Friday, June 30, 2006

LONGING FOR GLORY

I try to blog on Tuesdays and Fridays. As I was thinking about what I wanted to write today, then I was reviewing the days events. I have a friend named Laura who is REALLY special to me. We started seminary together and have walked through some really significant, really joyful, and really hard events together in each others' lives. Laura is one of those kindred spirit friends who knows how to understand me, encourage me, and pray for me. And so I can do that back for her also. Its been this great peer type friendship, which I really need because I have a lot of relationships in which I do almost all the giving. I spent this afternoon on Laura's couch, chatting for the last time in person. Her two year old woke up from his nap and wanted "Aunt Weez" to hold him for like 40 minutes. So that's the last time for a while I'll get to do one of my favorite activities (hold one or both of the twins while talking to Laura) because they are moving to New York City to plant a church in Brooklyn. My heart aches with desire for this friendship to not be separated. There are other desires in my life that are unmet as well, right now. My temptation is to eat as much chocolate as I can, because it can numb the pain somewhat. What do we, as a vulnerable church, do at these times? I have some advice from two wise men that really helps me, because I need tons of help as I really fight against giving up. One, Bill, wrote this to me long ago and I still have it taped up on my refrigerator, "The longing is a part of our worship. The unmet longing is our fellowship with a suffering Jesus. The longing fulfilled is a taste of the the hope of what is to come. The call is to trust Him with a ruthless trust wherever we are with our longing. Don't loose the longing. It will kill your heart." Another man, Paul, just e mailed this to me the other day,"If you had no belief at all, you wouldn't have listened, it wouldn't have found a place in your soul. So, there must be at least a mustard seed's worth of faith. What is the power of faith? Is it our virtue or is it the power of that in which we have faith? Since it is the latter, I trust that you will increasingly enjoy the mustard sauce. Which of us will be perfected before we arrive at home? Not one. So, I am grateful that you are attuned to the hope for home, for a perfect father, for genuine relationships, for a community that loves God will all of their hearts and one another as themselves." So in short, as a vulnerable church, don't kill our hearts, and remember that we have faith that comes from the Lord, that we can rest in. That is really hard. Don't hear me saying that you should just snap your fingers and do it, because I can't. No one can. Its a big battle that takes a lot of work and energy to seek the Lord instead of distract or numb ourselves.

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

FROM A SINGLE WOMAN ABOUT MEN PART 2

I purposely left my last entry hanging so that you could feel with me the longing for more. We women always want more of something, and that's why we so often have the fear that we are too much. The curse that we received in Genesis is a relational type curse, and so we are cursed and never fulfilled, and contentment is therefore hard. I think that's why David Wilcox' song (that I posted a few blogs back) resonates so with women. That want for more is always there tugging at our heart, telling us that something is wrong and we don't have enough. I wanted for someone to come and rescue me, others want to be married until they are married and then their want turns to something else, and then they want a child, etc. There is always something that we want and we think if we had it then all would be good and we would finally find contentment. We want and want and want, and we greatly fear that if we show our true selves then we will be rejected because we want too much. So we try to kill the want, the desires in us. I think there's a different solution. What if we take our desire to Christ? Don't you think he can handle it? He can, and not only that, He will. It just might not be what we expect. But he definitely will. His Word promises it. And here's the big thing - Christ IS the want that we want, and so once we seek him, we can find that true satisfaction and contentment. As we take our hearts to him, we will get to know him more and therefore we will know more and more of how he fulfills us. I know that your next question is, HOW? It doesn't happen overnight. There is no formula. God is not a step by step God, if so then we and all the pharisees in the Bible could have figured it all out. But he is GOD. So keep turning to him with your wants, pleading with him to fill you, and it will happen, little by little. He is not the bad guy. I promise.

