joy?

I haven't written on here lately, not because I have not been writing, but because I have been using a different medium.  Tim gave me a gift, a typewriter, for putting my thoughts to the page in a more tangible form of expression than the world of cyberspace. The typewriter is the perfect mix of handwriting and typing... you still physically put the words on the page without the fatigue that comes from writing it out by hand.  It's pretty awesome, especially because I love tangible things.

Joy.  One very un-tangible thing.  And something that I do not understand most days.

Here is what I wrote on my typewriter last week....

As I walked downstairs to my room, I pondered this question:

On a given day, that is free from tragedy or extreme ecstasy, I can choose to think about hundreds of wonderful things or many terrible things about life.

Today, I want to think about wonderful things.  In spite of a particularly negative thought that plagued me in the kitchen.  Our softened water dries out my hair.

I think things like softened water make me waste that happier days we are given in life.  The days where nothing terrible has happened... the days where I am given a choice... a choice of joy or something more depressing.

I want to know what it means to be a joyful person.  That eludes me.  It is a difficult concept for me, because the days I need it most are the days I desire it the least.  Days where I am so destroyed emotionally, I can't even imagine happiness.

Definition. I think most people would say I'm confusing joy and happiness. Then what is joy?

Is it really something like peace, trust?

....So that was a typewriting entry, but I have still continued to think about joy.  I think it is funny that on the very same day something wonderful happens to you, on a day where a prayer is answered in a big way... you can still be a little down in the dumps in the very same breath of thankfulness.

A little disconcerting, isn't it? That was me yesterday.  A big prayer was answered for Tim and I.  We now know where we live and work and serve.  We were ecstatic.  And yet, I still found things to be a little annoyed with, a little afraid of, a little doubt.

You don't expect an attack on a happy day.  Where's the joy?

Obviously, joy doesn't come from me.  I know it comes from God.  And I need to ask Him for it.  Trust in Him, in the middle of difficult days, or even just boring days.

It reminds me of my early understanding of the fruit of the spirit.  I considered the fruits as a list of things that I could put on my wall and check off daily.  Gentleness, check. Peace, check. Self-control, half-check.  Goodness, fail.  I was very sad that I couldn't seem to have a day full of fruit.  More often than not my vine of self-works was a bit shriveled.

Finally I heard the truth... these fruits are not of yourselves, God grows them in you.  So, since joy happens to be on that list, why did I ever come to think it was about me?  It is God working in me if there is anything on that list present in my life, why don't I ask Him more often?

"These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may remain full." John 15:11

That sounds like a joy worth having.  It is real.  It is Jesus.  Jesus, please give me Your joy.  Please take away the selfishness and sadness inside of me.  You are my Joy, You are my Peace.

to know and be known

Sometimes I go crazy.  Well, that's hyperbole.  I've got this issue, and I recently diagnosed myself.  It has something to do with thinking I'm an artist and something to do with being a writer.  I simply must write in order to think clearly.

It doesn't matter if I write about what is bothering me or stressing me out, to write is the thing.  To be able to clearly lay out my thoughts in precise or meandering sentences.  To know that my paragraph has made sense of myself to me, and hopefully to others.

Writing is a way that I express my desire to be known and understood.  I think everyone desires this.  I think that is why we need community, as I wrote about earlier.  And because we desire to be known, we do crazy things to get attention (think of yourself, celebrities, and jr. highers).... attention that we ultimately want from a God who feels far away.

It is strange to think that I am small.  That I live on an earth so big, I cannot be seen from space.  And this earth cannot be seen from other galaxies.  Yet, there is a God.  He created me, and He knows my every thought.  He created me to know things by five senses, and yet I cannot see or feel Him.  But He also gave me a soul, and my soul knows that He exists when I cannot touch Him.  He created me to desire Him, and I will spend eternity with Him.

Sometimes these thoughts overwhelm me with their beauty, and sometimes I get caught up in my smallness and forget them.  But the God who is greater than anything I can sense or imagine knows my soul.  I belong to Him.  I am known, and I am loved.

community: mercy

Last week was about me.  I prayed for me.  I thought about me.  I dreamed about me-centered things.  On one of those days I woke up grumpy.  No surprise, I had me for breakfast.

My mom asked me to go to the store for... I think it was flour.  I had a decision to make: Jewel or Dominicks?  I chose Jewel for three deep and compelling reasons.

1. There are self-checkout lanes

2. I didn't want to talk to anyone

3. I hadn't showered

So,  I jumped into the family van and drove to Jewel thinking about what a bad person I was.  I was deliberately avoiding human contact, and I wasn't going to change.

