Season of Light

We're expecting a winter storm here in east Tennessee, and a White Christmas! There is a beautiful frost on the ground every morning, and all is cold and dark by 5 PM.

But! From here forward, all the way up to the summer solstice, the days will get longer and longer. Because of this, I truly view the Christmas season as being The Season of Light. I so love the Lord. Right smack dab "in the bleak midwinter", God plants the promise of light and life.

Winter never lasts forever.

Have yourselves a Merry Honking Christmas, my friends. I'm already praying about how I can be a blessing and encouragement to you in the year ahead. I want this little homey spot in the Blog World to be a place where you feel gladdened and strengthened and graced. I want this to be a place where you laugh. I want to get to know you.

Thank you for being here with me. Thank you for your feedback, via comments, private emails, and Facebook. I love that you find this blog a haven of sorts. We've seen and done a lot together this year, haven't we?

Grace and Peace...

Some of the Best Advice...

“Somebody has to get up early, stay up late, do more than the others, if the human garden is to be a thing of beauty.”

~Edith Schaeffer

This is some of the best counsel I've ever read. It applies to home life, church life, business, you name it. I'm not saying we should consistently overdo it, and never rest, but at the same time, nothing worthwhile has ever been achieved without working harder than the "average bear".

If all you want is an average marriage, then stay "into yourself" and be mindful of your rights and how tired you are and how much you do and what your spouse doesn't do. That is a sure-fire way to a completely average relationship, and it is your right to be average, if that is what you really want.

If all you want is an average life, then do an average amount of necessary work.

If you want something more, you have to get over yourself, roll up your sleeves, and be more. That does not necessarily always mean doing more - sometimes working harder is more about working smarter, which means actually working less! But let's be honest...being who you really want to be always leads to doing what you really need to do to be who you really want to be...and doesn't that often mean doing a lot?

Get happy about it!

Someone really does have to be willing to quietly and willingly do what needs to be done and then some, otherwise the marriage, the family, the church, or the business will descend into a disagreeable, cranky mess.

Sometimes doing what we really need to do, to be who we really want to be will involve expecting more out of those closest to us - but we must always first start with ourselves.

Best Organizational Strategies for The Top Producers - Those Grace-Girls

You can't give a cup of cold water to one of God's children, and not be rewarded. All my grace-girlfriends are big-time producers, and hard workers.

"I outworked them all, yet not I, but the grace of God in me..." the well-known words of the apostle Paul, my all-time hero, other than Jesus...well, and other than my husband. I know that sounds cheesy, even though it is true.

There is something about a life that is animated and empowered by the grace of God. You often work very hard, and get very tired, but it feels like an effortless doing. What it is, actually, is maximum effectiveness with minimum human effort.

This state of being, this effortless doing, is The Art of Living in Grace, and is a harder, artful nuance to achieve than powering one's way through life in a perpetual state of active doing.

I'm by far no expert. But when I'm in the flow of Grace, I know it. I know it, because my days become fluid, like water, and I simply flow. I respond to the topography of my life, moving around obstacles, inhabiting my moments receptively and effortlessly. A lot gets accomplished. A lot.

Here are a very few things I have learned from these seasons of grace, lessons I hope to inhabit until they become INward HABITs ~

~ Just get started. Say yes to the thing. A thing once begun, is half done. Do it. Get started. Now.

~Get rid of clutter. Self explanatory.

~Surround yourself with joyful people. Just because you are in full time ministry, you are not obligated to spend too much time with anyone who is a drain on you. Spend the majority of your time with people who worship a Big God, believe He gives More Grace, and who make you feel like a Special Lady. Everyone else can take a number.

~Don't be available at a moment's notice. It is impossible to maintain a creative spirit if you are overly accessible to everyone.

~Don't waste time talking about your problems with someone who can do nothing about them. Unless you are speaking to a Praying Woman, you are better off casting all your cares upon The One who cares for you.

~Take out your emotional trash several times a day. In my home, our medium-sized kitchen garbage can has to be taken out several times a day. Your emotional well being, particularly in times of stress, is no different. Keep short lists, hold no grudges. Stop several times a day, on the inside, and do a heart-and-body scan. If you sense tension or emotional negativity, speak to your soul! Get that trash out of there, before it stinks up the place! If you find you have to empty the trash cans of your heart several times a day, that just means you are a busy, caring woman, who gets a LOT done, and touches a lot of lives, every day. It's normal.

~Practice the Presence. Our God is a reservoir of relaxation. He is our hiding place...our little cabin in the woods...our cottage on the beach...He is vacation for the spirit, accessible to you twenty-four times a day and more. Run into His presence often.

When it comes to accomplishing things of eternal value, a legalista can't hold a candle to a grace-girl. A grace-girl can do all things through her revelation of Christ - and in direct proportion to her revelation of His great love and greater grace.

A Happy Sort of Monday

Happy Monday, everyone...I am praying for every pair of eyes that land on this blog today, that you'd know the very personalized, sacrificial love of God for you!  How He loves you.

How about this, for the beginning of my Monday ~

A package!  What is it, what is it?

 
What it is, what it is!  Twig crayons...lllllllllove.  Love.  These.

  Yes, it is sideways, but I love this angle best.  A colorful start to the week, no?

It's a James Taylor kind of day.

I really do have deeper thoughts than these, but I'll have to save them for another post.  I've been pondering the "oughts" of God.  I've been pondering how that, on one hand, legalists get all their "oughts" in the wrong places....and on the other hand, other believers think there shouldn't be any sense of duty or obligation to our lives, because that isn't grace.

Both are wrong.  Which means I've been wrong, many many times, because I've had my head in both places before.  I might get my head in one of either extreme again...it is so easy to be wrong.

