L I M B O

It's a strange feeling, being up in the air. There is no time, no structure. Even day and night are warped, time-lapsed mutations of normalcy. Limbo Land, it should be called. I imagine the writer of Inception got his idea from being on a plane and waking up to a makeup plastered hostess asking him if he wanted champagne or peanuts or whatever they serve on first class.

I used to feel like I had no place up here. I felt lost, like my mind was drifting somewhere in the fifth dimension like a price of lint floating in the dusty living room Saturday morning. I don't feel like that now. Not so lost in limbo land... Or at least not so uncomfortable with it. I used to be unable to sit in my seat without thinking of my destination. "If only I would get there already," I'd think moronically.

Really, limbo land removes your consciousness temporarily of where you are in the span of your life, or maybe the part of your brain responsible for the awareness of time and space just starts to short circuit when you get up closer to the Moon. I sleep for two hours and wake up to find the sun rising, or conversely, sleep for nine and wake to find night. I imagine that when we land, anything could have changed. It could be 2010 and maybe we time warped accidentally and I'm actually 17 and I have never even heard of Australia besides Finding Nemo. Maybe everything will become the inverse of itself and I will be going home to Sydney instead of Oregon. Maybe I'm never going to land, stuck up here in a brilliant, fluffy orange and pink dream (minus the leg cramps). It could be I forget, somehow, in short bursts, where it is I am going and where it is that I have been. How long has it been since we've left Earth? I don't know, for it all seems to turn into this dastardly, never-ending flight that spans your whole life but breaks itself up to appear in bursts of transition. It's like time simply had its own way with matter up here, manipulating it as it wants.

I cried when we lifted off the ground and I saw the earth that I loved slipping away from my sight. I never thought it was possible to love a land so much. She's beautiful, you see. She changes people, the Great Southland of the Holy Spirit. God uses her bright beaches and her stormy skies and her red lands to remind us that life is not to be planned, it's to be lived. To be savoured. She helped me love again. He used her to help me feel again. I never wish to be apart from her...

I cannot fear the coming seasons or the things I must face, for even in the warp of time and space, the land between lands, the air where no man really dwells and yet seems to dwell perpetually, He lives, and He does not change as our fickle hearts do, but is faithful to the end of days. He is here, but He is also in You, as He promised from the very beginning. He is closer than the hand on your face, closer to you than your own mind and your own heart. He will stand with you if you will ask Him, He will help you to stand to your feet and fight darkness with love and the light that you hold inside. He will help you to sing the songs that tear down strongholds and make new life spring up from what once was dead.

...Even if you're in Limbo Land.

F A M I L Y

It was a Friday, the day I came home to Sydney. I left Bangkok, two days after I had said goodbye to Emma and watched her get on a plane to Oregon, where I had planned to go not a few months before. I wondered what I was doing, exactly. Following a whisper... it seemed a little silly now. I had no money left, no plan, nothing to fall back on. All I had was what I had in my backpack, and quite literally, a few dollars in my pocket.

The plane dipped below the clouds and I caught my breath, the same way I do every time I see her skyline. "She's beautiful," I thought. It was rainy that day, and gray, smack dab in the middle of the June winter. I didn't care. I had had quite enough of equatorial thunderstorms and humidity, drinking only bottled water and sleeping in a different bed every night.

I wandered hopelessly around the Queen Victoria Building trying to find an ATM so I could buy a bus ticket to Lane Cove. I imagine people felt quite sorry for me, a frumpy looking backpacker, obviously fresh off the plane and extremely immune to fashion sense. I got home to Jaimee and Gavin's house, greeted a squealing and wriggling Tyson (the cutest and most human like Staffie I've ever met). I took a shower. And I wrote.

I spent most of my time with Jay in those days, my first friend in Sydney and the door God had opened for me to come here. I had met him through Instagram about six months before, and Emma and I ended up staying at his house when we first came through Sydney on our way up the East Coast. Turns out He loved Jesus. A lot. He became my greatest asset in adjusting to life in the city, and a voice of wisdom in the season of change my heart was in. We went to the Vivid Light Show in the Quay that weekend. We stayed up singing to Jesus until all hours of the night and watched the entire final season of How I Met Your Mother. He's the one who introduced me to Jubilee Church.

Jubilee proved to be the church that changed the course of my life. Not by the amazing teaching or the worship that tore the roof off, but by the family that embraced me for who I was and called me one of their own. I had been running around for quite some time, thinking that it was my responsibility to figure out life on my own, that I had to be this independent travel chick who had it all figured out. That proved to not work for me very well, and I soon came to the end of my rope and the fear that I was on my own crept into my heart.

But my Jubs family did not leave me to "sort it out on my own." They didn't watch me sink into isolation and do nothing. Sophie called me one night. She asked me why she hadn't seen me in a while. I didn't tell her at first... and then it just spilled out. She loved me, even when I didn't know how to receive real love. She called me out of my isolation and into family again. Carla invited me over and let me stay the night when it was too late to go home. She made me Rooibos tea and we talked life and the land and our futures. Paula spoke life and truth over me, and told me the things she saw in me, the things that God had put there. Jaimee and Gavan let me into their lives and their home and shared everything they had with me when I had nothing to give them.

It's always been about family. The universe was created by a family (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) so that family would cover the earth. If the Enemy can keep you out of family, then He will do everything in his power to do so, for family is where gifts grow in love, where you can truly start to see God in people, where you can come alive and be yourself.

I used to have a homeless, wandering spirit. Every time that people started to know who I really was, I would run. I came to church to take, to see what God had for me, but I would never just come to hang out, to be with people.  I wanted to be effective in the nations and carry something powerful, something that was from God, but my gifts lacked the family structure to rest and grow, so they faltered. In reality, I couldn't trust, couldn't let down my walls enough for people to see all of me because I was afraid that I wouldn't be what they were looking for. I was afraid they wouldn't care.

