life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “Glory”

14 Apr 2013

joy in heaven

Brennan Manning
writing of grace
in his human broken frame
a ragamuffin
full if love and scars
he is now home with our Abba

God brought him to me
through Wyatt
in Florida
a weird and wonderful guy
who also brought me to
Henri Nouwen
and
John Eldridge
Wow!
that was a very strange and beneficial encounter

The words and calling
of Ruthless Trust
The Ragamuffin Gospel
the truth resounding
The Furious Love of God
Abba’s Child
The Wisdom of Tenderness
Above All

I read every word of his
I can get hold of
each echo in my heart
We are here to help each other
from one ragamuffin to another
Yes, he lived his calling
in a brave and wonderful way
finding intimacy and true relationship
through imperfection
just as I have

there is great joy in heaven
as he goes home
I am sure he is enjoying
the band greatly

4/13/13

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Posted in Becoming Yourself, beloved, courage, dark, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, forgiveness, Freedom, Glory, Gospel, Gratitude, Grieving, healing, home, inspiration, intimacy, Letting Go, Life, Love, Peace, People, Reflection, Respect, soul and spirit, Tenderness, thankfulness, truth | Leave a comment
24 Mar 2013

as You are

May I know You in intimacy
So that I walk only in Your love
May the stone of my heart
Melt like lemon drops
May the jagged edges of my soul
Become soft like the clouds of the spring sky
May the thorny barbs of my speech
Melt into honey as they touch the air
May the harsh judgements of my willful mind
Become mushy like the mud of the spring snow
preparing for the new growth and rebirth of love and hope in this
amazing watercolor world
May I be a part of new and abundant life
Melting and becoming everyday the hands, heart and soul of my savior
May I truly be
light and salt
in this hard, jagged, barren world

As You are
So let me be

AL 3/23/13

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Posted in awareness, beloved, Blessing, Change, Choice, confidence, Faith, find art at pinterest, Glory, Gospel, intimacy, Life, Love, Relationships, soul and spirit, Tenderness, thankfulness, Uncategorized, words | Leave a comment
16 Mar 2013

She knows the Jesus is comfortable with broken people who remember how to love. – Brennan Manning

Ruthless trust is the way for this ragamuffin.

If it be your way, the sign you can trust will be the slow, steady, and miraculous transformation from self-rejection to self-acceptance rooted in the acceptance of Jesus Christ.

– Brennan Manning

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Posted in attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Blessing, compassion, Encouragement, Faith, Glory, Gospel, Gratitude, Life, Love, soul and spirit, Trust, Uncategorized | Leave a comment
21 Jan 2013

It is a gift of God, the life of the Spirit breathing in you, the maker of worlds uttering, “Let there be light.” – Steve Garnaas – Holmes

The divine in you is not the power to conquer wrong
but simply the passion to be good news,
to open eyes, to set free.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net

freedom

Posted in awareness, beloved, Choice, Faith, find art at pinterest, Freedom, Glory, Gospel, Happy Holiday!, Letting Go, Life, light, Love, perceptions | Leave a comment
16 Jan 2013

The glory of God is hidden in all things. – Steve Garness-Holmes

We want glory. We want joy. We want life to bring us good things and shiny happiness for every moment. With glory, joy, goodness and happiness defined by our own internal vision of what that means. We want God to be our cookie jar and deliver what we pray for in the way we pray for it. Anything less is a disappointment. I’m not judging anyone – it’s how I’ve lived as well. With expectations of what I want just waiting to be delivered, and when it isn’t I get disappointed.

The past 5 months I have gone on a pilgrimage with God. It has been a very, very difficult path to wprayeralk and it has taken me into places of darkness and danger which I did not know existed in my physical living and within my soul. As I continue on this path, it seems, like Buttercup in The Princess Bride, I have made it through the “fire swamp” and definitely through the “pit of despair” and sometimes I get weak knee’d wondering what is ahead. How will I get through any more of this? I am way too tired, weak, afraid and like Wesley(TPB), “I have been mostly dead all day”.

