Sometimes you have such grand ideas, good and great expectations. And sometimes, you get to the bowling alley, and all the lanes are full. Having your grand ideas let down is sometimes like walking into the bowling alley and seeing there are no vacancy, no room for you to play.
And sometimes, when you see the no vacancy at the bowling alley, you feel like everything is that way; one great unfulfilled ambition. Melodramatic, I know. But tonight, I feel this great exhale, the slight inward tilt of the shoulders, the sigh of being let down. But at least I drove to the bowling alley; sometimes hoping against the odds pays off only in the strengthening of one's ability to hope. And someday, I will go to the bowling alley, and there will be an open lane, and I will enjoy the simple pleasures of a grand idea being fulfilled.
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Choose Your Parents Wisely
/Fathers be good to your daughters/Daughters will love like you do/ *
Those infamous words John Mayer loves to croon, tonight they press against my chest, burning to be answered. "How will you love?" I think is the question their letters ask, if only we could hear beyond the words.
"Chose your parents wisely!"**
My human bio professor loves to tease us with this caution against diseases inherited from family. She quips referring to genetics, and I am always reminded of John Mayer's soft voice asking me, "How will you love like He does?"
/Now we are soaked in all the grace that we've been given/Unchained from all that we have done/***
As these words float through my ears I am again reminded, I am the product of my Father, yes, my Father who is above all. The One who was from the beginning, who is today, and who will forever Be. He is the One I long to love, the one who is wildly in love with me, the One I seek to be like in this thing called Love. If I could choose my parents, I would always choose Him; because He has always chosen me.
Again my heart shall sing, I am my Father's daughter; like Him I want to be.
I am my Daddy's girl; HIs face in mine I want to see.
A Daughter of The King.
*Daughters by John Mayer
** (Van der Werff, Pam. 2012)
*** Alive by All Sons & Daughters
Friday, December 14, 2012
Love Wins?
The past months have been a roller coaster ride of life, love, and seeking to understand justice in the face of death. Pouring months into a business plan that purposes to bring life and hope to the marginalized and disenfranchised; life. While learning about the atrocities that have happened in South Africa, Rwanda, Ireland, the US; in the face of death. Death taunts, but life and love and grace are triumphant. Always. And in the midst of death's grasping for victory, love still wins!
The perpetrators are just as loved and covered in grace and sought out by the Father's heart?
This is a truth I have struggled with and been so convicted of these past months. Watching footage from the South African Amnesty Hearings of war crimes committed by police officers. Things so horrible it feels a crime to even hear them spoken aloud. And in those minutes, feeling the tug of righteous anger I've known; and all of a sudden a revelation of something new:
The love the Father has for His creation extends beyond every evil every produced by mankind; and He yearns for His child who is so enslaved to death.
What is this news?
The price Jesus paid was for the Hitlers, the lynchers, the mass-murderers as much as it was for me. Because they, too, are Children of the Most High. And their Daddy is calling them Home, into His embrace, His love, and His astounding Grace.
Oh Death, where is your sting?
And with tears streaming down my face, as I feel the Father's heartache, His longing for His sons and daughters to come home I find, I want them to come home too. My brothers and sisters are lost, and my Daddy waits for them in heartache and great love, watching, waiting for them to return to His Love. And that is what I want for them to.
Oh Grace, what is this you've grown inside of me?
And how can they come home if they don't know of their brokenness and need for redemption? And who will tell them, if it is not me and my fellow princesses and princes who go and show them what is this Good News? Death; is dead! The grave is overcome! The time for hurting is past, the time for healing has come!
How far does love win?
And I wonder in hope and expectation, who will I meet when I get to heaven someday? How far does love go? beyond the grave? This great mystery, to me bring a hope that perhaps, someday, in the presence of the One who's love knows no end, I will see my brothers and sisters who are lost and have taken life standing side by side in communion with those they have oppressed. Oh what a day that would be! That death and his dealers would be cast into an empty place- because love has redeemed! What if when Jesus died, He paid for all of the sin of the world? Past, present, future. What if we get a chance as we cross from this realm into eternity, as we see the face of our Lover and our Friend, to chose Him still?
Oh what a sight that would be!
Because Justice, I think, is not seeing the oppressor, "get what's coming to him." Justice, perhaps, is seeing the oppressor and the oppressed standing on even grounds. The ending of violence, justified or not; perhaps this is the secret Justice longs to share.
And maybe I am a dreamer, but maybe I dream with the One who teaches me first to love.
The perpetrators are just as loved and covered in grace and sought out by the Father's heart?
This is a truth I have struggled with and been so convicted of these past months. Watching footage from the South African Amnesty Hearings of war crimes committed by police officers. Things so horrible it feels a crime to even hear them spoken aloud. And in those minutes, feeling the tug of righteous anger I've known; and all of a sudden a revelation of something new:
The love the Father has for His creation extends beyond every evil every produced by mankind; and He yearns for His child who is so enslaved to death.
What is this news?
The price Jesus paid was for the Hitlers, the lynchers, the mass-murderers as much as it was for me. Because they, too, are Children of the Most High. And their Daddy is calling them Home, into His embrace, His love, and His astounding Grace.
Oh Death, where is your sting?
And with tears streaming down my face, as I feel the Father's heartache, His longing for His sons and daughters to come home I find, I want them to come home too. My brothers and sisters are lost, and my Daddy waits for them in heartache and great love, watching, waiting for them to return to His Love. And that is what I want for them to.
Oh Grace, what is this you've grown inside of me?
And how can they come home if they don't know of their brokenness and need for redemption? And who will tell them, if it is not me and my fellow princesses and princes who go and show them what is this Good News? Death; is dead! The grave is overcome! The time for hurting is past, the time for healing has come!
How far does love win?
And I wonder in hope and expectation, who will I meet when I get to heaven someday? How far does love go? beyond the grave? This great mystery, to me bring a hope that perhaps, someday, in the presence of the One who's love knows no end, I will see my brothers and sisters who are lost and have taken life standing side by side in communion with those they have oppressed. Oh what a day that would be! That death and his dealers would be cast into an empty place- because love has redeemed! What if when Jesus died, He paid for all of the sin of the world? Past, present, future. What if we get a chance as we cross from this realm into eternity, as we see the face of our Lover and our Friend, to chose Him still?
Oh what a sight that would be!
Because Justice, I think, is not seeing the oppressor, "get what's coming to him." Justice, perhaps, is seeing the oppressor and the oppressed standing on even grounds. The ending of violence, justified or not; perhaps this is the secret Justice longs to share.
And maybe I am a dreamer, but maybe I dream with the One who teaches me first to love.
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