Be Brave

There was a woman in the Bible. 

She was terrified.  

She was filled with shame and remorse. 

But still she found herself being brave. 

 You could feel the pulse of the unspoken terror as she faltered into the room full of judgmental people; full of people ready to mock  and demean her.  The stale air was stifling with anger and scorn directed solely at her.   She tried not to listen to the hushed whispers of ridicule. She hid her eyes at the faces of disapproving people.  But she felt it.  She felt it in every fibre of her being as she found herself collapsing at the feet of Jesus and began washing his feet with her costly perfume.  Because it was there that she knew she would find freedom.  It was at the feet of Jesus she would find healing for her very soul.  Being brave, she could muster - if she knew that there was freedom at the end of that pain-filled and humiliating journey.  It was a moment in time, where a woman deemed to be filthy, deemed to be wrong and reprobate of morals collided with the greatest Man of all history.  There was nothing that could happen but a miracle.

It was a brave moment for a young boy to timidly walk up to a man called Andrew and cautiously, with trembling hands,  lift up his tiny lunch; to let them have it to feed whoever they deemed necessary.  I wonder what Andrew did?  Did he laugh or did he politely take the lunch knowing that it was nothing - just a small lunch.    The very act of bravery that turned a few loaves into a feast, an ordinary day into a miracle and a little boy into a history maker.  What a full heart he must have had that day when he skipped back home.  His little lunch fed 5000 people!!

For some of us,  being brave is just getting out of bed in the morning; just showing up with a smile on our face; putting one step in front of the other even though it seems you are walking through mollases.   For some, it means grabbing onto our next grand adventure;  or stepping into that destiny that's been before you all along.  For others, it may be staying in a marriage that you know you are supposed to fight for or making amends with a person with whom a relationship was long ago, grieved.

I don't know what being brave for you today is.   I don't know what it looks like in your life.  But this is what I do know.  I know that you can do it.

 In John 16:33, Jesus says,  "Take heart for I have overcome the world."   If you look at the whole chapter,  you will find that being brave to the disciples meant that they might die for the cause of their faith.  It meant that they would tell people about Jesus, they would live for Him even in the very face of grave danger.   That's what bravery was to the disciples after Jesus left this earth.  But Jesus told them that it was okay because He would give their souls peace and that the very world was in God's hands.

  What does this mean to us?  It means that we have to shift our prospective a little.  It means we have to realize that there is a bigger picture that  we don't see but that God sees it and that's good enough. 

 It means that even in the midst of being afraid God will blanket our souls with his peace. 

 Being brave doesn't mean not ever being scared.  Absolutely not - that's not bravery at all.  It means being so scared you can't move.  It means that the world stops around you but you will yourself to inch forward even if in slow motion.  Sometimes it means being terrified but making that decision to do it anyhow; to face it anyhow; to be that person you want to become.  That's bravery.  Doing it anyhow. 

Your life may begin the day you choose to be brave.

Hope

                   There is surely a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off.

                    Proverbs 23:18

Begin Again

I had a beautiful painting in mind.  Beautiful, wild, swirly, moving colours with two words on the
painting.  Begin Again.  I will still do it.  But not before I write this blog post.

A few years ago - well quite a few now,  I got serious.  I got serious about losing weight.  I joined weight watchers.  I rallied the troops around me so that I would have a large support group.  And I went after it with all that I had - 120%!!  I saw the pounds fall off.  Looking back on it now,  it didn’t even seem that hard.   I am sure that it was at the time.  I don’t remember plateaus.  I don’t remember discouragement.  I just remember that I lost weight.  And I felt amazing at the end of that journey.  I looked amazing too.

Then, guess what happened?!  Yep, you are right.  I gained it ALL back and then some more.  I have spent many a minute, kicking myself for making the wrong choices over and over again until I saw the weight come back on.  All that hard work.  It’s not hard to fall back into those patterns.  It’s not hard to take leaps back when you have taken steps forward.   Those grooves are ingrained in your journey - like deep, familiar ruts.   It’s easy to slide back into those old grooves when you haven’t quite created the new ones as deep.