(please take note, how easy that was for me to admit...friend, you were born wrong, and it should never be a big honking deal for you  to own that.  You should always be changing your mind in something...because I promise, your thinking is off, somewhere, somehow, right now!)

So at some point I want to think onto this screen, about the gentle "oughts" of God.  How do I know they are gentle?

Because gentleness is a fruit of the Spirit - a manifestation of who God is.  All He is, is holy, and all He does, is from love, and all His expectations have a  gentleness to them.  He is altogether loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, and gentle, and so...so....so in control of His every thought and action, and in control of my life.

Enjoy your Monday.  I'm thinking that if you keep your heart in a position of receptivity, if you will but discern it, God has a "surprise package" for you today!     

Thoughts on the Poor and Needy

my dining room table, a completely unstyled photo, after a day of school today.  this picture represents fabulous wealth...the well fed puppy on the chair, the laptop, the school books, the knitting that sits, casually waiting for the fact that I am so rich I have spare moments to do something creative...

I'm haunted by Ann Voskamp's observations, from her brief trip to Guatemala with Compassion International.  She visited families in the ghettos and slums of that country, a country still reeling from its recent mudslides.

Every day I sweep and cook and straighten with my steam mop and my all natural cleaners and my clean rags that match my kitchen, I'm thinking of a mother in Guatemala I have never met.  Vicariously I visited this mother, through Ann's blog, and the visit changed me.

Utterly impoverished mothers want clean homes, too.  They want all the same things I want, and they work harder than I do, with fewer tools, to accomplish far less.

And some can chalk it all up to an absence of capitalism, and still sleep at night, without doing one thing about the poverty they have seen on their big flat screen TV.

After her visit with this particular family, Ann felt compelled to tell the Guatemalan mother, "You are a good housekeeper", and upon translation, the mother began to weep.

And I've never gotten over it.

and these came in the mail this morning...God has a sense of irony, too.

How do you fight a mudslide?  How do you cherish all the home keeping hopes and dreams that all mothers have in a place that menaces your soul, day in and day out, with its filth and stench and poverty?  Somehow, this mother kept her shack as clean as she could keep it...noticeably different than the shacks that surrounded hers.

And she needed the same affirmation that I need...she needed to be told that her ordinary work did not go unnoticed.

So here I am, in my climate controlled home, blogging to the scent of spiced pumpkin and the music of Acker Bilk.  Feeling absolutely tiny.  My spirituality pales to that of a simple woman, fending off the mud, daily wiping the grime of the ghetto off of her home and her family.

I'm thankful for every blessing I've been given.

I spent some time early this morning getting to know this particular Tuesday, and it is an Acker Bilk sort of Tuesday.  Really.  It is.  See for yourself.

Given.  Given, given, given.  I have not earned a single thing.  This is what irks me about conservative talk radio...as much as I wholeheartedly agree with the conservative philosophy of hard work, and no government entitlement programs.  At one time, I took in a steady, almost daily diet of talk radio, and it made me arrogant and hard inside.  It made me intellectually bright, and proudly skeptical, complete with the strong suspicion that anyone who is poor deserves to be.  It is their own fault.  They haven't worked hard enough to earn the American Dream.

If we take this logic to its inevitable conclusion, then the last and the next heart-wrenching event in your life, Mr. Rush-Fan, is entirely your fault.

Because you deserve hell.  Cut and dried.  There is only One of whom it was declared, "I find no fault in Him" - all your hard work and good intentions mean not one thing....all your righteousness comes from Him, along with every blessing you have under God's sun.

Transitioning the foyer from summer to fall...this means getting the sheaves of Harvest Wheat back out.  I desperately want and need "Harvest" to be more than a time of year to me. 

I'm done with so-called Christianity that is so full of its own self righteousness, that it can't identify itself with the poor and needy.  Yeah, even when they deserve to be poor and needy.  But for the grace of God, there go I.

It is almost time again for cider and fires in the firepit, for S'mores and bonfires in the country with gobs of friends and soup and sweaters.  I am living a dreamy, fabulously wealthy life that I do not deserve.  Do you deserve the lifestyle you have earned for yourself, or do you enjoy the blessings you have been given?   




 

Monday

Good morning, Monday!  You look gorgeous...I am so glad to meet you.  There's never been a day quite like you, and never will be.  You are completely unique, and I think I love you already.  Your sunlight is dreamy.  What other joys do you hold for us today?

I think I am going to light a candle, even in the morning sunshine, to celebrate you, Ms. Monday Morning!  You certainly rate at least a little Pumpkin Spice scented candlelight...you've already been such a blessing, and it isn't even 9 o'clock yet!

How about a little vintage music?  You seem like a Tony Bennett sort of Monday.  Happy.  Classic.  Yes, even though we just met, I can tell exactly what kind of Monday you are!  Tony it is...

I put away my summer blue mugs, and put these out, over the weekend.  It was a few hours of fall nesting.  Perfect for an almost-autumn Monday Morning.  Would you like some coffee in one of these...

...or would you prefer some hot tea in one of these antique peach lustre-ware, depression era glass cups?  (A gift from my Hannah...she found an amazing deal on a whole set of four.  These are typically quite expensive.  But don't let that worry you, Monday.  I trust you.  I'd be happy to pour your coffee or tea in one of these fall-colored beauties!)

The Lord has been good, in allowing me to make friends with such a delightful Monday Morning.  You are something else, and I look forward to getting to know you, finding out all you have in store for me!  What do you say, let's get this party started...

Vulgarity-not what it used to be

Today, when we hear the term "vulgar", we think of horrible language - swearing and the like.  At one time, the more common definition of vulgar was this ~

•common: of or associated with the great masses of people;
•common: being or characteristic of or appropriate to everyday language

So.  We see that vulgar also means simply common.  A bit uneducated, rough around the edges and unsophisticated.  (yes, I know that is an incomplete sentence.  I know.  It bugs me too, but since I know the rules, I can break them.)

