Knots*

Thinking of this poem after choosing to walk into fear and out in freedom on the other side this week.  Giving thanks for moments like these as tough as they are.

The knots in my stomach—

Tighten and Constrict.

On and off.

Again and again.

All. Day.

As the thought of tonight’s event

Forms in my mind—

Drawing closer and closer,

Minute by minute.

A knot is added to a lengthening chain—

New people—new knot.

Alone to navigate a new place—another knot.

And it feels like I’d rather not go.

I’ve a swirled chain rattling my interior.

And I think I just might be sick.

So I gasp air and grab hold of Truth—

“God did not give us a spirit of fear and timidity.”

Deep breath.  Relax.  Believe.

“The spirit God gives is power, love, and self-discipline.”

My mind assents.

The knot remains.

So too, the Truth.

Two forces battling—

One solid rock.

Other shifting sand.

I breathe deep and go forth clinging to Truth.

I walk in the reality of the moment—

One step in front of the other—

Anxiety is quelled.

 

Taking one moment at a time.

Immersed in that solid Truth.

The Spirit God goes with me.

Giving courage to tackle

One obstacle at a time.

His presence near.

The knots relax—slow.

Truth has won.

Peace reigns.

And the joyous glow of His victory

Burns brightly in my heart.

Sometimes discipleship is like this--clinging tightly to Truth and trusting God one step at a time.

***

Grace and peace be ours in abundance as we cling to Truth and push through fear trusting God, one step at at time.  May we discover that He is able to walk us through more than we think we can handle.  May we find joy in the freedom that follows obedient faith.

Jessica :)

*Reposted from the archives

Freedom Calls

I wrote a poem in response to reading Isaiah 25 a few months back.  The joy and freedom seem especially appropriate to me for this Easter season.  

“The unassailable fortifications of your walls He will bring down, lay low and cast to the ground, even to the dust”  Isaiah 25:12  

I peek out from behind the citadel

In hopeful wonder, I hear His words:

“Let’s break down the walls!

Come to the feast!

(A place where the fear, the schedules, the life, the friendships

                are handed over to One who knows the way to thrive.)

Come eat! 

Come drink!

Come LIVE! 

Come enjoy! 

Come trust me with all things—the cares, the woes, the joys and sorrows, the dreams!”

Could there really be a place for me

At such a table, so full and inviting?

I hear Him now,

Freedom calls.

He says,

“Come out!”  

I pause and call,

“What if I can’t—

The locks, rusty and old. 

Will you…

Can you break me out like a maid trapped in a fairy tale?”

“Oh yes!”

He responds.

“The stones will roll at my command.”

“Then break away!

I want to sit with you at your table today!”

I say with longing delight.

A voice rumbles like thunder

The walls!

They fall down!

He is running toward me.

I am running toward Him.

We meet in His wide open arms.

He holds me close and whispers

Of the journey ahead

The way out through the rubble all around.

“Stay close!  Walk near! 

There will be nothing to fear

Though the way may be treacherous all ‘round.

In freedom, now walk!

Follow me, Dear.

You’ll know the way by My path of Light.

Ever closer you’ll shine because you are Mine.

A beacon to draw others near.

We’ll be a winsome, formidable pair

Speak to them of freedom and peace. 

Invite them to the feast.

It will be a lavish banquet—

A wedding celebration.

The guests once Lost in darkness, now Found in Light.

Those once Least, greeted joyously in places of Honor.”

“It sounds so marvelous.”

I muse.

We’ll tell the story of Love.

Then we’ll dance,

Him and me.

Evermore and evermore.

***

Grace and peace be ours in abundance as we allow Christ to cause the walls of pain and hurt and sin to fall down.  May we find Him holding us steady and with Him freedom that is full of love.  May we walk with Him sharing the story of Love He has written on our hearts.

Jessica :)

P.S.  The really fun photo is courtesy of my husband and his trip to Krakow, Poland.  It is a photo from his tour of Wawel Castle.

Promised Land

“When the Lord will have compassion on Jacob and again choose Israel, and settle them in their own land, then strangers will join them and attach themselves to the house of Jacob.  The peoples will take them along and bring them to their place, and the house of Israel will possess them as an inheritance in the land of the Lord as male and female servants; and they will take their captors captive and will rule over their oppressors.”  

 -Isaiah 14:1-2

I have been reading Isaiah lately.  In the midst of prophesied trouble I have been gripped by the promises of the Lord and His heart for all people. As I was reading the passage above, this poem was the song God wrote on my heart.

Let us laugh with gaiety in the Promised Land.

Let us sing praise with our lives.

Let us work with purpose.

Let us open our arms wide

    To all who want to join

    As we enjoy our inheritance.

