Soul Excavation

Slow mornings are my favorite.  And even better are the ones where you wake up to find the dishes washed.  The shower seemed warmer, my coffee tastes better, my soul is quiet and still. Rest. 

Brokenness.  I feel completely undone, unwound, like my skin has been cut open and my insides are hanging out for all to see. This season I'm in, this season of soul excavation is thoroughly uncomfortable.  Uncomfortable but necessary.  Worst! But somehow, somehow in the chaos and the dust of this excavation my bones are being breathed back to life in a newer deeper way. And I know, deep down somewhere, I know this is good and what He is doing is good.

You sift me gently.
Tossing me and my life back and forth, back and forth
emerging the truer pieces of my soul.

Fears, unanswered questions, pride, vain, self-seeking
all roar their voices in full force.

I seek to bury them in an attempt to silence them.
You still me and tell me to wait as you separate the gold from the dross.

My soul says hide, you whisper be found.
My soul says lie and believe lies, you respond: the truth sets you free.
My soul says run away, you say stay.

You're excavating my soul and I'm terrified by what You'll find.

Excavation.

Expired flowers in a beautiful vase

I love fresh cut flowers. Especially when they are in my beautiful Kinantu vase on a clean table.  Sometimes I feel like this completely contradicts everything about me, in the sense that generally I like living things better than dead things.  But I love fresh cut flowers.

The flowers on my table are not fresh cut...they are probably about three weeks old, they're dying, if not completely dead.  I didn't take care of them, I don't think I even changed the water once.  And yet, yesterday morning I noticed that among the dead flowers, that desperately need to be thrown out, there was one little bud just starting to open. How? I've done nothing, everything around it is dead, the water hasn't been changed, there might not even be water in the vase for all I know.  And yet life is springing forth, delighting me. In fact it almost delights me more because it seems like a miracle, and I sit in awe.

Sometimes my life feels like expired flowers in a beautiful vase. Sometimes I don't take care of my soul, I neglect to bring it to the living water, and yet still I find that God is working, working miracles where I don't see or expect, and I sit in awe at what God is doing and what He can do. This morning I'm struck by his faithful, steadfast miracle work, even when I am neglectful. God, help me to be thankful...

Conversion

The leaves are falling off the trees. I like it.  It's time.  Sometimes in the midst of the summer fling I forget how much I love the quiet, unhurried routine of fall. It slows me down so I can breathe, so I can process. 

I like to sit on my deck and drink coffee and stare. My wonderful, ugly yellow MCC chair is positioned carefully in front of a beautiful maple.  I've watched it through a full year of season now.  Slowly its leaves are changing colour and falling quietly to the ground.  I can't help but feel the correlation to my own life.  Fall is about letting go, purging life, slowing down, getting ready for the long winter so that when spring comes the new growth can come. 

I'm reflecting through my life, as if carefully examining each leaf, barely having the courage to allow it to change colour, let alone allow it to fall to the ground and decay into the earth.  He's changing me, changing the patterns of my life, changing the movement of my soul.  Fear calls me to cling to my leaves and not allow them to fall, but Christ calls me to let them go, to let them fall to the earth and nourish my soul.  To make room for the new growth that will come...eventually. So silently, in the deep corners of my soul, with tears moving down my cheeks I open my clenched fists and say yes...conversion.

Silently you move me
You shift my soul to its proper place in one swift move...
like a mother with her child.

Plagued by fears without and evils within
firmly and quietly i hear you among the reeds
and eventually I see and feel your large strong hand...
i don't feel so confused any more.

Lord, help me to receive
to receive the gifts I don't understand, the unfinished paintings
let me receive them with joy and not disdain.

Let me carefully unwrap each moment
let me savour it the way you invite me to.

Teach me, oh Holy God, how to live in your unhurried sense of time.
Grant me grace as I explore you and others deeper...

conversion.

Lord, help me to receive

 I don't remember the last time I woke up to that sound, that smell.  You know, the one that makes everything feel fresh, and clean, as if the whole world is being made new. You know, rain. I don't remember the last time it rained.

This week my soul rained too. I cried my eyes out.  Not just a few tears, but the full deal.  The kind of crying that makes your eyes puffy...even the next day! It's been a long time since I've had a cry like that.  I'm thinking maybe the beginning of April. 

I don't like crying, it feels uncomfortable and messy.  People look at you with pity, with concern speculating at the cause. Its just plain awkward. But God has been teaching me about my attitude/spirit of rejection these past seven months, trying to call me out of it and into a attitude/spirit of receiving....it pretty much kills me.  My pride has to die, my rights have to die, my will has to die, my "just" bitterness and hurt has to die. But I'm starting to see when I fight less and receive more, I gain freedom, life, peace, and stillness.

