stubborn-ness

Papa Dave Manley put me onto an incredible poet who has stirred my heart the last couple of days....

Here are some thoughts.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

My own heart let me more have pity on...

Leave comfort root-room; let joy size

At God knows when to God know what; whose smile

's not wrung, see you: unforseen times rather...

I am becoming more and more aware that it is not only the joy of God and the comfort of God that come at unforseen times. God's coming is always unforseen, I think...the reason? If I was to roll the dice and take a guess:

Is it possible that if He gave us anything much in the way of advance warning, (that He was coming to specifically look in our eyes and deal with our hearts...and not just give us a great mission to go on) that more often than not we would have made ourselves scarce long before He got there... sigh...let me share an unforseen moment in a poem...

Ranier Maria Rilke writes a poem called 'The Man Watching':

I can tell by the way the trees beat, after
so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes
that a storm is coming,
and I hear the far-off fields say things
I can't bear without a friend,
I can't love without a sister

The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on
across the woods and across time,
and the world looks as if it had no age:
the landscape like a line in the psalm book,
is seriousness and weight and eternity.

What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights us is so great!
If only we would let ourselves be dominated
as things do by some immense storm,
we would become strong too, and not need names.

When we win it's with small things,
and the triumph itself makes us small.
What is extraordinary and eternal
does not want to be bent by us.
I mean the Angel who appeared
to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:
when the wrestler's sinews
grew long like metal strings,
he felt them under his fingers
like chords of deep music.

Whoever was beaten by this Angel
(who often simply declined the fight)
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand,
that kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings.

It is really incredible...the places that God chooses to speak...When I read this poem...I had a feeling He had hijacked me...and I couldn't get away...despite my own stubbornness.

Sophocles said, “It is not wisdom, but foolishness, that is stubborn. Look at the trees. By embracing the movements of the tempest they preserve their tender branches; but if they rear against the wind they are carried off, roots and all.”

How often are the "valleys", "dark times", "low points", "wilderness'" of our lives are simply the coming of Jesus to our side? And in the middle of them do we/I embrace the movements of the tempest, or just stubbornly rear my head and heart against the wind...in an effort to prove my strength, calling, independence, holiness, faith (pick your own word)?

What are you saying??? Well...on a personal Note...

Have I been Jacob, longing for God's blessing, but in my own time, on my own terms, trying to pry it from His hand?

Is this how I grow - as a person, a man, a leader, a son - by being defeated, decisively, by constantly wrestling with greater beings? Not by mastering theology or the strategic requirement for planting a mega-church...but by being thrown to the ground and held there, face mashed against the dirt, breath knocked out of me, gasping for air, ligaments straining, muscles burning, joints coming out of joint...tearing loose.

Scott and I were chatting about Jacob the other night...and the thought that I went to sleep with that night was the according to the biblical story, it was after wrestling till dawn that he walked away with God's blessing.

But he walked away with a limp.

And he walked that way for the rest of his life. What would have happened had he just surrendered? (and why do we make this story our spiritual energy bar as if God was a tight fisted grandpa and we the neglected child...trying to pry a quarter out of His closed hand???? and those who do have truly met with God...just a thought.)

I am discovering something...for me...Burnaby has become a question. "bend or be broken". God has come to me like a terrifying storm, like a wrestler jumping me from behind and overpowering me. In the fury of the storm...I am asked that question..."bend or be broken?"

How many of us are in the middle of a great wilderness...shouting, where are you God? When really, He is the wilderness - a place where the 'comfortable distractions' of life are stripped away...and we are wrestling with Him for the title deed to our hearts...sigh.

I am in the grip of the great contender...the divine wrestler...who is forcing me to decide...surrender and go away limping...or keep struggling and maybe never get up and go anywhere at all.

The images of Ranier's poem have burned themselves into my heart. I can see that it IS God who is wrestling with me. In all my searching for Him...He is right there...in my face...grappling with me. And it is me who forces him to throw me to the ground...dislocate my hip...and in dislocating my hip, He teaches me to cling. In making me limp, He teaches me to lean...not on my strength, my gifts, my abilities...not on my own two legs...but on Him. I want to learn to bend with the wind...and not define myself by how strong I can be, how much I can take, how big, tough, wise...I am...what pride eats at my soul that has convinced me that this is the path to life?

Why does this stir my heart till tears run races down my cheeks? Probably cuz its true.

in the wilderness.

j

Draw Me Close

So last night i went with a friend from work to this meet up group where we discussed forgiveness. I loved the experience, and I long for more experiences like this. Sitting around the table in the tiny room at JJBean was such a diverse array of people. Like I said the subject was forgiveness and everyone had thoughts, questions, experiences that they came ready to share.