Sort of like the Greek language in which the Scriptures were written - God made sure His very word was written in common vernacular.  "Vulgar" Greek. 

Only the religious object to the "vulgar" in that sense.  Even today, it is only.  the. religious. 

Religious high brows would never think of raising their voices or truly doing community with common people.  No, they exist to help and benefit the common man.  Self aware magnanimity, which is no real largeness of soul at all.

I ran across a quote today by Dorothy Sayers - somewhat of a heroine of mine.  She was an incredibly astute thinker.  In this particular piece, she was writing about the Latin language, and the way it ceased to "morph" and adapt to changing times, and thus became what some mistakenly consider a "dead language".

But the quote - Sayer's line of thinking - makes me consider other than just the Latin language.  Here is the quote:

"Contamination" and "barbarism" are one set of names for (the fact that language adapts to vernacular and even slang):  another name is "vitality".  Everything  which is alive tends to break out into vulgarity at times.  Only the dead and embalmed can preserve forever their changeless marmoreal dignity."

Know what else this makes me think of?  (My mind is forever at the mercy of its associations.  But that is okay - Robert Frost considered this an indication of keen creative intelligence...)

"The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ But wisdom is justified by her children."

Very God laid aside His Great Glory...and "broke out into vulgarity" to become a man.  Alive...He is alive!

When You Are A Hammer...

...everyone else looks like a nail.

This past year, due to several situations I had run up against, not the least of which is my relationship with my boys, I began to read all I can, from a Biblical worldview, about dealing with difficult people.

First of all, allow me to say this:  we are all dysfunctional.  Every single one of us.  We were born in sin, born wrong, and we will be growing and struggling out of that wrong-ness until  heaven...until we "know as we are known".  We all see through a glass darkly.

The difference between a normal level of dysfunction, and a toxic level of dysfunction, however, is the acknowledgement of dysfunction's existence.  Some people just won't own up to their stuff.

Those of us who know we can be whack jobs have the unfortunate experience of having to work through dealing with those who insist they are far too __________ (fill in the blank with "educated" or "spiritual" or "affluent" or "happy") to be a whack job. Or, we have the unfortunate experience of dealing with those who insist it is our fault they are a whack job - or, richer still, the difficult person insists they are the normal one, and you are the whack job.  And they can be very convincing.

It is confusing, because dysfunctional, difficult people can be so likable and seemingly functional with everyone else but the people they torment.  (Which, by the way, is the textbook definition of dysfunctional...when a person does not function normally in many of their significant relationships, or does not function normally for very long - for example, they make it one to five years in a new friendship, but cannot be consistent beyond that set point.)

One symptom of a dysfunctional person is when you notice that, over time, everyone in their life has an issue with the truth.  Their father is a liar.  Their brother is a liar.  Their daughter is a liar.  Their boss twists the truth.  Their girlfriend is a manipulator.  Old friends lie about them.  Everyone manipulates.  Everyone lies.

Everyone looks like a nail, when you are the hammer.

Be assured that the person with the lying issue is the one pointing the finger.  And don't even bother confronting them unless you are very, very vested in the relationship, and are willing to be mistreated, because another symptom of a dysfunctional person is they don't change their mind.  Talking does nothing for them, long term.  Talking only brings about short term relief...after a matter of hours or days, the dysfunctional person just resets to the old thought patterns.

There's more symptoms - very eye opening.  I'll share them in another blog post.  But for now, if you are dealing with a difficult, manipulative, controlling person, you aren't crazy.  And there is help, just not necessarily what you think help looks like.

Hang in there.  Relationships, healthy ones, are so worth it!

One Year Celebration!

One year ago this week, I felt a migraine headache coming on.  Overwhelming things were happening in my personal life, on top of a Master Builder's National Conference we were expected to attend, and so it was with no surprise that I had the familiar symptoms.  I braced myself, and mentioned it to my husband.

There were no angels singing, no scrolls dropping from heaven, and unfurling themselves revealing the words, "BE HEALED".  There wasn't a single goose bump.

My husband simply laid his hand on me, right there in our master bathroom, and prayed a very simple prayer.  It took twenty seconds.

All I felt, was a lingering warmth on the back of my head.  Honestly, I chalked it up to the fact that his hand was on top of my head.  Maybe I was "feeling" the warmth of his hand, just in a different place?

But I did take note of that sense of warmth.  And I waited.  The migraine never came.

Not only that, but friends, from that day to this, one year later, I have not had one single migraine headache.  I had been getting them every month or so for over a year by then.

Not.  One.  Headache.  From the first week of August, 2009, to this day.

It was such a testimony to me, one year ago this week.  I will never, ever stop proclaiming that my God is a God of all Grace, and that He is a supernatural God, who is still in the healing business.  My prayer and cry of my heart is that I never become critical and jaded and unbelieving.

Do I believe this means I will never, ever have another migraine?  Here is what I do believe:  I have gone for one full year, with barely even a tension headache, while enduring some of the keenest testing in my whole life.  I have walked in a peace that passes understanding, from one year ago to this moment as I type.  That's it.  That's what I know. 

I know that healing touch was also a sign, for that season, to Tim and I regarding some very personal things we were going through at the time - God loved us and approved of our labors in the gospel.  He was, and is, on our side always.

Anniversaries of the spirit...they can be powerful things.  Here I am, at this year's Master Builder's National Conference, preparing to speak tomorrow, enjoying the fellowship of faithful relationship, savoring my friends and family, entering the best season of my life so far...

