I think I've established that I'm not a blogger.
I lack discipline.
And interesting stories.
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Today I'm making a stew. The winter weather isn't ready to leave yet and doesn't it call for comfort food?
I love to cook. Generally not for myself... it seems too chore-like. I am trying to be a little more disciplined though because it's been brought to my attention that beer and popcorn doesn not make a meal. Whoops.
Today is also the first day of Lent.
So often we talk about what we'll give up. As if the act of giving up something you enjoy is alone enough to 'observe' Lent. Like it's the Christian-approved version of New Years resolutions. Cynical me comes out and can't be helped.
For me, adding something in can be just as disciplined and healthy.
All of it means nothing if it doesn't point you to the one who died so you might live.
Focus.
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Even as I assemble tonight's dinner... a long process to be certain. I know there are lessons here.
The meat has been marinading overnight in wine. Rich to be sure, extravagant and costly. Soaking in all that is good but in the process getting beaten down. Eaten away. Tender and sore. A preparation.
Next comes the fire. Heat blazing. Searing. Ouch. Some sweetness comes out, seems to be lost but instead crusts on the surface.
Hours of slow-cooking. Braising. Ingredients fusing together. Flavour. Developing.
It takes preparation. It takes time. It takes heat and pain.
But in the end - a sumptuous feast. Comforting and pleasantly warm. Nurishment to the bones. Food for the hungry.
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God can take any gift given and use it to teach you as well as bless others.
Today cooking isn't just a skill I have. Today its spiritual discipline.
My first day of Lent.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Monday, November 5, 2012
Monday, July 2, 2012
Tis So Sweet...
My favourite hymn has always been Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus. My friend was leading worship and ended up choosing to sing this song on Sunday. The night before we sang it over and over (friend needed to learn the melody for the verse).
After that night, I couldn't sleep. I tried. I struggled. I was just so unsettled... I was up when daybreak started and the birdies started singing. Still I was awake for church and got myself ready, somehow knowing today was going to be tough. I loaded up my 15 dozen cookies for the soccer camp and headed off. The pastor saw me bring them into church and quickly snuck a snickerdoodle out of my MCC ice cream pail. I smiled but I somehow knew.
He started singing tis so sweet and I bit back salty tears. The pastor started speaking... a new series on the parables of Jesus - more of my favourite things. It was the 'ask-seek-knock' parable for the morning.
Again I knew. I cried. And cried. And cried. He mentioned so many things. One of my issues in particular. And the tears kept coming.
Don't get me wrong, my life is pretty great but still I find myself entering into the illogical realm of what-if's all too often. Trust is hard.
Today as I was driving to spend some time with 3 babies that I'll be looking after over summer and I feel like I got the simplest epiphany. And it is another piece to the 'all is grace' puzzle that the Lord has me putting together.
Oh for grace to trust Him more.
It's only by grace that I can trust in the first place. Or at all.
I can pray for more grace to trust.
A new thought [for me].
And along with that a new [tiny] seed of hope.
After that night, I couldn't sleep. I tried. I struggled. I was just so unsettled... I was up when daybreak started and the birdies started singing. Still I was awake for church and got myself ready, somehow knowing today was going to be tough. I loaded up my 15 dozen cookies for the soccer camp and headed off. The pastor saw me bring them into church and quickly snuck a snickerdoodle out of my MCC ice cream pail. I smiled but I somehow knew.
He started singing tis so sweet and I bit back salty tears. The pastor started speaking... a new series on the parables of Jesus - more of my favourite things. It was the 'ask-seek-knock' parable for the morning.
Again I knew. I cried. And cried. And cried. He mentioned so many things. One of my issues in particular. And the tears kept coming.
Don't get me wrong, my life is pretty great but still I find myself entering into the illogical realm of what-if's all too often. Trust is hard.
Today as I was driving to spend some time with 3 babies that I'll be looking after over summer and I feel like I got the simplest epiphany. And it is another piece to the 'all is grace' puzzle that the Lord has me putting together.
Oh for grace to trust Him more.
It's only by grace that I can trust in the first place. Or at all.
I can pray for more grace to trust.
A new thought [for me].
And along with that a new [tiny] seed of hope.
Monday, June 18, 2012
Today
Today.