Here's the truth: you don't have to walk out this journey alone.

The Enemy tells us so many lies about the church and tells us we should run the other way, but here's the truth: God loves His Church. We may be imperfect at times, we may sometimes be stuck in a box of routine and some people in the Church may be extremely misled. But we are family, and no matter where we run or what we do, we cannot change that identity. Good church family is hard to find, but you're never going to find the perfect one. God gave me people that saw the gold in me and called it to the surface, and He will do the same for you. I've always said you have to go after Jesus with everything you have for yourself, but you know the second step? Surround yourself with people that will see the dreams He's given you through to the end,

I had to come halfway across the world to realize that, but you don't have to. I gave up everything and left my home to find Jesus. I told Him I would go anywhere for Him and do anything. I walked many miles and saw amazing things, beautiful things, but in the end, they were all empty without the love of family, just endless miles that reminded me I was alone. You know where He put me? In family. You know what I ended up doing? Learning how to love people.

And now I wish I could stay in this moment forever.

F A M I L Y

It's the song that moves God's heart

it's the song that lets you know that

you're ok just as you are

It's the song that will endure to the end of day

It's the song that melts the darkness

and drives away all hint of sadness

Oh, I will sing this song forever.

 

All my love,

 

B

Watermelons

Sydney is the smallest big city I've ever experienced, you often see people you know in the most unlikely of places. Why, just today I saw Sam. He was in the train station, walking the opposite direction. I hadn't seen him in three months, not since I abruptly quit my job at the chicken shop and started working at Fratelli.

We stopped and exchanged pleasantries, as the kind people of Sydney are in the habit of doing. He walked with me into Woolworths and we chatted while I selected the best avocado from the lot. I saw the watermelons and commented that they were delicious. So he bought me one. A watermelon. And I carried it home with me on the bus like a baby.

I often fall asleep on the bus. It's an awful, intermittent  sleep, interrupted by frantic panic whenever the bus comes to a lurching halt, jerking me awake in fear to check my surroundings to ensure that I have not, indeed, missed my stop. I can't seem to help sleeping, especially when the temperature is so perfectly temperate and the rumble of the engine simmers along... Never mind that my cranium is being banged against the glass window at a speed fast enough to make my eyeballs rattle... Sleeping has always been one of my skills, even if it be lesser known.

Being on a bus really doesn't bother me, though from what I've seen, it should bother any normal person. The bus driver is usually so unobservant that someone could be stabbing a small goat in the backseat and he wouldn't even flinch. Forget trains, if a scientist wanted to look at society through it's respective petri dish, he would look at the concentration of humanity that resides on a bus. If society were a pond, buses are where the little slimy floaties on top of the water hang out. People kiss passionately and grossly, cry, talk extremely loudly on and to all types of technological devices, hold staring contests with their reflection in the window, and try to pretend they're far away from people by listening to music. One time I was overcome by hysterical fits of laughter in a crowded bus, and while people started to look at me weird, I don't think anyone could hear me over their own music.

But back to watermelons... despite their enormity of inconvenience on public transport, is there anything more refreshing to eat? I don't mean the water content of the melon, I'm talking the drooling, slavering, "I-think-the-melon-ate-my-face," "Am-I-five-years-old?" kind of a feeling. I chopped the first quarter into nice, bite sized pieces, like a responsible adult. Then I was still impatiently hungry, so I upgraded to just the melon and a spoon, you know, to speed things up a bit. That didn't hold my attention for very long. and I soon lost my propriety entirely and ate the entire quarter of the melon using only my hands and face. I ended up covered in watermelon juice, sticky but so... happy.

There is a point to this story... albeit on a little trail for jackrabbits.

I'm not saying one should be an absolute slovenly slob, however, I started to think just how much stuff that we do for other people to like us, or at least maintain a respectable version of us in their heads. It's actually crazy. Beloved, we just need to let loose sometimes. It's an orphan mentality driven by fear that dictates what you do because of people's possible negative reactions (or even positive). I take myself way too seriously. The church does. It's because we think our value lies in the gifts we carry or the things we've accomplished or our intellect that we just can't be ourselves sometimes, because that would be too... well, it wouldn't be important enough. We have to be grandiose and spiritual and proper.

Tell you what... Go eat a watermelon with your face. Go sing a song that sounds less-than worship leader quality. Laugh hysterically on a bus because something was funny. Leave your phone at home and go run around in the woods for a day. We have to be comfortable being us, and being alone being us, and living life outside of rigid rules and expectations. We are children, after all, children of the Kingdom. Let go any expectations that you think God has of you (which are law-based) or that you have of yourself and just... live with Him. Like His kid.

This blog post might leave some people scratching their heads and saying, "Well, that didn't make any sense." I don't really care. I wrote it as a reminder for me...and to remind everyone how delicious watermelons are.

All my love,

B

S P A C E

I walk into the driveway, the gravel crunching softly under my shoes. It's a cold night, the cold bites at the edges of my thick flannel jacket and nibbles at my feet. The stars are up above, though the fog has started to roll in thick. The silence is so dense I can almost see it, it's weight hanging over the ground lovingly.

I walk toward the house. The light that streamed from the old windows isn't bright, but mellow, golden, steady. I think that if it were to have a taste, it would be delicious light.

The silhouette of a window outlines a woman over a stove, cooking stew. I can taste the mushrooms and the venison and the broth, Little curls of steam twirl up, and as the woman smiles in joy, I recognize her: Mother.

This is my house. I'm in a dream, a long lost memory of what was once.