...encompassed by songs of deliverance.  I will never trade a lift hid with Christ in God for a life of playing church in my own strength.

My own strength and performance can't heal migraines.  But Christ can.

Mid Life Constancy

con·stan·cy . n. 1. Steadfastness, as in purpose or affection; faithfulness. 2. The condition or quality of being constant; changelessness

More than once, my husband and I have shook our heads at someone who recently turned 45 or 50. The whole "mid life crisis" thing. Believe-you-me, it is real. There but for the grace of God, go I! So many people lose their flippin' minds when they hit about 50.

They think they are hearing God, and they aren't. They think they're entitled, and they're not. They think they need to change things up, and they don't. They need to dig in and practice constancy.

The surest predictor of a mid life crisis is the soul-withering boredom that can set in. After all, it isn't how you begin that counts. It isn't how you end. Those two points in the process are exciting. It is what you do with yourself in the character-defining middle that totally dictates your finish line. It is easy to begin a race.

Almost all races are quit in the middle.

More spouses and churches and friendships and families and careers are left in mid-life than eleventy-hundred people can shake their collective sticks at.

I promise you that, smack dab in your middle, there will be a "tree of the knowledge of good and evil". There will be the awareness that nothing is turning out quite like you imagined. You will feel the urge to prove yourself. You will feel the urge to quit. Or to do something silly like move for the sake of moving, leave for the sake of leaving, buy a sports car or motorcycle, build a McMansion you can't afford, start a band, or raise Nubian goats.

Change! Any change feels like it might do the trick - it might make you feel alive again. Let's spiritualize it, while we're at it, and say we "feel led of the Lord".

Friend. Friend, friend. Sit down here beside me and have some Tension Tamer Tea. We are so in this thing together. I feel it, too.

Your enemy (who, by the way, is not me. Ahem.) will always approach you one of two ways. Only one of two.

Your enemy will either attack you, to try to get you to retreat...or he will try to get you to make peace with him. It is the making peace part that worries me. It is very tempting to make peace when you are so exhausted from the war. It is very tempting to change course abruptly, at the next sign of crisis, and then justify your retreat.

You will find yourself making every excuse in the book for why so many of your relationships are a wreck, for why you do what you do, for why your passion is gone. Every excuse is a justification for making peace with the enemy. The children of Israel were faced with this very thing in their "middle"...that place between Egypt and the Promise. (Ex. 34:11-14)

Beware of that sense of mid-life entitlement. When you don't live daily outside your comfort zone, when you make personal peace and affluence your idol, you end up making a covenant of false peace and false provision with an enemy.

You started out serving the Lord with abandon. Let me tell you - the same grace that saved you, is the same grace you absolutely must function in every single day. Notice I said "function". When there is no apprehension and appropriation of grace, there is dysfunction.

You began well. Stay the course. Don't let the heart ache and disappointments and exhaustion of the middle make you dull and cynical and jaded. Tap into the newness of life that is yours in Christ Jesus!

Add It To My Resume - I am a Church Planter

(my grandbaby...)

Why is it we tend to focus on what we have not (yet) done, as opposed to what we have done?

I remember when I first realized that I am a gardener. For the longest time I actually thought that since I didn't tend to large expanses of lush gardens, that I was not a gardener.

This sort of bedeviled thinking has crept into my thoughts on ministry. My husband and I have planted one church, so far - the one he currently pastors. We and a few (a very few...a reeeeeeeally, really few) stalwart souls planted it from the ground, up. One church. More than most people ever plant in a lifetime. It has grown to be a thing of beauty.

To think that I am not yet a church planter because I've planted "only" one church is like saying I am not yet a mother because I have had "only" one child. Ridiculous. The fact that I have had four children does not make me more of a mother than the woman who has had only one child.

Now I'm not talking about stretching the truth. I won't be calling myself a photographer just because I've snapped a few pictures, or an artist because I've painted a landscape. (Well, I've almost painted a landscape. I have yet to finish my first painting. Shoot - I am compulsively honest.) But most of us aren't into stretching the truth. A lot of women I know tend to sell themselves too short, rather than the other way around. (There are a few who oversell themselves, but I usually can smell that a mile away, and I avoid those few.)

My daughter is no less a mother, just because her child is yet unborn. Now that is a concept! That concept speaks to all things yet unborn in our lives - things that God sees, but we don't. Much like the way He called Abraham the Father of Many Nations. Much like the way He called Gideon a Mighty Man of Valor.

Because your God has better plans for you than you know, you yourself are more than you realize.

Who are you?

Happy Isn't Good Enough!

Ah, there is such a difference between pleasure and satisfaction. Pleasure can never be satisfied...pleasure for the sake of pleasure, outside of Christ, only seeks ever new and more expensive experiences and trinkets. Pleasure might make me happy, but I find happiness insufficient compared to satisfaction. Pleasure-seeking will make you deeply unhappy, unless your pleasure is sought and found at the right hand of God. Only satisfaction can satisfy.

Sin can bring pleasure. But God promises that the pleasure will only last for a season. Jehovah alone can fill a yearning, gaping soul with satsifaction, and only satisfaction ultimately satisfies.

"Stuff" brings pleasure. Again, temporary. But relationships with people who you love, and who love you back...that brings satisfaction. A chocolate doughnut brings pleasure...a healthy, strong body that weighs ten pounds less than it used to brings satisfaction. Laziness can be a pleasure, but an honest, hard day's work brings satisfaction.

Building bigger barns brings pleasure. Being able to give a gift so powerful as to alter a deserving person's destiny...what satisfaction!

I could go on and on. I hope I've provoked your own personal ruminations regarding pleasure versus satisfaction! It is a satisfying thing to consider.

