Monthly Archives: December 2006

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Merry Christmas

I leave in a few moments for Nina’s (my sister). I’m driving this time, because I couldn’t afford and airline ticket. And I’ll be at her house till New Year’s. Blogging will be sporadic at best — more than likely non-existent, as Nina doesn’t have wireless, so I’ll have to run down to Panera to snag some free Internet.

I pray that this Christmas Jesus will gently but persistently remind you  of all the many blessings He showered on you this past year, and that He will continue to bless you throughout 2007. I pray that no matter how full or how empty the space under your tree on Christmas Eve, that God will give you eyes to see how full of spiritual presents He has filled it — It will take you a lifetime to unwrap them all!

See you in the New Year!

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Divine Moments, or Who I Want To Become

I ran across Debbie’s blog this morning, and found this post. It was exactly what I needed to read. I’m re-printing a letter Debbie says is from Beth Moore in 2005. I’ve had many moments like the one Beth describes, where God nudges, prods, and even gets in my face and says, "I want you to do_____ now." The difference is, I rarely step into those moments, and I miss so many blessings because of it.

Erwin said in his book, Seizing Your Divine Moment, that you’ll never know if a moment is "divine" or just ordinary until you step into it. They both look just the same from the outside. For the most part I agree. But I have also found in my own life that God makes it pretty clear at times that this particular moment staring you in the face is divine. Sadly, my fear gets the best of me more often than not, and I don’t step into those moments. Instead, I just watch them pass, never to know the amazing God-moments I could have been a part of. Beth didn’t do that.

This is who I want to become. A person who steps out of herself and her own comfort zone and into the lives of others. Someone who doesn’t allow fear to keep her from to seizing every moment that presents itself.

Beth Moore At The Airport

April 20, 2005

At the airport in Knoxville waiting to board the plane, I had the Bible on my lap and was very intent upon what I was doing. I’d had a marvelous morning with the Lord. I say this because I want to tell you it is a scary thing to have the Spirit of God really working in you. You could end up doing some things you never would have done otherwise. Life in the Spirit can be dangerous for a thousand reasons not the least of which is your ego. I tried to keep from staring, but he was such a strange sight. Humped over a wheelchair, he was skin and bones, dressed in clothes that obviously fit when he was at least twenty pounds heavier. His knees protruded from his trousers, and his shoulders looked like the coat hanger was still in his shirt. His hands looked like tangled masses of veins and bones. The strangest part of him was his hair and nails. Stringy gray hair hung well over his shoulders and down part of his back. His fingernails were long, clean but strangely out of place on an old man.

I looked down at my Bible as fast as I could, discomfort burning my face. As I tried to imagine what his story might have been, I found myself wondering if I’d just had a Howard Hughes sighting. Then I remembered that he was dead. So this man in the airport…an impersonator maybe? Was a camera on us somewhere? There I sat, trying to concentrate on the Word to keep from being concerned about a thin slice of humanity served on a wheelchair only a few seats from me. All the while my heart was growing more and more overwhelmed with a feeling for him. Let’s admit it. Curiosity is a heap more comfortable than true concern, and suddenly I was awash with aching emotion for this bizarre-looking old man.

I had walked with God long enough to see the handwriting on the wall. I’ve learned that when I begin to feel what God feels, something so contrary to my natural feelings, something dramatic is bound to happen. And it may be embarrassing. I immediately began to resist because I could feel God working on my spirit and I started arguing with God in my mind.

"Oh, no, God, Please, no." I looked up at the ceiling as if I could stare straight through it into heaven and said, "Don’t make me witness to this man. Not right here and now. Please. I’ll do anything. Put me on the same plane, but please don’t make me get up here and witness to this man in front of this gawking audience. Please, Lord!" There I sat in the blue vinyl chair begging His Highness, "Please don’t make me witness to his man. Not now. I’ll do it on the plane."

Then I heard it…"I don’t want you to witness to him. I want you to brush his hair."

