LOVE

It's hard to write this, because it means fessing up to not doing what I was called to do. But it's been so powerful to me and I have to share it in hopes that it will encourage you too.

This week, as my heart grieves the loss of a friend very dear to my heart, I spent so much time trudging through memories. I went walking through moments of laughing through nursing classes, of trips to Waterton and more plates of sushi than one can count. And I also think back to moments of deep talks, of Ryan asking questions that I didn't have answers for, grappling for words because he was so bent on understanding what his life meant. Where to find God. And I remember so many conversations where my pride and my one track minded desperation for him to know truth, to believe the same thing as me, got in the way of me seeing just how pure his heart was. Just how simple his worship. And you know what, we didn't end up believing the same thing.

And I just can't help but see that I was wrong. I was wrong to try to cookie cut his journey and fit it into my idea of what God is about. It's not about my way. Jessica's way is not the way. JESUS is the way.

Ryan taught me so much. He taught me not to overcomplicate things that should be simple, especially when it came to God. (He always had this insane respect for my faith even whilst I was not always wearing it well.) He was gentle, and thankful, and his joy was just to make the most out of life, not try to live up to anyone's expectations. He did what he loved and he did it with his whole heart in it. And because of that, I can say Ryan lived well. Because of that, I can say Ryan has impacted how I live too. I know I am not alone in that either.

I learned that it just comes back to love. My best moments with Ryan were not the moments we were disagreeing and frustrated because we wanted the other to understand our perspective... they were the moments that we stopped trying to be understood and just loved. Love, not believing the same thing, led us to the sweetest moments in our friendship. I know for a fact that Ryan knew Jesus through me most when I loved most. So if you are reading this I just want to say... LOVE. Love the crap out of people. Love them so much that they can't help but see Jesus through you! Don't let arguments get in the way, don't be frustrated when they just don't see things how you do. Pray your heart out for them and leave the heart changing to Jesus. It was never your job to change their mind anyways. It was never any power from you that made the blind see. It's the grave conquering, heart freeing power of Jesus! Our love, extended from the One who first loved us, can unveil the face of Jesus to someone. Thats's HUGE.

This is a quote from a movie called Furious Love. It's a powerful movie but this is the line that has stayed with me from it and it's so fitting.
"Thats when I finally understood what God wanted to do. He didn't want to pick a fight. He wanted to love. And His love is so disarming and powerful...."
-furious love

You know... I've posted a lot lately from the depths of my heart which is usually quite heavy with feeling. But I don't want to paint a picture that God is not the heart of.

Because the truth is... God is sovereign.
He is in the business of restoring joy
and healing the brokenhearted.
His hope overcomes any affliction, any depression, any darkness and despair.
His love overwhelms any rejection, pain, or emptiness.
Sometimes bad things happen,
but that does not change His goodness.
Sometimes circumstances taint my perceptions
and I am ruled by feelings rather than truth.
God is still faithful.
Sometimes there is fear that seems binding,
God has set us free.
Sometimes getting out of bed in the morning is hard;
God has not left me alone and gone on without me.
Sometimes people we love die and we don't understand.
God's plans and purposes are perfect, and He comforts us deep in a place where our hearts can't help but respond to.

So out of a place where there is pain,
I am declaring this.
My hope is in You, God. I trust you with all of it.

A tribute that doesn't fit.

I keep staring at the screen and hoping that somehow this blank screen will find the hidden faucet in my heart and turn it on to full power, so that all of these feelings, all of this grief, all of this loss and not understanding will hit the page. Maybe in releasing all of my shock and all of my wondering and all of my questions, I will find some sense of relief. But maybe this is just another thing to drive me into the arms of Jesus... to stop asking questions and resisting plans and just trust that He knows and I don't have to. To find my release in colliding fully broken with my Maker. And I wish it were that simple, but my heart is pounding and my eyes are blurry with tears and half the time I can't even feel anything but hollow because it doesn't make sense.

