Without Wheels

On Easter Sunday, in the quiet hours following the fun and frenzied egg hunt, my grandson and I move bicycles up the hill from the lower driveway near the garage. He is intending to ride. One training wheel on his younger sister's older bike is coming loose from the frame, its precarious angle not supporting an upright posture, the bike tipping easily and dangerously to one side. He abandons it, choosing another bicycle instead.

Thirty-six hours later, I am dropping off my car at the repair shop. A friend who lives in my neighborhood is waiting in her van to give me a ride home. I write my contact information and my car-complaint on an envelope, dropping my keys into the dropbox.

I am now without wheels.

Arriving home, I write “No car!” on a yellow sticky note and adhere it to the coffee pot.

I promised to be to work at the real estate office by 10am. The reminder will keep me from the mishap of walking out the door with no time to spare and discovering my car is not in the parking lot, giving in to panic, perhaps even reporting it stolen ... or at the very least frantically searching for it in the vastness of my apartment complex. But, let's not go there.

I wrote the note.

The distance, 2.7 miles, will take an hour to walk.

The friend who gave me a lift last night is willing to take me to work this morning. Others, too, are willing to help.

I walk.

When I arrive at the office, the broker offers to give me a ride back to the repair shop at the close of the day. At 5:25pm I hop out of her car, wallet in hand, wave good-bye and walk into the building. As the woman behind the counter hands me my keys, she smiles and says, No charge. I am astonished and grateful. I struggle to wrap my heart and my head around this unexpected and generous gift.

Since January 24 -- 89 days ago -- God has pulled me from the depths of despair.

On this day -- day 1047 of my widowhood -- a new path stretches out before me. Am I am ready to take off the training wheels and ride?

sacred space

sacred space

     a place of comfort

            the quiet back hall stairway 

        where a friend and i sat together

                  unready to reenter the world

     we had witnessed death and resurrection

               exhausted and fragile 

                         we sat in our humbled humanity

                                            each heartbeat thankful for grace

                                                      and our loving, redemptive, healing God

                               we held onto precious gifts 

                                                     friendship, faith and time

                                                           the provision, food for our souls

                                                                 sacred space

daily bread

The clock reads 6:00 a.m. The promise of a bright orange sky greets me as I let Harley out the front door. I feel peaceful this morning, the kind of peaceful that has been missing for awhile.

I put on the coffee and scoop dog food into Harley's bowl. I think about making toast. I think about bread, and the food pantry, and how often guests are disappointed that there aren't more sweets – cakes and cookies. At first glance it seems silly, then yes, I understand. I too crave the fleeting euphoria of sugar-infused sweets.

I am thankful. I am thankful for tangible gifts and people with generous hearts.

I am thankful for Jeff, the Brownberry rep, who drops off hundreds of loaves of beautiful bread each week.

I am thankful for sweets. I am thankful that my self-soothing addictions are caffeine and chocolate, sugar and salt – that I grew and outgrew my more deadly addictions: alcohol and promiscuity.

In the peace of this beautiful morning I feel the long arch of the universe, God's infinite plan for my life – for every life.

Rjw

shadowed clouds

A sense of rebirth surrounds me. i find myself squinting into the too-bright light of life outside the womb i recently experienced at ICAPglobal.

A photo taken on the evening of May 15 marks my arrival in Green Lake and captures the sense of hope in descending darkness.

Something about the shadowed clouds coming to meet the hilltop brings to mind Genesis ...

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. – Genesis 1:1-5 NIV

This morning there are tears as i am blessed by shared photos of my traveling companions, my co-conspirators in Christ. i am reminded how we stood together on the first morning of The Story workshop, hesitant and bold, knowing we'd encounter death, confident in the still small voice that promises resurrection.

God weaves our lives together in the telling of our stories, tears pledging witness to deep pain, spoken words dancing with silence, smoldering embers of encouragement lighting fires of compassion in our hearts and in our eyes.

