the Perceptiveness of Emerald

Anonimo and I rarely disagree and when we do it is always over the same subject: one of the children. Last night we had one of these disagreements, slight and overheard by none. We each went our own way to breathe deeply and (hopefully) pray.

I was in Quartz's room when Emerald knocked on the door and came in. She did not interrupt our conversation but leaned against the wall and listened. I knew her look....the tip of her tongue barely peeking out of her mouth, her eyes darting back and forth. Something was on her mind.

"Did you need anything honey?"

"Ummmm, no." She continued to stand there unwilling to speak out in front of Quartz and his friend.

"Do you need me honey?"

"Daddy needs you. I came to tell you Daddy needs you. He is on the front porch...and I know he is lonely and he needs you." the words rushed out one over the top of another.

"Do you want me to go to him?"

"Yes" she breathed out in a sigh of relief.

Emerald did not know we were apart on purpose...she only knew that there was a loneliness in her Daddy and she needed that loneliness filled right away. Such a perceptive girl....such a loving daughter.

The disagreement still hung in the air last night as we went to bed.....slightly swaying back and forth.

Elam's Kiss

I have been reaching...reaching to try and grasp what it can possibly mean to love unconditionally. Everywhere I turn, I have found the answer just out of reach or slipping through my fingers. And then I cry out .....and He hears me.

From The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning:

Jonas Zook is an eighty-two-year-old widower. He and his children raise piglets for their livelihood. The oldest Barbara, fifty seven, manages the household. The three younger children- Rachel , fifty-three;Elam, forty-seven; and Sam, forty-five- are all severely retarded. When I arrived at noon with two friends, little Elam- about four feet tall, heavy-set, thickly bearded, and wearing the black Amish outfit with the circular hat- was coming out of the barn some fifty yards away, pitchfork in hand. He had never laid eyes on me in his life; yet, when he saw me step out of the car, this little mongloid dropped the pitchfork and ran lickety-split in my direction. From two feet away he flung himself at me, wrapped his arms around my neck, his legs around my waist, and kissed me on the lips with fierce intensity for a full thirty seconds.

Well, I was temporarily stunned and terribly self- concious. But in the twinkle of an eye, Jesus set me free from propriey. I buried my lips into Elam's and returned his kiss with the same enthusiasm. Then he jumped down, wrapped both his hands around my right arm, and led me on a tour of the farm.

A half hour later, Elam sat next to me at lunch. Midway through the meal I turned to say something. Inadvertantly, my right elbow slammed into Elam's rib cage. He didn't wince, he didn't groan; he wept like a two-year-old child. His next move undid me.

Elam came over to my chair, planted himself on my lap, and kissed me even harder on the lips. Then he kissed my eyes, nose, forehead and cheeks.

And there was Brennan, dazed, dumbstruck, weeping, and suddenly seized by the power of a great affection.

And there I was, early in the morning, weeping as I read of this unconditional love. I suddenly realized that a love I had always thought of as gentle and kind is actually fierce and nowhere near sedate (peaceful, yes; sedate, no). He is in me....HE has given me His mind, His heart, His spirit.....HE has given me Himself. He has given me the incredible gift of being loved ...fiercely.

Unconditional love, the ability to love unconditionally, I now feel as if I might be holding it loosely in my cupped hands.

Please Father breathe through me, love through me. Less of me, more of You.

Clipped Wings

"Why am I afraid to dance, I who love music and rhythm and grace and song and laughter? Why am I afraid to live, I who love life and the beauty of flesh and the living colors of the earth and sky and sea? Why am I afraid to love, I who love love?" Eugene O'Neill

Relationships are a funny thing sometimes. The interaction and interplay of emotions and desires. The push and pull of the sin nature on the new nature.

How often we cut one another off at the knees or reach out and clip a loved ones wings.....and amazingly we do not even realize we have done this! It takes great courage to speak out in love and let one another know that we have become afraid to dance....afraid to live....afraid to love.

