response to your challenge...

Good to hear back from you... I smile when you suggest readings and You Tube tid-bits for me to watch. Please understand that we are so different in many ways, and although I know you only are trying to invite me into your world of discovery... it is a tough sell.

I have settled into being unsettled by God. In the unlimited way I see, recognise and hear from him... from the poetic litany at an Anglican service to the craziness of His Spirit  in full force over an entire group of people speaking in a language unknown by man. From the eyes of a newborn to the last cries of a man in confession. Please understand while I appreciate your search, the God I serve is enough for me. Yes, this is three in one, "I AM" , the Judaeo, Christian God. To point out the flaws in how human beings perceive something that is so unperceivable is like digging your grave when you have been cured of an incurable disease. To argue such points is arguing gravity... with no sky, ground or ceiling.  

Man has been trying to understand God and messing that up since the beginning of time. To know the unknowable, and to cling to what he has privy'ed me to, is more than enough. That knowing flows from me into other peoples lives in the strangest of ways, and what I often see as a muddy spring mess, He turns into the most breathtaking of summers. 

I wish I could show you what I see, but your journey will be different. The path I have taken, one less travelled, but the stay, being of the remnant few... grass beaten down with sweat tears, and a few hand prints in the mud along the way. But once you have found that path, there is no turning back. Like a bird in flight over an endless ocean, grace meets you on the other side, and you realise this whole time you could have been carried... and all is not lost, because the mind knows what the heart can endure, and what the body must partake in to be sustained by its maker... and then there is endless blessing in the fail.

So although you point me in many directions, you need to know I have found what I have been looking for, and have breathed in more than I can consume... I know it might sound crazy, and I am most OK with that.

Forced Stop

Flipping through an old Bible this morning, I was forced to stop and stare a little boy in the face that I once knew... Blue eyes, blond hair, life glowing through and around Him. If ever I had been allowed to have a favourite, it was Him.

Flipping through my warn out Bible, there is are a few pictures that slow me down, pace my time. This boy, (and there have been two) graced my life for but a short time, and is no longer with us. I will Never forget the time I spoke to him about Baby Jesus at Christmas... His eyes lit up with wonder, and as pictures of the creator being wrapped in human skin dance across is eyes, I knew God had spoken to his innocent little heart. The time he asked if God talks back, and when told yes, went about His day as speaking to the master and hearing back was like talking to a best friend.

I am so grateful for the stop, the reminder, to be given a heart's tug to to my life purpose. It is the exact reason I keep precious things in the most precious book I own. To be stopped, to be reminded...

Do you have things that remind you of your life's purpose? That point you back to the reason you live and breath? Do they irritate you, or do they remind you to surrender and loosen grip of a life that is not yours?

Looking forward to the day that little Robert can run with me, be carried on my hip, and answer every question I have ever had about my Jesus, the Lord of my life, and my savior.

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end." Ecclesiastes 3:11

The day I realised my phone had become my "pack of cigarettes"...

We can all joke about how "important" we are while holding our cell phones... texts, snaps, notifications coming in from all over the place... with every piece of our lives attached to some invisible cloud that really isnt a cloud at all...

But the true test of our character comes with the most unfortunate of situations... when our cell phone becomes lost. (cue EVIL, scary, music)

Panic slowly sets in. You look (for about 5 seconds) then try to remember and dial your own number... walk through the house hoping you might hear the ring tone... then remember it is set to vibrate. Then any slight sound... the dishwasher, music beat, a car outside, the heating vent, your kids tickle me Elmo (after you "misplaced" it's voice box the last time the batteries went in)... any little noise sounds like a silenced cell phone.

The last draw... after 10 minutes...

Notifying every living being with all sources of social media you can remember the passwords for... become distracted while scrolling, reading and staring at your computer screen until the heating vent under your desk makes the same tone as your lost phone... digging through the layers of forgotten garbage to find.... nope, the heating vent.

All is not lost, the car has not been turned upside down yet... and then it hits me. Way back, in my smoking days I would go through the same horrible panic if I had lost my pack of cigarettes... really?

I realised my phone had actually become as addictive as smoking had been.

What did our moms do when, say (for just a crazy example) we shoved play dough up our nose, and the principal was too afraid to go in with a set of tweezers? Or maybe when a mouth was frozen to a metal fence, and lips were to swollen to suck our thumbs and comfort ourselves after pulling them off the frozen child trap... imagine how we must have suffered without our moms!

