Here we go!

Well, it is a strange feeling. After having our house on the market for 15 months, we have an offer! Suddenly....after all the waiting...we should be moving within 30 days! Lots of stuff to sell and give away and pack up and figure out. Maybe I'll be so busy that I won't be able to get too sad about leaving this neighborhood and ultimately this state.....
But I must look on the bright side. We are DONE with lawn care, garage stuff, car stuff, and just a lot of other stuff. I am sure it will be a huge adjustment for us to learn how to live in a small space with much less stuff....but part of me is so very excited to give that a try.
Goodbye stuff!
By the way, if you want dibs on ANYTHING, now is the time to call it! Some of you have mentioned items....
And, please, all praise and glory to God who continues to bless our family beyond our imagination!

choosing good?

I realize that Oswald Chambers is not God, and his book is not scripture. But, I believe he is inspired by God and has a lot of incredible wisdom and insight. Today, I read
"Many of us do not continue to grow spiritually because we prefer to choose on the basis of our own rights, instead of relying on God to make the choice for us"
Come on! How true is that? The past few weeks, I have spent too much time contemplating and weighing the decision of WHERE we are supposed to live when we move to NYC. It seems like a gargantuan choice that I should be pondering. However, when I really spend a lot of time thinking about it, it brings me uncertainty, doubt and fear. So, why don't I knock it off and remember that God did not call our family to move and be a part of this ministry only to leave us hanging when we get there, with no idea what neighborhood or apartment to live in?! I have to trust that He will continue to guide us each step of the way. All I need to do is abide in him and let him guide my steps. No worries, right?
Chambers goes on to say
"Whenever our RIGHT becomes our guiding factor for our lives, it dulls spiritual insight. The greatest enemy of the life of faith in God is not sin, but good choices which are not quite good enough."
Wow. Wow. Wow.
That's pretty bold. The greatest enemy is NOT SIN, but GOOD? Yikes.
But, I can totally see what he is saying. When I start to reduce my thoughts to considering things like the size and amenities of an apartment, the neighborhood school zone, the number of blocks to a subway , the commute time for Timm to work, etc etc etc.....I am simply letting my RIGHTS guide my thoughts. Because, I have the right to be comfortable in an apartment, and my kids have the right to attend a safe school, and Timm has the right to not spend too much time commuting.....right? Phooey. That is NOT for me to decide. I am surrendered and that is for my Lord to decide.
So, I will abide in Him daily. The one who PROMISES in Jeremiah 29:11
"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future".
If he promises me that, among so many other loving promises, then I know I can trust him to lead our family to a place where we can serve him and live a fruitful life, no matter what it may do to my "rights".
Ahh, sweet surrender.

falling in love

Referring to my last post: In all fairness, some of the warm feelings in my soul while listening to Poi Dog might be traced back to the fact that those songs are tightly wound into the fabric of the period of time I was falling in love......
How can I resist a guy who is lip synching stuff like:
"Love is everything and everything's a distraction
Love is everything and everything's a distraction.....
I wanna be your watermelon
let me sing into your radio
let me be the yeast inside your bread
let me be the new thought inside your head"
"Ew la la la la....ew li la lew"

Or
"spending the day in the shirt that you wore...."
Or
"Oh the ancient egyptians, and the other africans, the mayans, the incans, and all the Polynesians...all around the world a long long time ago....people would walk wherever they had to go"
Or
"breakfast...good morning everybody. Sun's up, grab a slice of toast and jelly..."

OK, I need to stop.

