A Glorious Reminder.

Today was a beautiful, glorious reminder of what it's all about.

Good news. Jesus.

We, as a wee little family here in this city, got to witness four people being baptised this morning. I was overwhelmed with the majesty of the story in which I find myself. In which we as a church find ourselves. To see these four people, such dear and true friends, stand up and share their journeys - so varied and powerful....was full of heart-deepening beauty.

Jesus? You are present and living and dwelling in our midst. Why do I so often forget this?

Do I live as if You hold all the ages between Your fingertips?

I greatly fear that I do not.

But then I see Your eyes. So full of grace and truth. And I see sights like today....hearing stories of healing and wholeness, of hope and a future. We hear of another thread in Your story-tapestry, all the way from Nepal. We hear of the ministers there, the miracles which abound....and my faith slowly rises - like an engine that's been stuck out in the cold. We open our mouths and sing of Your great deeds.

You are so good. Thank You for not leaving me where I am at, but always and ever calling me 'further up and further in'.

I know this video might be a 'tad' on the pretentious side...but it challenged me a few years ago, and I managed to find it again. What does good news look like to those dwelling amongst us? 

YOUR HOPE from blaine hogan on Vimeo.

P. S. I swear I had this almost finished on time....:)

Unscribable days.

Ah! Forty minutes to write this and I'm so tired. But knowing my incessant and utterly annoying need to stick to my word, I shall post. I will not be defeated!! Though, I regret to inform you that today, I shall only be inscribing a few brief words. I've been up hills all day long....

And I guess there are some days that are best left unsaid....

Even if I wish I could put them into words and remember every last detail.

Days so full of joy and sunlight....and friendship.

And love.

God is so good. And He is present in all of our days....though, I think He's present in a special and unique way during these unscribable days.

'They said, "Rabbi, where are you staying?"

         "Come," He replied, "and you will see" '

                         (John 1: 38-9)

Let's dwell with Him in all of our days.

Communion.

Communion

Brushstrokes on the soul of someone else,

This fearless touch unclothes bodies

Unwinding the knotted ribbons of my thoughts

And permeates the clattering clutter beneath

Late, I have come, drawn to your side

By some unknown force of subtle magnitude.

The foolish winds of fancy, I have long believed

Fall away, struck down by the silence of love.

My being, a skylark in dawn, rises

From the rubble of plaguing insecurities.

No more through cafe windows do I gaze

But soaring, sailing, scaling, I venture.

Deep delving closeness draws

And the ivory papers of my heart flutter

Your breath warms my salty cheek;

Caressing the breakable mosaic of me.

This red wine, the bread, enfolds me

Within you, you within and without.

The paradox, the oneness of grace

Confounds, perplexes, radiates.

A Pen's Justification.

I'm being forced to pause.

I don't like this.

I have to write now.

Why is it so hard to focus, to make myself do what I love?

I fear I'm riddled with fear.

And then I want to give up altogether and go bake a cake. Or wish for the umptienth time that I didn't have to worry about not being in full-time employment. Or go worry about something else insignificant. Or look at pretty blogs.

I realised, at about 1:00 am this morning (as you do) why so much of my journaling feels fake to me. It's cause I hide. I hide what occupies my brain the most. And most of the time, it's fears. Donald Miller mentions that Jesus commanded us over TWO HUNDRED times 'Do not fear'. And still I succumb to its paralysing voice.

So I check facebook (yup). I wonder what I'll make for dinner. I use the toilet. I doubt that I'm loved. I check my emails. I pop out to run an errand. I fritter away the hours.

My soul shrinks, my faith diffuses into thin air, and I am numbed. 

And then the guilt rises, as I try to justify what I've done with my day.....that never goes over well. I chide myself and I ask, 'What SHOULD I be doing?' I try harder.  

A Pen's Justification

There is a knotted thread

within my hand;

it binds my fingers together.

But my head?

It hurts for all the wool

tangled

mangled.

I try

raging

pulling

to explain, explore, the ache.

The ache of inadequacy

of confused, believed fallacy.

My perception

time and again rebuked

by a sense of duty.

Will my pen ever stop

trying to justify my being?

Do you ever try harder? To cover up, let go, sweep away, forget, to build, to create,....to justify? I look inside me for The Answer, The Meaning.

Inside me....

....and I wonder why fear seems to grip onto my heart and why I can't hear Your voice in amongst my endless babble and fretting.

Inexplicably, this morning (having woken up tense and under-slept) I finally listened to the Voice that had been whispering 'read John' for the past couple of days. And I read these verses....

'In the beginning was the Word,

and the Word was with God,

and the Word was God.

He was with God in the beginning.

Through Him all things were made;

without Him nothing was made

that has been made.

In Him was life

and that life was the light of men.

The Light shines in the darkness,

but the darkness has not understood

or overcome

it.'