You call me out upon the waters
The great unknown where feet may fail
And there I find You in the mystery
In oceans deep
My faith will stand

And I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise
My soul will rest in Your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine

Your grace abounds in deepest waters
Your sovereign hand
Will be my guide
Where feet may fail and fear surrounds me
You've never failed and You won't start now

So I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise
My soul will rest in Your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine

Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Savior

I will call upon Your name
Keep my eyes above the waves
My soul will rest in Your embrace
I am Yours and You are mine

Rw

your book, her story

"It's your book!" Joanna does not like the suggestion that her name appear on the cover as co-author.

"But, it's our story." I think it is a great idea ... —John Sumbo, An Honest Look At A Mysterious Journey

The opening pages embraced me like a well-worn upholstered chair at the cabin of a friend, a familiar place and time, an unexpected starting point for a mysterious journey.

Is it my own junk? Or something in simply being human that makes me want to avoid stories like this one, the crushing medical issues, the helplessness of the hospital bed, the difficult road of convalescence? And in writing that question, I find that the direction I was taking this post has turned.

There is an urge to quit typing.

Tell her to bake a cheesecake. js

This is the best part, my favorite page, the opening of the chapter STUNNED ... a mirror in my heart to the story of Moses, a man who asks God to choose someone else.

God asks us to trust. We struggle.

When God is clearly calling us to take a step of faith, to act

in some way, I don't think He's too excited when

we sit around and talk about it some more ... 

even if we're talking to Him. js

In my borrowed copy of the book, the author has written a message to my friends Melinda and Larry, and beneath it, tucked into the lower right hand corner, a notation: Ps 23

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. 

He makes me lie down in green pastures, 

he leads me beside quiet waters,
he restores my soul. 

He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake. 

Even though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death, 

I will fear no evil, for you are with me; 

your rod and your staff, they comfort me. 

You prepare a table before me in the presence
of my enemies. 

You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows. 

Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life, 

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.

Rw

Captivated by the story Perfect Fit
The bedside wife Artifact

Go into the Place of Your Pain

No thanks.

I can't.

I don't want to.

It is a waste of time.

My father wouldn't approve of this waste of time - an excellent excuse not to make this journey, this Wounded Heart journey, don't you think?

As I prepare for Week 4, our dining room table is again a complete mess.

Yesterday, I sat in a rocking chair not to far from this table and cried as I read The Inner Voice of Love by Henri Nouwen. A friend is reading it too. She and her husband brought me the book this week, left it on our front porch with Cheetos and Oreos and dark chocolate, my comfort foods. She is in my prayer group, one of the women picking up the pieces of me, assuring me that God - our Father - would approve of this journey.

The thing that is killing me is that there is no pattern of classically defined abuse, physical or sexual, no incest or satanic rituals. And yet I am crying.

I am crying because there are isolated incidents, like the Little Red Riding Hood joke told to me by my high school teacher, exposure to the provocative images of women in Play Boy magazine at age 12, an ongoing battle with my father over my hair in sixth grade when my confidence is already badly shaken by middle-school boys who define beauty as NOT ME - a time when life is so very awkward anyway, without being a girl taller than everyone around her, a girl who wants to shrink and slouch, who is expected to play basketball because she is tall and finds she is completely uncoordinated too, suffering the shame of going up for a jump shot in her first game and coming back down with the ball still in her hands.

I am crying because I am so blessed. I am blessed by plastic bubbles of Grace that seem to surround me each step of the way, a pattern of God protecting me when I am unable to protect myself.

On page 26 of The Inner Voice of Love, Henri Nouwen writes:

Go into the Place of Your Pain ... the experience of not receiving 

what you most need ... a place of emptiness where you feel sharply 

the absence of the love you most desire. To go back to that place 
is hard, because you are confronted there with your wounds 
as well as your powerlessness to heal yourself.

I devoured Nouwen's words in one bite, one sitting, in spite of his strong suggestion in the Preface to take it slowly, a page or two a day, over time.
I returned the book to my friend, dropped it off at her house, picked up a hug from her husband, my friend - the man who drove her get away car the day she left the gift bag on my front porch, a man who knows my story.

We are powerless to heal ourselves. I am powerless to heal myself.

God knows this. Papa is there, has been there, every step of the way.

Jesus looked directly at them and asked,  
“Then what is the meaning of that which is written:

“‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’?

Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; 
anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.” 