I can't believe a few days ago I was frustrated at not having a reason to be sad. Because that reasonless sadness that I couldn't resolve in my heart is nothing in the wake of the sadness and grief of losing someone, someone I wasn't supposed to lose... or at least, someone I never considered I would have to. It never occurred to me in all this time that him dying was actually a possibility. I never thought for a second I would be sitting here trying to process the news.

R... I still remember sitting in the hospital with you and telling you that you had one of the biggest hearts out of anyone I had ever met. And you laughed and said "Well, I probably do literally have one of the biggest hearts of anyone you know." It doesn't fit that the big heart you had in you, in all its strength of compassion, would be so poorly mismatched with the weak heart in your chest. I have no words to write this, no fitting tribute for someone who loved so deeply, who loved life so fully, who pursued things so passionately... I just have a whole lot of missing you. I will carry you with me for the rest of my life, because you believed in the best of me, and I can't walk into that without you, and without God. I hope you met Him. The possibility of otherwise is just too much for my heart.
I'll always miss you, and I'll never forget you.

It's the most infuriating thing to be so bottled up.
To long so intensely to create,
to be capable of making something beautiful.
But no matter how hard I try
this ocean of emotion is churning within,
unresolved, but walled inside.

And I don't even know if I want to be able to create something
to be understood
or to attempt to understand myself.

Like losing myself in a sea of fear
just when I think I've reached the shore

Like a darkness that doesn't disappear
when I flick the switch

Like being underwater
and never getting to come up for a breath of air

Confined, consumed, and lost
These chains of fear have mutated me into someone I'm not.

There's nothing left
but to praise You...

There wasn't anything left before,
but I wept
and though I kept you at arms length
You counted my tears, and You were near.
They mattered to You.

And now there's nothing left but to praise You
because Your faithfulness far outstrips my questioning.
Your faithfulness is eternal, while my doubting and pain is temporary.

Let me come unhinged in Your presence,
to fully, completely, wholly lay it all before You.

There's nothing left but to praise You.

Just one glance out the window and I am pulled in - the beauty of this season has me enchanted. It sends me running out the door, laughing and twirling as the leaves acknowledge my spirited dance and join in, a red and golden fiery serenade of color, leaping on the winds to swirl around me. Oh, how well the autumn disguises it's subtle announcement that cold is coming by distracting us with her prettiness.

And soon, I'm not dancing anymore.

Instead, I am standing alone in the elements, as naked as the trees around me that long ago shed their leaves. Like bare bones exposed, lifeless and skeletal. Do the trees try as desperately as I to cling to their leaves, to hold to that which must be shed, knowing that it only marks the end of a season, and the beginning of a season where they must stand to face the storm. Naked and stripped, weathered and torn. Waiting. Waiting, Waiting to be made new.

Oh Autumn, I have never understood you as I do in this moment.

The days blur together
accelerating to a depth that I've never known.
This deep dark rock bottom,
where jagged fears pierce to these bones,
It's been home

and I've built this nightmare,
resided in pain,
a windowless, relentless portrait of shame
I collected
and I'm so far gone

So come at these walls with your jackhammers
come at my heart with bare hands,
but if I can't feel a pneumatic chisel
what chance do you have

The days never end,
am I sleeping or dreaming or waking
I'm trapped in a place
where the clock faces seem to be breaking
and it's been too long

and I've built my prison
out of minute hand bars
that counted down the memories
that left all these scars
and I'm too far gone

So come at these walls with grenades and explosions
come at my heart with bare hands
but if I'm numb to nuclear warfare
what chance to you have

It doesn't matter if the sun
rises tomorrow
It doesn't matter if night never comes
But I've never felt this low,
and I've never been one to succomb
but I'm done

and I don't care what method you try
when you come at these walls,
if you touch or you pry
I'm not too far
no I'm not too far
I'm not too far

for You to hold on

"True strength does not come out of bravado. Until we are broken, our life will be self-centered, self-reliant; our strength will be our own. So long as you think you are really something in and of yourself, what will you need God for? I don’t trust a man who hasn’t suffered .. guys are unanimously embarrassed by their emptiness and woundedness; it is for most of us a tremendous source of shame. But it need not be. From the very beginning, back before the fall and the assault, ours was meant to be a desperately dependent existence. It’s like a tree and its branches, explains Christ. You are the branches, I am the trunk. From me you draw your life; that’s how it was meant to be. In fact, he goes on to say “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). He’s not berating us or mocking us or even saying it with a sigh, all the while thinking, I’d wish they’d pull it together and stop needing me so much. Not at all. We are made to depend on God; we are made for union with him and nothing about us works right without it."

