So I cannot put words to what plays havoc with my soul. What I felt while seeing another's pain... my heart ached.
   Seeing, hearing, being with... the beauty of courtship again. And the utter brokenness of separation even when there is just so many unknowns.
   How music cries out what our souls feel. And that the songs most beautiful are often the ones that sing of the deepest pain. That the one who hears the song ... really hears... is not 'normal'. They are understanding words and emotions experiences that have never been spoken by a mouth nor penned by a hand. They not only understand or hear but they share in what other's are saying in another language. So what is the burden of the hearer? To tell. To acknowledge. To love.
   Jesus I ache for You. If we were together right now where would we be? We would take a walk of remembrance.
Past the place on the beach where we sat in the night listening to the ocean.  
Looking back at the cove where we met and swam and talked along the ocean's edge.
Along the beach where we have spent time with others. 
Looking up seeing that cave in the cliff where we sat many times protected and safe. Where, only later, we stood on the top of the cliff feeling the wind and elements.
That spot where I walked in the waves to be with You, where I cried and You came to me and took me to be with You.
We walk by the fountain that we splashed and played with Rachael and You so tenderly washed my father.
There is a new hill top here to the east of the fountain... it looks down upon the treetops that hide the village. From here the green hides what is beneath it's color. It seems to say all is well ... beauty, health, life but I know that under it's branches runs a river of such deep pain and brokenness that it's almost hard to fathom that pain and beauty can exist so close together. Does the proclamation of the trees tell a lie then? No. It is the bigger truth; the reality of You and Hope. Of You and Life ... of the only kind of life that can bind and heal and grow us up out of the pain. You rescue and redeem. Hmmm. While sitting here looking ... I noticed I sat alone. Curious. But what I was looking at was the expression of You. Therefore we were both here after all. You make me smile. It's neat to see You big too.
journal entry... Sept 23/ 10

   Morning Jesus, although we only had the briefest of moments last night I am so thankful for it. It is interesting how You have worked everything out for tonight and I appreciate again Your deep thoughtfulness for such minute things. A new day and one where the snow is falling once again. I find it quite comforting.  Lol surprise, surprise. Jesus I sure would appreciate You sorting out my thoughts today... help me go in Your direction alone and Jesus please guard my youth group. Help the relationships be healthy and find roots that bind in You and Your Spirit. I do not want the enemy to gain any footholds.  

   Where were we last night? Sitting at a big wooden table. It was light all around so we were surrounded I assume by many windows. It felt a bit like the Ford's place but different.

   I have half a cup of hot iced tea and I want to spend these few minutes with You too. What would You like to talk about Jesus? Maybe we could just sit awhile. Yah that'd be just right. And so we sit. At first just side by side, we are on our bench but the snow is falling all around us. As we watch the flakes silently drift down You reach over and hold my hand intertwining Your fingers with mine. I unconsciously respond by resting my head on Your shoulder. Stop worrying. Respond as I lead You. Do as I have taught You.  By worrying you are trying to solve and figure it out on your own. Stop it. Did I do anything on my own? No. I shake my head trying to dispel the dregs of all my musing and worry and fretting . Choosing to let the voices fade to the background I look up at You. Your face is very serious but Your eyes are alive with emotion and attention, nothing hidden from Your gaze. And yet I do not desire to look away but want to be seen by You. After a while You gently pull me back towards You to rest my head once again on Your shoulder. Everything is so quiet I can almost hear the patter of the snowflakes coming to rest wherever the stirring of the wind has chosen for them to go.

Journal entry April 14/11

   I have a story to tell. I am not a great orator and so I must rely on words... written words. I want to share with you about a journey I embarked upon during last year's lent season. Despite a many "are you really sure God?" conversations it became very clear that I was to give up dwelling on past mistakes and regrets. Interestingly I was almost immediately challenged by a friend with the question ... is that even really possible? I told them I'd get back to them and let them know.
   There is a part of me ... a rather sad part I admit... that was seemingly stuck in living over and over my failures and my regrets. I would pull them out at the strangest of times and for that time I would be immersed in my reliving the scene and rehearsed speeches; my "if only I had another chance" and my apologies. And please understand there are curious things we carry as regret not all are big moments that involved others some are just something you know you didn't do when you should have. As small as not doing a play during a basketball practice in high school and why. Oh and God totally set this up let me assure you. Driving back home from Mexico we had FRS radios between our vehicles and so would be able to talk to one another. My brother-in-law and I got into a conversation about fear (as I was anxious at the border crossing) and how we let it live in our lives without us even raising an eyebrow at it in fact we makes plans around it and to accommodate it so it won't be disturbed let alone routed. And what that says about us... do we actually realize whose we are? Who God is?