—Luke 20:17-18 NIV

I am broken to pieces, crushed. And within this journey, within this Wounded Heart journey, my Father is reaching out to embrace me.

You have to begin to trust that your experience of emptiness 

is not the final experience, that beyond it is a place 

where you are being held in love.  

—Henri Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love more

Rw
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Healing in Faith

Our enemy is dishonest and tenacious, picking on children, hiding in the shadows, speaking simple repetitive lies into our pain.

Our God is Truth and Light, the Creator who loves us and knows our hearts,
our deepest fears, our unspeakable wounds, our greatest joys. God celebrates, knowing the plans laid out for us, plans for good - not disaster - gifts in hope
and a beautiful future. Jeremiah 29:11 NLT

In Wounded Heart as we examine our childhood pain and satan's lies we discover Light in the darkness, Plans for Good and not disaster.

We return to the feet of Jesus and we are more than healed.
We are healed and made well.
We are saved.

It happened that as he made his way toward Jerusalem, 

he crossed over the border between Samaria and Galilee. 

As he entered a village, ten men, all lepers, met him. 

They kept their distance but raised their voices, 

calling out, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!"

Taking a good look at them, he said, 

"Go, show yourselves to the priests."

They went, and while still on their way, became clean. 

One of them, when he realized that he was healed, 

turned around and came back, shouting his gratitude, glorifying God. 

He kneeled at Jesus' feet, so grateful. 

He couldn't thank him enough

—and he was a Samaritan.

Jesus said, "Were not ten healed? Where are the nine? 

Can none be found to come back and give glory to God except this outsider?" 

Then he said to him, "Get up. On your way. 

Your faith has healed and saved you."

—Luke 17:11-19 MSG

I lift up the women and men tentatively and courageously exploring Wounded Heart, pushing past the inaccurate and often debilitating label of "abuse victim" and walking into God's Light!

Rw
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He causes his sun to rise

But I tell you, love your enemies 
and pray for those who persecute you, 
that you may be children of your Father in heaven. 
He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and
sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.  
—Matthew 5:44-45 NIV

As I read the words, He causes his sun to rise, the image that greets me is from "City of Angels" — the angels standing on the beach listening to the music embedded in the beautiful sky, the light. more

And so it begins ... the choice to love, the choice to love those who nourish us and to love those associated with our pain, the humanity that knowingly or unwittingly left wounding marks on our souls.

Wounded Heart ~ session 1
I am moved to tears at these words:
Not being cherished by and celebrated by ... simply because you exist.
Not having the experience of being a delight.

Asked to select an object from the plastic box of random objects, I choose a familiar toy from my childhood, a remnant of a game I did not often play. The metal speaks to the pervasive feeling within me for most of this past year: that I am unfit for human consumption, pointed and cold, with thoughts and words like barbs.

Holding my selected object I realize there are 6 points, that only 2 are sharp, the remaining 4 softly rounded.

I hope my object selected is a measure of the work God has already accomplished within me, an indication that God and I are well beyond the halfway point in my healing journey.

I have not been given a spirit of fear, 
but of power, love and a sound mind. 
—Who I am in Christ, 2 Timothy 1:7

Rw
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Photo Credit: Jacks

3 Boxes of Joy

[Jesus] looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. —Mark 3:5 NIV

As I make my way through the New Testament, I continue to be amazed. Yes.
I am new at this. Perhaps I am easily amazed? Perhaps, when I've been truly studying for a significant length of time, the amazement will cease and I will find more 'serious' messages. Today, though, I am joyously amazed.

Closing my eyes and returning to the church of my youth, I remember offering baskets lined with softly faded green velvet on long poles held by the ushers, men dressed in fashionable leisure suits. Our hands never touching - our eyes never meeting - as we placed our offerings in the baskets, cash and checks hidden within neat preprinted and numbered envelopes, from the boxes of envelopes provided each year to adults and to children. A tidy organized system. A familiar and effective routine.