We the chosen ones

   Who move with compassion

    Toward the poor and captive and blind and oppressed

    Bringing favor and freedom

    Sealed with the kiss of mercy and a humble Love.

Let it be.

Let it be.

Grace and peace be ours in abundance as we dance to the movements of the Holy Spirit who leads us in ways of compassion and love towards all he puts in our path.  May we be the hands and feet of Jesus bringing favor and freedom to each one.

Jessica :)

Scripture Reads

It is an activity I have often led in leadership trainings and participated in while on retreats. 

Often it is called lectio divina. Yet, tonight as I sit at Last Wednesday, Chuck and Andrea don’t call it that.  Instead, they strip the practice down to its core and call it what it is—listening to God through His Word.

They teach.

He is always speaking through His Word. 

“For the word of God is alive and active.  Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”  Hebrews 4:12

As we read Scripture, Scripture is reading us, they say.

They challenge.

Do we take time to stop and listen to God in His Word?

They lead.

As an auditorium of many, we stop to practice. 

We read and listen for God to speak.

“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess for he who promised is faithful.  And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Hebrews 10:23-25

As I read, it stands out to me like words bolded on the page, calling out to my heart: 

“Hold unswervingly to the hope” and “he who promised is faithful.”

In the minutes that follow I am invited to consider what God might be trying to say to me.  I read the passage again and the context provides the key to what I think God is trying to tell me.

I don’t really like it.  This is about my attitude, my bad attitude.  I can hold to it or I can hold unswervingly to my hope trusting that he who promises is faithful.

I sit in the midst of an unwelcome confrontation.  Will I receive what I think God is speaking to me?

At the moment, I think I am very happy with my bad attitude.  Will I let it go?

Chuck challenges us to “share what you think you heard with someone from your tribe and act on it” before we go to bed tonight.  He has already shared that it is often in sharing what we think we hear that we receive confirmation (“Yes that sounds like God based on His Word and character"), correction (“No that’s not God” or further insight), and encouragement.

I am not looking forward to this sharing, but I am determined to do it. 

On my way home, I try to brainstorm ways of avoiding this assignment altogether.  However, in the end, I realize I will either do it or not, with this task there is no half-way.

When Jason asks about Last Wednesday I dodge, preferring to listen to him share why he wasn’t able to come late like he hoped.

We carry on with what is left of our evening—comparing baby items online—until I finally work up the courage to share what I think I heard God say to me.

In this, I pour out what I’m ashamed to admit to him—my bad attitude spilling out real and ugly.  Somehow it seems even uglier when it is out in the open.  I think I’m beginning to recognize this attitude for what it really is—toxic.  When I think of this, I’m not quite so happy with it anymore.  

Still, I hold to it defiantly—waiting. 

I am waiting for the words of correction to painfully whip across my heart. 

Instead, my husband gracefully draws me close and speaks.  Far from stinging censure, his words are gentle, but pointed.  His words bring the perspective I need.  They help me see what I could not see before.  What he says changes everything.  

All at once, I am broken for the way I have been rigid, inflexible and critical.  I have been trying to control this situation and in doing so I have been everything but loving. 

After I take it all in, I turn toward Jason and apologize for how I have made things difficult for him.  The tears trickle as I tell him I want to be a helpful partner in the midst of this situation.  I tell him I want to respond compassionately and live trusting the Faithful One to work out all I hope for in the midst of something I am unable to control.

In the midst of this, he affirms me and gives me encouragement.

I look into his kind eyes and realize that my dread is gone.  The toxins have been drawn out.  I feel free somehow.  I find I am softened at heart and ready to respond to all that God has spoken to me.

I wonder at it all.

I walk upstairs to get ready for bed thankful and lifting up praise for the beginning of His transformation in me.

***

Grace and peace be ours in abundance as we listen to God—in His Word—seek counsel from our tribe, and follow where He leads.  May we find that He is good and works for ours.

Jessica :)

The Way Everlasting

It is there. 

It is somewhere in the midst of seeking how He is calling me to surrender that I realize His goodness.

It is in the way He is calling me to create time and space for Him this Lent that I realize that He cares for my every need.

The things He calls me to are not burdensome.  They are freeing. 

For it is out of examine, in this space, they come.

He has been with me here—considering heart and mind.

He has watched as I name the ugly—jealousy, selfishness, and fear.

He has seen me recognize the beautiful—joy, love, and hope.

He has been near as I identify exhaustion.

He is calling me towards freedom.

He says to me, “Jessica, surrender the places of fear and walk courageously beside Me.  Trust Me and watch Me work.”

He says to me, “Jessica, see how exhausted you are?  Make time to rest.  Rest in My presence.”

I receive these words with gratitude.

I am overwhelmed by His love for me. 

And I wonder.  How does he know? 

How does he know just how to meet my every need, in every season of this life?

