Monthly Archives: October 2005

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Wow!

Such an amazing weekend!! The conference was sold out — 23, 662 women, celebrating God at the last event to be held in the Charlotte Coliseum before its sold and most likely demolished.

I got so much out of each speaker’s message, the worship times, Sandy Patty‘s mini-concert and the pre-conference with Kathy Troccoli and Marilyn Meberg. There is much to digest, and much to tell.

I was exhausted when I got home last night around 8:30, so I didn’t do much of anything other than unpack, flip through my mail and  read through the stacks of email I got over the weekend.

I intend to do an internal de-brief tonight and hope to post some of what God taught me over the weekend.

What an amazing experience! If Women of Faith comes even close to your hometown, ladies, you need to go. I’m not kidding. It is time well spent, money well invested and memories worth the effort to make. Go. Go! Go!!

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Out of Town for the Weekend

I’m headed out of town in a few hours — flying to Charlotte for the Women of Faith conference Friday & Saturday (and the pre-conference Friday morning). I was, thankfully, able to find a great last minute deal on a flight, so I don’t have to drive the 7 hours after work (I needed to be in the office today for various reasons).

I’m very excited! I’ve watched Beth Moore’s dvds, worked through her Bible studies, read some of her books and listened on-line to her daily program for several years now. All that time I’ve wanted to see her in person, but never had the chance. Until this conference came up.

I know this is going to be a powerful weekend, full of new insight and deepening my relationship with God. I’m looking forward to being poured into for two full days and then spending Sunday digesting and meditating on what I’ve learned and experienced. It’s gonna be awesome!!

Pray that we (Nina, Cathy and I) are able to take away all that God desires us to during this weekend. (and I’ll pray the same for you!)

See you next week!

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Checking…. Test 1-2-3… Is this thing on????

Update: I still can’t view my blog’s main page. But it appears from my Stats reports that some people are visiting. So you if you can see me, please give me a shout out and let me know. I can see my comments from my Typepad homepage.

Thanks mucho!!

12:58pm

I can’t seem to see my blog… my computer won’t/can’t read the page. Just checkin’ to see if anyone else can….. Am I here???

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Enough

All of You is more than enough for all of me
For every thirst and every need
You satisfy me with Your love
And all I have in You is more than enough

I freaked out last night. I looked at my budget, which I haven’t lived by in ages. I looked at my credit card charges and balance. I looked at what I still need to buy. I looked at the next few months’ bills and expenses. And I freaked. Money is slipping through my fingers like raw eggs. I can’t catch it or stem the flow.

You are my supply
My breath of life
And still more awesome than I know
You are my reward
worth living for
And still more awesome than I know

Then I looked around my apartment. Its the perfect size for me. For one person. Which is all that was in the room. Me. And I became once again acutely aware of the depth of loneliness inside me. The silence in the place was deafening. I felt the empty places my parents once occupied, the ache of missing friends and the gut-wrenching hopelessness of life-long singleness. The silence in my heart was too overwhelming. So I wept.

All of You is more than enough for all of me
For every thirst and every need
You satisfy me with Your love
And all I have in You is more than enough

It’s an amazing fact that the more comfortable we get in life, the less it takes to unbalance and unhinge us. And I was unhinged last night. I called Nina. It was 11:30pm her time (10:30p mine). As the phone rang I prayed I she wasn’t in bed yet. She wasn’t.

We talked for nearly two hours. I needed just to hear another voice; someone telling me, reminding me, that God is faithful; reminding me I am not alone in my aches and unmet desires and encouraging me to hang in there, that I can live by a budget, regardless how tight the pinch.

You’re my sacrifice
Of greatest price
And still more awesome than I know
You’re my coming King
You are everything
And still more awesome than I know

It’s crazy — how much is enough? I’m earning more than I ever have in my life, yet it still doesn’t seem like enough to cover my dreams. Are they that grandiose? I have friends I can call, yet my heart still cries out, begs for, bleeds for, that special best-friend husband to live out my days with. Do I want too much?

All of You is more than enough for all of me
For every thirst and every need
You satisfy me with Your love
And all I have in You is more than enough

My friend, Conna, posted last night about her own freak-out and how God brought her some perspective through another friend. She wrote about Iraq and how she realized how small her problems were in relation to what a woman in Iraq faces each day. She pointed out that we don’t live with a life-and-death reality every day of life. We don’t need to worry that someone is going to shoot at us, try to blow us or those we love up with bombs every moment of the day. How blessed we are to live where and how we do!

