Dry Bones

Here I am again... I am trying to get over my writer's block. For a long time I just felt like I didn't have anything to say. Nothing even sparking in my head waiting to be ignited into words. But it's been coming back little by little. This week I have been reading in Ezekeil 37 about dry bones. I love that passage. Israel says to the Lord " Our bones are dried up, our hope is lost and we are indeed cut off." They have three complints and the Lord replies with three sets of three answers. I just love the extravagance of God. Israel: Three issues. The Lord: Three times three responses. He says, " I will open your graves, raise you from your graves and bring you into the land of Israel. Then He says, "I will put my Spirit in you, you shall live and I will place you in your own land" And finally He declares,"You will know that I am the Lord, I have spoken and I will do it."

So even when I feel a little dry or a little lifeless or a little bit out of touch or cut off or all of them at once God has a response.

And as I look deeper into what God says here I see three things He promises to do for us.

First: He changes where we are: he digs us up, takes us out of the dirt and puts us in a new location.

Second: He changes who we are. Now we have His life, His breathe, His spirit with in us

Third: He changes what we know: We will know that He is Lord, that He speaks and that He acts on behalf of his people.

H

Imagination

I am thankful for my imagination. I am convinced that God gave us our imaginations to help us know Him.  I  think about how Paul said that God was able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think( Eph. 3:20).  We can't know God with just our thoughts, He is greater than the sum of them.  How can I fathom a Being that is so different from me? I use my imagination, knowing that He is over and above my day dreaming.  Yet they help me to draw close to Him.  So open your hearts, your dreams and your imagination and join me on my flight of fanciful fiction. 

prologue for 2010

Christmas is coming , and my desire to try and write an advent devotional that fills my needs and desires has awoken.  The dark mornings and the coming holiday fill me with a longing to persue, to understand, to experience what Christmas really is. And for me that is the Christmas Story..the whole story.  Long ago I read Two From Galilee  by Marjorie Holmes( a book I highly recommend) and the story became alive for me. Mary and Joseph were really human beings just like me and they had no idea what was really going on.  I want to try and explore their experience from my perspective, in a highly imaginative way.  Perhaps it will help you to connect to the story and the season .

Thankfulness

Today I write in tribute to my Mom who died right after Thanksgiving 4 years ago.  I can't believe its been that many years but it has.  In these last few years, I have come to know her and understand her much better. Now that she is gone, and not exasperating me, I can see all the ways that I am like her and I am more thankful than I ever was for all the good things she sowed into my life.

This year we will have Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings at my house. Nine people coming and my girls and I are cooking it, all of it, home made, from scratch(except the turkey, which my husband has masterfully prepared for years. Thanks babe!).Why do we do this?  In part, because my Mom did and that's how you do it. She cooked  allot, without complaining.  I think she must have enjoyed it, because I do and so do most of my kids. And I see this as a gift from my mother.

Another thing that my Mother gave me was the seeds of thankfulness. I say seeds, because she planted something deep and profound, that keeps growing inside of me and changing me. When we were little, my parents taught us to pray before bed. They didn't teach us a prayer to pray, they taught us to pray, by giving thanks.  Ever night we said Thank You God prayers, things from the day and our life that we  were thankful for. We came up with them, we said them out loud together.

A number of years ago I realized that every time I went to pray I began with some kind of thanksgiving. It was completely ingrained in me that prayer and thanksgiving were connected. Giving thanks was rooted deep into my being. I am certain that this habit comes from being taught to give thanks ever night.

So I began to speak about being thankful with my own children, who were mostly teenagers at the time.  I called it cultivating thankfulness. I told them that one of my life's rules or goals was to cultivate thankfulness. 

I don't begin to think that I have accomplished this. I have been challenged recently by  ways that many others are developing thankful hearts.  But I am deeply grateful to my Mom for the seeds she planted and the fruit its borne in my life.

pondering Christmas...