I'm starting to realize that I've been fighting the rainy season of my life. Because sometimes, actually probably most of the time, life is seasonal, only we suck at realizing it and embracing it.

And so this morning I feel encouraged by the rain, in a quie,t still kind of way....I can feel the growth steeping in my soul, the change that is coming, the new life that is about to be birthed, the new ways of seeing and living, just like the trees that somehow appear greener with more buds, even after one rain. 

Lord, help me to receive...

Fear...you sneaky bastard

Honestly, I thought by now I would have written billions of entries as I supposedly have more free time than I did in the past...not true...not sure where the time goes. Regardless, I'm here today--writing.  In fact, I have probably written more, poetry wise, in the last few months than I have in my whole life, but somehow it never makes it to the computer.

Okay, I'm just going to cut to the chase.  I've been thinking a lot lately about waiting.  In fact when I was in Mexico I ended up reading a whole book about it by Sue Monk Kidd.  I've also been thinking about fear and how it completely paralyzes me sometimes. How are these things connected? Just hang in there, let me get my thoughts out.

Last night I woke up just before 4am and didn't fall back to sleep until sometime after 4:53am (specific I know, that's the last time I saw the clock). Generally I wake up at least once in the night, but lately I just fall right back to sleep. NOT the case last night.  For the first twenty minutes or so, I promptly attempted to solve all of the problems in my life, those around me and the world.  I almost got up and painted, I even contemplated making coffee and sitting on the deck until the sun came up. But something made me stay. Eventually at some point the thought entered my brain that maybe I wasn't awake to solve all the world's problems, or to paint, or read, but that maybe God wanted me to pray, or learn something.  As I began to quiet my mind and make room to listen to Him.  I asked Him why I was awake and who needed prayer....Got to love the assumptions.  Instead, He said, "I want you to just lay still and wait".  Are you freaking kidding me!!! I couldn't learn how to wait and be still during the day hours, no it has to be at 4:31am! He didn't really say much else other than "shhhhh". Eventually I fell asleep, my soul quiet and calm. 

It wasn't until this morning that I began to put the connections together.  As I was sitting on the deck drinking coffee I read this, from Come Away My Beloved: "Do not curb the impulses of the Spirit within you, nor refuse to allow Me the freedom to manifest Myself through you by means of gifts.  You may resist Me because you feel unworthy or unready to be used.  This is a delusion of the mind.  I do not use you when you feel prepared, but when I need you and you are yielded."

Lately I've been feeling plagued by fears.  At times they immobilize me from using my gifts, I get stuck and I can't move.  I constantly feel unworthy and unprepared and not knowledgeable enough.  But here is where the waiting comes in.  In the waiting we learn to yield, to surrender.  And it is as we surrender that God can do His most holy and miraculous work. Because the work is no longer contingent on our gifts, our worth, or our knowledge, rather, it is contingent on the power of God and the love of His Spirit.  So maybe instead of using all of my energy to become better at things or hone my gifts more, I need to spend more time waiting and yielding to God, so that His kingdom can come in more. And it is as I yield and wait that my fears vanish and I become more okay with the fact that I'm not even close to enough and never will be.  Therefore, I can take risks because regardless of the outcomes I know that He will always relentlessly pursue me until He finds me, recklessly untangled all of the lies that surround my mind, and patiently and continuously invite me into rest and safety with Him.

That being said, here is a poem I wrote about fear.  Please read it with loving ears:

FEAR
Fear...how it destroys
beckoning in with its flashy white smile
how easy it is to believe your carefully crafted statements
but you only bring destruction.

Fear...you limit me
you clip my wings so I can't fly
and I let you....willingly, I let you

Love come...come heal my wounded wings
Give me flying lessons that I may soar with no limit
that I may transcend all that my eyes see

Fear...you sneaky bastard...yes that is exactly what you are
full of half truths and twisted words
nothing half is ever whole

Love come.... make the half places whole
wash them, heal them
bring us into truth, bring us into the light
bring us recklessly and thoroughly out of fear and into you

Fear...you tricky illusion of control
there is no victory for you
For I am my beloved's and He is mine
And He is faithful, yes always faithful
to come and find me and bring me back to him,
away and out of your entangling, immobilizing lies

And where the spirit of the Lord is there is freedom.

The Mr. Potato Head Syndrome

This morning was one of those days where nothing goes as planned.  To be honest not many days in my life go how I plan, but today was different.  A day off, how nice, how refreshing.  Days off seem to be far and few between for me, so I treat them with extra care.  Generally they involve lots of coffee, nature, reading and quality time with friends. 

