Facing our own layers. Owning up to what is inside of ourselves. 

   Why do we fear reaction? Why do we fear and hide things? Why do things like jealousy and anger surface? We are not only not living in true love but it screams out that we have things we need to look at and surrender to You.  I'm beginning to believe our biggest sacrifice will be our selfishness. 
The desire we have to protect ourselves the knee jerk reaction to cover, defend, manipulate and fulfill what we believe we need and deserve is so strong.  To see it for what it is ... is absolutely the first step towards denying it and taking up our cross to follow Jesus completely and wholeheartedly.
 
   Let's take jealousy as an example. This violent reaction can spring up at a moment's notice and the biggest cause is someone who is 'claimed' by you for faithful love and support is somehow wooed by another. This event can cause a few reactions. One is an angry, protective move because that one claimed, is there to love you alone... sharing is not an option because it may lessen what you receive and we all want as much love from others as we can.  Another reaction is fear. If we lose the one we've claimed it may prove that we are actually not worthy of it in the first place perhaps (and this may be the biggest fear), that we are unlovable. All of these responses are completely self centered they never consider any of the others in the circumstance. This is not love at all. This is not God.  Not the love that He commands us to love with. 
   Being tied up with selfishness not only keeps us in bondage but it walls out Jesus and His love to enter into our lives.  It prevents us from being free to actually love as we are being loved by Him. 
   Jesus, I know I have alot to yet learn and face. And although I am scared to look inside at times I would rather go through that kind of pain than to exist only in part throughout my existence here on earth.

   The second thought today was linked to being bold enough to face what is inside with the intent to deal with it. It is in the risk of being honest with God and ourselves. As with the Samaritan woman whom Jesus led to a spiritual level and understanding only by her being vulnerable and honest. By admitting the way she was living, she opened herself up to more possible attack or judgement of shame and disdain for who she was and what she was doing (and despite how much she was already enduring) YET she was honest and took the risk of further hurt. What happened ?  She was instead set free ... she was given spiritual sight; realizing that she was having an intimate encounter with God... she, who was an outcast, a failure, a throw away. If she had answered any other way she would have missed this moment and gone away continuing to exist in her current state. Never fully aware of what was actually being held out to her. A redemption... that she indeed had worth, purpose, and was in fact loved so much by God that He met her Himself.
 
Hear the message... Heed the words... Take the risk. 

Journal excerpt  Dec 14/10

I need You Jesus.

It is just You and I as all around us goes dark, for there is no relevence in what surrounds us.  I could even close my eyes... for all that matters is, what I know is true ... that You are holding me. The reason I laugh Reader is remembering all the times I want to 'see' and even in specific ways and when it comes right down to it is it any more tangible than what I know as truth? I close my eyes and exhale, letting go of what already threatens to pile up... and when I breathe in ... I breathe in You. Holy, Holy, Holy, You are my God, my Saviour, my Love, my Father , my Rescuer... You are Life. You are my life. I hear You speaking into my hair but I do not know the Words... the language. You speak to me but not as me alone but corporately as Your bride, Your body. You seem to pour out Your thoughts and desires and passions, even tears slide down as You recall generation after generation of Your Beloved. Your love and who You are come out in a rush of words and melody that are so sweet to hear that it almost breaks my heart. For with truth... there is realization, with realization... there is humbling, with humbling... there is a wave of the depth of Your Grace and in the face of Your Grace the tide aches to return to the sea, to be complete, to Know and be Known... to love with the love that You have filled us up with first.

Now there is a silence that is as thick as a blanket of down... my adoration, my love for You floods over and over again, deep within my soul but the beauty of being still and in Your arms hold it's own reverence, Holiness. As long as You want Jesus... as long as You want.

Go and hold my Beloved... Go out with abandon as I am holding you, hold those all around you, those I will bring to you... I will fill you with a knowing, a leading, forever tune in to my stirring and movements, my whispers and calls... hear my heart that has been written down and echo it. You are in my Word for a deep purpose continue in it... be consumed.
  
Here I am send me. Dec 8/10

   How are You doing today? 
   Jesus, if we were standing together right now this is what I'd do ... I'd take You by the hand and we would walk to that rise over there. The sun is still low but climbing quickly.  Sitting on the top of the picnic table I am on Your left, I put my arm around You and rest my head on Your shoulder. We would spend as much time as You wanted just being still and quiet, soaking in each other's presence and the beauty of what Your hands, Your Word has made. After a time, I would sit behind You giving You a back massage... with each touch I would want You to know the depths of my love and devotion to You.

   Now we are sitting on the bench and You are holding me. The words echo through my mind " If you can be all about Me then you will never need to worry about you. Let Me be about you. Your sight will then become my sight... your heart as mine.  What you do will be only about the Father. What you will witness in these days will be unlike any other... this is where real truth is revealed the lies of humanity and it's desire to preserve and protect itself will fall into shards; like glass falling upon the foundation of Rock, the eternal truth...that lie so ready to be broken yet left untouched by so very many. In this day of true sight the heavens will be broken open and you will see the spiritual as clearly as the physical. Your breath will catch as You see my Glory revealed ... purpose will take on new meaning. Even suffering takes on a new cloak.  When you ache and cry out it will not be for yourself it will be for those around you that both create, sometimes unknowingly, such depth of pain and brokenness and feel wave after wave of assault from this world. Your pain will not be lessened and instead may be increased but it is not borne alone... this pain is one that is shared shoulder to shoulder with Me. And as real as it is, it is wound inexplicably with cords of love and in your deepest mourning you will feel the depths of my undeniable love, passion and the strength of my presence.. for where you are, there I AM."