I run over to the next window, where I see what I know in my heart I would find: Father, playing his old Ibanez by the roaring fire, singing in that rough, wild voice of his:

All I am is music,
I've been that way from the start.
Just a whisper on the wind,
an easy twilight song.
Just a wandering spirit
and an open, open heart.
Sing with me,
All I ever wanted
was for you to sing with me
Throw away your fears and realize
That when you sing the mountains move,
the stones break down and cry
and the stars shine brighter in the sky.

"Daddy!"

I remember the first time the Holy Spirit came to Me, when He showed me His love in such a beautiful, tangible way. It was about one year ago now, and I was walking down my beloved railroad tracks. I was overcome by love from such a King, but the main feeling I remember even now was the feeling of...

S P A C E.

I could think with my own thoughts and feel with my own emotion, something I had always wanted but was afraid of being manipulated. My walls were finally down after years of being taught to put them up, and I could see for miles, stretch my soul again, and just sit back and... rest.

It's become one of the things I look for to know He's near. All the problems weighing on my mind suddenly don't seem very important anymore, in fact, not important at all. I loved and still love that place with Him... no obligation, just passion. No agenda, just love. No time, just this moment that is the most important moment of all... the moment of Now. That simple call of "Daddy!" And the sweet response, always faithful and always true.

In those moments of space I realize that nothing I could ever be or learn or accomplish could ever compare with finding Him, with spending my entire existence pouring out on the dusty earth, just to know Him more. Not all of my life is spent in these moments, there is always something pulling my attention away from Him, away from those moments, away from that place that changes my very mind to be more like Him...

...But I contend for the moments that I can see past my walls. I pray, I weep, I fight tooth and nail against everything that stands against me being closer. I give up seemingly harmless things that others enjoy without fault. I draw away to be alone for no logical reason. I lift up the things in my heart to Him even when my mind is clouded and there are fears and doubts running wild, knowing that as I give them up, He takes them away and I can see Him clearer. And I know that little by little, our space together will grow and we will be endless together.

I love the space I have with Him. It's my secret place. I will spend time there, make my home there. I will build a roaring fire and make bread, start to craft melodies and sing the words that He teaches me. I will plant a garden and grow flowers. I will run as fast as I want and dance like I am a child and dare to do the very thing that terrifies me. And best of all, I will love Him. And He will love me too.

May you feel space in your soul today.

All my love,

B

Your Own Tune

I went to visit Emma in Klamath Falls in the winter of 2013. She was going to school down at OIT. I was going crazy in my little town of Monmouth, and I needed to get over the mountains, to breathe the clean, cool air and see ponderosas and crush snow with my fingers until they turned numb.

It was snowing then, and I puttered my way there in Steve, my 1985 Ford Tempo. Everyone marvelled that I still drove him, and people often asked me why I didn't scrap him and buy another car. I would shrug and think why bother getting another when the old wasn't broke yet?

 

The fog broke somewhere before Oakridge, and I could see the stars again. It felt like I had been under a fog for quite some time, but I breathed in clarity at last and revelled in the feeling of no weight pressing on my mind. It had been a long and confusing winter. I had lost sight of my dream. I knew something was missing in all the mess of worship leading and church and people that I couldn't love the way that I wanted. All I wanted was someone who knew me, whose presence I could stretch out in and be myself, with whom I could talk and dream and not worry about perceptions. I thought then that I missed Emma... Which I did, but that ache proved to be a foreshadowing of a need far greater.

 

We sat on the living room floor with a bag of peanut M&M's. I told her about everything, about how clouded I felt, how I wasn't sure that being a nurse was the dream I really held but was pouring my time and money out on. How I couldn't sleep at night for fear that this endless routine I felt was all there was.

 

She was quiet for a time, as best friends sometimes are, thinking.

 

"Hey... Why don't we go to Australia? You know, like Elle did. We always dreamed we would travel together...."

 

That was the day it all began. That was the day I started dreaming again. And that was almost two years ago. It's been a journey since then, don't get me wrong... a beautiful journey. These past years have been both the most tumultuous and incredible years of my life.

 

I left that weekend with a dream in my eye and a new spring in my step, even though deep down I knew that moving wouldn't help with the fact that I felt like I still didn't fit right, like I was trying too hard to obtain the perfect Christian life that I knew didn't exist, at least not in the way that I was trying to understand it. That was a hard year for me... I was leading worship, but missing the romance with the One whom I was singing to, the romance that proved to be the thing that changed everything. I was trying to be happy and serve everyone else, but my own heart was dying of neglect and depression reigned in my soul, something that wrapped itself around my joy like poison and I felt from knowing that I was missing something.

 

The obvious solution to my identity crisis was definitely not buying a one way ticket to Oz. I never thought I'd come here, let alone stay here for so long and grow to love it as I have. Never did I hear the divine call of the Lord over this mission, not once did I ask Jesus whether or not leaving home and coming here was a good idea. Emma said, "Australia?" and I said, "Um...alright."

 

I knew I had to go, somehow, knew that He had promised to be my home forever, no matter where I roamed. I knew He wanted to stretch me, my perception of Him and my world of thought. I often asked Him, "will I ever be able to change the world like I want?" So He showed me the world.

 

And oh, I almost forgot... I'm six weeks away from coming back home.

 

Six weeks until I get on a plane and leave the family that I've grown to love more than anything. Six weeks until I have to say goodbye to a country that holds part of my heart and always will. Six months until my heart that's torn in two rips a little bit more.

 

If there's one thing I could share with you, beloved, from this journey, one thing I could infuse into your spirit that you would never forget, one thing I could give to you freely so that you wouldn't have to go through the pain of the process yourself, is that you don't have to be afraid.

 

My life used to be full of fear. Fear of other people leaving me alone, fear that I was too much, fear that I couldn't be as close to Jesus as others said they were, fear that if I jumped into the unknown, I would fall and everyone would say, "I told you so," fear that if I really cried our to be saved from  myself, I would be met by raw, blistening silence.