Now i've been in these sort of conversations before, but they've always been with Christians, or in Christian environments. And as I'm listening to everyone wrestle with what forgiveness is and what forgiveness expects... or does it expect anything, God wasn't mentioned once. But you know what, even in the mention of the word, I felt Him there. I felt him in the gentleman who couldn't get the words out of what happened to him, but the fact that he was considering forgiveness. I felt him in the girl who was nearly killed a couple of months ago by a man she was dating who was beginning to live again by forgiving. I felt him as the woman wrestled with not wanting to forgive, but hearing the hope and life that comes from it.

We all did an exercise where we read out loud something we had written to someone who had hurt us and we were working on forgiving. I talked about how my dad made me feel when he left and found a new family, i talked about how it made me doubt a lot of my childhood, and how it made me so insecure in all of and any of my relationships. I talked about cutting another one of the strings that binds me to him, I talked about forgiving even if he doesn't change, and taking back hope and living and loving and giving of myself to those I love and trust.

After we wrapped everything up the oldest gentleman in the room, probably in his mid-fifties- who had talked about how he had left his wife and children for something different and how he misses them and wishes he hadn't made that mistake, walked up to me. This very moment was one of the most beautiful things i've experienced here in Vancouver. He looked me straight in the eyes and said, "I'm sorry". Oh Jesus, thank you for being there in this man. I think it was something he needed to say to his family, who i represented, and the exact thing i needed to hear from my dad, who he represented. He went on to say I deserve happiness and encouraged me to keep on this path of forgiveness.

I know this experience is something that will stay with me forever, I know God is using it in my life as i daily choose to forgive others. It brings me to tears how present He was there, how He held an alter call in my heart in this very secular conversation. I believe more than anything that last night each of us in that room were being drawn closer and closer to Him... without even saying His name. Oh Jesus, thank you.

sunny and 13 degrees on burnaby mountain..

what does a mom of two do on a pro-d day when it's sunny and plus 13?

pretty much takes it ALL in on her bedroom deck, while the kiddies bounce on the trampoline in the backyard..oh ya... :)

Thoughts on Lent...

In many cultures there is an ancient custom of giving a tenth of each year's income to some holy use. For Christians, to observe the forty days of Lent is to do the same thing with roughly a tenth of each year's days. After being baptized by John in the river Jordan, Jesus went off alone into the wilderness where he spent forty days asking himself the question what it meant to be "Jesus".

During Lent (it started on Feb. 6th and ends on March 22nd), I think it is an opportunity for us as Christians to do the same. What does it mean to be who we are?

AND I MEAN TRULY ASK IT. Can you give the next 10 mins or so and ask some questions?

If you had bet everything you have on whether there is a God or whether there isn't, which side would get your money and why?

When you look at your face in the mirror, what do you see in it that you most like and what do you see in it that you most deplore...and maybe try to hide from?

If you had only one last message to leave to the handful of people that are most important to you, what would it be in twenty-five words or less?

Of all the things you have done in your life, which is the one that you would most like to undo? Which is the one that makes you happiest to remember?

Is there any person in the world, or any cause, that, if circumstances called for it, you would be willing to die for?

If this were the last day of your life, what would you do with it? Think about it.

To hear yourself try to answer questions like these is to begin to hear something not only of who you are but of both what you are becoming and what you are failing to become.

What do you use as a means of escape? You know...avoiding these feelings...and running from questions like these?

Religion?

Ministry?

Pornography?

Busy-ness?

Entertainment?

Sports?

Drugs?

Isolation?

Friends?

...stay busy...stay distracted...stay moving...dodging, moving, avoiding, running...we all do it...can we slow down and look?

I know that it can be disturbing and depressing all in all, but...and its a BIG BUT...if sackcloth and ashes are at the start of it, something like Easter may be at the end.

