Finishing Well

My family gathered under umbrellas and a tent yesterday, and bid farewell to my grandmother who passed at the age of 95 last month. Her ashes were interred next to my grandfather in New Ipswich, New Hampshire, while the rain poured down as it has at every family funeral to date. It was a beautiful memorial where we laughed through tears and mourned our loss of someone who so deeply impacted our lives.

My mother lovingly took time to put together a memorial table at the reception to remember Virginia Emerson Palmes, the opera singer, the college graduate, mother of three, and fiercely devoted wife, with pictures of our family, a scrapbook of her life, and random scribblings and poetry my grandmother had collected along the way. As I sat at the table and went through the papers I came across a credo written by her when she was 83. My grandmother’s mind was stolen from her, inevitably stealing her from us, some 15 years ago by Alzheimer’s. She was in the earlier stages at 83 and as I read her credo for her future I learned my grandmother was a visionary. She was humble and seeking to be more merciful, more gracious, and more loving. Nowhere in the credo was there mention of her illness, never a voice of defeat or surrender; just a teachable spirit that longed to love more and finish well. She never gave in and she never gave up.

I was so impressed by her spirit to live well, to love well, and to finish well. She was 83 and she was still casting vision for the character she longed to have more of. I thought I was blessed because I loved her so much. I thought I was blessed because she loved me so much. I am more blessed because even in her passing she is teaching me about grace and mercy, about life and love, about character, and about being a woman of vision and high caliber.

I hope I continue to learn more things about her as I grow that will surprise me. I pray when I am 83 I am not waiting to die but excited and casting vision for the next season in my life. They say you can’t pick your family, and I am sure in some areas it’s a very true statement, where my Nana is involved though I couldn’t have picked better.

My grandmother was incredible and I pray as I pass from death into life I will finish well as she did with a generation behind me following the legacy she started.

Let's Call a Spade a Spade

Monday is cardio day. I huff and puff, turn really purple, and for some reason about half way through my work out I start looking stoned around my eyes. My trainer and I have discussed this phenomenon numerous times and we can’t figure it out. It is funny though.

Today I went back to the gym after a week off. Last week I needed some time. I needed to sort and deal and it was good. All day I was dreading the gym because frankly cardio is hard and my lapse in work outs left me fearful of cardio’s evil revenge! Cardio was dear to me tonight. I was focused, I kept up and it wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be. When I need to get through a work out I don’t want to do I often think about the work out itself. I focus on the healthy part, the finished product, as I really want to know what she looks like and I am eager to see her.

This health thing isn’t just my body. It’s my mind too. I realized today in my work out I am unhealthy inside as much as I’ve been outside. As I’ve said before I emotionally eat, I don’t eat a lot but I eat really horrible things. I think I had ice cream four times last week. That’s more ice cream than I’ve had in 6 months combined. I decided I was going to start trying to identify what I am feeling when I start to eat the bad stuff. If I can identify it I can face it, give it its proper name, and move on. I think when I started this journey I just needed to be able to call a spade a spade. Six months ago I couldn’t have been this candid about it, but tonight I came to the understanding that I not only have to address the physical unhealth but there is a mental/emotional unhealth somewhere and I am using the food as the filler of a need that is not being met.

So funny to write it down and put it out there like that. It’s every fat girl’s story; I eat to fill a need. I’m just not too sure what the need is that is not being met and how food fills it…I am seeking that answer. I think it has something to do with worth. I looked worth up the other night in the dictionary, its definition is good or important enough to justify, justify means to be proven valid. Some where, I don’t feel worthy. I’m not sure where it is or why I feel that way; I'm not even sure what I am trying to feel "worthy" of but somehow all this is connected.

The revelation of it will come though. I trust the past history of God in my life, he started it, and he’ll finish it I just have to push through. Good thing his grace is sufficient. I know some people are screaming inside as they read this but don’t worry – trust me the revelation will come. Thankfully, I am well planted in the palm of the father.

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Faith Walks

I have to meet with women that are further along in their faith walks than I am. Women who are in a different season and have chartered these waters I brave, helping me navigate the rapids. Sometimes I just need to sort all the stuff in my head and have someone say what is what.

Today I did that. I sat with one of the best women I know who has been a point person in pivotal moments along my upward winding heaven bound road. A lot has been going on. There have been outside circumstances mounting upon each other, all culminating at the passing of my very elderly, very wonderful grandmother to whom I was very close.

