Word..

I’m here. Are you here too? We are at the end of another year. 2015. It is nighttime here and everyone is in bed except me as I try to sort through the pages of this year. I’m opening the folds and creases, finding the parts that have been torn in a fury and I’m tending to the rough edges, trying to match them up and tape them together so I can see the bigger picture. I’ve looked back at my journals and looked over the blog posts I’ve written this year and I’ve come to the conclusion that it has been quite the year. Not the year I was expecting but..

Last year I was challenged to pick a word for 2015. 

“A word?”, you say.

Yes, a word.

I was just as baffled by it as I have never picked a word for the upcoming year. Look at it this way. If I were to ask you to look back on your 2015 and sum it up into one word, what would that word be? 

Now take that question and flip it so you are putting a word ahead of your year. It can be something you want to see, something you hope to see, something you think God is calling you to. When I answered the question of giving a word to the year that had passed I chose two. Hard Grace. Because it was my first time doing the word thing I decided I could lump a few years together. But then, when I was launched towards choosing a word for 2015.. well, It was smacking me in the face. 

Hope.

My word for 2015 has been hope.

Looking towards 2015 I decided I wanted to focus into a better year and so I chose hope. And it was a better year, not because I chose a magical word to make it so, but I believe if you are mindful of something, it can change how you perceive. 

Throughout the year I was reminded of my word, and so with hope on the agenda, it twisted my gaze, put a different coloured lens in the glasses I see the world with. Any little bit helps I think.. especially for a homesick girl prone to anxiety, negativity and self deprecation. I mean, too many times this year I looked at my boys and thought, “They’re gonna need therapy” and “God, be gracious ‘cause momma’s goin’ crazy”

People often lose things when they move, usually little things, sometimes big things. Sometimes things are damaged beyond repair. Then where do you go from there? When it’s something special, something precious..

I lost my security and my trust was damaged in this move. I tried so hard to trust God and believe the move here was better for all of us but it has been hard, so damn hard. I am still holding onto belief that better will come, but since I can’t see it yet I am still picking up the fragments of my shattered trust. I cling to the bigger picture, the hope, the now and the not yet, the kingdom come. But, in the smaller picture? the pixels..

A pastor from a time ago in my life preached a sermon once that has stuck to me like glue. He talked about our walk with God is like working on a needle point, and we are underneath, poking the needle and thread through the canvas not totally sure what we are doing, hopefully hearing when God says “put it here” and on the other side God is turning it into a masterpiece and beautiful work. But, all we see from our spot is a myriad of threads stretched here there and everywhere. We won’t see the completed work until we are with him on the other side. Frustrating, to say the least, but this is the essence of trust is it not? And it is clearly something I still need to work through.

I love the Lord and I know he loves me and I truly desire to come through this challenge the better for it. And it is my desire to look back on our time here in Terrace (whenever that may happen) and be glad it happened. That I would be thankful for picking up shattered trust, glad that I had to find new security and that maybe, just hopefully my relation to God is more realistic and less idealistic. I can rejoice in that too.

It won’t happen overnight. It will take work, persistence, grace, forgiveness, love and desire.

I will build a monument to the Lord. 2016 will be a monument to his promises. I will dig them out of the riverbed and I will build a monument to him.

rebuild,

I will rebuild.

Son of God, love's pure light..

Hail! Thou ever blessed morn.

Hail! Redemption’s happy dawn.

Sing through all Jerusalem, Christ is born in Bethlehem!

   O come let us adore Him..

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see

Hail the incarnate Deity!

Mild he lays his Glory by, born that man no more may die.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,

nor thorns infest the ground

He comes to make his blessings flow, far as the curse is found.

Born to raise the sons of earth.

Born to give them second birth.

    Gloria!

And all the angels in heaven, and all the souls on earth shall sing.

What can I give him?

poor as I am, 

    what can I give him?

I played my drum for him.

I played my best for him.

Myrrh is mine, it’s bitter perfume breathes a life of gathering doom.

Born thy people to deliver,

born a child and yet a King.

Nails, spear shall pierce him through,

the cross be borne for me, for you.

Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying.

Hail, hail the word made flesh, 

the babe the son of Mary, 

sealed in a stone cold tomb.

     O come let us adore Him!

Disperse the gloomy clouds of night and death’s dark shadows put to flight.

Light and life to all he brings,

risen with healing in his wings.

Then rang the bells more loud and deep, “God is not dead nor does he sleep!”

