August 2008 Postcard/Update

the things i love

... aside from what you may have learned about me from appointments or my prayer letters, here’s what makes me tick…

I love (God of course, but besides that and in no particular order...)

1. DANCE

"The dancer believes that [her] art has something to say which cannot be expressed in words or in any other way than by dancing... there are times when the simple dignity of movement can fulfill the function of a volume of words. " --Doris Humphrey

I’ve danced since I was three years old. Ballet. Tap. Jazz. Hip hop. Contemporary/modern. You name it. I LOVE dancing. I had studio training through high school then in college a close friend, Kate Kromann, and I had a dream to open a dance studio for underprivileged youth in our community who could not afford dance lessons. Both of us had done cheerleading or pom squad in high school and had helped with tryouts and it was really unfortunate to us that a lot of young girls are excluded from these activities because their families simply cannot afford it. We wanted to make the joy of dancing available to everyone and for both of us, dancing is a way we’re able to express ourselves and worship God as we were created to do. When I’m not dancing, I feel like I’m not living!

Throughout college, we ended up handing over Center Stage to new leadership and started a dance ministry team at our church, The Rock. We had several great years (photos below) and with all of the members graduating and myself being the only choreographer left, it is a ministry on hold right now but one I dream to rebuild and I’m praying for God to send us dancers! Right now I get my dance fix by committing to dance at least once a week in the confines of my room in a complete workout and a couple old dance ministry girls or dance fans and I have been watching So You Think You Can Dance this summer :)

After a Rock Dance ministry practice on fateful night.

Practicing for "There's beauty in the breakdown."

I led a dance ministry at Colorado Leadership training summers 2005 and 2006. Here's a shot taken during "Two Points for Honesty" by Guster.

LT Dance ministry girls, "Iris" by the GooGoo Dolls.

LT Dance ministry girls, talent show.

LT Dance ministry girls with Chris Ridgeway, Univ. of Ill. staffer in charge of worship arts that summer for us at LT.

Rock dance girls getting ready.

Rock dance girls after "Loving Loss" by Caleb Carruth.

Rock dance girls hip hop "Let's Get It Started"

The original dance ministry team! Top row (left to right) Becky Reiners, Kim Bleyer, Stephanie (Brown) Casey, Me, Kate (Germain) Kromann. Bottom row: Camry Ivory and Bailey.

2. CHILDREN

“home is not where you first lived, but where you feel truly alive.” – Garden State

God has blessed me with families that have welcomed me into their lives and where I truly feel at home. One of those families is the Ingalls’ family, I’ve known them for several years. They are on associate staff with The Rock. They are a true example of a godly family and the way a home can truly be a place where the love of God is known and distributed. Their kids are like my own. I’m kinda the big sister/aunt type to all of them and have been there since the last three were born. They have four children Laura, turning 7 next week, Zachary, 4, Paige, 3, and Baby Brennan is four months old!!! I go to their house about once a week and especially in the stressful and busy life of support raising, making a point to go and play with the kdis and visit with Cannon and Korrin always helps me remember what’s truly important in life and helps me to keep going!

Laura and I.

My pastor's daughter, Jessie Drage and I.

This was my first encounter with Baby Brennan, two days old! As you can see, I'm truly gifted with the little ones :)

Mom and baby

Baby Brennan and I last month, we've come a long way :)

Face painting with the kids!

And the rest of what I love: Girl time.Friends.Reading.Writing.Traveling.Big cities.Coffee shops.Blogging.Photography (enjoying it not taking it!).People.Starbucks :)

are you lost or incomplete?

"Living in the wisdom of accepted tenderness means receiving each moment as an end in itself…

It simply lets us live in trust, transparency, and compassion…

The experience of God’s Spirit as tenderness was mirrored to me quite unobtrusively at a couple’s forty-fifth wedding anniversary celebration. The husband had quietly withdrawn sometime during the festivities, and I found them quite by accident. I wasn’t looking for them as I passed a sheltered alcove, nor was I eavesdropping—but I was mesmerized by what I saw. There they were, sitting on a loveseat with an overhead light shining indirectly on the man’s face. He stared intently at his spouse—that woman about whom he knew everything there was to know: her strengths and weaknesses, her occasional moodiness and temper tantrums, her sense of humor and sense of insecurity, her nagging and her magnanimity. Nothing remained hidden.

The expression in the man’s eyes conveyed warmth, tenderness, and the same compassion she had shown him during his struggles with John Barleycorn. Not a word was exchanged. She sighed as tears slid down her cheeks. They embraced.

