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

music is to my soul as..

I have a confession to make..

I’m kind of a church music geek. I love the “oldies”. And by old, I mean stuff that would have been popular for my parents. I get goosebumps at the sound of a tight 4 part men’s harmony, I thrill to the sight of a choir. SATB, men’s, children’s anything. I love it. A youth choir form Trinity Baptist in Kelowna came to our church once and I almost cried. Most of my fellow contemporaries would be sighing or looking at their shoes (this is before smart phones people) or cringing or whining, “why can’t it be current music?” or, “choirs are so boring” 

Isn’t it amazing how different we can all be? 

I love this music because I grew up with it. But I know people that don’t love this music because they grew up with it. Such a strange parallel universe we live in. My mom loves to sing, although her lack of hearing has made it near impossible for her to carry a tune anymore, but in her day.. this is a comfort I go to in my mind often. She talks about how she would sing with her mom while they were doing dishes. Gramma would sing soprano and mom would sing the alto part (God bless the altos). They always would be old hymns that gramma had grown up singing and my mom grew a heart for those tunes. But when my mom hit her late 20’s, North American evangelicalism was changing and the music was changing and from the south came some wonderful gospel music that is still sung in many churches today. But at my mom’s time, they were not sung in Sunday morning service. Likely because they required drums and guitars and that just did not happen. So, my mom and her friend Betty, sang some of these new songs together. 

And. It. Was. Beautiful. 

I was a child at the time and my mom was perfect and I loved my auntie Betty and sometimes my sister would accompany them on piano or Betty’s brother-in-law Bob, would fill in. Bob was an amazing man, he was exceedingly gifted in music and he tuned pianos. He would go to someones house to tune their piano and when it was done he would play a hymn to “show” the customer that the piano was properly tuned. He didn’t share the gospel with his mouth, he used his hands… let that sink in.

I have memory on top of memory of going with my mom to her voice lessons with auntie Betty, or practices at auntie Betty and uncle Ken’s house. There became a family around music. And to me the music was always beautiful and redemptive. My mom and Auntie Betty would sing at different churches around Vancouver. Often at Collingwood Baptist (that is where most of my memories lay) but other churches as well and my sister says they were even on the radio a few times. See my point? Music was in our house. Always. I think my mom needed it to be that way and I am finding the same. As a child I loved to sing Sunday mornings. I would put on a record and just sit at the stereo and listen, hearing the different notes and instruments. It was like food for my soul.

Choirs in school were my jam and I tried to get my friends on board because, come on, singing is awesome and singing in a group it the shiznit! High school choir was just as wonderful as elementary but eventually my bed won out to early morning practices. Then the church I was attending had a choir and I didn’t join right away but when I finally did, I cried in the middle of my first practice. But like, dignified tears, you know, the “something’s in my eye” crying. It was like my soul had been emaciated for years, starved of it’s first language of nourishment. It was beautiful and uplifting and glorious and gracious.

and then it wasn’t.

You know you can tell a lot about the health of a church by it’s choir. 

I was able to enjoy a few years with the choir before I noticed the cracks, and then the more I noticed them the harder it became to be a part of it. I had to leave the choir and it was a surprisingly difficult decision. I had originally left because I had a new baby and it was too challenging to manage that and choir responsibilities so I just expected to take a few months away and be back for the start of the new season. But once I had stepped away I realized how toxic it had been  for me and it wasn’t long after that and the church began to crumble. Music ceased to be redemptive and instead became a lightening rod for all problems. No one cared about content, they only cared about how it was packaged. And once again my soul was starved. 

This was when I learned that for me, it was never about the music. It was always about the community, about the unity, about the family, about the different parts putting aside their wants and working together to produce something beautiful to the glory of God.  I believe that when people argue about the music they are really telling you they don’t want to put themselves aside for the body and work together. Then the church starts to look sadder than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest. (yes, that’s irreverent, deal with it) The entire body is then being forced to work for that leg. All it’s efforts go into that ass being kicked.  And how productive is it to kick your own ass? That ends up in destruction. Is it not better to just walk, properly, in His grace, to do something that benefits all involved? Aren’t our arms and hands and brain and eyes and ears and mouth able to do other things that help the whole body when they don’t have to focus on just one part? My church looked like someone whose limbs were trying to destroy each other. And then that destruction caused leprosy and many of those limbs fell off.