More than all I want
More than all I need
You are more than enough for me
More than all I know
More than all I can see
You are more than enough for me

How is it that I was chosen to be blessed to live where and how I live and not live in war-torn parts of the world? To live a life filled with money and relationship woes rather than life-and-death fears on a daily basis? Is it just "the luck of the draw" or does God have some sort of over-arching criteria determining who lives where — and when, and for how long? I don’t understand. Am I too weak in faith to handle living somewhere else? Or is it more about who I was created to be, and what I can do here, that puts me where I am?

Life so rarely makes sense to me. Even stepping back and getting a global perspective doesn’t help with the questions that swirl. After reading Conna’s post and reflecting on my own life, a song began softly playing over and over in my heart, the chorus echoing in my mind. And my soul finally reminds me its not about me, or all the unanswered questions I have. Its about the love-affair God wants to have with me.

All of You is more than enough for all of me
For every thirst and every need
You satisfy me with Your love
And all I have in You is more than enough

So often I forget the truth of these words. I allow my own fears and the whispers of my mind and of the enemy to drown out the soft cries of my soul as it sings this song with conviction. My soul knows what my mind cannot grasp and what my heart will not believe: God is more than enough. God longs to be more than enough for me. God created me to be overwhelmed by His love and His enough-ness. Not out of ego, but out of a crazy passionate love of giving  — giving the unbelievable, providing the impossible and doing the unthinkable. For me.

God is a giver. A crazy, passionate, overly generous, wildly lavish giver. That’s why He’s more than enough. That’s why He gives and blesses and graciously lavishes us with every imaginable gift. That’s why He longs to be more than enough to me. So He can freely give. How wild!

More than all I want
More than all I need
You are more than enough for me
More than all I know
More than all I can see
You are more than enough for me

"Enough" — by Chris Tomlin

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To Serve or Be Served

Culture is a river that will pull you downstream unless you swim against the current.

I miss the culture of Mosaic. Larry, Wendy and Nina are right, it is the exception of community, not the rule. One of the things I’ve been missing most will sound odd to some. I miss the culture of servanthood.

It was easy to be a servant there. It was easy to give sacrificially. The culture of the community — the ethos, to use an old/new word — of servant-leadership was so strong and so pervasive that it pulled me downstream toward true spiritual generosity in every aspect of my life. I didn’t have to work hard at keeping that characteristic at the forefront of my heart and life. Mosaic as a core group, as my community and my friends, did it for me. It thrust me into the middle of a vortex of service where the only way out was to get out of the pool altogether.

The culture of the Church in Nashville is much different. I don’t mean just the church I go to; I mean the Church (big C) in general. I sense a growing emphasis among leadership in The People’s Church toward servanthood. But the current of culture still strongly flows down the river of Being Served.

For a sojourner who’s tired and battle weary, it’s a comfortable current. I like being carried like this; not feeling the urgent need to serve, knowing that "someone else" will take care of tear-down or set up or clean up or…. whatever. It’s amazing what a large church provides. There are people who get paid to set up and tear down tables for events. People paid to cater meals and reimbursements for those who buy with their own money, even childcare reimbursements are provided. Even sound set up is minimal compared to an average Sunday at Mosaic (though I must admit, Mosaic has better soundboards!).

However, all this cushiness cannot supplant the 10 years of cultural training. I still find myself picking up trash, straightening chairs, wanting to put things away and clean up.

I’m not serving like I used to. Worse, I don’t know how to serve in such a huge community. I feel lost in the crowd and carried downstream by the current of being served. How do I get out of this? How do I find the strength to fight the current and swim upstream to where help is needed? And how do I find the places to serve which fit my gifts?

Back home I knew the people to ask. I knew who to go to when I wanted to plug in somewhere. Heck, I didn’t need to ask. People came to me. Somehow, from early on I got a reputation for being the go-to girl; and so I was the one people "go-to". If I were to go home today, I’d be plugged in by midnight. Somewhere, somehow, someone would find out and call.

I know serving isn’t just about the inside of the church. I know its mainly about serving outside, in the world. I know its really about a way of life, not something you do on certain days. Somehow, though, I’ve forgotten how to live that way. Somehow I’ve gotten caught in a vortex of exhaustion and depression and isolation.  I no longer know where the line is between healthy rest and laziness.