The courage (strength of heart and mind and spirit) to honestly state how an issue is affecting us is hard to come by. Most often we lash out in anger or frustration and completely divert one another from the actual thing that is wounding us.....and then our hurtful words and actions wound one another further. To speak in love and patience with each other is a supernatural act......the Holy Spirit working in us. Blessed relief! We have no part in this......but to abide in HIM.....and the wonderful power of the Holy Spirit, as we reject our sin nature and walk in the new nature works all things together for good. What we cannot do in ourselves (be patient and forgiving and speaking truth in love) HE does for us. Oh, what peace this brings to a fluttering heart and a distressed mind.

My courage then comes straight from the beautiful new heart within me, the heart of my Savior Jesus Christ, and I am able to not try and wound because my clipped wings hurt.....I am able to say "This is why I am afraid to dance......this is why I am afraid to live..to love."

I have been guilty of cutting my dear husband off at the knees, of clipping my beautiful children's wings. My selfishness and desire for control blinds me to what I have done.

Lord, open my eyes.....give me eyes to see and ears to hear.....open my eyes wide and dig my ears deep. Let me always see the ones I love the way YOU see them. Give me discernment and awareness. When I begin to cut or clip, pierce me by Your wonderful Spirit so that I may stop. And in this process of less of me, more of YOU.....painful as it sometimes is.....may we all grow ever closer to Thee.....may Your face be my only desire....Your life my only self.

Shall we Dance?

Circumstances

Circumstance (a clogged toilet) led us to spend the evening at the local mall (no clogged toilets). One of our favorite stores there is Barnes and Noble and we all disbursed to find the books we enjoy and settled down to browse and read. Tonight I chose a short story compilation edited by Brett Lott "Eyes to See" and a novel by Rumer Godden "In this House of Brede".

I knew I had a chance of finishing one of the short stories..so I started there and read GK Chesterton's "The Blue Cross". I am not much of a detective story fan, and yet I loved the writing of this little story with several little phrases making me stop and just roll them around on my tongue :)

• " Between the silver ribbon of morning and the green glittering ribbon of sea"

• " full of an accidental stillness."

• "there is in life an element of elfin coincidence which people reckoning on the prosaic may perpetually miss."

• "wisdom should reckon on the unforeseen."

What a way he has with words. Sitting in the big comfy chair with Jasper doing his homework in the chair next to me, the piped -in music suddenly stopped and there were no people walking by......"an accidental stillness".

I looked through the next few short story's and stopped at Shusako Endo's "The Final Martyrs". I first heard of Shusako Endo when I lived in Japan...and yet I had never read anything by him. This short story is graphic in some ways...torture of believers is graphic. The entire time I was wishing I could read it in his native Japanese.......I knew so much was lost in the translation.

On our way out of the store my eye was caught by a display in the religion section. The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning....another book I had heard of years ago and never read. I bought it :)

In looking at the first chapter a sentence stuck out to me "The institutional church has become a wounder of the healers rather than a healer of the wounded" I bought it for my dear husband, Anonimo, who I knew would find much to like in this book.

This same dear husband is working away at that stubborn clogged toilet. He has just gone by carrying a large bucket......we are hopeful that he will be successful.

A victim of circumstance ;)

All of you

I recently began a study of 1st Peter and I am enjoying it so very much. I am encouraged and convicted.

"Father, thank you for the incredible opportunity and gift to learn more about You through Your Word...please be with us by Your Holy Spirit as we seek to know more of You and more of Your Son.....and in turn know more about who we are in You."

"All of you “

Peter address his first letter to all of us...in his time to those believers who lived in a specific geographic location: Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia...and in these times to all believers: men, women, elder, younger, servants, free, husbands , wives. All of you. All of us.

Peter takes great care to exhort and testify to us the true grace of GOD; Who we are in CHRIST now and forever, Who we can be in CHRIST while on this earth, What we may be as we follow CHRIST, what we were before we believed in HIM. Peter tells us all these things which seem like so much and yet at the end of his letter he says that it was brief! How much more there is in CHRIST and because of HIM. One of Peter's greatest exhortations after reminding us of all that we are in CHRIST and were before HIM is: Stand firm in it!

