“I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.” -Jesus
Jesus’ peace is not dependent on circumstances. When Holy Spirit lives in us, His peace is in our hearts, no matter what. So don’t let your heart -or your mind- be troubled. The voice that troubles, and makes you think you are not good enough for God to love, is not His.
He loves you with an everlasting love.
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.
(Psalm 130:5,6)
The world lost another beloved soul to depression today. I enjoyed Robin William’s work very much and will always remember his twinkling blue eyes. But I also understand that humour often springs from pain. I remember what it is like to be in that lonely place without hope — in the midst of other people enjoying life. I am re-blogging a remembrance of that place in hope… in hope that knowing that someone has survived hopelessness will allow one more person, perhaps you, to let someone else carry hope for you when the darkness seems unending… in hope that the Light will fill your heart and never leave.
Someone asked me recently, “What is the difference between heartache and depression?” Having known both I could answer, “Heartache causes you to cry out, in your pain, to the God of hope; depression causes you to lose sight of hope.”
I do not believe that humankind faces any greater pain than the loss of hope. I’ve had a lot of painful physical problems in my life, but none so bad that I wanted to die just so the pain would stop. Depression made me want to die.
I was familiar with the sense that the dark clouds were again descending and feeling helpless to stop the storm that sucked all the colour out of my life. If you understand what I mean by this, I urge you to keep your eyes on the sliver of light on the horizon, and when it disappears, to cling by faith to the memory…
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The voice of the Lord is over the waters;
The God of glory thunders;
The Lord is over many waters.
The voice of the Lord is powerful;
The voice of the Lord is full of majesty.
(Psalm 29:3,4)
I made the mistake of checking the news right after I woke up this morning. I felt overwhelmed.
There’s a reason why Jesus said to “seek first the kingdom of God” in his advice on how to handle anxiety (recorded in Matthew 6.)
At the lake this past week I sat on the dock at 5:30 in the morning, praising my Saviour for his creation and for his goodness. I felt mindful of him the rest of the day. When we start the day with the peace and joy of Holy Spirit we can carry his peace of his kingdom into the world with us.
It’s harder to seek God first, when you are back at home, when the alarm goes off in the morning, and the news blasting into your cocoon of serenity smacks you upside the head with the reality of living in a world where hatred , cruelty and selfishness still flourish.
I wonder if the verse in Psalms about not fearing bad news is not that bad news will never come; perhaps it is actually saying that bad news does not have to trigger fear and give us anxiety attacks. I wonder if it means that knowing God sees the bigger picture and has better plans, and, if we seek his kingdom first, he will communicate that sound, wise love to his people. Sometimes we react, using the reasoning and weapons of the world, then panic and seek God later — if only to get us out of the mess we made when we realize we are short of provisions.
First things first.
Let the rivers clap their hands in glee!
Let the hills sing out their songs of joy before the Lord
(Psalm 98)
I suppose it’s what we are accustomed to. I do feel sympathy for the people who move here from hot countries and who need to don layers of warm clothing, even in the summer. I have lived in a cold place most of my life, and my body is not happy with heat. My husband loves to bask in the hot sun. Me? I look for relief. You can always put more clothes on, but there is a limit to how many you can take off.
This has been an unusually hot summer, with temperatures in the 32-39 C degree range for weeks (in the 90’s F). Since heat waves usually do not last more than a week or so in this part of the world, few people have air conditioning. This week I was able to sit in the forest beside a beautiful stream as it tumbled its way down the mountainside to join Kootenay Lake. The water was cold, and a refreshing breeze calmed my over-cooked soul.
I rested in the coolness of the forest and joined the waters in a song of joy before the Lord.
You are good, Lord.
Our inclination is to show our Lord only what we feel comfortable with. But the more we dare to reveal our whole trembling self to him, the more we will be able to sense that his love, which is perfect love, casts out all our fears.
– Henri Nouwen
In the theatre, I have seen some marvelous sets -the kind that made the audience gasp, once when the curtains opened and the lights went up, and twice when the scrim rose later. As one who stood nervously trembling in the wings, waiting for my cue, I know what the other side looks like. It was dramatically different from what the audience saw. But often, for the actors and crew, the backstage camaraderie could be the best part of a production.
There are parts of ourselves we have learned to keep in the dark. (Well some of us have. What is it with boys and bodily function humour?)
God is not shocked by our imperfections and half-formed concepts, nor is He fooled by smoke and mirrors.
In His presence, unashamed, without make-up and costumes. That’s where we know we are truly loved.
Well, it’s the season of my number-changing day, as my little granddaughter calls it.
This time of life has potential to be depressing for some of us. The question that crops up in this decade is, “What have I done with my life?”
This blog is about change, and I often write about leaving the past behind and pressing on to become who we are meant to be. In spite of many deeply regrettable choices I have made in the past, I am learning to say, “It’s grace that has brought me safe thus far.”
Sometimes it’s easier to forgive others than it is to forgive ourselves, but moving forward also means letting go of the debt accrued against ourselves by ourselves. In the same way that forgiving others means letting go of the expectation that they will somehow, someday, make up for things they stole or failed to provide, forgiving ourselves means letting go of the expectation that our past selves can ever make up for offenses against our future selves. I’m not talking about not taking responsibility; I’m talking about recognizing the futility of the task of trying recoup lost years by striving, and instead emptying our hands of false coping skills, so that God can provide the love and acceptance we still so desperately need.
