Wierd.

I got a phone call this morning at 5:30am. It's okay, because I was pretty much up since 2:45 anyway. I guess I'm just not allowed to sleep peacefully right now. The other day it was 5:15. The day before that, 4:30. Sunday I was up around 4, too. Anyone who's known me for any length of time knows I don't normally do early mornings, but for some reason, my clock is shifting....it's wierd.

Deep Waters

Interesting question posed to me in cell last night;
"If God is everything, and in everything, than God is both good and evil"
hmm...now, how do you deal with that one? God ALLOWS evil, because he allows freedom of choice. Yes he created Satan, but as an angel of light, and in pride he rebelled....but God created him with the CAPACITY to rebel, so therefore God is evil, too....sometimes I like debate, other times, I think satan likes to see us run in circles that have no conclusion so we walk out confused, and with more questions than answers. This morning in rations I fell over this proverb;
"The words of a man's mouth are deep waters, but the fountain of wisdom is a babbling brook"(18:4)
Deep waters are the scene of many shipwrecks. Like our debate last night, sometimes we try so hard to be 'deep thinkers' that we end up drowning in our own wonderings. But if God's wisdom is a babbling brook, it seems to be more simple, joyful even. Brooks are often sources where many little creatures can enjoy sustenance, while deep waters often swallow up life, either if you're thinking of the deep waters of the sea, or a closed off lake that grows stagnant in time. I don't think there have been many reports of people having drowned in a babbling brook!

impatiently waiting...

I'm deciding I don't know how to be patient. Well, I do. I've been learning patience for about 25 years now, and I'm back to the whole "hurry up and wait" thing. How DID the Israelites keep their faith for 40years in the desert with no sign of redemption? How DID Moses keep the faith in His Lord even though he died before ever setting foot in the promised land? How DID Job cope with so much suffering and never sin? Waiting and hoping for things not yet seen is apparently what faith is....but how do you continue to hope and wait if what you were certain you were hoping and waiting for might not be what it is that will really satisfy you? I WANT my hopes and dreams to line up with God's heart, and some of the time I know they do, but other times, it just seems like a battle of the flesh. Proverbs says that "if we CALL OUT for understanding, and CRY OUT for wisdom," then "you will understand the fear of the LORD"...it says "He holds VICTORY in store for the upright, and is a SHIELD to those whose walk is blameless"....now, that's good stuff, right there. Wouldn't that be cool? To know that you were shielded and protected, and that there was certain VICTORY over the battles in your life? Now THAT's faith that can move mountains.

Sleepover last night. Lots of fun. the boys did parafin hand treatments, and listened to Enya. The girls stayed up all night playing Tony Hawk. Now THERE's a switch for ya!

Shake off the dust....

I cleaned out a van yesterday. The interesting thing about doing repetitive work like sweeping, is the closer you get to the dirt, the more of it you see. I was shocked at the sheer VOLUME of garbage that collected from a single trip up a mountain. (We had gone on a hike the day before up Bald Mountain.) In the course of my cleaning, I started realizing how the state of our van could so easily relate to my spiritual walk:
1) Things that seem okay in the dark look much different in the LIGHT. (The van looked relatively clean last night in the moonlight, but when I looked at it again this morning, I was shocked by the amount of dirt and dust that had gathered from our single little trip to the bush...like my spiritual junk, I can ignore it and leave it in the dark and pretend it's not there, or I can go take a look at it and decide to do something about it.)
2) The cleanliness of your vehicle depends on ATTENTION to detail. (When I took time to LOOK at the floor, and SEE the dust/garbage, then I started to realize how badly it needed to be swept out.)
3) Your ability to take out the trash depends on what TOOLS you have. (I had to use three different sized brooms in order to get the dirt out as completely as possible...a big one for the big stuff, and a smaller one for the finer dust and hard-to-reach places....like sins, some are obvious and easy to deal with, simply renounce it and move on....other stuff is finer, and sticks in the cracks so you don't see it right away...that stuff takes a lot more time and effort to make sure it's actually out of there.)
4) To keep your 'new' vehicle in 'new' condition, you will need to CONTINUALLY do a cleaning of it. (Like our spirits, even though Christ has given us a NEW heart, we need to continually do a spiritual 'check' to make sure dust hasn't collected in some unsuspecting places...let Jesus show us the trouble areas, and then let Him show us which tools we need in order to clean it thoroughly.)
5) Don't forget to wear protection when getting into the nitty gritty of the dirty work. (Sweeping up dried up mud just blows a cloud of dust back in your face...like dealing with sin, you need to make sure you're spiritually protected or 'covered in the blood' before you do any serious clean-up, because the natural tendency of things that need to get moved is to rebound in your face....I learned that the hard way.)
Finally, I've got this song running through my head;
"Shake off the dust, Rise up and dance again
Wear the garments of splendor, and clothe yourself in strength
Rise up and sing, free the chains from around your neck,
Salvation singing, Salvation sings,
AWAKE daughter of ZION!"

