Pricking our hearts.......

I've struggled with writing this week.  There's something I started last week that I can't quite finish mostly because it doesn't seem the right time to post something introspective.  There's just too much going on in the world at large this week.  In reality there is always suffering, but the last couple of weeks through social media it's been especially in our faces.

There's an interesting power in social media because in the past if we didn't want to know we could just turn off the newscast or put down the newspaper.  Now, however, we see things just connecting with family and friends.  I usually appreciate this because as I'm settling down for now in a first world nation, I don't want to forget what I've learned and how to globally love.  The world is smaller than we think and we ARE responsible to care and to respond beyond our own comfort zones.

"You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know." 

-William Wilberforce

But this week I'm not liking the empathy I feel with developing nation faces, with the suffering of real live people who dress differently and may look a bit different than I do.  I've had friends like them, ate with them, held their children.......

There's a photo on my Facebook feed of dead children and smiling militants that makes me feel like I've been punched in the gut.  Every time I see it.  I'm sure it would/does you, too.

In my first year of overseas life I was based in Hong Kong and had just spent a couple of months in China when Tiananmen Square hit the news.  It was the first time for me where events in far off places had a face. Most of my English interaction in China had been on 'English corners' where students went to practice their skills.  And then real people just like them were being killed.  For the first time, current events brought real, human faces to mind.  And I wept.

Yesterday the world reacted to the death of Robin Williams.  A man who made us laugh and who more importantly let us hear the laughter of our children.  Because of that we feel like on some level that we knew him and can't believe that a true genius of wit would become low enough to end his own life.  And perhaps during a week of terrible news stories we're especially grateful for the lifetime of laughter he gave us.

Some of the social media reaction I saw was along the line of 'let's stop making a fuss over someone just because he's famous and get back to remembering those who have no voice.'  Part of me agrees, but the life of one man is precious---and no less so just because he's famous.  Maybe others with depression won't go unnoticed because someone near them is learning through the life and death of Robin. 

And after all that's what real compassion is all about----the life of one.  And then one.  And one more.

A danger of our modern glut of instant news is something I've heard referred to as "knee jerk compassion."  An emotional response to an event that pricks our hearts, makes us momentarily bleed and quickly respond (partly to make us feel better), but then quickly scabs over and we move on without it turning into something that evokes real compassion.  

“Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it.”

―Henri J.M. Nouwen

Real compassion is not easy.  But real compassion is the example we have in Christ.  We need to let compassion become action and affect lives, one person at a time.

It's not easy letting the pain of others prick our hearts.  

I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world." (Jn.16:33) 

There will always be sorrows here----but there will always be Him.  And while pain may have it's way for a little longer, we can walk encouraged that He has already won the battle.  As we let our hearts be broken into action for the sake of others, we'll come closer to what His heart has been all along.  

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. (Matt. 9:38)

"Jesus wept." (Jn. 11:35)

All photos today by my sister-in-love Megan Lindsay.

(Brilliant blog about understanding depression)

Glimpsing Glory

"This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all."  I Jn. 1:5

This week a friend put up a thank-you to people who were working on her local road.  She included with it a photo where she was sitting in delayed traffic at the time.  I immediately 'got' it.  She and I have both lived in places with not-so-good roads.  And when you then get great local services, you notice and appreciate it!  In fact, our main road has been delayed for weeks now because of a new water pipe being put in alongside it. And I don't mind a bit!

The other day we met a man with terminal cancer.  He's doing well right now but if he lives for too much longer, he'll beat unbelievable odds (something like a 3% survival rate).  We didn't meet him before the cancer, but meeting him after, well, it was pure privilege.  He spoke of the faithfulness of his Savior, and how much the internal part of him has changed for the better through the trial.  How he's become passionate about the One that he loves.

Little nuances of how we perceive life experiences make all the differences in how we live. Whether we see things in a hopeful light or are immersed in the negative.  

This morning I drank coffee with my lovely girl for whom life has not been easy, and who has been spending this year finding healing for those scars.  And I listened enthralled as wisdom poured out of her mouth. Words of discovery: healing, wholeness and Him.  Especially Him, and how her whole paradigm has shifted,  moving through the pain to be infused with the belief of His innate goodness and love.  Her hand  unconsciously flitted to words etched on her collarbone, "There is always hope." Words put on her skin when hope was just a seed, but now sprouted and growing.  Same girl but with the perspective that light and healing can bring.

Recently Ann Voskamp pointed out in her blog the two great questions agonized over by the philosopher Augustine.   The first one is, "If there is a God, why is there so much evil?"  And the second, "If there is no God, why is there so much good?"

The first question can bring you to your knees.  But the second will keep you there in reverent awe.  One is despair and the other the essence that is true worship.