This morning I woke up, after a pile of vivid dreams, at 7am to God saying: "get up and pray!"  To which I responded: "now?!? are you kidding me, its my day off!"  "Get up and pray!" "fine".  Now most of you know that I love to pray, and that I love to share my prophetic and intercessory gifting with others, in fact it is one of the main ways I show and share my love.  And if you ever want prayer just give me a call or stop by cause I will pray for you anytime, anywhere.  But it is a totally different thing to be woken up to pray for people (who aren't there) that  I don't feel like loving on a good day let alone at 7am on my day off.   Anyway, so I prayed ,fortunately it was repeat -after- me prayer and I crawled back into bed and fell back asleep.

Then I awoke suddenly to what sounded like someone power washing the side of our house, which made me jump out of bed because my window was wide open. Thankfully no one was power washing and I have no idea what the sound was.  As I crawled back into bed and tried to fall back to sleep God showed me a picture of myself:

I was like a Mr. Potato Head with all of the eyes, ears, mouth, nose, arms, tongue, feet shoved on the inside.  As God opened up the back he stated: "Jenny, why are your eyes, ears, mouth, nose, tongue and hands in here...its not where they belong, they belong on the outside!" "I don't know", I replied.  "Jenny, your eyes are not suppose to be focused inward, they are supposed to be focused outward on me.  Your ears were not made just to hear the sound of your own voice, but to listen to me and to others.  Your mouth was made to speak my truth, not to hoard my truth to yourself.  Your hands were meant to share and care.  And your nose, well frankly, no one's insides smell good, so put it on the outside and smell the flowers!" Talk about a reality check, a way to refocus the day and start again with a new attitude.

The truth is we are like Mr. Potato Head we can choose to put our eyes, ears, mouth, nose, hands, feet wherever we want, we can put them inside ourselves, or in places they aren't suppose to be, or we can choose to put them where they belong, in their proper spots.  But the truth is the choice is ours to make.  We can choose to smell our insides or we can choose to smell the flowers! May you choose well today.

Bricks and Straw

I'm trying to write a Theological Reflection Paper today, clearly its not going very well! Its been a while. These past few months have been busy for me, not a lot of free time.  But here we are now.  I hate small talk and introductions so I'm just going to jump in.

I've been irritated with God lately because sometimes it seems like there will never be healing and there will never be peace and there will never be rest.  And that sometimes the cost required for these seems and feels way too much.  And that sometimes we gain some healing and some freedom only to discover even more pain and more bondage that appears to go on for infinity.  So we've (God and I) been discussing this lately, mostly  its been me complaining about how I feel like I'm never going to be whole. So He told me to read Exodus.

So here is my recap of Exodus:

God's people are in bondage and under Egyptian slavery.  What do they do? They make bricks all day, not fun.  We're told that God hears Israel's complaining: "God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and Jacob.  God saw the people of Israel and God knew." So God has a chat with Moses, and eventually convinces Him to talk with Pharaoh in order that the Israelites might be delivered.  Moses goes, Pharaoh says "no" and promptly increases the work load.  Now, the Israelites not only have to make bricks, they also have to go gather the straw. Worst!  Moses goes back to God and says "what are you doing?  "you have not delivered your people at all".  Anyone ever felt this way?  So God promises yet again to deliver His children.  When Moses goes to tell the people "they did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery." These people are done with what appear to be empty promises.  But even when the people aren't listening God is still working, faithfully working.  Enter terrible plagues. At the end of the plagues the people are finally delivered.  It says that Israel was enslaved to Egypt for 430 years, whether literal or figurative...it's clearly a long time.

So they enter the wilderness via the Red Sea...pretty epic and unforgettable if you ask me.  But they start to complain: why did you bring us out of Egypt? Are you trying to kill us? We are hungry and thirsty?`  So God gives them mana each day..."only take what you need for the day" is what they are told.  What do they do? Save it.  Obviously.  The next morning they have stinky mana with maggots on it.  yum! And then after some gold turns into a cow in a fire, and some workaholics who just wanting to get there, arrive at the promise land...its been 4o years.  And again whether this is figurative or literal its a fair amount of time.

The point:
Please don't hear me wrong, I'm a full believer in healing, deliverance and freedom.  But I've been wondering lately if we put the emphasis on the feelings of freedom and deliverance rather than on living with God.  And that maybe we need to learn how to live in our brokenness.  That maybe we should be more concerned with how to live when we feel like we have to make the bricks AND get the straw, or how to wait patiently trusting that He knows when we should walk and when we should rest.  And that rather than avoiding, bypassing,and ignoring our brokenness and our incompleteness we need to learn to live here.  Not in such a way that we become complacent, but in such a way that we are honest about our situation, openly acknowledging our brokenness, our hurt and learning how to live with God in the wilderness. After all it was 430 years of slavery and then 40 years of wilderness life.