What happens to emails that sit for more then a day, or a snap that never is seen?

I like to think I am important. I like to think I am needed, not just your regular "Jo"... I like to think I am the only one that can do a certain number of things just the right way, and no one could ever replace me...

Truth is, there IS only one me... but I AM replaceable. Let it sink in, I know, it hurts... But the human race will go on after you, and I are gone...

At the core to every cell phone addiction (with the exception of blowing half your life savings on an i phone in which your obsession is tied in with a whole other number of things) is arrogance... face it, deal with it, and put that cell phone down for a day or so. You may find that the addiction lessons after time, and with it, your understanding of being replaceable.

I had this dream...

...as I walk by the home, in this dimly lit place, I see my friend on a ladder. The building is open as he inspects the beams that support. His one hand able to rip chunks of wood from the support beams. Looking closer, the beams are not made of material suitable to support, and they have been saturated with water coming from the floor above. The cheaply pressed wood acts as a sponge and holds the water through the entire beam. In another room the ceiling bowed with a gathering of water so great, I said to my friend He would have to poke a hole at the lowest point to release it.

Could I ask my husband to come look at it, could he help make the repairs, and because He is so busy, He could not. My friend would have to work on them himself.

As requested, I would get a longer ladder, and return with it for him.

Kindness at Timmies

He was short, stout, thick with stubble and had a wandering eye. There was something off, his shuffle in the walk or maybe the lack of ability to hold your gaze for just less than a second. And when he spoke, it was like that of a small child, and It made me smile for the best of reasons.

I have learned to grow fond of such people. People that the world calls week because of their own short comings and their own lack of ability to love and care for the unloved. It is not their fault as we live in a dog eat dog world, and this man would beg to be slower in movement, slower in speech, and discarded in a heartbeat if needed.

But these are the times we live in...

Times when deformities are aborted, and our wisest are given the choice to legally commit suicide. Times when emotion drives logic and sexuality is given a choice. Society no longer clings to absolutes, it would rather argue about gravity then praise then one that gave it to them.

The man slowly shuffles across Tim Horton's at a painstakingly slow rate, watching his feet as if to encourage them on, all while carrying his empty bowl...

A group of us waits in line. He interrupts the ordering counter and asks, "wheeere ......... can..I ......... put my ............. dirty plate?" I almost jump in to help but then it happens; The most beautiful brown eyed teen aged girl comes over, she's on the other side of the counter. She lights up the people in line with her smile, waits for the man to complete his sentence, then instead of directing him to where everyone else leaves their dirty plates, offers to take them herself... She then says thank you...! She disappears into the back with the mans dirty dishes, leaving the long caffeine addicts jittering for their 3 o clock fix. She reappears, like she never skipped a beat.

Maybe this is normal behaviour at Tim's. Maybe I am so self absorbed that I have never noticed this public display of kindness before... or maybe what I had just witnessed was a moment in time that has begun to fill that place in my heart longing to live out with others "thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven". Maybe this all should be recognised as more.

I was stunned. I thought for sure the situation would end poorly. But in one split second, someone who is not treated like royalty has been. For one second a teenage girl overextends herself and sets the bar for those of us waiting in line.

At work we call these "God Sightings". Moments when time stopped, and for a short time, you can see the hand of God so clearly at work.

Notice these times... talk about them... encourage one another with them. For we live in dark times, and in dark times, the light shines brighter.

How do I pray?

Do you carry a list or feel it within? Have a set time... face to the floor, knees to the ground or do you pull over on the 401 when your eyes are taken hostage for a moment, and you are overwhelmed with His heart? Are you aware of his continual desire to talk with you, to you, through you?

Do you have your own language with Him? A language that holds your heart, on earth as it is in heaven? A language that cannot be described by mere words or human noise, but one that is understood in thought and being... knowing the same Spirit that searches the heart of God, searches the heart of man. Are you hidden in this, or have you asked to see, to hear, to know the hidden things of your maker?

Prayer is a simple expression of Spirit communicating with the fullness of all that God is. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Voice in words, or mind in picture. Thought to feeling or raised hands to surrender. There is no wrong expression to God. He has created you with the ability to communicate with Him, and in an infinity amount of ways He knows the Heart of His people. Be blessed this week in our God. He has given you unlimited access to His throne room, and in the way you commune with Him there. Taste, See and breath in all that He is.