Am I welcome here?

Yesterday in church, Pastor Kevin related a story. A woman came to him asking questions about our church, she was confused. She had been visiting a few different churches in the area. On Easter, she had been one of the 967 people to walk “through the arch” and give her life to Christ. She wanted to get baptised but she had some questions. She related an experience she recently had at another church she was thinking of attending. She saw that they needed help in the Children’s ministry so she went to volunteer. She was told that she would have to change her attire, “If you come back in a skirt,” they said.

Kevin described her clothing as “urban.” In her own words she says: “I dress like I am from the hood.” That included a few tattoos and piercings. She asked, “Would I have to change my clothes to get baptized?”

Am I welcome here just the way I am?

She also asked that same church for help moving but once they found out she was living with her boyfriend they said, “As long as you are living with him, we can’t help you.”

The door slammed the second time and the message was clear; make yourself and your life presentable first, then we can help.

She was justified in having some concerns and questions and I am very happy to say that Pastor Kevin assured her that she was indeed welcome just the way she was. That’s why I attend the church I do. But clearly, it seems some churches are handing out a different message that the one Jesus handed out. What they are asking for, God doesn’t even ask. Jesus asks us to simply come.

His grace extends to everyone but without Him it is impossible to change.

There is no effective or lasting change without Jesus coming first. It is not even possible to be sanctified without the work of the Holy Spirit, but it seems some churches are asking for the impossible. In effect, they are saying that anyone is welcome, but only as long as they clean up at the door. Until churches change that type of thinking, lives will remain untouched, unchanged. We will still have dead congregations that are still thinking they can make themselves acceptable without Jesus.

God wants to reach everyone. It doesn’t matter what we have or what we don’t have, what our background is, or what may be buried in our past. I like how Pastor Kevin said it. Instead of thinking, “What’s in it for me, we need to be asking how can I be more like God in this situation?”

Not what can I get out of today, but how can I show His love today?

Linking up with Michelle today at the Hear it on Sunday Community.

The Woodpile

It was just a little place to store wood.

It looked harmless enough, and yet when I saw it things tumbled out of my heart that I didn’t know were there.

There was the promise of the first snap of fall and the times when the leaves start floating down,

back down to rejoin the earth.

There were long nights by the fire, and conversations by the glow of embers burning low.

It was celebrations toasted and ending and new beginnings.

And all in that little stack of wood.

I saw snow falling, heard rain pelt on the window and moaning winds and creaking branches scraping on windows.

Times when it’s so cold that only your nose is peaking out of the covers.

It is camping and sadness and times that will never come again. It was remembering the time my Dad and I stacked wood and what a good time working together we had.

And how long ago that was now.

It was prying a lid of emotions that I try to keep neat and stacked just like that wood.

Somehow that little woodpile makes me wonder just how much the human heart can hold without spilling over.

A Champion for Ragamuffins

He was a champion for Ragamuffins everywhere. When I heard he died yesterday I was saddened because of the words of grace he will no longer write, but I was happy knowing he was with Jesus. Brennan Manning’s book Ragamuffin Gospel went through my parents house and then mine and then everyone we knew, we bought extra copies and passed them like batons at relay races.

Brennan Manning was like a quiet megaphone that spoke softly and yet loudly into our hearts something that we tend to forget. That we are dearly loved by God, and there is nothing we have to do to earn it. Like Sally Field’s memorable Oscar speech of 1985 in which she emphatically claimed, “You really, really like me,” Brennan Manning had a mission, and that was to spread the word that not only does God like us, He really really loves us.

He opened us up to the possibility that there was nothing we had to do to earn God’s love. That’s what spoke to my heart.

He hung out with dignitaries as well as twelve-steppers, and his book made me cry more than once.

And he also challenged me in my walk:

In the final analysis, the real challenge of Christian growth is the challenge of personal responsibility. The Spirit of Jesus call out a second time: Are you going to take charge of your life today? Are you going to be responsible for what you do? Are you going to believe?

His words were a balm for my soul and I won’t forget him.

Even today, I grabbed my copy of Ragamuffin Gospel and threw it in my bag. I may never get the time to open it, but I know it’s there and it makes me feel good.

Enjoy the first day of the rest of your life, Brennan Manning, and we will join you after a time.

