Ragamuffin Gospel

"Unlike Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre Dame, we need not hide all that is ugly and repulsive in us. Jesus came not for the super-spiritual but for the wobbly and weak-kneed who know they don't have it all together and who are not too proud to accept the handout of amazin' grace. As we glance up, we are astonished to find the eyes of Jesus open with wonder, deep with understanding, and gentle with compassion." ~Brennan Manning

I have read The Ragamuffin Gospel before. This time, I devoured it. I went through each chapter, one at a time. My friend Stacy and I picked apart each chapter with awe and amazement. Each Monday night we talked together of our own understanding of grace, how we accept it, how we teach it, how we live it. I love this book. It is good food for hungry souls.

I have been blessed with the first hand knowledge of God's grace in my own life and Brennan drew out that picture in harmony. He also reminded me to humble myself in judgment of where others have been and where they are going. He reminded me to see God's fingerprint on all people, not just the ones I want to see it on.

If you believe or not, I would recommend you read this book. We have made a pretty good mess out of what Jesus came to do. He died to save the world, not just the few.

Forgotten God

2010 is proving to be a good year for book reading. I am enjoying the challenge. There will be a few books throughout the year that I am reading with a friend or in a small group. I love devouring a book with friends, it makes it even more enjoyable. My friend Janell and I just finished up Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit by Francis Chan.

We usually take one chapter a week to read and then discuss. This book was well worth the investment in time. Each week I felt more and more challenged in my personal understanding of the Holy Spirit. The beginning of chapter 5 was a great comfort, speaking on how our confidence comes from the Holy Spirit. It is a beautiful reminder to me that God gives me His spirit in order that I may become the person He already sees me as. I don't need the world to tell me if I am good enough if I can just grasp the idea that "the most powerful Being in universe adores (me) as His own child."

I would recommend this book if you are looking to get out of the typical stereotypes of the Holy Spirit. If you are ready to get a better understanding that living a Spirit filled life is going to call you to action, call you to more reliance on God and call you to believe there are things that can only be accomplished through you if you let the Spirit work; then this is a great book. Let me leave you with this quote:

“The truth is that the Spirit of the living God is guaranteed to ask you to go somewhere or do something you wouldn’t normally want or choose to do. The Spirit will lead you into the way of the cross, as He led Jesus to the cross, and that is definitely not a safe or pretty or comfortable place to be. The Holy Spirit of God will mold you into the person you were made to be…”

100% Everything

It's official. I am registered to run in the 2010 Bank of American Chicago Marathon.

Registration is the easy part. You type in your name, your information, your credit card numbers and wa-la you are registered. And yet, for me it is 100% the scariest part. When you hit the send button, there is no taking it back. You can't call the people and say, "I didn't really mean to fill all of that out, Can I have my money back?".

The 100% commitment begins instantly. Click, and you have an email in your in-box that is your receipt and official registration. I am not a good commitment person. When I ran the Knoxville Marathon I didn't register until the month of the race. I was 100% sure I was going to fail during my training and not be able to run it. So, why spend the money?!!

I don't know what is going to happen in the next 250 days. I have 100% faith that this is where I wanna go. I don't doubt I want to run in Chicago. I have 100% passion for the beautiful city, it's museums, it's architecture, and it's culture. My blood pumps a little faster every time I imagine the sound of my feet hitting on the Chicago pavement.

I am 100% excited that I will be running with my friend Sarah. She was the one who challenged me to begin running. She was the one that inspired me when I started my training for Knoxville. This time we will run, side by side, or until she decides to kicks my butt and run ahead. When she runs ahead I know she will be cheering me through the finish. (or vise-versa). If we cross that finish line separate or together, it will be 100% AWESOME!!!

I am 100% sure I won't be the fastest runner there. But this is about beating me, not the best runners in the world. I want to take an hour off my time from Knoxville. I know it is a huge goal but a girl can dream, pursue and run her heart out. You never know......the woman that won New York was 37, there is hope for me yet.

I may not have the best athletic coaches surrounding me during training but I am 100% supported. I have an amazing husband, who is willing to sacrifice his time and money to support my dreams. He will tolerate my diet, my aches, my excitement and my disappointments. And everyday, He will remind me of my dream. I have daughters that look up to me and cheer me on and remind me I need to run. I do this as much for them, I want them to be not only dreamers but pursuers of their passions. I have friends who will push and love in just the right doses. With my family/friends, their encouragement, this is 100% possible.

Above all else, I have 100% strength. Not because of my physical health but because when I can no longer push and I can no longer move, my God will be pick me up in my weakness, dust me off and be glorified.

I am 100% confident that I have no idea what the next 8 months of training will be like, what my life will bring me, what the weather will be like. I am 100% ready.

Moving Mountains

It's day 19 of the Daniel fast. Our family, along with our church family and many churches around the country, began a 21 day commitment to prayer and fasting through Awake21. It has been an interesting experience.

I say interesting because I am much more surprised than I thought I would be. The change in diet has been, well, okay. With more and more people in our country become vegetarians or vegans it is easier to find meat free, dairy free products than I had originally thought it might be. Now, taking out yeast and baking soda was a little more difficult. I was amazed at how many of our everyday products contain sugar. I am not going to say this is easy.

I had one particular evening where I was desperately in need of finding comfort through food and well, not easily done when nothing you can eat is fried or has sugar in it. But, it was such a reminder of how when life gives us grief we turn to things other than God. I wonder how many times I have ignored Him to be comforted by food.

