Affliction, Need, and His Grace . . .

Friday, July 16, 2010 1:54pm

You have led me to the sadness
I have carried this pain
on a back bruised, nearly broken
I'm crying out to You

I will sing of Your mercy
that leads me through valleys of sorrow
to rivers of joy

When death, like a gypsy
comes to steal what I love
I will still look to the heavens
I will still seek your face
but I fear You aren't listening
because there are no words
just the stillness
and the hunger
for a faith that assures

I will sing of Your mercy
that leads me through valleys of sorrow
to rivers of joy

alleluia, alleluia
alleluia, alleluia

while we wait for rescue
with our eyes tightly shut
face to the ground using our hands
to cover the fatal cut
though the pain is an ocean
tossing us around, around, around
You have calmed greater waters
higher mountains have come down
[all of the above: jars of clay....the valley song]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

During this afternoon...I’ve realized this in part.
It is only because of God’s amazing, wonderful, steadily-there Grace...
That we don’t become a horrible animal of a human, ready to slash everyone to pieces and swear off the sun after healing from a wound. A loss. A tragedy. A great pain. Affliction.
It’s only because of His grace.
And oh, how thankful I am for Him.
How grateful I am for His gift.
It’s amazing.
We would shrivel up like a scab over a wound if not for His grace.
Because of His grace, we can, someday, look upon hard times and extreme pain as a life lesson of sorts..
We will one day be able to look back and see a beautiful scar.
A beautiful wound that hurt worse than anything . . . being the cause of us shoved over a cliff into His arms. Depending on only Him for staying alive.
Because if pain killed, we’d all be dead.
We can’t change on our own; we can’t clutch the broken, shattered, ugly pieces of our life and hurts to ourselves. We can’t keep them. We have to begin with giving Him something. Something. Otherwise, we’ll choke on it one day.
And many of us have reached that ‘one day’ several times...
I wonder how long and how many times it will take for some of us to get a hint?
To get a clue that the mystery is not what matters, but how much we need to depend on Him?

Happy Thanksgiving

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
Worship the Lord with gladness;
come before Him with joyful songs.
Know that the Lord is God.
It is He who made us, and we are His;
we are His people, the sheep of His pasture.

Enter His gates with thanksgiving
and His courts with praise;
Give thanks to Him and praise His name.
For the Lord is good and His love endures forever;
His faithfulness continues through all generations.

~Psalm 100

He is there

When the sun goes down
Who is there
When the snow falls and I’m cold
Who is there
When the rain drowns out voices I once wanted to hear
Who is all around
When I want to curl up in a corner
Who is there
When the blue of the sky I don’t notice for the blur of my eyes
Who is there
When nothing makes sense, when all sense leaves
Who is there
When sense makes an appearance but circumstances soon drop it away
Who is there
When I’m so tired I need reality back or maybe I just need to forget it all
Who is there

beautiful people

We can be friends if you want to
There’s a friendship waiting to be
We can be friends if you want to
Take my hand, be friends with me
-Beautiful People; Jason Upton

God is all about making the outcasts part of the family.

He’s all about bringing the unwanted into the gathering of blood relatives. He took the Gentiles and accepted them along with His Chosen people. Jesus’ sacrifice made the walls fall.

It’s us that is the problem—we hold on to the borders and lines and separators, no matter that we have a problem with segregation in church. We segregate our family, our friends, and everyone outside and inbetween.

God takes us side by side with the drug dealer-slash-human-seller who just dedicated his life to Jesus and His Way.

We love our families. God calls us to bring non-blood relatives into our circles of family, to take them in as He takes us in. He calls us to love, to show His Love, to embrace the outcasts and friends as He embraces us.

The world loves its own. We love our own. Jesus’ Way calls us to Love without inhibitions, which is something the world does not do—love with no conditions on it. No reasons to love, but still loving. The world does not know how to do that. In fact, we will only know how to do that if we fully accept His Love for us, and read His word and talk to Him, and focus on Him and… live as He did. He lives through us.

We live because of Him.

How can we take that and run with it? Go deep into the dirty parts of humanity and the cities we live in and around but stay away from.

Love with no reasons. No chance of them giving anything back. That is Jesus’ Love. Clothe the naked. Feed the hungry. Give water to those who thirst.

Love with no reason, no condition other than that He loves us like that, so why not? It’s hard, but then… life’s hard, and we’re called to this. It’s hard but good. why not have good with the hard?

Coming Soon...

Cameratismo, in blog format!