- John Elderedge

There's been an awful lot of remembering going on lately.
An awful lot of missing.

the Light

There is a Light that I know, a Light that permeates my life and fills each second with warmth. In the Light, there is purpose and hope, for in the Light, my eyes are on glorious things.
I walk in the Light, and my heart comes alive to see the things my eyes cannot. These things are far more glorious, for they are truly the things of Heaven. In the Light, my ears are tickled with promises and my heart clings to them, for these promises are good.

There is a darkness that despises this Light. The darkness stalks about, ready to claim any ground it can get. It only possesses the power you give it. But tiny shadows grow fast, for what darkness lacks in power, it makes up for in cunning.

And so I knew the Light. I loved the Light. It is the place that I longed to dwell, with a heart always eager to see more revealed that my heart did not yet know. But one day, a tiny little shadow entered my world of Light. This tiny little shadow bred a tiny little doubt in me, and the more I spent time entertaining this tiny little shadow, the more I came to see the Light and warmth leaving my life, and the shadow growing. Soon, my heart loosed its grip on the promises I knew when I was in the Light, and my company became despair. I cried out for the Light to return, but my tiny little shadow had swallowed me into its stomach.

Could Light ever find me in this place? The coldness of barren dreams and unfulfilled promises stamped out any flare of hope in me. Dreams of Light became foreign, and I feared I was lost forever.

But HOPE is not overwhelmed by darkness, and in the Light, there is a LOVE that is far stronger than the bonds of fear and despair that I had come to know in darkness. Love reached down the throat of darkness and rescued me from the pit. I was destroyed, but Love had delivered me. Love took me to a place of more brilliant Light than I could ever know.

God, Your love is Furious. It is Relentless. It is Jealous. It does not leave me to suffer in defeat, but it goes to any length to claim back what belongs to You, that You may share Your inheritance. It is the passionate, unyielding fury of Your love that draws me back into Your light. Every time. 

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope.
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,

for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;

therefore I will wait for him.” Lamentations 3:21-24

A song from when I was growing up. And tonight, these words are just so fitting from the place in my heart that doesn't have words to say much, except to fall into Jesus.

I am not defined by what I've done,
but what the blood of Jesus has overcome.

a promise

Today, as I dragged the vacuum cleaner up the stairs for some much needed cleaning, I heard a sprinkler just outside the door. I didn't think much of it, but I glimpsed up just as the sun hit the water in such a way that created this stunning rainbow, right outside my front door, just like it was put there for me. If I hadn't looked up as I made the trek up the stairs, I would have missed it.

It got me thinking... how often, in the midst of circumstances we don't understand as we trudge upwards carrying a load, or in the midst of us trying to clean up our messes, do we forget to look up and see the promises that God has for us, right on our doorstep? Too often we get tunnel visioned into a task that we think requires our strength, when God's promises are waiting just outside. We just need to step out into them :)

Thank You Jesus, for Your promises. For Your faithfulness. For Your vow of love to us. You are good.

Just sitting here, thinking about the day that Jesus will be back for His bride.
My heart is longing for the sheer joy of experiencing those moments with Him.
So good. Thank you Jesus.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGlTzH9xkXQ

Oh, the anguish I have caused the Father
my heart is turbulent within my chest
And yet, the Storm Calmer commands the chaos of my soul..."be at rest"

how humbling it is to learn to rely, not on your strength,
but by clinging to the Father's side.
is it desperation or genuineness
that brings me to my knees tonight?

Acknowledging that you are unable to do something is not failing... it is freeing yourself up to witness what God is able to do.

I can't even express how intensely I long to find chemistry between pen and paper again, and escape into a place where my thoughts spill over into that marvelous white canvas where they seem to collide and create a beauty I could never articulate through speaking.