Then we will all be Ragamuffins Redeemed, sitting at the feet of Jesus with you. Until then, we will re-read your books and strive to live and walk in the footsteps of Jesus until such time as we begin our own forever with Him.

Diary of a mad shift worker

Glad god can’t sleep and that’s good because that makes it really handy for when I need Him (which is pretty much all the time.)

Awake at three I stare at the dark ceiling and wonder what I should do with a full hour. An hour of precious sleep makes my mind rebel against doing anything else but. I could pray but……

Can I pray with one half of my mind when the other half is sleep obsessed?

I could get up and read the Psalms or Wonderstruck but I lie awake and see if I get drowsy.

Now that I am awake the cats walk in circles like hawks around me.

I decide god can hear the praying half. With that one half I pray for the Jumping Tandem retreat, and for Elaine, Diane, my family, Dawn’s Uncle. Pat.

I thank Him for yesterday today and forever.

I don’t pray because I am a good person, I pray because I need Him and so does everyone else. And because hard things are going on down here.

But thankfully, a lot of good is happening too. Now is always a good time to Praise.

I could get up and eat green jello.

I think for the hundredth time that unless there is a conversion experience, people pretty much die how they have lived. Either peacefully or kicking and screaming and making it inconvenient and difficult for everyone right up to the end,

Or with a measure of peace and grace knowing they have done the best they good with God’s help and joy knowing they are going home.

And for one last request, for my prayer request to happen soon. You know what it is, God.

Because you are up all night and nothing gets past You. And I am so glad.

Indeed, he who watches over Israel (and me) will neither slumber nor sleep. Psalm 121:4

photo credit: Google images

Wonder in the Middle

Wonderstruck book club series: Chapters 002,003

It was a question that knocked me off kilter.”Why is God doing this to me?” her eyes were imploring and pain-filled and my words felt puny and unconvincing. “God is not doing anything to you,” I insisted, “He doesn’t work like that.” But my answer felt ineffectual and echoed back hollow.

Sometimes it seems as soon as you are just starting to get relief in one area, something else happens and you’re right back where you started.

The truth is, when you are in pain, it does feel like God’s punishing you. Even if you know deep down He’s really not.

Just about everyone in my circle is rolling in the tide of suffering from one thing or another right now and I feel helpless.

And yesterday, the weather mirrored how I felt, it was stormy and windy all day. The sky was thick with dust and outside was no place you wanted to be. I felt fatigued, restless and burdened. Flagpoles bending, windchimes clanging, rugs blown across driveways, everything askew.

There was a sliver of grace in the day. In one of our favorite spots E and I settled for some breakfast and tea. I told her I felt useless for not being able to answer her question the night before. “Oh,” she said, waving her hand across her face. “I didn’t expect you to really have an answer, I just needed to vent.” So we talked and laughed and sighed and watched people and drank 3 glasses of tea. But I know her, I can see the pain below the surface.

On and on, the wind howled. Dirt and dust collected and banked in the corners of the house like brown snow, and leaves and debris were everywhere, but there were clouds coming in. Back inside, I walked from window to window. I tried to read but nothing held my interest.

I dozed off thinking about wonder, and how to find it in a day like today. Sandwiched in between so much other stuff.

As afternoon turned into dusk, I heard the unmistakable ping of rain on the roof. I turned off all the lights and sat in my chair by the open window. I heard more drops. I went outside and stood in it…..It was grace, this rain. His grace, I knew it. It really started to come down and I felt myself smiling.

I went back to the chair as the healing drops fell, more and more they came like mercy from the sky. Sydney jumped up on my lap and together in the dark, we watched and listened and felt the wonder spilling down from the sky, and my tears fell along with it.

And I thought, that is just like God, showering wonder in the middle of the dirt and dust and chaos of life

And that is how it happens, in the midst of an ordinary day. When we live in realm and possibility of wonder, we recognize it when it shows up even in the midst of heartache. Maybe especially in the midst of heartache.

We sat and sat. I prayed, “More, God, More, God, I want more.” He answered me with a distant rumble of thunder.

Does it surprise you that He would answer that way? We are talking about a God who loves us so much that there is nothing He wouldn’t do for us, so I don’t think a little rumble of thunder is too big of a stretch.

I said, “thank you thank you thank you.”

