Releasing a New Catalyst

The life-long journey to happiness...

this tightrope walk has been quite the balancing act and at times seemingly impossible.  

To keep things in perfect balance so that my boat is never rocked. To place things in perfect, uninterrupted order. To work hard and make good choices with this underlying layer of a need to be showered with praise that in turn will fill up some insecure emptiness that dwells deep within. Somewhere along the line I decided that the approval of others and the high of a job well done was all that was worth living for and became the goal of my existence. The catalyst of my happiness. But when the heat turns up, the pressure presses in, and my humanness is in full effect...when I'm making mistakes and my equilibrium is lost where am I left? It's too easy to fail and to fall and to let emotions bump and bruise the tender flesh of my ego. The darkness begins to set in around me as I scramble to fix myself...to do better...to be better. But in spite of all my best intentions I'm forced to admit the hard truth...that I can't. The unraveling, the undoing in the secret place of my tightly wound self is the only place truth can begin. It's not in the striving or the threatening choke-hold of my will, although that is, admittedly, how I deal with my shortcomings. It's in surrendering. But surrendering is not a passive action...it's not weak...it's not a grovelling tail-between-my-legs thing...it's not the end. Maybe it's actually the moving from living within set parameters dictated by a broken world to living beyond human abilities. Into the realm of impossible...humanly impossible...unchartered waters where few have dared to set sail. Surrendering to a God who promises to be everything that I am not. Strength in weakness, beauty in ashes, righteousness in sin. No matter my failures the river of acceptance and approval, the fountain of joy and true contentment forever flows and my cup runneth over! But I must choose to surrender to the current and stop trying to swim up-stream. The happiness and joy I seek is not in striving against the current where I always seem to be pulled under by the tow...it's in the refreshing of the new streams found down the course. In the waters I don't know how to navigate yet. In the twists and turns I can't see, let alone can map out and plan for. Maybe there is a life and purpose to be unlocked in those twists and turns, if only I'll stop resisting them.
Along with surrender follows a similar vein in the heartbeat of happiness. And it beats to the rhythm of a familiar pulse. A familiar sound...the sound of my own voice. My heart and my mouth, though physically separate, are one in spirit. What is my mouth telling my heart? Life and death rest at the tip of my tongue...which am I choosing to release? Which am I allowing to move me along? Set that firm foundation of joy on that bedrock of life. Be silent when death tries to rise up...don't let it wreak havoc even if it tastes sweet. Instead open your mouth wide, and raise your voice with the song of life!

And if this life-song is not a part of your familiar repertoire, if you don't know the tune let alone the lyrics there's only one place to start...be still. Still in the presence of the One who longs to lavish you with a fierce and unrelenting love. Letting your heart pick up on the new vibration. And find lasting and true joy through a different catalyst. Trade the fickle crowd for the One who is sold-out in love with you...who has only ever thought beautiful and lasting thoughts of you. Ask Holy Spirit to teach you the song of life...to play you the love song of your life. Listen closely cause this one was written just for you. It's playing in your key...it was written specifically with you in mind. And as you, by faith, begin to sing it out you will find the notes not only bring the joy your crave, but in the deep and unfamiliar waters, it saves the life you live.





(see pictures at http://www.pinterest.com/pin/98938523039473959/ http://www.pinterest.com/pin/98938523039473963/)

Releasing My Map

I'm a planner, organizer and fantasist.  

Mapping out the road to my life as I expect it...as looks fitting. 

I've learned to adjust and recalculate at times...as necessary...but usually not without a battle within.  

When the twists and turns dizzy me and a season has provided more detours than I can keep count I find my map making less and less sense.  As confusion sets in, the fear mounts.  I'm lost!  And I can hear the voice of my GPS repeating, grating at my nerves: when it's safe, please turn around.  I keep checking the rear-view mirror, but it's not safe...it's never safe to turn around.  Or maybe it is...but truth be told, I fear living the safe life.   To head back to where I've been...to risk getting stuck there.  Missing out on more, just to be safe.  I want to move forward...keep going but this road is not familiar...and I'm learning that my ability to let go and follow the path blindfolded, by faith alone,  is not my forte.  

Hot and fighting I power off the GPS.  I'm scared...but even more so I'm offended.  I've seen others go down this same road with no bumps, no detours, no cross-roads to navigate.

I make a sharp right hand turn...I don't know why but I do it anyway.  The road is dark and I can't see more than 2 feet in front of me.  

Suddenly my car thrusts me forward...I've hit something and I can't move.  

