The light,
and always that gentle,
the King
of love,
no weapons, laws or armies,
a tender child
who makes you tender,
what would it take for you
to empty out the treasure
of yourself
and give everything away,
what would it be like,
every moment,
even the dangerous ones,
to kneel like that?
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net
If we can’t ever fly from God, if God could show up anywhere— then when it’s exactly most unlikely for Him to come to us — it is most like Him to come to us right then.
it’s almost be this moan on the wind:
“I just wanted you to remember me….”
“When I was hungry — did you remember Me?
When I was hollowed out and emptied out and worn right out — did you remember Me?
When I was thirsty for water, parched for fresh grace, bone dry for the real Body of Christ — did you remember Me?”
Oh Child.
Oh, Christ Child.
And we go home from the manger to our tree, the scent of God still on us.
We are born in time, still, to embrace the Christ Child: we can hold Christ now in every hurting person we hold.
Did I give You food when You were hungry?
Did I give You water when You were thirsty?
Did I remember You at all this Christmas, Child who bore the Tree?
And on a spinning orb of Christmas Trees, our hearts can pound yes — our limbs and light and love reaching straight out…
– Ann Voskamp http://www.aholyexperience.com/ (edited)
“The miracle is this – the more we share, the more we have.”
– Leonard Nimoy
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up speedily;
your righteousness shall go before you;
the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.
Isaiah 58:7-8
Maritta Terrell
Thoughts are also posted at:
http://thoughtsaday.blogspot.com/
Marisa Haedike illy
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
– Ephesians 4:32
Forgiveness. It’s not an easy word for many of us. Ok, I don’t really know about others, but I know my own stubborn self and how hard it is for me to forgive, and then, rest in my forgiveness. I work through painful, difficult issues, I let go, and I think I have won the battle, but all the sudden I round a corner and, it seems, outta no-where, BAM – there it is again, and I realize I haven’t quite reached as far into that forgiveness force field as I had intended to go, and so I start again. I am so glad that I re
alize that life, and this forgiveness thing, is a process, and that I have made progress, and so that encourages me to work through it again…and again…and…!
One day I think I fine, and then the next, unexpectedly, I can plunge down hard – just by driving past a house, having a conversation, getting a glimpse of a something, hearing a song, or melling a familiar smell. I filled with pain, loss, anger, sadness, grief, regret and longing. I get overloaded with these feelings today, additionally I have can also experince anxiety, exhaustion, overwhelm and the battle with the demons inside my head which say things like, ‘I can’t sing, am ugly, fat and undesirable, and I’m just too stupid, vain and like attention too much to know it. That everything that has ever gone wrong in my life is because of me, and that I will never find anyone who can stand being with me because I am weird and unloveable.’
All of this is mixed up and complicated in my head and I have to sort it all out and begin to let go of one layer at a time, as I work to identify the lies and change the story. Then I work at forgiveness, first for myself, others, and the ‘house’ in question. It’s not easy, and I many times, and hours, I just pray, with Anne Lamont, “help me, help me, help me” until the pain eases and I can move forward in a measure of peace.
Like a baby learning to walk, each time I get up from being ‘stuck’, I gain ground, I get a little farther, a little stronger on my feet, and I pray that some day I will have arrived at the goal and will run freely in the yard of freedom! I want to live in the Land of the Free and Forgiven, and in order to do so I know I must let go of any resentment and anger I am still holding to and just breathe love. Just breathe. Just love. I know I am loved and forgiven and so I am called to forgive. I try very hard to be easy on myself, because I realize I will probably be in heaven when that finally occurs completely, and that’s ok! I will run through the golden streets with children and puppies at my heels yelling, ‘wooo hooo! Thank you!!!! I have learned the way of forgiveness!’ Until then I continue to hold myself accountable and keep doing the work!
New issue of the newsletter on this subject of Forgiveness at www.songsfromthevalley.com
Job said, “I cry to you and you do not answer me;
I stand, and you merely look at me.”
Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind:
“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements—
surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
On what were its bases sunk?
Who laid its cornerstone
when the morning stars sang together
and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?
Or who shut in the sea with
when it burst out from the womb?”
—Job. 30.20, 38.4-8
We want answers.
God gives us presence,
but not answers.
Loving attention, gazing at us from within,
faithful companionship,
walking with us through this amazing Creation,
all of it fashioned in a love and wisdom
that we can’t comprehend,
with wild art and crazy beauty
and boundless love–
this Creation that holds us and births us
and cherishes us even in our mortal unravelings,
offers us delights in its steady hands,
even in our tragedies–
reverence that ours can’t even imitate,
purpose that the human mind can’t read
any better than the poetry of the time before time,
forgiveness, mercy and delight–
but not answers.
Beyond all suffering and pleasure,
reason and meaning,
our desperate clutch at making sense,
the love God gives us
doesn’t need to become any less
than perfect mystery.
No answer,
just God.