I thought about Paul, the writer of so many letters to young, struggling believers. I wonder how he lived with the fact that he hated followers of Jesus so much that he had them dragged out of their homes, imprisoned, and even, in the case of Stephen, executed. He called himself “the chief of sinners” for what he had done. And yet, with the weight of that knowledge, he was also able to grasp the reality of God’s forgiveness. He knew he was loved, not just for the person he was going to become, but for the person he was at that very moment -for the person who had not yet “attained.” He could say, “By the grace of God I am what I am.”
I asked the Lord for a word from Him that would show me where I am and give me a sense of direction. I feel like I’m so far behind where I should be. I lost so many years to sympathy-addiction and depression that I have felt a kind of desperate need to make a difference in the world while I still have a bit of time left. I want to get busy and do something important for God.
The word I feel he is giving me for this year is “simplify.” The words of this song describe my feelings:
What can I do for You?
What can I bring to You?
What kind of song would you like me to sing?
‘Cause I’ll dance a dance for You
Pour out my love to You
What can I do for You beautiful king?
‘Cause I… can’t thank You enough.
…
All of the words that I find… and I can’t thank You enough.
No matter how I try… I can’t thank You enough.
Then I hear You sing to me: “You… don’t have to do a thing
Just simply be with me and let those things go
‘Cause they can wait another minute
Wait… this moment is too sweet
Would you please stay here with Me
And love on Me a little longer
I’d love to be with you a little longer
‘Cause I’m in love with you
(from “A Little Longer” by Jenn Johnson)
I’ve spent a lot of years wading through good and bad doctrine and theology, healthy and unhealthy forms of church structure and methodology, and proper and improper ways to express worship. If I were to classify my relationship with churchianity on Facebook it would be “complicated.” Today, if you were to ask me for my personal statement of faith, it might simply be:
Jesus Christ, Son of God, crucified, buried, raised from the dead and coming again. And this Jesus, who showed us who God really is, loves me. Holy Spirit tells me so. In the cross of Christ, offensive to the self-made, and foolish to the logical, is all my expectation.
By the grace of God, I am what I am. Present tense.
If that’s good enough for the Creator of the Universe, it’s good enough for me.
It’s fire season in the mountains, and we have been in a prolonged heat wave. Yesterday, as I was walking in the woods I felt a drop of rain on my head. Rain!
I am learning that thankfulness attracts God’s favour.
Soon the forest leaves dripped with beautiful rain.
For every drop of kindness, I thank you, Lord.
Let my teaching fall on you like raindrops;
let what I say collect like the dew,
Like rain sprinkling the grass,
like showers on the green plants.
I will proclaim the name of the Eternal;
I will utter greatness to our God.
(Deut 32:2,3)
When he placed a bowl of fresh strawberries in front of me at the breakfast table, I knew I was in the home of a truly wealthy person. I was about ten-years old and our family was visiting an old friend who had inherited a grand Edwardian home in Vancouver. The previous owner kept it exactly the way it looked when his wife died in the twenties. It was a fine house with servant’s quarters, and call bells, inlaid parquet floors, and portraits of important-looking people peering down from the walls around the grand staircase. Our host gave me my own room with a four-poster bed and a Romeo and Juliet balcony -and strawberries on fine china for breakfast. I felt like a princess.
I don’t think my grandchildren believe me when I tell them that we didn’t have nectarines, or kiwis, or sushi, or even pizza when I was a kid. Pizza was a new fad when I started Jr. High school -and let’s just say it had not yet been perfected. We never had fresh green vegetables that didn’t come straight from the garden in the summer. We ate canned peas, corn and green beans and boiled carrots most of the year. Spinach was this vile black stuff in a yellow and red can that even Popeye would be loath to touch. Fresh Mandarin oranges, wrapped in green paper, only showed up at Christmas; peaches, nestled in wooden boxes, came off the back of a truck from the Okanagan in August; and strawberries, ah, beautiful strawberries, came in little woven baskets at the end of June. Strawberry season was so special that church ladies had strawberry teas just to celebrate. And we had strawberry shortcake with piles of whipped cream, or strawberry and rhubarb pie, or strawberries and ice cream for dessert until the season was over about a month later – but always at the end of the last meal of the day, after we had earned it by dutifully downing our mushy canned peas or yucky spinach.
But strawberries for breakfast? I had never tasted anything so good. Who has dessert first thing in the morning?
I was thinking about Jesus’ first public miracle when he changed the water into wine at Cana. When he chose to replace the water with wine and to use the six giant stone vessels that held water for religious purification rites, he was deliberately messing with some folks’ idea of decently-and-in-order. He provided a taste of the wine to come (which, in Biblical metaphorical language, represented The Messiah’s blood ) in a display that was just like His over-the-top grace. It was His job to show us what God, his Father, is really like, so He did. When the banquet manager tasted it, he was amazed that it was better than the wine the crowd was already a little tipsy on (because, as he noted, that they probably wouldn’t appreciate it properly by this point.) Like God’s grace, it’s quality was better than required.
At the wedding that marked the beginning of his public ministry, Jesus was giving a taste of the goodness of the Father, a filled-to-the-brim abundance of provision, to people who had no appreciation for its significance. John says he revealed his glory there – and he offered his family and friends a taste of the glory to come.
In God’s economy we do not have to strive to earn His favour. Like strawberries for breakfast, His goodness is served up for people who do not realize it is merely a taste of the glory to come.
Taste of His goodness; see how wonderful the Eternal truly is.
Anyone who puts trust in Him will be blessed and comforted.
(Psalm 34:8)
This week I had strawberries for breakfast -with sushi.
Charis: Subject to Change 