Today I played piano at my friend's grandmother's funeral. It was a little surreal to be back at Glad Tidings... making music on the Petroff for the first time in 9 years. I ran my hand down the ebony black piano that I used to lovingly polish and call to have tuned. The instrument I used to worship on...cry on. I ran into people I haven't seen in almost a decade. We sang... All inbetween comments of 'I can't believe it's you... you look amazing... you look... happy.' How things have changed.
Today I stopped at my bestie's house because I decided I was going to give away some free hugs. Certainly because I love them... but mostly because the matriarch of the family got diagnosed with an agressive cancer on the weekend. Mostly because my friend flew home from Montreal the same day when the news came to light. Mostly because I don't know what to do except to cry with them, pray with them, let them talk... and offer an embrace.
Today I contemplated the purpose of love, which for me looks more like a lesson in futility.
Today for the first time in a long time, I ate my feelings. I'm full but I still feel a little empty.
Today I realized some things really haven't changed at all.
Today I played piano at my friend's grandmother's funeral. It was a little surreal to be back at Glad Tidings... making music on the Petroff for the first time in 9 years. I ran my hand down the ebony black piano that I used to lovingly polish and call to have tuned. The instrument I used to worship on...cry on. I ran into people I haven't seen in almost a decade. We sang... All inbetween comments of 'I can't believe it's you... you look amazing... you look... happy.' How things have changed.
Today I stopped at my bestie's house because I decided I was going to give away some free hugs. Certainly because I love them... but mostly because the matriarch of the family got diagnosed with an agressive cancer on the weekend. Mostly because my friend flew home from Montreal the same day when the news came to light. Mostly because I don't know what to do except to cry with them, pray with them, let them talk... and offer an embrace.
Today I contemplated the purpose of love, which for me looks more like a lesson in futility.
Today for the first time in a long time, I ate my feelings. I'm full but I still feel a little empty.
Today I realized some things really haven't changed at all.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
When Reading is Too Much
I've recently developed quite the umm... 'over-fondness' for reading blogs. My recent bout of insomnia has definitely contributed here. I'm pretty sure it was at 3am one night that I discovered Haley's Halo, Sarah Bessey and the Pioneer Woman. In one fell swoop I was hooked.
I'm pretty sure I didn't bother to try and sleep after that.
My love for reading began at a very young age. I still have a distinct memory of piling all my favourite books around me (not one or 2 - piles people!). Who needed stuffed animals? Not me so long as Dr. Seuss was keeping me company. I was even such a smartie-pants that I was reading before kindergarten. I'm pretty sure it was impatience rather than aptitude that I was afforded that pleasure, I was just too impatient to wait until someone would read me a book - I went ahead and figured it out for myself (or Mom was just sick and tired of reading Stop That Ball over and over).
Now-a-days it still thrills me to pick up a new book, the smell of fresh ink and paper wafting as I open it for the first time... but now with a budget that lends itself a little more to home brew than Starbucks, the internet is a godsend. Here I can read about everything and anything, all for the cost of my internet connection.
Blogs are my internet porn.
There. I've said it.
What is troubling to me though is people. Especially Christians. A category I unashamedly (ok, sometimes they way people act, I'm a little ashamed) put myself in.
The way I think about God and His church has done a 180 over the years since Bible College. In fact, over time, I had become a bit of a skeptic. While attending a church (that I still love, but just can't be a part of anymore) that prides itself on scriptural knowledge over anything else... I began to see the world through a pretty narrow lens.
Falling in love with Jesus again is changing all that.
Letting go is changing all that.
What I read is changing all that.
This morning I was reading an exchange between people... Christians in particular, over a book review of Ann Voskamp's 1000 Gifts (which I just started reading and L-O-V-E). This man wrote a less-than-flattering review and Ann responded... not in kind, but by an invitation to his family to come over for dinner. He is stunned and writes a lovely blog apologizing... and then several of his 'supporters' blasted him for apologizing. The infighting began. On and on it went.
This is a common picture of the church today.
Fighting over who has it the most 'right.'
In the bickering and the squabbling, something gets lost.
And it's Jesus.
This year I believe God has been scaling away at the skepticism and replacing it with soft flesh. My heart has been broken... but He has been repairing it with a tender understanding and an unflinching realization that ALL IS GRACE.
So I think for a short while I'm going to go without reading blogs, unless they are the blogs of someone I know.
Oh who am I kidding?
I'll still read, knowing that the one who came to save me, also died for
Mr & Mrs angryclosemindedeveryonemustthinklikemeorthey'renotachristian.com.
