden pews, big open windows and hymnals for every worshipper. I found Jesus there.

There was something so moving about those old prayers. When I read them out loud, along with everyone else, I was so taken with the realization that people had been praying these words for hundreds of years. I didn't need to remember how to pray. They had left me a trail to follow. There was mercy for me in that church with their dated worship.

I found reverence for God in those beautiful services. Communion came alive. Silence bloomed underneath me like new and fresh earth. It was the beginning of my conversion to true faith, deep hope, and absolute longing for more than what I had left behind me with my broken heart.

So, ten years later I'm wondering, again, about reverence.

Which takes me to 2 Corinthians 7:1

"Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God."

I always have to know what the Message version says...

"With promises like this to pull us on, dear friends, let's make a clean break with everything that defiles or distracts us, both within and without. Let's make our entire lives fit and holy temples for the worship of God. More Passionate, More Responsible."

Let's make a clean break with everything that defiles or distracts us, both within and without...

This, to me, is the definition of reverence.

This is the fear of the Lord.

May nothing distract us. May nothing stand in the way of our clear focus. Our true love. Our heart's desire. Our holy hope. Our perfect Redeemer.

My husband read this to me from Malachi the other day,

"Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the Lord Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it....Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored his name."They will be mine," says the Lord Almighty, "in the day when I make up my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him. And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not. "

It's got me thinking.

What do I have to give to God?

My time. My children. My skill. My holy yoga practice. My marriage. My home. My money. My work. My hope.

What would happen if I brought it all into the storehouse?

And what would convince me to bring it ALL?

"And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not. "

What makes the righteous and the wicked different? What separates them?

Is it the fear of the Lord?

Because isn't fearing God really just about having a powerful hope that he is BIG enough, STRONG enough, WHOLE enough to be trustworthy?

Isn't fearing God really just a matter of putting everything I have into him and trusting that even more will be poured out again... more than I have room for?

I want to throw it all in. Every single tiny grain of my life.

And I want to trust that he will respond as he has every time I have been empty. With an overflowing response to my need.

Because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The fear of the Lord demands that we no longer care what other people think about us.

We have given everything to one storehouse. There is nothing of our own strength, skill, or desire to be found in us. It has been freely surrendered.

And we can wait with a never - disappointed hope for the floodgates to open.

I Don't Like Rules

I'll admit something.

I'm really bad at any kind of discipline.

I don't like rules. I don't like expectations. I don't like guilt.

I've spent enough time in a world where rules abound. Grace was a word we used, but rarely practiced. Shame was a motivator and people were only as acceptable as they were useful.

If you didn't have special "gifts" or "callings" then you were ignored. So, people made stuff up. I don't think they actually thought they were making it up. I think they just hungered for it so deeply that, at some point, it became reality.

Since my slow movement away from that world I've become more and more disgusted by rules. You will often hear me swear.

Because I'm seeing that sometimes you have to cross the line of what is seemingly appropriate to make a point. I think I'm in good company with this, seeing as how Paul made reference to "filthy rags", i.e. menstrual rags... kind of a big, offensive deal in those days.

This might be offensive to you. There was a time it would have been offensive to me. I would have been horrified at the use of scripture to justify something so against the rules. I would have looked down on the perpetrator and, later on, use their unholiness as an example of what happens when we distort the truth.

Did you catch that?

I would have looked down on them....

Gross.

I read a story about a guy who traveled around speaking at christian events. He would always talk about the horrific amount of people who are starving to death everyday. And then he would always say, "...and no one gives a shit." He would end his talk by pointing out that almost everyone in that room was more offended that he had used a swear word than the face that people were starving to death. His point was always proven right when he received a letter in the mail protesting his "foul language" and never once mentioning world hunger.

This makes me sad.

Why do we care?

I get it that CURSING someone is a bad idea. I don't condone that (although I will tell you that, in my flesh, I've done it many times - most times without using a single swear word).

But really the point I am making tonight, is that it just doesn't matter.

The rules don't matter.

Holiness isn't about rules. It is 100% about the heart.

Righteousness isn't about rules. It is 100% about the heart.

Why do we make so many rules that only give us the power to condemn other people? As if judging other people according to our rules is what makes them worthy of life or not.

Why can't we choose to love people that offend us?

Why can't we open ourselves up to the idea of grace?

Grace that saved a wretch like ME.

There are no barriers to grace. Grace allows us to freely love the people we think are nuts. And, most importantly, grace allows us to let God do God's job.

This is a hard thing to swallow. Sometimes it makes me sick to my stomach... cause I know that I am a big, fat judger.

But my hope is that, in extending mercy to the people that piss me off, I will receive the mercy that I did not deserve.

I happen to know that I have pissed off quite a few people off in my lifetime. Almost every time, it was unintentional, misguided and regrettable.

So, if I start showing undeserved mercy to people that do things I don't like... like making rules that give me the heebie-jeebies, maybe they'll show me mercy when I do things that they don't like ... like swear...

Just a thought.

If I Never See Another Jesus Painting Again...

Can someone please paint an authentic portrait of Jesus?

Can we bring to life the image of Jesus that is lost in the pious, bored, cold and distant man staring blandly at human life as if it disgusts him?

Cause I am very tired of seeing Jesus gently tiptoeing around the trashy humans. I am tired of seeing his blue eyes gazing off into the distance as humanity wails and anguishes all around him. I am tired of seeing the one clean hand extended while his body posture suggests he is completely disinterested.

How about the burly carpenter with dirt under his nails and tangles in his beard; with deep chocolate eyes and dark skin; with a broad, engaging smile on his face; down in the dirt with the blind man making mud out of earth and spit to smear on his damaged eyes?

THIS Jesus has children pouring into his lap, women laughing at his stories, men lounging next to him and hanging onto his every word. He sits in the dirt with the poor. He rubs elbows with the whores and cheats. He bends down to look into the eyes of the adulteress and speaks to her soul in a way no one else would. He wraps his arms around the contagious and stops a pulsing crowd to connect with one faith-filled, hungry, desolate woman.

Where is this Jesus in our holy paintings? Where did he go? Why do we paint him as something he isn't? And does that reflect the way that we paint him into our lives?

Distant.

Segregated.

Pious.

Uninterested.

British.

Can someone courageously throw some paint over this towering image? Can someone start over again? Can this whole Body of Christ paint just ONE piece of him at a time?

A dark, rough hand.

A heavy, weathered brow.

Thick, smiling lips.

A strong, dusty back.

A long, crooked nose.

Can we picture him roaring with laughter, celebrating with his beautiful creation?

Can we see him reaching down to sweep a little girl onto his shoulders, whispering to her that she is the crown of all of creation?

Can we allow him to be real? Flesh and blood. Divine, yet filled with breath?

Can we never set eyes on a distorted image of our Jesus again? Can we set them aside....

Can we start over?