The words were so clear, my heart leapt into my throat, and my thoughts spun like a top. Do I witness to the man or brush his hair? No brainer. I looked straight back up at the ceiling and said "God, as I live and breathe, I want you to know I am ready to witness to this man. I’m on this Lord. I’m you’re girl! You’ve never seen a woman witness to a man faster in your life. What difference does it make if his hair is a mess if he is not redeemed? I am going to witness to this man."

Again as clearly as I’ve ever heard an audible word, God seemed to write this statement across the wall of my mind. "That is not what I said Beth. I don’t want you to witness to him. I want you to go brush his hair."

I looked up at God and quipped, "I don’t have a hairbrush. It’s in my suitcase on the plane. How am I supposed to brush his hair without a hairbrush?"

God was so insistent that I almost involuntarily began to walk toward him as these thoughts came to me from God’s word: "I will thoroughly furnish you unto all good works." (2Timothy 3:17) I stumbled over to the wheelchair thinking I could use one myself.

Even as I retell this story my pulse quickens and I feel those same butterflies. I knelt down in front of the man and asked as demurely as possible, "Sir, May I have the pleasure of brushing your hair?"

He looked back at me and said, "What did you say?"

"May I have the pleasure of brushing your hair?" To which he responded in volume ten, "Little lady, if you expect me to hear you, you’re going to have to talk louder than that." At this point, I took a deep breath and blurted out, "SIR, MAY I HAVE THE PLEASURE OF BRUSHING YOUR HAIR?"

At which point every eye in the place darted right at me. I was the only thing in the room looking more peculiar than old Mr. Longlocks. Face crimson and forehead breaking out in a sweat, I watched him look up at me with absolute shock on his face, and say, "If you really want to."

Are you kidding? Of course I didn’t want to. But God didn’t seem interested in my personal preference right about then. He pressed on my heart until I could utter the words, "Yes , sir, I would be pleased. But I have one little problem. I don’t have a hairbrush."

"I have one in my bag," he responded. I went around to the back of that wheelchair, and I got on my hands and knees and unzipped the stranger’s old carry-on, hardly believing what I was doing. I stood up and started brushing the old man’s hair. It was perfectly clean, but it was tangled and matted. I don’t do many things well, but must admit I’ve had notable experience untangling knotted hair mothering two little girls.

Like I’d done with either Amanda or Melissa in such a condition, I began brushing at the very bottom of the strands, remembering to take my time not to pull. A miraculous thing happened to me as I started brushing that old man’s hair. Everybody else in the room disappeared. There was no one alive for those moments except that old man and me. I sound so strange, but I’ve never felt that kind of love for another soul in my entire life. I believe with all my heart, I-for that few minutes-felt a portion of the very love of God. That He had overtaken my heart for a little while like someone renting a room and making Himself at home for a short while. The emotions were so strong and so pure that I knew they had to be God’s.

His hair was finally as soft and smooth as an infant’s. I slipped the brush back in the bag, went around the chair to face him. I got back down on my knees, put my hand on his knees and said, "Sir, do you know my Jesus?"

He said, "Yes, I do." Well that figures, I thought. He explained, "I’ve known Him since I married my bride. She wouldn’t marry me until I got to know the Savior." He said, "You see, the problem is, I haven’t seen my bride in months. I’ve had open-heart surgery, and she’s been too ill to come see me. I was sitting here thinking to myself, what a mess I must be for my bride."

Only God knows how often He allows us to be part of a divine moment when we’re completely unaware of the significance. This, on the other hand, was one of those rare encounters when I knew God had intervened in details only He could have known. It was a God moment, and I’ll never forget it. Our time came to board, and we were not on the same plane. I was deeply ashamed of how I’d acted earlier and would have been so proud to have accompanied him on that aircraft.

I still had a few minutes, and as I gathered my things to board, the airline hostess returned from the corridor, tears streaming down her cheeks. She said, "That old man’s sitting on the plane sobbing, Why did you do that? What made you do that?"