I stopped by Chrismas Change this morning... and it got me to thinking. We Christians are always looking for better ways to celebrate Christmas.   Ways to be intentional about it.  Ways to try and deepen or broaden  our experience of it. We want a way to "do Christmas"that won't leave us empty  after all the presents have been opened, the celebrations and gatherings have occurred and the anticipation is over. 

But I wonder if we can experience a perfect Advent and Christmas celebration, this side of heaven. Because as i see it, God gave us his very best, gift, His one and only Son. And when that miracle occurred in history, most of the world scratched their heads, looked at the baby and thought," Is this it?" What I mean is, we don't get it. We think we know what God did, but we really only know in part and see in part. We don't understand what really happened when Jesus stepped out of eternity and into earth's history.

 The God head planned the very first Christmas, every last detail was intentional, meaningful, purposeful and who could plan or prepare better than they?  But think about it:

Mary was told she was chosen to be the mother of the Messiah and then life got really messy.  She got pregnant out of wedlock, almost lost her husband to be and had her baby all by herself far away from her family. And then ran away from Roman soldiers trying to kill that baby.

Joseph didn't get his wedding celebration, but an already pregnant wife and an unexpected trip to Bethlehem and then Egypt.

The wise men looked for a royal baby prince and instead found a pauper child in a barn.

Who really celebrated the birth of Jesus with a yes! this is it! Perhaps Anna and Simeon.But most of the world experienced a let down.

So I think that He gave us that as part of it--the let-down I mean.  To whet our appetite, to remind us that one day, when we are all together, we will celebrate and there will be no regrets, no"is that all there is?"

Does this mean I am going to quit looking for ways to add joy to Christmas time. No Way! Never! Nor do I think that He wants us to stop trying to expand our understanding and celebration. He gives us those longings and deeply enjoys all the ways we go about pursuing Him. But this year, when I get those Post Christmas blahs or blues, I will stop and say Thank you because I now know that the let down is a gift as well--a hunger pang for heaven's perfect party.

 

Giving and receiving

My receiver is broken.  Oh,I don't mean the one made of wires and plastic.  I mean the one inside of me. I have discovered( more like God revealed) that I have a really hard time graciously and truly receiving gifts. Oh, I can be thankful for things. I can write a thank you note for just about anything--even if I have already thrown the darn thing away. But that is nowhere close to receiving  the gift.

One who really and truly receives allows the giver the pleasure-- the joy of giving. If I don't receive things really and truly; if I don't let them into my being then I am denying  my gift giver this blessing.( Am I really hoarding this  to myself? )

The other thing I had my eyes opened to ..this  failure...it's a matter of pride. Ah pride...My most common nemesis.  And here,  the Lord lovingly shows me  this in very clear terms. Not receiving gifts into my heart, into my life, means I think that I am too good for the gift, telling the giver that its a shabby worthless gift and shuts them out.... Perhaps even to rejecting the Son of God, for scripture says,"He came to his own, and His own did not receive Him.  But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God." John 1:11&12

I don't want to be like that. So I have some learning to do. When God shows me something it means that He is planning to work on it.  Yesterday I didn't know that I had a broken receiver, but today I do and that changes things already. 

Morning Conversation

Yesterday was a rough day. Relationships can be fragile sometimes and amazingly strong at others. I saw both yesterday. Today I sat in a quiet moment, listening, hoping to hear His voice, wondering a bit anxiously what He might say to me in the after math. Here is our conversation.

Rain down Holy Spirit
Wash away guilt and shame
Rain down Holy Spirit
Remove tendancy to blame

Speak truth in love
and do not fail
Listen and learn
Life will prevail

Drink deeply now of
my new wine....
of life, of hope.
of love divine.
Be filled with the Spirit
And laugh and sing
Be filled with the Spirit
His praises now bring
Be filled with the Spirit
You serve a good King.

*A disclaimer: God is infinitely more creative than my feeble attempts to put things into words. I view these offerings as little ditties-- things that spring up in me and hopefully will prime the pump of my creative expression.... Just a different form of my random thoughts..