Heeyyy

It's always fun when you run into a good friend unexpectedly! You stop and say HEEYYY, play on the playground for a minute, and eat a little bite before saying good-bye again...

I love running into good friends and apparently so does my son! It is an amazing feeling to be reconnected, because we were created for relationships and without them we shrivel. Our connections to others and nature allow us to continue to experience God through the lense of His creation....

I am so thankful today for every connection I am blessed by each day....
May we know and experience the grace of our Lord within a simple ......HEEEYYY!

With Perseverance

It was a LONG but GOOD week and weekend!!!! These two pictures very clearly illustrate our weekend.....

"But the seed in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart, and hold it fast, and bear fruit with perseverance."
-Luke 8:15

May we always long for His grace that builds perseverance in us.

Fear or Faith

"But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth.

This wisdom is not that which comes down from above,

but is earthly, natural, demonic.

For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist,

 there is disorder and every evil thing.

But the wisdom from above is first pure,

 then peaceable,

gentle,

 reasonable,

 full of mercy and good fruits,

 unwavering,

without hypocrisy.

 And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace"

-James 3:14-18

I was in a conversation today and something became so clear to me.

One of those moments when the word of God becomes very real and very practical. 

It was this.....in any given situation we always have a choice.  We all know that.  Sometimes we make decisions and choices based off of the foundation of ....

is this right or wrong,

 but the more life you experience and the deeper and richer one's relationships become,  we, sometimes,  realize that the answer is not so clear. 

We can also make decisions based on what we see,

a kind of PROs and CONs approach. 

We LOOK with our eyes at what lies before us and choose that which makes the MOST sense. 

The problem with this approach is that it is very one dimensional.  It is hard to make a list that could accurately illustrate ALL the aspects of a circumstance, becuase the truth is that we don't know them.

What became so clear to me today is that a BETTER way (not the only way) to make a decision,..... is to ask the question: FEAR or FAITH?

If I had to boil it down and simplify what these two words mean, this is what I would say.....

What is fear?  The absence of peace.  What is faith? The presence of peace.

Well, what is peace? Resting in a relationship with God

Well, how do I rest in a relationship with God? Repentance and Belief

What is repentance?  Changing your mind about how you do things

What is belief? Humbling yourself within the love and grace and sovereignty of God as He reveals Himself through Jesus and His Holy Spirit

The scripture above reminds me that what I seek is wisdom from above.

It tells me with confidence that I can KNOW that kind of wisdom by these characteristics:

   pure,

 then peaceable,

gentle,

 reasonable,

 full of mercy and good fruits,

 unwavering,

without hypocrisy.

Why would I seek anything else?

More times than not, I let my circumstances dictate my decisions.

I allow what I SEE to determine how I will respond.

But, after today, I am confident that my choice: FEAR or FAITH will be the attribute that defines what I experience.

In FEAR, I am weighed down.

In FAITH, I am free.

I am free to experience the power that comes when I choose to allow God's power to move through my life.

I choose FAITH not based on my circumstances but I choose FAITH based upon Him

He is about who He is...and within the playing out of the glorification of His name..... 

is His affection for my life and for yours.

Be the Center

King of glory, be the center 
King of glory, You'll be the prize 
 We shall have no other treasure 
All that counts is You lifted high
-Matt Redman

Here are two different moments in my life....one this past week and one this past summer of the same type of picture
 I love gazing upon the sun at the core of these trees.
Reminding me what is at the core of my life.

Sometimes we have to declare, like the lyrics above that nothing else will take this place...
Nothing else will be able to grasp our attention
Nothing else will be our treasure.
It's FINE to have to declare this, just as we would sing a chorus or a bridge of a song over and over...sometimes we have to CHOOSE to declare something over and over until it becomes part of us....

King of glory, be the center 
King of glory, You'll be the prize 
 We shall have no other treasure 
All that counts is You lifted high

   



 

Sold Yet?

Last Saturday seems so far away!  That was the first day we put our house on the market and last night we signed an offer....a good offer....one that ONLY the Lord could have orchestrated 

(if it all works out I will definitely share ALL the details)!

I think I am kind of in shock.  It's one of those things that you have been anticipating for so long and declaring that it is for purposes that you can't imagine or see....but at the same time you still wonder in that deep, hidden place..."will this really happen....was that REALLY God speaking and guiding?"

And then you decide to take courage and trust and take a step towards it....

And then it does happen.  And it is affirmed.  And the only thing left to do is to experience MORE faith in the ONE who says He is faithful.  He is faithful even when we are faithless.  