Sunday, June 18, 2006

FROM A SINGLE WOMAN ABOUT MEN

So yesterday I fought for single women everywhere. There's a man who gave me what I considered to be clear communication that he was going to pursue me when he moved to St Louis, and yet when he got here he was pretty much either quiet or speaking to me about other women he might be interested in. After the hurt and disappointment passed, then I wanted to give him the opportunity for him to learn from what had been communicated to me, so I told him that I would like to communicate with him for that very reason. That may sound like an excuse to get to tell him off so that he would feel bad for the way that I was hurt, but I purposefully waited until my motives were for the sake of being honest and for the sake of fostering better communication within the Body. I had a lot of accountability about my motives in speaking to him. Plus, I am working on learning to do the hard work of communicating and not just fleeing when things are hard to say, and so this was a good opportunity to put it into practice. So I spoke up and risked by revealing even more of my heart, so that this miscommunication could be communicated, so that the next woman may be communicated with more straightforwardly. You see, men, we women are weak in the area of assuming. Many of us know that we need to grow in this area, and not assume, but also its part of who we are. We are so relational and long for relational intimacy, and we can be drawn into feeling intimacy very easily, even through just verbal conversations. And then when we aren't given a clear no (or given what we think is a clear yes), then we assume that we have a potential relationship coming for us to delight in, and then are very disappointed when we discover its not true. We can work harder on not assuming, and you maybe can work harder on clearly communicating? So I said this on behalf of single women everywhere. But some of me really desired that someone else was standing up fighting for us single women in this area. I don't have a husband or a father, but I was hoping inside that some other man in my life would step forward and say to this guy that I was being treated wrongly. I think that is another valid longing of women, that someone, especially a man, would fight on our behalf.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

GOOD MUSIC

i highly recommend David Wilcox' music. He really speaks truth. http://www.davidwilcox.com Here are some lyrics:


Hard Part

from the album Vista

Hard Part:
(David Wilcox and John Whalen)

I see the look that's in your eyes
That says 'I must keep most of me inside
'Cause you'd never love me if I didn't hide
the secrets of my heart"


Well I'm not here for the surface stuff
I just get bored with all that fluff
So show me the edges even if it's rough
And let the real love start


You think your shame and deep disgrace
Are more than I can bear
But you can go to your darkest place
I will meet you there


And I'm strong enough to take it
And I know what you've been through
You've got a whole heart
Give me the hard part
I can love that too


You look at me with some surprise
And I see the doubt that's in your eyes
Like something deep inside you cries
With a hunger to be known
Like a tiger born in a city zoo
There's been no place for what's inside of you
You try to live like the others do
And it leaves you so alone


I know you think that the heat of your pain
Is more than I can stand
Burn it all in one big flame
And I will hold it in my hand


I'm strong enough to take it
And I know what you've been through
You've got a whole heart
Give me the hard part
I can love that too


Now your eyes well up with tears
As desire mixes with you fears
After so many wounded years
Can you long for what you've missed
You want a cool breeze to dance with your flame
A long lost lover who knows your true name
A secret garden beyond this shame
And it all comes down to this




You think your drowning hope will die
In a sea without a shore
But I can drink that ocean dry
And still come back for more


I'm strong enough to take it
And I know what you've been through
You've got a whole heart
Give me the hard part
I can love that too


I'm strong enough to take it
And I know what you've been through
You've got a whole heart
Give me the hard part
I can love that too


You've got a whole heart
Give me the hard part
I can love that too


© 2006 Gizz Da Baboo (SESAC) (administered by Michelle Ma Soeur (SESAC), a division of Soroka Music Ltd.) and John Whalen
All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

HOW ARE YOU, REALLY?

This week, I was a part of a meeting where we are attempting to establish a women's ministry at our church. I was glad that I was there and that I had just come from leading the women's study that I do on Sundays. My women's study is a time where women come with some really deep hurts and seek to know Jesus more, studying His life, and applying his Word to our lives, hurts, and struggles. As I was in the meeting for the women's ministry, I realized that the women who tend to plan and lead these types of women's ministry meetings are typically all similar personality types. We who lead are usually very outgoing, which often doesn't sit well with those who are in a great amount of pain. I realized that if we plan the women's ministry around us, we who are outgoing and often very loud in our outgoing-ness, then we can push away those women who are very quietly hurting deeply right now, like the women in my study that I had just been around. As I suggested this to the rest of the planning team, and as I thought about it more, I started to ponder on the way we women seem to feel like we really need to look like we have it all together all the time. We want to look strong and pretty and competent, while Jesus came for the hurting and broken and needy. If we put our energy into making church more like Jesus would make it, instead of putting out energy into the way we appear to others, life would be so much sweeter for everyone.

BEING LOVED

I had a really hard week last week. Several things happened, and I felt really beaten down. Not depressed, but you know how hard this world is to live in sometimes! Then I went to church on Sunday. The Body of believers that I belong to is a sweet place to be. I told them about my hard week and they prayed for me. Then afterward, they all came over to see my new apartment. As they stayed for a while and we fellowshipped, I was reminded that I am not alone. I have many people here on earth that love me. Not only do we need the Lord, but also he created his Body to come along side us. Genesis says that it is not good for man to be alone, and that was before sin entered the world! It was Adam and God in the perfect garden, and yet God still believed that Adam needed other humans around him! I am grateful for the Body of Christ.