The spirituality of accepted tenderness brings a gathering awareness of the loving gaze of the Abba of Jesus with all the above qualities infinitely magnified, and thus it enables us to be alone with God in the midst of the most diverse activities. It allows an unpretentious presence to the present moment without manuals and mirrors, goals and game plans, stress or distress. It simply rejoiced in the gift. And this spirituality is all the work of the Spirit defined as “given tenderness.”

This tenderness also encompasses an unspoken assurance that Jesus will provide the grace for the next step on the spiritual journey. Charles de Foucauld, a desert hermit and an inspiration for a community known as the Little Brothers of Jesus, wrote, “The one thing we owe absolutely to God is never to be afraid of anything.” His unflinching trust in the love of God morphed into humble confidence that the grace for the next step in the dance of life was already there, given. Without anxiety, Abba’s children move forward, knowing that the next and the next and the next steps will take care of themselves. Abba’s children don’t worry about tomorrow or even late this afternoon…

I’m amazed at how long it’s taken me to learn this and appalled at how quickly (and often) I forget it…During those transitional years, I didn’t understand that God’s grace always precedes his call…Living in the wisdom of tenderness is an unending adventure in trust and dependence.”

- The Wisdom of Tenderness, Brennan Manning

Fully accepted for who I am. I long for this. I think we all long for this.

I’m coming to grips with this is how God loves us and longs to love us. He is our intimate lover. Yet he also chooses to mirror this love with giving us wives, husbands, boyfriends, girlfriends here on earth so we get the picture. As of late, God has been desiring to be this for me more and more. I feel I'm getting to know God as Father in a way I never knew possible and in a way that is bringing full acceptance, full belonging, being fully known and fully loved and fully complete in Him.

For this reason I kneel before the Father

original post 7/31/08 - other blog

Those words were echoing in my head this morning as the Lord woke me up an HOUR before my alarm today… the nerve lol. Last night I was hoping I would be able to get myself out of bed a little early and hit up Panera before work, but I know that 6:30 am comes fast and that was probably not going to happen. Jesus had other plans for this morning.

I’m glad He woke me up.

These words kept calling me, wooing my name, calling me to get out of bed and not go back to sleep, call on the LORD while he is near… the LORD is near to all who call on Him… our God is waiting to be found…

And I was like wide awake was the crazy thing. (I am not a morning person.)

I went somewhere else instead of Panera and just sat in silence, allowing my soul to rest in God’s presence. I didn’t know why I was there but I didn’t need to… for this reason I kneel before the father… for what reason? I wondered.

What reason does this passage talk about? I’m learning to be okay with the mystery of God, the glory of God, the kabod, as its Hebrew derivative points to, the mystery of God, who is known and unknown all the same… Then, the more I thought about it and why I didn't need a reason, I remembered that my natural state is in communion with God. That is when I am my most true self. We were created and designed for God. For Him and by Him, for his pleasure. That's it. Made to worship. My soul was meant to commune with the most High God and for that reason, I kneel before the Father. What a privilege.

7I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God's grace given me through the working of his power.

A friend of mine pointed out this verse to me last week and the more I’ve been pondering it the more I am grateful for this gift of grace and this gift that has made me a servant of the gospel.

It is grace I’m standing on.

7I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God's grace given me through the working of his power. 8Although I am less than the least of all God's people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. 10His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, 11according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. 12In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence. 13I ask you, therefore, not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you, which are your glory.

A Prayer for the Ephesians

14For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15from whom his whole family[a] in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
20Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Ephesians 3:7-21

into your hands i commit my spirit

(original post - 7/30/08 - other blog)

“Craving clarity, we attempt to eliminate the risk of trusting God. Fear of the unknown path stretching ahead of us destroys childlike trust in the Father’s active goodness and unrestricted love.”

Brennan Manning is by far one of my favorite authors. I might even say my favorite. His words have the ability pierce my heart like no other human. His books are great treasures to me, I’ve recently been re-reading one of his best works, a little 180-page book called Ruthless Trust.

The other day, as God was breaking me down, I realized my heart was aching and was hurting at not wanting, not having the courage to trust God another day, with another thing. My heart was demanding answers from a multitude of things, and the answer is to trust, to simple trust? I needed more. I needed God to break through and speak to me.

I came to see. After lots of tears and experiencing his peace and his presence in the midst of a beautiful clearing I discovered in the middle of some trees that my real struggle was trusting his love for me and that I wasn’t getting ripped off and loving and accepting myself.

Through several breakdowns the last few days and God desiring to reclaim the deepest parts of my heart and soothe and heal them, I’ve come to these three conclusions.