And here is another wonder, I had just been thinking of a certain Bible verse:

“And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire, a still small voice.” 1 Kings 19:11-12

I was thinking of my own version, except adding dust to the mix and then ending with rain. I walked out to the kitchen and looked at the verse on the calendar, which I hadn’t turned over yet…..you guessed it, it was the verse from 1 Kings.

I looked at my phone and there was a text from my dear friend in Seattle and it said: “Hey, the sky finally came out and it made me think of you, love you, goodnight xoxox.”

I sent one back that said, ‘That is so funny, Sydney and I were just sitting in the dark listening to the healing rain and I thought of you, I love you.”

He send us His wonder in the midst of an ordinary day, sometimes He disguises Himself in people.

Sometimes He shows up Himself.

Sometimes He sends rain.

But He still comes, and there is wonder in that.

Confessions of an addictive personality

The thought dropped neatly and quietly into my mind as I was taking my morning walk. It clicked in like the final answer to a question I already knew the answer to, but needed to hear again. What the addict really desires, what all of us really desire is more of God not more of anything else. More of His power, more of His prescence, more of His glory. Why do we want more of anything? It’s to fill an emptiness within us. Something we feel we are lacking. But God is the only one big enough to fill that space. What we don’t need is:

Another helping of comfort food

Another drink

Another hit

Another 10 miles of running

Another trip to the mall

Another look at that magazine, movie, book that we know we shouldn’t be looking at.

There are those of us with addictive personalities. I am one of them. I have been addicted to not eating, and after I got over that I became addicted to exercise. I would go to my morning class and then the evening class, and then after that I would follow the aeobics teacher to her final class in the neighboring town. I was one of the groupies. A little exercise was good, a lot was much better as far as I was concerned.

There was also a time in my life when it got very easy for me to put away three glasses of wine a night. Then one day I heard myself giving someone the pat answer for how often I drank. “Oh, I have a glass of wine with dinner every now and then.” HA. And this is the funny thing about God. When you get really serious with Him, He will ask you to be honest with Him and yourself. And He will ask you to make some changes.

Right after I said that, (in the deafening silence of my brain) the Holy Spirit said, “That is not true.” I had been lying to others, myself and God too. And it was time to get real. Then He asked me what I was going to do about it.

The truth is, there will always be another reason or excuse to eat too much or have another drink. The reason why will always be there, but thankfully, so will God.

That night on the way home from work, I didn’t buy any wine even though I knew I was out. I went home and sat down in the corner of the yard and prayed. The stray cat, “Tux” came and sat beside me. I prayed, “Okay God, you need to show up here and make yourself real tonight.” And as the cat and I sat side by side, we watched the sky fill up with one of the most beautiful sunsets I had ever seen. He showed up big time.

I do believe God gives us certain days that are mile markers in life, and He makes sure we won’t forget them. That was around 8 years ago now and still vividly alive in my mind. It’s a reminder to me that anytime I think I need more of something else, it’s really more of Him I need.

He loves us so much friends. The God of the universe loves you right where you are right now today and He’s waiting with open arms to reveal Himself to you in a big way.

And you don’t even have to clean yourself up before you go, Jesus already did that.

Let yourself be loved. Just the fact that you are on this earth is proof that He loves you.

He is there for the quick fix as well as the long haul.

“Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”

Hebrews 13:5

The walks I never took

I have always been a girl who loves a walk. Often, while people are talking and socializing, I will be the one who slips out back. I want to know what’s in the back of the beyond. Even now, sitting at this computer, somewhere I hear the slam of a squeaky screen door and picture myself looking for that path that leads through the woods.

There are so many things you can do just besides the walking on a walk. There’s thinking, ruminating, wondering, discovering hidden treasures, finding God just to name a few.

Walking sets the mind free and takes it off its tether.

On this particular walk not long ago, I found myself wandering out the back door and being let further by a little dot of yellow in a sea of green. It beckoned me closer, and the breeze caused it to nod encouragment, as if I needed it.

Have you ever noticed that flowers and tree’s don’t need to talk? This one beckoned me without saying a word.

I found myself kneeling at the clover looking for the four-leaf……and for a moment I felt like the kid I used to be when I could hear the trees whispering and actually believe that leprechaun’s were hiding behind them.

I wonder, does imagination lose its power, or do we let it go?

And as I leaned in with my camera, she beckoned me closer still. I saw her intricate beauty and I wondered why she was there all alone.

God planted her just He has planted me.

