The Need

Yesterday I prayed that the Lord would just come back and take us home.

It was the first time I'd prayed that and truly felt in my heart that I meant it.

Usually I pray that prayer flippantly while in the back of my head I'm thinking... "Come back Lord, BUT could I just have a family and kids first. I think that would be fun. Maybe let me experience some of the joys of this life before going on to be with You in eternity..." You know, stuff like that. Let me get out of college or accomplish something with my life...

But no, this time I was serious. I told God we are broken and that I'm unhappy with being broken. I told Him we just want to be fixed and go home. I said it with a little anger and frustration that He won't just take us home. I said it with the same sense of homesickness that I said was feeling before Thanksgiving.

It was cool. I mean, it was sad to feel that the world is broken, but it was cool to truly connect with the feeling of NEED for a Savior to come and redeem this broken world.

A lot of connections today

Today, I read Hannah's words of thanks to God and Zachariah's words of thanks to God.

I read that God "sends poverty and wealth; he humbles and he exalts." Essentially, He allows sorrow and joy. He allows sickness and healing. He's got it in His big, big hands. It's a little disheartening maybe, to think He's the conductor of an orchestra that sometimes seems dissonant. But "the foundations of the earth are the Lord's; on them he has set the world." We're HIS lumps of clay and He is a master artist.

Have you ever watched someone sculpting or working on a pottery wheel? Sometimes, you see them creating something and you begin to feel amazed. You see where the shapes look like they're going, and you're excited to see them be manipulated. Then a little thing happens: maybe a side begins to sag just a little, and BAM! The artist smashes it in and begins smoothing out bubbles -- you catch yourself saying, "NO! It was looking so good! I could never have done that!" You think the artist is a perfectionist and that time has just been wasted.

But the artist knows that clay weakens as it is being manipulated. It is very malleable, and can only be fixed a few times before a piece needs to be integrated back into the whole and start from the beginning. Not only will this make the piece stronger, it will make the process of finishing faster than trying to make a quick repair. We are His jars, filled with His gospels, and He is reworking our hearts in this time of "sorrow/hope" so that our hearts are able to hold his heavy, weighty words with conviction.

Let us remember that in God's hands, we are not "safe." But He is good. It's like in Narnia. It's WINTER and we're waiting for CHRISTMAS! We're waiting for Him to come and fulfill the hope and fulfill the preparation and fulfill the joy and fulfill the love. Here's my favorite part about this: He already came. So the past assures us. And Christmas will come on the 25th, as it always does. So the present assures us.

Our futures are certain. They will contain a resurrected Christ. Let us hope and, tomorrow, prepare.

Martin Luther wrote,

"This is the word of the prophet: "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given" (Isa. 9:6). This is the hardest point, not so much to believe that he is the son of the virgin and God himself, as to believe that this Son of God is ours. This is where we wilt, but he who does feel it has become another man. Truly it is marvelous in our eyes that God should place a little child in the lap of a virgin and that all our blessedness should lie in him. And this Child belongs to all mankind. God feeds the whole world through a Babe nursing at Mary's breast. This must be our daily exercise: to be transformed into Christ, being nourished by this food. Then will the heart be suffused with all joy and will be strong and confident against every assault."

This is a great mystery of Advent: the child Mary carries in her womb simultaneously holds the whole world in his hands.

And he came for us. The Son of God is ours.

Tomorrow begins week two of Advent, with an emphasis on Peace, Preparation, and John the Baptist.

The "O" Antiphons

With intercession, I have been trying to figure out how to prevent prayer from becoming redundant and repetitive. At times I just get in a rut where I'm praying the same things for the same people. Though the things I pray for are not bad things, on the contrary they are great things, the "O" Antiphons gave me inspiration and reminded me or exactly what I should be praying for when interceding for others. Here are some of the BEAUTIFUL ways we can be praying for others:


Come and show your people the way to salvation.

Stretch out your mighty hand to set us free.

Come, let nothing keep you from coming to our aid.

Break down the prison walls of death for those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death; and lead your captive people into freedom.