The Sad Reality of Offenses

The person most in position to advance you into the next level, is the person you are most likely to get offended by.

I plead with you, when this happens ("when", not "if") when the offense comes, stick and stay. See it through. Come under the authority of the word of God. You must come under to get over the mountain. Otherwise, you will have to repeat the lesson, and take the test over and over and over and...

...you get the idea. You can experience ten years worth of spiritual growth in a week, by simply coming under. Or, take ten years to "get" what could have taken you only a week. Either way, you never advance to "C" without going through "A" and "B".

I don't get to pick the vessel through which I am to be dealt with or promoted. I don't get to pick who I will hear and who I will not. The moment I choose not to hear, the very moment I run from the lesson, my life becomes like...

"...the song that never ends!
It just goes on and on my friend.
Some people started singing it
Not knowing what it was
But they'll just keep on singing it forever, just because
This is the song that never ends!
It just goes on and on my friend.
Some people started singing it..."

There is one, and only one, common denominator in all your broken relationships: you. The day you give up and face that fact, change your mind, deal with your issues, and go mend those relational fences, will be the day of your greatest glory. All of heaven will record it.

I Own It...

a puppy and a husband with strong-but-gentle hands - two components of The Well Lived Life...

I don't own a lot, materially speaking. But I own as much as anyone I know!

I own my faults. Yes, they are mine. Every single one. I speak my mind - too often. I have a sharp wit, but sharp can become cutting. I hate that about myself. I am passionate - but passion can become temper. Full of faults, me. At least I own them, and own up to them. I know of some who own none at all...a miserable lot, they.

I own my strengths. God gave them to me. I am not ashamed of them, and yes, they have made a few people uncomfortable. But no one is well served when I bury what God gave me to invest - either I own it, or I act as though I don't own it, and "to her who hath not, even what she has will be taken away."

Interestingly, I own the little piece of sky above my home. I don't need expansive vistas with expensive tax brackets. My sunset is the same sun that sets anywhere else, and there are colors and glory and glow the same.

I own the plants and flowers that grow around this suburban cottage. Hydrangeas are hydrangeas no matter where they grow, be that castle or cottage. I like mine best, because they are mine.

The best components of a life well-lived are mine for the taking, right here. Wind, rain, fragrance, joy, trees, birds, a garden, music, laughter, good food, and basil....lots of basil. Tomatoes. We make a mean pesto and bruschetta around here, come summertime. All mine.

You see, it isn't the house itself, it is the life you live there. It isn't the stuff you have, it is the stuff you share that makes for the kind of pleasure that you feel all the way down in your stomach. Anyone can live an artful, soulful, complete sort of life without acreage or livestock. Having those things is not a negative thing...you just don't need any of it. Not if you have an imagination and not if you know how to live a well-edited, purposefully-designed life.

Not if you know how to be abased and how to abound, right where you live, right now.

Right here, I dabble in a bit of animal husbandry (puppies, a plethora of large pond fish, a canary and two pocket parrots, all of which require daily love and care), I enjoy the view and sound of a waterfall, pond, and fish, have an outdoor fireplace, small gardens, places to walk, a fruit bearing tree, berry bushes, sunrises, sunsets, I play around with oil painting, interior design, cooking, writing, poetry, philosophy; I own the gentle breezes that meander through this patch of place, and can have a glass of home made lemonade whenever I feel like making it.

Do I really need more? Does anyone? I own a version of almost everything you can find on a fine "estate", and I have created it right here in a typical suburban home. And we share it with everyone we know and love.

That's some large livin'.

I don't own much, but I do own it.

Personal Peace and Affluence

"There's only so much fortune a person needs, and the rest is just for showin' off."
~Forrest Gump's momma

The great twentieth century theologian Francis Schaeffer immortalized the phrase "personal peace and affluence" in his day; in his books and messages he asserted that the quest for personal peace and affluence was the downfall of great nations in history past. I think what is true in the "universals" is often true in the "particulars".

This quest for personal peace and affluence often marks the downfall of a man or woman as well.

That phrase has haunted me since I first read it, nearly two decades ago. Personal peace and affluence. Schaeffer's warning applies to all socio-economic levels, because we are all tempted to seek our version of it.

Periodically, over the years, I examine my attitude for signs of any sense of entitlement - any indication that I am placing my "personal peace" ahead of the call of God on my life - a call which often (almost always) takes me far out of my comfort zone. It is a call which always involves some level of obscurity and servanthood, and truth be known we all fear obscurity and service.

I've learned that I don't need to be noticed or appreciated, contrary to pop psychology. I do not have to "feel" whole and comfortable before I get about the business of loving God and loving others. I am already made complete in Christ. His grace truly is sufficient.

I will confess, nothing has forced me to look at my version of affluence like my son graduating high school, and two daughters getting married in less than one year. My husband being in full time ministry and me a career home maker (otherwise known as financial suicide), my biggest fear was to one day not be able to afford to pay for college or weddings.

With the first daughter's wedding, I began my planning process and discovered that the "average" wedding budget was something like $20,000. Often, the budget can be much more. I knew we didn't have close to that available to spend, and so I was forced to confront my deepest fears.

My version of affluence. What is your version? How hotly have you pursued it? At what cost?

I gave it up - the inner struggle was immense. We had the available credit for me to be as lavish as I wished, but the conviction to pay for all or most of both weddings in cash.

With my back against the wall, I called in the troops. The Harvest Church Women. They came through like you would not believe, furnishing us with the most lovely wedding reception for Hannah - location, food, and all. A few men in Harvest made themselves completely available to Tim in the days before the wedding, to haul chairs, clean the barn, anything we needed. Tim found out who his true friends were that week! Yeah. The ones who didn't find someplace else they "had to be".