Fast forward to the decade I was without a church, the Sunday I found myself visiting a community called Valleybrook. As baskets were passed hand-to-hand through the congregation, the pastor welcomed guests and encouraged us to simply be guests, gave us permission to abstain from giving. It was unexpected, odd enough to make me rethink giving and the collection of offerings. Suddenly,
I saw things differently, witnessed a leader's faith that provision will come; discovered the abundant God, our God who is able, in the eyes of the person passing a basket to me. NASB

In 2007, at the end of my years without a place to worship - my decade of solitary confinement, my personal and self-inflicted exile - God deposits me at Fellowship. When I first arrive, I am perplexed.
Where are the velvet-lined baskets on poles? Earthy cane baskets passed hand-to-hand?

The 'bulletin' in my hand expresses appreciation for giving, "Offerings are not collected, but placed in the Joy Box! as we enter and leave worship." Just as Jesus healed the man with the shriveled arm, Christ opens my gnarled heart like an outstretched hand. Mark 3

God loves it when the giver delights in the giving. MSG

Fellowship is a place where delight is embraced.

A few weeks ago, our pastor at Fellowship re-christened it Hilarious Giving.

ἱλαρός
hilaros
blueletterbible.org

Tomorrow we're adding a third box, not at worship but at the place where Man Club and Freestyle and Prayer-n-Coffee Ladies gather, where married couples meet with engaged couples preparing for marriage, where we all are welcome to share meals and sorrows and dreams and prayers, in the place where Fellowship really happens.

As my precious friend and son-of-my-heart Patrick Writz once said in our Sunday afternoon small group, "If you're only at Fellowship on Sunday mornings, you're missing the best part."

Amen!

Rw
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Christmas Countdown Day 9

When Jesus saw him stretched out by the
pool and knew how long he had been there,
he said, "Do you want to get well?"
John 5:6

Good question. Do I want to get well?

I am a person who sometimes hangs on
and on and on and on. And, I am learning
to let go. By no means did this change
come naturally. Healing change within me
is a Divine Intervention.

I am a work in progress.



10 ... 9 ...

The final countdown to Christmas is upon us and there seems to be a compulsion, a greedy need to clutch tightly the traditions
of Christmases PAST, to demand a son and his wife abandon her family - or a daughter and her husband desert his - to put US first, celebrate Christmas like we ALWAYS did.

I am tired of the drama, the competition for affection, the way it pulls apart newly married couples, strangles budding relationships, pits our families against one another.

This Christmas, will we stop demanding a holiday as it ALWAYS was, bemoaning the absence of those we coerce and manipulate with our neediness? Will we choose instead to encourage those around us in every thought and word, celebrate this Miraculous Birth Day with love, hope and faith in Christ?

Will we will hear and respond to Jesus' question:

Do you want to get well?

Jesus replied, "Moses gave you this law because you are so heartless. But in the beginning God made a man and a woman. That's why a man leaves his father and mother and gets married.
He becomes like one person with his wife. Then they are no longer two people, but one. And no one should separate a couple that God has joined together." Mark 10

Rw
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A Spacious Place

On Sundays a few friends come together before worship to study the stories within the Bible. After our session on David, I write:

"Thinking about ... the idea that God is closest to us in times
of promiscuity and brokenness... the most intense moment of parenting is not my pride in the honor student marching steadily toward graduation, but in a wordless embrace given the young woman experiencing firsthand a crushing failure..." —Rw

As I reread the words, there is potential for confusion. I am not remembering my children, but looking back on my own life from a parental perspective, intimately experiencing the heartbreaking realization that God is Father... Mother... Parent to me.

"He reached down from on high and took hold of me;
[the LORD] drew me out of deep waters.
He rescued me from my powerful enemy,
from my foes, who were too strong for me.
They confronted me in the day of my disaster,
but the LORD was my support.
He brought me out into a spacious place;
he rescued me because he delighted in me."
2 Samuel 22

A youngest boy, the runt of the family, tends the sheep. A boy, embraced by God, becomes a king. The Story is resplendent with unlikely heroes like David.

Wallowing in brokenness, wantonly seeking to displease, my inner rebel raged at God for decades. The rebel within me was and is given the freedom to journey and discover and question.

In exploring my story and The Story, I discover Jehovah-rapha, The Lord Who Heals. In the white-hot pain inflicted by my own rebelliousness and crushing failures, God forged an iron trellis within an unlikely heroine, a place where compassion now grows.

