Heading out

I'm leaving town for the weekend, and I don't think I'm taking my laptop with me, so it'll probably be quiet around here for a few days.

Jason Upton is playing a conference in Red Deer. I've been looking forward to this all year. A whole group of us, staying at the home of some dear friends in Gull Lake, hanging out, praying and worshiping together.

I'm taking one of my youth kids along with me. Pray for us, would you please? This is a girl with some pretty big stuff going on in her life right now. Scary stuff. Hard stuff. Good stuff too. I arranged to just have her in my car on the way up. Two hours to just catch up, debrief the week a little before going into the weekend.

Pray for me, too. I tend to neglect myself in order to care for others, and the young woman I'm taking with me needs a lot of care right now. I'm really asking Jesus for the wisdom to know when to step back and allow myself to be ministered to, to receive, to go to the deep places.

I'm getting my nose pierced this afternoon. Meeting Kari in Red Deer, and the three of us (her, me, and my youth girl) are going together to the piercing place. I'm a huge fan of the whole "marker stone" concept. I like really physical things that remind me of the important God moments in my life. My bedroom is full of things like that - artwork, photos, stones, candles, and so on. I want to mark the healing that Jesus gave me two years ago with a physical reminder on my body - so I'm piercing my nose. I want to be reminded every time I look in the mirror of the work of healing and redemption that Jesus has worked in my life.

My baby brother is having surgery at this moment, and he's heavily on my mind and in my prayers. They're trying to correct a problem that has prevented him from playing his guitar for the last year. Pray for him, too, if you think of it. I'll call home from Red Deer tonight to find out how things went.

I picked up my rental car a little while ago. Red. Mazda 6. Managed to figure out how to adjust the seat up - when I first got in I thought I was going to have to sit on a pillow to do the driving today - I couldn't see over the steering wheel properly! (the many disadvantages of being 5 foot 2!)

Need to finish packing, and head out to do some errands before I pick up my youth girl and head out for the weekend!

See you Sunday or Monday!

2 Years Depression Free

This is a photo from this morning. I'm loving photos of clouds lately, and, as I was walking through the park, this moment with the sun, coming through the trees and the heavy grey clouds stopped me in my tracks.

I went to my favorite park - a place that over the last year has become the place I go to think, to pray, to meet with God. I've gone there in most of the moments when I most desperately needed to process, to think, to sort things out, to journal, to pray.

I went there this morning because today, November 1, 2007, I am celebrating two years depression free. I took the day off work today, and I am celebrating with a retreat day, a day to rest, to restore, to catch up. Two years ago today, I had one of the most incredible encounters of my life, walking around a neighborhood in a blizzard, and sitting in the dark in a dear friend's car. That night, out of desperation, after seven years of depression, many of those full of moments where I quite simply wanted my life to end, I let my friend do what he'd been asking me to let him do for much of the previous year. I let my friend lead me in front of Jesus. And though we never directly asked for healing, something changed, and (though it took me three months to fully believe it) Jesus took my depression, and I've been depression free ever since.

So today, I'm celebrating. I'm hanging out with Jesus. And I started in the park. This has been a day filled with simple moments. No major, profound encounters, just the knowledge of the presence of Jesus, and a heart filled with joy.

This is me, at the park this morning. I bought a camera this week, and it has this great feature that lets me see the picture of myself I'm taking, while I'm taking it.










This is the spot, by the creek that I often sit in. It's also the spot, where, one morning about a month ago, I went wading. I built an altar in this spot about a month ago too. It's my spot - I go, I talk to Jesus there. That's what I did this morning, too. I went, I talked to Jesus. I wanted to say thank you. I threw a few stones, took a few photos, and simply soaked in the knowledge that two years ago my life looked really different.



Today is about celebrating and saying thank you. Later tonight I'm leading a Bible study, and I'll serve them my favorite cake (which I bought last night). They don't necessarily need to know what we're celebrating (though if they ask I'll tell them), but I want to celebrate.

Tomorrow I'm headed out of town for the weekend. To see Jason Upton play a conference. To be with dear friends. To get my nose pierced. To continue the celebration.

Re-formation Day

For those few of us in the world who are church history majors, the first thing that springs to mind upon realizing it's October 31st is not Halloween, but Reformation Day.

I was thinking about the word "reformation" today. To reform. re-form.

I love that prefix "re". Speaks of new opportunities, of second, and third, and fifth and seventeenth chances.

Re-birth. Re-newal. Re-form. Re-think. Re-do.

I love that Jesus offers "re" to us. I love that there is forgiveness, and an invitation to begin all over again.

Celebrating reformation day today!

Coming Soon...

Okay... I have a really great post swirling around my head, but I have to get to the other side of several crazy work deadlines first. They all end, the end of the day today. Everything has to be done, because I'm not in the office for the next two days. One day for retreat, one to head out of town to see friends for the weekend.

So, possibly as soon as tonight, expect great things on the blog. Or maybe tomorrow or Friday. Depends on how much I do tonight so that tomorrow really is a day of rest. And it depends on how much I feel like writing a blog post fits with the whole resting thing. But soon.

See you then!

praying for Peru

my friend Alex translated the Lord's prayer for me tonight... I learned it in Spanish in high school, but had forgotten the last half of it... I'm praying it in Spanish tonight, praying towards Peru.... (forgive the missing accents!)

Padre neustro que estas en los cielos
santificado sea tu nombre
Venga a nosotros tu reino
Hagase tu voluntad
En la tierra, asi como en el cielo
Danos hoy nuestro pan do cada dia
Perdona neustras ofensas como tambien
perdonamos a los que no ofenden
no nos dejes caer en tentacion, mas libranos del mal,
porque tuyo es el poder, el reino y la gloria
por los siglos de los siglos.
Amen.