I've always known who my friends are. At any point in life, they are the women who are "still here". Harvest women were there, involved in all aspects of Hannah's reception, and are once again (less than one year later!) involved in every detail of Sarah's reception.

How humbling to relinquish my version of affluence, my misguided dream of what a "wedding celebration" looks like, and embrace True Community. I discovered that life lived in community made for a far, far better, more beautiful wedding than I could have ever "bought". Some things absolutely cannot be bought, some honors should not be farmed out to a bidder. Weddings are about community!

Church life is antithetical to personal peace and affluence. If you try to have your personal peace and affluence, and engage in real church life too, you will find yourself leaving church after church. If you try to have your personal peace and your version of affluence and also have healthy relationships, you will find yourself cutting off relationship after relationship.

You will never be able to have it both ways. God's peace is "not as the world gives", pure and simple.

Finding What I Seek

I read just today about a phenomenon called "Situation Evocation". This refers to the fact that we spark responses from others that reinforce a tendency we ourselves already have. Cheerful people tend to make others smile back at them. Jaded people are dangerously contagious. Critical people get little mercy from others. The merciful obtain mercy. Just like in water, face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects man, the Proverbs say.

I've noticed I can talk about how that leaders have to be "people-persons", and then ask someone, "What makes you an extrovert?" - and they will answer me with whatever is evidence in their mind about what makes them a people person.

But then, weeks or months later, if I talk about the beautiful artistic gifting inherent to the introvert, I can then ask the same person, "What makes you an introvert?" - and they will give me evidence for that, too.

Here's the thing: we all have the ability to find evidence for two opposite conclusions. Which conclusion we choose to go with reveals our heart.

If I look at my husband and think, "He doesn't care" - I find evidence of it. If I look at him and think, "He is so sweet and loving" - I find ample evidence of that.

I know. I've tried it, both ways.

It is stunning, the way my thoughts can define and dictate my feelings to me...not vice-versa. I can "truth" my way out of any lie, if only I am willing to have my perspective adjusted. I can choose a critical perspective, and my experience will soon confirm the conclusion; when I seek evil, I can find it...in anyone and anything at any given time.

He who earnestly seeks good finds favor, But trouble will come to him who seeks evil. (Proverbs)

Perspective is a function of the heart. The heart of every woman is predisposed to seek either good or evil, to be either positive or negative - because the heart is wired to function from a basis of either grace or performance (works), nothing in between.

"And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work." Rom. 11:6

It is important, therefore, to be renewed in the "spirit of your mind". Allow your heart to be renewed in the gospel, begin to earnestly seek the good in your circumstances and in the people you say you care about. If you do, you'll find your perspective adjusted to function from grace instead of a mindset of "earning and deserving".

If you must "earn and deserve" with God, then so must your children and spouse and friends with you. If you rather earnestly seek good, and you receive the free gift of grace from God, so must your children and spouse and friends ultimately experience undeserved love from you.

When I hear someone refer to this as "cheap grace", or "easy believe-ism", I laugh. I've read (and love) all of Bonhoeffer's works, and I get what he meant, when he coined this term from a prison cell, suffering for the sake of Christ.

But nobody else can use it with authority, unless they are likewise suffering. Pretty much everyone who tosses around the words "cheap grace" today, are using them to look down their nose at someone else's theology. Almost none who bandy that term in our generation have actually lived grace out - it is mere concept to them, that is why they think it can be cheapened. When you "live of the gospel" as opposed to merely saying you believe it, nothing is more costly or more difficult in life than to earnestly look for the good, to "keep yourself in the love of God". (Jude)

Every time you choose to re-name and re-frame by faith, calling things that be not as though they were, not being moved by what you see, all hell will conspire against you. Please. Do not even start spouting grace until you have counted the cost. Stick with the law...it will require less of you. Law is way easier. Far from being "cheap", the truth of grace will cost you more than you ever thought you could pay, and stretch your faith beyond where you thought you could go.

If you look for good, you'll find it...even in your parents and your kid and your church.

If you look for evil, trouble will find you.

I bet you wish I made that up, but God said it, I believe it, and that settles it. What will you do with the truth of it?


While lacking the power and keen edge of God-breathed Scripture, and not understanding how "grace through faith" works, Goethe observed: “I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather...If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming."

What Is a Cult?

If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. On their part He is blasphemed, but on your part He is glorified.

I am feeling extra blessed. I've discovered today that some former church members (two of the dozen or so in our sixteen year history who left disgruntled) have said that we are a cult.

I have no clue what the rationale is behind this sad, uneducated accusation, but it is as old as the New Testament church. This seems to be the card that offended or bitter people tend to play, as a means of self justification.

Whatever.

All it means is we're blessed as a church, and Christ is glorified through the preaching of the gospel. Christ is blasphemed on their part. How is He blasphemed? James chapter 3~

But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.
With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so.

The name of Christ is blasphemed (Greek: to speak evil of, to reproach) when a man who calls himself a brother (or a woman who calls herself a sister), turns and brings this level of reproach against sincere and Godly men and women, who are in Christ, quite literally part of His body.

This level of slanderous and evil speaking goes far beyond mere criticism.

No matter how sharp the disagreement I've had with many a church leader in twenty years, some unknown, some famous, I have stopped short of calling their church a cult, though one I have known comes perilously close - partly because I know what a "cult" is. Partly because I fear the Lord too much to cause that kind of division and schism in the body...and I frankly long for the name of Christ to be glorified.

This brings about a teaching moment - you know me. Take lemons and....make lemonade. Or something.

I have several reference materials I could cite and use to describe what a "cult" actually is, but out of curiousity I decided to simply google it. Yeah. I decided to use the research tool that is at the fingertips of almost everyone, including the people who have made this ridiculous accusation. I decided to use the very first resource that Google turned up.