One of the things discussed with my girl was the concept that while Creation 'was good,' the appearance of evil has made this place into something we're not designed for.  It's left us with unfulfilled longings and made us homesick for a better place.  The deep understanding that we're actually not all right.

But in the midst of that is the reminder.  The certain knowledge of something better with little glimpses of Heaven along the way.  Reminders of what He's preparing for us. Glimpses of Him.

Days like today seeing hope in the eyes of someone I love more than life.  When the winter storms cease and the sun warms your skin.  When you go to sleep with peace in your heart or wake with the certainly of a smile.  When you walk on the beach and marvel at the power of the waves.  When wrapped in the embrace of a loved one or in the thoughtfulness of a friend.  (And sunflowers!)

All photos today by the brilliant Cathi Geisler

Both of Augustine's questions are worth taking the time to ponder.  But we should never get stuck on the one without the balance of the other.  Light dispels darkness, goodness is the absence of evil, and evil isn't unbeatable----it's just the absence of Him.

"In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind."

Jn. 1:4

Choosing the better part.........

Our kitten is a kleptomaniac.  She's a bit of a selective thief, but if something's little and shiny, look out. Coins, hairpins, pens, crochet needles, even a small Allen wrench.  All of these items cannot be safely left on tables in our house.  She'll peep over the edge from the corner of her eye for a bit, then a tiny paw flashes up like lightening and the shiny thing is gone.

She knows that we don't want her to.  She's usually pretty good about doing what she's told, but the appeal of the shiny is just too much.  She's easily distracted by the lure of shiny things away from pleasing her masters.

How often do we wander away, distracted from our Master?  How often do we start to spend time with Him, to pray, with good intentions only to be distracted by something we remember to do?  Or some shiny, glittery, attractive 'thing' that is easier to focus on than being intentional with Him?

Photo credit: Rachel Bates

I love corporate worship.  I love the atmosphere and the fellowship.  I also love that it's a place that unless we rudely walk out, we have to stay.  It gives us time to dial down to a place of peace.  To focus.  And if we don't get past what we're doing that day, how our outfit looks, what the scale read this morning, the worries of the week ahead; if we don't get past all the distractions, then we've missed the point---connection with Him.

Corporate worship can make it easier to connect on some level with our Master, but how much more do we need that in our own place of quiet.  To touch Him.  And to feel His touch in return.

We've missed out otherwise.

"Then Moses said to him, "If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here."

-Ex. 33:15

Moses frequently doubted himself, but he had seen the power of God.  He had seen the burning bush, the river turned into blood, the parting of the Red Sea.  He had already talked to God, "as one speaks to a friend" (Ex. 33: 11)  He knew enough about his Master to know that there was no point continuing on the journey to Canaan if God didn't go with him.

"Every time we pray our horizon is altered, out attitude to things is altered, not sometimes but every time, and the amazing thing is that we don't pray more."

                        -Oswald Chambers

We need intimate time with God.  We need our perspectives altered through prayer, through reflection on Who He is.  We need the encouragement and wisdom that can only come from Him.

We've missed out otherwise.  And we're the ones that pay the price.

Let's not let the shiny distract us from what is truly valuable today.  Our Omnipresent One is always there---but our own worlds shift when we take the time and effort to connect with Him.  And we leave unquestionably, beautifully altered by His Presence.  Every single time.

Photo credit: Rachel Bates

We're not all right.......

I often see a little girl walking to the shops in my area.  She's one of those ragamuffin kids who is out and about a bit too much on her own, old enough to care what she looks like, but not sure what to do about it; with the overall impression of some neglect in her world.  She walks with confidence, but if you look into her eyes for whatever the reason may be, she's just not all right.  Not obviously call Child Services time, but her world is somehow not what it 'should' be.

We all see people repeatedly in our day-to-days:  friends, neighbors, workmates, shopkeepers, bankers, cashiers, or whatever that we have some level of acquaintanceship with.  People that we expect to behave in certain ways--and we're slightly offended if they don't.  People who usually smile politely, but occasionally the veneer cracks and we think, "What's up with her/him today?" As if 'not OK' is abnormal.

And then there are our own hearts.  Hearts that after living for a while on this planet, if we stop and sit still for a bit, we know are damaged, chipped, never to be quite the same.

In reality we're not OK.  'Not truly OK' is more normal that not.  I think it's far better to just assume that everyone isn't 'all right.'

I've read some mind blowing abuse statistics lately.  Things like 1 in 6 women in the US are survivors of attempted or completed rape, 1 in 3 women in New Zealand experience physical or sexual violence from partners in their lifetimes.  The majority of sexual violence in both countries is usually by people known to the victim. Men and boys suffer abuse as well.  Almost everyone is touched by something; substance abuse, depression, strained or broken marriages, divorce.  Disease, desperate loneliness, despair.  Stress over jobs and providing for families, mental illness.  And the list goes on.