Psalm 40:2 “He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, and HE sat my feet upon a rock, making my footsteps firm. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; many will see and fear and will trust in the LORD.”

Peter talks about that old song, the one we sang before we believed...the one that those around us who do not believe still sing.......and unfortunately the one we sometimes choose to try and sing when we ignore who we are in the new man and choose to belt out the old song in our old man.

That old song has the monotone of sin. It is composed of lusts, ignorance, futility, disobedience, doom, foolishness, wandering, sensuality, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties, abominable idolatries and excesses of dissipation. It is without mercy and the face of the LORD is against those who perform this old song. Singers of this old song will have to give an account to HIM.

Thankfully, along with Peter, we can focus on the New Song and sing a song of praise to our GOD. Peter reminds us in this letter of who we are in CHRIST and what this beautiful new song sounds like. As I read through 1st Peter I was struck with how packed the letter is with reminders of who we are: singers of a New Song. Following is a list (wonderfully long!) that I wrote down as I went through 1st Peter from beginning to end. I hope and pray that it encourages you as much as it did me.....shall we meditate on it together? Listen with me to the amazing, sweet notes of the New Song:

• we are aliens
• we are scattered
• we are chosen according to the foreknowledge of the Father
• we are chosen by the sanctifying work of the Spirit
• we are chosen to obey Jesus Christ
• we are chosen to be sprinkled with His blood
• we are born again to a living hope through the resurrection
• we are caused to obtain an imperishable, undefiled, unfading inheritance reserved in heaven
• we are protected by the power of God through faith
• in all this we greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory
• our faith is more precious than gold
• we love and believe in Jesus Christ even though we do not see Him
  
• the outcome of our faith is the salvation of our souls
• grace came to us
• the prophets who prophesied served us
• things into which angels long to look have been preached to us
• we are children of obedience
• we are called by the Holy One
• we are redeemed with precious blood, the blood of Christ
• Jesus Christ appeared for our sake
• we are believers in God through Jesus Christ
• our faith and hope are in God who raised Christ from the death
• our souls are purified in obedience to the truth, for an unhypocritical love of the brethren
• we are born again of imperishable seed: the living and enduring word of God
• the living and enduring Word of God has been and is preached to us
  

And that is just Chapter One! There is no monotone here. We have been given a majestic symphony, movement after movement.

• we are living stones
• believing in Him, we will not be disappointed
• for us who believe, we have a precious value: the Living Stone
• we are a chosen race
• we are a royal priesthood
• we are a holy nation
• we are a people for God's own possession
• we are called out of darkness and into His marvelous light
• we are the people of God
• we have received mercy
• we are aliens
• we are strangers
• we are called for a purpose: to do right , suffer and endure patiently
• Christ suffered for us
• Christ left us an example to follow
• our sins were borne by Christ in His body on the cross
• we are dead to sin
• we are alive to righteousness
• we are healed by His wounds
• we have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of our Souls
  

As I read through this I have to hold back from making exclamation points. My heart hears the forte , the pianissimo, the fortissimo. My spirit sings with the beauty of what our Saviour has done for us and is doing for us.

• we are heirs of the grace of life
• we are called for the very purpose that we might inherit a blessing
• the eyes of the Lord are toward us
• His ears attend to our prayers
• we are slandered because of Him
• we are reviled for our good behavior in Christ
• Christ died for our sins, once for all, and brought us to God
• we are put to death in the flesh
• we are alive in the spirit
• we are maligned
  
• we live in the spirit according to the will of God
• we have received a special gift
• we are stewards of the manifold grace of God
• the Spirit of Glory and of God rests on us
• we are the household of God
• we have been saved with difficulty
• we are partakers of the glory that is to be revealed
• He care for us
• the devil is our adversary and prowls like a roaring lion seeking to devour us
• we are called to eternal glory in Christ
  

Amen and amen. All of you. All of us.

1 Peter 3:8

“All of you be harmonious...”

Enjoying the New Song

“Happy is the man whose fingers are wedded to his harp” CHS