I weep on the grave of my perfection,
and right now I'd like nothing less than to entertain the spirits of failure
that mock me in this place

The dead leaves rest in this cemetery
where I laid to rest what I couldn't carry
the weight of the girl I couldn't be.

And as my tears hit the stone,
I turn to find I'm not alone
and a man approaches, and then he says to me

"Why do you dwell among the dead
when living hope was raised,
and why do you mourn over a battlefield
where I have already claimed victory?"

A cemetery, in my mind,
is no place for a battle
but the man sits down next to me
and whispers "I defeated this already"

With eyes still wet, my fingers trace
the carved words in the epitaph
that mark the place where my perfection
couldn't come from me.

But as his gentle eyes meet mine,
he says "Beloved,
I am your perfector.
No measure of failure could keep my work from completion.
I hold the key to all that you are needing.
Beloved one, align your heart to mine"

I used to weep on an empty grave
but now I live caught up in this grace
in the arms of the man who showed me life.
His name was Jesus.

I drank the poison labelled lies,
and cried the tears of the unsatisfied
With insides burning, fire in my throat
until I found the antidote

it was grace.

I am loved.
The power of those words may never ever cease to bring me to my knees in awe of a God who loves the way our God loves.

Fear not, for I have redeemed you,
I have summoned you by name, you are mine.

I am chosen, and I am safe in Him. I am secure. I can't be shaken. I can't be plucked away. He calls me His.
And if I cannot put my trust in Him, where can I place my trust?
And so Abba Father, Husband, Maker... take all of me. Even the places I am scared to give. The control I am afraid to do without. Humble me in the places that I think I know best, because you know me more fully and deeply and intimately and wonderfully than I know myself. And you know what is best. It is my desire to be satisfied in you, having all I need. Complete. Bulldoze me. Crush my unbelief, and the hope for lesser things. I trust you to lead me, and to express your glory through both my weakness and my victories... be lifted High. And thank you for grace. You know my heart and you weep with me. You have compassion when I am limited and you just hold me in a place of peace. You are more than I deserve, and I am devoted to you.

 I am under vows to you, my God; 
   I will present my thank offerings to you. 
 For you have delivered me from death 
   and my feet from stumbling, 
that I may walk before God 
   in the light of life.
-Psalm 56:12-13

Day by day, step by step.
It's funny how freeing it is to give yourself to the moment rather than map out every second for the next week ahead.
And despite the absolute chaos of these next few weeks,

there is grace in every day!

At this time, 2 years ago, I would be spending a near sleepless night on the floor of the Canadian Embassy in Port au Prince with 20 angels... helping with diapers. Drying tears. Rocking restless children. Children who had no idea that the very next day, they would be in the arms of their families.
And I had no idea just how changed I would be once I put that little boy in his mother's arms. As I surveyed a room full of joyful families. As I stepped out of the terminal and boarded a plane home, leaving the place that had forever claimed a piece of my heart. Almost unfairly, walking away from the devastation back into my comfortable life.

Each day since has been different. Driven by a dream that started in that beautiful country, once I took the tiny, chocolate brown hand of a child...

when the heart and body exist in two different places.

Sometimes, it's so easy to lose sight of the purpose of now, and in those moments my heart gets carried away with dreams and whispers... some that seem so impossible, that I am scared to even let my heart feel the extent of the pull. But yet, it exists, and sometimes even consumes.

I don't consider myself a patient person. I lack endurance. I rarely persevere or persist with things. In fact, I often wish that God would operate on my agenda. And honestly, the idea of waiting to pursue what I truly want to do is terrifying. The idea of taking a few years to gain valuable experience instead of just impulsively launching off to do the things I am passionate about actually scares me. And I know God is faithful. I know that if there is a wait that it will be worth it... perhaps even more abundantly than I can imagine. But it's so hard to settle my heart down. To put my heart into this sociology project instead of in the hands of a child. To love the group I am working on a project with instead of the kids I so long to hold.
Jesus... help me to invest my heart in now-things. To live the purpose that you have for me, even in this waiting place. Unite my heart to the needs here. Give me your heart and your eyes. Break mine in the ways it needs to be broken to do your kingdom work in this place and time, not with my eyes fixed on the next thing.