I said, "Do you know Jesus? He can be the bossiest thing!" And we got to share. I learned something about God that day. He knows if you’re exhausted because you’re hungry, you’re serving in the wrong place or it is time to move on, but you feel too responsible to budge. He knows if you’re hurting or feeling rejected. He knows if you’re sick of drowning under a wave of temptation. Or He knows if you just need your hair brushed. He sees you as an individual. Tell Him your need!

I got on my own flight, sobs choking my throat, wondering how many opportunities just like that one had I missed along the way…all because I didn’t want people to think I was strange. God didn’t send me to that old man. He sent that old man to me.

John 1:14 "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."

Life shouldn’t be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather, to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly shouting, "Wow! What a ride! Thank you, Lord!"

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I’m So Sick of Me, a.k.a. Shut My Mouth

Sometimes I wish I could take back something I said; a joke that didn’t go over, a flippant comment that hurt a friend, a rant made in anger laced with mean words I didn’t really mean, I just wanted someone to hurt as much as I did.

And then there are those times I say things that clearly reveal the selfishness, the self-centeredness, of my own heart. Being a self-centered creature, those are the ones that haunt me the longest, and the ones I wish I could most take back. I hate when I expose the darkness in me. I can get forgiveness, and absolution (if Southern Baptists actually qualify for that sort of thing), from others for all the other regrettable comments, and put them behind me. But I cannot seem to grant myself forgiveness for exposing the ugly truth of my own heart.

I will regret this day for some time to come. I was doing so well too; leaving a good impression, always important when making a new friend. Then something pushed my own desperate need to the front of my mind, pressing it against that part of my brain that queues up the next mouthful of conversation. No, I thought. I cannot say that. It reveals too much. But something pushed it to the front of the line — I thought it was God, but now I’m not at all convinced it was — and before I knew what was happening, my own selfish need was pouring out of my mouth like water from a fire hydrant, and that was that. Good impression gone, replaced by harsh reality.

God, I’m so sick of myself. I am so sick of the self-focus that has so dominated my life the last three years.  I need to become someone else.

Driving home tonight, I took a hard look at myself. It wasn’t pretty. At least I didn’t think so. There was a time when I thought more of others’ needs than my own, more of others’ hurts than my own; when my conversations with God were more about Him blessing others than of healing me.

I realize that there was a lot of co-dependency in those conversations. My happiness and sense of value was directly tied to the happiness and well-being of those around me, especially those closest to my heart. So my prayers for them and focus on them was actually selfishly motivated. The last two years of digging through my past and honestly facing my own brokenness taught me this.  But I had to wonder tonight, am I any better a person for all my knowledge? Yes, now I know my own feelings, I’ve learned to feel them instead of run from them, and to acknowledge them instead of burying them in the deepest crevasses of my heart.  That is a good thing.  But, dang, Lu, when are you going stop crying about yourself all the time and start crying over the pain of others again? When are you going to spend more time talking to God about something other than your own brokenness? Isn’t that the point of all this intense digging into your soul, and all the counseling you’ve been getting, to become someone secure enough in her own identity in Christ that you don’t need to constantly focus on yourself? When does it shift from staring at your own navel to seeing the world around you?

Aaaauuugggh! I’m so frustrated with myself. I know what is right, what I ought to do — what I want to do. But I don’t do it. Its the things I don’t want to do, the person I don’t want to be—that, I do and so, so very naturally. Aaauugghhh!

But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time…. I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question?

The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. — Romans 7:17-25, The Message

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Where’s Baby Jesus?

Christmastree
When did Christmas become about getting presents rather than giving gifts? When did it change from celebrating Jesus and His gift of Himself for us to anticipating all the toys I’m gonna get? Or was it ever really about the former and always about the latter, and I just didn’t realize it until now?