I listened to Erwin’s sermon on Extraordinary Service and felt the pinch of conviction; am I doing enough? I don’t think I am. I read Wendy’s blog, Niza’s blog, Amy (a wonderful woman/old friend at Mosaic), Lillia and an new blog I found from a new Mosaic-ite, Cindy, and I’m reminded of the old current I once swam in. It was so easy then! Now I must fight the current AND give my life away generously.

But I’m so tired —- and I so long to just hang on to my life, what’s left of it, now that I’ve just begun to find my footing in life again. I feel torn apart by my own hands, one pulling against the current, one desperate to stay in the groove.

Erwin, as always, had much to say I needed to hear. One thing stuck out in this first listening of Extraordinary Service (side note: I remember him preaching similar sermons about 8 years ago — Wendy and I tackled memorizing the book of Philippians during the series, as Erwin preached the book through.). Erwin says, "You don’t wait till you’re strong enough to serve. You serve and it makes you stronger."

My new pastor, Rick, talked yesterday of the vision God’s given him for The People’s Church over the next year or so and I was reminded of Mosaic. Two urgent projects are a church plant in New York City and a satellite service in Spring Hill (about 20 minutes south of our campus). My mind immediately whirled with all the details experience taught me will be involved in these two endeavors. Who will the teams be? Needs for set up and tear down and clean up and ambiance and planning and tech stuff…. on and on. It wore me down just thinking about it. Yet it excited me at the same time. I wasn’t among a community just sitting around. They are moving and growing and determined to stay in the world, involved in the movement of God. It once again convinced me that I’m plugging into a community that is following Jesus.

Yet I left disconsolate, longing even more for the culture back home which would just sweep me along the current of servanthood as we chugged along together. Perhaps I’m looking in the wrong places at TPC. Perhaps I just haven’t found the servant current yet. I don’t know.

But I guess the true question on my heart at the moment is, How can I summon the courage and strength to serve and give my life generously on my own? Pray for me.

A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.  Proverbs 11:25

For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.  2 Tim 1:6-7

"No matter how physically sick, no matter how emotionally sick, no matter how weak you feel, you can serve someone today." — Erwin

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Wrong

I don’t like to talk politics. Mainly because I don’t care enough to know enough to argue with those who love to do so. But… 🙂 this little rant is dying to come out of me all morning.

I don’t know if Tom Delay has committed any crimes — though it sure seems like he’s guilty of something to me (good thing I don’t live in Austin where I could get pulled into jury service for his trial; I don’t think I could be impartial). Heck, he’s a politician. There’s no way his hands are clean.

What’s got me so ruffled today, however, is this. His "mug shot". What the…?3_22_delay1!?!?!?! He’s smiling like he’s posing for a campaign photo op! Come on, man. Show some respect for the law. For the process. For the charges against you. For the judicial system.  Just a little.  Please. "Mug Shot" doesn’t mean you mug for the camera. It means your sorry ass is now in a sling. And you might want to consider the gravity of the situation. Try to look like you take this whole thing seriously and you don’t think people are gonna let you off just because you’re a Republican.

I take in the news from a variety of sources. Today I ran across this little tidbit in this article on FoxNews.com. You know its bad when even they can’t spin it in a positive light.

DeLay’s Republican fundraising in 2002 had major political consequences, allowing the GOP to take control of the Texas Legislature. The Legislature then redrew congressional boundaries according to a DeLay-inspired plan, took command of the state’s U.S. House delegation and helped the GOP retain its House majority.

Whether or not Delay is guilty of the charges laid against him, and whether or not the redrawing of congressional boundaries was within legal/moral/ethical parameters is yet to be decided. But I gotta tell ya, this whole thing smells really bad to me. Even if its legal, its rotten.

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It is Good

I’m sitting on my bed, finally able to connect to the internet at home. The lights are low to make the most of the lit candles scattered all over my new home, the smell of cinnamon and pine fill the air (God bless potpourri!!) and Passion worship plays on the cd.

I’m lovin’ my new place. I’m lovin’ everything about it. It’s just big enough for me and small enough to be cozy. Its between work and church, just near enough to shopping to be convenient but far enough away to avoid the noise and traffic. My commute is good. My job is good. My life is good. God is good.