 

There's a lot of fear in us, though we mask it over and over with silly excuses and remedy it with one liners like, "Jesus said not to worry." We start to fear that we are alone. We wonder what the person next to us is thinking when we start to really be moved by God but are afraid to show it in any way that seems out of the norm. And we wonder if it will ever be different than this, an endless cycle of fear that keeps our company locked down here, not up there, where we belong.

 

I often long for escape from myself, from my own mind that holds me down in the realm of the possible. What would life be like if I would live in Him every moment, thinking and breathing and moving with Him? It is not impossible to be free, as I once thought. In the end, it's all about being more free, as free as we want to be. We were born to love each other. We were born to love the One who first loved us, to give ourselves completely to something, to be consumed by something greater than ourselves.

 

If there was one thing I wish you knew, its that you don't have to be afraid to be you. Be loud, be quirky, be strange. Ask the questions that are awkward and unanswered. Sing loudly and/or off-key to a song no one's heard but you. Laugh uncontrollably or cry until there are no more tears, both for the same reason: just because you need to. You are surrounded by people who desperately need you to be unlocked so that they can be given permission to do the same. Don't look at anyone else to see who they are and copy that. You are a unique expression of God's word, His light and laughter, and He has something He wants to speak through you. Don't criticize yourself because of where other's are at. You have treasure inside that weary heart of yours, treasures, treasure that's buried under years of pain and people telling you to tone yourself down to match the mold. Treasure that is the most precious thing in the universe, so much that the Father gave his lifeblood for it.

You see, in the end, all that matters is your heart. He looks at what's under all the faces we put on and calls what's at the core of us out. He allows space for us to grow, honors us for who we will be, and loves us so we can stretch out and be us.

He is the greatest treasure we could ever find or own or possess. I cherish the wind of His whisper, even the hint of His being around me, the thought of Him thinking of me. I feel Him now, these days, more strong in me than ever. And I love Him so much... More than I could ever write in lifetimes of books.

 

I feel the resistance...

But I am not afraid.

and I will not be turned away.

 

 

Love,

 

B

 

 

 

 

Jonah

I'm sitting in the dark.

I lift up my head from the ball that I've been curled into and unfold my hand so that my palm is millimeters from my face, so close I can feel my own breath ricochet onto my cheek. The warmth of it comforts me. All else is cold.

Time has lost its rhythm. I have forgotten now, how long I have been in the dark. The light is but a memory now, flashes of light that dart across my minds eye. Memories hang like orbs in my spirit, memories that fade even now.

I had left Him. I remember that, a painful red thought that had branded itself onto my forehead. I had left Him standing in the sunshine, eyes full of love. There was no anger with Him. There never was.

He doesn't want to see me now.

We had been walking in the highlands, the lands that I loved. I knew them well, for they were my own, part of me, part of the spirit that had birthed in me my song and my joy. We had stopped short of the cave, His hand tugging mine as He tried to walk on. I did not move. I knew what was beyond. I knew what lay within. And full of shame, I knew I couldn't let him come in any farther.

I had looked at him one last time, let go of His hand, disappeared into the shadows and left Him behind, for I could never let Him see. He could not love me like that, could not save me from the darkness that covered the deep places. I had to face them alone, to find victory or defeat.

At least that's what I used to think. 

He had told me that He had loved me before I knew what love was. He had told me that He was love, that love would win in the end, that He saw the things I hid and yearned to sit with me in the midst and in the mess of them. I didn't understand then. I still didn't. These thoughts swirled and swept over me now, surrounding me. 

How much love is Love, really? How much love can you love me with, Oh God? Can you see into the deepest part and still love all of Me? Am I afraid to let You in past what I know? I feel the swell of love unseen, but I cannot let You see that place, the darkness that I hide away so deep that I forget the place it rests. There's land in me I do not know. I cower in corners. And still you come to me and tell me that You do not see the blackness of the air in here. I know there are fairer lands to run, they're further up and further in. 

~

Waves, crashing and breaking over the worn wood of the ship. 

Still, darkness. 

They shook me awake. That's right, I was still running. 

Everyone shouted, cascades of words interjected among the waves. I knew I would drown, but peace washed over me. 

Love came, again. 

Who are you, really? Where do you come from? Which God do you serve? 

"I am Jonah. I worship the Lord, the God of Heaven, the God of Love, who made the dry land and the sea alike."

(Author's Note: Most Bible stories were preserved through centuries of songs and stories passed from generation to generation. I challenge you to re-read books like Job again, and ask questions like these, questions you've been to afraid to ask before.)

When The Cloud Shifts

I love clarity.

I love the moment when the cloud shifts and you can breathe again. It seems that I've been under a cloud quite a bit lately... But none of that matters now, in this moment, when I can see. All the shadow is forgotten under the heat of the sun.

Rosa was crying in front of the grocery store when I walked by her on the way to the train. I sat down. Her friend had committed suicide the day before and left his dog behind. She was angry at him, she said, but I knew that was her way of saying her heart was breaking. I didn't try to tell her anything, to fill the space with words that only came from obligation. I just shoved by self-proclaimed dislike of physical contact aside and embraced her. And she cried. And I stayed.

And in that moment, the cloud shifted.

It occurs to me that though she may have had many people put money in her hand today, not one of them had gotten close.

We've gotta get over our natural discomfort of being close to people and just throw ourselves right into the messy mix of loving them. We're still afraid that we'll love too much... as if that's a thing. Sometimes we're stuck in our fog of commerce and compromise and forget that people are hurting around us and they don't need us to have the answers or be super spiritual, they just need a hug. We are all going to keep traipsing about in circles in our boxes of fear until someone finally steps out and loves, someone throws up their hands and says, "What the heck," and just decides to make a fool of himself to get close.  Jesus did that. We can do it too, because He's in us and loves us and yearns to show love to each person.