Or maybe I'll just skip the comments.
I'm pretty sure I didn't bother to try and sleep after that.
My love for reading began at a very young age. I still have a distinct memory of piling all my favourite books around me (not one or 2 - piles people!). Who needed stuffed animals? Not me so long as Dr. Seuss was keeping me company. I was even such a smartie-pants that I was reading before kindergarten. I'm pretty sure it was impatience rather than aptitude that I was afforded that pleasure, I was just too impatient to wait until someone would read me a book - I went ahead and figured it out for myself (or Mom was just sick and tired of reading Stop That Ball over and over).
Now-a-days it still thrills me to pick up a new book, the smell of fresh ink and paper wafting as I open it for the first time... but now with a budget that lends itself a little more to home brew than Starbucks, the internet is a godsend. Here I can read about everything and anything, all for the cost of my internet connection.
Blogs are my internet porn.
There. I've said it.
What is troubling to me though is people. Especially Christians. A category I unashamedly (ok, sometimes they way people act, I'm a little ashamed) put myself in.
The way I think about God and His church has done a 180 over the years since Bible College. In fact, over time, I had become a bit of a skeptic. While attending a church (that I still love, but just can't be a part of anymore) that prides itself on scriptural knowledge over anything else... I began to see the world through a pretty narrow lens.
Falling in love with Jesus again is changing all that.
Letting go is changing all that.
What I read is changing all that.
This morning I was reading an exchange between people... Christians in particular, over a book review of Ann Voskamp's 1000 Gifts (which I just started reading and L-O-V-E). This man wrote a less-than-flattering review and Ann responded... not in kind, but by an invitation to his family to come over for dinner. He is stunned and writes a lovely blog apologizing... and then several of his 'supporters' blasted him for apologizing. The infighting began. On and on it went.
This is a common picture of the church today.
Fighting over who has it the most 'right.'
In the bickering and the squabbling, something gets lost.
And it's Jesus.
This year I believe God has been scaling away at the skepticism and replacing it with soft flesh. My heart has been broken... but He has been repairing it with a tender understanding and an unflinching realization that ALL IS GRACE.
So I think for a short while I'm going to go without reading blogs, unless they are the blogs of someone I know.
Oh who am I kidding?
I'll still read, knowing that the one who came to save me, also died for
Mr & Mrs angryclosemindedeveryonemustthinklikemeorthey'renotachristian.com.
Or maybe I'll just skip the comments.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Bad Idea
Horomonal woman + 'What to Expect When You're Expecting' movie = yours truly about 10 seconds away from an ugly cry.
In public.
In public.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Just a Few Things
Listening … Bethel's 'Loft Sessions.' I don't listen to tons of "Christian Music" anymore as I'm getting picky and maybe a little more jaded in my old age... but I love the acoustics of this album. It captures a warmth that I so appreciate and 'You Have Won Me' is my favourite song. ( Watch Here: You Have Won Me ) It wouldn't be categorized as remarkable but I think the simple and complicated truth of the first line is what gets me every time.
Watching … Castle season finale. Beckett and Castle finally get together. I cried. Also, I saw Avengers twice over the weekend, doing my best to contribute to the biggest box-office opener. I may have a problem.
Reading … Safe People. I was given this by a trusted mentor-type person to read. I was shocked by what it awakened me to. I actually think this is a must-read for anyone, especially since so many of us blindly just accept or move in relationship in a certain way. Knowing why helps.
Eating … One measly petite vanilla bean scone.
Drinking … Skinny Caramel Macchiato.
Wearing … My $10 Old Navy jeans and an Audrey Hepburn tshirt.
Feeling … Overwhelmed. I'm still looking for summer work and I have an pedagogy exam on Friday for which I'm ill-prepared (and pretty certain I'm going to fail). Oh yeah, and I'm moving at the end of month... And I'm going to need to buy a car at the end of the summer... and... and...
Weather … It's a beautiful sun-shiny spring day. Finally.
Wanting … Someone to cuddle with. Strong arms would be nice. Wanting to marry me is a bonus.
Needing … See above.
Thinking … About my bible study last night. Have you ever understood what 'cast all you anxieties on him for he cares for you' really means? I'm pretty sure some of us got it, at least a little.
Enjoying … Getting ready for new students. Planning for the fall. Learning to be present in all things.
How about you?
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