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