It doesn't matter what your gifting is; If you cant love, you're not living life the way Jesus intended life to be lived. People are looking for a place to be themselves, a place where they don't have to strive or work for acceptance, a place where they can see past their circumstances. They are looking for a resting place.

I love it when I can see clearly. But I love it even more when I see the cloud move off of someone's countenance and I see them come alive under the weight of love. I love it when someone's eyes shine with the realization that someone loves them enough to come close. I love it when Jesus moves me past what I call love into a deeper place, a place that shines out the fog and illuminates the real Truth.

Get closer. And then get closer again.

All my love,

B

Sleepless Nights

She woke up at 3: 42 on the dot, her mind reeling from dreams that wouldn't let her sleep. Chaos, shapeless forms, flashes of light, dishes breaking, people shouting. She had spent too much money on skim lattes and cheap paperback novels, medium cigarettes and wine with people that didn't care. Voices tormented her, voices of regret and indecision. Voices that told her no one cared, voices that told her she would forever be stuck in this cycle of stupidity, this cycle of longing but never reaching. A memory flashed.

Creaky stairs.
Daddy sitting by the fireplace.
Daddy said he was thinking about stuff.
He couldn't sleep.
How could sleep be lost?

She rolled over onto her stomach and tried to bury her face in the pillow, but it was too late, she was already wide awake, awake to thoughts she didn't want to acknowledge. She wasn't fine. She had cried herself to sleep last night. The regret of trying and failing, trying and regressing clung to her like bad lint, haunted her like a mean ghost. Her soul ached, if ever a soul could.

She was tired of living in a halfway house. She was tired of the in-between. She was so tired of living like everyone else. She wanted to burn! She wanted to die trying to be closer, to give all her life and all her mind and all her spirit in search of knowing the Maker. But she kept getting caught in the flow of life, of living just like everyone else.

But she was so tired of fighting it. Of pushing the boundaries, of pushing for freedom. Of being stretched, pulled, shaped. She often had an overwhelming feeling that she should give up, leave this place. She feel lost, like she should be looking for something else, some other place that she could call home. But she'd felt that feeling before, when she was home.

Where do I go?
What is it that I am looking for?
I am out in the open,
not hidden under Your Love.
Where are you?

She remembered Luthien. She had read of her once, when she was a child. Luthien was a daughter, a lover, a woman in the old tales that Dad had read by her bedside every night. She remembered the words to this day.

Luthien stood upon the bridge, and declared her power; and the spell was loosed that bound stone to stone, and the gates were thrown down, and the walls opened, and the pits laid bare; and many thralls and captives came forth in wonder and dismay, shielding their eyes against the pale moonlight, for they had lain long in the darkness of Sauron.

Do I have power like that?

Do I have any power at all?

If You don't come, I have no hope to carry on.

She could not love by herself, not one could without the cross, because everyone was stuck in their boxes of pain, they were all under a veil of hurt that blinded them to see any soul for what it truly was. 

We are a broken people,

Made up of broken edges

And shattered pieces.

We long to be close,

But fear the tearing

of our hearts

again.

But she knew the cross was more than a story. Christ was more than a theological idea to be pondered and dissected by men. He could speak for Himself and heal the way He said He could. He was not dead. He was the One who could take man's twisted thinking and warped perception and transform it into a beautiful thing, a thing that would endure to the end. 

She could stand, fearless, not as a weakling but as a warrior. In her pain she could love, and in her love she would never be weak, for she now loved with His love. She worshipped Him and escaped from her veiled, selfish, blind heart into His perfect one. It was so beautiful, more beautiful a communion than ever she imagined a communion could be. She was in the Unveiling. She could approach the throne of all thrones. She could drink of the same stream that she would drink afterward, when the race was run and the mountain was climbed, the water that flowed from the living Fountain. Now she saw every soul in the right light, through His eyes and His heart.

He is with me, 

In me,

and for that I have found my joy, 

even in sleepless nights and in torment. 

He has called me to my destiny, 

drawn me close to His hope, 

sheltered me with His song.


I pray you realize you are a warrior today.

All my love,

B
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author's Note: Sometimes I write in the third person about myself. It's a sort of therapeutic processing that helps me see what's actually going on in my heart. While a rather strange practice, I recommend it to someone stuck in their own head and in need of a way to express what they are actually feeling. 

The In-Between

Rosa was sitting on the steps of the grocery store as I walked home from work, nursing a cigarette, which I supposed to be rather hard to come by when you didn't have much money. She was Aboriginal, I knew that by the crazy mop of salt-and-pepper hair that stuck every which way off her head, and the way she mumbled her words. She was dressed in a thick coat, a necessity on a cold night like tonight. The weatherman said the rain was supposed to go on all week. I wondered if she was warm enough.

I squatted down on the sidewalk. "Rosa, how are you? You remember me?" I asked her. She had come into the restaurant earlier that day asking for a flat white, 3 sugars. I gave it to her.

Her face lit up with the glint of recognition."Can I get you anything, dear? It's gonna be a cold night tonight."

She put out her cigarette with an air of regret. "I wouldn't mind a smoke."

So I bought a pack and we sat down and had a smoke together. Not exactly something you'd preach on in church, but whatever. I told her I loved her and that I'd be back again soon, and she told me I had a good heart and soul. And then I kept walking.

Most of our lives are spent in-between one thing and another. Millions of moments in a day are not occupied with work, studies, things to check off your to-do list. They are just that: the in-between. 