Come, shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

Come and save the creature you fashioned from the dust.

Come and set us free, Lord our God.


This reminds me to pray for God to come, heal, show his people how to receive salvation, not delay, save us, and set us free.

I drafted a poem

tonight that goes along with Kayla's thoughts below.

I "blogged" it on my own blog, but saw that it fit Kayla's words.

Maybe your words. Maybe our words.

We're all into advent, I can tell.

And we're all feeling longings, I can tell.

We've been plunged into a time of aching,

making the hoping part harder.

But also making the hoping part much more REAL.

Without grief or discontentedness, hope cannot be present.

So here we go. We're being given an opportunity to hope. Huh boy.

Here is my poem. And the more I write things like this and think things like this, the easier it is to not dwell so solidly inside my self-pity. Hope is a discipline. Hm.

Today, my heart aches

amid my thoughts of thanks. Thirst

for rest and relationship

drains me dry --

all thoughts are needle pricks

that pick my threads of gratitude

until I begin to unravel.

Hope, you are the theme.

I bow my head

to your high ways. You

say yes when I feel maybe.

You say wait when I feel weep.

You say rest when I feel struggle.

You see the hands that hold you

when I am blind.

I ache. But.

But know that aches speak

of remedies.

That longings speak

of fulfillment. That yesterday's joy

affirms the joy to come.

Unravelled. Aching: I hope.

Hopeful Laments

This is a little of what I was trying to articulate tonight in our small group. Its from my journal, but its applicable.

I feel overwhelmed lately with a sense of grief and sadness. I don't think i'm clinically depressed or anything, but I cry ALOT. If I've counted correctly, minus Thanksgiving break (where I think I was too busy to cry), I have cried everyday for the past month.

Certain things just set me off... Alot of it has been my own dealings with relationships, while other times its the sadness/brokenness around me. I'm just easily touched these days.

I don't think its bad that I can cry at the drop of a hat for the things outside of myself but the things inside of me, I feel aren't right. And every time it happens I get even more frustrated as to why I can't stop crying. I don't like feeling out of control of what's happening to me, but I know there is purpose in it.

I don't want to be a needy person. I want to feel that I can stand with the Lord by my side through anything. And maybe that's it. Maybe God is teaching me to take hold of Him in a more intimate way. But it really hurts to feel like I have to loose my other relationships to do that. I don't like feeling alone and I don't think its healthy to feel that way. I know there is a healthy medium between relying on God for everything and relying on humans, I just can't seem to find it.

I interviewed my Social Work friend, Robert Ayres this morning for a class. He brought up a good point that I feel applies to my sadness these days. It went something like... "You can't deal with the broken population unless you deal with your own brokenness first." Not that you have to be all fixed and perfect, but having a past in something and then trying to help others heal is not proper. Its like being on a plane where they tell you to put your oxygen mask on before helping anyone around you. Its not selfish to try to save your own life, but its necessary if you want to survive long enough help the person next to you. So if I think I'm going to help people relationally, I have to walk through the fire and figure all this stuff out for myself before getting to that point where I can be the most helpful.

In the midst of Advent, the whole mourning for the brokenness and sadness around me makes sense. Bobby Gross in his book Living the Christian year, describes advent as a time for songs and groans. We mourn for the broken world, but we joyfully sing of the coming King who is here to restore such brokenness. He has come and is coming to fix what is broken. Matthew 5 talks about how Christ did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. It talks about the heart behind the things that we do and how broken we are on the inside before our thoughts even come into action. And at the end of the chapter we are called to be "perfect as your Father is perfect." How do we do that? I don't know yet.

So I guess this grief feeling is a curse and a blessing. Its given me this perspective of how Christ came to fix what is broken, and to truly feel that something is broken and needs fixing... so Christmas is worth the wait because of that. But its still not easy knowing that the world is so very broken, I am still so very broken and the time has not yet come for all things to be fixed.