God's love is a spacious place. God rescues and delights.

Jehovah-rapha delights in me.

Jehovah-rapha delights in you.

Rw


The Story is all about ... God’s great love affair with humanity.
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The Disk Cleanup Utility: Grace

A new month prompts a morning routine. Sitting down at my computer, I examine the icons on the desktop, move some into categorical files and others to the trash. With the desktop nearly bare, I access the system tools. Run file cleanup, registry cleanup, defragment. I restart my computer and write a new restore point, record it on my calendar, just in case.

A new month prompts the intentional cleanup of things unwanted.

"The Disk Cleanup utility is cleaning up
unnecessary files on your machine."


I could benefit from a cleanup utility that gracefully removes unnecessary files from the desktop of my spiritual life.

Becoming the woman my Creator intended is about examining the woman in the mirror, honestly revisiting my past, asking for forgiveness, then accepting God's grace.

So very often, I take the first three steps, then skip essential fourth one. I hold onto satan's whispers of diminished worthiness and impaired morality, punishing myself, refusing to let God make me whole...

This is not what God intended.
Integrity

Mistakes and unhealthy choices, cruel words, apathy and disbelief, regret. Though I seek God's forgiveness, I get bogged down in my own arrogance, insisting that files of past mistakes be saved, and saved, and saved, until my spiritual desktop is clogged with chaos, the inner computer of my heart too fragmented function.

God offers a cleanup utility:

Grace

There is one thing more I need to do:

forget what is behind me

I have not yet received all of those things.
I have not yet been made perfect.
But I move on to take hold of what Christ Jesus took hold of me for.
Brothers and sisters, I don't consider that I have taken hold of it yet.
But here is the one thing I do. I forget what is behind me.
I push hard toward what is ahead of me.
I move on toward the goal to win the prize.
God has appointed me to win it.
The heavenly prize is Christ Jesus himself.
Philippians 3:12-14 NIRV

Like the apostle Paul, God is expecting me to move forward too.

Rw
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photo credit: cleanup icon

Tired and Congested

Yesterday, I visited a church outside my home community, with a new friend in another city who is seeking a way to connect. Many things about this church were comforting and familiar; the few that were different left me longing for my home community.

Back at home, as I walked through the front door (a few minutes after kick-off Packers-Rams game) I could smell onions and recently cooked food. In my absence my husband had warmed up some nachos for lunch. Then, early this morning, as I gave our bathroom a quick once over, I could smell the cleaning products, and it dawned on me that I have not smelled anything since August when I came down with a summer cold that left me tired and congested weeks later.

I thought about the year I had polyps removed from my sinuses, remembered my post-surgery appointment. After extracting 12 feet of gauze from my nose - or was it 12 feet from each nostril - the doctor asked, "Can you smell anything?"

Apparently, there was a risk I could lose my sense of smell. I was more than a little angry at the doctor for taking that risk without informing me. He explained that patients actually report losing their sense of smell MORE often when they are told ahead of time about the risk. My odds were better if I didn't know.

This morning, my sense of smell is back, and its return leaves me wondering what else I am missing, things I am not experiencing because my body or my mind - or my heart - accepted a risk as a truth.

In my fragile humanity, I am prone to taking a temporary setback and letting my fear transform it into a lifelong disfigurement.

God keeps me from tripping over my own two feet.  Psalm 25:14-15

Rw

Q-tips

I don't know what day I read the Seth's Blog, the one prompting me to send out for the Q-tips that arrived in my mailbox on Thursday.

The blog is dated Oct 7. The package arrived Oct 13.

I opened it this morning.

As I read through the information that came with the Q-tips, I am aware that I am afraid of needles and more than uncomfortable with hospitals. Especially as a patient.

And a donor of bone marrow, if matched, would be asked to be a patient. I waffle. I stall. I think about returning the unopened package, then open it anyway. I flip through the booklet. Page 12. A picture of a boy and his dad. The caption reads: "Just to see Luke out running and playing and doing things children should be doing is awe-inspiring ... You can be the miracle somebody needs."