I close my eyes and try to contain the fact that You spoke this to me. 

Journal entry...Dec 7/10

   So Jesus I have that unsettled feeling this morning but it isn't a bad thing ... it is that 'on the verge of something' feeling. I have no one to talk to about it except the only one who would understand it completely.  For somehow, I think it is from You or in response to You being near me.
 
   Too often I am afraid to step forward and I haven't known what to do with that but I want to neither be afraid of failing or of succeeding. I want to let that perspective fall away discarded as a useless view. I want instead to follow in obedience because of my love for You. For to be in either camp of failure or success does me no good but to force me to look at myself ... to become consumed with all things me and how I should handle it. The other, however, offers an existence in Your presence. A freedom to love as I follow You or walk alongside You or am carried by You.

Journal entry... Sept 5/11, 9:39am

You tell me why things happen in the order they do.

You tell me why, when we see things play out, we aren't constantly on our faces in awe of a God that takes the time to love us so intimately and in the greatest of detail.

You tell me.

I connect somehow and I come to understanding through seeing and experiencing. There is always a huge limit to what I will experience through the day to day of my physical life. Decisions made will affect not only who I meet but where I am.  Therefore it just stands to reason that there is just so many things I could never be apart of, to experience, or to know.  However, I believe in God who isn't limited by anything. He seems to be using the 'sight' He's given me, to teach me and pull me along lines of understanding not just mentally but emotionally and spiritually. I am not sure to what degree others take what they watch and what they witness, what they hear in the emotion of another's voice and assimilate it into 'like feeling it for oneself' but I think God is using this avenue for me. Interestingly He isn't letting me rely on this alone for learning. He has been stretching me to KNOW and have FAITH in who He is ... apart from what I know (or in spite of what I know) He keeps putting into my days ... moments. Things that I could perceivably brush off (and unfortunately I'm sure I do far too often) . Sometimes they are... "did you see me there?" or "what if that is true... what does that mean to you? or where will a response from you lead?" Although many of my moments at the outset make me think this is so far beyond what I know or even have been taught that I feel that I must be the only one taking this step into the unknown. But on the other side of it (or in the midst of it) I think ... no I'm sure others are here, also being asked to enter into the understanding that leads to a living faith, but it may not look like me. In light of the fact that we are wonderfully made and with such individuality means that steps towards Him are also delightfully varied and when we are brave enough to share where and what God is doing with us it could, most possibly, draw out others to share and thus fill out the intimate knowing of Him within the body of Christ. The variety of ways is never in contradiction for when it is of God; He is. He cannot be anything but truth... He cannot be false.

So now I don't feel like I have to make you like me. And I don't need you to be like me so I don't feel alone. But I want to be brave and share myself lost in Him to you so that you will feel that much more free to share about Him in you. Nov. 17 10

   Morning Jesus, I realize alot of things are true and alot are not. I realize while some things are eternal, I am still stuck in the temporal. I realize that there are some things I can never seem to find words for and they are often the things I wish I could spend most of my life immersed in... emotion thick enough in the reality of You that I could scoop up a handful of it and watch it slowly drip between my fingers. I continue to wrestle with just how much of You I can have while still here on earth. 

   There is no darkness that is greater than Your light. 

   Where will we meet Jesus?

Jesus it is much later and I know I only have a few minutes but I needed to come anyways. I have been thinking about You. I would love to meet. Earlier when I typed that what I thought of was... right where you are. And so I went ahead with the daily activities thinking of You. Jesus I think the thing I want most is to always be in Your presence and to always feel that connection with You. The wonderful ache of loving You and being loved by You. If we were together right now and right here I would want to hear You.... I would breathe in deep to see if I could catch a scent of You. I would feel Your hands on mine on this keyboard. 
journal excerpt... Nov. 11/10

   Half the day is gone Jesus but a thought won't leave me.  

   Okay a while back, just after moving here, I remember the night where I asked if I could smell You. It made You laugh but here's what. Since that night I have had two specific times where I know I smelled Your presence. I know that will sound most bizarre to whoever might read this but...  it's real. I believe it was linked to meeting someone and touching them, once a hug and once a handshake, but after a significant amount of time, when I smelled that scent,  it was not them I instantly thought about ... it was You. It was one of those powerful and almost too overwhelming to comprehend moments when I realized it was You, because what basis do I have for that? So for my mind to wrap itself around that left me reeling. I have missed meeting You (with my senses) I really have. 
   Another moment caught me off guard when I was talking to Shauna. I was recalling Brother Lawrence and the fact that You would literally show him a future situation You were sending him into so that he would confidently do it with absolutely no worry... that linked also with Daniel and how the progression of Your relationship led him to actually meeting You, hearing You and being touched by You. So in awe I was saying whoa why can't we be like that?  I think about that now and wonder how do I forget what You do for me? With me?  How about when we love others with Your love and perhaps in not being able to comprehend it logically we don't realize just how miraculous it is... how close the supernatural is... The smell experience also reminds me of how You are really there in others. Huh.  
excerpt from journal entry... Nov 8/11