I do not have control over many things. I cannot predict tomorrow, two weeks from now, five years from now. I do not even know what the rest of the afternoon will bring. I do not know what will happen in all these situations I was getting anxious about. I do not know what people are thinking. I cannot tell if someone is interested or if I should just give up. I do not know.

But these three things I can control:

1) what I choose to believe about God

2) what I choose to believe about myself

3) what I choose to believe about the situation

Thus, I’ve been feeding myself truth. From favorite books that speak truth to my heart and free me from worry and self-condemnation and God has been leading me to lots of Scripture that has been slowly changing my perspective. He saved me Sunday. He saved me Monday. He saved me yet again Tuesday and is saving me today. Saving me from myself and from the millions ways I can be led to not believe what He says about Himself is true, that He can be trusted, and that I am secure and I am okay. He is Enough and I am enough, not lacking in anything.

There’s a certain amount of faith each of us can have until we hit the breaking point where we just want to see. Where the work it takes to believe, to go without knowing is too much and we just long to be able to see results, to be able to see a month, a year, ten years down the road to see what is going. I just wanted see... but the plan now is faith. faith now, sight later. and he meets us in our deepest need.

“Unwavering trust is a rare and precious thing because it often demands a degree of courage that borders on the heroic. When the shadow of Jesus’ cross falls across our lives in the form of failure, rejection, abandonment, betrayal, unemployment, loneliness, depression, the loss of a loved one; when we are deaf to everything but the shriek of our own pain; when the world around us seems a hostile, menacing place—at those times we may cry out in anguish, ‘How could a loving God permit this to happen?’ At such moments the seeds of distrust are sown. It requires heroic courage to trust in the love of God no matter what happens to us.”

…

“The most brilliant student I ever taught in seminary was a young man named Augustus Gordon…

On a recent visit I asked him, ‘Gus, could you define the Christian life in a single sentence?’ He didn’t even blink before responding. ‘Brennan,’ he said, ‘I can define it in a single word: trust.’

… I can state unequivocally that childlike surrender in trust is the defining spirit of authentic discipleship. And I would add that the supreme need in most of our lives is the often most overlooked—namely, the need for an uncompromising trust in the love of God.”

…

“We ourselves have known and put out trust in God’s love toward ourselves” (1 John 4:16). Craving clarity, we attempt to eliminate the risk of trusting God. Fear of the unknown path stretching ahead of us destroys childlike trust in the Father’s active goodness and unrestricted love.

We often presume that trust will dispel the confusion, illuminate the darkness, vanquish the uncertainty, and redeem the times. But the crowd of witnesses in Hebrews 11 testifies that this is not the case. Our trust does not bring final clarity on this earth. It does not still the chaos or dull the pain or provide a crutch. When all else is unclear, the heart of trust says, as Jesus did on the cross, ‘Into your hands I commit my spirit’ (Luke 23:46).”

…

“If we could free ourselves from the temptation to make faith a mindless assent to the pawnshop of doctrinal beliefs, we would discover with alarm that the essence of biblical faith lies in trusting God.

The faith that animates the Christian community is less a matter of believing in the existence of God than a practical trust in his loving care under whatever pressure.

The stakes here are enormous, for I have not said in my heart, ‘God exists,’ until I have said, ‘I trust you.’”

…

“Though we often disregard our need for unfaltering trust in the love of God, that need is the most urgent we have. It is the remedy for much of our sickness, melancholy, and self-hatred. The heart converted from mistrust to trust in the irreversible forgiveness of Jesus Christ is redeemed from the corrosive power of fear. The existential dread that salvation is reserved solely for the proper and pious, the nameless fear that we are predestined to backslide, the brooding pessimism that the good news of God’s love is simply wishful thinking—all these combine to weave a thin membrane of distrust that keeps us in a chronic state of anxiety.

The decisive (or what I call the second) conversion from mistrust to trust—a conversion that must be renewed daily—is the moment of sovereign deliverance from the warehouse of worry.

So life-changing is this ultimate act of confidence in the acceptance of Jesus Christ that it can properly be called the hour of salvation.

So often what is notoriously missing from the external, mechanized concept of salvation is self-acceptance, an experience that is internally personalized and rooted in the acceptance of Jesus Christ. It bids good riddance to unhealthy guilt, shame, remorse, and self-hatred. Anything less—self-rejection in any form—is a manifest sign of a lack of trust in the total sufficiency of Jesus’ saving work. Has he set me free from fear of the Father and dislike of myself or has he not?”

