Ah, what Grace!  That we can know the Father and walk in all of His fullness.

There are times when I imagine my head or hand cutting through the thin place that the ancient Celts spoke of, where heaven is closer and more present to earth than we are aware.  This picture in my head is not just an artistic creation, but a reality, one available to all those who follow Jesus.  

"Darlin', your heart will be welded to mine." 

-Ben Harris

Happy Thanksgiving 2012!

Thinking back on this year, which contained events that made loss sometimes feel like the most constant companion, I have noticed that the most incredible breakthroughs in my life came (and continue to come) when I choose to thank the Father.  When I let the reality of His goodness, the reality of how He is ALWAYS for me, sink into my spirit and my very being, it feels like nothing is impossible anymore.  Those are the moments when not only do I rejoice in what feels difficult and broken, but my heart literally feels welded to His.  My perspective then changes drastically into bold prayers.  Prayers like, "God, you said there would be trouble in this life...so thank you for preparing me to tackle the real problems of this time you set me inside of...for giving me the tenacity and strength to stand firm in the belief that heaven literally does invade earth through my life when I simply take you at your word."  Living the reality of heaven on earth is a brave lifestyle, and I want the courage to live that way.  So today I feel incredibly thankful for the hard things experienced in the last few months.

As a side note, today I am most thankful for my family, which includes the friends God has given me who feel like family.  But especially I feel thankful for my siblings.  They know me better than anyone.  They love me in the midst of my terrible sleep hygiene, my inability to keep a straight face during serious moments, my awkward comments and poorly formed jokes.

Loss and home.  Those words generate opposite emotions.

A safe place, like home, can envelop loss and minister wholeness to the pain and grief.  Home is a feeling that cuts right through loneliness and whispers a song that the heart can hear.

I want home to overcome loss in my life; the revelation of adoption to weigh heavy on abandonment, displacing it.  The revelation of adoption is like a weight of glory.  It's a mystery that wraps you up in safety and true rest.

Sometimes the best dreams are found during the detours.

On the way to pick my sister Siobhan up from the airport on Thursday, I made a quick stop at the library.  In typical me style, I ended up a bit turned around.  After a series of wrong turns, I found one of the loveliest creeks,  nestled away on a street I would have never noticed if not for my increased awareness of my surroundings as a result of being temporarily lost.

Mmm.  Increased awareness.  As a result of losing a bearing on my surroundings.  Opening my senses to something new.

I think that moment taught me a truth I will hold in my heart for all my days.  Don't discount the inconvenient; the turns that fail to make much sense in the present.

As I continued the two hour drive to Sacramento, which mainly consists of the occasional rest stop and flat land, I turned on some music and got lost in my thoughts, prayer, whatever you want to call it.  Suddenly I found myself asking God, "WHY did I come here?  Was it for rest?  Because I feel like that is happening for me, and it has been beautiful.  But I don't want to rest forever.  Was it so you could restore my dreams, the things that felt shaken up in my heart from the craziness of this last year?  I don't see how that can take too much time. When do I get on with the journey?"

The answer came last night as I was listening to Erica Greve speak on how each of us were made for a God size story, and until that is the kind of story we are living, our hearts will always feel restless.  Then she said something so interesting.  She said that God is wanting to recalibrate the hearts of His people right now.  And then she said the thing that made my heart respond, "Oh...I think You may have brought me here for this..."

"God wants to give you real problems."

Not the kind of problems we so easily get caught up in: what will I eat?  wear?  how will i pay rent?  what will my next facebook status be? who will I marry?  can I trust you with the little details of my life?

because the answer to those questions is already a resounding, "I TAKE CARE OF YOU SO WELL!" in Matthew 7.

So now the question is, "Who will ask me for the real  problems?  The ones that require actual faith?  Who will ask me for nations?  For whole villages?  For whole lineages and cultures to be completely visited and changed by my goodness, my glory?"

And as soon as she said that, I knew why I came here to california.  I came here for the kind of heart calibration that begins to surrender so completely to Father that I can't help but ask Him to give me real problems...to give me the kinds of dreams that actually change the world, instead of just sounding like nice words.  The dreams I was made for, the ones that I'm discovering in what feels like a detour.  The surrender that gives up everything because He is worthy and so beautiful.  How could you ever say no when you look into His eyes?

Yes.  That's what He is doing if I will just surrender.  Recalibrating my heart.  Realigning it with Him.  How He thinks.  How he sees.  What he hears.  How he moves.  Breaking my heart in the best possible way.  Removing the hindrances to love as I just let Him love away all the things that hold me back from pure, unconditional love.  He moves in suddenlies, unaffected by our sense of timing, so when He says it's time to just hang out with him all the time in the secret place until He says differently, I want to say yes.  Because maybe it's in that rest that the dreams come, where faith like a mustard seed begins to move actual mountains and watches them fall into the sea.

I want that kind of faith.  I was made for a God sized story.  You were made for a God sized story.  Our hearts won't be satisfied until we are living within the largeness of all that He is and all that He is making available to us on this journey.


"You said there would be joy in the laying down
You said there would be joy in the letting go
You said there would be joy in the giving up my life, and now I see

Your river it rushes to the lowest place, Your river it rushes to the lowest place
Your river it rushes to the lowest place -- Your river it rushes

Come and rush over me, Come and rush over me
Come and rush over me, Let the river flow

I bow down - I get low
I open up my heart to receive your love..."
-Laura Hackett

Rarely a day goes by that I don't have a thought of thanks for someone I've never met, yet who changed the course of my life.

