Archive for May, 2009
May 28, 2009 @ 9:43 am | Filed under: Uniquely Me
You must decide for yourself to whom and when you give access to your interior life. For years, you have permitted others to walk in and out of your life according to their needs and desires. Thus you were no longer master in your own house, and you felt increasingly used. So, too, you quickly became tired, irritated, angry and resentful.
Think of a medieval castle surrounded by a moat. The drawbridge is the only access to the interior of the castle. The lord of the castle must have the power to decide when to draw the bridge and when to let it down. Without such power, he can become the victim of enemies, strangers, and wanderers. He will never feel at peace in his own castle.
It is important for you to control your own drawbridge. There must be times when you keep your bridge drawn and have the opportunity to be alone, or with those to whom you feel close. Never allow yourself to become public property where anyone can walk in and out at will. You might think you are being generous to anyone who wants to enter or leave, but you will soon find yourself losing your soul.
When you claim for yourself the power over your drawbridge, you will discover new joy and peace in your heart and find yourself able to share that joy and peace with others.
-Henri Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
May 26, 2009 @ 10:03 am | Filed under: Soul Food
grace: unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or sanctification b: a virtue coming from God c: a state of sanctification enjoyed through divine grace
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I can’t get away from it this morning.
I woke up with these words, a space of grace, trailing again and again across my mind. I wanted to write about something entirely different here this morning, but the right words for that post are just too elusive. And so I’m giving in to the words that are here, and I’m exploring them.
I’ve always known these spots existed, these spaces of grace, but I’ve never had reason to put a name or a description to what they were, or what they meant to my life. They are these “pockets of time” in our spiritual journey when we experience moments so filled with His power that we are literally enabled to do what we could not do before.
Things seem to both, accelerate and slow at the same time. Oftentimes our learning, our talents, and our abilities will seem to be fastracked during these periods even while our observations, our reflections, and our times of meditation are slowed and filled with enormous amounts of clarity.
For some, these may be the times when they capture the vision of what they have to offer to the world around them, and they go for it. For others, these moments may be where they find strength to see their way out of temptations, and do. For still others, it is a time of discovering their voice, their passion, their ability to lead, and they step out in faith.
A space of grace is when we find ourselves in that holy place where heaven touches earth and we happen to be standing in the middle of it.
I saw a billboard a few weeks back that simply read, touching heaven, changing lives. That’s what this life is truly about, whether that life that becomes changed is someone else’s or our own.
For me, many of these times have meant moments of ‘lightbulb revelations’ - times when His word suddenly became real to me in ways that I’d either not understood before, or simply not seen before. It is during these times that I soak up, absorb, crave…more, more, more of Him. It is always a time of thankfulness, a time of rejuvenation, a time of a lot less struggle and a lot more energy.
Sometimes these pockets of time last days, sometimes months. To be honest, when the day would eventually come that I would realize that once more I seemed to be deep in the mire and muck that is daily life I would feel a bit of disappointment in myself.
I think - even though until now I’ve not taken the time to analyze these times - I thought that I had somehow brought myself to that spot with God. That my own spirituality had somehow merited me this favored time with Him. So if I’d brought myself to this special place, then it would only stand to reason that it would be ME who took myself away from it, who brought about the end of something so precious, so sacred.
Thinking about that this morning, I feel silly. But I also feel a deep joy bubbling in my soul that just cannot be unseated.
These times - these spaces of grace - are rest stops for our soul. I picture it as though I’m on a trip, a long journey, and I pull over to the side of the road. Not necessarily for a rest, or a drink, or a bite to eat. Maybe I pull over to take out the map, look back over the miles already traveled and plan and dream and anticipate the exciting stops that lie on my horizon.
It’s a time of planning and reflection, a time to dump out the trash and fuel up with all things good. It’s a time to look back on the road behind and see - maybe for the first time in a long while - just how far along on this journey that you are, and it’s a time to look ahead, knowing now from experience that the sights, the scenery, the people might move and change or even dissipate.
But not His great love. Not His direction. Never His grace.
I’m thankful this morning for spaces of grace.
May 20, 2009 @ 10:09 am | Filed under: The Solid Rock, Uniquely Me
What in the world…?
I pulled my cell phone from the charger a few days ago and stared down at it. I had just one bar. How could that be?
For the third time in about as many days I noticed that my phone was steadily losing its charge. Adding stop in to get your phone checked out was pretty much the last thing I wanted to put on my ever growing to-do list.
I was puzzled. The phone was not that old, nor had the battery been giving me any previous problems.
I’m a creature of habit, nothing if not predictable. Every night for the past year that we’ve been living in this house, I have plugged my phone into the same spot to charge overnight. Without fail. If I’m home, then my phone is on the charger.
So my frustration stemmed mainly from knowing that I’d soon have the hassle of making the stop at the phone place, and not so much from anything else. I plunked my phone into my purse and moved to finish my chores before heading out to run errands.
It was sometime in the next half hour or so - as I pushed the vacuum cleaner across the carpet in my bedroom - when it hit me. I snapped the off button on the vacuum and practically ran over to where my charger lay.
I had to get down on my hands and knees to follow its cord around the small table and behind another piece of furniture until…
I gave a gentle tug and the entire cord popped out in front of me.
IT WASN’T PLUGGED INTO THE POWER SOURCE.
As I sat there on the floor, holding the charger and feeling quite stupid at this point, God began to speak to me. In those few minutes of alone time in the big middle of mundane chores and household duties, He layed out an object lesson for me that I don’t think I’ll forget anytime soon.
This is how you become when you go too long without being plugged into my power.
The guilt was immediate because I knew exactly what He meant. The past few weeks had been harried ones. The pace had been frantic, the burdens quite heavy, and the emotions have run rampant.
And yet - in the middle of all this - I guess I felt I had enough “stored up” energy to power me through it all. I prayed, but the words were hurried and my heart wasn’t always all the way in it. I made enough of an effort to spend time with Him that I guess I convinced myself that I was indeed fine. Just like my phone, I was plugged in as far as I could see.
But…
I WASN’T PLUGGED INTO THE POWER SOURCE.
Not the way I should have been. Certainly not the way I am used to. And definitely not the way I needed to be if I want to continue to be the wife, mom, friend, leader, etc… that I know I am called to be.
It’s been several days now and I cannot pass by where my phone lies being charged without thinking back on this lesson. God stopped me on that day and in that way that only He has with me, He slowed me, soothed me, and redirected my thoughts. My intents. My heartbeat.
He, very simply put, energized me.