  Around the same time as God challenged me to give up my regrets and failures for lent I was deeply impacted by the words of Brother Lawrence. He became so aware of the presence of God that it affected everything in his life. He came to do absolutely everything for the love of God. Even a mundane task of sweeping or peeling potatoes in the kitchen. Here's a few lines from the book; one about him being kept in constant awareness of God's presence "if he sometimes strays from this Divine presence, God immediately recalls him by communicating with him through the Holy Spirit. This often happens to him when he is busiest with his work. He responds faithfully to God's calling, either by offering his heart to God, by a tender , loving look, or by some affectionate words, such as, "my God, I am all Yours; do what You will with me." Then, it is almost as if this God of love returns to his soul to rest again, satisfied with these few words. and the second excerpt is about sin. "Brother Lawrence was aware of his sins and was not at all surprised by them. "That is my nature," he would say, "the only thing I know how to do" He simply confessed his sins to God, without pleading with Him or making excuses. After this, he was able to peacefully resume his regular activity of love and adoration."

   So I took some time and have to say struggled to grasp what it meant to do everything for the love of God and In love to Him. Cooking, cleaning, shop work... but I started to apply it even though I was only hanging on to it by my fingernails. And here is what I found... freedom. I found that when I cooked a supper for the love of God ... doing my very best... my feelings of worthiness of happiness didn't rest in my waiting to hear someone from my family tell me they thought it was good or to thank me... I already felt the joy of doing it for Him. This released my family from an expectation they probably didn't even know I was holding. It took the pride and the feeling of rejection completely out of the picture because I was already content in Him.

   Now let's get back to the wheel of regret (I cannot present one without the other because they are so interwoven) Now... when an all too common thought of regret came it was almost as if it were in neon lights it was just that obvious and so instead of entertaining it and pouring us tea... I turned to Jesus and said ... well here I am this is what I do. Jesus if there is anything You want to teach me through this or want me to repent of please point it out and help me deal with that otherwise Jesus please help me only look at You instead. Now I am not kidding you... He did it. Instead of wasting time I kept my focus on Him and it was gone. I cannot describe the excitement the amazement I felt each time this happened. Now He continued to deepen this lesson for me and pointed out that we can also be distracted and oh so cleverly guided into that "all about me" category by not just negative things but positive things too. We do something right and good with Jesus but then take on ourselves the responsibility of doing it again. I must admit the lesson was a tough one but it was very clear. In that realization my eyes were opened to whole lot more; this living and having it be all about Him instead of all about me was not just neatly boxed and categorized in my life and one of the biggest things was fear.

   Now many months have gone by and I was reminded again of these lessons I thought I'd learned why? well it wasn't because I was living them instead ... there was a moment this summer that saw I not only had forgotten to live this way but I was back to being completely immersed in me. The shock of that thought gave me instant perspective I tell you. But let me fast forward to a week ago. I was at home one day and had come to see an 'argghh I messed up' and was feeling bad about it I was about to on and on about it when Jesus pulled me up short and said hey ... do you just want to deal with it right now and then we can be done with it? And I responded ummmm yah ... A few days after that it happened again I messed up and was going down the beat myself up road when again Jesus stopped me and asked... hey you can go down that road but would you rather just deal with it here and now and be done? There was something that clicked that time. It was like a light bulb went on. OH... you mean I can actually live this way? Yes. I don't have to go back to the only ways I know? I can actually live beyond myself ... I can actually live in You? Yes. oh okay yes I would like that! Now the overwhelming sense of joy that flooded me in this moment of realization is beyond words and I also had the sense that with that understanding it was time for another step ... another season of lent ... but after explaining this to a friend the thought that came was perhaps it shouldn't be so much a time of giving up but of doing. The sacrifice of time and activity to do something. A commitment to pray or discipline of reading the Word, a learning to do things out of love for Him... to talk to Him more and more.

   All of this is to say we have an awful lot of stuff in our lives that are dead. Things we shouldn't be carrying or allowing to distract us from our God that has given the ultimate sacrifice for us... has already made the way ... has died and risen that we might live in freedom... how many of us are still bound by regret of what we've done or not done... would not the words of do not worry fall into this same category for who of you by worrying adds even one hour to your life?  These are life stealers. How about our fears? Fear of rejection that ties our hands when we really want to reach out and give someone a hug? fear of not being good enough? fear of not being perfect? fear of???? How many of us only live half way? because we adapted to living with that dead thing for so long perhaps we are even blinded to what is holding us back from the freedom of actually living in Him ? Living beyond ourselves cause guess what it isn't all about me... it's all about Him.

    It's kind of like the surreal scene of a simple guitar that plays a melody so simple and sweet drowning out any sound of the scene playing out before your eyes of violence, death, loss and hurt. The two are so bizarrely opposite and yet. What is it? There is something that shows up in those sick and dark moments... like a thread of hope or beauty perhaps a truth and that one tiny thing has more power than everything else that is playing out before us. It silences it. You are that.


You have that power.

You the Holy God of all that is... show up in our darkest moments.