Sages leave your contemplations,

brighter visions beam afar.

Born to reign in us forever.

     Go tell it, everywhere!

Seek the great desire of nations,

Ye have seen his natal star.

No ear may hear his coming,

but in this world of sin fall on your knees.

Our weakness is no stranger.

Where meek souls will receive him still, 

the dear Christ enters in.

Behold your king, his power and glory forever more proclaim!

     O come let us adore him!

Now, to the Lord sing praises all you within this place.

Therefore, Christian men be sure,

wealth or rank possessing,

and with true love and brotherhood each other now embrace.

Ye who now will bless the poor,

shall yourselves find blessing.

This holy tide of Christmas all others doth deface.

     O come,

     

     Rejoice!

               

     With peace on earth.

             

     I’ll give him my heart..

she is..

I had the most wonderful weekend. I got to have a mommy vacation. Five days of not cooking for anyone, not cleaning for anyone, not refereeing any fights, not wrestling with snowsuits. No, mid-night wake-ups, no bathroom interruptions and no laundry. 

ahhh

I got to visit, and sleep in and drive myself in peace and quiet. I only had myself to get from one place to another and it was bliss. Like a warm bath after a long hard day. 

At the end of my time off, I was invited to participate in a most Holy gathering. It was an amazing way to end my weekend. It was an honour to be a part of it and I will carry it with me and remember it specifically every christmas as I hang my memento on my tree. 

It was a gathering of women. Women that have been a part of my life for many years, women that I have only known for a few years. But all of them are women that have spoken into my life and are a part of who I am. In some ways because of how they have touched me, or my boys, or my husband. These are women I have cried in front of and for, I have prayed with these women, cheered them on and been cheered on. With these women I have served the church and have cared for them and been cared for by them. Some of my deepest wounds and highest joys have been laid before these women, and I carry them all with me because we are all part of the family of God. They are my “sisters”

I was catching up with one of them and she shared how she felt that she has no friends. “well, I have X and I have Y” she reminded herself. But it spoke to me of a deeper woe. A clinging fear. A gross lie we tell ourselves. I heard these words and I looked around the room at all these beautiful strong women leaders and was surprised to hear one of them feels they have no friends. A room full of sister friends and they feel they have none. How does this happen? When did we start listening to the myth of scarcity? I started to wonder how many of us share this feeling. I know I have felt that way more than once. And as the day progressed I found myself asking God how this can be fixed. And it is sticking with me. I haven’t been able to shake it. Is this a false god we create to avoid vulnerability? Or, is this us listening to the gremlins that tell us we don’t have because what we do have isn’t like what others have. Or maybe it is because we are just so busy with our living lives that we haven’t the time to invest into our relationships. And when there is no investment, there is no return. 

But, I have found there is always a reserve.

And it is a reserve that has been provided for you.

God created us for community. To commune. Not just with him but with his creation. We are all a part of him. We are created in his image we are imago dei - image bearers. I believe we get caught up in the hologram of of what is marketed to us. What we are inundated with on tv, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and all the other social media apps designed to bring us closer but are in most cases pulling us farther apart from genuine relationship. We think we need the daily coffee dates, or girls nights with a glass of wine in one hand and Amy Schumer’s latest joke in the other. We have been caught up in thinking if we don’t have that all the time we are on the losing end. That what we have isn’t good enough. Can we help each other trash the idea of “not enough”? Because when you tell yourself you don’t have enough, you are also telling yourself you are not enough and you are telling God that He is not enough and you are telling the others in your life that they are not enough. And let me tell you..

You are enough.

By the grace of God, you are enough.

You are strong

you are holy

you are smart

you are brave

you are valuable

you are funny

you are an overcomer

you are victorious

you are talented

you have a deep well of love surrounding you

you are not a fail

you bear HIS image

you are sanctified

you are more than the outside

you have an impact

you are a gift.

Maybe this is the answer. We need to start preaching truth to ourselves. Earlier last week something happened to me that made me feel like a fail, like I had betrayed myself. I threw my heart out into a crowd and it was dropped and ignored. And I couldn’t tell anyone about it because I felt no one would understand. I spent the days feeling the opposite of all those things. And then I was among these women, and I was blessed and I realized, we are so much more, because we have so much more, because HE is so much more.

My sisters,

live loved - because you are

live strong - because you are

live victorious - because you are

live in his image - because you are

live in truth - because all this is true