______________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net
We tend to want what we want. Especially in our leaps of faith. I think most of us decide what we think we want before we take the leap of faith. I know for many years I had this vision of what life would be when I leap off the cliff. I had plans a – zz, and when things started going off track then I would try something new. I always had a new plan.
Over years of walking in faith, in which life was in NO WAY how I thought it should be, I came to a place in my healing where I asked the question, ‘What if my life never gets better? What if THIS is the life God wants for me. What if I die here in obscurity, in poverty, in pain, in a terrible relationship, with unresolved business, in hunger, never knowing my children, or doing anything very worthy as far as the world is concerned? What if this is my life? What if I never get to heal, hold my grandchildren, or help anyone else through tough times, or use what I have been through for good, or even eat good food again? What if never gets better?’
When I came to this question I was about 11 years into the journey. I had walked through 11 really bad years. I mean REALLY bad years. I had held onto my faith in this walk through year after year, always believing there was a reason. I had hit walls a few times, but always got back up. Always believed it would get better. Making very difficult choices towards healing, towards joy, living in thankfulness. Continuing to have hope during the darkness when the light within me was, sometimes, only a tiny flame trying to hold on during a wind storm of magnificent proportions.
Suddenly I came face to face with the horrible truth. All of these years it just kept being bad, getting badder. There was no movement in a better direction and suddenly I had to face this brutal truth. Maybe this was what I was supposed to be doing. Maybe this was it for me! Bam! In your face. What now? I had thought there was a glorious purpose for me. I had visualized standing on a world stage singing to many people and sharing my story. That was my vision. What if it was MY vision. It was a great vision…I had thought that God had placed those desires in my heart…but if not….what then? Could I accept it? Could I continue to praise? Could I bring God glory in the gray? Could I say, ‘not my will, but thine be done’?
And so a choice was upon me.
And as I lay there thinking of this most startling and horrid thought, the words of Job came to me, ‘though he slay me, still will I trust Him’ – Job 13:15. My obedience was all I was able to give to this God of such magnitude and mystery who I had experienced on this journey of grace and miracles. I wouldn’t trade this love, peace and joy for anything this world could offer me. Being uncomfortable, being hungry was a small price to pay. I would follow on, and die right there if that was God’s plan.
I began to understand what it means to ‘take up your cross daily’. To stop visualizing ‘better days’, but to find the grace to be in that particular moment and create my life each moment for God. Not in the future, but the right now. I began to understand why ‘mercies are new every morning’. I began to live, like Mother Teresa advised, ‘If you can’t feed one hundred, feed one’. I began to see, even more intensely, how important it is to live this moment. This moment is your life. We have no guarantee. Don’t wait. Don’t cling. Enter this moment and live it. It has changed me, and changed how I proceed, how I view success. How I experience my own belovedness. How I interact with the people who filter through my life every day. It lead me to begin the newsletter. It has lead me right here.
The hardest thing for me is to step out in faith without a plan. I want a plan. I have great plans! I have a wonderful imagination! I want ideas to try, and people to ask. I want to ‘make things happen’ – I can run myself in circles, stay busy doing nothing of value and make things look like I got it under control. I’m good at it! ha What I’m not so good at? Patience. Waiting. Resting. Letting go. I have learned I am free to choose – and I have decided to choose God.
I am currently living, once again, on the delicate limb of faith, hanging off a cliff with sharp rocks, raging water and hungry alligators down below me. It is a difficult, uncomfortable and exhausting place to be. I am living every moment with the choice of what I do in the space of ‘but if not…’
and, here I stand and I say, ‘give me grace for today, Lord. strengthen me in this moment and the next. My God is so big, I know there is only good from this love beyond my comprehension. Not my will. Move me out of the way. Help me let go. My God will deliver, but if not…I still will not stop my praise for my God who has poured out so much blessing on me. For all that’s been done for me! I am loved and I must pour out my love in return. Freely. I pour out my life as a puddle of praise and obedience. I have found this love that has healed my life and I am blessed beyond what I can ever comprehend! Blessed am I among women. In everything give thanks becaue everything is grace.
This is not the easy choice – but it the only choice which matters!
If you have a talent, use it in every way possible.
Don’t hoard it.
Don’t dole it out like a miser.
Spend it lavishly like a millionaire intent on going broke.”
– Brendan Francis
Get on with your own creative life. Ideas are free. They don’t cost you a thing. You can live in the world of thought all the days of your life and never go broke.
You will also die unfulfilled, because an idea that never incarnates, that never becomes physical and grounded in this world, will eventually feel like the most painful burden you ever had to carry – one that you can never put down.
People who have had near death experiences report that there is indeed a life review that happens upon our death, and that a part of that life review is to make note of what could have been in our lives had we chose otherwise.
Falling into that category are all the creative opportunities the universe provided for us that we let fall by the wayside because our fears carried more authority within us than our faith.
Trust in the life support system that is inherent in your creative spirit. You will draw to yourself all that you need as you need it, but you must first be willing to risk it all. – Caroline Myss
part of a creative collaborative women’s retreat this weekend! so blessed to be a part!!!
life: acoustic & amplified 