John 1.

I can't claim to know what this means. What it means intellectually or for my own life....but I read it and my bones feel vigorous again. My heart somehow has courage. Life is seeping back into me. A fight is rising within....I will not stand idly by as the Story is ripped from my life. It will not be stolen from me. For the Light, Jesus, the Word is dwelling with me. Within us.

Challenge for myself? 

Let the Word of Christ dwell RICHLY within me, and then maybe the words that spill from my own pen will feel less like a justification, less of a covering up,....and more of an act of freedom, more of a joy.

The Importance Of Jumping In Rivers.

I had a pause, a breathing space, in my life this past weekend. And it was most glorious. 

I've also felt challenged.....to stop letting my days pass me by as if my life was meaningless. I remember growing up, I would always pretend that I was in a story. Whether that story was in war-time Britain, bombs dropping around me, or in some Victorian field on Prince Edward Island, or in some dimly lit, religiously fraught medieval castle on a cold and wet day. Walking about in the grocery store gathering items for my mum, in the car on the way to piano lessons, or lying in bed at night....I would depart for the Other Lands.

Yes. I was an odd child. 

But that's the rub. We are in a story.....and what kind of story am I in? I've been reading (devouring?) 'A Million Miles in a Thousand Years' by Don Miller. He writes, 'I like the part of the Bible that talks about God speaking the world into existence, as though everything we see and feel were sentences from His mouth, all the wet of the world His spit. I feel written. My skin feels written, and my desires feel written. My sexuality was a word spoken by God, that I would be male, and I would have brown hair and brown eyes and come from a womb. It feels literary, doesn't it, as if we are characters in books....there is a knowing I feel that guides me toward better stories, toward being a better character. I believe there is a writer outside ourselves, plotting a better story for us, interacting with us, even, and whispering a better story into our consciousness.'

Do I live this way? Sometimes it's easier to live in my head. To dream about a life I would desire....to let it slip by me unnoticed, like a beautiful flower growing in the crack of an old stone wall. I think we get scared, and it paralyzes our dreams and desires, our passions....and ultimately our very selves. 

When I think of one thing that scares me, almost above all others....it's being vulnerable in writing. It's so easy to go and read someone else's blog, someone else's book. Instead of picking up the pen myself. 

So this week, I'm going to try something. I am going to attempt to put some writing on the page every day this week. And see what happens. I guess it's like a muscle. Like training for a race you've always wanted to do, actually finding that recipe and making that loaf of bread, like opening that box of photos and beginning to fashion them into a story on a page. 

Here's to the plunge....

Calling Forth Strength.

I was just thinking how tired I am of 'pressing through', of trusting for a job, a flatmate. This desert, this wasteland of postponement. I'm tired of it. I ask, rather tentatively and with a slight angle of self-pity, 'have I learned this lesson yet?' Oh silly girl. And then I read these words of David, a song he wrote at the end of his life....

'The LORD is my Rock, my Fortress, and my Deliverer;

    my God is my Rock in whom I take refuge,

  my Shield and the Horn of my Salvation.

He is my Stronghold, my Refuge, and my Saviour....'

(2 Samuel 22:2-3)

I've read over and over that phrase 'horn of my salvation', and its corresponding footnote: 'horn here symbolises strength'. I thought little about it. But today, it stood out to me....Why is it that a horn symbolises strength? Why is strength tied to salvation, of all things?....And then it reminded me of something. You know in Narnia, when Father Christmas gives Susan the horn, he says that whenever she blows it HELP WILL COME.....'Trust in this horn, Susan.' In battles where one is surrounded, horns call troops together, they call forth the strength inside and out. They call forth salvation.....But I have to trust that when I call out in my utter abandoned need, He - the God of the Ages - will answer.  

For He Himself, in a strange and wonderful twist, IS my Horn of Salvation. Jesus called out with His last breath, 'It is finished'....a call that has reverberated throughout history. A call of overwhelming victorious strength and salvation.

I'm speechless in the face of this revelation. Shall we not trust?

Sparkly.

'In all seriousness, though, if I don't have the ring in time....can I ask you anyway?'

     'As long as you have a bit of string or something, of course,' I replied.

The hopeful (and realist?) side of me was thinking, 'You complete and utter LIAR.' The other half (which tends to hold more sway) was chiding the romantic in me saying, 'Don't get your hopes up, Grace....this is rubbish. I was hoping he had it already.'

But as a girl, one cannot - absolutely cannot - get one's hopes up too high or one shall feel like a very sad, demanding girl. And we cannot have that. Ever. :)

In the course of the evening he said, 'There is somewhere I've discovered in the city that I wanted to take you to. I found it while you were away....but I kinda want it to be a surprise.'

I suggested that I blindfold myself. Bizzare, I know, but kinda fun.