I’m not talking about the commercialization of Christmas here. I’m talking about the selfishness of my heart. I never realized how important getting Christmas presents is to me until recently. It all started with my sister’s announcement that they were broke, so Christmas would be a little low on presents this year. While that announcement alone wasn’t enough to kick my greed into overdrive, it was enough to drive my mind back to Christmases of "yore", when gifts were plentiful and there was no room under the tree for Baby Jesus (he belonged in the nativity scene on the table, anyway).

Then came the hints that our department was foregoing giving us a Christmas bonus this year; hints dropped ever so surreptitiously by my supervisors, who then fell mysteriously silent and evasive on the subject as days went by. I, like every other unwise, overeager employee, had counted my bonus dollars before they were given and had plans for each and every one of them. They were good plans, to be sure. An external hard-drive to back up my laptop (it is over 2 years old now, after all), new good quality (ie expensive) shoes — which are desperately needed at the moment — and accessories for my iPod. I tried not to worry too much; or think too much about the planned purchases now in jeopardy. But as the days turned into weeks and we got closer to the last day the whole department would be together, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed, even angry, at the prospect of yet another unmet Christmas expectation.

Especially after I received our company’s idea of a Christmas present.

I realize I ought to be grateful the company gives out gifts at all. Some companies don’t do anything. Yet at the same time I suffer from being spoiled by my fourteeen years years in the entertainment industry, where gifts flowed like honey from an open bee hive; and they weren’t cheap gifts, either. Because everyone in Hollywood knows the way into the good favor of an
executive or a producer is by staying in the good graces of their
assistant. And the best way to do that is to give them really great
Christmas gifts. I got everything from the latest DVD releases to spiffy-cool raincoats to Tiffany parfum and pens. Yes, I was spoiled. I know what good company gifts are. And I did not get one from my company.

As I said, I realize I should be grateful I got anything, but they made it so blasted hard to be so. There was a card, gushing about how much they appreciated all our hard work, blah-blah-blah… and it was obvious they were serious in their gushing. However, their idea of a great, amazing "Thank You for all your hard work over the last year" gift to all their employees was, wait for it……

A pillow.

Yes, folks. My employer gave me a little bean-filled pillow for Christmas. Wow. Who
was the genius who came up with this gem of a gift? I can just hear the gift ideas brainstorming session now: "What shall we give them, uncle Scrooge?" "A lump of coal?" "naw, that’s been done to death…" "Oh, I’ve got an idea! Let’s give them over-sized hacky-sacks and call them pillows!"  Not that I’m bitter about it or anything…..

Perhaps they want me to use that pillow to take a napStockings2004 every afternoon, instead of working so dang hard. Perhaps I ought to, now that I have a pillow. But what I really want to do is beat all the executives — or at least the one in charge of picking out the gift — over the head with it. Hard. A pillow?! What the…?! What in the world were you thinking??

Now, I could understand if we were on the verge of bankruptcy or in otherwise serious financial trouble. But the fact is, our executives just banked millions of dollars in stock sales. They couldn’t spare at least one of those millions to shower on us, their faithful, hard-working employees?

It was in the middle of my internal rant after picking up my gift that I realized just how greedy my little heart is. All this anger over a stupid pillow, all this frustration over unmet expectations, all this anxiety over whether or not the bonus was coming — and where’s Jesus in all this? Who’s birthday is it, anyway? Mine? —Nope. Then why was I expecting to be the star of the day and the recipient of all the really cool presents?

I had to laugh at myself, at my own folly. I must look pretty ridiculous to God, ranting away over something as insignificant as a little bean pillow. Especially when so many in the world don’t even have a place to lay their head. Or worrying if I’ll get to buy an expensive pair of shoes when most of the world is too poor to even own one pair of cheap rubber flip flops. How many people went to sleep hungry tonight? How many more will die of starvation tomorrow? How many don’t even know, have never heard, the real reason for celebrating Christmas?