I just read this incredible book "Little Princes", an account of a young American man who went to Nepal, initially out of selfish motives... but God broke all of that. In a time when Nepal was experiencing civil war, children were trafficked, tricked out of their homes by the promises of "a better future and education" in exchange for a family's money. But this illusion was shattered when the men who took these children took the money for themselves and dumped the kids wherever they pleased. When this man saw what was happening in Nepal, his heart broke in an irreparable way and he couldn't walk away. He set up an NPO and went back to Nepal to pour his heart into getting these kids back to their families. His organization, Next Generation Nepal, is still reuniting families whose children were thought to be lost to traffickers.

After reading this touching account, my heart is breaking. It breaks because I want to do something about it.

And then today,a friend from Haiti posted a link to a blog that emphasized much of the same struggle: organizations that exploit children... It's Just a Business
God loves His children... if you are reading this, or if this is close to your heart... pray for these kids! If it stirs you to do more... than may God lead and direct each step that follows... who knows where opening your heart to dream Kingdom dreams will take you! And God is faithful in all things. Whether it's a waiting place, or in the midst of the dream come to pass!

it's amazing how someone can be as royally screwed up as me
and yet have a God that looks down and says "I love her. She's mine."
I don't understand that.

A Father's Prayer

Visit this link. There is something so tender about father love.

Mwen p'ap janm bliye ou Ayiti

Two years.

How can two years seem so long ago and yet so close? In so many ways it seems so distant, like it happened in another lifetime. And yet another part of my heart can easily trace the steps back to that day. And in the same way, two memories are formed: one of anguish, and one of hope. The two seem so opposite, and yet it was there. The death and destruction, the fallen homes and the blood in the streets. And yet the praise of the Haitian people despite it all rang out through the streets. Hearts turned to another foundation when the world was rocked. And somehow, what I remember most is all the sweet little moments in-between. The time spent with little angels on the balcony, with healing kisses and laughter. The people I met, who are forever bonded to me in a way that I will never forget. The big and little day to day miracles of God providing for needs. And faith... big faith.

Sometimes I still marvel at how God purposed someone so unremarkable to go and be a part of it all... and sometimes I feel like I have no right to love Haiti the way I do, when I was so little a part of the plan. But regardless of the inadequacies, the grace in it remains. I am thankful. And today, I choose to remember the tender moments. The hope. The praise. The hearts that turned to Jesus. The people that God brought together in beautiful brokenness. Two years later, I see how faithful my God is!

Pray for Haiti, for continued reconstruction and that as they rebuild that God roots and strengthens them in Him even more!

i just want to walk

I am a walker in a running world.
It tells me to rush along
and claim the things it thinks me to need,
but I don't want to miss the beauty of this season
I just want to walk.

When the leaves fall off the tree's
and the air is crisp and fresh
I don't want to miss the crunch beneath my feet
I know the season is changing as I walk.

When the passerby's call out 

and grumble that I should join their running
I simply shake my head and say
"I just want to walk"

I keep a steady pace,
though sometimes I stumble over the cracks
but you won't catch me running ahead
I just want to walk.

And soon the sky is filled with flakes,
as they fall lightly and trace my steps
and the cold takes the breath out of once living things
but it's beautiful, as on I walk.

And as I huddle to keep myself warm
and my cheeks grow rosy to the tip of my nose,
I know that my heart is in a similar place
and so, for just a while I stop.

I watch the white snow as it collects
and purifies the world as it melts
and in the same way, my soul is cleansed
and so I walk.

The trees show signs of life,
and green tinges begin to tickle the ground
until the flowers burst into brilliant song
and color my walk.

And it's funny how the spring requires
the winter to prelude the new
that death must come before life springs up
and I see that in my walk.

I am a walker in a running world,
and I hold the hand of my Savior.
I ask if He would like me to run,
but he smiles at me, with little demand but to ask
"How about we walk?"

My God knows exactly what I need when I need it.
And He's got this.