So that exchange happened on Friday night, last.

Saturday morning rolled around and consisted of porridge, Miranda, rugby highlights, and coffee (ohhhh yes). I didn't notice anything strange....I thought I would, seeing as Gordon has a semi-irrational fear of losing things from pockets, not locking doors, and leaving lights on. I only noticed he seemed strange once, when he was delaying going. But come half past two in the afternoon, we started off in the First Choice van filled to the brim with boxes and bits and bobs. Me blindfolded, listening to BBC radio 1, in all its dance-tune glory. It was only a short, twenty minute drive. If you've never been blindfolded in a car before, I can highly recommend it. It's rather fun to not know where you're going, to feel the lay of the roads. I remember as a kid, I would lay down in the back seat of our car and close my eyes, trying to make myself disoriented so that I'd be surprised when we got home (did you ever do that?). It never really worked, seeing as I usually did it on the way home from church.....and we did that drive far to frequently for any part of the road to be unfamiliar. But I digress.

We parked, and he led me - still blindfolded - to the entrance of our walk. Now you have to know, that that day was a no-make-up-waterproof-jacket-kinda-day. It was overcast and gray. When he took off the blindfold (much to my relief as my overdeveloped sense of self-consciousness was seriously kicking in), I saw we were in a deep, forested vale. I instantly guessed we were in one of three places in the city (Crammond, Morningside, or Blackford Hill)....though I kept those guesses to myself, of course. We sallied forth onto the muddy path, passing dogs and their humans along the way. There was a hermitage, an old dove coat, and some lovely bridges over streams. As soon as we began the ascent, I knew we must be near Blackford Hill. Then I saw the top and it was for certain. I said, 'Do you remember the last time we were here? It was during the height of awkwardness before you asked me out last January.' He replied, 'Yeahhh....I thought I'd redeem it.' :) I had been thinking during the walk, 'I wonder if he'll ask me today?' But that cynic again quickly quieted the romantic and said, 'SHHH. Don't be silly, of course he won't.' And that was that.

We sat on the edge. Eating apples. Then we walked closer to the cliff, overlooking the whole of Edinburgh, including Arthur's Seat, the Firth, and behind us was the Pentlands. Unfortunately, one could see Appleton Tower as well. :) He apologised saying, 'Last time I was here, it was lovely and frosty and golden.' That day, it was cold, windy, and I couldn't really feel my hands anymore - so we agreed to go. As we turned, Gordon bent down to tie his shoe laces. Now, you must understand, that as avid Office fans, Gordon had been doing this to me for the past wee while (year?) as we walked in the city.....bending down on one knee and then tying his shoes. Fortunately he actually did need to tie his shoes in this moment.

So being the good girlfriend that I was, I turned with my back to him to survey the Pentlands (they are so beautiful.....) and thought no more of it. Until....I heard from behind me, 'Uhhh....Grace?' I turned around.

And there he was, bent on one knee, holding a wee green box.

I don't quite know what my face looked like in that moment, but the first words out of my mouth were, 'You loser!' Poor man. We just froze there for a moment, and then he said, 'Would you like to be my wife?'

I somehow temporarily lost the ability to speak.

But in my shock and unbelief, I managed to fumble out, 'Yes. Yes I would!' He instantly stood up and as he was trying to open the box, said, 'I've got a ring too. Would you like to see it?' Again, I answered, 'Yes!' He opened the box and I saw, before me, the perfectest ring ever. 'Where....when?' I asked how old it was, because it looked like an antique ring. He said, 'That's the only thing, it isn't an antique....but the diamond is....' And then I realised that I totally recognised the diamond - it was my mum's.

By this point I was utterly overwhelmed by the magnitude and beauty of it all. 'How? Why? God....' Were the thoughts rushing through my head. I put out my hand and he asked, 'Is this the right hand?' As he slipped it on my left ring finger. 'Yes', I somehow managed to say. 

After dinner and drinks and celebrationings....In the quiet, the overwhelmingness of it all kept  me awake. So I baked. Sad, I know. Oh well!

And that was it folks. I wish I had words to describe how I feel, but I don't. Let me just say one thing, though....The wait was worth it. And I'm not just talking about the wait to kiss, though that was nice too. :) But I'm talking about the wait for the fulfillment of the promises. We called Nana the next night and she said the most beautiful things....'God's save a special one for you, Grace. He's so full of joy!' And it's true. I could say so much more about the goodness of God in this. His faithfulness to me in my doubting and bewilderment and moaning for those two years. He knew the end of the matter before the beginning. He knew. But He didn't tell me in my tears. He waited....because the journey, the story, is the most beautiful part of all.

'Let them give thanks to the Lord for His unfailing love

  and His wonderful deeds for men,

for He satisfies the thirsty

  and fills the hungry with good things.'

(Psalm 107)