When did I get so greedy? When did I start thinking of Christmas as a celebration of me, rather than a celebration of Jesus? When did I get so wrapped up in getting that I forgot to look around and thank God for all I’ve already been given? A couple weeks ago during his sermon, Jeff told us about something his daughter said. They were busy decorating up the house, tinsel and garland and ornaments everywhere, when his little girl looked around and asked, "where Baby Jesus??" Turned out he’d gotten lost among all the stuff and ended up at the other end of the house from where he belonged.

That’s what happened in my heart. Jesus got lost in all my own Christmas "stuff". It took getting smacked in the face with my own greed, wrapped up in bean-filled pillow, for me to realize that.

Dear Jesus, forgive me! Let me put You back in the center of the celebration, where You belong.

PS — The bonus came through at the eleventh hour. It’s half what it was last year, but who’s counting anymore, right? Yeah, maybe I need to smack myself in the face with the pillow again…

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I Bring Myself

Today Jesus met me in a way I haven’t had in a long time. Today I sat at His feet and wept and worshiped. Today I had needs met in me so deep and so long unmet I’d forgotten what it was like to have them satisfied. Today I felt known; more over, I felt people wanted to know me. Today I found a place that values all that I value; that holds dear what I hold dear; a place where conviction meets real life and both walk hand-in-hand. A place that is as close to Mosaic as I think a place can get without being it, and yet is different.

Now that its over, fear is threatening to take over my heart. Fear that the whole thing was just a marvelous dream, or at best a one-time thing that won’t be repeated; fear that what I found is just too rare to be mine. Is that not the most insane thing you ever heard? But there it is. The reality in my heart. I’m so afraid I will come back empty-handed next time.

Two months ago I wrote about my dilemma. I’d been struggling for months with not having community at the church I was serving. I had prayed, reached out, gone to events and small groups, even had one in my home, but I could not seem to really connect with anyone. It was as if I was a foreigner to them, and they to me. We were interesting to each other but ultimately we spoke different languages, and I felt Lost in Translation. They want comfort, stability, safety, sameness, perhaps even God-in-a-box. I don’t. Here’s what I wrote; Here’s what I want.

I want to be known more than I fear it. I want
community more than I fear intimacy. I want to be challenged more than
I want to be "fed". I want to follow Jesus no matter the cost more than
I fear where He might take me. And I want a community of people to
journey with in life here in Nashville that shares my passion for Jesus
and my longings for community and challenge. I want that more than I want to shuffle
alongside people who still think Church is a fortress from the "world",
rather than the shelter and refuge FOR the world’s most broken, twisted
and shattered that it is and was always meant to be. I want a community
who desires to pursue Jesus with full-out passion. I want it so bad it
hurts. I haven’t had it since I left LA.

Today I think I found that place. Not only that, but I joined that place; for the first time since leaving LA I became a member of a church.

I didn’t mean to. I didn’t intend to. I intended to go to this event ("class") and just find out about this community, investigate it. I was going to keep my options open this time, and guard my heart well, in case they weren’t what my friend who’d told me about them said they were.  What have I done?

But people at the event were so friendly, so open, so willing to be known, and to know others. Conversation was easy, and for the first time in over two years I felt I belonged, really belonged. Like I wasn’t a foreigner speaking a strange language, or a stranger trying to force my way in. It felt very good.

Anyone who knows me knows I love people, but that they also exhaust me. I’m such an introvert! Crowds, big or small, scare me and I have to take a deep breath before I plunge in. Yet I felt no fear with this group. I felt no… discomfort at all. And the time went by far too fast. I wasn’t at all ready for it to be over when it was.

God spoke to me as I stared at the community’s commitment/covenant at the end of our time. He spoke of putting down roots and how I’ve been avoiding it since the church-plant fell apart. I invested so much of myself, invested my whole heart and soul in that group. To have it disintegrate before my eyes broke not just my heart, but my spirit, I think.  It’s like losing a baby that never got to be birthed.