"So sing and let your songs be joyful longings; groan and let your cries be hopeful laments."
-Bobby Gross

"...in due season"

...all look to you,
to give them their food in due season.
When you give it to them, they gather it up;
when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.
When you hide your face, they are dismayed;
when you take away their breath, they die
and return to their dust.
When you send forth your Spirit, they are created,
and you renew the face of the ground.

Psalm 104:27-30

All of creation depends on God's grace; all yearns for salvation.

"in due season"

This is a season for spiritual food. He will feed us with His hope and joy and love.

His hand is slowly opening and we are eager to gather and fill.

His face is slowly coming out of hiding and it is the face of an infant.

With baby's first cry his breath will rush back into world's dust and Spirit will recreate us.

Renewal comes with Christmas.

Come, Lord Jesus, Come.

Day Two: JOY

Joy is the focus of today's reading in Isaiah. There is so much JOY among brokenness because we know God will come and save us.

"say to those with fearful hearts, 'Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you!"
Isaiah 35:4

Amongst the pain and sorrow that people have been experiencing, there is constant joy and trust that God will heal the broken and save us.

a cord not quickly broken

This week I had the pleasure to visit my sister in southern California. Among many great things, we went to church together today. In service, the pastor spoke about Ecclesiastes, a familiar tone of how life is meaningless but not a common book preached about. It was a very somber service, but I loved the heart of it. He began by giving a general outline of Ecclesiastes and how life is meaningless, our toil is vanity, and basically nothing is guaranteed to us. We believe that if we work for something or work hard for a goal, we should obtain that goal, and receive good things. Yet, it is clear in scripture and from living life for 20 plus years that, that just isn't the case. He continued just laughing because nothing we do really can get us anywhere. We aren't guaranteed anything in this life.

He then turned the service onto a different note, directing us to think about the promises we can believe in. The pastor pointed to a few verses in Ecclesiastes about not being alone, picking one another up, and encouraging one another. Nothing is guaranteed in our lives, but we have family and friends that God has placed in our lives to live in community with. We must embrace one another and celebrate in our relationships, because that is the only thing guaranteed in our lives; the relationship with people and with God. Throughout scripture Jesus is clear that we must spend time with him. He even said when he was on this earth, that the poor would always be with us, but he wouldn't be. This gives perspective of how we should embrace the relationship we have with Christ and with others.

I left service, and California, thinking about how thankful I am for you guys and other people God has placed in my life. I also redirected my focus on the beauty and peacefulness of sitting in the presence of God. This was a perfect way to begin Advent redirecting my focus on Christ and our relationship.

Day One

Learning to Adjust the Camera Lense

My first passage was Psalm 103, and you know what? Anna Holliday texted me about that very passage a few days ago! So I had already prepped.

I'm DROWNING under a homework load right now, and let me tell you... I want to WHINE like a baby. But then I compare... in a better way. I realize how much I have loved school and how much I love these classes... I realize how AWFUL my workload was all semester last fall... I remember how great my family seems to be doing under the circumstances... I think about my cozy work space on the couch in peace and quiet. Then I'm thankful!

Then I pull the lense out wider and see my life in the timeline of ETERNITY. And I pan down and see Christ being born so that I could do my work to prepare my heart and mind for Christian life. And the more I pan out with my camera eyes, the smaller I become, and the fuller I feel. What a honey sweet perspective.

So I smirk as Jars of Clay soul-sings "I'll Fly Away", and I continue to work.

Advent: Day One

Today was the first day of Advent. I'm doing Isaiah, so intercession is the focus. I started out reading Isaiah 11:1-10. This was such a cool passage. Things that popped out were that the one coming has the Spirit of God, has the Spirit of healing, the Spirit of understanding, the Spirit of power, and the Spirit of fear of the Lord. Also, at the end it says that the one that is coming will be a banner for for all people and will be a marvelous place of rest. This passage was so beautiful to me and was really helpful during my time of prayer. While I was praying, I was reminded of all the pain people around me are going through or have gone through. In spite of this, Christ is all powerful and nothing is impossible with him. The time of intercession reminded me of the essence of Advent, which is waiting patiently and earnestly for Christ to heal all of the hurt and be a place of rest.