We realize that He increases our faith in Him.

There is nothing to muster up.

Faith is BELIEVING that He is who He says He is and will do ALL that He says He will do.

We simply hear through relationship with Him.

We obey.

He gives us faith.

And then what pours out of us is our love for Him.

Our worship.

There is no sold sign yet, but I have realized I don't need one. 

 I don't need the miracle of the sale of a house to trust Him, because He has already affirmed in me....

He is with me.

My heart that recognizes I have  been purchased by His love.

My YES to Him allows Him to show me MORE of who He is....I long for that.

"Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, we will also live with him; 

if we endure, we will also reign with him. If we disown him, he will also disown us;  

if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself."

2 Timothy 11-13

....

Train Me Now

"All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful;yet those who have been TRAINED by it, afterwards it yields the PEACEFUL FRUIT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.

THEREFORE, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is LAME may not be put out of joint, but rather BE HEALED.

Pursue peace with ALL men, and the sanctification without which NO ONE WILL SEE THE LORD."

-Hebrews 12:11-14

Back in the day, when I lived mostly for myself and for seeking my own pleasure and comfort and glory.....I ALWAYS had in the back of my mind that ONE day I would pay for all of those choices.  Somewhere, within the course of my life, this idea had been formed that I was CHOOSING something that was in opposition to what I was created to CHOOSE.

I have no formal education in the theology of ANYTHING.  What I do have are my experiences, fruit of my own personal study and the invaluable Spirit of God that dwells within me to renew and guide my thinking.  I say all of that just to preface what I am about to say. 

Walking through brain cancer is discipline for Brandon and I.  

Discipline that trains us to follow the path of righteousness instead of the path we would so easily take.

God did not create an ugly, nasty tumor and put it in Brandon's brain (nor am I saying that all disease is for the purpose of discipline)....but He has allowed it come into our lives and He has allowed it to stay.  And when  He wants it to leave.....He has all the power to command it to do so.

For now though,  it serves Him and His purposes.....to create in us a clean and pure heart.....hearts that pursue PEACE and desire RIGHTEOUSNESS even between moments of doubt....hearts that will dwell forever within the grip of His Glory.

Brandon, said tonight....."We never lock eyes with someone who isn't carrying  SOMETHING..."

Those SOMETHINGS are what connect humanity as we walk together between the already and not yet.  THEY are what HE longs to work together for our GOOD and HIS GLORY.

They are what train us in discipline.  They are what push us into places where we must make a choice. 

 They are what Christ carried, died for and conquered with the HOPE of ALL that laid beyond.

Just reminding myself tonight that He is the author and perfecter of my faith.  He fiercely pursues me, continuously, because He is faithful, making sure that I am prepared for all that lies beyond.

He is worthy to be praised!

This Little Face

I can never get enough of this FACE!

He trusts me so much.

When I look at him, I know that nothing short of  ALL OF ME  has to be surrendered.

I need wisdom.  I need grace. 

I need the Lord to teach me how to love more

So that I may lavish upon this little munchkin....a love that is deep, wide, fierce, strong, furious, sweet, wild...

A love that will continue to awaken his heart into life!

I love you munchkin!

Humbled to Grow

Asher's first dance class this week reminded me....being teachable is a requirement for growth and to be humble is the requirement for a heart that is teachable.

As we humble ourselves, may we receive His GRACE to hear and understand and to see and perceive.

Guarded By Peace

I wasn't sure back in October, when Brandon and I looked face to face and declared  to each other that each next step we took would take us towards putting this sign in our yard....I wasn't sure if it would REALLY happen.

But it has happened.

I don't think that every believer is called to sell their house, look for a smaller one, and use their resources (time, money, etc) differently....but we have been called to just that. 

We don't know IF we will actually get a contract and sell our house.  We don't know where we will move.  We don't know how long any of it will take.

But it just doesn't matter, because within us we have the PEACE that Paul writes about in Philippians...."And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus"....we have it. 

It was given the day Brandon went in for surgery....and has been available everyday since.....the full assurance that He is so very much leading us...is our PEACE.

The thing about that scripture is that it is encapsulated with some other very valuable words...

REJOICE ALWAYS.  Let your GENTLE SPIRIT be known. Be anxious for NOTHING. Pray.

And the peace of God (which is transcendent and not able to be comprehended) will serve as the GUARD of your mind and heart.

What I have found His PEACE to guard me from is FEAR.