As I get out and smell the smoke from the mangled engine I see a sign nailed to a large wooden post marked DEAD END.  I look to the left and right...what to do?  I look up...and there it is.  Close to the top of this wooden post is a cross-beam.  Then it hits me....the end of this road is marked with a cross.  

I look at the sign again...touch it with my hand and as my fingers brush over it's surface the letters smear... revealing something new underneath...something I couldn't see before.  New words...new meaning.  What I saw as a DEAD END now reads DEATH ENDS HERE in red cap letters.  But what does it mean?  

In that instant, my eyes flood with light...and there before me stands a man.  He hands me something...it's a map.  It's my map...carefully drawn and thought out but filled with paths of frustration, limitations and dog-eared from the wear and tear of the years.  My tired little map.  

As I look up to ask the man where he got my map, he hands me 2 more items...a hammer and a nail.  He leans against the post, his shoulder touching the sign...I read it again DEATH ENDS HERE.  

Give it up right here, he says.  Nail that map and everything that's tied to it - all your expectations, confusion, fear, offences and uncertainty - to the cross.  It's the end of this road.  Give it up and I'll show you something new.  

I take one last look at my well intentioned, planned out journey.  There was a day it looked really good...shiny and new, exciting, methodical...and yes, safe.  But in this light it didn't look quite good enough any more.  

With 2 swift blows I nailed it all to where it belonged.  I dropped the hammer, and with empty hands and eyes fully open I looked up and I recognized Him...it was Jesus.  

That's my girl, He said.   He pulled out a compass, looked up, waited and then nodded.  

Are you ready? He asked.  

Ready for what? 

To begin! 

I stared not knowing what to say. 

This is the beginning, my Love.  The beginning to live life abundant.  In case you didn't notice, death ends here.  I have so much more for you that you could never fit on that little map. I know stuff you don't...and I will lead you where you would never go on your own. Beyond the well travelled road.  Beyond this point.  The road ends here...death ends here. Let's go LIVE. 

We walked forward, beyond what I thought was a DEAD END.   

Beyond the boarders of my little map is where I began to live.

John 10:10 (AMP)

The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy.  I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows). 

Isaiah 55:8-9 (AMP)

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.

(see pictures at http://www.pinterest.com/pin/98938523039399472/  http://www.pinterest.com/pin/98938523039399470/  http://www.pinterest.com/pin/98938523039399464/)

Releasing the Joshua Linger

In the aching to be filled...the longing to know.  To be found immersed and woven into something greater and deeper than the perception of my experience.  After years of pressing in on what felt like bedrock...to now be pulled under like quick sand...intoxicated by the goodness and revelation of this place...This is the fruit of  the Joshua Linger.

That deep desire to want more...to experience more of Him even if it's just the AFTERWARD in the atmosphere that's left after His presence has rested.  Even the leftovers is enough to keep me on my knees and undone...lingering.

The understudy to a legend. A young man. Aware of his standing...but filled with a longing for more of God's presence.  Post-glory...the aftermath of a holy meeting, Moses and his Maker in the tent of the fullness of the Almighty.  AFTERWARD.  Joshua would linger.  Smell the remnants in the air.  Taste the leftovers...touch even just the perimeter of His glory...the hem. It was enough. (Exodus 33:11)

Twelve years a slave to the hemorrhaging in her body. She was of low standing.  As low as the dirt she groveled in.  A woman...and unclean by societal standards.    Hope had not shown it's face in her town...no help from any human hand.  She was desperate and willing to take a chance.  Moved to the beat of her heart...just to get close to Him.   She pressed through the crowd...pressed in to where he passed by.  She stretched and reached and grabbed a hold of all she could...down in the dirt...the hem of his garment.  A few threads she could grasp at...but linger, even if only from a distance, was worth it.  Was enough to change EVERYTHING.  (Mark 5:25-29)

Pull me under as I linger, God.  I know my worth without you is fleeting and I long for more.  Your presence overwhelms me.  Even if just the errant fibers of your glory.  And as I linger and wait in the AFTERWARD...as I press in and breathe in where you are, my lacking morphs to overflowing, and the AFTERWARD becomes my ever present NOW of peace and healing, joy and fullness. You delight in changing it all...you delight in me! (Zephaniah 3:17).

The fruit of the Joshua Linger is always worth it...in the stillness...in the wait.  Even in His AFTERWARD...His footprint...His back...His hem holds more than enough to fill me to bubbling over. 

(see picture at http://www.pinterest.com/pin/98938523038825368/)

Releasing the King's Daughter

The King's daughter. The royal one.  Possessing full access to freedom and authority under daddy's name. Yet shackled, I sit observing life outside the prison tower window.  From afar I watch and wish and waste away.