A few weeks ago, my son just went in to his room and he yelled,  “oh my goodness, that looks awesome!!”   We had spent the afternoon cleaning it and organizing it.  He loves it when it looks like that.  But he doesn’t always make the choices in order to bring the peace and order to his room - even though he knows that he likes it so much!!  As an adult,  I know the things that give me peace, the things that I enjoy, but I don't always make the right choices to get me to that spot.

About a year before my father in law died,  I started again.  I was determined to be healthy.  I have all the right reasons.  I have a family I want to grow old with - really old.  I even started a group on facebook that was great.  It was not only motivating to me - it was motivating to others as well.  I did well.  I saw weight come off.  This time it was slower and it was harder and I saw more plateaus.    Slowly but surely I saw weight come off and I felt healthier. 

When my father in law, got ill, I laid down all my work outs that I was doing.    I was obsessed with working out and being healthy and eating right.  For a season, it was okay to lay it down.  Hours by his bed, meals at the hospital, meals provided by amazing friends and heart family.  I needed to put it on a back burner for awhile while I shifted my priorities.  It was the right thing to do.  What I didn’t need to do is to turn to food after my father in law died; to turn  to those familiar thoughts of food that have been so much a part of my life; to let food comfort my soul.  That’s where I went wrong.   I see it now, but not before I gained most of my weight that I worked so very hard to take off.

Now I could hurl insults at me.  I could be ashamed.  I could be mean to myself and hate myself for the decisions that I have made in these last years.  I could berate myself.  I could even give up altogether.  All of those things are tempting things to do.  But I realize that they wouldn’t be helpful things to do.  They wouldn’t give life to my soul or health to my body.  So this is what I am choosing to do.

I am choosing to Begin Again. I am choosing to start all over again, with the same resolve, with the same determination, with the same gusto that I had those other times.  

Life is like that.   Life is full of mistakes and failures and stopping and quitting and then beginning again.   Life is full of hard places and soft places.  I like the successes so much more than the failures.   I like the strength so very much more than the weakness. But that is not reality.  Life is both. 

Will I fail again?  Will I make two giant leaps backwards again?  Will I derail again?   I hope not.  But if I do,  I will pick myself up,  dust myself off, and I will begin again.  Until one day I can say,  “I did it.”

This is where you come in.  The most successful endeavours are done with a support group, with vulnerability and accountability.   That means that I need you.  Will you join me on this journey?  I plan to post every Friday and call it Freedom Friday on my blog.   It will be really simple.  I will post tips and ideas and thoughts that have helped me along the way.  I will post menus and recipes that I have found helpful.  And (God forbid) if I get discouraged with my journey,  I will post that too.  What I am asking you to do is the same.  Post your thoughts and your ideas and your discouragements and your encouragements.  I would love to hear how others are coming into more health in 2015.

 Are you in???  Good.  Together we can become healthier - one decision, one habit and one day at a time.   Let's do this!

Miracles

I always choose a new word for myself as a new year approaches.  I usually think about it and pray about it and decide what this year is going to look like for me and what this year is going to mean in my life.  This year I felt like my word should be 'miracles'.  I have been mulling over this word for a month now.   Every where I turn I find something to do with miracles and a stirring in my spirit which means, simply,  that I chose the right word for my life in this year.

The other night I went to a worship service with our church and I began to think of a man in the Bible.  He was a blind man.  He wanted to be healed and so he stood in front of the only One he knew could do so.    Very gently but intentionally Jesus bent down and took dirt in His hands and mixed it with His spit and smushed it in the man's eyes.    The man didn't move.  He stood there and let Jesus do this bizarre thing to him.  I don't know what Jesus was really doing.  I don't know why he chose to put mud in this man's eyes.   And he didn't explain it as you would suppose - He just did it.  Then he told the man to wash in the pool of Siloam.  So,  off he went to do exactly as Jesus had instructed him.  In the end, the man was totally healed.  So you can imagine, that he wouldn't have for even a second regretted that he let Jesus do what ever he did - however odd that it seemed.

 There was another man in the Bible.   His name was Zacheuus.  He wasn't a well liked man because he was a tax collector and well known for cheating people out of a lot of money.   But this particular day,  Jesus was coming to his town and Zaccheus wanted to see him.  He wanted to see what this fuss was all about.  He just wanted to observe this Man who healed and spoke in strange parables and had such power over crowds.  He just wanted a glimpse of Him.  Most of us know this story well.  He was a small man and he knew that he wouldn't be able to push to the front of the crowd very easily.  People wouldn't let him in because, as we remember, people didn't care much for him.  Before he even got to where Jesus was, he had devised a plan.  He knew just what he was going to do.  He would climb a sycamore tree!!  Above everyone, he would be able to see Jesus.  He would be able to see what was happening in the crowd below.