This week, as I took time to settle with the loss, I could feel the prompting of the Holy Spirit. I could tell in all the pressure there was something in it I was supposed to get. I started asking God the other day what it was. It was just too much pressure inside me for there not to be something I needed to identify or release.

Today at a coffee shop outside in the gorgeous day we were having I had some revelation to the prompting. One of the breakthroughs I had in this revelation came in the ability to painfully confess I need to feel significant and I matter. I have always felt that way since I was a little girl. I don’t ever remember a time not longing for something bigger and grander. It spurs me on to bigger dreams but causes me to miss key moments and wallow in a lie the I don't matter enough.

After this confession my faithful friend looked at me and smiled. First she affirmed me. She let me know I wasn’t crazy and I was normal. She also reminded me there are negatives to every strength, I will find the balance and it won’t last forever. She confirmed true faith walks SUCK and are painful! She also confirmed it as a weakness to work on and a good place to be.

I agree with her. This idea is unfolding and my room mate can attest to the grand scale of the entire revelation. I think she can already see it brimming with the places this breakthrough will take me and those around me.

The best part of it all though, is right before I sat down for the meeting I had a message to my phone of a facebook alert from a girl friend I’ve not spoken with in a few months. She just wanted to let me know she was thinking about me. On the way home I received a text message from Megan saying that she loved me and hoped I was having a good day. I realized I have been seeking the “significance” to be affirmed in other venues. Even today like book ends to the conversation; God reminds me I am significant by having the two women I was able to pray with in the last six months to make choices for Jesus contact me and let me know to them I matter. The first two people I’ve ever really done that with and them our time together had a life and death impact. They both chose life and God used my life to show them how to do that. I think that’s significant.

I believe God did that strategically to shift my thoughts and order them; to gain perspective and truth. My dream to live a life of significance and influence is a good God dream that honors and glorifies him, but I need to realize and recognize what he thinks as significance and what his idea of influence is.

Perspective, focus, and renewing the mind. Here is where the ordinary day meets an extraordinary God and I am already in a new wave of change.

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If not Him then who?

My friend Megan grew up in a small town in Georgia. She has the best southern accent and sometimes her colloquialisms leave us teasing her for months. Megan is the subject of my earlier post Crazy Love As Megan, or Meggo as I have affectionately named her, works out her faith we have interesting conversations. They expand and grow us, and together we work out the great mysteries of Jesus. It's a blessing beyond measure to get to do that with her.

Megan is smart and precocious. She doesn't take things because you say so, she has to figure it out for herself. It's one of my favorite things about her. She is a wise woman who runs very deep and I believe she is going to change her part of the world. Wednesday night, once home from church, she and I were chatting online when she asked me if there were unforgiveable sins. She always brings me the easy ones! She had seen a TV preacher speaking about suicide and it being a forgivable sin, but using the Lord's name in vain was not. I explained through my experience with being a Christian God forgives us when we ask and as long as we forgive others. His grace is unmerited therefore; there isn't much we could do to forsake that love – if anything as far as I have read thus far. I also explained my interruption on the latter. The Lord's name in vain is less about the actual use of his name in common conversation and more about the misappropriation of his name to back something.

A church member walking into an abortion clinic in the name of Jesus is severely misappropriating the name of Jesus. Anyone who truly knows, believes, and follows the character of Jesus, it has never revealed anything but limitless grace and mercy to our feeble, broken humanness which tries to rip each other apart in response to our separation from the father.

I told Megan I didn't love all TV preachers and talked about interpretation. I talked about the religious leaders in Jesus day who presumed to know better the aspects of God as they interpret God as they are and not as he actually is. She responded that it was like a fairy tale, the bible was. Something you had to "swim through and come up with your own ideas of what is really being said. I struggle with that." I agreed with her. It is hard to figure it all out. There is mystery and A+B doesn't always = C. I explained the bible saying we must study it for ourselves and come to our own revelations about God and his character and that he is good.

In the end for me it came down to a choice in the midst of the doubt. Did I believe that God was real, relevant, and had his character shown itself to be good? I tried to make all the equations add up in the midst of my doubt in the beginning, but I couldn't. I just knew God's character had revealed and powerfully moved in my life in a way, though I couldn't explain it all, I couldn't deny its validity in my life either. So I chose - and in the end if it wasn't real it left me feeling even more lonely and lost. As I continued to choose God he revealed more and more about his character, who he is and how good he is. Despite everything he has great plans for me. Who else is saying that about me? Not my haters that's for sure!