She blooms for His glory all by herself, not even having to try. Maybe she knows something I don’t. Could it possibly be that easy?

I am intrigued with the idea of God walking. I am captivated by the thought that someday God will walk with me in the cool of the evening like He did His first kids.

God walks, imagine that.

And now I am thinking of another very important thought.

Of all the walks I have taken, I have only regretted the ones I didn’t take. It hurts me now to think of times when someone asked me to go and I thought I had better things to do.

I didn’t.

So today, if someone asks you to go or if your spirit tugs at you to step outside and walk down the road?

Whatever you do, don’t say no.

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day……Genesis 3:8

Yes, He walks…..that proves it.

How I quit my Bible plan and started reading the Bible

Recently I started a Bible reading plane via the You Version app on my phone. At first I was doing great. I had the best of intentions. I wanted to read it cover to cover in a year and I chose the version I thought would give me a good balance, a section from the Old and a section from the New Testament each day.

I cruised through Genesis……then came Exodus. I started to lag behind with the book of Numbers. And I got really, really bored. Oh, the endless rules and regulations, the sacrifices. It was just too much.

I started to skip over whole sections. I thought….”I have read all this before.”

Then I got behind for days at a time.

I found the section called “Catch me up.” You task-oriented folks will know what I am talking about. I hated to have “unchecked boxes” and unfinished sections.

You all probably know where I am heading with this already.

Yup, I had succeeded in making my daily Bible routine into nothing more than a religious ritual.

I made it just another thing on the To Do list

I had succeeded in virtually squeezing the life right out of the Word. I had made it as dry as the toast of all the rules and laws that had bored me to tears in the Old Testament.

It started out as a Spiritual discipline and ended up being something that made me feel fatigued and like a failure.

So I quit my Bible plan, and now I am back to reading the life back into the Word. I feel the fresh stream flowing with life infused with the Holy Spirit again.

I think the reading plans are great, mind you, and I love the You Version on my phone. I just felt the Lord asking me why I was making it something He never meant it to be.

An obligation

So now I am back to reading for the right reasons, out of a sincere love for God and wanting Him to know how I value the words He penned just for me, for you, for all of us.

And I feel the difference.

Who but God goes up to heaven and comes back down?
Who holds the wind in his fists?
Who wraps up the oceans in his cloak?
Who has created the whole wide world?

What is his name—and his son’s name?
Tell me if you know! Every word of God proves true.
He is a shield to all who come to him for protection. Proverbs 30:4,5

The day I took my wonder back

I am so excited! Today is day #1 of the Wonderstruck book club blog posting. I am linking up with Duane Scott and Shelley Miller and writing about the book once a week through May 8.

I have long been a student in the school of Wonder. My folks taught me at a young age to live with my eyes open and ears tuned to the beauty of God’s creation. We didn’t go to Disneyland when I was a kid, we went camping. When I read the first two Chapters of Margaret Feinberg’s book I was hooked. She had me at the Northern Lights, and Hobbits. But what do you do during those times when the worries and stress of life has squeezed the wonder right out of you?

What I do is pray. Then I go outside and let the wilderness speak for Him.

I tried to tell myself it wasn’t because of the snake that I hadn’t been to the trail this year. I tried to convince myself it was other things.

But I knew the truth.

In my mind’s eye I could still see it. Coiled there in the sun. Waiting for me to find it. Well, no it wasn’t, but that’s what it felt like. And then right after that we saw the rattler in the road and I remembered how fast it coiled when we slowly idled by. Gave us both the creeps.

The mountain had been calling me for weeks. Someone had told me the Superstitions were ablaze with color and I had decided, today was the day. I needed to hear the quail call minus the sound of the freeway in the background.

When I got there, several cars were already parked in the lot. Good, I thought. More people on the trail means more footfall to scare away the snakes. With camera bumping against my side, I headed out. The desert was ablaze with yellow flowers and for a moment I forgot my trepidation and clicked some photos.

I felt like God had graced the area with hundreds of bouquets just for me.

I took a deep healing breath and walked toward the trailhead. My heart was pounding even though I had scarcely begun walking let alone climbing. I scanned the trail from side to side as I walked, eyes peeled for any movement. I jumped back at the sound of a harmless lizard scuttling through the brush. My eyes drank in the sights and sounds as I tried to erase that other sinister image burned into my brain.