It radically proves how uneducated the accusation is! Anyone with a thinking mind could just google the term "cult" and in ten minutes find out that most Bible believing, established churches don't fall under the definition. Here is what I came up with, in less than two minutes (http://www.csj.org/, article entitled "Cults 101, a Checklist of Cult Characteristics" by Janja Lalich, Ph.D. and Michael D. Langone, Ph.D.) :

The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader and (whether he is alive or dead) regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as the Truth, as law.
‪ Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.

‪ Mind-altering practices (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, and debilitating work routines) are used in excess and serve to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).

‪ The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act, and feel (for example, members must get permission to date, change jobs, marry—or leaders prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, whether or not to have children, how to discipline children, and so forth).
‪ The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s) and members (for example, the leader is considered the Messiah, a special being, an avatar—or the group and/or the leader is on a special mission to save humanity).

‪ The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which may cause conflict with the wider society.

‪ The leader is not accountable to any authorities (unlike, for example, teachers, military commanders or ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream religious denominations).

‪ The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify whatever means it deems necessary. This may result in members' participating in behaviors or activities they would have considered reprehensible or unethical before joining the group (for example, lying to family or friends, or collecting money for bogus charities).
‪ The leadership induces feelings of shame and/or guilt in order to influence and/or control members. Often, this is done through peer pressure and subtle forms of persuasion.

‪ Subservience to the leader or group requires members to cut ties with family and friends, and radically alter the personal goals and activities they had before joining the group.
‪ The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.

‪ The group is preoccupied with making money.

‪ Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group and group-related activities.

‪ Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.

‪ The most loyal members (the “true believers”) feel there can be no life outside the context of the group. They believe there is no other way to be, and often fear reprisals to themselves or others if they leave (or even consider leaving) the group.

Obviously, one can see how any church who follows Biblical practices could be mistaken as a cult - the early church was. Church leaders are respected. Strong churches gather zealously around their/our core beliefs - the doctrinal essentials. Some may speak in tongues. Some worship very extravagantly and expressively. Some do not. Some beautiful, effective churches might even be rather preoccupied with bringing in new members. If it is through salvation, the very thought makes me giddy with joy!

Churches collect money. Churches sometimes have to invoke what is known as "church discipline" (an intensely Scriptural practice, if done by consensus and very, very carefully, in a spirit of grace). Wise churches will discourage church hopping, and encourage a basic level of committment. A valid church may even make its leaders accountable to conduct themselves by a higher standard, should there be a disagreement. But these characteristics should never be misconstrued as cultish. Accusations like that are uneducated at best, dishonest and cruel at worst.

If you are in a church that expects you to take part in every single activity of the church (something Tim and I openly refuse to do) and enforces "debilitating work routines in excess" you might be in a legalistic church, or you might be in a cult. I hesitate to use even that as an indicator, because the truth is a new church plant takes a startling amount of work, and it can even feel sometimes like it takes a "debilitating" amount of work to set up, break down, and get a transient (without its own building) church plant off the ground.

Particularly if you are in a church that tries to tell you in detail what you can do or not do, what to wear, and how to spend your time, who to marry or where to work - run.

If you are part of a church, and you discover clearly unethical practices, immorality in the leadership, etc. - run.

If you argue with, or question what the pastor teaches, just once or twice, and you are asked to step down from your position of leadership, or are otherwise taken to task - run. (If you debate with the pastor for six or more months, and he hangs in there with you, having discussion after discussion after discussion...hug the man, and tell him wild horses wouldn't drag you out from under his patient leadership!)

If you find yourself ostracized or censured for having friends outside your church - run. (Most of our church members have as many friends, if not more, outside our church than in it. We're not a large church!)

Just an FYI:

Just because a church is small, does not make it a cult.

Just because a church rallies around its leadership, does not make it a cult.

Just because a church does not condone or pacify divisive behavior, does not make it a cult.

Just because a church believes in the gift of tongues, does not make it a cult.

Just because a group of people pull together for a common goal, does not make it a cult. (Please look up the definition of "unity".)

Just because you left a church, does not make it a cult.

You might be touching the apple of His eye...

If it isn't the Sound of Joyful Shouting...What Would You Call It?

Moderate strength is shown in violence, supreme strength is shown in levity.~GK Chesterton

Sorry to be over-quoting here , but CS Lewis spoke of pride as being the "unsmiling concentration upon self, which is the mark of hell."

Those words...unsmiling concentration upon self...have been lingering in my mind for days, now. Legalism and religion produce exactly this sort of unsmiling self absorption, and I've finally figured out that this is what bothers me about some people.

I have little fondness for those women who dread looking foolish or inappropriate, above all other kinds of dread. This is the gal who is perpetually aware of what she may look like to others. This pride is conscious of image. This sort of person isn't capable of even the moderate strength of "violence"...she is educated past her talent to be normal...too self aware to raise her voice to anyone, much less trounce them. None of that indecorous moderate strength for that sort of woman. Supreme strength? Forget the supreme strength of joy - it might manifest as a holy levity, and pride has no sense of humor.

If the proud ever do laugh, it is a second-hand emotion, not originating from their own heart, but rather it comes to them predigested. Pride is a consumer, not a producer, of humor.

I have done my share of laughing the last month or two, as certain realities about my world and myself have set in, and I make the choice to see things the way they really are. Some of the cackling is likely tinged in the barest sarcasm - which is indeed the lowest form of humor. 'Tis still humor. But most of my giggling is genuine, and medicinal, and in the company of a few dear friends. We guffaw. We have learned this past week, in the immortal words of my father: "No fools, no fun."