Lord help me to WAKE UP! and shake the dust that's been collecting. Help me do a spring cleaning of my soul so I can be made new again.

I wish I knew how to control my reactions sometimes. Have you ever had a reaction to something that was totally inappropriate? I have. When I found out my friend died this fall, I laughed. Maybe it had something to do with the way it was presented to me. Maybe it had to do with me not being there to see her in the final stages of her life to really 'get' the seriousness of her last few trips to the hospital. Maybe there was a part of me that didn't believe that she was actually gone, and so I laughed.
Sometimes we use laughter as a stress reliever, or in moments of shock. When my great-grandmother died when I was 12, I remember my aunt and uncle immediately cracking jokes about her life, and I was mortified. "How can you disrespect her memory like that?!" I was screaming in my head. I wanted to engage in the solemnity of loss and honor, and all they could do was poke fun. Now I find myself laughing at inappropriate times, cracking jokes to try to break tension. If I feel like crying, I try to choke it out with laughter, or if someone else is feeling tense or down, I'll immediately try to brush it off by being funny. While laughter is good, it's not always appropriate. Kind of like walking into a funeral wearing a bikini....except that the person who comes to a funeral wearing a bikini has probably had some control in their choice of attire for that occasion. Unfortunately, we sometimes have less control over what strikes us as funny in any given point in time. Lord, clothe me in humility. Help me to be one who weeps with the weeping and rejoices with those who are rejoicing.

Oh, CANADA, what do we do with you?

Okay. I just read an article onthis blog that gets my blood boiling. Only in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside do you see "Safe injection sites", volunteers in red coats walking into back alleys handing out free drug paraphernalia (needles, rigs, alchohol swabs to clean up the blood after they're done injecting their bodies with the poison), and candy (drug addicts love sweet stuff...I wonder why). There are 'clinics' where addicts go to get their 'medicine'/methadone (a replacement drug for heroin addicts--government funded--instead of paying their dealers, the Government of Canada provides this substance and basically says, "here you go, get high on us"). Not only does our government provide access to methadone, but there is even a clinic called the NAOMI project in full swing, that doles out heroine- that's the real stuff, no substitutes. The government is turning itself into a dealer "for the dignity of addicts". Seriously, now. This is flawed logic. The latest consideration is now to hand out red wine to the alchoholic homeless as well. PEOPLE NEED TO OPEN THEIR EYES AND TAKE A LOOK AT THE BIG PICTURE HERE.
1) Drug addicts unite to petition the government to give them free drugs and booze through people like Ann Livingstone (VANDU), and Don Macpherson (Vancouver's drug policy coordinator).
(This is like a suicidal person petitioning the government to hire a hitman so they can die in the most 'dignified' way possible considering their aspirations....which is ludicrous)
2) The Government says 'OKAY' (This is like putting out a death warrant on every person who takes advantage of these so-called 'services'. They are enabling habits that lead nowhere but death, and cutting funding to programs that actually have good success rates at rehabilitation....that is nonsense. But it's what's happening. The government would rather write off addicts as 'lost causes' and enable their deaths, than try and fight the source of their addiction in the first place.)
3) The end result is NOT reduced drug use, crime, or death rates, but instead sends out the message that, "yeah. You're an addict. You'll always be an addict. So deal with it. When you're dead and gone we'll have the Olympians stay in renovated suites where you used to use. Here's to 2010." Shame, Canada. Shame.

Goodbye.

So, what do you do when you realize the thing you've finally learned how to lean on is leaving you? You would think that having been raised in the Salvation Army I would get used to goodbyes, but I just don't want to say goodbye anymore.
I'm tired of the people I get close to up and leaving for whatever good reason they may have. Basically, it's selfishness, because I just want to be around the people I love all the time. But then I realize if I had them around all the time I might stop valuing them, or forget that I love them, or take them for granted. So, even though goodbyes just seem to get harder every time, I try to remember that the first One I should be leaning on and clinging to with all my might is God. And I know He will bring people back into my life at the right time, because He already has, time and time again. That said, it doesn't make saying goodbyes any easier.