 I haven’t been able to join a choir since then. To be honest I haven’t had a choir to join since then but even if I did I’m not sure I could do it. I haven’t even been able to sing on a worship team, and I’ve been asked.. but for some reason I can’t place, I just can’t do it. But, I feel I need it. You know when you get so hungry you get to the point where you’re not hungry anymore and food makes you nauseous. I am there. I have been without the unity in community so long that my soul doesn't even recognize that it needs it. Or maybe it does. Maybe that’s why I’m here now. I came across the phrase “mind of Christ” the other day and it got me thinking of a song we sang with my previous choir and I searched youtube and found it and wept. It was beautiful. Not just because the choir was tight, or because they had a spot on orchestra or because the sound was clear and you could hear the words. But because the words were hard and fast and true. Just as true today as they were near 2000 years ago when Paul wrote them, just as true when my former choir sang them and just as true today when the church is dealing with issues that is tearing it apart form the inside out. Just as true for little Colleen listening to her mommy and auntie Betty singing “O Glorious Love” or “God Hath Not Promised”. Just as true for the Queen of England, the widow in Calcutta, the refugee, the comfortable, the uncomfortable. Just as true for the midwife in Haiti, the teacher in Nigeria, the Doctor in Beirut, the nurse in Russia, the missionary in Cameroon, the priest in Chile, the coal miner in China, the farmer in Australia. You name it, it’s is true for them. Because if the gospel isn’t true for the single mom in Jamaica working three jobs to feed her two children then it isn’t true for any of us.

People, we are the body and we are to work together. We are the body for Christ. You know, the Messiah, the Saviour? We do this because of Him. In Him we live and move and have our being. 

That is the most beautiful song we could ever sing. 

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death- even death on a cross! 

Phil 2:5-8

weeping and seeking..

The world is a mess, torn, in tears, on it’s face.. broken.

But it has always been. Since that day in the Garden. Since the serpent, the woman, the man, the shame, the hiding. 

“Where are you?” the Lord calls out

… He knows exactly where we are, but he waits. For, He gave us choice… He waits for us to come to Him.

we breathe.. but on our own it seems impossible…. ….  ….

YHWH

Life in our lungs, breathe on me oh breath of God

yhwh….    yhwh….    yhwh….

We come out of hiding, we look for Him, He is not hiding. He is there before us. Reaching out with His pierced hands. Standing on His pierced feet.

He was there in the beginning, it all was made through Him. The Word. He is The Word. The word was with us and in us and through us. We are created through the Word. Imago Dei. The image of God. All of us. A part of Him, a part of each other. 

But the Garden, the serpent, the deceiving, the hiding

He closed the Garden, but He never left us. We are just too blinded by our shame to see Him. Why can’t we see Him. For certain He is hiding. 

No

He is in every face we see, the one in the mirror, the ones on the street, the faces at work, at church, in a mosque, in a synagogue, in a temple. The Imago Dei is everywhere.

in the void

an olive branch

wrestling in the dessert

burning bush

water from the rock

Forty years wandering 

manna from heaven

cleft of a rock

dried up Jordan

trumpets blasting

protection from a prostitute

Kinsman redeemer

taking another man’s wife

death of a child

Jesse’s tree

parched grounds

a chariot

three days in a fish

cursed plants

coals to the lips

Four hundred years of silence

struck mute

census

feed trough

locusts, honey and camel hair

fishermen

a prostitute

a tax collector

bag of silver

a Roman

blinded on the road

an Ethiopian

stones

prison

tongues

Three thousand and more and more and more and more

But still, we don’t see Him

Is he only there if we can see Him?

Is He there even when we are blind?

We are weeping, He has left us..

No, we are not seeking Him.

We can’t come away from our shame

Are we looking for Him, are we seeking Him?

Maybe we cannot find Him because we have forgotten who He is..

yhwh….     yhwh….    yhwh….

if you ain't where you are..

I was texting with some moms this last week, checking in on each other and as we shared about our days and our feelings, our kids and our dreams, it struck me how we just can’t seem to be OK. How is this possible? We have book upon book instructing us how to embrace and rebuild, how to be grateful and joyful, and how to love and accept our lives where ever they may be at. Yet here, in my corner of the world (and with social media, my corner is pretty big) we just can’t seem to wrap our noggins around the concept of acceptance. We live in this dichotomy of expectation and reality and can’t seem to marry or reconcile the two. 

I’ve been wracking by brain trying to think of an instance in the bible where someone, preferably a woman-specifically a mom, was struggling with this.. this unruly bowl of noodles. And I can’t. There is no specific time where mom A and mom B come up to Jesus and say, “Lord, I want to do this and my kids demand this, while my husband is expecting this.” And mom B says, “Lord, I don’t even know what I want, I’m disappearing into my family, can you give me a calling and make it something I already like to do or at least awaken a new desire?” And Jesus says something profoundly impossible to understand because they don’t see for sure that he is the Christ and they go on their way just as conflicted as when they came to him. For the record, I sometimes come away from the bible feeling that way. I think part of it is because I go to the bible with expectations. Like it’s the key to ALL my answers. I know it isn’t, but it is so easy to fall into the pattern of “God, what do I do here?” “What are you calling me to do in this specific instance?” “Lord help me to organize my day” “Lord, please help me to not let the kids watch tv all day again today” “Lord, keep me from feeling like a Pinterest fail” When, instead I should be saying “Thank you Jesus, I love you.”