I think of the Psalm I committed to memory long ago. 

It used to hang in colorful letters, behind glitter, shimmering on my bedroom wall.  

He knows me.

I wrote it so I would remember.

I consider the final words of the Psalm:

“Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”  Psalm 139:23-24

It is in this remembering these words I realize that Lent is learning to walk in the way everlasting. 

He has searched and tested. 

Now I will let him lead on—to repentance, to wholeness, to an abundantly good life.

***

Grace and peace be ours in abundance as we follow God’s leading this Lent.  May we discover the way of Christ is toward repentance, walking in a new way.  May we delight in the freedom it brings as we learn to live an abundant life.

Jessica :)

A Human Family Reunion

William Ury sits perched on the edge of his seat.

As he talks with one of the Summit facilitators, I listen closely to what he has to say.  I can’t help it.  His energy and passion for conflict resolution is so engaging.  He calls the point we are at in history “the moment of the human family reunion” and describes how we must learn to live with one another. 

Ury talks about his role in major negotiations for peace around the world; and I can tell he loves his work.  He tells a story about how he chose not to react to a frustrated Hugo Chavez who was yelling in his face for thirty minutes, in the midst of negotiations with his opponents, just prior to Christmas in 2002.  There was only so long Chavez could carry on his rant; and once he reached the end of it, he was quiet and then asked Ury what he should do.  I am rather impressed at the calm he describes. 

He offers the idea that the biggest obstacle in conflict is me.  I think about it.  Isn’t it when I am being stubborn or focusing on my own injured feelings or just plain angry that I can’t begin to think about having an adult conversation in the midst of conflict?  Ury invites us to “go to the balcony”— to get some perspective and separate from the problem.  Yes.  I’ve practiced this a few times and it always goes better than those times I just can’t seem to choose it. 

As Ury talks, I file away these nuggets to remember the next time my feelings are injured or my husband comes to me with a problem we need to work out. 

We near the end of his allotted speaking time when the facilitator asks about Israel and Palestine.  He wonders if there can ever be peace between these peoples, asking Ury for some perspective.  He says something profound that I have been pondering ever since:

“Some conflicts are so difficult they can only be healed by a story.”

Could it be as simple a solution as that? 

The part of me that knows the way my own faith has deepened because of training in God’s story relaxes into this idea.  This makes perfect sense to me. 

When we believe a story we live it.

I know what it is to train in a story, to believe something more fully—to go from head knowledge to practiced knowledge of the heart. 

As I trained in God’s story this spring, I came to a better understanding that God wants us to trust Him.  A healthy relationship is built on trust; and choice is the laboratory for trust.  When a choice is made, trust is either kept or broken.  In the garden, the tree of knowledge of good and evil was the vehicle around which trust would develop.  Adam and Eve were invited by their Creator to trust him and choose loving obedience and relationship by not eating from it.  When man chose not to trust we were separated from God; and our relationship with Him was broken.

Yet, it is through a shared story with man, God redeems us and restores our relationship to Him. 

Sandra L. Richter describes the story succinctly,

“In Eden all humanity was welcomed into relationship with God, with the Fall, that relationship was broken.  With Noah, one man and his immediate family reenter God’s plan.  With Abraham, an extended family that eventually becomes a tribal confederacy is welcomed home.  With Moses, an entire nation experiences the grace of God.  Finally with Jesus, as in Eden, every son of Adam and daughter of Eve is offered the opportunity for relationship with their Creator” (Epic of Eden, p.133).

 

For me, understanding this idea of trust led to practical applications in one of my family relationships.  I realized that in order for there to be a real relationship with this person, they would need the opportunity to choose it.  This meant having some conversations about boundaries with others in my family to allow for the possibility.  It also meant doing something that was hard to do, for the possibility of something better. 

Believing God’s story changed me.  It continues to change me.  Because of this, I suppose, I shouldn’t be surprised that story might change others too.

Ury describes the tradition of hospitality and kindness to one another that is rooted in a common ancestor for Israelis and Palestinians—Abraham.  He talks of a need to build a new story that is rooted in an old one.

It makes me wonder. 

Is it possible to begin weaving our lives together from a common place—like a shared ancestor, Abraham—and find reconciliation by creating something new together that honors both the Israelis and Palestinians?

Could it be possible that it is through being shaped by God’s story, which we all share, that we will find reconciliation? 

Paul wrote a letter to the Galatians saying, “In Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.” Galatians 3:26-29

Is it possible that by finding our identity as God’s children we will care about the well being of our brothers and sisters and seek peace with them? 

Is that the kind of story powerful enough to bring people together?

I think so.