I walked through Jewel successfully avoiding any howdydo's and stood by myself scanning the flour.

"Do you play soccer?"

I was startled to see an employee named Slavisa standing twelve inches or so from my face.

"Uh, yes I do," I said.  The correct answer would have been, "I'm a has-been as of Winter 2009" but let's not argue over the details.

Slavisa and I proceeded to have a two minute conversation about soccer, and how we both don't like getting hit in the face with the ball.  I left Jewel and laughed as I got into the family van and thanked God for Slavisa.  Despite all my machinations, God decided I would have a conversation with someone, shower or no.

My Jewel adventure got me thinking about community. I often think of it as church potlucks, parties, soccer games, and picnics.  But it is more.  Community is scary because it means people get to see the real you, true community strips past the social facades we erect to keep people from knowing who we really are.

God knows we need to be with people.  God knows I need to be with people.  God uses people to show us how much we need Him, and God uses people to show us how much He loves us.

I realize that I avoid community because it takes work, and it can be messy.  It takes love and sacrifice, mercy and patience.

I want to be willing to serve people whenever God desires, sometimes it so hard.... when I've been thinking about me especially.  When I'm focused on me, it is harder to give other people grace, or the time of day.  Lately, to help, I have been thinking about this verse:

"Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful."  Luke 6:36

This verse helped me understand again that loving people and working in community is hard, and it requires mercy.  Since I know the lavish amounts of mercy God has bestowed upon me, I can ask Him to help me give other people love and mercy without measure.

And once I start conciously giving mercy to others, and praying for mercy, I realize how much mercy I recieve daily.  Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the goodness of the Lord I serve.

If you need a passage of scripture to help you pull your head out of the ground, I suggest Luke 6.  It worked for me... but really, you'd have to ask somebody in my community if it helped.

Give love, give mercy, live in community.

poetic honesty

I have this problem.  It's hard for me to tell people what my poems mean.  Someone asks me what the poem means and I freeze.  I think, "It says what it means.  It's all there."  

I quickly realize that I have written a poem... and poems are usually a little unintelligble if they didn't spring from your own mind.

Once I see, then I begin to hedge and hem.  "This poem is not really about me, it's a character... a figment of my dark imagination."  This is a lie that I have told one too many times.

So to all of you who have been befuddled by my lines, and more confused by my explanation of them, here is a better explanation for one of my poems that I have been reluctant to own until I admitted that it was, indeed, my child at our show on Saturday night.

I will write out the poem, and explain at the end.

----------

Chamomile

Lonely with my romance books

From my mirror despising looks

Chamomile, my constant friend

Lay me down at the days end

Corduroys

Holes in the legs

Coffee cups

Drained to the dregs

Faded books

Lining ledge

All my life

Never had edge

To my room, alone in bed

Things unsaid torment my head

Chamomile, my constant friend

Lay me down at the day's end

Lavender

On my pillow

Winter wind

At my window

Darkest night

Will slowly grow

Purposes

I hardly know

Long lost dreams will take their toll

Tease my heart and rend my soul

Chamomile my constant friend

Lay me down at the day's end

----------

I didn't want to own up to this poem at first, because I didn't feel like it accurately described me in the present time.  I am not lonely for love, or purposeless.  I am marrying my best friend, and I know what my purpose is... to serve Christ and seek His kingdom.  Because of these things, I distanced my self from my creation in interpretation, and only conceded that yes, I became a chamomile drinker in 5th grade.

I wondered if I was writing something that was too far outside of myself, something I didn't know, and I continued to tell people that it wasn't about me, it was some of my characteristics projected onto another character.  "Please, don't worry about me."

Then, on Saturday, it clicked.  A month after writing it, I realized that "Chamomile" is adolescent Abby.  When I moved to California from Illinois, I was desperately lonely, and questioned many things about life.  I was an avid reader of Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters (romance books) and I fell in love with the calming effects of chamomile tea.  I wanted to be loved, and I watched others date and enjoy popularity in sadness.

Yet, despite all this there was happiness in my life.  I wasn't completely joyless.  But sometimes you can't be happy if you don't confront the grief, madness, and pain in your life.  You can ignore it, but it's still there.  It's part of being fallen.

There is freedom for me in accepting these things and giving them to Christ.  He can heal me from the sickness I inherited at birth.  It is important for me to own up to my own shortcomings even if it makes other people feel uncomfortable.  If I don't confess the fact that I came from darkness, and now I am a child of light, of what use am I?  My danger is that I will allow my Christian background to disguise the fact that I died and Christ lives in me.  Knowing my weakness allows me to see the strength of Christ.  There is no other way.