But here He was, Jesus, talking to me softly about putting down roots, reminding me that it is a rare thing, and this was the first place I’d found it in Nashville. He was soft, but insistent, yet never demanding. So, I took a deep breath, signed the covenant and nervously handed it to someone on staff.

What have I done?

This morning was my last morning on the sound team at the other church, and it was filled with sweet fellowship with the team leader and with my ministry partner/producer. It was as if they were dangling carrots to keep me there and involved. It nearly worked; part of me really wondered if I really ought to be leaving and whether a year was long enough a chance to give a community.

But then I walked into the other community– my new community now — and Jesus sat down beside me. Wrapping up the sound in the chapel after 1st service of my old church had caused me to miss the worship at my new home. When I came in the pastor was already into his sermon. I sat down on some steps nearby, the nearest "seat" I could find, and Jesus made His presence immediately known.

I have this "language" with Him that I cannot explain, it just is. Its a visual language; one where He shows me things–shows me Himself–in my mind, or what I call my "mind’s eye". I get flashes of images, Him sitting somewhere or standing or in some position, always near or next to me. Sometimes we dance, sometimes He holds me, sometimes He’s drenching me like a rainstorm, sometimes He’s at my feet. No, often He’s at my feet. At first I fought that idea; that’s not where He belongs, He belongs above me and I at His feet. But He’s been insistent that His position is at my feet. He came to serve me, came to love me. He adores me. And He kneels in front of me, and stares intently into my eyes, my face, because He wants me to know Him, not just as "Lord" or "Almighty God" but as Lover and Counselor and Servant-Leader and Friend.

I realize some will call me a heretic for this. I cannot help that. This is who God reveals Himself to be, to me. And I know, to the core of my being, that it is Truth. He has proved it over and over. Its a position I don’t fully understand, I just know that it is. And I live by it.  Since He calls me to follow Him — His position toward me says to me that my position is kneeling at the feet of others, serving them, looking intently into their faces, letting them know me as friend, counselor, servant.

So often I’ve longed to kneel at His feet. So often I have, only to have Him get down on the floor beside me, so He can look intently into my face, and I into His. I try to tell Him this defeats my purpose in being on my face, only to have Him retort that His purposes are higher than mine, and His purposes are the ones that will last. There’s no point fighting with God. He decides He’s going to do something a certain way, that’s what will happen, regardless of what I try — and believe me I have tried it all.

Today Jesus let me sit at His feet. I don’t know why. But today, as the Pastor brought us into a time of quietness before God and the worship team led us to the throne, Jesus let me place myself at His feet. And instead of getting down on the floor with me, eye-to-eye, He stood tall, His hands on my head, as if to say to anyone, everyone in the universe, "this one is Mine. This one I love. This one I am–" dare I say it?? –"I am proud to call My own."

I clung to His feet, knowing beyond doubt how blessed I am to be known by Him, how unworthy I am to be loved by Him, and how grateful I am to belong to Him. I did not want to get up from that place, did not want to leave that position. It became holy, sacred ground in that moment, though the rest of the world would see them only as stairs at a movie theater.

The pastor had asked earlier, what do we bring to God this Christmas season? We spend so much time and energy telling people what we want for Christmas, making our lists for our parents, friends, family — perhaps even for God — of what we want this Christmas. But what do we bring to Him? He is, after all, the one who came; the one who’s birth we celebrate. Sadly, for all my talk of mission and passion, I had not really thought about that question, until the pastor asked it. Sadder still, I didn’t have an answer.

So, today I brought myself. Today I brought all of me to His throne, to His feet, for whatever I am worth and whatever He can do with me, and I worshiped. And I wept. While He stood tall and proclaimed me His own, His beloved.

And when He later whispered that I had too long resisted putting down roots, I brought myself to Him again. Perhaps what I have done is to bring myself to the community He has brought to me. Is it real? Will it last? I don’t know. But perhaps its time to step into the fear, instead of running from it, and find out.