SNAP

Some days you know God is using you, and other days you simply feel used....on those days, you know it's time to SNAP OUT OF IT!!!
Psalm 78 and Romans 1 remind us how quickly we forget our place. We assault God with our selfish prayers for Him to prosper us and make us happy. We are more concerned with feeling good than seeing God work out His righteousness on the earth. We'd rather have a warm and fuzzy feeling than really enter into and share in the sufferings of Christ. When did Jesus ever say 'believe in me and everything will be swell?' When did Jesus ever say "Do whatever makes you happy"...NO!!
He said "Take up your CROSS and follow me." He said "Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me." He said "You WILL find persecution." "I am sending you out as sheep among wolves." "Sell everything you have and give it to the poor." Disciples who kept even a small portion for themselves were cast out of the community for their deceit. Rich men went away sad. Religious leaders plotted his death and succeeded. He shared his life with the poor, the outcasts, the criminals. He wasn't even very good-looking. So what makes this Jesus guy so worth following? Why do you care about Jesus? Do you? (obviously, I haven't snapped out of it yet)

Here's some fuel for the fire;

"Humble yourself under God's mighty hand and He will raise you up in due time. Cast all your cares on him because he cares for you. Be Self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers around the world are going through the same kinds of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered for a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast. To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen" 1 Peter 5:6-11

Today is a better day. Praise the Lord for better days.
It's raining outside. Like the song...

"Fall on me, ever so gently,
washing, washing, my filthy stains"

God is good.

lies

So I found some old poetry I had written.
One was about me mooning over some guy I had seen on the bus, and the other was about a few different guys I have 'mooned' over the course of my life. ('Mooned' as in had a romantic interest in, not 'mooned' as in bared my bottom to the world.)
At any rate, I found these poems, and what came through loud and clear was this self-defeating "you're not good enough" attitude through all of it.
I am slowly working through the lies that I have been believing ever since I was a little girl that I was too fat, too clumsy, too poor, too messed up to ever be of any use to anyone.
I've had a few well-timed emails reminding me of the lies of the Enemy, and the way he can weedle his way into our insecurities to make us numb, or hard, or depressed, or apathetic to the things that God wants to accomplish in and through us as a people of faith.
I think of all the worship songs and psalms that remind us:
"Let the weak say I am strong"(2 Cor 12:10, Joel 3:10)
"Yahweh lifts the needy from the ash heap" Psalm 113:7 (NKJV says 'dung pile', and we all know what that smells like, right?!)
"Don't store up for yourselves treasures on earth...."(Matthew 6:19,20)
Lord, help me to be more like you.

my cat died. It was sad. but I spent the weekend in Canada which was pretty great, and had a lot packed in. Travis and Alberta and I drove in through Niagra Falls, and we spent the first night at my parents'. I slept with five different women in four nights, I'm telling you it was pretty hilarious! Saturday was the big wedding, and if I had a photo developed of the lovely couple, it'd be here. We stayed with my grandfather who graciously opened his home to an unknown number of guests for the weekend.
Sunday we spent the day touring Toronto with Sue Ann, checked out 614 Toronto and had dinner with my dad. (It was so good to get to share my dad with other people for once. I can't express in words how much that meant to me.) Monday we drove to Montreal, found Notre Dame, made fun of french signs, and slept over at my dear cousin Laura's. Tuesday we made the final drive home, through a very pretty, very long road. It was nice.

My cat's dying. This morning she wouldn't move from her favorite spot on the floor, and then crawled inbetween my bedsheets...interesting that at times of great pain creatures seek the security of places that remind us of a mother's womb.

Do you ever feel like screaming in a soundproof room? Could be fun...

Be on Guard

Devos this morning reminded me of some of the characters in The Constant Gardener....people who seem like friends to your faces but behind your back are trying to take you down.

"My companion attacks his friends;
he violates his covenant.
His speech is smooth as butter,
yet war is in his heart;
his words are more soothing than oil,
yet they are drawn swords."
Pslm 55:20,21

Beware of the smooth-speaking tyrant.
David's son Absalom conspired against his father by smooth-talking the Israelites to suit his own gains. (2 Sam 15) This is the same way cult leaders and child molestors win and manipulate people into trusting them. "Be on your guard, for your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." (1 Peter 5:8)

Good thing the Psalm continues....

"Cast your cares on Yahweh, and he will sustain you;
he will never let the righteous fall.
But you, O God, will bring down the wicked into the pit of corruption;
bloodthirsty and deveitful men will not live out half their days.
But as for me, I trust in you" Psalm 55:22-end