Breaking into a trot, I figured if I made enough noise, the snakes would have warning and time to get out of my way. Or get really ticked off. How stupid, I thought. That’s just what they hope to do to us with their clever rattles of theirs.

In times when I have been deeply distressed, nature has always been a way for me to find God again, to get back my balance, and I was tired of letting this fear win.

As I approached the place where I had seen it last year, I prayed for God to deliver me from my silly fear. I made up a mantra, “Damnsnake, Damnsnake, Damnsnake,” and I uttered it under my breath. Then I started to get mad at it all over again for robbing me of trail time this year. With head down and heart pounding, I soared up the mountain in what felt like super-human strength. I did it!

I felt a victory bubbling up in my heart. I even paused to take a photo to commemorate the spot as I felt my wonder come flooding back.

When I got to the midway point I rested on the bench. I felt exhilarated and free. Buoyed by my victory, I greeted fellow hikers and felt joy spill over me like a fountain. I had told myself that for this first time back, I wasn’t going to go all the way up to the top.

Now that I had it back, I simply had to go all the way.

On the way up to the top, I met an elderly man from Canada coming down. He held two walking sticks and was dressed in a dapper cotton plaid shirt and hiking shorts. There was a spark of Heavenly light in his eyes and it inspired me to see him out enjoying life, letting nothing stop him. I stopped and we talked about this and that, and then I went on my way and he went on his.

I thought to myself, this is catching, this wonder thing. And I thought, and not for the first time in my life:

Wonder is contagious, and it’s something we can pass on.

I sailed down the mountain, my spirits lifted to the heights of Heaven, my day transformed by wonder.

Smiled on by grace.

How we can rise again and again

It was just a little wedding arbor up in front of the church, the plain wooden kind, unadorned, flowerless and simple. We wondered at its presence, but later on in the service we watched it take on significance as that humble little wooden arbor become a portal into another world.

We watched living souls walk through that little arbor clutching their signed death certificates, the ones that were on all of our seats, walk through that humble wooden portal from death to life in just a few steps all the way to Jesus. It was a victory walk they were doing, and we watched, witnesses to their commitment as we clutched our own certificates and renewed our own vows.

As the invitational song was sung, I had my eyes closed praying when Elaine elbowed me. I saw tears pooled in her eyes. She pointed left and then tears sprang to my own eyes as I saw a throng of people, as it turned out over 200 in our service alone. I expected several, but to be honest I was not prepared to see that many. I thought maybe there was a hidden door somewhere, because I didn’t know where all the people were coming from. The last one over the threshold was an old man, alone. Everyone clapped as he walked through.

My faith was in turn chastened, restored and staggered by seeing the redemptive power of the cross in action. And out of the land of shadows we all came, right along with them.

And then when Pastor Kevin said, “And if you want to get Baptized right after the service we have clothes you can change into, I will be there waiting.” That just set our hearts in motion even more. Watching people take that leap of faith in front of God and everyone never gets old.

After that we talked with our new neighbors and met their dogs, then later we took a short drive in the Motorhome which has been somewhat neglected due to so much time taken up with E’s care-taking duties. Soon after we got home there was a phone call from her Dad’s nursing home asking her whether to admit him to the hospital. He was thrashing around and crying out.

She left and walked into halls where death always seems to be waiting. Crouching on the sidelines.

Bus isn’t it always in this life? And Easter Day it seems, is no exception.

The day after Easter we are faced with the challenge of rising up right along with Him, of living out our faith story victoriously. We can only do that one way, and that’s by fixing our eyes and our faith on Jesus. Each and every day……we……must……choose……life.

Watching someone suffer and arrive ever closer to death who has not chosen the path of life is heartbreaking, and no one is more heartbroken than God Himself.

Who sees what could have been in each of us.

We are all waiting in the wings between life and death. But because of the cross and the empty tomb, we can rest there victorious, hopeful and fully alive. And if you love someone who is still living in the land of the shadows, never give up. Where there is breath, there is always room for hope.

The day we call Easter has come and gone, but the power of the resurrection raises us up again and again. Until that day when we see Him face to face.

And oh what a day that will be.

I brought my death certificate home and stuck it in my Bible to remind myself of what I decided long ago and where I am going after I leave this place. It rests there now.

Hope between the pages.

Lori's Prayer Closet

"And when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done is secret, will reward you……"Matthew 6:6