The truly amazing revelations which I have experienced over these past months are new revelations of the magnitude of God. Our faith is all about personal experience and my experiences have been vivid and dramatically life-changing. I have felt the heart of Jesus as he ached to show and share with Jerusalem (and the world) his love with his cry, ‘O Jerusalem, how often…but you would not”; I have experienced the heart of Mary as she stepped out-of-the-way and said, “Do to me what you have said”; I have connected to the truth of the Psalmist as he wrote, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence”?; I have lain on the ash heap with Job as God spoke and said, “Where were you when I laid the foundations?” and I have found the truth of the faith that is pleasing to God, which is obedience. It is not about giving God things that I want. It is about the path that goes where I would not go myself, only from a heart of unconditional, passionate and unlimited love, and staying there in these hard places out of obedience, because of that love.

I have found that commitment and my obedience are my “reasonable service”. I have had no place to go and God has been in that non-place with me. I have never been alone and I have not gotten safely through because I am so brave and strong. God has brought me every breath.

As this New Year gets into full swing, my prayer is for God’s wisdom. Everything I knew before has been upset like the proverbial apple cart, and I am undone. I am weak and tired. I am humbled and I am open to what God has prepared for me to do, as I continue to be obedient and offer my life as a love song.

 

The Wise Ask God for Wisdom
by Rick Warren
“If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.” (James 1:5 NIV)

Need wisdom? We all do. And the good news is that God wants to give it to you. He is eager to do so.

Just like it pleased God when Solomon asked for wisdom (1 Kings 3:7-14), it pleases God when we ask for wisdom. It’s God’s nature to give. He is a giving God.

The Bible says in James 1:5, “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.” (NIV)

This verse says three things about how God gives wisdom. He does so:

  • Continually. “Ask God who gives …” In Greek this is in the continuous tense.
    He keeps on giving. He doesn’t run out of energy. He never wears out.
  • Generously. God’s resources are unlimited. He has enough resources for everyone.
    He’s got plenty of wisdom to go around.
  • Cheerfully. James says God gives “without finding fault.” God loves to give.
    It’s in his nature to give! Don’t get embarrassed to ask. He wants to give you wisdo
  • Talk about it – Where do you need wisdom? Got a big decision coming with your career, your marriage, or your kids?  
    If you want wisdom from God, you’ve got to ask! If you ask, he’ll give it. How will believing this change the way you make future decisions?
Posted in attitude, awareness, beloved, Change, Choice, commitment, courage, dark, Death, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Glory, Gospel, Letting Go, Life, Love, Passion, Reflection | Leave a comment
13 Jan 2013
1 Comment

the still small voice of love

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Many voices ask for our attention. There is a voice that says, “Prove that you are a good person.” Another voice says, “You’d better be ashamed of yourself.” There also is a voice that says, “Nobody really cares about you,” and one that says, “Be sure to become successful, popular, and powerful.” But underneath all these often very noisy voices is a still, small voice that says, “You are my Beloved, my favor rests on you.” That’s the voice we need most of all to hear. To hear that voice, however, requires special effort; it requires solitude, silence, and a strong determination to listen.

That’s what prayer is. It is listening to the voice that calls us “my Beloved.”

Henri Nouwen

Home

Posted in attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Blessing, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, Glory, inspiration, Life, Love, Prayer, quiet, Solitude, soul and spirit, thankfulness, Thoughts, truth
09 Jan 2013

relaxing in the mysterious

Silence

Into the deepest darkness
Into the belly of hell
Within the circle of silence
far inside my soul
Places I’ve never seen before
Didn’t know existed
The mystery of the Spirit
Where death resides
Fearful places
Cracking open
So secret I want to flee
Afraid of this place
Am I here alone?
am I still breathing?
Now I cry with Christ,
‘My God, my God,
Why have You forsaken me?’
What if I can’t escape?
What if death wins?
I know how weak I am without You
I cannot see
As I lay beaten
finished
I get the revelation
The victory is already Yours
You were there
You are always there
The stone is slowly rolling
hopes rise
darkness trembles
death slinks around the corner
I am at the tomb door
of my own borrowed tomb
wisdom I was so sure of
yesterday
now bound tightly
discarded on the pile
to be burned
creating space
for this unnamable mystery
shaken by this devastating grace
slowly I try to stand
the pain shoots sharply
from my hip in both directions
I limp ahead
favoring the right side
I am forever changed

AL 12/23/12

the light in my hands
2 aIf I cup my hands and try to hold perfect darkness in there, it takes great effort and care. With the slightest wiggle I am apt to create some tiny crack somewhere, where the light gets in. I strain and contort my hands. I can’t actually see if the darkness is complete, if there is a little spot of light between any two fingers, so I am constantly looking, doubtful, checking, anxious, uncertain, tense.