Its been a long, long, hard haul the last two years. Its not over. Not by any stretch. Life happens and its in the happening, I’m learning, that Life is found. Real Life. Not existing, but really, truly living.

Then he said to me: "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of
Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are
cut off.’  Therefore prophesy and say
to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: O my people, I am going
to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back
to the land of Israel.  Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them.
I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in
your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I
have done it, declares the LORD.’ " — Ezekiel 37:11-14

If I had to name a life verse, this would be it. In 1998 God led me to this verse when I cried out to Him, desperate for I-didn’t-know-what, only knowing that I needed and begging Him to fill the need. I read the cry of Isreal and said, "Yes, Jesus! That’s me! My bones are dried up and my hope is gone!!"  I can’t tell you how many times since then my heart has cried out those same words. It seems dry bones take years upon years to heal.

But every day since that October day God has done exactly as He promised. Sometimes it’s been a joyful inhaling and exhaling of crisp clean air. Sometimes, oftentimes, its been the pain of sinew and bone knitting together. Each day I become more alive, feeling things I’ve not felt for a long time, if ever, and experiencing taste and smell and touch and spirit in unimaginable ways. And each day I become more convinced of God’s intimate, passionate, unending love for me. Together we have scaled mountains I never believed I could and endured depths I thought would kill me.

I still have so far to go.

We are just beginning a journey of healing that may take many years, may take the rest of my life. I so badly want to know how it will all turn out. I want to know so many things I do not yet know. I don’t know if I will ever know them in this life. It is frustrating. The healing process is agonizingly slow and I struggle daily to understand myself, understand the world around me and how our interactions impact the present and future based on our pasts.

Yet…. This moment, this place, this space and time right here and now, this is good. This is meditate-on-it-savor-it-suck-the-marrow-out-of-it good. Not because of my job, not because of my new home, not because of my church or my small group or my friends — though all those things don’t hurt. This moment is good because God is in it. This moment is good because He and I are together. We have proven we will stay even when life sucks so hard that I want to die, beg to die. He has proven it; I have proven it. Not to Him — I’m sure He knew I would stay with Him. I proved it to me. And I proved it to satan. Life sucked hard. I begged to die. God said no. And I stayed. I stand on the other side of that particular storm, knowing another one is upon me, and I know. I know who I am and what I’m made of.

I dance in the misty rain of my Life, drenched by God and convinced of my own resolve. The taste of Life is sweet, and fulfilling on a level no food, no person, no vice — nothing — can ever reach. I think I understand the depth of God’s contentment with each pronouncement of "it is good."

    I love you, O LORD, my strength.

       The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;
       my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge.
       He is my shield and the horn [a] of my salvation, my stronghold.

        I call to the LORD, who is worthy of praise,
       and I am saved from my enemies.

He reached down from on high and took hold of me;
       he drew me out of deep waters.

       He rescued me from my powerful enemy,
       from my foes, who were too strong for me.

       They confronted me in the day of my disaster,
       but the LORD was my support.

Therefore I will praise you among the nations, O LORD;
       I will sing praises to your name.

–Psalm 18

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O Words of Mine, Speak Thee True

My sister says "dang" is a derivative of damn — and so is "darn" — so saying it is just as bad as saying "damn".

True?

I’d not heard that before. I like dang. I use it a lot. I use it when I’m mad and when I’m thunderstruck and when I’m frustrated. I only say damn on accident, when I’m so angry it slips out before I can edit myself. Its crazy how I can work hard to eliminate words from my vocabulary, but when my emotions take off, those words still end up coming out of my mouth.

Jesus said this phenomenon was natural. He said, "Listen, and take this to heart. It’s not what you swallow that pollutes your life, but what you vomit up… what comes out of the mouth gets its start in the heart. It’s from the heart that we vomit up evil arguments, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, lies, and cussing. That’s what pollutes. " (Matt 15:10-11, 18-19)

The damn — and the dang — come from my heart. The difference is that one has particularly offensive meaning to me (damn) and the other doesn’t. But both offend my sister.

Cuss words. Odd things they are. We use them for both surprise and anger, amazement and disgust. Some words are more acceptable to use than others, and they change from city-to-city, culture-to-culture. Some words we use here are not cuss words, but say them in the UK and you’ll get dirty looks from the proper, and probably a few smacks on the head from the elderly. Some offend many, some offend only a few. And you never know which is which till its too late.