It was working well until Jesus saw him!  Imagine how horrified he would have felt as Jesus began slowly walking up to his tree and gazing up at him.  What would He do?  What would He say?  Surely,  he  KNEW everything about him.  Zaccheus could sense that the minute Jesus started staring into his eyes.  I imagine that he wanted to run.  I imagine that he wanted to climb down the tree and get out of there at lightening speed.  He felt as though he had been caught.  But he was paralyzed.  He couldn't move a muscle as the power of His stare gripped his very soul.   He hung onto the tree branch, hanging on for dear life.  And then Jesus spoke.  And in one sentence, one paragraph, one moment,  his life was changed forever.  Jesus wanted to come to his house.  Jesus didn't hate him.  Jesus didn't shun him.  Jesus wanted to be with him.

 Zacchaeus woke up like any other day.  He got ready for the day like any other day.   He had one interruption to his day and that was to climb a tree to see a Man who was changing the world as he knew it.  It wasn't going to be a huge deal.  He was just going to take a peek at this guy and then go about his daily business.  Little did he know that that he would be climbing down the tree a different man than when he climbed up.   Little did he know that the very act of climbing that tree, that day would culminate in a miracle for his life.  Zacchaeus repented of his wayward ways,  Jesus saved him, Zacchaeus gave back all the money that he had cheated people out of, and he was a different man.  Completely reinvented.  What would have happened had Zacchaeus decided against climbing that tree?  What would have happened had he decided that he just had too much to do and besides climbing a tree to see Jesus was just too beneath him?  Only little kids climbed trees.  It was embarrassing.  It was humbling.  It was downright crazy.   But on the other side of that crazy act;  on the other side of the unconventional thing to do - was his miracle.  It was that thing that turned his life upside down.

I look through the Bible and there are many times  where Jesus reaches out his hands and the miracles flow.  Then there are many times that he required the recipient to do something - and sometimes something even strange.   But on the other side of the obedience was always a miracle; a life changed.

My question for  you today is -  what is your sycamore tree?  What is that thing that he is asking you to do?  He may simply be asking you to take a leap of faith and follow him  - believe in him wholeheartedly.  He may be nudging you to do something  you have known for a long time.   Or he may be asking you to do something that you think is bizarre.   Whatever he is asking you to do whether it is big or small, listen to him.  Your miracle may be waiting for you on the other side of that sycamore tree.

I Choose

So much of our lives are spent waiting for that big moment.; waiting for that "when" moment.


~When I get married I will...
~When I land that job I will...
~When I lose weight I will...

But what happens when that "when" becomes reality if it ever does?  Or what happens if it never becomes a reality?  What then? There will always be another "When."  There will always be another thing to strive for, another thing to be or do or win or belong to.  There will always be more money to attain or health to have or things to change.

As soon as we reach the "when" in our lives the cruelty or the reality is that those goal posts will have changed.  And before you know it,  you have lived for five, ten, fifteen years - doing your to do lists, ticking off your days, doing the laundry, cleaning the dishes,  striving, pushing, pulling for that one moment; that one season when your "when" reaches your now.  And suddenly you look around you and you wonder when your kids grew up and what they did with their first tooth and their first love or how they managed to raise themselves.

Where did those years go when you were trying so hard; when you were trying to reach your when?  There is a tendency in each of us to be discontent, to be always reaching for that next best thing; that more and better and bigger.

There's nothing wrong with working hard towards a goal.  There is nothing wrong with stretching and working and persisting your way through until you see victory.  I believe in it.  I preach it.  But there is something wrong with trading that for the beauty of today - for the wonder of the moment.

I choose to have double vision - staring into the future; into my destiny while always keeping my eyes fixed on the miracle of today.  