With eyes wide open, arms extended, and feet prepared.....that is how we will choose to walk as we discover by faith...

 WHAT IS NEXT!

No Shortcuts

"Aim at softness and ease in your performance of a dance.

Endeavor that all shall be harmonious.
However hard you work at your lessons or at rehearsals,
let none of this effort be visible in your performance.
There must be no sign of concentration, exertion, or tension.
All must be free and natural.
For the true art is that which conceals the labor that produced it."

-Enrico Cecchetti

I teach and study a classical method of ballet called The Cecchetti Method.  It's a very controversial topic of conversation when it comes to classical ballet training because there are so many different schools of thought.  I personally don't think any of them are necessarily BETTER than the other, I truly think it depends upon the dedication, gifting and experience of the teacher paired with the same of the individual student.

  But I do love this method!  I love the clarity and structured curriculum if offers.  I love it's history. 

 I love that it takes time to reap rewards. 

 There are so many issues today that seek to find a shortcut. Dance training is one of those.  There seems to be a faster way to accomplish what should take years.  I love that this method of classical training provides some restraint, so that a young dancer with big dreams has to walk daily within the bounds of discipline.  The reward a dancer ultimately seeks is the performance.  Those opportunities to display all of the fruit of the daily, disciplined training.  Most dancers get many chances to perform, but not every dancer is able to experience those performances that set her free.

Every dancer at some level is continually seeking that moment where everything becomes free and natural.  It's where the essence of GRACE abounds.  Those are the moments that inspire.  Those are the performances that are remembered.  Those are the times when TRUE ART of a dancer  is revealed.

"For the true art is that which conceals the labor that produced it."

And when I think about my Savior and the GRACE that those moments over the course of three days, created I am always humbled, grateful, unable to fully comprehend the depths of darkness and the  demands of the cross.....But when I look to the sign and message that His resurrection produces within me...it is there where I see the TRUE ART of the cross.  It's in the REALITY of the resurrection that I see the TRUE ART of our God.

This is where ALL things are found free and natural..... restored and revealed in the JOY of His labor.

"...who for the JOY set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." -Hebrews 12:2

There is no shortcut to those freedom producing performances for a dancer.  There was no shortcut past the cross to the throne.  And there remains no shortcut to our freedom... our freedom is revealed within the daily, disciplined relationship.

...

 

Show Me the Layers

Because my last few days have been consumed with one to two tasks per day of "cleaning out the junk" in our house, I really have to continue right there.  It is so strange, when I declared that perhaps 2013 would be the year of cleaning out the junk, something happened, everything shifted and now EVERYTHING seems to be about cleaning!

The daily jobs have ranged from the kitchen pantry to bookshelves to drawers of clothes to my FAVORITE so far, which was THAT drawer in my bathroom vanity.  I think I am talking to the ladies here and I am hoping that a lot of you can relate......

THAT drawer is the one where all the old makeup, makeup remover, lotion, nail polish, bobby pins, hair ties, cotton balls...it's basically my Wal-Greens/CVS drawer....it's that drawer where all those things live within the transition of almost- gone -but not ready- for- the trash- so I'll just throw them in THAT drawer.  THAT drawer is scary.  I've had this particular drawer in every house I've ever lived in....

 I avoid it.  For as long as I can....

As I sat on the bathroom floor today and opened the drawer, I took a deep breath, reached in and began.  The first layer was relatively easy to get rid of because there were very familiar products.  Those go to items when I've run out of something and haven't made it to the store yet. Bottles of facial cleanser that did the job for a day or two, but could never serve a purpose for longer and a lotion that could satisfy the dryness of my skin but that I couldn't stand the smell of.....

The second layer was a little trickier.  Not because I loved the items more but because they had sat in that sad drawer.... unused, dormant and literally oozing with junk.  It was so easy to throw these away but getting through the dried lotion, hardened nail polish, and matted cotton balls was just...... gross!

But the third and FINAL layer, was by far my  favorite.  You know the picture.  All the bottles are gone, you've fought the last bobby pin and the drawer is finally empty.....yet what remains is nasty film on the bottom of the drawer.....the part that has been neglected the most.... the part that hasn't seen the light of the bathroom in a very long time.....the part that needs the most time and care and requires more than just soap and water.  It took some deep, gentle scrubbing but most  importantly...... TIME.

And as I gave that drawer it's due time... He spoke to me....
 As I scrubbed the bottom of that drawer clean and as I write now.....He is speaking....

