why my shirt said "love"

"If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do that...but love your enemies, and do good, expecting nothing in return..."

(Luke 6:32ish)

i wore my "love" shirt yesterday, specifically and intentionally. because i woke up frustrated. i woke up thinking about this verse, thinking about my heart, and remembering the ease of love in jamaica. it is easy to love in jamaica, and i fall quickly into it. it is not so easy here. here is where real life happens. here is where the longevity of my love is tested--where i see if i am truly patient and kind; if i truly turn my heart against envy and pride and any sort of selfishness [hint: i'm not and i don't, but i'm working on it]. and this is the place where i see and overthink and analyze and attempt to discern the "love" around me.

i wore my "love" shirt yesterday, specifically and intentionally. the one with the flowers and the dove and the word "love" spelled out, front and center, to hold myself to some sort of higher standard. because i have decided to be about love. i have decided to be about Jesus, who embodies all that love is: patience, kindness, goodness, humility, selflessness, gentleness, forgiveness, grace, meekness, reconciliation, and on and on and on. i have a different standard to live by. and so does anybody who claims to be about Jesus. we are not called to get there apart from Him, but we are called to a new and different standard:

one that asks that i open myself to a world besides my own. it asks that i engage in conversation, that i listen, that i respond selflessly, patiently, with humility and kindness
(and for more than ten days in jamaica)
(and for more than two weeks in africa)
(and for more than the twenty minute difficult phone conversation each month)
(or the visit to difficult family members).

it's a life lived toward a new standard, worked out in day-to-day life, when friends annoy you, or conversations wound you, when you want to scream and cry and punch somebody in the face, but you choose to love instead.

i wore my "love" shirt, specifically and intentionally, because i'm not quite there and i just needed a little reminder.

{in love, there is freedom}

"We must move away from asking God to take care of the things that are breaking our hearts to praying about the things that are breaking God's heart."

- Margaret Gibb

why i write (how i pray)

i don't quite remember when i started to write for my soul. probably somewhere around the time that i started to seriously consider Jesus. sometime after my "dear diary" notes about my ultra-crush on justin jones. after my winnie the pooh phase. sometime before now. i have evidence of this stacked high in an old oak trunk in my bedroom in northern california. pages and pages are added with every visit home. by now, there must be thousands.

i could never quite figure out why i love to write. my introverted side uses it as a tool to process before my extroverted side explodes the words from my mouth. my input side likes to collect phrases and stories. my crazy-brain loves it for the focus and attention it requires. my heart loves it for the clarity it provides. more than those things, though, i write (and love to write) because it is the purest and most creative worship that i can bring.

i've never been great at traditional prayer, or at least my perception of it. i can't sit still long enough, i twiddle my fingers too much and, with nothing grounding me to my thoughts, they come and go within seconds. i thought that was the only way to pray.

enter: writing. writing is my creative and prayerful worship. from scribbled notes on unlined paper and doodled truths, to letters written on a vintage typewriter--i meet with YHWH on those pages. give me the chance to put pen to paper and suddenly, stillness of heart and mind, openness to the Lord. the pages of my journal are full of Divine-human interaction (isn't that at the heart of prayer??). you can read my heart's transformation from cover-to-cover. you can see praise and hope and longing and the ongoing process of change.

i write my dreams--the dreams placed intentionally in my heart by the Lord. i write my hopes. i write my struggles. i document the way that the Lord speaks into these things, changes them and uses them by showing me Himself. david danced before the Lord; that was prayer. he wrote psalms that we pray, even to this day. i write because of the Lord, with the Lord, for the Lord; that is my prayer. certainly not the only form, but the one i love most.

how do you love to pray?

"You are called into prayer either that you might collaborate with Him in bringing His will to pass, or that you might be able to get a larger vision of what He is like."

--John White//Daring to Draw Near

a legacy of grace

it's not very often that i get to sit down and study my bible. reading is one thing. i'm talking three different versions of text, books of commentary, my beloved "dictionary of biblical imagery" (thank you, intervarsity press...) study. it helps that it's gloomy and rainy outside and that i'm sharing the table with my studying roomie. i love these moments, this space, this togetherness. it is far too infrequent and more beautiful than i remember.

i have a lot of reasons to love Jesus and a lot of reasons to be convinced of His goodness.

here's one:

i love to read stories of the example of beautiful, strong, holy women who have come before me: to see the tenderness in their worship, the risks that they take in their adoration of Jesus, their bravery and strength and the grace that covers their lives. i'm thinking of the woman with the alabaster jar (luke 7), the widow offering her livelihood in the temple (mark 12), Ruth, Naomi, Rachel, Sarah; even Rahab, a prostitute and Mary Magdalene, the woman from whom seven demons came out. (common misconception: mary magdalene was not a prostitute and the Church finally apologized for turning her into one...) then, i think, even more immediate: my grandma, my mama, my mentors, my (almost) sisters, my best friends...

we were once broken. we were once prostitutes and adulterers, divorcees and abusers. addicts. skeptics. possessed. selfish perfectionists. our hearts were cold. we were poor and afraid. that was the story we entered into--our legacy and our destiny.

and then, Jesus said, over and over again, "your faith has set you free. go in peace." in front of us is a new legacy. pieces of our hearts (our very feminine and sometimes feminist hearts) come to life as we are no longer prostitutes or adulterers, divorcees or abusers. we're no longer addicts; our hearts are whole and free and rich in love. that is the power of Jesus' grace in abundance and the legacy of strength and grace that we are living in: beautiful, strong and holy women teaching us to live.

p.s. i think this goes without saying, but just in case: men live in Jesus' abundant grace, too. but i'm a woman, and that's the way it goes! :)

that's a lot of love!

(if only i weren't allergic...)

i will trust in Your unfailing love, my heart rejoices in Your salvation;

i will sing to the Lord, for He has been good to me.

Psalm 13

"Do you hear what I say? This is where dreams--dreams, do you understand--come to life, come real. Not daydreams: dreams."

CS Lewis//Voyage of the Dawn Treader

"For the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint; if it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late."

Habakkuk 2