Just that simple truth: I have great plans for you, changes everything. In the simple sentence there is hope, truth, life, and freedom. He stepped up for me in a way no one ever had or could ever do. He let me doubt his character and proved it even more just make sure I understood how deeply his love was for me. He showed me he is my greatest fan, my sweetest lover, and infallibly real and genuine.

If you doubt today in the character of God, know its ok and its normal. We all have to work out our doubt, but let today be the last time you let it keep you from getting to know his character even more. He wants you to understand him and live in the security he provides. Be encouraged to know your doubt solidifies his goodness and offers proof that he's doing something in you. You're growing love, be encouraged you are on track and you are not the only one. Megan will confirm it for you!

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Nashville

Jennifer Knapp’s album Kansas was the first Christian Contemporary album I purchased then wore out. Her song "Trinity" is still one of my favorite songs. I was a huge fan of her music, going to her shows, and always getting her album straight away because they were always great from start to finish. However, after her third, she disappeared. When I lived in Nashville I lived a stones throw from her recording studio/label. Don't be fooled, Nashville is speckled with studios that are as near as your neighbor’s basement, unassumingly mixing the musical genius of the likes of Bono with the suburban life. One day I asked a friend of mine who had worked with the label for years about her whereabouts or whatever happened to her. His response, "Wouldn't we all like to know." We had a brief talk about the details from the label's perspective and moved on.

Saturday morning I got up and turned on my laptop as I do most mornings to check my email and any updates on the wonderful world of Facebook. I was scrolling through the status updates coming across an article someone had posted from CNN. The title read, "Christian Music Artist Jennifer Knapp Comes Back and Comes Out."

I opened the article from CNN and there at the top just under the title was my beloved Jennifer Knapp, looking amazing, and answering questions about her sexuality confessing she has been in a same sex relationship for the better part of 8 years. The article made reference to the reactions of the Christian community mostly stating they are sad. The article didn't polarize too much to one side or the other, just simply told the story with some input from both opinions.

I too, am sad by this announcement. Not necessarily because I won't like her music anymore. She's still a great artist and maybe I'll embrace her more with the hopes of revelation - more sad for her. I wonder about the leadership in her life and how she has bought into a lie that is robbing her of what she was created to do. She stated this about God's opinion of her choice, "'I would rather be judged before God as being an honest human being," she said. "If I am in any way unpleasing in his sight, I can only hope and pray that he gives me the opportunity to find who I am supposed to be.'" I wonder when honesty and sinning became interchangeable? I am in no way judging her, but I do know that sin is sin and when we are bound in it we are bound – no matter our position, our popularity or limelight.

I can't wait until the time that my character has been developed in a fashion that will allow me to go back to Nashville and be bolder than I ever was when I lived there. I don't know why people, and I include myself in here, feel they can pick and choose the bits of the bible they like? I have to battle all that too. I think the difference is I have great leadership that doesn't muddle the voice of God or tell me what they think I should do. They guide me in sensitivity to hear from God on my own with my own revelation. From my experience with God I would think had she really quietly sought out God’s heartbeat on this topic her choices may have been different. Whenever I am seeking answers God is ALWAYS faithful and he’s never guided me to choose something against his word.

One day I am going back to Nashville. I will speak to Christians who have been disillusioned and lost. I will encourage those that had a great dream and vision for their lives which somehow became lost in the hurt and loneliness of Nashville. One day they will remember their dream and race after their destiny. One day there will be a church that helps guide the local church of Nashville. When that day comes mighty things will unfold and Nashville will be greater, bolder, and more kingdom focused. It will be a city on a hill and it will change generations. One day!

Until that day, I'm praying for them. I am praying for leadership, for producers, for artists, and for Jennifer Knapp.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Music/04/16/jennifer.knapp.gay/index.html?iref=allsearch

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Crazy Love

God shows up in the smallest of nuances and as he hangs out in those areas paradigms shift and lives are redefined. The impossible become possible and hope is restored.

Last year I had my first major surgery. I needed to have a double lumbar fusion in my spine after a slip-n-fall left me a bit humpty dumpty-ish. In the months that followed my still on-going recovery I had too much time on my hands. Time, for a person who over thinks everything combined with idle hands can leave a person like me feeling a little lost and a lot of stir crazy.

To busy my hands I remembered a book I read about circumstances, and the story of an out of work husband who took the idle time to dig deeply into the word, solidifying his trust that all things would be ok. I have remembered that part of the story the most. Therefore, I took the idle time I had and really studied the bible. I spent a good month on the book of Colossians learning more about Jesus and the renewing of the mind than I was expecting.

