My muscles have very unexpectedly and painfully tightened after two nights in a row of yoga. I got up just now from where I was sitting and was shocked to discover just how painful my entire body seems to be. Suffice it to say that tomorrow will definitely be a night off from the yoga routine!
I had the delightful treat of not being responsible for dinner preparations tonight. L. barbequed steak and potatoes and made a salad. All I had to do was add a bit of feta (a salad staple in our house) to the salad.
I managed to get some sorting done too. I'm all about making little bits of progress right now. Manageable achievements.
I feel a bit as if something has shifted around me somehow in the late hours of this day, and I'm praying for rest and sleep tonight because of that shift.
I'm also praying for a friend who is giving birth tonight. Bringing a little girl into the world. I'm looking forward to meeting this special little person who has been long anticipated.
I managed to get some writing done today as well. And that, too, was therapeutic in some ways.
I'm feeling like this post rambles, as I try to collect my thoughts and summarize the evening before sleeping, so I'm going to say good night here.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Quoting Henri Again
Another few thoughts from Henri Nouwen that I found quite striking...
Being Broken
Being Broken
Jesus was broken on the cross. He lived his suffering and death not as an evil to avoid at all costs, but as a mission to embrace. We too are broken. We live with broken bodies, broken hearts, broken minds or broken spirits. We suffer from broken relationships.
How can we live our brokenness? Jesus invites us to embrace our brokenness as he embraced the cross and live it as part of our mission. He asks us not to reject our brokenness as a curse from God that reminds us of our sinfulness but to accept it and put it under God's blessing for our purification and sanctification. Thus our brokenness can become a gateway to new life.
Being Given
Jesus is given to the world. He was chosen, blessed, and broken to be given. Jesus' life and death were a life and death for others. The Beloved Son of God, chosen from all eternity, was broken on the cross so that this one life could multiply and become food for people of all places and all times.
As God's beloved children we have to believe that our little lives, when lived as God's chosen and blessed children, are broken to be given to others. We too have to become bread for the world. When we live our brokenness under the blessing, our lives will continue to bear fruit from generation to generation. That is the story of the saints - they died, but they continue to be alive in the hearts of those who live after them - and it can be our story too.
I Can't Walk Away
I'm asking "what would happen if..." questions this morning about a lot of things.
Most of them aren't quite ready to share here.
I'm struggling deeply, and, to be honest, in some ways, I'm trying to hide from God. I'm tired. And in the rare occasions I've sensed his hand and leading and voice lately, the things He's asked have been painful and hard, tugging at my already broken heart.
I'm still listening to "Because You Are" on repeat as I drive to work each morning. "I keep singing skyward, it just never rains." Would it make sense if I said that I both desperately desire the rain, and am absolutely horrified at the thought of what it might bring?
I traded emails with a dear friend last night about a decision I needed to make. Her words were helpful in that, at least for a few moments I felt slightly less alone in the midst of some of the things I was walking through. Her words (and the words that formed in my responses) brought deep tears to the surface, and a few of them fell.
Sleep remains elusive. I'm trying not to count nights (four) or panic (too late). It becomes harder to push away the panic and anxiety when I'm not getting adequate rest. The things that haunt me become stronger and stronger as sleep becomes a more distant memory. The growing number of bruises on my arms and legs when I wake each morning tell me a story of struggle, battle, wrestling as I sleep. And that thought too, is draining.
There are days I wish I could leave Jesus behind. Where I wish that somewhere along the way, I'd found joy and peace and fulfilment of the depth I've found in Jesus somewhere else, anywhere else, because then I could leave Jesus without knowing that I was walking away from the one thing that has brought peace and joy and healing. But I can't walk away... even in those moments when I deeply fear what will happen if I keep walking forward. Even in the moments when the panic is thick and deep. I can't walk away. And that is both the most comforting and absolutely terrifying and frustrating thought in existence.
Most of them aren't quite ready to share here.
I'm struggling deeply, and, to be honest, in some ways, I'm trying to hide from God. I'm tired. And in the rare occasions I've sensed his hand and leading and voice lately, the things He's asked have been painful and hard, tugging at my already broken heart.
I'm still listening to "Because You Are" on repeat as I drive to work each morning. "I keep singing skyward, it just never rains." Would it make sense if I said that I both desperately desire the rain, and am absolutely horrified at the thought of what it might bring?
I traded emails with a dear friend last night about a decision I needed to make. Her words were helpful in that, at least for a few moments I felt slightly less alone in the midst of some of the things I was walking through. Her words (and the words that formed in my responses) brought deep tears to the surface, and a few of them fell.
Sleep remains elusive. I'm trying not to count nights (four) or panic (too late). It becomes harder to push away the panic and anxiety when I'm not getting adequate rest. The things that haunt me become stronger and stronger as sleep becomes a more distant memory. The growing number of bruises on my arms and legs when I wake each morning tell me a story of struggle, battle, wrestling as I sleep. And that thought too, is draining.
There are days I wish I could leave Jesus behind. Where I wish that somewhere along the way, I'd found joy and peace and fulfilment of the depth I've found in Jesus somewhere else, anywhere else, because then I could leave Jesus without knowing that I was walking away from the one thing that has brought peace and joy and healing. But I can't walk away... even in those moments when I deeply fear what will happen if I keep walking forward. Even in the moments when the panic is thick and deep. I can't walk away. And that is both the most comforting and absolutely terrifying and frustrating thought in existence.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Just cause it made me chuckle...
