In first person

About this time two years ago, I changed this blog's name.  Well, time for another name change.  Why?

 

Practically: I now write for 4 blogs, so it's time to redefine each one, rewrite the thesis, so to speak.

Personally: This blog is now off public domain.  It's just me (hence the name), my thoughts and point of view.  A place where I can spill out the thoughts that bubble over (and IDEALLY, a place where I post new poems!).

Literally: This will now be a place for Comrade and the Witty Rat to get into my crazy head.  If anyone else enjoys reading these posts, then I'm honored!  But this blog is no longer about creating a following or sticking to a particular topic.  

If you'd like to read about ways God is restoring broken lives in Ukraine, please follow Restore Ukraine.

If you'd like to read about ways God is restoring broken lives on OBT, please follow Freedom Fridays.

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*Just to clarify, these are blogs I personally write for.  If you're looking for more blogs about Jesus, restoration, Ukraine, or human trafficking, there are TONS of phenomenal blogs out there!  

If you blog, I'd love to follow you, too!  Comment with a link to your blog.

Let's read, think, dream, write, process, and communicate together!

The Giver's daughter

  

 "I gave her happy memories: a ride on a merry-go-round; a kitten to play with; a picnic.  Sometimes I chose one just because I knew it would make her laugh, and I so treasured the sound of her laughter in this room that had always been so silent.  But she was like you, Jonas.  She wanted to experience everything.  She knew that it was her responsibility.  And so she asked me for more difficult memories."

   "You didn't give her war, did you?  Not just after five weeks?"

   The Giver shook his head and sighed.  "No.  And I didn't give her physical pain.  But I gave her loneliness.  And I gave her loss.  I transferred a memory of a child taken from its parents.  That was the first one.  She was stunned... I backed off, gave her more little delights.  But everything changed, once she knew about pain.  I could see it in her eyes."

When I wonder if I'm slipping, I feel like the Giver's daughter... I've spent my whole life receiving only pleasant memories, but now, the Giver must give me the painful memories... and I don't know if I will hold up and gain wisdom or crumble and request to be Released.

On a totally different note, the Giver clearly didn't know a thing about the female gender.  We are well acquainted with physical pain, thank you very much.  But loneliness and loss?  No wonder the poor child went insane; war would have been far more gentle.

Broken, and loving every shard

I promised to submit poems to Rollins' Brushing Magazine tonight, AND I promised to write a post for Northland's Freedom Blog tonight, but there's something I have to write for myself, first.  I don't want to forget this moment.  Today started with me blacking out in my kitchen (literally) and then discovering Sabra Girl was today's theme, BUT the Lord had immeasurably more planned!  On my break at work, words finally came and spilled out on the nearest scrap of paper...

      It's the crushed flower that produces fragrance, not the dried one.  I've lived my whole life afraid of being broken, being weak.  I admit, today broke me.  But now that I'm broken, I have nothing to lose!  I'm free.  Free to love, free to live and fail and hurt and be healed.  Part of me wants to say giving [this] up doesn't affect me a bit ("No prob. [insert shrug] take it.").  And, as silly, irrational, and weak as it is, the truth is giving up [this] small little thing has shattered me.  I thought I was a strong, immovable stone, but only because I sat in a stale room.  Once someone opened the door, the air stirred and I realized I'm just a pile of dust, not strong but tossed by the slightest movement. SO what? I'm only dust.  I'm reconciled to that now, and God makes beautiful things out of dust.  He has rattled these dry bones and replaced my stone heart with flesh!  I was dead, but now I live!  What can man do to me?  What else can compare to the hot breath of Christ burning in my lungs?  All else is death and shadow.  He alone gives life!

So I'm letting it go, but letting it go means I first have to confess grasping it.  Yes, I feel, I desire, I hurt and bleed and need, but I'd rather hurt and heal rather than never feel at all.  So I'm confessing being human, being vulnerable, but oh, the sweetness of brokenness when it is brought before Christ! Today's theme is actually Broken by Lifehouse.  "In the pain there is healing.  In Your name I find meaning."
I will live, and live abundantly.
Hallelujah.

For Christmas this year...

