I saw this quote on this sweet ladies's blog today.  It resonates with my thoughts lately - on everything.  If you have to tell people you are, you probably aren't.

Being powerful is like being a lady, if you have to tell people you are, you aren't.   

- Margaret Thatcher

And if you ask me, she was quite a lot of both. ;)
[And how did I NOT KNOW she died 2 months ago?!]

Today's fortune cookie. 

 (Well, one of them.)



say whats true.

.

I don't have one freaking answer. Things are wrong, but I don't know the right. And while so many seem to be shouting it, I just can't quite place my finger on anything amongst it all that looks like Christ to me. The Christ. The Christ I met when I was 5. The Christ I met when I read the gospels.

The truest thing I've heard all week is this: God, reduce me to love.

And it's something I don't feel like quietly, gently whispering in prayer, it's what I feel I'm screaming inside with whatever passion and intensity this little girl has. God, reduce me to love! Where my thoughts and feelings and experience fail me, reduce me to love. Reduce me to love in action. Reduce me to love in the depths and secrets of my heart. Reduce me to a love that's potent enough to make things better. To change something. Even just one person's something. But I don't think what you meant by love would be able to stop there.

God, reduce me to love.

I haven't thought of myself as a fearful person, not since I was younger.  But suddenly, I hate the idea of fear in me.  Hate it.  God, reduce me to love! Love conquers fear.  And the idea of fear in me, means a resistance to love.

Christ gave us the ministry of reconciliation.  Yet all I see lately is division.  And I feel like my heart is getting torn apart as the disagreements grow louder and wider and angrier.  I don't think we are called to stand for nothing, to grow dim or dark or quiet.  A question has been rising in me this year: What am I responsible to stand for?  I've been realizing that to remain quiet, deaf and dumb is not to be a mature Christian.  But, I also know that Christ has given me the ministry of reconciliation. 

God, reduce me to love. 

I don't think we'll get anywhere, or accomplish anything but devouring one another until then. Change needs to come.  A lot of it.  And it's probably going to be pretty painful.   God, reduce us to love.

It's Tuesday, and I want to write something.  I just can't make up my mind if I want to be playful, or sincere.  We'll do this: Honest Thoughts.

This summer, I want a hammock, and a boy.
I don't have either at the moment, so I'm beginning to consider re-posturing (yet again).
My plans seem to be changing, as always, and I'm wanting to clear out and make room.  Reorganize. 
Reorganize my thoughts, and my tangible space.
Discover a deeper reserve of strength to continue. Continue writing, and dreaming, practicing and playing.  Continue expecting and hoping and loving. Continue becoming new, and remembering who I am and always will be.  Continue. 

It's not an exciting task per se.  But, it is probably one of the most important.  How well can we continue?  Jon Pinkston reminded our SLT group week after week after week for two years, any little thing done daily can change your life.  It's not about where you are, it's about where your trajectory is headed. And those seemingly small acts and decisions done habitually can set the course for your life.

I'm excited for this summer.  For Family Camp, San Fran and Tennessee.  I'm excited for the day I write whatever that grand thing will be.  I'm excited for the day the guy gets down on a knee. (That rhyming was unintentional.)   But right now, I'm remembering that continuing is actually the most important thing for today.  Of all those good things, it is the one that can today set the direction, my trajectory.

I've been contemplating this simple thought today: 
If God is for us, who can be against us?
And also, all good things are from the Lord  keeps whispering into my mind.  I didn't read either recently, or hear a song with those words. Both sound like the "tasty eats" version of the Bible, but they're truth. The heroes of the Bible knew it, believed it, and even boasted in it.  If we could only really get that as our bedrock.  I think that is why we have so much of these continue seasons.  I think of David, and all the years he had to just be a shepherd and even hide out for his life.  The years and years that followed the announcement of his destiny. 

Either you already know this feeling yourself all too well, or you will.  I think of all you MC girls reading this, as you approach the end of your year.  Some heading to school, others to work, some to intern.  You will learn this feeling in the next few years like you never have.  You'll enter that space between your dreams, and your dreams.  The thoughts and the realities.  And all I can say is, continue.  Learn to continue.  Because it's where you'll grow deep.  If you try to just stir up activity after activity, adventure after adventure, SOMETHING to keep you from feeling that strange waiting and pressure of anticipation, you'll miss maturity.  It will look different for each of you... but if you really get the concept of remaining faithful to those little details, through this strange season that feels more like a hallway than a room, you'll grow up and you'll grow deep, and your desires won't diminish, they'll mature. And the pressure of it all will build something sweet and ripe into your dreams. 

Don't be freaked out, it is fun too... most of the time.  :)

I'm not much of a Jane Austen gal myself. Don't get me wrong, she is amazing, but she turns me into a big pile of emotions and angst. I've only ever read Persuasion, and I can't even explain my feelings when I came to the letter scene. I think Austen ruins girls- all of us- she makes us all hope that the man who seems completely uninterested and even a bit of a jerk, is really just striving with all his valor to control and hide his "ardent" and true deep love. Combine this with the culture of courtship, and there are a lot of confused, heart sick little girls wandering around.

That souded bitter or hard, but it really isn't. I can be one of those girls... and I am laughing at myself as I write this. I mean it, but only half.

I love Austen. I just think it is better if I don't sit at home and read it and knit. I'm far more of a Lewis, Tolkien, MacDonald, Shakespeare fan. They make me come alive, and not just sit and pine. In support of Austen, she creates beautiful heroines, I love their wit and selflessness. I also love when people can look past what appears to be true, and remain true themselves. So, all the above said, I both like and dislike. There is such a balance in life to learn to really walk in reality, knowing that what you see is not the ultimate reality, but neither is the contriving of your mind and emotions. Learning how to hear the voice of Truth, and live despite both swaying feelings and heart-rending circumstances... that is valor and courage. That is strength and beauty.