The lonely, crazy Abby is daily dying again to Christ.  My flesh is fallen, but Jesus in His grace is sanctifying me.  This is my story, of my Jesus I will sing.

love's roar

I just wanted to share a poem that recently became the lyrics for a song Tim and I recorded together. The poem came out of a time of weakness a couple weeks ago. I hope you enjoy it.

You said love, You said peace
My eyes saw stains upon my heart
You said there's grace, You said I'm free
And still I stay, and still I grieve

I knocked myself down to the floor
Before You could raise me up
You stretched Yourself, Your tendons tore
And still I lay there, bruised and sore

I draw my lids, and scar my mind
I lose myself, I weep and cry
Why do You care, will I still find?
You thunder, roar, and yet are kind?

I do not know You, I said I did
I claimed Your name and said forgive
I rise and seek my sins to rid
And still I'm weak, and still I live

You said it's finished, I changed your name
Your sins forgot, your sins are gone
Why don't you trust, your life is mine...
I am Love, My roar divine.

If you want to hear the song for these words you can go to our myspace.
http://myspace.com/timothyandabigail

humble love

Last week it felt like my sins and struggles were delivered to me on a platter. A platter with dead carcasses and flies. Dirty flies.

I could hardly bear it. It is much nicer to have makeup on when you look at the mirror to your soul. Unfortunately for pride and ego, that mirror strips past your facades and shows your wretched nakedness. All your glory, all your stains.

My prayers were full of "I need Yous" and "Please." I realized, re-realized that I need God in the most desperate of ways. I was faced with my weakness and I prayed more fervently than I had in a long time.

The amazing thing was, in my weakness, I felt closer to God than I had felt in a while. I realized that He was using my desperate, despairing, dumpiest of days to draw me closer to Him. I was seeking Him hourly, rather than for a fifteen minute debrief once a day. And all the while, I knew that this crazed seeking was not of my own doing... it was God's work. I was humbled, please keep me humble Lord.

God also showed me how easy it is for me to love something other than Him. I love someone on earth so deeply, I am afraid to love God more. I worry that allowing God to take the throne, and knock out my idols, will destroy me. I become enraptured with the things of this earth, and the loves of the present... and I forget that I will never love those dearest to me the way God loves them... if I don't love Him first.

But this is painful. But it is good. Open heart surgery. I give God all of my heart, and He allows me to love others the way He does. The way is narrow, and few find it.

Take my weaknesses Lord, use them as You wish. Keep me humble, please don't let me go. Take my heart, my love is Yours.

straitjacket

I am constantly unconciously categorizing things in my own crazy i-think-i'm-an-artist way.  This is beautiful, haunting, moving, repulsive, crazy.  This is do-able, this is impossible.  This is possible for some, out of the question for me, etc., etc.  I place constraints on myself and others based on how well I understand the situation based on my experiences and knowledge.

The most unfortunate of straitjackets is the one that I put on God.

I underestimate His power.

I give out straitjackets based on my comfort level and knowledge of the situation.  I realize that my knowledge and understanding of God is limited and finite... I am always trying to re-box Him when He tears apart the wrapping paper.

But this is not the God I serve.  He is not tame, He cannot be conquered intellectually any more than He can be conquered physically or spiritually.

These mis-understandings cause confusion in my theology, they allow me to both doubt my salvation and think I have done something to earn the salvation I think I have lost.  A funny couple.  Of course I will doubt a salvation I have earned myself, the Lord knows I have done nothing to deserve it.  Filthy rags, filthy rags.

My religious legalism wraps its tentacles around my mind, and tries to put a leash on the power of God.  I think that I must do certain things to be pleasing to Him.

Then it happens... my secret sin knocks on my door, I let it in.  Suddenly, my forgiving Savior becomes a dictator bent on revenge.  I am afraid of Him.  I plead for forgiveness and feel like I cannot be forgiven.  I mentally brow-beat myself, and drag myself through the dirt.  Is this yet another form of pride, a pride that thinks my self-hate will somehow gain forgiveness?

If I feel terrible enough, maybe He will forgive.

This is not Jesus, this is someone created in my own head.  Jesus died on the cross to save me from the sins of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  No amount of confession or self-loathing will bring about my salvation.  He lavishes grace upon my life, and forgets my sins when I ask for forgiveness the first time.

Why is it so hard to accept His love?  I am continually missing the God who is there, who walks beside me, carries me, the Savior who never lets me go.  

Lord, let me know Your love.  Let me feel Your presence.  Give me grace, help me give grace to others.  Please open my blind eyes, and let me see Your lovely face.  I love You.