My love runs deeper than you can imagine.  My blood cleanses what you could never cleanse yourself.  My Holy Spirit is searching the places of you that are unknown even to your own human spirit. How I long to make all things new. Those deepest places take more work and more time than you could ever imagine....

.....but for Me a day is like a thousand years.   

It is NOTHING for Him.  Yet, EVERYTHING for us.

Just as THAT drawer could not clean itself....neither can I......

"Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen."
-Ephesians 3:20-21

All and Enough

There is no denying who He is. If I ever question who He is, the power He holds, what His purpose is and was and always will be and where He is.....may I fall into Paul's words from Colossians 1.

"HE is the image of the invisible God, 

the firstborn over ALL creation.  

For by Him ALL things were created; 

things in heaven and on earth, 

visible and invisible,

 whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; 

ALL things were created by HIM and for HIM.

And HE is the head of the body, the church; 

HE is the beginning and the firstborn of all the dead, 

so that in EVERYTHING 

He might have the supremacy.

For God was pleased to have ALL the fullness dwell in Him, 

and through Him to reconcile to Himself.... ALL things, 

whether things on earth 

or things in heaven,

by making PEACE

through His blood

shed on the cross."

-Colossians 1:15-20

In this world, where there are so many "ideas" of who He is.....

What this verse reveals to me...

We have no idea who HE is....

There is no box to put Him in...no sentence to describe Him exhaustively.....

No phrase to wrap around Him and tie Him up in a pretty little bow.....

There is only a relationship;

A relationship which He initiated and gave His life for.

A relationship born through His Spirit.

A relationship sustained by His faithfulness.

A relationship which will reveal in all of time.....

 He is enough.

Clean Out the Junk

It's been three days since I've written and I can't stand it.  I had such great intentions of putting a lovely picture of Brandon and I and another one of Asher and writing a cute New Year's Eve entry, which would most likely have documented this last year.  But several hours before midnight sickness set in.....I was asleep on the couch tossing and turning while Asher and Brandon brought in the NYC New Year at 11:00pm!

And then yesterday, I was sure God would honor all of my desires to begin prepping our house to put it on the market....cleaning out closets, throwing out junk, organizing....stuff.  I had even greater intentions to attempt to write something beautiful about the upcoming year.....

But here I am this evening, thinking about this day.  A beautiful day filled with cleaning out my master bedroom closet.  I wish I had taken a picture.  I thought about it....but was entirely TOO embarrassed to show you all my junk!  Five bags to goodwill, two bags of garbage, four plastic container bins and about a gazillion empty hangers and the junk is GONE.

 And the closet isn't very big!

As I was in the midst of the mess, the thought came over me... actually words Brandon had spoken at the onset of the idea of selling our house came into our focus.....

"All of  THIS just weighs me down."

I couldn't understand at the time, not because I didn't want to but because I couldn't see.  I am sure I asked him things like..."What do you mean by THIS?....Do you mean the house, the yard, the garage, the tumor.....what exactly is THIS???"  I think I thought if I could pinpoint what the THIS was, then I could come up with an answer.  But the truth is that he didn't know what the THIS was either.  Just a prompting from within.

 Today, I could see. 

My stomach was actually nauseated by the amount of stuff I had acquired in a tiny closet over the course of six years.  Don't get me wrong....I'm not saying that nice clothes and beautiful shoes are the source of all things wrong in this world....but what I am saying is that there is a time to PURGE.  There is a time when we accumulate too much physically, emotionally, and mentally.....and it was time, today, to say good-bye.

Maybe that is what 2013 will be for me.  The year of letting go of things that I have held onto for so long.  I don't have anything in mind, necessarily.  A lot of you might say...."Rachel, chill out....not everything is spiritual...not everything is about God....just because you cleaned out your closet doesn't mean you need to clean out your life..."

Maybe you are right.  But maybe, this is a prompting.  Maybe everything IS spiritual.  Maybe God speaks to us even through the act of cleaning out a closet. Maybe I was embarrassed to show you my closet full of junk because I am embarrassed to show Him my "closet full of junk".....

I think this year, 2013, I will let Him draw me closer, guide me further, search me deeper, cleanse me in more purity, prepare me for more richness, nurture me with more love, reveal to me with more clarity, capture me with a tighter grip....that within me may be a place where His Holy Spirit may continue to dwell in more and more power.....whatever all of that means....that is my prayer!


".....in him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit."
-Ephesians 2:21-22 


Happy New Year!  Here's to 2013 and cleaning out some junk!