…

“The grace-laden act of trust is the landmark decision of life outside of which nothing has value and inside of which every relationship and achievement, every success and failure derives its final meaning. Unbounded trust in the merciful love of the redeeming God deals a mortal blow to skepticism, cynicism, self-condemnation, and despair. It is our decisive YES to Christ’s command, ‘Trust in God and trust also in me.’

the plan

"The plan is faith now, sight later."

7/30/08 - other blog

Will you give your life to this mission?

originally posted - 7/28/08, other blog

I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. John 12:24

No one takes my life from me, I lay it down on my own accord. - Jesus

these words were ringing in my head over and over as I was surrounded by men and women who are continually laying their lives down last week.

one of my close friends and mentors, eva ellingsworth, is a missionary with a GCM church in Amsterdam. we got to room together while she was speaking at colorado leadership training last week, i was out there for a staff retreat with my church, support raising, and seeing students from our church as well as eva.
she makes the second female to speak at LT and getting to hear her share her story, the amazing work of grace in her life, was incredible.

the next night we had a women's time where she was joined by two others from her church in amsterdam. these women were also staying in our room and just being around them and hearing about their lives i signed up for the gospel again.
i say this because it's a daily choice. a daily decision to lay my life down and live for christ, to live for the sake of the gospel.

these women are movers and shakers in their church and their city.

it was so encouraging to be in that room of women of so many different ages and backgrounds and lifestyles to celebrate what it means to be a woman of god... and what the life of a missionary looks like, vocationally or not, what it means to be content and truly satisfied in the lord, single or married, what it means for jesus to truly be Enough in your life and helping others find that same reality as well.

this question, will you give your life to this mission? first came to me at ignite a couple weeks after i had made a decision after two years of praying and seeking counsel, to go on staff full-time as a GCM missionary with my church... the question came again from the lord... i rescued you because i delighted in you... i have created you for my pleasure... i have delighted and loved you with an everlasting love, will you give your life for me?

and i signed up then. i signed up again last week and i sign up again today.
the most amazing part of hearing eva speak was as she stood there, this beautiful woman of god, impacting tons of lives out there, i was struck by john 12:24... eva simply let her life fall to the ground and die and now look what has become of it...

will i come and die?
will i give the lord my heart and my life?

i desire to give him a heart fully surrendered.

Take me in

(original post - 7/28/08 on other blog)

So I was reacquainted with this old favorite in my friend Peggy's car last week on the way to Colorado. This song really spoke to me and reminds me of my journey these last couple of weeks in Kansas City, driving, and then Colorado and now back, it was a beautiful time of intimacy with the lord and his people. I've been desperate for Jesus lately and my soul is desiring to be with Him more and more the last few days. Walking back from lunch today and some time time in prayer I was reminded of my desire for him to take me in. Just a few moments in his presence was the answer to my soul's deepest ache today. So take me in...

Take me past the outer courts

Into the Holy Place

Past the brazen altar
Lord I want to see your face

Pass me by the crowds of people

And the Priests who sing your praise

I hunger and thirst for your righteousness

But it's only found in one place

[Chorus:]
Take me into the holy of holies

Take me in by the blood of the lamb

Take me into the holy of holies

Take the coal, touch my lips, here I am

So take me into the holy of holies

Take me in by the blood of the lamb

Take me into the holy of holies

Take the coal, touch my lips, here I am

One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek:That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life,To gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple. Psalm 27:4

that i may know Him

(posted 7/11/08 on other blog)

The Spiritual Saint - today's devotional by Oswald Chambers

"That I may know Him." Philippians 3:10

"The initiative of the saint is not towards self-realization, but towards knowing Jesus Christ. The spiritual saint never believes circumstances to be haphazard, or thinks of his life as secular and sacred; he sees everything he is dumped down in as the means of securing the knowledge of Jesus Christ. There is a reckless abandonment about him. The Holy Spirit is determined that we shall realize Jesus Christ in every domain of life, and He will bring us back to the same point again and again until we do. Self-realization leads to the enthronement of work; whereas the saint enthrones Jesus Christ in his work. Whether it be eating or drinking or washing disciples feet, whatever it is, we have to take the initiative of realizing Jesus Christ in it. Every phase of our actual life has its counterpart in the life of Jesus. Our Lord realized His relationship to the Father even in the most menial work. "Jesus knowing . . . that He was come from God, and went to God . . . took a towel . . . and began to wash the disciples' feet."

The aim of the spiritual saint is "that I may know Him." Do I know Him where I am to-day? If not, I am failing Him. I am here not to realize myself, but to know Jesus. In Christian work the initiative is too often the realization that something has to be done and I must do it. That is never the attitude of the spiritual saint, his aim is to secure the realization of Jesus Christ in every set of circumstances he is in."