Can I challenge you to take some time and look in the mirror? Cuz honestly...if we are not honest with who we are and where we are at...we cannot ask Jesus to take us any farther.

thoughts?

j

a singing passer-by-er...and me

so i'm up in my room, emptying out the last suitcase, thinking it's already 11am and i should probably get dressed, and out of the silence i hear this loud singing voice outside my bedroom window, that faces the street.

i glance out, wondering what, or rather WHO is singing...

there he stands, a busee (i just made that up..you know, those of our population who take buses :)...) walking to the busstop a few yards down, singing quite loud, with no reservations.

wow, i thought. how often are we so conscious of what people think...and here is mr busee, singing a happy song, in his mother tongue of spanish, i might add..and he doesn't give a rip if someone else thinks he's on crack. :)

i think it was a good reminder for me to live today like you have no tomorrow..life is short to fret about the little things we fret about.

carpe diem, my friends!!

tracey
xo

two weeks in saskatchewan

jonathan, caleb, rosie and myself had the priviledge of heading to saskatchewan for 2weeks. i got to shoot amanda and kirk's wedding..doula for my darling friend, kimmy's birth..spend 2 weeks with our "cousins"!!...took some fun photos...took caleb and rosie and their 14 friends out for pizza and bowling...see some familiar faces.. it was nice.

so check out my blog for some of the pics i took while i was away..i will be posting more up in the next day or so.. :)

www.traceylheppnerphotography.blogspot.com
bless ya bunches!
tracey

Waiting...

Good morning friends and family.
This is another updated letter of what is happening in my life regarding NHOP. I have been in contact with them about the Nazarite program, and just yesterday they informed me that since a lack of applications, they have postponed it to a date that is more suitable for young adults to be involved. So the program is going to run in Sept. They said, if I was still interested in going in Sept, I am accepted to go. I have decided to go in Sept. I am only going to work part time in Swift Current and I’m going help the local church in Herbert, and do ministry with the Jr. High girls since it is needed. In August, I will be part of Street Invaders, and then right after I would go to Ottawa, since it is still heavy on my heart.
Emotionally…I have been grieving for a week, because I was informed by the NHOP a week ago that they didn’t have enough to make the program run. So, they gave it a week to see if people would apply. Yesterday was when I found out that it fell through. I don’t know what else to do but just live.
Through all of this, I think God is going to show me a lot of things in the duration of this waiting period…(again). I need to remind myself that is this out of my control and all I can do is trust God.
I have chosen that no matter where I go, I will serve and help out where needed. I thank you for your prayers and for your support. And I will keep you updated on my life. If you have questions, I would love to answer them. I’m a little numb so I don’t know what else to say. Thank you.

His love

I’m reading through a lent devotional called ‘Reliving the Passion’. I’m on the eleventh day. The passage for today is Mark 14:22-25.

“The Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed…

“The love of Jesus is utterly unaccountable – except that he is God and God is love. It has no cause in us. It reacts to, or repays, or rewards just nothing in us. It is beyond human measure, beyond human comprehension. It takes my breath away…

“The Lord Jesus, the same night that he was betrayed, took bread.

“Oh let us murmur those words, the same night, with awe. For who among us can hear them just before receiving the gift of Christ’s intimacy and not be overcome with wonder, stunned at such astonishing love?

“In the night when his people betrayed him – the night of intensest enmity – the dear Lord Jesus said, ‘This is my blood of the covenant, poured out for many.’ Then! Can we comprehend the joining of two such extremes, the good & evil together? In the night of gravest human treachery he gave the gift of himself. And the giving has never ceased…

“This is a love past human expectation. This is beyond all human deserving. This, therefore, is a love so celestial that it shall endure long & longer than we do. This is grace.”

Wow! Will I ever understand the depths of His love… I hope so… I really do.

Coffee and the Holy Spirit

Once again I question whether coffee and the holy spirit are closely related.:) But this morning I woke up and while drinking my coffee I had this thought.
My life has not changed since yesterday. At least that I can see with my own eyes. But sometimes I pray that God will change me while I sleep. Change my mind. Work in my spirit. Draw me out and closer to him. Give some hope where there is none.
Like I said..not much outwardly has changed. But here is the thought that for the moment is giving me light where I on my own I am not sure I could find it. Thank-you coffee..! I mean thank you Jesus! :) double:)
THE THOUGHT..
If I wait until my circumstances change for Jesus to change my heart..or give me his joy or his love for people, or love for myself I could be waiting for a while. Do I have to wait? Does my joy depend on my circumstances? Do I have to WAIT for joy until my circumstances change? What a waste of time. I can't wait that long. I will die of the fight and the exhaustion of discouragement and whatever else.
There must be a reason why God included in his bible
" The joy of the Lord is your strength". I don't imagine it was because Joy is hard to find when everything is going well...or when you ALREADY HAVE IT. It must be because when you can't find it...we probably need it most. For and in every circumstance even the bad ones that show no sign of changing anytime soon.
Lord have mercy.. and today may the joy of the Lord be your strength..and mine..and yours..and mine...and yours.............and mine........breathing deeper...it's going to be o.k.
my heart. t