Freedom
I was talking a while ago to someone who went to Rustle but now goes to another Church. We were talking about the new church experience and she commented on how she enjoyed the worship in the new place and it was nice to be in a place where she could "feel God come down". And my thought was that I am glad that you have got yourself in a place where you can feel God come down.
I feel that Rustle is special (I may be biased!) and that when we start the service, we walk into the heart of God. I feel enveloped at Rustle.
And Rustle today was indeed beautiful. It never can be put in words adequately.
I do enjoy visiting other Churches and see how God moves and what He is up to. God seems to move uniquely in each place, though the general direction of what He is doing seems pointed in the same direction.
I went with Kim to her Church in the evening and she was behaving pretty strange for her. Not strange in general, but I know her pretty well. Something was off and I wasn't quite sure what. She said a few things that seemed a bit out of character and her affect was off. At the end of the night she told me that her throat was all swollen and her gums hurt. So she was in some pain in the evening. As I have been reading 'the Winthrop Woman', which is set during the colonization of north america by England, I easily concluded that my vegetable loving friend had SCURVY. But looking on the internet, it is more likely strep throat. I hope she makes it through the night- I told her to eat oranges and lemons. lol.
One
WoundsSome wounds are close to the surface. One of my co-workers told me many of her wounds and I had only been working there a few days. Not to say that her wounds are surface wounds as they aren't. They are deep life-changing wounds.
There is another woman that I work with- she's a Christian and for the most part is secure and together but there have been a couple of times that I caught her off guard and saw a wound through her actions. The wound is deep as well, but maybe not as fresh.
Who doesn't have wounds?
The hole in the Earth spewing black oil into our clean water could be a picture of our wounds.
I can see mine pretty plainly. I don't know how obvious they are to others. Some days I don't notice them, but some days they feel like they are ripped apart and I am dragging them around. A real weight they can be. Some days I think that God is healing them. Some days I rip them open worse than they used to be.
ShellsSometimes the wounds require construct of shells.
How are you? Fine, everything is fine.The shells serve a variety of purposes. They prevent others from getting in an irritating the wounds. They prevent others from getting any infections that come with the wounds. Keeps them from getting dirty. But the shells also prevent people from getting in and putting healing salve on the wounds.
OneJared talked today about the healing that comes from community. Coincidentally,
this blog post talks about living wide open and the vulnerability and risk that comes with it.
It is a scary thing to be vulnerable. It is difficult to even know where to start. It is difficult to see how the healing might come. It is difficult to see how there wouldn't be more pain.
But God doesn't see things the same way that we do. We know His way and his heart for us is always Good even when it doesn't seem like it.
When I want to shut the door, put your foot in it and hold it open.
wingman
tomorrow I tell my wingman in my ex-course that i turned down the offer for the course and it officially became my ex-course. he knows the course as well as I do. we've been through a lot together. he always logically worked on dissecting my ideas and changes, but always was in my corner 100%. we always backed each other. i'm going to miss the support. i'm a bit teary eyed for goodbye.
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Thank you for the concern for Emma- she has pulled through! She was in the hospital for 10 weeks but is now back at home. The seizures have stopped but she has a lot of rehab ahead of her- starting with learning to walk again. She and her family still need lots of prayers.
Exams ended on Friday, which is good but it it was also hard as I had been working on this for 4 months. I shed some tears Friday night.
Al said in his sermon today that he had said to Shari "I've told you that 10 times" and she sweetly replied "Tell me 10 more times". After that I came home and was working with James in the garden and we came upon this GIANT thistle. We worked on cutting it back but I knew that as I cut it back today, next week it will be back. It was so big that getting at the root was not possible. I'll cut it back today. I'll cut it back next week. I'll cut it back 10 more times. And then maybe 10 more. Eventually, I can only hope that the root will become damaged and then it would not come back any longer. We'll see.
I see that in my life too, though it's more complicated than a thistle. I change things in my life. I change my job and things get better for a while. But the same things keep cropping up over and over. I feel the old wound back again. But I know, I got through this the last time and the time before and the time before and I will get through this time. Just when I think I left it behind, there it is.
What I realized as I saw the old wound resurface on Friday is that I seem to be using the wound for strength. The wound is able to drive me and give me the strength to operate as I do. But I don't want this. I want to operate out of God's strength. Not out of my strength. Not out of my wound's strenth.
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