The closest I could think of to this situation is Mary and Martha. If you aren’t familiar with the story, Jesus and his disciples are at Mary and Martha’s house and Mary is sitting at Jesus feet because I mean come on, wouldn’t you? The Messiah is at your house, don’t you want to sit at his feet? But Martha is angry, she is slaving away in the kitchen preparing the feast. I mean, come on, wouldn’t you? The Messiah is at your house, along with 12 OTHER MEN. This is not the time to order out for pizza. Wouldn’t you want to make your very best meal for the Lord? But in this case Martha had expectations of Mary. And Jesus says “Oh Martha, Martha, Martha” -paraphrasing.

Sometimes I feel like he is saying that to me. Oh Colleen, Colleen, Colleen. Because I’m Mary and Martha in the same body. I place conflicting expectations on myself. And then throw in there the burden of my own brood in my house, (did I just say burden? I mean love, love of my own brood) the concerns of my family elsewhere, and everybody I meet because that’s how I role. But that creates an unrealistic reality, or an alternate universe, or the desire for cloning - me, not everyone else. It is where ideas of should be’s and want to’s and why can’t’s and self-spectations take over the what is. 

I am finding that it is the expectations of ourselves that is diminishing us.

well..

What is my reality? 

My boys wake up too early and I like to sleep in

My want? 

I would rather they sleep in and I wake up early. 

My self-spectation.

That I would just get my ass out of bed and start my day with a prayer and a smile, instead of a grump and a coffee.

My reality?

Three boys under 8 and they fight.

My why can’t?

Just get along and everyBODY STOP YELLING AT EACH OTHER!!

My self-spectation?

I get on my knees and play with them more.

My reality?

I am a stay at home mom

My want to?

Stay a stay at home mom but make everyone else go out (haha..hah)

My self-spectation?

Does June Cleaver ring a bell?

My reality?

My husband is a pastor and for all intents and purposes is “on-call” for ministry 24-7 and it would really help him if I stepped up my game in the running of the house

My should be?

I want pastoring to be different. 

My self-spectation?

That my superpower be perfect pastor-wifing (however that looks to you)

How is any of this helpful? Why do I put these expectations on myself. Some of them I think are doable I just have too much pride, others are just ridiculous. Yet these self-spectations are what I place as the benchmark. And in talking with others I’m not the only one that does this. I have no problems with setting goals and having expectations but when those things get in the way of doing the here and now, get in the way of being present, block the way to the holiness of such a time as this, then we have a problem. 

Jesus wants to redeem our lives, our waking lives, our wiping bums and pick-up from school lives, our music lesson and PTA lives, our delighting in our children lives, our treating our spouse as an ally not an enemy lives. He wants to be here in the now. Not the should be, or want to be. If we can’t be present in our now and love and accept it for what it is then we are drifting, we might as well be an astronaut floating through space and time. My self expectations are getting in the way of being fully present for my boys, for my husband. Even for my family and friends. 

“If you ain’t where you are, you’re no place” -Colonel Potter

So how do we do this? how does this look practical? We show up. We look at what is going on around us and in our home and with our friends and our community and we show up, we jump on the wagon, we get involved. We lay down our expectation of how we think it should be or how we want it to be and we pick up how He has made it to be. Because when you are doing, there is no time to be wishing. And when you are doing, you are in and when you are in you see Holy. I think that is what He has called us all to do. Be present, look for the Holy and jump on it.

what I think..

I thought I was done with "red cupgate" but I had another thought about it today as I was doing dishes and folding laundry and wiping bums and making pb&j's. Theology isn't just for scholars you know.
This is bigger than a cup. We don't like that it is but, there it is. This isn't really about a red cup. And it isn't really about how current culture has taken Christ out of Christmas either (google greek symbol for Christ). Christians have done some pretty dumb things in the name of Christ but it goes so much deeper than that.

This is about us as a church, as the body of Christ, as the kingdom on earth and we are failing because:
This is about not working together, this is about division and inner turmoil. This is about fear and not having trust. It is about not believing "for reals" that He. Is. LORD. Over. All and stepping down and letting him BE.
This is about Christians thinking the world owes us anything, as if we should want anything the world has to offer. It is about telling people we are the answers instead of telling people the answer is Jesus. This is about "Let us say Merry Christmas instead of Happy Holidays" memes as if that is real persecution even though Holiday means Holy-day. This is about being unwilling to admit that we don't have it all figured out and we HAVE to live by grace.

I think sometimes the random cupgate is a good thing for the church. It is a wake up call. Brothers and Sisters, we are asleep. We have forgotten, or maybe we have never really learned what it means to follow him - to take up our cross, to die to self, to consider everything loss to gain Christ.
We need to wake up. We need to stretch our limbs, throw off the covers and wash our hands and feet to prepare to love our Lord by serving others as Christ came to serve.

And how did he serve?

You know the answer.

So why is the occasional cupgate good for us? It reminds us that we, the Church, are not perfect, it reminds us what we believe, who Christ really is. We remember how God is actually about love and redemption and resurrection.

God didn't come incarnate as a cup.