Behind the smiles we're not all right.

But what do we expect?  We're aliens living in a hostile environment.  Gasping for air, acid on our skin.  Fish out of water.  Death in our nostrils and decay in our bones.  This world is only a flawed picture of the true home that we long for.

"For this world is not our home;

we are looking forward to our city in heaven, which is yet to come."  (Heb. 13:14)

The point of being here isn't to be all right.  The point is to realize that without Him, that we are NOT.  This world is full of sin and suffering and stuff that doesn't really satisfy.

"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."  (2 Cor. 4:18)

We're already living our eternal lives.  We're already on the road that will lead us right into the after-life, only a single breath away.  Where everything WILL be all right.  Forever.

This life is just the precursor, the breath before the sentence, the silence before the music begins.  The time where we get to make decisions as to where our lives will lead; where we will go, whom we will serve, and what is really important along the way.

Life feels like it stretches on forever, like we have unlimited time to do, to become, to LIVE.  It's only in the light of eternity that things snap into focus.  Where things make sense.  Where, like childbirth, the pain is less because of the joy to come.

"Hope is one of the Theological virtues.  That means that a continual looking forward to the eternal would is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do.  It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is.  If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next."  -C.S. Lewis

We're not all right.  And that's OK.  And because of that we should be extending a whole lot more grace to those around us who are not all right as well.

And in looking at forever in the context of the present, we know where our help comes from, "From the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth." (Ps. 121:2)  **Deep sigh!**  So the very best way to walk through the 'not all right' is to open up our hearts in trust and say:

I'm an empty page
I'm an open book
Write Your story on my heart
Come on and make Your mark

Author of my hope
Maker of the stars
Let me be Your work of art
Won't You write Your story on my heart

Write Your Story by Francesca Battistelli

Because our eternal life has already started.  This is just the beginning and the BEST is yet to come!

All photos today by the very talaneted Sarah Faith Hodges

This adventure that we're on......

I love my house.

Several months back we bought a fixer-upper.  One of those houses that no one else bid on at the auction because of the amount of work involved to make it pristine.  But unlike some fixer-uppers our house is quite livable in the meantime, we can recreate parts of it into what we want, and comfortably live in it right now.

Like many houses in our area, it started out as a good 'ol Kiwi batch not far from a beach and has morphed and grown over time.  I love that.  I love that the house is almost as old as we are, that it's already lived a lot of life, and that it's interesting.  I love that my laundry room was somewhat strangely added on later onto what must have once been the upstairs entrance to the house.  That the light fixtures from room to room are from completely different eras. And we're making even more changes.

Like a life that has grown and changed over time, our house has character.  Too much character at present as Rachel tells her friends that we live in the 'crack house' because of the outside badly in need of new paint (!), but nothing that can't be fixed.  And it's ours.

It's a work in progress.

Photo credit:  Ivy Rupani

Adam's teacher rang the other day.  She called about something else but mentioned that that morning the class had been asked to write a speech about an experience from their lives.  She told me that she found Adam's life experience fascinating, but that she was going to have to check with the school administration because she wasn't sure that he'd be allowed to say some of the things that he had written in front of the class.

Adam was incredulous!  He couldn't believe that what had been his normal life experience living in a red light district in India might not be considered appropriate for his classmates to even hear about--because he had lived it.

Granted he has had an unusual upbringing.  His life is a very interesting work in progress.  I wonder what will happen with a boy who at age eleven already passionately points out to other boys the dark side of things that they casually say?  They think in pre-teen mostly innocent innuendos, but he knows how disrespectful they really are to women, and to him women who have been objectified wear real flesh and bone with souls and personalities attached.

We all have our different journeys.  We've all grown and expanded with our own histories, our own basket full of life lessons.  Our own set of rooms that have been added on or remodeled over time.

Life is quite the ride.

Sometimes it's a roller coaster that we'd like to exit for a bit.  Sometimes the fact that it's way beyond our control is scary--we're just passengers after all.  Sometimes it seems like we're forever on that uphill climb waiting for the fun to begin.  Sometimes we linger on that crest looking down below and feeling the fear before the experience carries us away and leaves us breathless.

It changes us.

Hannah has been participating in the art of Spoken Word for a while now.  One line in one of her recent free form poems is this (imagine it being rhythmically spoken out loud):

"You've heard it been said that someone came alive after having been pronounced dead.  The same can be said about my heavy heart and hardened head.

I'm graced."

Changed.  Once dead, now alive.  Once a small, restricted house now expanded and full of character, living. Once an innocent child, now someone poised with a heart awake, a heart that sees through the haze into what really matters.  A voice ready to speak.