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Irrevocable, or Just Passionate?

God’s gifts and God’s call are under full warranty—never canceled, never rescinded. — Romans 11:29 (The  Message)

I realize this verse is actually referring to something else when taken in context, but it’s what echoed through my mind this afternoon and evening. See, Wade did it again; got me to thinking about the mission field overseas and helped me once again connect with the reality that my heart breaks for Japan, and India, and to so many other places.

Around this time five years ago, I was sitting in a hotel room in Richmond, Virginia at the beginning of the candidate process to serve long-term with the IMB. Four years ago I was overseas, finishing up a 6-week trip in Ethiopia heading back to my "home" in Cyprus, and wondering what in the world had I gotten myself into. Three years ago I was in desperate pain grieving the losses of my parents, my job, my home and my dream of being a missionary. I never thought I’d recover. Two years ago I was swearing I would never again serve overseas, but feeling guilty for it, and last year I realized I am finally content to once again live my life stateside outside the realm of official ministry.

So why is it today my heart was stirred like it hasn’t been in many years? Why is it when I went to the IMB website and looked at the current opportunities, all the openings I sawMary_lu_india in South Asia, particularly several in the city I lived in 2001 and one with the people group I learned about, learned from and became friends with–why is it those openings so excited me I began thinking through the process I might take (as well as the length of time it would take) to ultimately fill one of those positions — or something like it. Why is it, when I finally decided the issue was settled, the love affair with overseas ministry was over and I was content, my heart is stirred and excited?

Is it true — could it be true — that once God lays His hand on your life for a particular service, that that call is just as irrevocable as His call to Follow, or His command to Go?

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Mental Constipation

I once heard writer’s block described this way:

It’s not that you cannot think of anything to say, or that you have nothing to say, it is that you have so much to say your brain cannot decide where to begin. So it sits frozen, staring at a blank page, constipated with ideas and unable to bring those ideas and thoughts through in an organized fashion.

In other words, Mental Constipation.

The only cure I’ve found is to begin a free-association type game with myself. Get the flow going once again by unblocking the bottleneck in my mind. I begin jotting down random ideas and thoughts that come into my head and let them lead the way for their more cohesive sisters to finally break through.

Sometimes even that doesn’t work. Sometimes, like girls are prone to do, they all think they are the most important and fight to be seen first, effectively re-congesting the narrow passages between my mind and the paper.

This is where I stand today. Mind raging with ideas and thoughts and questions. Blog pages empty and void of any signs of the tumult inside me. It’s like watching the the tv show "Lost" with the sound off, fascinating in its visual chaos but ultimately incomprehensible to the viewer (not that the sound has helped much these days).

I have been studying for two exams; well, one in particular — on language and communication, particularly focusing on critical thinking/reading/writing and on writing essays. This exam is multiple choice. Another exam in late January will be all written essays and a fourth will be a research paper. Through all this studying I’ve discovered just how amateurish my own writing, and my thinking process during writing, is. Realizing how often I skipped the necessary steps of quality writing causes me to cringe, but its the constant conscious "need" to go through those steps now that has really locked me up mentally.

I find I want to write posts about a great many things, only to slam against mental constipation as I try to adopt better writing habits by incorporating the steps I’ve recently learned. Rather than releasing everything in a more orderly fashion, the steps seem to have brought all my ideas and thoughts to an abrupt halt, as if they’ve never seen a flight of stairs in their lives and are frightened to death of taking a hard tumble into the abyss below should they trip on their way down. No one seems to want to make her grand entrance as a post here, or anywhere – even my journals – for that matter, as they all are more accustomed to strutting their stuff down a runway rather than down a winding staircase. And no amount of free-form writing will coax them from their perches at the top of the stairs. Nor has it brought order to their desperate crowding. Each still pushes her way to the front and demands to be recognized as first and most important in the parade, even while steadfastly refusing to begin the parade.

This is what madness must look like from the inside.