When my mom was in college, living the life of a self-described 70s era hippie who grew up in a proper Irish Catholic home in Long Island, God started chasing her down.  This is one story I never get tired of hearing.  Each time it's told, the meaning it holds for my own life washes over me with a sense of total awe at the grace and mercy in the heart of Jesus. Don't ever doubt that God answers your prayers and that the way you shine for Jesus, even without using words, matters.

 My mom transferred to a few colleges in her undergrad days (I must get my wandering, free spirit from her because I've just about matched her in the amount of schools I've attended), and I can totally see how each move was like a divine strategy set up from God for her life.  When she ended up at Colorado State, where she would only spend one semester, she noticed a girl who read a book every morning in the cafeteria.  This girl "glowed", and my mom was convinced that she was either always high on pot or doing some other drug that lifted her mood.  One day my mom decided to ask her about why she always studied so hard in the morning, only to realize that the book the girl was reading was the Bible.  In my mom's world, the only reason you'd read the Bible would be for a theology class or in seminary.  As they got to talking, my mom learned that the girl was a Christian, and the glow on her face was from real, authentic joy.  My mom went to church with the girl, and as a result she was radically saved.  (And radically is a very fitting adjective for this story).

Recently a friend of mine who heard this story made a comment about how, because of that girl who was willing to shine with the glory of God on her campus (regardless of what may have been going on in her own life at the time), not only was my mom's world changed, but mine as well.  Not only does my mom love Jesus, but I love Jesus.  And my kids are going to know Jesus and love him too, as they give their lives for the only one worthy of having all of us.  Woah.

That one girl affected an entire lineage.  Her life invaded lies and darkness, and that invasion changed not just one destiny, but a genealogy.  Sometimes when I think of the enormous weight of the need in our world, my heart finds joy in the truth that it is about seeing "the one".  One person getting wrecked by the love of Jesus has the power to change an entire culture.  A changed heart has significant cultural consequences.  It changes what the person thinks about himself, who he'll be attracted to romantically, who he'll marry, the kids he will raise, what those kids will believe about themselves, the dreams they will have, the things they will believe are possible, the compass that will guide their lives.   Come on!  One girl decided to love Jesus really well, and as a natural overflow, she decided to also love others well, with courage, and now my life is completely different from how it could have ended up.  I thank God frequently for her courage, that she would sit in a cafeteria at a public university and read her Bible.  That she would choose to smile every day, glowing with the love of Jesus, even though I'm sure she faced some hard days.  That she would be willing to invite my mom to church, to love my mom into the Kingdom.

When I hear that story, I feel such a sense of gratitude, and even a sense of being so indebted to that girl's faith and obedience.  I don't even know her name, but she is one of the first people I want to meet in heaven.

When you begin to think your life isn't making an impact, just remember that your smile and the glow of Jesus' presence on your life is going to change people's lives.  It's going to shift their personal atmospheres, whether they are ready for it or not.

May God give us all the grace and courage to love with our whole hearts, seeing with Jesus' eyes.

It's that season of life...the one where your friends are  married, if not already having children, and the ones who aren't are working hard to make sure their time comes soon.  It's weird actually living in this stage of the journey, especially thinking back to all the playtimes of make believe that my siblings and I enjoyed as kids, where such parts of life already existed in our imaginations.

To be honest, there is something scary to me about the kind of love that is shared between lovers, which may come from the fact that I never saw romantic love modeled well growing up.  Yet, the undying idealistic part of my heart knows deep down that all the fear must mean giving someone else your forever is even more incredible than the best love song ever written.  If there is such a fight over the covenant of marriage in our culture, and if that is one of the main areas where trust gets both tested and broken, it must mean that when marriage is lived out as intended, it is one of the most amazing, life giving relationships we experience here on earth.

Today a woman came into my work and started talking about things going on in her life.  Coffee shops and bars must do that to people, magically stripping away barriers.  She is going through a divorce.  The reason is painful, a place of deep betrayal.  If I wasn't at work, I probably would have found a comfy seat to sit down and cry with her because I know how real that pain feels from watching my mom and dad cry tears of deep brokenness in the face of bad decisions.  As she spoke, I felt old, familiar fears that I've been  asking God to make me face rise up in my heart.  Fears over the fact that real love doesn't control another, and in the refusing to manipulate, it releases them to make their own choices. And questions over whether or not I can be totally secure in the Father's love, to the point that the human tendency to want to control in order to protect is not allowed to tamper with my deepest of relationships. Which is a beautiful way to live. But so risky.  As I went home, my heart started asking questions to the Father.

Which is when He reminded me of the friends I have who are doing marriage well, where everything is centered around Him.  They didn't have perfect models either, but there is something about their hearts intentionally wanting all that God has, where they are constantly surrendered to His way and His heart. Covenant becomes natural and full of life when it is birthed out of surrender and maintained by the heart and grace of the Father.

Usually I find it hard to write out posts like this because even if no one reads my blog, there is still something vulnerable about putting a deep fear into words.  But I feel that many in my generation have not witnessed models of covenant that can be emulated, yet there is such hope in the Holy Spirit coming in as the teacher, helping us face the fears that were often born out of trauma.  And when He teaches, it is perfect and it brings wholeness that changes and blesses nations.  Kingdom, covenant marriages do that.  They breathe life into places and people in one of the most mysterious of ways.  So as I face the reality of our culture and the mistrust that surrounds relationships, I choose to believe that God's way is so attainable, and that it is seriously better than anything I could ever dream.

"Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing." - Ben Franklin