Crap, shit, dang, damn, f***, bloody…. Who determines these words and their meanings? Where did they originate and how?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying we ought to say whatever we want regardless of who we offend because, after all, they’re just words, right? No, I’m not saying that at all. I think there are words that don’t need to be in the vocabulary of a follower of Christ. I just don’t know which ones they are.

Is it our heart that makes the determining factor as to which words we can say without polluting? Or is it the hearts of others?

I did my best to stop saying "dang" while Nina was here, but I found it very difficult to do. It has crept into my every day lexicon more than I thought possible. I know from my days overseas that it is important to watch your words, watch that what you say and how you say it (as well as what you do) not offend those in your host culture. The reasons are rooted in love, being all things to all people so that by all possible means some may be saved, making sure that nothing we consciously/willfully do would come between the people around us and the love of Christ we bring. As Paul says to the Roman church, "Don’t eat or say or do things that might interfere with the free exchange of love." (Rom 14:21)

But how do I know what offends and what doesn’t? How do I know what might interfere with the free exchange of love? I couldn’t have known that dang was offensive to my sister until she said something, and by then it was out there already. Fortunately she was gracious about it and patient with me as I stumbled over my words after that.

I don’t want to walk around fearful of creating offense. At the same time, I don’t want to live as if no one else matters, only me and what I find offensive or not. I like what Paul says about this in Romans 14.

Forget about deciding what’s right for each other. Here’s what you need to be concerned about: that you don’t get in the way of someone else, making life more difficult than it already is. I’m convinced–Jesus convinced me!-that everything as it is in itself is holy. We, of course, by the way we treat it or talk about it, can contaminate it.   (vs. 13-14)

Earlier in the chapter he said, "What’s important in all this is that if you keep a holy day, keep it for God’s sake; if you eat meat, eat it to the glory of God and thank God for prime rib; if you’re a vegetarian, eat vegetables to the glory of God and thank God for broccoli. None of us are permitted to insist on our own way in these matters."

I have often wondered myself if God is offended when I say shit. I don’t know. But its really the gross-factor of the word that comes into play more than anything else. On the other hand, I think it does bother Him when I say "damn", because that very concept goes against His deeply passionate love for every person and living thing. That’s precisely why Jesus came – so that no one would be damned, so that mercy and grace would always prevail, even in death.

So…. what do I say when I’m caught off-guard, when I’m frustrated, flummoxed or angry? What words are acceptable to both God and man?

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Wacked-Out Weather

California has our weather.  And we have theirs.

I discovered this last night as I watched the Weather Channel on my newly "installed" cable (the landlord is re-wiring a few things, so the cable is hanging from the attic stairwell, draped across my bedroom floor and doorway and trails on into the living room to the TV a few feet from the door; lovely).  SoCal is getting pelted with rain and chilly temps (well, chilly for them — more like autumn weather for Nashville), while we bask in 80 degree-dry-sunny Southern California weather.

I don’t know if my friends are jealous that we’re "enjoying" such great weather in Tennessee as they limp through the rain-slicked streets and freeways of LA trying to avoid the many accidents such weather inevitably brings about while not becoming involved in one themselves and still getting to work a few hours before turning around and making the trek back. Angelenos really don’t take rain well. They tend to get rather freaked out. Maybe its the fear of mud slides taking out their back yard, or the fear of the "other drivers", who are always idiots and don’t know how to drive, that will pull over in front of their speeding car and cause them to hydroplane on the 405 transition road. Maybe its the fact that no one can ever remember what they did with their umbrella the last time it rained (months ago). Or perhaps its simply because every Angeleno knows you have to leave work and hour earlier whenever it rains in order to be at work on time — which is what I believe is the real cause of rainy-day gridlock, not the fender-benders and spin-outs. Whatever it is, LA is a mass-chaos of anxiety on rainy days. With over an inch downtown yesterday, I can well imagine the Paxil and Valium ingested. I’m sure those few who’ve taken note of the Indian Summer the South is experiencing are very unhappy that the weather patterns are backwards.

But I’ll tell ya, I’d trade them for our weather back any day now. I’m sick of summer. What happened to fall???

I had so much fun watching the leaves change and bundling up in sweaters last October. I was looking forward to it. Especially with all the lingering hot weather we had through September. But someone seems determined to deny me my autumn beauty.  And its driving me nuts!

Will someone please give Nashville its Autumn back.