Windows

      So I heard a podcast this morning and felt as if clarity to my questioning was breaking through.  The title was windows and mirrors and the teacher spoke of looking internally to find ourselves, looking for a constant but finding a confusing, ever-changing thing.  He spoke of looking to God and knowing his truth, knowing him to really see our purpose.  I know this sounds like something we've all heard at some point.  Many times even but this teaching shed new light into dark corners.
      We must lose our life to gain it.  Not stopping to gaze at ourselves until we fully understand who we are to know what we should move forward on but pressing into Christ as he makes our path clearer and clearer.
As
We
move
Forward.

     For me I know that looking inward pulls me further in until I'm not sure how to make it back.  I begin to judge even the victories in my life until I see faults in everything.  I feel discontent and what do I do in response?  I look deeper.  Oh crazy, crazy me.  Turning into a pillar of salt, made immovable by looking backwards instead of where I'm heading.  In the teaching he spoke of the mirror becoming more like a hall of mirrors with distorted visions of ourselves shaped by how others have seen and spoken of us as well.
     I've heard that verse about losing our lives so many other times and thought about it intellectually, hearing but not quite understanding.  My life really does feels lost and my trajectory out of whack with myself, my thoughts, my logic at the center.  No matter how full of good intentions, I'm lost.  How can I stop comparing and live;  if at the heart of my self-contemplation is a desire to save myself apart from Christ?  Whether that's what I acknowledge it to be or not.

Looking out

    So how do I go about trusting in such a way that I leave the past and my future in God's hands?  All I can think is that I seek first his kingdom and his righteousness.  Seek to really know God and look outward.  See others.  Seek him in such a way that I am enthralled with his majesty and driven by the overflow.  Where my steps are naturally directed, not artificially manufactured.  Motivated by his beauty and his heart and my truest self taking shape through that.

Messy, impatient seeker of Truth,
Jess

Resurrection in the Rubble

        Inside my heart is rumbling a story.  I don't quite know what's inside.  It feels a bit uncomfortable and messy.  I know that what wants to come out will not be contained.  I've been sitting in church services with a discomfort in my soul as if there is a question in my heart that has not been answered.  A question that requires digging and long honest looks in the mirror.  Is it one question though?  I feel full of passion and fragility.  Am I enough?  What does it means that you are made strong in our weaknesses?  Is it too much to ask that I be myself, fully alive and fully submitted to you?  Oh God it seems scary to be myself around others and to love the way you've made me to.  Not a faded counterfeit tainted by compromise and comparison.

       Oh God I want to boast in my weakness and see you shine through till that's all others see.  I want you to shine forth like a bright light through all those places where brokenness and submission have made a way for great testimonies of your faithfulness, miraculous provision, healing and reconciliation.  Make me braver each day, regardless of past rejection or fear of perception.  Embolden me and teach me to write the words of your heartbeat.  

Birth    

for the barren

Resurrection in the rubble

You do these things 

while we still stumble

Green shoots.... 

up through the cracks

new life forcing it's way through

This is what You do

You hold our fragile hearts

in your rugged hands

strengthen us to sit

encourage us to crawl 

then hold your breath, while we get up to stand

Only

You

Can

Only you can

Heaven's breaking in

Jess