I remember a friend who died from leukemia when we were in high school. I didn't think about his parents at the time, but today I contemplate the depth of their heartbreak.

I read the simple directions, use the Q-tips to swab the insides of my cheeks, seal the postage-paid envelope, and walk to the post office. My Q-tips begin the journey back Oct 15.

And to be truthful, I am afraid. I don't want to be a patient. The idea of medical personnel drawing marrow from my hips makes me queasy. Even the nonsurgical PBSC donation - much like giving plasma - isn't something I want to do. Needles. Did I mention that I am afraid of needles?

I'm going to carry the booklet with me for awhile. Keep it open to page 12. Ask God to prepare me
for the next step. The waiting. 

Like jury duty, I may never be called.

I'm going to ask others to help. Will you to answer the registry questions, order your own Q-tips?

The site asks for a donation. And to be honest, I didn't donate.
I am assuaging my guilt with positive thought, mentally giving Seth the opportunity to pick up the tab. He's the one that started all this.

Seth's Blog: Eliminating the impulse to stall

Oh, if your still waffling, Seth's offering a profile on his blog and $10,000. He writes: "Here's the deal: if you are a match for Amit and the marrow donation happens, I'll profile you or the project of your choice on the blog and send you a check for $10,000 for you or the charity of your choice... You win the prize if you're the first certified match, but donating is completely up to you."

I glance down at my booklet. Across from the picture of a boy and his dad, on page 13 the text reads: "The marrow completely replaces itself in 4 to 6 weeks" and "You will get more information every step of the way."

And God said, “I will be with you..."

Exodus 3:12 NIV

I want to believe that if faced with a crisis, circumstances or opportunity, to push someone out of harm's way, to get hit by the bus for her or take the bullet, I wouldn't hesitate - that I would step forward in Faith.

Jesus said, "Go and do the same." 

Luke 10:37 MSG

The Q-tips offer an opportunity to push someone out of harm's way without risking the bullet.

Why did I hesitate?

Rw
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Of Course

This morning, I feel human again. The summer cold that began 12 days ago seems to be winding down, and I am out walking with my dog Dozer.

We've been around the block a thousand times in the years he's lived here, but this morning, as he stops at his favorite Hosta, I misstep and the rain-soften ground gives way beneath my left foot. Twisting my left ankle, I begin to fall. My right knee scrapes against the asphalt alley and I let go of the leash. I close my eyes and grimace as I slide headlong into the grass, like a discarded beanbag chair.

When I open my eyes, Dozer is standing next to me – a new and welcome behavior from a dog who lives to run away. I retrieve my end of the leash and push myself into a sitting position. I check the road rash on my right knee. I stand and test my left ankle. Definitely a sprain, but not too painful.

Dozer and I walk slowly home.

I get an ice pack, limp up the stairs to my office, settle into an upholstered chair with left foot elevated, and open my devotional. "... be still and know that I am God."

I laugh. Of course. A need for stillness. My summer theme.

Stillness.

Green pastures. Quiet waters.

Mary, not Martha.

I shake my head and embrace the idea that I am a work in progress, a truant student, the recipient of innumerable second chances from a Teacher with infinite patience.

Rw


Psalm 46:10
Psalm 23:1-3
Luke 10:39-42

Sandpaper

I long to escape the carnival house of mirrors in which I often immerse myself, an unpredictable and often unflattering series of distorted self-images. I call a friend a coward, only to realize within a few hours that I was the one most cowardice. I fault someone for using “Christian-speak” then hear myself using a similar phrase just a few weeks later.

In the margin on a page in a book a few of us are reading, I scribble “When words or people grate on us like sandpaper, is it something the enemy doesn’t want us to hear? A healing word for us? Or a brokenness in another person, a lock for which we hold a healing key?”

The book pushes aside the classic labels of promiscuity and purity, focusing our hearts and minds on integrity.

Expectations. Impact. Outcomes. I can’t predict the expectations others bring – for the book or for me, the person who suggested this book club. I can’t predict the impact of multiple women reading this book and spending time together discussing the ideas contained. Often it is difficult to ascertain who will show up week to week to discuss a chapter, so long-term predictability readily eludes me.

I can’t predict. I need to trust.