I have fun making a fool of myself. I'll become even more undignified than this! Others try to be all educated-dy and serious, self contained, smartened up, tense from reading dead guys, and they end up having their greatest fear come upon them - looking foolish. Not on purpose like me, mind you. Oh nonono. Never do they look foolish on purpose. Their antics are religiously intense, they know they are in a class by themselves.

::snort wheeze::

I do. I laugh at my own imaginative take on what life must be like to have "unsmiling concentration upon self."

Some say I laugh too loud. I say it is the sound of joyful shouting, heard in the tents of the righteous.

If a loud laugh isn't a sound of joyful shouting, you tell me...what would you call it?

Note - GK Chesterton is not permitted to reply to the question. We already know what he'd call it:

supreme strength.

We Don't Have It All Together...

...but together we have it all.

You are looking at a mother and her sons (Isaac, me, and Josiah)...three people who are full of faults, foibles, quirks, sins, thoughtless deeds, deep thoughts, and in some areas we each one possess more than a fair share of talent.

As parents, mine and Tim's relationship with our boys has been tested and tried this past year, and all while dealing with profound challenges and transition in our lives, while planning our daughter's wedding, while pouring out our hearts in the gospel, while swimming around the fishbowl of being a ministry family. It doesn't matter whether the fishbowl is small or large, a fishbowl is a fishbowl, and we live in one.

Tim and I have had to put up with criticism from one or two regarding our parenting, our personality, our words, and probably even our animals. (!!) I would not be a bit surprised if even our poodle's misbehavior was attributed to our emphasis on the gospel of grace. The scrutinization has been excruciatingly petty at times, and at other times it has been used by God to bring adjustment.

Bottom line? We just can't seem to be able to force anyone or any creature behave as it ought. How utterly inept, no?

Well, my answer to that, and the real point of this blog post, is that "those who preach the gospel should live of the gospel." Now I realize the original context of this verse quoted was to validate the idea that some men will make their living by serving the church. Still yet, the logic holds up - those who preach the sufficiency of Christ will be challenged to live it out in the secret place of relationship. Those who preach the finished work of Christ better be ready to deal with the "togetherness" of that finished work's reality.

Don't preach the gospel until you are willing to walk it out in in very real and sacrificial ways. Your opinion can be your version of the perfect world, and there are no real relationships in a perfect world. The gospel itself has no context outside relationships. God wanted relationship with us, and went to the ultimate length to make it possible. We, in turn, do the same in each and every significant relationship we have.

People can be so inappropriate. I could very well be the princess of inappropriate. No matter. The worst inappropriate-ness there is, is to imagine yourself to be superior.

At the most basic level, a Christian is to be an imitator of God, and thus we most certainly can give something akin to divine grace to others. We can be a conduit of a small amount of undeserved blessing, if you will. I call it "manifesting the faithful love of Christ to the ones we care about." Nothing in this world will mature you and perfect you like living the gospel out in relationship will do in you.

"The Kingdom offends our sense of propriety because it's filled with inappropriate people. But, that's its greatest Gospel glory." ~Thomas Chalmers~

The Adventure of Orienteering

Imagine you are plunked down into the middle of a forest wilderness, and given two choices as to how you will navigate it: you could be given a map and a compass....plus a row of little red flags to follow, each one marking your every step. Or you can be given a compass, and a map with a few significant points marked on it...and that is all. Which would you choose?

Most choose the map and compass and little red flags. And so it is with our relationship to God. What was intended to be the adventure of a lifetime, gets turned into boring, relentless do's and don't's dotting mile after mile a path that we are sure leads us to our destination, but takes no thought, no relationship, no real risk. But we follow those little red flags faithfully, consulting the map and compass without understanding either of them - all while keeping our eyes peeled for the next red flag. We feel so smug about our progress, mistaking our lack of imagination to be personal discipline.

Give me the way of the orienteer, any day. Give me the compass of grace, and the map of the gospel, plus nothing. This is the journey of a lifetime, this one life I have been given! I don't want to be looking for the next red flag, I want to be truly engaging the map and compass...

...and I want to need the others who travel with me.

The way of the red flag requires no effort towards true community. In fact, those little markers encourage dis-unity. If someone offends you, if anyone dare disregard one of the red flags, particularly one you deem important, or should anyone leave the way of the red flags and ask you to continue with them, using only your map and compass - regardless of how much you love them, it is an easy decision, requiring only a few weeks or months to make. You simply part company with them. After all, you have those red flags - who actually needs relationships? You can make this journey on your own if you have to.

All red flaggers are in the powerful position of being able to patronize each other, relying on one another's strength and giftedness only when it suits them, and avoiding the discomfort of setting aside their personal peace and preference. Those who journey with naught but compass and map realize their need for each other, and find themselves setting the individualism of ideals aside in favor of the real, hard-won wisdom that is found in a multitude of counselors, particularly those who have been in this part of the wilderness before and found their way out without the red flags.

There is safety in numbers. Safety is of paramount importance when there is actual adventure, versus simulated adventure.

For the orienteer, it isn't enough to follow the red flags. The orienteer wants to "orient" his whole being towards the destination. He will re-work and re-direct over and over again if necessary. He will get lost along the way, yet he is the truly disciplined one. And he discovers at adventure's end that his entire self - mind, heart, will, body and strength - has been integrated into a healthy whole. The way of the grace-compass and gospel-map absorbed him fully and challenged him relentlessly and changed him completely.

So as various believers come up out of the wilderness, how do you know who is who? How can you tell the red-flaggers from the orienteers?

The orienteers are dirtier. Messier. The red-flaggers are merely a bit bedraggled.

The red flaggers emerge either alone or quarrelling or walking in large-but-tolerably- compatible groupings.

The orienteers emerge together...triumphant, smiling...each one leaning on the arm of another.