Today – beloved

I don’t know really what to write today.  And writing is a strange art, you sift through your head finding thoughts that want to, need to be explored, and you gradually place each word carefully on the page to see if it fits.

Like a jigsaw of many pieces, there is only one piece for each space, and writing is much the same.  Although a number of words will appear that they fit the wordless space, as you move on to the next word and the next, you can see that the line is becoming clumsy, knocking letters out of order and weaving like a drunk.  So you have to go back and unpick, like a tangled piece of crochet or knitting.

I prefer to leave a wordless space to hang there then, while I build around it and suddenly all that is left is that perfect word for that convoluted space, and I breath a sigh of relief and drop her in.

The clocks have gained an hour.  In UK they choose midnight on the last weekend in March to spring forward, I find it annoying!  I feel I shouldn’t because it heralds spring, with its leaky blue skys and vibrant beginning greens with rampant florals erupting everywhere.

Sadly, its the little things that scratch at the inside of my head.   The fact that I look at my clock and it says 8 but I know I lost an hour and it is 9 and I haven’t even started the day yet.

The fact that when I get up for work tomorrow I will be driving in the dark once again.  Its only for a week or so but it scratches never the less.

But then I remember that I have an extra hour of daylight when I get home from work, an extra hour to appreciate the glorious leaky blue skies, vibrant beginning greens and rampant florals, An extra hour to be outside instead of in.

I was inspecting an honesty seed the other day.  These perfectly formed paper thin pods that so exquisitely protect the seeds within.  The intricacy of their making causes me to KNOW there is indeed a God of wonder who wraps his creature creation in spectacular abandoned art.  The same fierce care that is lavished on the creation of an honesty seed and its protection, is lavished on us, but even more so, for we are the messy, bright, engaging, angry, beautiful, perfecting images of his glory and he rejoices over us with singing while weeping over us with sadness as we break and break and break again.  Learning to walk as art in full abandonment to her creator, allowing him to swipe glorious brushstrokes of love and life and beauty in the midst of brokenness, this is Joy.

The Gift

We all have been given the gift of our true authentic selves. That self we see when we catch his gaze. If we are willing to recognize what He sees, nothing will ever be the same again.

I wait in your presence,
not just around me but in me
reaching each dusty unused corner of my soul
I dont wait for revelation
or fireworks
for fierce words
or whispers on the wind
I just wait
Being
me
in
you
wrapped in you

You are the fraction in my soul that makes a whole
makes me whole
The fracture in my soul that lets the light in
You are the light, the LIGHT
that exploded through the fracture
and told me the TRUTH,
told me plainly,
no bullsh*t, no baffle just
steak on my plate, while I wait.
“This is you, sweetheart, here you are”
and you give me ME, like a unexpected gift,
not a birthday or Christmas, a
just because GIFT,
from YOU to me,
A gift for sharing
for exploring
not for hiding
for ignoring
so I am being
undone, unwrapped,
uncreased
BEING
Me

The Flag and the Promise

If I know anything at all in this journey, it is that in reality I know nothing. Because it is mystery, but I think I know this, that love is the key. The more I read the more I see this. That the opportunity to love and be loved as he did is the prize, it is the THAT for which Christ called us. Anything else is desert. Of the very little I know, I hope I am beginning to know this.

What do we do when we KNOW we see a city
One built without hands in the distance,
We can glimpse its towers and gates, its windows reflecting in the sun
Yet we are in the desert miles away
Part of us thinks it is a mirage, we rub our eyes and get on with surviving in the desert
But something tugs inside that we cant identify and we look up again and it’s still there,
The child inside is filled with wonder and excitement and yearns to drop everything to be THERE,
but The Adult. she ruthlessly quiets the childs voice, being pinned in the world of sand while furiously digging for water
A desert full of the millions of grains of shoulds and musts and have to do’s.
Of busy busy busy and speed and bustle and occupation.
Then one day we darent look up anymore.
BUT beloved,
There IS a city, whose builder and maker is God
A place of transparency and light and deep calling to deep
Where Love is the beginning and Love is the end
filling everything in between
Love flows like rivers from a throne of brightness and we know as we are known
This City has Love is its rooting and grounding, its habitat, its place of being.
Here we love without judgement without regard for our own self or agenda
Here we LOVE and are LOVED
And are filled to the measure of all the fullness of God
Here Grace saturates the air we breath
and we see each day as coming from the hand of Love, the hand of GOd
Here we see each other through the eyes of the one who inhabits us
The one who calls all of us BELOVED
BE LOVED
For he is the One who IS love
Here we find the rest that was promised and are safe
Here is a Kingdom filled with a body of people and He is the head.
He, the image of the invisible God
He, The firstborn of all creation,
He, whom all things were created in, through and for,
He is before all things and in Him all things hold together.
He is the beginning and the first born from the dead
All the fullness of God dwells in Him
Lover, Bridegroom, King.
There is a city, there is!
It is made without hands, and its architect and builder is God.
IT is not a mirage,its a promise, and the flag will take us through the gates

Always beloved

I am hesitant to share this, but I had chance to spend some time with a friend who has been part of my inner journey over the past few years. She drew my attention to a few things and I saw again how faithful He is to complete the good work, that he continues to do in us. That through no merit of our own, no deserving flesh of our own, He abundantly gives grace upon grace and takes those of us that are not, those of us that are the weakest, those of us that are the lowest and despised and he confounds the world with us. He is a God of Wonder, a magnificent God, my beloved God. This is how he takes each one of us on that ancient journey of becoming, where we stand at the crossroads and look, we ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and we walk in it. I want to add this from Philip Keller because it is beautiful and absolutely true:
“It is God’s knowledge of me, His careful husbanding of the ground of my being , His constant presence in the garden of my little life that guarantees my joy.
—W. Phillip Keller

