Friday, January 15, 2010

If Corporations Took Over Worship...

I was pretty much drowning in introspection tonight, my mind running wild as I consider many changes that are on the horizon in my life - changes that are mostly positive, but are also a bit scary. (I'm infamous for my dislike of changes in things that are already established and lovely.)

A friend of mine posted this on her blog tonight (thanks LP/CA!) and oh how I needed the laugh it provided. It sort of cut through the thickness of my thoughts and let a giggle burst out. It really is amazing how joy changes things.

Daily 5 - Day 156

Today's Daily 5:
  1. Friday
  2. feeling pretty in some of the new clothes I bought last weekend
  3. wearing high heels - I don't wear them often these days, but I do feel so attractive when I do
  4. Jeans at work
  5. hanging out at walmart with my dad (needed to buy oil and an oil filter for George - my brother J. is changing the oil for me tomorrow)
  6. budget update, post salary change - it was fun to sort out the little bit of extra money that my recent performance review and salary change brought me.  not much, but fun to ponder how to split it up.
  7. home made chicken and dumpling soup and theological conversation over dinner with mom and dad
  8. watching a healing service from Redding, California online "with" a dear friend on the other side of Canada... (she watched at her house, and I in mine, and we chatted online while we watched) nice to "spend the evening together" in that way... to "go to church together" a little.
  9. tears flowing.  this has been an exhausting and stretching week, full of many things pulling deeply on my heart.  Tears still don't flow readily for me, so I choose to appreciate the moments, however painful, that they fall for a while and offer a release to the pent-up emotions.
  10. I'm thankful still, for the ways I saw God work and confirm things last night at the house church gathering.  It had been a very long time since I have seen that move of God to direct within a corporate body by offering pieces to various people around the room, and to be honest, I wasn't particularly expecting it in that setting, but I saw it last night, and was so grateful for that reminder of God working amidst things.

Stunning Photos

These photos and brief interview from a photo journalist at the New York times are breathtaking in their tragedy.

Incredible Solar Eclipse Photos

There was a solar eclipse visible in Africa and Asia today.  Check out pictures of it here.  Some of them are truly stunning.

Sattelite Images From Haiti

Check out these before and after pictures here.

The Coming Joy

This continues to be an odd week.

It's one of the busiest weeks I've had in months, and I am feeling the pull of the growing exhaustion on my body.  I've probably taxed my limits, but it was to some extent unavoidable, and looking back, there isn't anything I'd eliminate from my schedule (well, maybe grocery shopping, if there was some sort of magic way food could appear in our fridge).  The moments shared with friends and at house church.

It's also been one of the weeks where I've been most intensely in what both my roommate and I jokingly refer to as "weird intercessor space" more deeply than I have been in a very long time.

There has been the news from Haiti.

And some other needs that have come to my attention.

And this ongoing theme of mothering, birthing, babies, children.  Which perhaps sounds a bit odd when you consider that I am 26 years old, and remain happily single.

Some time ago I think I blogged the following passage, but it has come back strongly to me today, and I find myself praying it back to God this morning, asking for patience and understanding as I process and listen and wait and pray.

John 16:21-23 (The Message)
When a woman gives birth, she has a hard time, there's no getting around it.  But when the baby is born, there is joy in the birth.  This new life in the world wipes out memory of the pain.  The sadness you have right now is similar to that pain, but the coming joy is also similar.  When I see you again, you'll be full of joy, and it will be a joy no one can rob from you.  You'll no longer be so full of questions.