Rising Hope

I write tonight with a heart that is feeling overwhelmed. Overwhelmed with the brokenness that surrounds us - even here, the beauty of the country, the love for all things simple, and the friendship of the one who loves me best.

Today, I went ahead and began a friendship with a compassion child through sponsoring them. I have followed Ann on her trip with Compassion, my heart was broken with the stories that she told of poverty and brokenness. I felt the tugging on my heartstrings, listened to the whisper of the One who redeems and whose love is more radical then I can ever imagine. Shaun wrote a beautiful song of our God who leads us out.

We made our way into the city today, the suburban filled with children's giggles and a baby's soft cooing. In leaving the beauty of the log cabin we have come to call home and the peaceful country roads, we knew that the city would bring different sights and sounds. But I am never fully prepared for what it stirs within me. In one of the most broken parts of the city we observed families; young mother's yelling at their babies, homeless people with a smile on their face, and children who should have been in school wandering the streets. I looked at my sister and we both felt the pangs of what shouldn't be. We saw, felt, and heard the brokenness of people all around us. We talked about the things we have in common with those who seem different then us, we talked beyond economic status and into the heart of humanity. At the end of this conversation we came to the conclusion that there is something happening in our lives.

God is speaking but we aren't sure what he is saying yet.

There is much translation to happen as we feel his presence and the movement of his Spirit in our lives. He is calling us, leading us, and giving us something new. Our hearts are being broken and then rebuilt with a love, passion, and desire to love those around us. Especially those who the world have deemed broken. My heart rises and falls with these passions, I am excited and breathless for what is to come. I know that He works in the most beautiful ways. And yet I am uncertain of how He is going to lead, unsure of what the next footfall looks like.

I'm overwhelmed. And grateful.

Excuses

I sit down to write finally. I seem to have found every excuse in the box to not write today. There was laundry that needed to be done, children that needed attended to, or a seemingly endless list of other things that needed my attention. I realize though that its not as much ignoring the other things that need my attention as it is me putting off writing. Why do I do this? I love writing, I love the way that words just flow from my heart, to my head, and then onto paper. Why do I dread the process of writing. Then I realize why.

Its because writing requires work. Hard and laborious work. I have to be present in the moment, aware of all that is going on in my life and in the lives around me. My heart needs to stop swirling in chaos and just settle, listen, and then begin processing. On days like today, its easier to pop in a movie, iron bunches of clothes, and stay tuned out.

Tuning myself out has been a task that I have accomplished quite well in the last few weeks. In the process of moving, re-adjusting, and all the newness that has been in life, I have tuned out the needs that I should be allowing God to meet in me. The rhythm of life that I long to have has not been fully established yet, so because of that my struggle with chaos is great. In the middle of that chaotic battle, I find it easier to just tune out to myself and ultimately to God. When in fact this is not only what he has called me to (this time and this place) but he wants to move in me through the process of change. If I am tuning him out, then I am shutting out any form of transformation that wants to enter into my life.

Radical Love

Her stories clog my throat with tears and fill my heart compassion. It is radical love in action.

Book Review: Shape of Living

I picked this book up when Christian Book Distributors was having awesome sales. It interested me because of the subject matter being spiritual formation.

This book ended up being a delightful read. It was both enlightening and challenging. I think that its easy for many spiritual formation books to all read the same or at least be similar in their format and content. Ford did a great job in creativity and his own works with this book. It was unlike other spiritual formation books that I have read. Ford cited authors who I had never heard of before, their quotes being so good that I wrote down their names to find further works by them. Some of them included: Etty Hillesum and Evagruis Ponticus.

Ford wrote in an honest format, not sidestepping hard issues within spirituality. He wrote on vocation and calling, soul shaping, our desires and how they work within us, joy and suffering, and finally resurrection. My favorite parts of the book were the chapters on suffering and joy. I found that Ford gave words to the feelings I am trying to balance at this phase in life. He spoke of the intertwining of joy and sorrow. He also wrote on the difficult time that we can have trusting in joy and good things in our lives. He writes that

Joy tests us by inviting us to be transformed by it. Most of us are deeply distrustful of the possibility of joy. There are good reasons for distrust: the yearning for joy opens us to repeated disappointments, and the world is full of deceitful or over-hyped promises of joy. To be transformed by joy means trust, even surrender and that is a massive risk.

If you want an easier read on spiritual formation, or have an interest in how God lives in the ordinary everyday life and how we can hear his whispers there - I highly recommend this book.

Meandering Conversations

We walked today through the woods, pondering and discussing our future dreams and thoughts on life. My toe kicked acorns out of my path and at some points I stooped down and scooped them up, fingering their delicate designs. It has been two weeks full of changes, goodbyes, and new starts. We have embraced them together and our working through the state of transition as a team. Our conversation went up and down, I shared my hopes and visions for the future. Dreams of country sides, farm houses, and horseback riding.

We talked about writing, teaching, and what community looks like. I realized

the blessing of him. The ability to have someone hear my dreams and push me to continue on in them. His heart heard my heart. Maybe this is what embracing change looks like. Its a process of opening your heart, allowing oneself to be vulnerable to another despite the unknown future. With each difficult step, there is also the reward of being heard, supported, and loved.

We ended our hike through the woods with a conversation on how then do we live? We have journeyed after God, moving from our townhouse, to this lovely log cabin with my family, and now where are we to go? How do we take this radical calling to follow the way of love, faithfully loving the people on our path, finding the presence of God our simple everyday life, and hearing his voice whisper to us, into perspective? Reading, contemplating, conversing, writing, and sharing what we are learning doesn't seem enough.

And so we continue to journey, choosing the path of gratitude so that our hearts and lives can be open to the whispers of Christ.

Promises

After a day of settling in V and I were in Philadelphia for the weekend. It was great to spend time away and with family.

With classes beginning I am reminded of my love for teaching and my love for academia. There is a buzz in the air when its time to teach, a stir of excitement in my heart. These beautiful days remind me of the fall months of teaching in Huntingdon. I miss those days, students, and horses. But I am reminded today of the promise that new beginnings hold.

I'm learning that in life there are different paths that you can chose to take when faced with transition and change.

Change offers a few different paths for us to choose to walk. We decide to walk the path of resentment and bitterness or instead to walk the path of gratitude and transformation.

Shauna Nequiest in her book Bittersweet talks about change, saying that:

"If you dig in and fight the changes, they will smash you to bits. They'll hold you under, drag you across the rough sand, scare and confuse you. But if you can find within yourself, in the wildest of seasons, just for a moment, to trust in the goodness of God, who made it all and holds it all together, you will find yourself drawn along to a whole new place, and there's truly nothing sweeter. Unclench your fists, unlock your knees and also the door to your heart."

I am learning the lesson of that right now in life. Letting my desire for control and an ability to map out my life, fall by the wayside. I have no idea what God is going to do, what things will look like, I have dreams, inklings, and hopes. But its in His hands.

New Home

And so begins this journey that we have thought, prayed, and shared with many of you about in the last few months. On Wednesday we moved to this new place where we are living in community with family. It has been challenging to pack up our belongings and move out of a home that we had made our own. It was much harder to move away from friends who had been our support system for the last few years. And finally in many ways we said goodbye to the dreams that had in that time and place, knowing that God is calling us to where we are now.

I am excited, so excited about the possibilities that lie around the bend. We are trusting that things will continue to move ahead as we trust God to put the pieces together. This story is becoming a lot about trusting when its the most difficult and returning to the foundational values that we are made up of.

There will be much more story telling soon, I promise.