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

Why Easter is Different This Year

I had a life once.

A life without emotion, without feeling. 

An empty faith, worthless words, empty worship. 

A cold heart that would not move from my chest. 

I sought to live, but all was dull, you see. 

Dead.

I had heard of Him from books. I had heard whispers that He worked miracles, that His love was greater than anything any eye had seen. I had heard that He was the God who Saves, but I did not feel saved from anything. I had come to the end of myself. My song had left. 

And then I saw Him.

The Crucified Savior, the Risen Messiah. The First and the Last, before and behind, beyond all that the rich imagination could devise, beyond all that the hungriest heart could long for. His skin shone, his hands and feet were pierced. His eyes held so much love I could not bear it. He knew everything in me; I knew it.

When I saw Him, I fell at his feet as one dead. And He laid His right hand upon me, and He said,

“Fear not,

Since you were precious in My sight,

You have been honored,

And I have loved you;

 I am the First and the Last and the Living One.”

When He was crucified and died, rose up and came up out of a grave, the very fabric of history, of my life was torn to pieces. It changed everything.

I have felt the power of His resurrection in my blood, coursing through this old woman that fades day by day. I am alive as He is alive, and His love pulses in my very bones, as deep as it is universal, as conscious as it is unspeakable.

I am lost, you see, without my Christ. He did not die just so that I may be close to Him and never be guilty again, He rose and defeated death forever, that I may live anew and never die. 

How precious He has become to me! Not a distant God who shuts His ears to my hurt, but a Messiah who has loved each part of me since time was woven together. He has remembered me from age to age, has given me life and life indeed.

Where I am going I do not know. I have nothing, can do nothing without His Presence. I have tasted His salvation and new life, and now I cannot go on without Him. He is my only option. If the Grave and the Cross are but a tale, I am finished, for without Him I am just dirt, an empty vessel of flesh and bones. I need the strength that lies in His arms, I need the tenderness that resides in His eyes, I need the love that’s in His heart.

He is all I have.

And that, my Beloved, is why Easter is different this year.

All my love, 

B