2.25.2010

Laughter

"You turned my wailing into dancing...you clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing to you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever." Psalm 30:11-12


I listened to someone speak recently about how firmly we can pronounce our faith, stand strong in it - testify the strength of God without blinking an eye - and then when the storm comes - we panic. Like the disciples on the boat, who had just seen Jesus feed the five thousand, we FREAK out if the boat is rocking. We see our humanity, we see our weakness, but even more beautiful, we see His strength.

I new friend, through a series of long conversations said to me "You are so strong." This literally made me laugh out loud. I mean, seriously!!! I crumble when I face adversity, even something so small as someone who I will never know again does not like me - I want to cry when the wind blows too hard. So it made me think - PRAISE HIM! PRAISE HIM - because this girl is clearly not seeing me, she is seeing strength from somewhere else.

Since September, I have learned new depths of myself - and most upsetting, I have learned new depths of my faithlessness. I have seen women healed of infertility, injuries healed from prayer, lives changed by the Holy Spirit alone, and my own healing as well. Yet, when a storm came, and I could not see things clearly - I forgot about the plan, I forgot - mostly, about the love. So as I cling onto Him again - I remember who He is - and most excitedly, accept the grace for the time I pushed Him away.

Because as I look around at the change, I get SO EXCITED!!! People like Joseph, have to wait for years, even decades some times, to see how God works together for good, the things Satan meant for evil. I mean, since moving home, prayers have been answered before even prayed - and joy is abounding!

None of the current things would be possible without the pain, without the loss - but I also relearned some lessons that the Lord has been teaching me for years - GIVE OVER CONTROL - TRUST IN THE PLANS HE HAS - JUST EMBRACE THE GRACE AND BE TRANSFORMED BY IT!

And when these things are done, gosh - the laughter - comes so much easier - I have seriously been laughing so hard lately, my cheeks hurt more then not. Its great. Its joy - its trust. You must know the depths to know the heights - this is true - I just hope I remember this for the next storm :)


2.14.2010

A man's steps are directed by the Lord. How then can anyone understand his own way?

The title is from Proverbs 20:24 . . .It pretty much sums up where I am sitting and what I am thinking right now. This blog was originally about my kids in North Philly. Quickly and boldly, God brought that season of my life to an end. Though the loss of consistency and connectedness with the kids was painful, I know that the transition was part of the Father working.

Through this transition time, one of the oddest sources of affirmation and encouragement has been Twitter. I follow and get text messages from John Piper, Oswald Chambers, Spurgeon, and others. . . so its delightful how I get texts of these amazing quotes to remind me of how God works. The following tweet was from John Piper -
"God never does only one thing. In everything he does he is doing thousands of things. Of these we know perhaps half a dozen."
It basically sums up how I feel about all of this change. In the past two months I have changed the following things in my life - my housing, my ministry, my church, my career, my circle of friends and my commute. . . Believe it or not, the only one of those that imposes any stress on my life is the last one. :) Honestly. . .

There is something to be said about the 'peace that passes all understanding.' With all of this chaos, I am calmer then ever. God is really, really, really faithful. I look at the Piper tweet and I am overwhelmed with joy because I understand that this is all in His plan. It reminds me of the story of Jacob, where "satan meant it for evil, but God meant it for good." This is perfect. I could have written this same blog post two months ago and filled it with the language of fear and uncertainty, but since moving home - ohhhh, yes, I said HOME - I feel really settled.

I am changing to a morning church, one that allows me to rest well before commuting the hour and a half to Philly every morning. It also was just time. I had few ties at Providence and all of them consisted of families connected to the nursery - of which I was no longer director. I have already connected with the youth pastor at my new church (he married my good friend!! perfect!!) and am diving right in to ministry there.

It is all REALLY REALLY good. These are the point of prayer I have right now -

1) Cultural transition - I know this is my HOME culture - but I am REALLY heavily hit with it when I go to the youth group at church. These kids are so different then any I have worked with.

2) That traffic stays not completely horrible on the Schuylkill. every. day.
3) Continued peace and joy.
4) A smooth transition into grad school - I am a little nervous about papers and tests again!!! eeek!