Fresh Journal

Pages empty, waiting to see where the story will take me
Clean and unmarked, new mercies for every morning on its way
And that's good
Because I need all the mercy I can get

Pen at the ready
Heart at the ready
Listening and waiting for beautiful direction only clear as I take each step
Write each line
Turn over each page
In faith hoping for a stronger, wiser, more humble me
To emerge at the other cover

I will record the events of the year
The important words of friends
The whispers of and to my soul
Hurts and healings
Wounds and wonders
Losses and impossible gains

Fresh new journal of journey
And it all begins today

Honestly!

I'm pretty sure I need to work on being more honest. I think. Maybe.

As New Year's Eve arrives, and with it that wonderful opportunity for some contemplative meditations and stuff, and given some recent relational reflections that are coming into focus for me....yes....I'm thinking about relational honesty and how it may be that some of my relationships have been lacking. My bad. Or is it?

While I like to consider myself a truth-telling person, I'm certainly not ready to rush into the kind of honesty that just "tells it like it is". Sometimes it feels like I should be good at frank, honest speech, given my age (some of my friends call this "old and bold") and the kind of work I do, where relationships of integrity are essential. But I've been the victim of other people's "honesty" and it's not been pleasant. I bear scars. I have also, from time to time, tended to the wounds of others who have been damaged by "honesty".

Add to this sense of woundedness, is this fact that I keep running into this "others' focused" kinds of teachings in the Bible that seem to encourage me to keep quiet. Like "A man's wisdom give him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense." Proverbs 19:11

And, as my wise friend Erin reminds me, I am grateful for those in my life who've overlooked MY offenses!

Then there's the cultural consideration that my limited exposure to South East Asia provides me. In Thailand there is no such thing as "relational honesty" as we understand it in North America. Respect and deference are the primary values. One would never insult and violate another by confronting someone about an offense directly. Any corrective word needs to go through another. That's respectful. "Relational honesty" is incredibly rude in that context. Are they right and we're wrong?

So....I'm curious. How do I practice honesty AND overlook an offense?

Any ideas?

I'd appreciate your honest feed back :).

Post-Christmas With The Crank

It's not exactly been what I was expecting.

These "down-time" days between Christmas and New Year's have, in the past, been just as eagerly anticipated as all the fun, festivities and worship of the weeks leading up to and including Christmas Day. A time for resting, coming away, being quiet.

For Ken and I, it's also been a chance to reconnect and say I love you in more than just the fleeting ways one often defaults to in a busy household and a busy life. Just those few nothing-on-the-calendar days can deposit so much into the cherishing account. Lovely. Needful.

But this year's been different.

Leading up to Christmas - over the top! We all worked hard, both at home and at church, to make things wonderful and beautiful and Christmasful. And it was worth it. Decorations up early, setting the stage. Strong and well spoken Christmas series for Sunday mornings. Stellar, redemptive Staff and Spouses Dinner at our house on the 16th. Three performances this year of Let It Be Christmas, with record attendance totaling 430. Watching groups of people working together for the common good, being generous and gracious and making all out investments in the lives of others. Hearing Abby recite the pieces of the Christmas story, all throughout the season, as her Dad led the family Advent liturgies. Being as much as possible altogether for all of Christmas Day - a gift this family does not take for granted. I am grateful for it all. Christmas 2011 will be remembered with affection and deep satisfaction.

It's this post-Christmas time that's been less than what, so badly it feels, I need it to be. An infectious 'something' with one of the kids required the cancellation of an important connect for Ken and I, and rearrangements in who would travel where to what over the next two days after Christmas. A cold I'd been able to ward off during the pre-Christmas activity, has won over now, not in a severe way, but just enough to make me feel really tired. The three day privilege of acting as full-time Gramma, that I eagerly volunteered for, has revealed that I have lost that skill of finding meaningful but completely interruptable things to do while delightful small children play at my feet for extended periods of time.