Your presence helps the helpless hold on, the broken have hope.

You redeem.

It's an unfathomable act...

Morning Jesus....
  Okay I've learned another lesson ... In this courtship I need to take more and more time to KNOW You. Just a little is not what satisfies or keeps one happy... yah that was lame. Yikes where was my head? Anything that pulls me away from You is given more power for another time, to do it again and for longer. To actually look at the time of separation (not You from me but me from You) is horrific really because to be anywhere without You is so devastatingly empty. Lifeless. No temporary thing would ever be worth it.
Okay I got that.
   And it's a funny thing I've gotten things all along this road and I always think 'okay I know this now' but I see, looking back, that we can always KNOW it on a deeper level or in a different (very applicable) sense. It's like we never fully know. Huh there's a verse with that one lol. And so we travel on picking up what in some ways looks like the same lesson over and over but no... often it seems like the same thing but it is teaching a deeper truth or asking us to step into a deeper Knowledge which affects our walk with You our courtship (relationship) with You.
   Therefore... I will look up and into Your face and say I am sorry this is what I allow within and where I am. Please forgive me and bring me back to You and further into You. Left on my own I cannot. And we face forward and take a step in unison and I am glad.

So I just had a thought Jesus does this experience make me ready to share my time of lent? 
journal entry Sept 21 10

   Jesus I am so filled with You. That desire to live this life so fully fills me till I cannot express it ... I want to be completely Yours.


   Jesus can we meet? I have to say this... Jesus, I want to be so close to you that I know what to say and when to whomever You desire.  This emotion I feel is so real and I know that I am only on such a small square of it and that knowledge just fills me with such awe. Only in Your timing and will, as everything always hinges on You. I guess I just thirst for it ... for it all. : )
   Live life with the knowledge of what this life is Be enraptured by it ... hold onto it all with both hands and hear me whisper and call and speak the truth of love of Myself into all situations, all seasons, all experiences. Live not looking and going through the motions of the necessary and unnecessary but let it be literally immersed by My presence, My voice, My purpose, My love, My call. I chose you Tam, in that dream at Yellowstone National park... I know you remember. I chose you and you know that now, though you only know in part ... now, is not the time we get to be together fully... this is our time of courtship... of getting to KNOW Me... and you seeing and experiencing how I KNOW you. Remember when I held your face and told you I loved you? Hear Me again.

Jesus it is painful how time flies by during these intimate moments I only have a few minutes left.  Maybe only a few moments left at the computer but can that stop us from being together? Can I not walk with You constantly, talking and sharing Myself and My love for you? Can I not enable you to have that heart of flesh, that heart and mind always wanting Me and My ways? Enabling your ears to hear and eyes to see? Is there anything I cannot do? You can, I limit myself by myself too often. Teach me to live in You instead. Never to be content anywhere else.
 
.... journal entry Sept 20 10

A portion of a journal entry Sept 20/10

Hey Jesus... so a few things are rolling around in my mind...
   
   ... purity... as one of the deepest expressions of love.  So in this time here on earth it is that time isn't it? Where we realize Your love and how our love responds to Yours as we journey down a path of discovery and revelation. There is anticipation and delight at each new thing we learn about one another and how Your touch redeems, restores, frees and heals us.  It is preparing us to be Your bride. Two thoughts... one, monks really caught something didn't they.  Secondly, some think of this time here to be endured until something better comes BUT You want to KNOWN by a bride that comes (in free choice) to KNOW You which leads to such a depth of relationship. You never leave Your beloved broken and bleeding but desire to reach out and hold as You heal and free in Your continuing and faithful love.

   Our time here is like a courtship. And what You give is not flawed in any way. It is characterized by such a depth of purity which far exceeds our attempts to express love ... that purity tells such a tale of a true and sacrificial love that cannot be matched. I am coming to think that when the world tells it's stories of love, it is proof of Your existence .... Your existence in us.  We long for You, which means we long for this kind of love and it comes through over and over and over... through our art, our writings, our theatre and movies... again and again the things that moves our souls is in the description of what real love looks like, feels like, acts like... it breaks our hearts to witness even a glimpse of it because we know that we know that this is real and we are far from it. Yet we want it. So briefly back to the monks and of course for me Brother Lawrence. He lived a life in love to You. He really caught it. There is something to be heralded about the one who lives to be God's alone. Shauna said she would love to be a monk how brilliant is it indeed... living Your life to God and for God required to only do the necessity of living and dedicating all other time to You alone... and really being allowed to not live by the world's standards of success / failure expectations culture etc.  Okay, but here's the rub... wouldn't it be even cooler if these amazing people could live not cloistered away (for most of the time) but live among us who choose really, to be so interconnected with the world and it's ways. But hang on perhaps that can't happen because part of their purpose it to remind and inspire and 'give permission' (not literally) for us to live differently exactly where we are.