Today I choose contentment.  I choose to dance to the melody in my heart right now.  I choose to take walks and snap pictures of every flower I see.  I choose to love the dandelions even though they're a pain (Okay I know that's a stretch for some of you.)  I choose to play lego with my boy and to laugh as many times as I can and sing loud and hard to love song and praise songs and silly songs.  I choose to dance while I am mopping the floor and doing the dishes.

I choose to love this day; this moment even though my life isn't exactly where I want it to be , even though my body isn't exactly where it's supposed to be.   Because I don't want to see my life pass by while I was waiting to live - while I waiting to enjoy it - while I waiting for that big moment;  waiting the "when."

Now is the "when."  Now is the time.  I choose now.

Life is about now.  Life is about enjoying today; this moment.  Its about laughing until your belly aches, or dancing until your legs hurt.  It's about capturing every moment and letting your heart be drawn to the good instead of the ugly.  It's about healing instead of hurting.  Singing instead of shouting; smiling, tasting, seeing, hearing the world around you.  What we do now matters next month - next year - years from now.  It matters.   I don't want to spend my life waiting when it's already happening all around me right now.

I want to live in such a way that if I never get to the when of my life I haven't wasted years; I haven't wasted lives.  I haven't wasted me.  I have built memories and sweet moments and sacred seasons.  I don't want to get to the end of my life and have nothing to write about and no altars in which to store my scrapbooks.  I want to build along the way.  I want to impact along the way.  I want to simply love along the way.  No more pining, wishing. longing, crying for that one season when I could be laughing, building, moulding and living.  I want to live in such a way that if I never get to the when, life was so so worth it.  Life was precious.  Life was full.

I don't want to trade my eight year old's smile for my book order.  I don't want to trade a night of just loving and being with friends or with family for a bigger church in ten years.  I don't want to trade today's miracles for tomorrows vision.

 I choose.

I choose the wonder of today over the "when" of tomorrow.

Ninety Cents

I could almost hear her thoughts screaming at me.  “It’s NINETY CENTS lady.  Give it a rest!”  I had gone through the till at Walmart and she owed me ninety cents but forgot to give it to me before she shut the drawer of the cash register.  She was slightly embarrassed and I was equally embarrassed waiting for so many minutes for someone to come and open her till.  But ninety cents is ninety cents.  Add a few dollars to it and you have a big jug of milk.  Or find it on sale and you have a loaf of bread.  As I was calculating this in my head,  I became more and more determined to wait for my ninety cents even though a few minutes were stretching into many minutes.   Besides,  what if she was conveniently doing this with all of her customers - by the end of the day she would get quite a nice tip.  I was beginning to wonder as she was decidedly annoyed with me,  telling the other customers behind me,  “Sorry, I can’t help you.  I am waiting to give this customer her NINETY CENTS!” as she carefully put the emphasis on NINETY CENTS. 

“I ONLY owe you NINETY CENTS,” she had said when she looked at the receipt.  “Yep, and that ninety cents matters to me,” I said with an edge of sternness in my voice as I stared her down.  She sighed inwardly as she realized that I had really bonded with the ninety cents and I wasn’t going to back down too easily.   She kept calling back on the phone and to be honest,  I did feel a twinge of sympathy for her- but not enough to give up my ninety cents. Also,  because she was far more annoyed and bothered with me than sorry about not giving me my rightful change. 

Finally after about 10 minutes, lots of finger tapping, impatiently shifting her weight from one foot to the other and several calls to her superiors,  I got my money.  I heaved a sigh of relief,  thanked her and was on my way to my car. 

And suddenly I realized - only after I went back and got my groceries because I forgot them after all of that - that this is a profound thing that just happened.

 I sat stunned in the car, as I got this image in my head.  This is just the way that God looks at us.  He stares us down as we say,  “But we are so insignificant.  We are so small.”   And he says,  “I want my 90 cents.”  He doesn’t back down either.  He doesn’t pass on, realizing that  maybe you really you are just one small person - just one insignificant human being and there will be lots of them;  lots that He will lose. 

NO,  he stares you down.  He says,  “You may be 90 cents but you are MY 90 cents and that makes you worth a lot..  Some day you will buy something with your life.  Your life matters.  Your story matters.  Your feelings matter.  Your paintings, your music, your dancing, your mundane job, your exciting career -  it all matters.  Deeply. To Me, it matters.”