pondering poetry

I am not a poet. And, I really don't find myself drawn to reading poetry. However, I am absolutely in love with music lyrics that are melodious poetry. It is probably the art form I am most drawn to and most affected by. The words don't just touch my ears, but it awakens a part of my being that isn't easily identified. My soul? My spirit? I guess that's it.
And, I don't care what the genre of music is. I love when the lyrics are quirky, obscure, fun, thought provoking, and something that makes me ponder....
And speaking of pondering....one of the bands that I am thinking of is Poi Dog Pondering. I was listening to them on my ipod yesterday, and I could just enjoy their lyrics forever. And, although they are not a group that would be identified as a "christian" group (as a matter of fact, some of their lyrics clearly indicate otherwise) I get to experience God through their expression of art. Because I can find myself in utter worship of God while listening to that kind of poetry. Of course, their amazing collection of diverse sounds also adds to my experience (some instruments include: piano, organ, accordian, trumpet, flugehorn, 4 string violin, congas, bells, timbales, saxaphone, pruning sheers, brake drum, trombone......you get the point).
Here is sample of one song that I love to reflect on the image of God. It's called "Fall upon Me" But, Timm, isn't this the one we call "the curling iron song"? (inside joke)
Fall upon me in my quiet pain
Fall upon me, again and again
Across wide open fields
And grass down of green
I'm awake but my head is in the air
Wide awake, take me walking into the cold cold air.
Fall upon me like a hundred flowers
Fall upon me like the masseuse of hours
Give me the breath of life
From your loving chest.
Fall upon me in the pouring rain
Wet my lips again and again
Give me the grace of your finger tips
Fall upon me.
Ahh, thank you God for the gift of music and the amazing talent you have given to people to express things through song! Thank you for giving me that pleasure for my soul.
Here's another example. I don't care whether they wrote this to express love for a human or whatever....for me it contains a lot of what I would love to express to my creator.
Say that you'll be the one:

Say that you'll be The one
drowning in my heart, to be
drowning in your arms, (take me)
*3 summers heat, tangled up
in sheets (take me)

I'm as steady as a sea saw,
and as longing as the wind,
visions of you come so filling
I swoon -- so far
and distant and under the same
moon, all I ask is you to
Take Me
under the strength of your
words my heart is carried
by a hundred birds (Take me)

into death I do seep, into
The arms of your hearts
sleep (take me)

Breathing as you where,
Lying on The floor
Take Me
Take Me.

OK, that was fun. Now, back to life.
So, what kind of art experience brings you to a place of worship?

gratitude

I've mentioned before how many journals I keep. At one time, I had a separate "gratitude journal" that I committed to writing in daily. I would reflect on my day and list three specific things that I could praise God for and be thankful.
Well, I have since stopped maintaining that in writing. But, I often find my prayer journal flowing with praise and thanks.
Last night, I couldn't stop praising God. I was driving home from the hospital, on St. Patrick's Day, overwhelmed with the miracle of a newborn baby. After about 16 hours of labor, the decision was made for my sis-in-law to have a c-section to deliver. Just after 7:30pm, a beautiful baby GIRL was born into this world. Other than my own children, I have never been there for that announcement in the hospital of "it's a girl", nor have I witnessed those first few precious moments of the nurse bathing and preparing the baby for mama. It was beautiful beyond words. Sorry I don't have a picture to share.
But, my gratitude didn't stop there. It was an unseasonably warm, bright, sunny day, which always brings soaring feelings of joy in a Michigander's heart! I was able to go to the hospital because we are blessed with a flexible schedule and I have a sister who helps me and took my kids. I met with my supervisor on this day and officially stepped down from my position at church (which God has been nudging me to do and I was having a little issue with obedience to his promptings). Our realtor called to inform me that someone wanted to see our house, so my amazing husband left work early so he could straighten up the house before the showing, and then he rearranged his evening schedule so I could stay at the hospital and he could be home hanging out with our girls. Our cousin Kelly, who is courageously following God's call on her life and trying to walk in the path He has laid out for her, was told on this very day that she would be offered full time with benefits at her new job (in this economy, that fact alone is enough to get a person turning cartwheels). Timm and I were able to go to a retreat in Pennsylvania over the past weekend that was absolutely anointed by God's spirit and just a ton of FUN. Ok, I could go on and on and on. But, I'll stop there.
God is good.
God is good.
God is good.
ALL praise to Him.
OK, just to be honest, I will admit that after being home for about an hour, I let anxiety and worry creep in. I felt tired and overwhelmed with how "far behind" I have gotten this week due to unforeseen scheduling conflicts :) Life is so strange. We live in a world where the great deceiver will lead us to believe that gratitude is fine, but he doesn't want to let us forget about worry, pain, suffering, regret, self pity, doubt, and fear. And, why is it so easy to default to those negative feelings? I am reprogramming my brain to default to truth, love, mercy, grace, love and trust. Ahh, take that you weak and powerless enemy. I am not my own, I have been bought at a price, and I am not for sale for your evil schemes. I'm sold out to LOVE.

