Stations of the Cross

You should all visit Renee's blog this week. Each day she has been reflecting on a station of the cross. The reflections have been beautiful and challenging.

I particularly loved the one she wrote today for station seven - Christ's second fall. You can find it here. Then go back and read the stations 1-6.

Anything that helps me meditate in a new way on the Easter holiday is worth the time I need to spend reading it. Easter, like so many things, can become trite if you don't devote the time. I'm still trying to figure out how to create reflective space on Good Friday this year. Our family is busy, because my dad and brother leave for a month long mission trip to Ukraine on Easter Sunday afternoon. But I am determined to carve out at least a couple of hours on Friday to reflect and meditate - hopefully in the mountains somewhere.

Matching Moods with the Weather

I was thinking this morning as I padded out to the kitchen in my bare feet and pygamas and stood looking out the window and eating a cookie for breakfast that the weather we've had in Calgary lately has suited the mood I've been in since returning from Mexico remarkably well. The weather has been drizzly and melancholy. On Saturday, when I felt a breakthrough moment, and knew how I was going to address something that had until that moment been unclear, it was clear, and even kind of warm. On Sunday night, when I sat in a restaurant until nearly 1am and talked with friends, then left more confused and frustrated than ever, it rained heavily as I drove home.

And the weather this morning is no exception. I had some more conversations last night, and walked away frustrated, confused, and maybe even angry. I had tried so hard to communicate what I've been thinking and feeling lately, and as much as my friends tried to listen, it felt that we were in separate spaces, seeing and hearing, but going past each other without understanding. Ships in the night is the phrase that comes to mind.

As I lay in bed and waited for sleep to claim me, I cried out yet again to God for clarity. And then I did something that still feels dangerous to me - I invited Him to give me dreams - to speak to me in my sleep if He wanted. Now, I have friends who have and cherish an active dream life - I don't. Too many years of horrific nightmares - the kind where you wake up and can't breathe, and you wonder why your bed is shaking, and then realize it's because your whole body is trembling from the fear. So, you know how desperate I'm feeling if I ask God to speak in my dreams.

What are the chances that I prayed that prayer, and then dreamt for the first time in a couple of weeks, that that dream is not something I need to pay attention to? Because I did dream, and it feels somewhat significant, but it was kind of scary too. There were definite fear emotions attached. And here's the thing - if that was God speaking, shouldn't it make sense to me? Because it was an odd dream, with things that must have been symbolic, and I have no idea what the symbols would have represented.

So I stood looking out the kitchen window this morning, feeling kind of unsettled, confused and tired, and the grayness of the morning, the low sitting clouds, the drizzling rain matched my mood once again.

Pioneers and Settlers

There was something spoken at church last night about being either pioneers or settlers. I am part of a church community filled with pioneers - people who love the unknown, who love to go to new places and try new things. And it's great.

I am not a pioneer. And I have wrestled with that over the last year or so. I am a settler, called to ministry within the body of Christ in its local setting. I am called to the church - to the broken and wounded and hurting within the walls of the church community. Yes, I have a heart for those outside the walls of the church, but my passion ignites for those who have entered in, and are looking to be met - to be human, to be healed.

Nothing excites me more than a situation like last night. A young woman with whom I have walked life on an intensely close level got up and spoke out her story. She spoke truth, and healing, and I felt breakthrough. Nothing makes me want to celebrate like watching this young woman succeed, like watching her life knit itself together into something beautiful, like watching her find beauty in the ash heap that had defined her life.

I'm thrilled to be part of a community of pioneers. I think they're doing amazing things, and I hope I get to go along for the ride occasionally. But I'm not about pioneering. I'm about building from within so that those with a pioneering spirit can be sent out in strength and healing.

Job Hunting

I'm back at it - looking for full-time, hopefully non-retail employment. Can I just say that I hate the job hunting process?

Preaching for my ears to hear

I had a kind of funny moment last night. Funny odd, not funny ha ha, although I guess it was a bit funny ha ha too.

I went out for the evening with friends, hung out in a pub with a bunch of old friends and a group of new ones too. It was good, but quite a few people left rather early, and an old friend and I decided to follow suit. I was driving her home, and we began once again to talk through a tense situation in which we are both presently involved. We wrestled verbally with the issue for a while, and when we got to her house, I simply parked and we kept talking.

Somewhere along the line I began to share with her what I could remember from the Dan Haseltine article I quoted in my last post. And something began to gel. Before I knew it I was preaching an impassioned sermon - speaking at length about redemption, about the value of scars, about acknowledging woundededness, about a gospel that is only complete if the suffering, the evil, the wounds are acknowledged, because without these things there is no story of redemption and we negate the greatest message of the cross. I spoke about living in the tension of being both the "walking wounded and the perpetually healed."

And then, I was done. All I could do was ask the question, "what was that?" My car, after an evening in a pub seems an odd location for a sermon of that passionate nature to come pouring out of me. My friend talked about the fact that she wished others involved in our present tense situation could have heard the words I'd spoken. But they didn't , and the moment isn't one likely to be repeated. And then it hit me. As these unfamiliar words were pouring out of my mouth, it was the gelling of concepts I have wrestled with all week. It was the beginning of the answer of how I need to address our tense situation - for God had told me while in Mexico that I was the one who needed to speak out about this situation. I was preaching to myself. God knows that I am auditory - that I need to hear something in order for it to become truly clear in my mind and ingrained in my heart. So He poured words out of my mouth. My "sermon" wasn't so much for my friend (although she was grateful) - it was for me.

And God, in His grace brought clarity to the message I have been trying to find words for all week. I spent a couple hours in the prayer room on Thursday, pouring out my heart in prayers in my journal, begging God to intercede - to make clear the way this situation a number of us have found ourselves in needs to be handled. To clarify in my mind and heart the message that needs to be communicated as I give voice to some things that have been long silenced in myself and in some dear friends. It is the difference between an impotent gospel, and a Gospel of Redemption. And God let me preach it, sitting in my car last night, so that my own ears would hear, and my own heart would understand.