I don't know about you, but I'm sure glad I'm on the ride.  Glad I'm in the middle of this adventure called life.  Glad that, "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" (Ps. 27:1)  And that, "The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.  Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged."  (Deut. 31:8)

The ride really isn't up to me.  Sure I can adjust myself in the seat, make sure my seat belt is buckled and hope for the best, but the Master's hand is on the control panel.  He's at the wheel, the helm, the cockpit.  He's directing the ride.  And when I remember to look at the character of the Master Designer, I know that while the ride is full of twists and turns that He is in control.

Let the adventure, this ride called life, continue!  And whatever is around the bend He will be right there with us, navigating it together.  

Photo credit:  Heidi Cook

Marked

Mankind likes to think of themselves as enlightened beings, the center of the Universe, important and wise.  We feel the need to be in control of our own destinies, somehow it's part of our make-up, but sometimes the harder we try, the more life spins out of control.  Blinders and limited sight are the realities from the Divine perspective.

Sometimes, like Jacob, we wrestle with God.  We wrestle over the pain of the past, the 'whys' of the present, the uncertainty of the future............

Tim Timmons is a singer/songwriter with cancer.  He calls his Song "Great Reward"* a wrestling song. He worries about what will happen to his wife and kids when his life is over. He wonders how he will continue on the path that he's walking.  When someone speaks with one foot into eternity, it's good to listen:

I trust in You for every heartbeat

As long as I'm alive

Your love endures when I wake 

And when I close my eyes

Help me to know You are God, I am not

Remind my soul--You're in control

Praise to the Father 

With every breath I take

In joy and sorrow

All for Your kingdom's sake

Be Thou my vision

Be Thou my hope restored

Now and forever

You are my great reward

Him.  Our great reward.

We wrestle with God when we don't understand what He's doing.  We, like Jacob (Gen. 32), grab Him tight and cry out, "Why are you doing this?" and " Bless me!  Please?"

The thing that's great about wrestling with God is that at least we're holding on to Him.  We're grabbing a hold of Him.  Tight.  And that's not a bad place to be.

You can usually tell someone who has wrestled with God.  They often have a 'limp', a mark on their life that shows that while they are weak, He is strong.  It's a badge of being His.  They may not 'walk' with quite as much ease as they used to on their own, but their step is more sure, their vision more clear, their hearts more full of everlasting joy.

And they know that they're marked as being His.

I had a glass Coke bottle explode in my face years ago in Fiji.  I picked it up out of my car and while I was transferring it into my other arm pressure that had built up inside made it explode outward into hundreds of little pieces.  Right in front of my face.  Amazingly I only needed five stitches in my forehead.  There was even a cut across my eyelid that showed that the glass had hit so fast that my eyes were still open, but my eyes were fine.

The scar on my forehead is hard to spot now, but for years I looked into the mirror, saw that scar, and remembered that God knew where every piece of glass was going even faster than I could blink.  I liked that mark.  It was a mark that inspired my faith.  It was His.

I like the wedding ring on my finger, too.  While I can wiggle it off it's there all the time.  It's a mark of a commitment, a mark of faith and trust in each other, it reminds me of who I love and that I'm his.  I'm marked.

And then there are the marks on our souls that no one else can see.  Painful once (or still), but becoming precious because of what they represent.  Times where we wrestled with God and finally relaxed into His hands.  And received His blessing.

I like being marked as His.

Him. Our great reward.

And His nail scared hands marked Him----for us.

*Listen to Tim Timmons sing "Great Reward" here.  It's worth it.

Note to self today......

Why is it so hard to fall to my knees

When I'm overwhelmed, tired, and don't know where to go?

Well, I do know where, it's to Him

But somehow while I feel His presence I'm only scratching the surface

I reach out with grasping fingers but miss the fullness of His hand

I want to dive right in, the water is fine

I know He's there yet my bent knees won't take that final spring

They won't dive into the water and they won't kneel in prayer

Distracted, restless, still trying to do it on my own

Or maybe just too tired to move at all

Why is it so hard to fall to my knees

When I long for Him, ache for Him, need His strength in my limbs?

Need Him so much that I cannot even kneel on my own

Need Him to draw me in, I want to bow

Bow in His presence, rest in His glory

Anxiety, really the art of disbelief

Distracted, restless, not fully living

Puffs up the 'self', makes me think I'm 'doing something'

What a waste of time, keeping me at half mast

You'd think I would have learned this by now

Why is it so hard to fall to my knees

When His hands are there to catch my fall?

When the very essence of love is etched in His smile?

When His tender compassion envelopes me fully?

When His all-powerful, all-knowing Self is absolutely trustworthy?

Silly, stubborn, wayward girl

Get on your knees

Just fall