Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?

Ok, Satan, I see what you're up to. You think I can be scared by your little annoying ankle-twisting tactics, but I can't. I am also not stupid. When I twist my ankle once on a long walk, that's just fallenness. But when it happens five times in one day, I know it's you. And I'm NOT having it.

You are one lame weak animal if you think I'm scared of you. I'm not. I know when I'm making strides toward a free life and I know you're right there trying to mangle my steps. Good luck with that. You might make me stumble once, but I know where I'm going long-term. I know that I'll have trouble in this world. And I know it's not people I'm warring against. It's you.

You see, you forgot one little detail. Christ lives in me. Literally. Inside me. I have his power and his mercy. But all I got for you today is his power. So I'm wielding it and I'm shutting you DOWN!

I might be a little red riding hood, but no way am I afraid of the big bad wolf. As if.

Believe it or not

Last night I had a dream about someone commenting that they liked the font on my blog.

And today is Sabbath.

Believe it or not.

And here's a quote I read today that I liked: "Jobs come and go, cars break down, stocks fluctuate and clothes get old quickly, but healthy families last."

When you look at me

When you look at me
what do you see?
A face that needs lipstick,
would that be fairer to see?

When you look at me
right into my eyes
I know you can see me
beyond all the lies

We could spend hours
talking about sex
We could spend days
analyzing our best

When time isn't passing
I'm the worst version of me
I want to live so badly
but I silence my scream

My face becomes brittle
My heart becomes hard
And all I can feel
Is one clear glass shard

When my spirit awakes
I can hear your breath
Still I walk through the valley
With the shadows of death

I'm living, not learning
The lessons I need
I'm striving for something
I can't even see

I want to break free
From the time that oppressed
But every waking moment
Is one more little death

How can I walk
into swamps of the past?
And not observe fully
the dark agents of wrath?

I aim for the sky
I kick off from my feet
And I rage at the darkness
That all-consumes me

I swim into waters
Too troubled for me
I wish for a newness
That I can't receive

If I mask my face
I surrender my vibrance
To the grayness and middleness
Of the fallacy's dance

Into my body
Comes a great peace
And Christ comes out swinging
Turning tables into heaps

I want so much more
Than this life has for me
But how can I be
Someone other than me?

I'm taking ground

This past weekend I attended The Soul Restoration Project. I also volunteer-coordinated the Resource Table and led a small group. I was really encouraged by the turnout and that we took in enough funds to cover our expenses.

The best part of the conference for me was the final night. The session's topic was moving into the Father's house. This has always been an area where I have felt confusion and loss and God really moved in me, showing me some specific memories that needed to be healed and then showing me how what happened in those wounds was not what God, my true Father, intended. I got a beautiful picture of what God would have done in those situations if His perfect, tender love could have been present. It was powerful.

Since then, I have had just a much more satisfying lightness about me. I feel strong and able to move in the directions I want to move in. I feel confident in my abilities and confident that when I get to a place of desperation or anxiety, I know what to do to invite God into my stresses. It doesn't mean I won't ever feel lost again, but I am boldly stepping forward into dependency. Even though dependency on God is hard for me, I feel like it's the only way I will ever be able to move my heart's home into His house. And it feels like the right move.

I think it also set me up nicely for tonight's Experiment meeting where we are taking a pictorial timeline of our lives and looking at the good and the bad "critical incidents" that have shaped us so far. We are drawing symbols for the seasons of our lives and even though this can be gut-wrenching for me, I know that God will show me what to share how to look through His eyes at my story. I wouldn't say I'm exactly looking forward to it, but I'm confident that He will show up in the process.

The "Save as Draft" button

Well, it may seem like the blogging has slowed to a crawl, so if you're just dying to know what I've been thinking about, click on over to the Experiment blog and read that.

I actually have been blogging here on Blogspot, but I've been leaving a lot of posts as drafts. I'm not sure why, but nothing has felt as powerful or meaningful as I've wanted it to. Maybe I'm having a writing block, except it's a writing block that hasn't precluded me writing. It's just a writing block that has precluded my charisma or intelligence or coherence (or whatever) from coming out.

I hope the magic is still in there somewhere. Meanwhile, feel free to go elsewhere for informative, eye-opening and inspirational blogging. None will be available here.

It's not my fault.

That darn "Save as Draft" button is so tempting...

I'm trying

"If you have come to help me, please leave. However, if you have come because your liberation is tied to my own, then let's work together."

How accurately that describes me today.

I'm trying to get help from the church, because I have been told so often in the church that everything is a spiritual issue, that God wants my whole self and will work most powerfully and effectively when I bring my whole self; but I feel like it's a two-edged sword in my side. Here I am, doing what I think God is asking me to do, bringing my problems to the church and then I feel two pushes back.

One is that I don't really want to be this real in church; I want to be a new me, the becoming-idealized me. I want to be the me that is being called out of the old and into the new and transformed into the person God intends me to be. And I don't want the old things to be chained to me as I try to pursue newer, more healthy ways of being. I didn't create the darkness, so I want the justice of not being required to take responsibility for what I didn't do.

The other thing that is pushing back at me is the church, the way that it is structured as pastors having meetings and "doing" the work of the church. But that's never how God intended it. He intended pastoring to be mutual. He intended it to look like me being broken and that qualifying me more so to be able to pastor others, not the other way around. I feel disqualified. I feel like I have outed myself and now I can't be trusted to minister to others. Which isn't the way it should be in God's kingdom.

He intended my most relevant relationships to be my closest relationships; not my most relevant to be these non-intimate business-like connections with a man whose job it is to stand up on the podium and impact my life for Jesus. If my daily phone calls with the people who love me aren't impacting me to choose life and to choose being beloved, that how is the podium guy going to change my life? Other than to make me feel guilty that I'm not choosing enough life or choosing my belovedness enough? I'm not ever doing that enough, but I need people, real live water-based humans to sit in front of me and help me consider my options and choose life.

So I'm trying...and all I've got right now is my trying...

And I'm hoping...for a response...

3 New Years Resolutions and 2 Quotes of the Day

Wow, that's quite a smorgasbord I've got for you tonight. Here goes...

"I'd better tell you where all my investment account passwords are, I've got one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel." -Mom

"She's not a liar, liars do it intentionally, she just has a pathological inability to face reality." -Dawn

New Years Resolutions
1. Run a marathon in 2007. (Half will suffice, but I'm shooting for a full one.)
2. Visit these 4 cities; Madrid, Venice, London and Paris.
3. Finish reading Ulysses.