I want to tell my story…..I do
Of someone, some one
from the minute I began
An intense gaze watched me forming in my mother’s womb
I was becoming
Already His in love
Already beloved
All Ready to be Loved
And suddenly there I was
Not beautiful
Not lovely
Not loved
I did not know I was already beloved
I just knew I was not loved
By one who dressed me
One who fed me
One who left me
I was not loved
My birth, my beginning
into unlovedness

But His gaze did not waver
His heart expanded for love of me
But I did not know that yet
I stumbled as a baby
I faltered as a child
Striving to find love in the faces of those around me
IF it was there it was hidden, behind masks of indifference
festering beneath, with their own hurt and pain to hide

So I shrank
I became small
Insignificant
and smaller still
Of little worth and smaller matter
So I would not be a nuisance
So I would not be a pain
So I would not be
at all
So Small
So Insignificant
That I could not be seen
at all

But He saw me
He Saw ME
and He knew
and He loved ME
He watched me with deep affection
WIlling to break heaven open
and come down when I was hurt
To rebuke those who bullied me
To race to my defence in front of my accusers
But He saw more
He knew that one day, out of the manure of a life seemingly less lived
out of pain
would come the true glorious beloved child he had always seen
no longer hidden and small
no longer believing herself insignificant or of little value
but walking the path of a journey that began at the cross of brokenness
and continues in brokenness right IN the center of the heart of the Father
ALWAYS Beloved
ALWAYS Accepted
ALWAYS

Being, in stillness

I was reading 1Kings 19:11 to 13, and as I am learning about coming to a stop and it is a wonderful learning, had delight in digging into this..

Ki 19:11 ” And he said, Go out and stand on the mountain before Jehovah. And, behold, Jehovah passed by, and a great and strong wind tearing the mountains and breaking the rocks in bits before Jehovah! Jehovah was not in the wind. And after the wind was an earthquake, but Jehovah was not in the earthquake.
1Ki 19:12 And after the earthquake was a fire, but Jehovah was not in the fire; and after the fire came a sound of gentle stillness and a still, small voice
1Ki 19:13 And it happened when Elijah heard, he wrapped his face in his robe and went out and stood at the cave opening; and, behold, a voice came to him, and it said, What are you doing here, Elijah? ”

You stand on the Mountain before me, and you have been excited by the great strong wind
You jump for joy as it tears the mountains and breaks the rocks in bits before me.
You gaze around to see who is witnessing what your God is able to do, but no one is looking.
Because I am not in the wind.
You are wide eyed in awe as the earthquake rocks the ground and again you search around to see who is witnessing what I can do,
but no one is aware, because I am not in the Earthquake
And then a fire that glows white hot, again no one notices, for I am not in the fire.
As you sit bewildered, there comes a stillness and a still small voice, and you know that God is here and you will be still and know, for I am in the stillness, it is my voice you hear in the quiet..
and suddenly all eyes are on you, the bride, for I am in the stillness, I am in the still small voice and I ask “What are you doing here….?”

This is not a damning question, “What ARE you DOING here ?!!” as if God wonders what on earth are we doing on this spot!!
But a question that asks us to dig deep and examine our hearts, to stand at the entrance to this place of quiet and discover why each of us is here,
To be at the entrance to this stillness and find our place in it .
This is a question to help us discover our place in this, to hear God’s still small voice to ME, to YOU in this stillness.
To pull us aside from the wind, the earthquake and the fire so we can hear the heartbeat of God in the stillness of silence.
This is a question he is going to ask us all. TO give us each the call to go deep and hear his still small voice at the entrance to this stillness so that we each find our unique place in this new yet ancient journey together with him.

Working All things together…

Just so struck by the simplicity that is Christ. When Jesus broke into our world, he walked, he loved, he didnt seek anything for himself and in that he was the first born among many brothers and sisters.
The simplicity of knowing this Christ life in us and just being. Living in whatever community we are in, embracing all that that is. Engaging every moment, letting it be real and present to us so that Christ lives utterly through us. Being that fragrance of Christ that astounds because we are alive in Him and aware and attentive in those moments. Each moment rooted and grounded in Love, His love in us, for us and for those who God has invading our moments. Loving, regardless. Loving because that is who we are in Christ, because it is who He was and is.
Simple right? It is, and yet we know it isnt. There is this battle between flesh and spirit. Between that which is old and that which is vitally and lifegivingly new. Which is why Paul said “Rom 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
Rom 8:29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, for Him to be the First-born among many brothers. ”
We walk this old and ancient path, the road less travelled, pain and grief are just a part of the journey. It’s life, sh1t happens. But God! Every single stone, rock, thorn that rises up and bites us. Every fleshly, angry, hurtful decision we make that sends us crashing to our knees, is not God sticking his foot out so we crash and learn some “life lessons”! Its just life and part of growing up into the Head. BUT GOD, knows all this. He knows we are going to crash and burn. So he made provision for us in this, that in our belovedness and in our grief and in our lonelyness and in our hurt in our participation in His purpose of all ways being conformed into the image of his beloved son, that we would KNOW that he works ALL things together for good. I look back over those things in my life that, Oh my goodness I would never want to live in that space again without knowing what I know now, and I KNOW that this God of wonder and the lover of my soul has indeed worked all things together for Good. He takes my blunderings and weaves them into the tapestry of His love for me and my love for him so their outcome is one of the most intricate and beautiful patterns in the whole.
I am my beloved and He is mine.