It sometimes feels like this whole year has been an in-between. In-between what? I don't know. It doesn't matter. God rests here, as he does with all the seasons. I am in love with my Savior, and I find Him in the quiet, in the moments I am finished with one thing and waiting on another thing to come to pass. I don't need to wait for Him, for He is here, now, in this moment, while I'm making dinner, while I walked home, while I rode the bus to work this morning. I am no longer afraid to stop whatever I am doing and let Him speak to me in the silence. I no longer ignore the moments I have nothing planned, for it is often when He has something planned.

How do we connect with eternity in everyday life? How do we transform not only the big moments of grandeur, but the small, seemingly insignificant moments into a life full of love? How do we become people who change the world? 

By filling the in-between with the truth of His voice.

It is how we spend the in-between moments that determines our destiny.

I hope your days are filled with His love and the sweet, simple life that lies within Him.

All my love,

B

The Heart of Things

I was going over old drafts of my writing when I found this in the jumble of my old thoughts. It stirred something in me I haven't felt for some time... Something different. I want to share it with you because it stirred my spirit to desire the Truth. I hope it does the same for you. Some of these thoughts are just little wanderings that I still am exploring.

August 2014, Sydney, Australia

I've been suffering from writer's block for the past two months.

It may have something to do with the fact that my journal is in two pieces. It started when I bought a bottle of vinegar and it broke in my backpack, successfully soaking everything I owned. Airport security thought I was trying to smuggle a smelly bomb in my backpack and made me unpack the whole thing to find the culprit before I could board the plane. My poor journal has never been the same since.

That is a poor excuse and I know it. Time just gets away from you and soon it's August and you haven't called either of your best friends back home or even texted them to let them know you thought of them once. Soon it's August and you have spent too much time on Instagram and too little time looking at the faces of real people to tell them you love them. Soon it's August and you haven't written a single blog post, even though you swore this was going to be a time used constructively to finish that book you've been working on for what seems like forever.

But I digress. I want to share with you a little of what I've learned the past few months (ok, maybe years) about truth.

The truth is not what we've been told. Beliefs aren't the truth. Facts aren't the truth (getting uncomfortable yet?). The truth is not doctrine, or scripture, or matter. It's not what you see, the air you breathe, the skin you feel on your bones.

Let me explain myself before you write me off as a complete psycho.

The truth is who God is. Because everything was created by His hands and we came from His heart, we have truth in us as well. The facts that we know about science and theology and scripture and the physical world around us contain truth in them. The belief systems we have in our minds contain truth, some in greater degrees than others. Scripture contains truth in the words of Paul and Isaiah and Moses, along with countless others.

But THE TRUTH  is the person, the being, of Jesus Christ, the beautiful mystery of the God that we call Father, and the sweet closeness of the Holiest Spirit that is in us. We think of Him as being outside us, external, far away in the heavens somewhere waiting for us to come to Him when we die. We think of God and look up.

But the Truth (God) is at the center of everything.

And the truth of something is how it relates to who God is. See, every single good thing on this earth contains a truth about the heart of Father. Not only that, but every good thing in creation shouts a truth about THE Truth.

No matter how much doctrine I know, it's nothing compared to knowing him. We block you out with our doctrine, and we are so proud of what we knjow about you, but when truth comes out, it humbles you.

See, doctrine and theology are just distractions. You rest for a little while in theory and opinion, but still your heart aches. You want the King, you don't want the idea of Him. You want true life, but true life does not grow from opinion. Theory may spring from life, but never life from opinion.
We all make excuses for the pain we feel, the pain of separation from the Father. We say it is not our destiny to be close until we are with Him after we die in that golden city in the sky. We say that we are just holding on to righteousness by the thread of Calvary, but we know in our spirits that there is more, an indwelling of that righteousness that fills us until we overflow.
This creates a world of falseness. People have many theories, beliefs and opinions, but their lives are not filled with the Truth. They talk of high ideals and a life of truth, but their talk has no foundation.
I am tired of the definition of faith. I am tired of opinion. I am tired of theory. Let them rot where they stand. I want my opinion to grow out of my true life, and be worthy of it. I want heavenly truth. I want the Source of light, the source of love, Love Himself, for that is what will make us authentic, that is what will take our lives and make them true.  

I want the King.

The Race and the Ruse

It is always within 

That the without

cannot explain.

There's a system, 

you see,

Its cogs and its pistons, 

which routinise

and mechanise men. 

Spirits torn

And bodies broken,

all to obtain

perfection, 

when perfect men turn around 

and descend the ladder again 

for hopelessness. 

Domesticated 

In a cage of fear,

when we were born 

to be wild, 

behind glass that we could break 

with a breath, 

if we would just breathe, 

would shatter with a word, 

if we would but speak. 

And we seldom wonder,

for we have always been told 

we are the choosers. 

We seldom wonder at anything 

but these skin and bones.

Content to do as we're told,

It all makes sense,

But these songs 

keep rising 

from our mouths, 

Rising from the deepest place,

songs the world has never heard, 

had never planned us to sing. 

And we start to wonder, 

in that moment, 

if this skin is just a a suit, 

if the race we're running 

is a ruse to keep us 

from stopping and wondering, 

if the strange pulse 

we feel in our veins is

more than blood, 

but spirit.

Nothin' Left to Lose

This morning, the sun shone through my blinds, hitting my face and rudely awakening me. I could only see out of one eye; the other was clouded with coconut oil from my makeup remover. The taste of vanilla and peanut butter from dessert last night still lingered in my mouth. Glamorous.

I stumbled to the kettle in the kitchen and put water on for tea. The dog jumped off the bed in the other room and came for a good morning greeting. Clunk. Click Clack Click Clack. The sound of builders working on the house next door made him growl. I smiled.

I was grateful for mornings. Dad told me once that the morning was the clear time. There was joy in rising, he said, strength in the steadiness of the sun. The darkness of struggle was always left in yesterday. There needed never be a shadow with Him. 