Setting apart time to concentrate on God, to focus on Him has been a blessing. My original purpose has been literally sifted until He has shown me what He has for me. I went in with some major big picture ideas that He has taken and shown me the heart of.

One of the major things I have been shown is how much I worry about what people think of me. In the last 19 days I have seen many an occasion to explain or talk about what I am doing. And, my first thought is always, How do I explain this without seeming like a religious freak?

How do I make sure you understand this isn't a diet thing? How do I tell you how much I want more of God in my life without seeming a little crazy? The craziest part of it all is that for almost a year I have been praying to be one of the crazy people. Seriously. I want to be the person who isn't afraid to pray for someone in the grocery story. I want to be the person who reads her bible. I want to be the person who gets up every day with one intention and that is to glorify my Father. I want to be the person who believes when God tells me that my faith, as small as a mustard seed, can move mountains through prayer and fasting. I want to see mountains moved.

A Good Man

How is it that the words of an Athiest can change me? Because they are honest.

Swinging in Freedom

I love playing on swings (well, I use to). I love the feeling of being free. Having it in my own power to fly as high as I wanted to go. Sometimes, high enough to make the perfect leap with the perfect stuck landing. Sometimes, just high enough to lean back and stare at the sky, feeling the air flow past with all of the freedom rushing through me. And, slow enough that with very little movement, a few twists and a quick lurch, a controlled spin ensues with all of its anticipated excitement.

Playing on a swing does not hold the same experiences for me as it use to. Now I am thrilled with the joyful laughter it brings to my children. The constant call of "do-it-again". With a 1-2-3, anticipation builds as I finally run underneath them with one huge push. Away they go. One; with all of the strength and determination to go as high as her swing will take her. The other; in perfect trust that I will guide each swing just high enough to keep her safe and thrilled by the ride.

My children; their laughter is a constant reflection of my faith. Watching them swing reminds me of the Freedom I have been given through grace. I have such an amazing gift, one that allows me to live in flight. I am given the opportunity to fly higher and higher, make perfect landings or even take that freedom and bind it up so that I am spinning in circles. Regardless of what I choose to do with it, I am Free. His gift of life and freedom is waiting for a response from me.

Today, I am in a place of flight. I know I have more than I deserve. I will lay back in the height of my swing and breathe in His life as it flows past me. It is in the place of surrender that I know my God is amazing, His creation beautiful, and my Freedom is in Him alone.

I hope the next time that I am spinning in my own circles I will be reminded; God's freedom doesn't change. It is usually my need to take control that makes the movements in my faith small, causing me to get sick to my stomach.

Jason Upton: Freedom

Walls

"Now if you are going to win any battle you have to do one thing. You have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do. The body will always give up. It is always tired morning, noon, and night. But the body is never tired if the mind is not tired. When you were younger the mind could make you dance all night, and the body was never tired...You've always got to make the mind take over and keep going." - George S. Patton, U.S. Army General and 1912 Olympian

I am not a believer in coincidences. I think everything happens for one reason or another, however big or small. Everything has significance. Most of the time we fail to take time to pay attention and give things the value that they deserve. People especially have meaning and significance that we don't always honor. Recently my life has been changed in extraordinary ways by friends that are far away.

Many of you know that I struggle with self-deprecating thoughts. I can tear myself apart pretty easily. I know all of my weaknesses and continue to remind myself how truly inadequate I can be. My greatest challenge is to overcome these thoughts. I do my best to remember that I am a child of God, I am His. He knows me and loves me. He uses my weakness to show His strength.

A short time after my devotional time on Saturday I received a text from my friend Janell (gotta love technology). She was at a craft fair selling her pots to raise money for her missions trip to Africa next summer. She too had spent some time in prayer and chose to share some scripture with me.

Psalm 18:28-29 You, O LORD, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light.
With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall.

The words from the Psalm were the reminder I needed. If Janell realized it or not, her desire to share these beautiful words helped me find Hope. A wall, that is what my mind can be. A troop full of negative, hateful thoughts. Darkness in need of light. I can be a great encourager to my friends using God's Word but in the same breath forget their significance in my own situations. "...with my God I can scale a wall." I can overcome this in my life. With my God's strength and light I can have a renewed mind. I will scale this wall in my life.

In our God's perfect timing he also used the beautiful words in a worship song this morning. It is one that I have sung many times before, but today it had conviction. A portion of the lyrics by Jason Upton (I Will Wait):

There's a wall that stands in front of me

That I know I just can't climb

And like an eagle you will carry me

Its just a matter of the time

Adult Onset Athleticism

Apparently they have a name for what we are doing. Adult Onset Athleticism. It sounds like a disease not a change of life. Because we are over 30 we are suppose to be more aware of our potential for injury. There is a long list of things we have to watch out for and be prepared for. I don't mind knowing all of the information but it is a real wake-up call to all of the things not being 20 anymore adds to your life. This made me start to think about the differences between 20 and 30.

Here is my list of the Top things being 30 adds to my life:

Love: Sharing my life with someone so long that they are Home to me.

Family: Sharing my life with people that support me unconditionally.

Flexibility: Knowing that all the things I once thought were so important are worth compromising.

Faith: Knowing my God for how Great He is.

Friends: Sharing my life with people that know how to make lemonade of all my life's lemons.

Potential: If you can be a positive influence in a child's life, you have already made a step in changing the world.

Time: Everyone has time for the things that are the most important to them.

So, tell me, all of my 30-something friends, what has being 3o added to your life.?