I need to trust that the women who come, the words we read, and the discussions that follow will touch us – that for each of us there will be a healing word or the discovery of a healing key for a brokenness locked inside another.

As we journey together toward integrity the distorted images will be shattered, the glass shards combined with sand and heat, the essential elements blown into beautiful artisan glass.

Rw

Overcoming Uncertainty by Sean Ogle

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles. – Ralph Waldo Emerson  Write down a major life goal you have yet to achieve or even begin to take action on. For each goal, write down three uncertainties (read: fears) you have relating to each goal. Break it down further, and write down three reasons for each uncertainty. When you have three reasons for your fear, you’ll be able to start processing the change because you know where the fear stems from. Now you’ll be able to make a smaller changes that push you towards your larger goal. So begins the process of “trusting yourself.” SO

A Heart Not Big Enough

Just a few weeks ago, I embraced the opportunity to attend the International Christian Conference on Prostitution and Human Trafficking in Green Lake, Wisconsin. For me Green Lake is a tiny glimpse of Eden – a place where generations of believers gather, a place where faith runs deep, a place where God is tangible.

As I drove through the front gate I found myself exhaling a huge breath and snuggling into the grace-filled arms of God.

Monday morning, after breakfast, 250 people from around the world come together to worship and pray. The room grows quiet.

A sassy red-head – a woman of frailty and strength – needs to speak to us. A delicate skirt of pale blue and white flows around her legs as she walks up the stairs and onto the stage. She is the mother of many, and the children on her heart this morning are in an orphanage in the Darfur region of Sudan. Her delicate hands are clasped in anguish.

Our children have watched wide-eyed and anxiously through our chain-linked security fence as thousands of southern soldiers have trekked past… the thing weighing most heavily upon [the orphanage director] are the contortions of fear etched across our children’s faces. The thunder of dropping bombs, the rhythmic stomp of troops marching by, and the mechanical roll of heavy artillery kicks up the violent winds of war, sweeping through their little minds and excavating all too recent memories of those they saw raped, tortured, and murdered in the last storm of human greed. *

In Darfur, the director watches and waits. The 550 children entrusted to his care wait with him. A decision lies ahead – to stay with the orphanage and risk capture, or to abandon the compound fleeing with the children into the bush where the loss of life will grow each day.

In the anguish of not knowing, the woman leads us in prayer. We pray protection for the children and wisdom for the director, the man entrusted with the decision to stay or flee.

Genesis 1
God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—

On Tuesday there is no word. My heart is not big enough to bear the pain. Beside me each day are women telling their stories of death – not a dying of the body, but a massacre of the soul. We share tragedy and hope. What brings us together is a passion for ending prostitution and human trafficking. What we find is a celebration of human dignity and life in communion with God.

And there was evening, and there was morning—

On Wednesday a young man takes the stage. “Many of you have been asking about Darfur and the children. Communication is difficult, but [the director] got through by phone.”

How beautiful to hear a rumble of laughter out of [the director] this morning! In the backdrop of our phone call, instead of bombs, I heard our children singing. “The children are praising God for the worst rains we have ever had! The rains have come so hard for so many hours that the killing machines are all trapped in the mud.” *

Rain. This morning we praise God for simple rain. The children within the orphanage, a roof over their heads are dry and safe, and they are singing.

And there was evening, and there was morning—

Today – this morning – are the children singing? In the anguish of not knowing I pray.

My heart is not big enough to grieve the loss I find in the tangled insanity of evil. Compared to the battle waging in Darfur our work here in the midwest often feels unimportant, but in Green Lake, surrounded by a sea of people with hearts on fire, I rediscover truth.

No atrocity is too large, no story of redemption too small, for our God.

Each of us – each of you – is invited to be part of God’s plan to bring heaven to earth.

Matthew 10:16
“I am sending you out like sheep among the wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.”

We ask God for healing, and in the asking we find the power to heal ourselves and heal others.

We reach out to take the hand of the person next to us, and we touch the compassion, clarity and courage God offers.

God calls the light “day,” and the darkness “night.” And there is evening, and there is morning—

What will you do with this day?



* excerpts from http://www.kimberlylsmith.com/