The world was changing, my heart was open and increasingly more free. But with more discernment came more warfare. Voices came into my mind and shouted at me and I couldn't think, couldn't even turn away. Night was when they attacked, when I was tired, when I was too weak to fight. Lies entered my mind and then attempted to settle as truths in my spirit. They spoke over my destiny, over my worth, over my identity, the woman I am and the woman I will become. They spoke over my darkest fears, the things I fear the most. They told me, without fail, that I would never be free.

The cold inside this heart that's now unfolding

is trying to thaw,

but things frozen up inside

keep falling out.

But it's better that they leave,

anyway.

If you had told me a year ago that today, I would be living in Sydney, doing life with the craziest people I've ever laid eyes on, I would have laughed. If you had told me I would leave everything I know and not only go, but stay in a strange country, I would have called you crazy. If you had told me that I would lose everything I had, but find the greatest Love in all of eternity, I would have politely nodded my head and wondered what the hell you were talking about.

But here I am, sitting under a tree in the Crow's Nest, waiting at a bus stop with no bench, eating a drumstick in the dark, wondering when I will get to meet with Jesus again. I see Him everywhere now. I see His kindness in the eyes of the poor. I see the glint of mischief in His eye when a child laughs. I see His power when the thunder rolls across the desert and threatens to soak the whole earth in glorious rain. And I see Him in me sometimes, when I open my mouth and out pops a song no one's ever heard before. He is beauty, you see, and beauty has begun to wrap me into itself, into its recesses of light. He is taking the poor cinder of my conscience, carried it back to His workshop, and is making it a true thing, radiant, clear. I have been close and tasted of the real love of my Christ, and it has started to consume my life.

See, I've been runnin' for a long time,

Trying to find my refuge.

Never stopping long enough to see

That I can find my rest

Under the weight

Of His sweet shadow.

As we get closer to Jesus, to beautiful Holy Spirit, and ultimately to the heart of Father, we encounter more and more resistance. We are threatening the very center of the Devil's power, and He quakes in His shoes when he sees us getting close to God. Church should not be the most exciting thing in your life. Nor should missions, playing a guitar in worship, seeing deaf ears hear, watching people get saved, or seeing all the kingdoms of the earth transformed. It is simply the pure Presence of Jesus, what He is, who He is, the love He carries and the Truth of His Being.

But there's a cost, a fight for Truth Himself.

See, we're in this HUGE battle for freedom, bigger than we can fathom, and just being close to our beautiful Jesus is the answer to victory. It is when we begin to yield all our heart, our fear, our addictions, our worry, our insufficiency to Him and let him unearth whatever He wants, it is then that we encounter incredible resistance, then that we start to battle for our very lives. 

Sometimes we can't feel Him, sometimes we don't even have enough strength to cry out for help. Sometimes we feel tied down, like we cannot lift our hands or move, for the spirit of fear comes on us, and we are immobilized. Sometimes we think that we can't come to Him because there's too much "stuff" in the way.

He's never been afraid to deal with our stuff. His love comes in again. He takes those fears that we never thought we would be rid of, removes them from us, and fills us with love in their place. As I go deeper into Christ, the deeper He goes in my spirit and pulls out things I would rather had stayed buried, things I didn't even know were constricting me, slowly killing me.

I want to be close to Him. That's all I've ever wanted. I want to dive again into Him, into deeper waters. I feel the resistance, but I will not be turned away from Him, though much tries to entangle me. I'll never be satisfied with shallow again. Why would we splash when we can plunge in and swim in the deep blue depths? He wants to blow up all my paradigms with His love, wants to blow up the smallness of my own thinking about myself, wants to take me deeper in Him than I ever imagined. I must eat of Him daily, He must be in me my food and water and breath, or I will die.

He has set all of this up, every facet. I did nothing to get here but follow the little clues He left. It hits me afresh every day that He is the greatest treasure I could ever find or own or possess. He is ever close, so close to me. I cherish the wind of His whisper, even the hint of His being around me, the thought of Him thinking of me. I feel Him now, these days, more strong in me than ever. And I love Him so much... More than I could ever write in lifetimes of books.

I've made up my mind.

Until the darkness disappears

And the dawn has fully come,

In spite of shadows and fears-

I will go to the mountain with You.

All my love,

B

The King And I

The driver stopped by the side of the road across from the gate of the palace. Cars zoomed by the stationary tuktuk, so close they would shave my arm off if I put it out the window. He turned around, looking at me with a crooked smile on his bright face.

 

"It ok if I stop to give thanks to my king?"

 

I had seem him bow before, an incline of his head and both hands put together in front of his face before statues of Buddha. It always happened when we were in the middle of driving down busy roads, and in those moments the only thing on my mind was the condition of his sanity. Sometimes he just nodded his head in the direction of the monument and honked his horn.

 

But this time he came to a complete stop. He turned his body to face the gates, and he bowed. Twice. He muttered a sentence that I couldn't understand. Somehow, I knew it was different than all the other times.

 

And I wondered why.

 

He pulled away from the curb and started chatting away in his broken English.

 

"You see big Buddha? There is school. If child from poor familiy, they can go there for education. My king pay for it. He is good king. You see palace? My king have 3 daughters and 1 son. All live there in palace. There is school for king's army. They protect my King. My king 86 year old. Long live my king."

 

See, you can't love a statue. You can't get to know it. It can't teach you about kindness and wisdom and love. You can't crawl into its arms at the end of a long day. It doesn’t cry or laugh with you, share a joke with you, run into the unknown with you. It can't protect you from evil. There is no twinkle in its eye or spring in its step. It can't feel. It is incapable of loving you.

 

But you can love a man. 