Or I can relax and let the light in.

I can try to hold my soul just so, so that no sin enters, and feel anxious that it may happen, and awful when it does. Or I can relax and let the light in. I can trust that, yes, there are shadows, and yet light is there.

In prayer I can try to hold other things out. Or I can relax and let the light in.

That’s how we all get to heaven. God just relaxes and lets the light in.

____________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net

Posted in attitude, awareness, Becoming Yourself, Choice, dark, Faith, find art at pinterest, Glory, Life, Love, soul and spirit | Leave a comment
29 Dec 2012

The lord is not intimidated by the darkness or by the rejection of his own. His light is stronger than all the shadows. – Gustavo Gurièrrez

Spiritual depth, if it is true, is the working of God coming down and penetrating to the depths if our hearts, and not of our own soul’s climbing. No ladder of mysticism can ever meet or find or possess God. Faith is a power given to us. It is never simply our ability or strength of will to believe. The spiritual experience that is truly genuine is given to us by God in the coming of his Spirit, and only as we surrender our whole lives to an active expression of his will.
To put it quite simply, spiritual experience, whether it be faith, hope or love, is something we cannot manufacture, but which we can only receive.
The service of God makes the most impossible demands on us, demands which we know our strength cannot carry out, or which our hearts cannot bear. But our calling is obedience, even to the hardest demands; and we must take them up in the faith that our minds or bodies will be supported by the strength of God.

– Philip Britts

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Posted in attitude, awareness, beloved, Blessing, Faith, find art at pinterest, Glory, Gospel, Impossible, Letting Go, Life, Love, Quotes, soul and spirit | Leave a comment
15 Dec 2012

sorrow

It is not into a Christmas card-perfect scene
of loveliness and reverence that Jesus comes,
but into this rough world
of poverty and human trafficking,
factory fires and school shootings.
Here, in our grief and terror,
and in our secret shame
of who we human beings are,
Jesus comes to bring us God’s love,
and also to show us who we really are.
Yes, it is awful that such tragedies happen at Christmas time,
but this is the time for them;
this is the whole point of Christmas:
it is into the darkness that the light comes.
Our world is full of violence and sadness,
but no sooner do terrible things happen
than God comes among us
to be with us in our brokenness,
with healing and forgiveness,
comes as a child—
amazing, always a child—
comes saying, “I still love you,
and even in world of hurt
I will always be with you.”
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net

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Posted in attitude, awareness, Beliefs, courage, Encouragement, Faith, find art at pinterest, forgiveness, Freedom, Glory, Gospel, Grieving, healing, Life, Love, Peace, People, Poetry, Prayer, Purpose, Reflection, Tenderness, thankfulness | Leave a comment
09 Nov 2012

for love of leaves

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leave subsides to leaf .
So Eden sank to grief, …

So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
– Robert Frost
Once again, more beautiful words and thoughts from Ann Voskamp –

All summer, the chlorophyll of the leaf, all that green, absorbs the sun and releases food and it this cycle of chlorophyll that cloaks the leaves’ pure colors.

Shalom kneels under the pear tree, picks herself a yellow leaf, gold for a pocket.

I finger the edge of a scarlet one.

“But come the fall of the year, come November —  the chlorophyll ebbs. And the green dims.”

Shalom holds up an ember leaf.

“And there it is — the leaf’s true colors!”

Shalom whispers, bowed over her gilded leaf — “You mean this leaf was always this colour?”

And I nod.

All this brilliance, all this God glory — it is always here.

But life can blind and truth can hide in plain sight and the ways of God burn underneath everything.

Life has blinding cycles of its own — but our God is always blazing glory.

And when you whisper thanks to God — you glimpse the glory of God and pure grace colors your world.

And I pick up a pen to thank through the fall days.

And the dark ebbs and the shadows dim –

and all the trees and the thankful ignite with the true colours of the glorious now.

A Holy Experience
http://www.aholyexperience.com/

Posted in attitude, awareness, beauty, Becoming Yourself, beloved, Choice, find art at pinterest, Glory, Gospel, Gratitude, inspiration, Life, Love, Miracles, nature, Seasons, soul and spirit, thankfulness, time, Today, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

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