As I learned more about the character of Jesus, my heart broke open for people in a way I had never experienced and it has made all the difference. I learned how to love extravagantly and pointedly. I learned love is expensive, and our greatest investment. The other day I came to the revelation the only commodity we can take to heaven with us is people. Considering people are my favorite currency, sounds like a good investment to me.

Investing in people however, costs everything. It costs your time, your money, your space, your comfort, and sometimes it feels like your mind! The thing I find amazing in the investment however, is it really makes a difference. Last year I invested an offering for a friend of mine who was ready to end her marriage. She had faced seemingly insurmountable obstacles in the short time she had been married and was ready to cut her losses and move on. I don't know why I wanted to see her marriage work. I really believe in marriage. I believe in what it stands for and I believe in the power of relationship. I also believe in letting your yes be yes. For all these reasons, I started to encourage and believe in her marriage even though she didn't.

I loved this girl for a year. It was tumultuous, rocky and at times I wanted to beat her head or mine against a wall. Last fall after a move away, she came back to visit. When she got here she was splitting her belongings with her husband and working out details on when they would file for divorce. I remember her telling me she didn't want it to work and for me to stop trying. She got around my friends and they loved her too and as a united force with no agenda we loved her purely just because she was just her and worth our love.

She went back home for a week and a week later she was back up here. During the second week I had the amazing privilege of praying with her in my car in a Harris Teeter parking lot to recommit her life back to Jesus. It was AWESOME!!! The next day she woke up and started pouring out ideas of how to sow into her deployed husband’s life and remind him she was in for the long haul and she wanted it to work.

Yesterday, they celebrated their second year anniversary. It was a beautiful aspect to an amazingly beautiful Easter. My point however, is she and her husband had yesterday because a whole lot of people invested, including them selves. We prayed, believed, and watch God restore a marriage. The lot of us who loved on her will stand with her in heaven and celebrate the power of love and she will bring her own people with her. She will help restore marriages and she will have people sleeping on her floor with no agenda but to love them and have them know they are loved.

It's cyclical, love. I love because I am deeply loved, she was loved and in turn is loving more deeply than she ever has. Who are you loving today? Are you willing to count the cost of the investment and believe for a mighty return? It's not in vain, it's not wasted, and his grace will lead you through it.

Grab someone today, in a world devoid of genuine selfless love, show them the love you know. It could make all the difference.

Focal Point

THE feeling of loneliness is a tad overwhelming. I feel like I should be able to balance it somehow, like it’s almost wrong to feel this way. My humanness is mighty strong and the only thing I know how to do right now, is to give it all away; all the hurt and lost feelings, just give it away for something lighter. I know that no matter how lonely I may feel the cross is still worth it and his presence is sweet, he loves me greatly and deeply, though I don’t fully grasp it yet I will keep seeking him until it becomes the solid rock of my epicenter and I know how to better manage the emotions of the change and growth.

IN the season of growth that I find myself in, I’m having to let go of a lot “comforts” that I have held dear. They are my security blanket and where I retreat to comfort myself on nights like tonight when I am feeling the most lost and the most alone. But something deeply within me is prodding me, cheering to let them go and seek the truth instead of settling for the counterfeit binkies I sucked to pacify the edge.

IT sucks honestly, this growth thing. It’s painful, embarrassing, humbling, wide open and exposed. It’s stealing every thought and determining that no matter how much it hurts to release these things, I trust God or I don’t. It’s that simple and his words say so much more about me then I can ever say. I firmly know in the end of the current refining there is something spectacular far beyond what I have even dreamed. I am convinced in a short time I will blog about the ridiculous plans of God and how he is master designer and we will all be encouraged.

TODAY though I am forcing myself to pull above the Maginot lines; leaving myself bare as I walk through the battlefield of my mind and take ground. Our natural instinct in such positions is protecting oneself from discomfort and in some ways expected, the only problem is we burrow down, set our footing and stop taking ground. So this is me taking ground, because it gets muddy in the pit and I am way too girly to stay in muck.

MAYBE significance is found in the way we put our best foot forward. In the moments when no one sees but inside when all feels lost, as if there is a cracking on the inside our foot forward causes significance to start to fill in the gaps? Maybe significance is found in the moments we make significant choices to not feel that way anymore? I choose to love God and to keep believing he will fill my weaknesses with his grace; loving me deeper on days like today where I have to focus on the cross to remind myself that one act contained all the significance I’ll ever need. Even saying that my spirit is quieted, I’m a little more found, and his grace is sufficient.