I used to be a beggar on the side of the road, but He brought me into his house and made me a daughter, strong and free. I am a warrior now. It is who I knew I would be from the moment I was born. It is my destiny. I used to sit at home and hear of His battles out in the wilds, but now I am grown, and My heart burns for victory. I do not fight the darkness for myself, for it has already been defeated. I fight because my King is perfect. He is strong, and wise, and honourable, and He deserves the throne He has. And I love Him so, more than anything. That is why I fight: that Love Himself would reign.

See, there is a man that I love more than my own life, who I would die to follow. There is a King who I can call mine.

And He's sure as hell ain't a statue.

All my love,

B

 

No Sleep and Sweet Dreams

I can’t sleep. Our flight was delayed nine hours and we didn’t get to bed until 3:30 am. The air conditioning is beautiful, and I have never been more tired. All I want is to rest. But I can’t sleep.

What day is it today? I don’t remember anymore.

I go out and sit on the balcony. The sun is just coming up over the ancient city of Hanoi. The people get up and go to bed with the sun, and the streets are already swarming with people. Horns beep, not angrily, but an intermittent form of communication between lumbering trucks and the hundreds of tiny scooters and motorcycles that clog the intersections and roundabouts. Two beeps if you are passing on the right. Three to warn a pedestrian. A long and angry blast if someone tries to do something stupid. No one ever stops. It is a beautiful creature, flowing in and out of the streets, fluid and effortless.

The women are covered head to toe, though it is a horrific 97 degrees with humidity. They wear stockings under their high-heeled sandals, long pants, jackets, hats, and even scarves to cover their faces completely. Usually there are two people on a scooter, perhaps three. Some girl pulls out her phone to text her boyfriend. A cage full of chickens drives by, looking quite unimpressed strapped on the back of an old Vespa. One woman has at least 100 pounds of fruit in crates stacked around her. I wonder how her bike manages.

The road is dusty and downright dirty. Occasionally the smell of noodles floats across the air, sometimes a putrid combination of waste and too much sweat. There is barley laid out on large tarps, and traffic politely avoids running it over. Bark from cinnamon trees is laid out to dry. Voices are raised in an argument about how much mangos should cost. Barefoot children chase each other in and out of traffic, seemingly oblivious to danger. A shirtless man sits in his little plastic chair and watches the people go by while he eats his noodles.

I faintly remember when my dreams used to look a lot different. I wanted a house on a big piece of land. A car, a fireplace, and coffee every morning with pancakes. Of someone to make dinner with and do laundry for. A degree, an occasional mission trip to the third world. To be put together, to be polished, respected, secure.

But in this moment, those dreams seem so funny now, so far away from this chaos, this messy place.

The season has changed.

I realize that somehow, I want to live in this dirt and love the people who hate me. To gladly give all that I have to people who can never repay me; Not only my money, but my life, my very self. I now dream of no running water and sweat and blood and tears. Of being broken again and again by Jesus, so that I may love the world as He does. To fade slowly from the polished things of the world into the hidden recesses of the poor and broken.

 And I’m not entirely sure when it happened.

Won’t you tell me, Lover of my soul

Where do You feed Your flock?

Where do You lead Your beloved ones

To rest in the heat of the day?

For I wish to be wrapped all around you.

Let your dreams be changed. 

Beth

Thoughts of a Recovering Chronic Planner

This is the story of a little girl.

Life was an endless adventure for her, magical and full of light. Sometimes she wondered what she would do when she grew up to be big. She saw the cows that got sick on the farm and thought maybe she would become an animal doctor to fix them. She danced in Janie's ballet class for 2 years and thought that she could become a dancer. She saw Daddy sang wherever he went, and thought maybe she could sing. And she saw people that hurt, and knew she wanted to help take away their pain so they would smile again. In any case, she knew she was born to change the world.

See, once man was with God,

Before time had been woven together.

Before this present shadow.

And it was then that my destiny

Was whispered into my ear,

Breathed into my little, eager heart.

The Dream is not something I must find, try to obtain, a goal to be reached. Not a degree I can buy, a house I can build, a man I can marry. My destiny is not a fork in the road that I can miss, a path that I must follow step-by-step until I reach my destination. 

My Dream draws me in from far off, pulls me ever closer, entices me forward. It is more than what my mind can think, but not beyond what my heart can desire.

"Jesus, what shall I do to inherit eternal life with you? What is it I am to do to change the world?"

"Heal all the things that are barren in the earth. Dance wildly, that the world may see My joy. Work with your hands, that they may see I am strong. Sing the song I give you with all your strength. Trade your beautiful clothes for plain rags and sit with the poor, that they may know I yearn to listen to them. Wash the feet of murderers and thieves, that they would know they are clean. Give the hungry bread. Give the thirsty water that they may live. Open blind eyes that they can see again, open deaf ears that the people may hear Me, raise the dead that the world may become alive again."

The Great and Awesome Creator, 

Who wrought each cell together of this poor dust I call my flesh, 

Who breathed life into that dust and gave me breath,

Who bridged the gulf that separated my soul from His, 

He has given me my Dream. 

As I am won over with all I find Him to be, as my heart begins to hear again the Voice that sang life into me, my destiny becomes nearer and nearer, though I do not know how. As my heart bends beneath the weight of His promise, I draw nearer, unwittingly, to the dreams I once had in my heart as a child, the dreams He sang over me before time began.

Dream beautiful dreams tonight, Beloved.

All my love,

B

"The work we do is nothing more than a means of transforming our love for Christ into something concrete. I didn't have to find Jesus. Jesus found me and chose me. A strong vocation is based on being possessed by Christ. He is the Life that I want to live. He is the Light that I want to radiate. He is the Love with which I want to love. He is the Joy that I want to share. He is the Peace that I want to show. Jesus is everything to me. Without Him, I can do nothing." 

-Mother Teresa