Christmas day comes with great expectations of laughing families gathered around the glittering tree, taking part in age-old family traditions, eating grandma's perfect home-cooked something something something for dinner, warm fuzzy feelings, gay happy meetings, stories around the fireplace of Christmases long long ago...

Well, this year, Christmas day began with me crying like an idiot in front of my whole family (we were stuck in the van so I couldn't escape and blubber in solitude), then the van broke down when we were halfway to St. Pete where we were going to spend Christmas with my Dad's family.  Instead of eating Christmas supper with the grandparents, we had to stop at McDonald's, where we proceeded to converse about the moral ramifications of suicide-- a holly jolly Christmas for sure.

We did end up making it to St. Pete (after driving back home, dispersing into our two remaining vehicles, and starting the journey all over again.)  But while we were stuck in McDonald's, and I had given up all hope of an "authentic" Christmas, David made an insightful observation: "Well, at least we like each other!"  As a family, we certainly don't always get along, but it's true, we like being together, even if that togetherness happens to be in McDonald's, centered around the topic of suicide.  So maybe this Christmas wasn't legendary ( I mean that only event-wise. EVERY Christmas is legendary in celebrating and remembering the coming of Emmanuel!), but being with people you love doesn't require special events to make it meaningful; there's meaning simply in the togetherness.  And I'm so thankful I get to do real life with these 5 crazy people!

Blessed

“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.” Hebrews 10:23

The blessings of the Lord… who can adequately describe them?  Who can adequately thank God for them?  

Not a soul.

I just listened to an incredible podcast from Don Brewster, director of Agape International Missions.  Don talked about evil in the world (and he should know, he rescues children from the flesh trade in Cambodia), but He also proclaimed the goodness and loving kindness of our God.  The blessings God has given and promised to give us are of infinite value, yet how often we forget them, ignore them, despise them!  I constantly let the temporal replace the eternal.  So often I don’t live in light of eternity.  The Lord has promised us incredible blessings, so incredible that, in light of them, all else melts into meaninglessness, all else cannot prevail to discourage us or cause us to lose hope.

I want to hold fast to His promises, to know them as reality more real than oxygen.  If I really clung to God’s Word as true, what could this life do to me?  What would I not do to glorify God?  Who would I not love with Christ’s overwhelming love?  I have Christ, nearer than a husband, more faithful than a comrade.  He has made me clean, not only clean but one with Him.  I can boldly declare that I am my Beloved’s and He is mine… WHAT ELSE COULD POSSIBLY MATTER?

"Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him."

--Isaiah 3:10

“It is well with the righteous ALWAYS. If it had said, "Say ye to the righteous, that it is well with him in his prosperity," we must have been thankful for so great a boon, for prosperity is an hour of peril, and it is a gift from heaven to be secured from its snares: or if it had been written, "It is well with him when under persecution," we must have been thankful for so sustaining an assurance, for persecution is hard to bear; but when no time is mentioned, all time is included. God's "shalls" must be understood always in their largest sense. From the beginning of the year to the end of the year, from the first gathering of evening shadows until the day-star shines, in all conditions and under all circumstances, it shall be well with the righteous. It is so well with him that we could not imagine it to be better, for he is well fed, he feeds upon the flesh and blood of Jesus; he is well clothed, he wears the imputed righteousness of Christ; he is well housed, he dwells in God; he is well married, his soul is knit in bonds of marriage union to Christ; he is well provided for, for the Lord is his Shepherd; he is well endowed, for heaven is his inheritance. It is well with the righteous--well upon divine authority ; the mouth of God speaks the comforting assurance. O beloved, if God declares that all is well, ten thousand devils may declare it to be ill, but we laugh them all to scorn. Blessed be God for a faith which enables us to believe God when the creatures contradict Him. It is, says the Word, at all times well with thee, thou righteous one; then, beloved, if thou canst not see it, let God's word stand thee in stead of sight; yea, believe it on divine authority more confidently than if thine eyes and thy feelings told it to thee. Whom God blesses is blest indeed, and what His lip declares is truth most sure and steadfast.” 

-Morning and Evening, by Charles Haddon Spurgeon

And THIS is what God promises us!

Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagles.

     Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.  Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ENDED, that her iniquity is PARDONED, that she has received for the Lord's hand double for all her sins.