Apparently, swearing actually does alleviate pain.
(I'm not much for swearing, but have been known to use somewhat colorful language in a few more challenging or painful moments...)
(I'm not much for swearing, but have been known to use somewhat colorful language in a few more challenging or painful moments...)
New Dreams?
Unpacking has in some ways been a bit of a challenge with this move, thanks in large part to the need I've felt to sort, simplify and purge.
But sorting, simplifying, and purging isn't easy for someone who has memories attached to most possessions, and dreams and hopes attached to many of those memories.
I stood in the shower tonight thinking about a next step in the unpacking process. About three large file containers full of paperwork I need to go through, largely full of notes from the years I spent in university, studying history, particularly European church history, and encountering Jesus in the midst of that.
As I stood there, I remembered a sermon I heard preached quite a number of years ago. The speaker shared a news item he'd read on the internet, about a woman who'd carried a baby in her womb for many years. There had been complications in the birthing process, the baby had died, and somehow, her body had never pushed the child from the womb (in a few cases I found on the internet tonight, the foetus had grown outside the womb). Eventually the pains of labor simply subsided, and over the course of years (46 in one case I read) the foetus fossilized. The women were never able to have other children. Usually many years later, the labor pains returned, and the women required surgery to "give birth" to this fossilized child they'd lost many years before.
The speaker used this story as an illustration of what happens when we cling to dreams that should die. They become hardened within us, fossilized, and we hold tightly to them, protecting them, and trying to nurture something within us that should already be dead.
It was a rather macabre illustration, but I've never forgotten that sermon, and tonight, as I stood in the shower contemplating the forthcoming need to sort through some things, I realized I needed to open my hands again. To hold things loosely.
Those history notes symbolize dreams. Dreams of teaching, of sharing my passion for the church - the bride of Christ - and mark it made on history. Teaching didn't turn out to be my career (I'd be terrible at doing it full time, quite frankly) but the passion to share the way I encountered Christ in history hasn't ever truly been something I've been able to let go of.
I felt again the need tonight to be willing to release that. I don't know if that means saying goodbye to it entirely. In this case it definitely means being willing to take the physical notes, convert them to an electronic and scaled down format for the sake of downsizing and storage space, and be willing to admit that maybe those moments of passionate encounter with Christ and his church were for me, and don't need to be shared.
And, as I stood there with the water running over me, I thought of other dreams, more deeply personal. Of relationships shattered. Of literal dreams, that came in the night. Of thoughts and prayers and longings. And I realized again the need to stand with open hands. To not cling. To let God not only give, but also take away. To be willing to allow him to purge the old and dead things (even if I can't see myself that they're dead) to create space for new things.
Come Lord, and create space within me...
But sorting, simplifying, and purging isn't easy for someone who has memories attached to most possessions, and dreams and hopes attached to many of those memories.
I stood in the shower tonight thinking about a next step in the unpacking process. About three large file containers full of paperwork I need to go through, largely full of notes from the years I spent in university, studying history, particularly European church history, and encountering Jesus in the midst of that.
As I stood there, I remembered a sermon I heard preached quite a number of years ago. The speaker shared a news item he'd read on the internet, about a woman who'd carried a baby in her womb for many years. There had been complications in the birthing process, the baby had died, and somehow, her body had never pushed the child from the womb (in a few cases I found on the internet tonight, the foetus had grown outside the womb). Eventually the pains of labor simply subsided, and over the course of years (46 in one case I read) the foetus fossilized. The women were never able to have other children. Usually many years later, the labor pains returned, and the women required surgery to "give birth" to this fossilized child they'd lost many years before.
The speaker used this story as an illustration of what happens when we cling to dreams that should die. They become hardened within us, fossilized, and we hold tightly to them, protecting them, and trying to nurture something within us that should already be dead.
It was a rather macabre illustration, but I've never forgotten that sermon, and tonight, as I stood in the shower contemplating the forthcoming need to sort through some things, I realized I needed to open my hands again. To hold things loosely.
Those history notes symbolize dreams. Dreams of teaching, of sharing my passion for the church - the bride of Christ - and mark it made on history. Teaching didn't turn out to be my career (I'd be terrible at doing it full time, quite frankly) but the passion to share the way I encountered Christ in history hasn't ever truly been something I've been able to let go of.
I felt again the need tonight to be willing to release that. I don't know if that means saying goodbye to it entirely. In this case it definitely means being willing to take the physical notes, convert them to an electronic and scaled down format for the sake of downsizing and storage space, and be willing to admit that maybe those moments of passionate encounter with Christ and his church were for me, and don't need to be shared.
And, as I stood there with the water running over me, I thought of other dreams, more deeply personal. Of relationships shattered. Of literal dreams, that came in the night. Of thoughts and prayers and longings. And I realized again the need to stand with open hands. To not cling. To let God not only give, but also take away. To be willing to allow him to purge the old and dead things (even if I can't see myself that they're dead) to create space for new things.
Come Lord, and create space within me...
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