I laugh at the irony of  fables...at Cinderella's ignorance to her worth.  I scoff at her story and wonder why she didn't just walk straight out?  But I opened my mouth to speak these words only to swallow them back...hold them in my belly.  Digest the lies and live them as truth.  

I press my ear to the floor...I hear a stirring below.  Familiar words being spoken but I have no comprehension of them...that there is meaning in them...and that in the meaning something new could be birthed. The words get closer as the King ascends the prison tower and decrees my freedom.  He delivers a Truth...it delivers my spirit.

Deliverance...it can look like one word. One word of truth.  It only takes one truth to unravel a million lies.   One truth to release the poison churning in my belly.  A release to make room for the fullness of my identity.  But am I brave enough to give room for this release?  To be dizzied and spinning...no up from down...backwards over right side up to spew out the dark fowl lies.  The journey from  grovel to glory can burn like fire and smell like Satan himself.  But without this journey of being undone and right wrung I live in my cell digesting lies...self-establishing myself as an orphan.  My words hold power...whether truth or lies...and they determine my life or demise.

And the truth is: Freedom is my family name...it's my destiny. It is the key to unlocking my inheritance.  When I choose the lies and shame...when I choose doubt and fear I reject the gift I'm entitled to receive through my kinship... my inheritance.  Because the King's daughter receives all that is within his jurisdiction...and my daddy dwells in the land of joy, peace, love and yes, freedom.  The land of the living.

With speed and every last ounce of life in me, I tear down the spiral staircase of the prison tower my feet barely touching the floor...the tower crumbles around me as the lies are loosened...as my Spirit births the truth inside of me for new life to begin. The adventure is mine and Truth sets the path in this new and unfamiliar territory...what I can now call home...in the land of the living.

(see picture at http://www.pinterest.com/pin/98938523038764858/)

Releasing the Chief and Choice Part

The reverent and worshipful fear of the Lord is the beginning (the chief and choice part) 

of Wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight and understanding. 

Proverbs 9: 10 (AMP)

Wisdom, understanding, insight and knowledge.  On an honest and raw level, I am lacking.  Mutation of the biological is not the cause.  It's deeper and more unknown than that.  It's without the fullness of the Spirit that I can never truly be or know beyond the lacking.  The completeness which comes only from my Maker, my perfect Jesus, is the bread to fill me and and drink to water me and make me grow...to give me life.  

Sometimes my ego gets the better of me...I see all the things that I do know and all my abilities in comparison to the rest of the half lacking, raw and naked bag of bones that surround me...and I feel pretty good.  But when you compare yourself to dust it's easy to come out on top.  To compare imperfection to imperfection can make this black hole seem bearable...maybe even normal or desirable.  My imperfect and finite state is not all these ticking and moving moments are all about....these moments I call my life.  I long for something greater...a purpose...beyond this bag of bones covered in dust and dirt and maggots.

This finite and decaying world is limited in it's offerings.  Because all the things of this life are just that...dust!   So I start the quest for more....and not more dust but more of that which will never scatter and die...will never burn up...will last forever.  I want eyes that will see beyond the dust and bones in front of me.  Where my soul and heart become my vision...where I'm not limited by MY vision...I know my limitations...and I'm not ashamed to run after more.  My scope has to become someone else's though...someone who is not dust...  I want to see life from the spirit...insight and understanding unlike any bag of bones would ever see.

But where does this kind of living...insight...revelation begin?  How can a bag of bones know where to run or what to chase after?  How can the imperfect tap into the perfect...the fullness...the alpha and omega....beginning and end?  How do I not waste my limited mind on useless scattering things?  The reverent and worshipful fear of the Lord is the beginning... it's the chief and choice part (Proverbs 9:10 AMP)....it's the CHIEF and CHOICE PART!  Don't waste your effort on anything else.

But doesn't fear sound limiting?  And my Maker says be anxious about nothing (Philippians 4:6).  Can I trust this conundrum?  A conundrum of the flesh that rises up...that doesn't naturally rest in the shallow groove of the limited mind.  Dust can't fathom higher wisdom... love your enemy...turn the other cheek...God incarnate...born in a barn...bled on a cross...humbled himself before bags of bones.  Can such backward ways actually be right side up?  Can the dust have somehow scattered the truth...turned me into the center... the lies into truth turned fear into a weakness?  But THIS fear, this chief and choice part is based on reverence...on worship...on a bowing of the knee...a humbling of the self...because I know my standing, my place....my inadequacies.  And this fear is the beginning of Wisdom....the chief and choice part of wisdom.  The wisdom I knowingly lack...the wisdom I long for but has never been a part of this bag of bones...this scattering dust.