Because you know,  Jesus died for us.  No matter how much you feel that you are worth,  he died for you.  Jesus died for that 90 cents and he wants YOU.  He wants all of you because he can see what He can do with your life.  He can see the potential that you have in your music,  in your words,  in your paintings,  in your friendships and in your life.  He sees you in a way that you don’t even see yourself.  He sees so much more than ninety cents.  He sees so much more than a small life and unimportant thoughts.  He sees you and he sees VALUE.  That's right - and he isn’t leaving, my friend until you see it too. 

 You may be 90 cents.  You may be someone standing beside someone you feel is so much greater but let me tell you that Jesus Christ is staring you down right now with those eyes that look right through you to your soul. He is not moving and  - and he is saying,  “I don’t care if you are 90 cents.  You matter.  And I want you. ”

A Weekend of Promise

It’s hard to believe that it has been a month since our conference with the leaders of the churches that we are involved with.   Our little church belongs to a community of several churches both in England and in Canada.  What does this say to me?  It says that i am not alone.

We had three great men from England join us as leaders to talk to us.  When Mike crossed the border,  he was strongly encouraged not to preach to us.  While to me that is shocking - we DO live in Canada and we experience freedom of speech and freedom of religion - he stood by that restriction for the duration of the time that us as leaders got together.  He did this out of integrity and I appreciate that.  But even in that restriction,   God had other plans.  We prayed.  We prayed for the community.  WE prayed for those with hurting hearts and broken lives.  We prayed for those who don’t know Jesus.  We prayed for those who do know Jesus and need a closer walk with him.  We prayed for his grace and his love to be revealed to our friends and to us. 

We did a lot of praying that weekend.   It was a beautiful time. And what came from that is a rich, deep founding of friendships - a knowing that each of us live so many miles from each other but that we are not alone.  We carry the same burdens, we are all on similar journeys.  

Pastoring and shepherding can be a lonely road, but as we spent the weekend together, as we prayed for each other's and looked each other in the eye  and said, I am praying for you, suddenly we knew that we were in this journey together.  And if our eyes had been solely focused on our own lives and our own Church, we suddenly focused on a wider path - a path where churches stood on either side of us - each of us with the same vision, with the same heart, with the same passion for the people around us.   It is our bond.  And it makes us a tribe.  We found our tribe in each other.  And when we went back to our churches to work and to dig and to plant, we knew that there were others doing the same things, praying the same things and feeling the same things in nearby towns or provinces.   None of us are alone. 

Our churches matter.  Each of our churches matter and we are going to pursue everything that God has for us and we are going to encourage and pray for each other to do the same.

For me personally, I was challenged to pick up a dream that I had put on the shelf many many years ago.  I was born and raised in Japan.  Japan is one of my passions.  I have always wanted to go back there and to see fruit from what my Mom and Dad planted so many years ago.  God so profoundly spoke to my spirit that the passion I have for Japan is intentional.    He isn’t done with me or with us in the nation of Japan and that excites me.  

Around the table of Tim Hortons, between meetings,  we as team leaders shared our hearts.  Mike Betts asked a question that stuck with me.  He asked each of us what we love, what refreshes us and makes us come alive.  We shared what we saw in each other.  From that, we talked about how working and journeying together will work; what it will look like.   We talked about each persons strengths and what they could offer RM Canada to make it run smoothly.  The truth is,  we always need to look at running anything we do better.  That's when we know that we are a healthy, living, vibrant entity or group of churches.  We weren't looking at who would be the leader or who would be better than who.  We were looking at strengths and how we could capitalize on those in order to keep what we are doing alive and working beautifully.  This is how true team works.  It's not about who is better or who is higher or more talented.  It's a matter of tapping into our strengths and putting what we have to offer onto the table. 
I am so excited to see where this journey of joining Churches will take us.  It’s exhilarating and scary at the same time.   Technology allows us to do so much that we could not have done years ago.  We skype, we text, we email and we facebook each other.  This is so vital in building team and in underlining the fact that we are not alone.  We are in this thing we call “life” together.  We are building churches together.  We are praying for our communities together.   When one is hurting, we are all hurting.  When one is rejoicing, we are all rejoicing.  Because it is so much better to do life together. 

 Together, shoulder to shoulder we will see the world, or at least our corner of the world set free.