***

Grace and peace be ours in abundance as we experience the reconciliation that comes through God’s story.  As we train in His story may we be changed by it in ways that leave us ever speaking of His goodness.  May we be the kind of people who allow God to work in us to pursue reconciliation in our own broken relationships.  May we share of the availability of His reconciliation for all.

Jessica :)

The Idea of Freedom

I have been going through a pile of papers, from the early nineties, at the request of my sister.  As I have sorted through the many “contracts” of weekly work from first, second and third grades, I remember the years in Mrs. Wilson’s classroom fondly. 

I find landform cards that I created from blue and green construction paper, long ago.  I had properly shaped the isthmus and straight, the lake and the island.  I got the peninsula, which I shaped just like Florida, just right.  However, I had a bit of trouble with the gulf; in mine, the shape similar to the Gulf of Mexico is made of green paper, symbolizing land, and the shoreline of the southern states is blue paper, symbolizing water.  I laugh.

I smile as I see evidence of my once horrible handwriting on a map of Australia.  In neat cursive, on the side of the map, I see a note from my teacher: “Cannot read.  Redo neatly, please.”  I point it out to my mother who is sitting nearby and reminisce about the days when she, herself, used to make me re-write my homework.  

It is fun to remember these things.  Yet, it is something else that I find in the pile that makes me pause to think—the school discipline plan.  It’s an odd thing to have found, but being from a teaching background, I am curious to see what it says.

I read the first line:

“To let the child do as he likes when he has not yet developed any powers of control, is to betray the idea of freedom.”   -Maria Montessori

 

I wonder if these words are true. 

I find the thought fascinating, but I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around it.

I begin to wrestle in my mind to try to make sense of it all.

If these words are true, wouldn’t it also be true to say more generally “To let the [person] do as he likes when he has not yet developed any powers of control is to betray the idea of freedom”?  I wonder.

Perhaps it could be true, for a country which prides itself on its freedom, to say  “To let the [government] do as [it] likes when [it] has not yet developed any powers of control is to betray the idea of freedom”?  I wonder.

Is there something in the context of a classroom that doesn’t allow the concept to transfer to other spheres of life like this?  Or could it be that truth is truth?  I wonder.

I begin to wonder how this all fits into the parameters of the way God made us. 

I think about how we were given rules to live by in the garden.  We were given a choice to trust God and follow these instructions or not.  Prior to the fall of man, it seems like there was tremendous freedom within His boundaries. 

It seems to me, it is in breaking the rules and facing the consequences of disobedience that freedom is lost. 

Is this why God gives Israel a Law to live by? For as they are obedient to the covenant He makes with them, they live in freedom.  It is when they are disobedient that they live in bondage.

Is this why, as followers of Christ, we are called to surrender to Him and remain in Him?  Is it because we live according to the Spirit we find freedom?  Doesn’t Paul say this?

“For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.  […]  And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.”  2 Corinthians 3:17-18 NLT

 

It is here, in the midst of His guidance, not mine, I feel the most free.  I think it is because when I live according to the Spirit, I live as I was made to live.

It seems to make sense.  When people live within the boundaries God sets for them they are free.  Really free. 

This makes sense on an individual level.  I wonder if it makes sense in a bigger way. 

When we talk about freedom in our country do we mean living within the boundaries?  Or do we think of freedom as the means by which we push the boundaries?  I really do wonder.

  

For if truth is truth and it is freedom we’re after, shouldn’t the boundaries we seek to live by really be God’s?  How would that really work? 

Are the principles from one person to many persons really the same? 

God gives us a choice to recognize Him or not.  He gives us a choice to live within His boundaries or not.  He never forces Himself or His rules upon us.  Instead, God is patient.

All along the way—from the garden, through Israel’s kingdom, to our daily choice to live by the Spirit as individuals or as a country—God lets us choose.  He doesn’t force anything upon us, like we try to do to one another.  He lets us choose that which will bring freedom or not. 

He lets us live joyously in the midst of freedom and he lets us discover the bitterness of making choices that lead to bondage.  He walks faithfully with the free and he waits for those in bondage to come repentant and find real freedom in Him.  While there are boundaries, I wonder if His freedom is different than ours.  Different and better. 

It makes me wonder.  If we lived in His freedom would we find that we were more peaceful and more passionate people?  Would we find that we were more loving and more grateful?  Would we find that life was more full and abundant than we ever imagined?  I think so.  

These thoughts race through my mind. 

And I wonder, curious, what do you think freedom is?  What do you think Maria Montessori is trying to say?  Do her words have any bearing on life beyond the classroom?  I’d love to know what you think.

***

Grace and peace be ours in abundance as we discover true freedom in Christ.  May we find, within His boundaries, freedom is fuller than we could ever imagine.

Jessica :) 

P.S.  Thank you to my dear husband who took these photos while we were walking on the Freedom Trail in Boston quite a few years ago.