     He does not deal with us according to our sins.

But now in Christ Jesus you who were once ---far off--- have been brought (near) by the blood of Christ.

     He sent from on high, he took me; he drew me out of many waters. 

God, being rich in mercy, *because of the great love with which He loved us*, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together (with Christ)- by grace you have been saved- and raised us up (with Him) and seated us (with Him) in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.

     None who wait for You shall be put to shame.

The Lord your (God is in your) midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you with his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.

     It is the Lord who goes before you.  He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you.

For He satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things.

     Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.

     Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.  Not as the world gives do I give to you.

So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.

     In the world you will have trouble.  But take heart; I have overcome the world.

We are treated as impostors and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.

     Sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

     Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

     His divine power has granted to us *all things that pertain to life and godliness*, through the knowledge of Him who called is to His own glory and excellence, by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature.

The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever.

     And I will betroth you to Me forever.  I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy.  I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness.  And you shall know the Lord.

Hallelujah.

Jason Michael Mills

I planned on sitting down and devoting hours on deep expression into this post because the subject matter is oh so worthy of it!  But I am currently running on negative time and by the time I have enough time to do this justice, it will be way past his birthday, so here goes!

22 years ago, my little buddy was born.  He rescued me from a life of selfish only-ness! (Well, he tried, I still managed to turn out rather self centered, but I would've been so much worse!)  I made him sing the Nala parts of the Lion King because I wanted to be the star of the show and sing all the Simba parts.  People thought we were twins (until he grew 2 feet taller than me!).  Even when we moved and had our own rooms, we would take turns sneaking into each other's rooms at night, especially when one of us had a nightmare.  One time, we were reading a scary book together on his top bunk, when the lights suddenly went out!  We flew off the bed and into the safety of the lighted hall way.  He burst out laughing so I did too, it was pretty funny how scared we were, at least, that's what I thought we were laughing at, until he said, "no, the funny part is, I peed my pants!!!"  Nope. I'll never let him live it down.  We did everything together as kids.  People were shocked at how well we got along (little did they know that was largely because he was content to let me boss him around all day.)  Once we were in the car with Grandma and she suggested we stop for an ice cream cone, but when she noticed Jason fast asleep, she suggested we wait.  "Look!  He's awake, Grandma!  He's awake!" I declared frantically while holding Jason's eyelids open with my fingers.

In our tweens, he was the steady, happy, secure anchor for my wildly melancholy soul.  Many times, my only true friend.  Even in high school, Jason was the friend I could find simple truth and comfort from.  Wholesome and steady- what I desperately needed.

Now he's halfway through college.... WHAT?  Time makes no sense to me.  He will always be my little buddy, but that doesn't mean he isn't growing up.  He astounds me with his integrity, his passion in worship for God, his loyalty.

I admit, I kinda have this thing against the male gender, but Jason breaks down my prejudices.

I love you, little buddy!  And I'm praying God leads you deeper into His heart and purpose for you this year.  You are not a failure.  You are faithful.

Reaching for stars? Or bending toward flowers?

Cyrano: "I aim to bring a star down from the sky-
And stoop, in shame, to pluck a common flower.

Roxane: "A common flower has charm."

Cyrano: "But not tonight.
Tonight I want the star!"

So maybe I'm taking this quote a little out of context, but it's been running through my head all day and is the only way I know how to describe my life right now.
I am so confused.
Especially after watching Machine Gun Preacher last night.  Don't watch it unless you are willing to take on the responsibility of knowledge of one of the most grotesque realities of human suffering and exploitation.
I can't live here like this while others live there like that. or, at least, I don't want to.  I know I can't change the world, may never see much redemption in my lifetime.  But I MUST do something.  I don't even have words for [this].
Do I continue seeking opportunities to go?  Sell everything?  Abandon everyone?  No if/ands/or/buts, only following Him at any cost?  Am I even willing to?
Or.
Do I choose contentment here in the little things?  Is God trying to teach me pure and simple obedience without the "grandeur" of my dreams?
Do I fight?
Or do I let go?
I don't think I know anything anymore.  The more I think, the more tangled I get.
I know I can grasp each with both hands, but I'm so weary of the struggle.
Can I please get out of the valley of uncertainty, Lord?