Shoes

So much activity in these last weeks of the year where visiting, celebrating, eating, laughing and exchanging of gifts and stories takes place.

A year ago my Mom fell and broke her foot. Because of complications with diabetes the break has never really healed. Now she wears a brace and is having a special shoe made. She loves shoes. She has had a closet full of beautiful shoes. Now she has thrown them all away because she can never wear any of them again. Not only do they not fit anymore, they are dangerous for her to wear because she will lose her balance and be unable to walk.

Shoes that fit have been a nightmare for me all my life. I was born with very narrow feet that are hard to fit, and expensive to fit! Shoes that are easy to step into and have no heal in them are a great invention – no more blisters.

The other morning as I wrestled with some family dynamics it was like walking in shoes full of splinters of glass. Little pieces that imbedded themselves into the soul, cutting, shredding, affecting how I walk, taking away my ability to dance. How long have we worn shoes that don’t fit? They are not meant for us at all and trying to wear them not only creates blisters that bleed, heal and then are opened again, but we can’t run in them, we cannot dance in them and if worn for too long we stop walking altogether.

And so once again barefoot freedom is for me. Oh it means that this soul will feel every emotion, every joy, every pain, every temperature change more intensely. It means this soul cannot avoid living deeply and more passionately, just as it was created to. Barefoot freedom also means dancing at any point along the road of life. Even if no one else can hear the music. Will there be shards of glass? No doubt there will be plenty, there will continue to be. Yet every time I try to wear the shoes that don’t fit I realize my gait in life becomes laboured and I stop looking out, seeing only the awkward fit this footwear that is not mine. Then it is time to stop, let my soul be tended to by the One who calls me to walk barefoot, who holds my heart and asks me to look out, look beyond and start dancing again.

I think about the people in Asia that were walking barefoot along the beach enjoying the pleasure and warmth of it all. Suddenly they are swept away and may never walk again. Or perhaps they are walking barefoot in a daze surrounded by the cataclysmic changes that the earth has powerfully spewed upon this part of her planet. Their souls are in pain.

As 2004 ends tonight and we step into 2005, I stand barefoot, I kneel down and let my tears fall on Jesus feet where I know they are safe and I trust His heart. Gratitude for the adventures of the last 365 days of rivers crossed, bridges built and the knowledge that I walked through them all. There are mountains and valleys ahead in the next chapter and I consciously, deliberately stand barefoot, look ahead and chose to step into the adventure that I cannot see, knowing I will not walk alone. I am grateful for each person who walked beside me, who whispered “keep going”, and for those who simply kept walking and I could follow. Thank You Abba for the simple and elemental childlike way You want these bare feet to keep moving.

Noonday Devil

I know there's hope in anger
And tenderness in shame
Sometimes I find you
On the other side of pain

But sometimes in the heat of day
When I close my eyes to pray
It seems like you are far from me
My prayers are all in vain

In my hour of hopelessness
In my deep despair
The noonday devil whispers in my ear

I know that you are with me
But I can't feel a thing
The noonday devil
Has come around again

Oh, Lord, make me angry
Oh, Lord, make me cry
Oh, Lord, please don't leave me here
To fall into the devil's lies

Father, you have called me
To live a life that's true
That all my labours and my words
Would speak my love for you

But walking through this desert
Life is empty and mundane
The noonday devil
Has come around again

Oh, Lord, make me angry
Oh, Lord, make me cry
Oh, Lord, please don't leave me here
To fall into the devil's lies

Oh, Lord make me angry
Oh, Lord, make me cry
Oh, Lord, break my cold, cold heart
So I can know your love inside.
Song by Fernando Ortega

These words speak to my heart just now when there are things I don't understand or know how to sit with them, but these words remind me that deep emotions break the ice and allow His love to warm me deep inside.

Walking Through It

There is a song about that “feeling of Christmas”, where joy and fun and delight are “in the air”.

Sitting quietly by the fire this morning (as I often do now in winter), I am aware of friends and people I love who are in so much pain that “feeling” is not a place they want to be. There is little joy, little sense of hope or future, and deep in their soul the canyon between love and abandonment widens. How I have known that place too. And so I read the words of a man who knew the feelings of celebration, but the agony of painful places that life required him to be. These words often whispered hope to me in the dark places, and now sitting in the Light they speak Truth and I hold them as a precious gift. I hold onto Yeshua who whispers them on the wind, the Ruach – Spirit breathed on, into. And I re-read these beautiful words Isaiah wrote:

But I’ll take the hand of those who don’t know the way, who can’t see where they are going.
I’ll be a personal guide to them, directing them through unknown country.
I’ll be right there to show them what roads to take, make sure they don’t fall into the ditch.
These are the things I’ll be doing for them – sticking with them, not leaving them for a minute

Don’t be afraid, I’ve redeemed you.
I’ve called your name. You’re mine.
When you’re in over your head, I’ll be there with you.
When you’re in rough waters, you will not go down.
When you’re in between a rock and a hard place, it won’t be a dead end –
Because I am God, your personal God, The Holy of Israel, your Saviour.
I paid a huge price for you…
That’s how much you mean to me! That’s how much I love you!
I’d sell off the whole world to get you back, trade the creation just for you.
So don’t be afraid: I’m with you.