Add to that a pre-Christmas, perceived-by-me relational snub that feels way bigger than it probably is, and that the holidays make difficult to follow up on, and I am, quite frankly, well.....cranky. I do not feel any after Christmas glow. Like, really don't. And I know that all too soon, I will be back into the swing of what the new year holds, knowing some of the challenges that face me once I step foot into my office on January 3rd, and the energies this will require....and....yeah....cranky.

And I write about this not to complain, because the truth is I have so much abundance in my life that complaining is truly wrong. And being cranky in the middle of it seems wrong. So maybe I'm writing to confess the crankiness, in hopes that will help it go away. Or to acknowledge that down days of disappointment and loneliness can still happen in the midst of an abundant life. And to help me remember this when engaging with people who struggle with so much more than I do, and are heroically NOT cranky.

And anyways, I'm sustained.

I was reminded of that as I sat crankily beside the fire during nap time yesterday, crying and feeling sorry for myself. "I am he, I am he who will sustain you." Isaiah 46:4. Oh, how gentle is this God who comes to sit beside the crank.

And now today begins with nothing particularly different planned than yesterday. So we'll see. I still feel cranky as I get myself up. But I think this could be another great day to let Him be my sustaining God. And that's a post-Christmas gift I can be grateful for.

Oh For Joy

Christmas Eve.

The day of it already starts to hum with the joy, even before it's hardly begun. It's the first thing I think in my waking up, and I stretch into the prayer that will orient my day around the Yahweh who brought the joy to the world in the first place, the manger place.

Just think of it! God wraps our injured flesh around Himself and lays down in humility to begin His rescue plan. He had everything to lose and nothing to gain....except me. You and me. Did all this for that. Keeping promises whispered to prophets and farmers and kings, who knew He was coming, just not exactly how or when, but spoke the joy out of time and ahead of time.

Redemption's bell is rung, and you can't un-ring a bell, not ever. Instead it peels, sending a ribbon of restoration and hope and peace and joy, out ahead of itself toward a dark day of non-joyful joyfulness where Godman seals the deal in blood. Peeling forward, joy continues its power play straight into death. And wins!

And there's a party. All the time, there's a party. Only, at this time of year we call the party Christmas.

And today it's Christmas Eve. And, oh the joy, the freedom joy, the peace joy, the generous joy, that wraps the last gifts, and gets tomorrow's breakfast ready, and sets the table for the feasting, and builds a fire to be ready, and heads down to the church to be together in joy with just so many others (So many! And that in itself is an entirely related and entirely other kind of joy!).....who want to let it be Christmas already!

Christmas Eve. The day vibrates with joy. It can't help itself.

Me neither.

Almost Christmas Peace

If I could I'd fix it all
But He could and He doesn't
Not now, not yet

We are left in the tension between
Destiny and reality
Knowing incompletely
Wondering
We're left wondering in our faith
Which is why they call it faith

If I could I'd make peace mandatory
For every human person
Regardless
No torment of the deeper places
No worrying
About anything

But He could and He doesn't
Not now, not yet

We're left in the tension of choosing it
Or not

Peace as a chosen state
Instead of the result of agreeable circumstance
Peace in the midst of sensationally disagreeable circumstance
Possible choice

But we forget
Or we don't know
Or we don't know how
So we negate available peace
And complain instead

If I could I'd make everyone choose peace
But then
It wouldn't be a choice

Peace on earth
A Christmas pronouncement
That begins in my own mind
With my own soul
And sparkles quietly outward
I hope it does

I hope the peace I choose
Brings peace to others
By proxy

That's how peace on earth can be

So sleep well these pre-Christmas nights
Heavenly
Getting ready
for the Prince of it

In The Morning

In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice;
In the morning I lay my requests before you
and wait in expectation.

Psalm 5:3


I admit it.
I am a morning person.
Love the new mercies of the sunrise,
The fresh moments waiting,
Promises waiting to be unfolded.

In the morning God is not any nearer
But my soul is more still
And my ears more eager to listen.

Even frosty dawns bring life and light
To a world waking under God's watchful eye.