No worries

Today I feel this incredible peace. Like, I have no worries. For me, that is miraculous.
But, the thing is, IF I believe that God is good, which I do.....then how does it make sense to worry? And for some reason, it occurs to me that GOD IS GOOD. Such a simple statement of truth. But, it really makes me think that no matter how confused I am or unsure I am or how ugly the world may appear at times, if I can rest in the ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY that GOD IS GOOD, then I have peace and hope. If I truly, deeply believe that God loves me more than any kind of love I can imagine....then how can I do anything but praise and worship him? I realize this is not some profound revelation, but sometimes a simple truth just penetrates and really hits my soul.
There is only one comparison that I can conjure up in my worldly experience. When Timm and I were first married, I was dealing with conflict and hurt feelings and confusion at times about the way he did things. I was convinced that some of the things he did were intentional attempts to tick me off. So, I would then try to come up with something that equally communicated my anger to show him that he DID in fact tick me off. Then, one day, we were having a loving discussion about conflict in our marriage and he said something that changed everything for me. He looked me in the eye and professed that he loved me and that he would never intentionally TRY to do things that hurt me. He would never purposely act in a way that he believed would cause me pain or anger or disappointment. Now, know this, I totally trusted his words to be true. And, because of that, it changed everything for me. From that day forward I KNEW that if I was angry or hurt or disappointed with him, he was just being human. He was not TRYING to hurt me. If he failed to show me love, it was not intentional. That has allowed me to offer a ton of grace. And, when I do approach him, I don't attack him, but rather let him know that something he unintentionally did caused me hurt.
I don't know if you can follow the comparison? Obviously, God's love is perfect and unfailing and beyond my comprehension. Timm's love is human and fallible. BUT, like I said, as far as my WORLDLY experience....I know the difference it made in my life the DAY I BELIEVED that Timm loved me and didn't want to harm me.
And, today I BELIEVE that God loves me and doesn't want to harm me. He wants nothing more than to LOVE me like I've never been loved.
Ahhh, I'm going to bask in that glorious feeling today.

ketchup

No, not that kind of ketchup, I meant catch up.

Vacation is awesome! But, coming back to reality is....well....busy. Time to catch up on everything I left behind.

But, it is also eye opening. After spending 10 days without a computer, I realized that I don't need to be on it very much. And, living out of suitcase for 14 days shows me how little I need on a day to day basis. And, although Timm and I are very independent, that's a long time to be apart, and we both missed each other a lot.

So, that is all good.

And, referring back to my last post, life sure does proove to be a constant contradiction between joy and sorrow, life and death, celebration and sadness.

A few days before I was to leave my parent's place in Florida to head back to Michigan, we recieved a phone call that my aunt in MI was sick in the hospital with cancer. Not good. Her condition went from bad to worse quickly, and by the time I arrived home on Friday and called my parents to tell them we arrived safely, they informed me that they would leave the next morning to travel back to MI as well. They didn't make it in time to have a final visit with my aunt, as she passed away late sat night/early sun morning. In her home. With her best friend and two children by her side. Ugh. Death. It's so hard. So hard.

Lot's of fond memories from childhood that I am reflecting on as I mourn the loss of my aunt. They are the family who took me skiing up north in the winter, to king's island in the summer, and to the drive in, or whatever else they did for fun. They lived right across the field from us, so my cousins and I could walk or bike to each other's houses all the time to play. So many memories of my childhood involve her, my uncle (who passed away almost 20 years ago from a sudden heart attack at age 44), and my cousins. It's fun to reflect on the memories, and horribly sad to know that we will never again be able to get together at Christmas time and reminisce about all those fun times.

At the same time that this is happening, Timm is finding out at work that they are definately moving him to a position in Brooklyn, NY for the 2009 school year. So, one HUGE piece of the puzzle has fallen into place for us to move our family out there and start ministering to the needs of the city and bringing the light and truth of Jesus to a place with lots of darkness. So, we celebrate that. And, any day now, we expect a new cousin to be born and celebration of a new life! And we have to sell our house, and we had a showing scheduled this weekend, and they didn't show up. Ups and downs.

Life is so strange.

I thank God for his offer of peace. Without the peace that he offers, I don't know how I could handle the ups and downs and constant weaving together of various emotions.... success and defeat, decisions and plans and unexpected turns in the road.

OK, I'll quit blabbing and get back to my to-do list.

My life is good. It is blessed. I can sing God's praises, as well as weep tears of sorrow, all the while thanking God that it's HIM holding me through it all.