Ponderings

Jesus observed, “Without me you can do nothing”. Yet we act, for the most part, as though without us God can do nothing. We think we have to make Christmas come, which is to say we think we have to bring about the redemption of the universe on our own. When all God needs is a willing womb, a place of safety, nourishment, and love. “Oh, but nothing will get done,” you say. “If I don’t do it, Christmas won’t happen.”
This comment from Daily Dig is nagging me, or rather Spirito Santo is whispering to me over and over in this Season about what is being birthed in it, the redeeming threads that are being woven in that process and how all this takes place in the sanctuary and nurturing of sacred space. I speak of redeeming threads often because so many tattered threads are being placed in a tapestry of the soul and the questions of “why” are being answered.

“There is nothing You are unable to tackle” Matthew 17:20

Sacred Space gave me the challenge this week of what God could make of me if I abandon myself into His hand, so I can be formed by grace. The question is am I willing to ask for grace, and to trust myself totally into Abba’s love? It is the request to exchange my self-sufficiency (be childlike) and abandon myself to Yeshua who is, with grace, showing me how to trust intimacy. Yeshua came as a baby and babies are easy to love. But He came to show us how to fall in love with life. Only as I let go and realize I need His partnership, and trust that there is nothing Abba will not do in this courtship, am I able to celebrate authentically and deeply from my heart and soul. I do not have to bring about my own redemption – it has all been done. Just trust the life giving process.

Joining the Chorus

Silence is like a two-sided coin; one is soothing solace that heals and comforts, while the other side is where one feels invisible, silenced, and the pain goes deep.

Abba wants to talk with His children and loves to have those children converse. Running conversations that sometimes have no end of questions, sometimes it is the conversation that has no end and it unravels as life unfolds.

Growing up silence was a punishment and there is still a wrestling to work through the shifting and change in this thinking. Speaking out as a woman was not easy in a denomination where women are silenced.

I sit listening to Brahms’s concertos tonight and enjoying the “Inn of Still Water” as I call my home (The soul is healed beside that still water). Little lights around the window, votive candles casting dancing shadows on the brass above the fireplace and Sebastian the cat sleeps on the back of the big chair. It is not lost to me that in this Season Abba is teaching me more of celebration. Perhaps for the first time I am embracing this Christmas to celebrate the birth of Yeshua, the Giver of Life and the One who speaks to my soul calling me to speak and celebrate having a voice.

This Christmas is about celebrating and using my voice in music. There are two services to go to on Christmas Eve and both will have plenty of music to join in with. At an open house event this week there will be plenty of music – and one can join in with that. What has struck me as very amusing though is that in redeeming the silence, and the pain of that silence, God has once again showed His sense of humour! Not only to sing in the Messiah and sing with full voice but it includes singing a whole chorus of the most expressive word for praise – Hallelujah! Moving the heart from the agony of silence to the praise of Hallelujah is one of the most glorious celebratory cries this voice can articulate.

This Season is about birthing, about redeeming, about voice and about the celebration that comes from the pain to bring all those about. Yeshua knows it because He lived it. Yeshua walks it with us through the yesterday, today and into tomorrow. Hallelujah.

Fragile - Handle with Care

In Daddy's Hands 

Delicate, fragile hands gently surrounded by the strong sure hands of her Daddy - Amy’s hands. Amy would have been 4 years old today but in her fight for survival she didn’t quite make it to her first birthday. Something about her hands always intrigued me; her long delicate fingers that sometimes lay flat and peaceful and at other times curled into fists that expressed the pain she could not share with the outside world. Amy was one of the most beautiful babies I have ever seen, but her eyes did not see the outside world. Amy’s skin was so soft and she knew touch and responded to it. She was unable to hear and yet her very existence was her profound voice to those around her. Unable to do anything for herself, she was held through her short life by hands that poured incredible love into her. Her very existence each day returned that love into those who held her. Amy was my niece.

As I look at this photo of her hand being tenderly caressed by her Daddy (my youngest brother), I see a new picture of Abba’s grip on His children when the wounds of life have left them very fragile. He does not grab our hand, tugging and pulling us along after Him in that place. I think He offers us His hand and welcomes us to take it and follow after Him, walking through life seeking that sure grip of truth and reality through the seasons of life. But there are times when each child is extremely fragile, overwhelmed by the agonizing pain. Looking at Amy’s hand being delicately caressed I wonder if this is how Abba touches us in our fragility. The most delicate caress upon a precious valuable fragile child. Does He whisper fragile, handle with care? Is this the place in life where Abba simply positions His palms under us, tenderly brushes our bruises with His fingertips, and in the most sensitive way is there to breathe upon us?

If today is one where you feel fragile, maybe this is how Abba will have His hands on you.

Owning Our Gifts

Every human being is born with some sort of gift, an inclination or an instinct that can become a full-blown mastery. We may not see our gift for what it is. Having seen it we may choose not to accept the gift and its consequences for our lives. Or, having claimed our gift, we may not be willing to do the hard work necessary to nurture it. But none of these evasions can alter the fact that the gift is ours. Each of us is a master at something, and part of becoming fully alive is to discover and develop our birthright competence.

Parker Palmer writes this and it has me once again pondering the whole idea of what we are given by God and the false pride, or lie, that says we shouldn't be bold with it.

What are the gifts that are my "birthright competence"? What are the gifts that I am afraid to hold out and use and enjoy being a master at? There are gifts that I fully know and am enjoying the fully alive breath they breathe into my life. For this I am grateful and thankful. For what is yet to be uncovered, discovered and nurtured I am grateful. And I am grateful that as I seek the energy for the hard work necessary for the nurturing, that there is no limit to the supply I can tap into with the Almighty.