The Color Green

I’m pretty sure that last night at buffalo wild wings we, (kind of reunion gathering) in fact experienced a little taste of what heaven will be like. There were two who gathered with us from out of town. When we saw them, even before we began to converse, I had a sense of home. At home you feel it is ok, to sit in the big comfy chair that sinks perfectly to the right aaahhhh!!! factor. At home it’s warm, and you can take your shoes off and feel the stress from the day melt off your heart, body and mind. At home, you are known. (No worries we weren't kicking off our shoes in the restaurant.)I think this is just a little taste of heaven, of our true home. There’s more too it even then that, but I feel sure that there, in that gathering of friends, I tasted a bit of what being home. . . of what truly being home will be like.

God you don’t show up when I think you should, the truth of it is, you never leave. You have said it in your word, you made a promise, it says that you would never leave us or forsake us. Why do we, when for some reason You feel far away, think you have stepped away from us. It is us that have chosen to make ourselves distant from You, not the other way around. Part of it is that because we can’t see you, we don’t understand how we are supposed to pursue a relationship with You. Here are some every day chose’s we can make in faith, (because faith is belief in someone or something not seen) we can choose to make time in every day to talk to God (prayer) and listen to Him (His Word) these simple actions are just disciplines to choose to intentionally know who God is better. there are other disciplines too, they are not the way we become more Godly then others or the way we get what we want, these disciplines are a way to be intentional about getting to know our God, savor, the one who di...

Ingrid Michaelson “Are we there yet” Home, is it here in this place? But no, we aren’t home are we. Some times we get glimpses of home, like faded memories of a place we visited once when we were young. What is it like I wonder our home? Home, I think is a place where we are known, even more then we know ourselves. Being known so deeply will free us of ourselves so much so that we will be able to understand that home is not a place, but a relationship, with the one who knows us and created us and wants us to want Him.

How had I come to believe, that the deep things of my heart and mind were not important? Who told me they didn’t care about the things I was feeling or thinking about? The truth of the matter was, that no one actually said I don’t care about what you think or feel, they just never bothered to ask. Never being asked is another way to let someone know that they are not valued. In response to some of the most important people in my life not bothering to pursue my young heart and mind, I believed I had nothing to offer or give that would be of any value to anyone else. I believed I was stupid. I heard it over and over in my heart and head with out a second of doubt of its truth. Not until my twenty sixth year did the truth that I believed about myself reveal it’s self as a lie. There were six of us who met each week, five younger women and our leader, a woman the five of us had approached to ask if she would be willing to let us learn from her and be mentored and guided ...

I stood there at the foot of the stairs looking straight up. I felt the familiar feeling of vertigo hit. It was a steel gray structure and it loomed up to intimidate me. It was known as the fire tower. My knee twanged in pain just to remind me that climbing a tower of stares was maybe not the greatest of ideas. Stupid knee, I thought to myself, you’re not going to stop me from taking in the tops of those trees and hills. Slowly I began to climb, on the 4th platform of stares the structure seemed to be swaying in the breeze; slow and steady wins the race I reminded the inner dialog of my head. The sun was on its way to the ground where it sets and I stopped a few times to just take in the view around me. The top of the fire tower was red, yellow and littered with people’s messages and initials. I took pictures and stood still. Up there, it was quiet . . . except for the cicadas in the tree tops. The wind blew and tossed my hair from my face. I took in deep breaths. I felt my spirit rest...

What is the best way to pursue your heart? And if I do will you let me in? This is a new thing for me; you might say that it requires some effort. As I wonder if I should walk into this new thing, I am aware of something about myself that I wasn’t before. When I’m just getting to know someone, specifically men, it is not easy for me to ask questions on the fly. So will you please be patent with me, while I, like a nerd reach for my list of questions that I have spent time writing down for the next time we speak. I hope you like playing twenty questions.

Sometimes I wonder why I lose hope so easily. Is it because we live in a world of hopeless circumstances a world where there is so much pain and hurt. But wait, there is always still hope. Do I choose to see it? Because hope will always still be there and that hope is the Grace of Jesus Christ. When we fail, He doesn’t fail to pour out His grace on us. Do we extend that grace to others? How can we, if we don’t trust the work of salvation in our own lives? And so as I tap away on this here key board, I wonder to myself, what does it look like for us,to chose to except and trust, what He has done for us.