Confused and frustrated I drag this bag of bones through the dust of the wasteland...not realizing that confusion and frustration is not the truth but only the filter I use.  When you're limited in understanding, on the simple basis of not being the Almighty Creator, the author of eternal perfection and wisdom, it's easy to refuse to open your eyes and your ears to the Word that could maybe, just maybe, change it all.  Open you up to the chief and choice part...the point of all of it all...I don't want to miss this!

The choice is mine.  The response to this dare of sorts...this dare to live fully is mine to activate.  Do I respond to my Maker's simple instruction to tap into His eternal purpose?  Do I long for the beginning?  Because you can't reach the end with fullness and grace and wisdom by skipping over the beginning.  The chief and choice part.

(see pictures at http://www.pinterest.com/pin/98938523038543363/  http://www.pinterest.com/pin/98938523038543358/)

Releasing the Wild Scavenger

Scavenger: 

1. an animal, bird, or other organism that feeds on 
dead and rotting flesh or discarded food scraps

2. somebody who seeks or looks through discarded items 

in the hope of finding something usable**

(Encarta Dictionary)

The call of the crow lifted my eyes.  As if a beckon to my soul... all within me stopped... looked up.  It was the first time wildlife had called out to me... acknowledge my presence in months.  

In this wasteland of frozen, the presence of life has retreated to southern safety.  Leaving the remaining in danger's despair, the threat of death...we hide our life in layers, protecting... eyes down, heads bowed as the harsh pressed in.

The call of a wild scavenger.  Her call doesn't reach the height of  beauty and her colours equal this measure. But that is not the end of her story.  

I watch as she sits perched atop the tallest branch, confident in hope.  Hope for life, hope for spring.  Hope that regardless of her ranking among her fellow-feathered-fowl she has a right and a purpose to live...to call for my attention...for a lifting of eyes and faith.  As if she spoke the words of the Apostle:  Wake up O' Sleeper.  Rise from the dead and Christ will Shine on you (Ephesians 5:14).   

Hope sprang out from the mouth of the wild one...wild at heart...wild in nature.  In the midst of the lung catching, face biting freeze.  Daring me to be wild...wild in living...wild in hope...wild in love.  Wild in the face of these oppressive days.  Like the wild Creator that breathed breath and life and beauty into us both...both so differently but equally filled with passion in His created ones.

There's Life in the wild one...freedom as you care less about the rotting of the wasteland, the breakdown and the outer mess that seems to remain.  Where your song may not clip the ear of many and your colours may not demand a fan-following but the hope IN you can call forth life...more than the offerings of the wasteland...you can spark the same hope IN another.  

Hope IN you.....Christ IN you. The hope of glory. (Colossians 1:27)

The heart of the wild Scavenger**

(see picture at http://www.pinterest.com/pin/98938523038306964/)

Releasing the Blood Bond

I have her cheek bones...her sensitive heart...her genetics coursing through my veins.   

But it doesn't end there...that's only the beginning...of a bond that began in sync with the rhythm of my life.  

For 33 years she's poured out her heart...told me the same love story...our beginning. 

From the moment she laid eyes on me,  through a tiny crack in the curtain on the maternity ward...that blizzard of a March day ....she said she knew she was in love...even through the glass...even from the other room...her heart beat with mine.  

We skipped a generation, but never a heart beat.

Hearts beating...whispering a lullaby....lazy summer days up north...snuggling in the shade...she stroked my hair as I dozed.  I could hear her heart whispering ...

Hearts beating...whispering a song of hope...to a delicate soul.  Growing up... sensitive... misunderstood by most. It wasn't their fault...I was different.  But patiently, she always took the time...opened the door...her arms...her heart.  Wiped the tears...spoke truth to the tears...gave a part of herself...generously.

Hearts beating...whispering encouragement...helping my heart to beat...always.  Through darkest days...through new adventures...through creative outpouring.  Always there...with a heart open.  Feeding a young soul that seems to age too quickly...but her soul never ages....her love always grows...the bond never breaks.

My heart still beats with hers...my heart whispers our story...two spirits with different narratives but a common vein...an understanding...a deep love...a bond as thick as the blood between us.

(see picture at http://pinterest.com/pin/98938523036898972/)


Happy 80th Birthday, Grandma!  Although many years apart, you are my true kindred spirit and I will forever be grateful for the special bond we have always had.  I celebrate your amazing life today and wish you all the joy, peace and love that you deserve.

Love your Jenny xoxo