Summer Setting

This is it. The last official weekend of summer. Can you believe it's already here? Me neither. I've always looked forward to the fall. A fresh start. New school supplies. New beginnings. This year autumn brings with it the biggest new beginning of my life - our marriage.

Our wedding is just a few short weeks away. I'm unbelievably excited. I can't wait to wear the gorgeous dress that's hanging ready and waiting in my closet. I can't wait to stand in front at the front of our church and vow to live my whole life before God with my husband. That's amazing. Sometimes when I think about it I can't breathe from the sheer wonder of it all. I mean, marriage seems a pretty daunting task when I forget that the glory of Jesus is the point, the Holy Spirit will be always with us and that God is out for our good always. This isn't about two people making a marriage work. It's about the most incredible picture of God and his church and his faithfulness towards us.

Possibility

I've been thinking a lot about community over the past few months, years, lifetime. There is this craving in my heart, my life to be a part of something bigger. I think it's part of what points me to Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit. We are called as the body of Christ, his church. I'm not called all alone to live life just as good as I can muster up to be until someday I scrape across the line and into heaven. There is so much more life to live. There is so much good news to tell. There's a story and we're in the middle of it, all of us together.

This is a video from Soma Communities. Watch it. It was life changing for me. One of their pastors, Caesar  Kalinowski, came to visit our church this week and we had the incredible honor of getting to talk to him about the Gospel and community, about living on mission and making disciples. My heart has never been more broken for community nor have I ever been so hopeful. The church and life and community as I've always dreamed that they could be has never seemed so far or so close.


Soma Communities - Tacoma, WA from Verge Network on Vimeo.

Yes, it will be nice!

We're getting married! It's basically the very best news, EVER.

I could not be more thrilled to be Justin's wife, to share our life together, to worship God together, to have a family and cultivate a home.

More Than Even

Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

 C.S. Lewis "The Weight of Glory"

I don't know about you but often I am ashamed to claim the promises of God. I am willing to admit I'm broken. I'll say I don't deserve to be saved. I'm a wretched sinner. That's easier because no one can come along and debunk my claim. If they look they will see that I am, in fact, deep down, a messed up, sinning, lying, black-hearted girl.

I'll say this, I've gotten more comfortable with claiming the grace of God by which I have been saved. I know that he sent Jesus to die and raise from the dead, conquering death once and for all that I might not die, but have life eternal with him. It's after that when I get bashful. Sure, I'm saved from hell, but can I proclaim that God not only saved me but desires and provided a way for abundant life for me?

I'm not claiming that I'll lead a hassle-free life. Suffering is part of the Christian deal. I'm saying that God did more than cancel my debt. He put on me the righteousness of Jesus. He is not ambivalent towards me as if I were just a person that didn't owe him anything, when he looks at me he rejoices over me as his daughter. It is so much more than setting things even and I want all that He has to give me.

Where are you too easily pleased?

Biting the bullet.

I've been lucky in that for many years I've been surrounded by people that know me very, very well. Sometimes that's wonderful because they know the context of all my stories, they know the characters of my life. Sometimes I have hated it because I can't hide. My face gives me away every time.

Recently, relationships have shifted. There are new characters in the primary plot line of life and some of the regulars are appearing less often. It's change at it's most fundamental. Even though it's been a tough adjustment in some places, I know that it's just as it should be in a lot of ways. 

I have a man in my life that's taking up a good deal of my time and emotional energy. He doesn't know all my stories yet. He doesn't know why one flippant comment from my mother can set me on edge or why seeing a rainbow in the sky completely makes my day. I realized just the other night that it will always be that way unless I start to tell him my stories - big and small. The small ones aren't hard - the time the chipmunk came up the toilet, the time I almost got thrown off a train in Slovakia in the middle of the night. It's the big stories that are hard. The ones that don't easily fit into conversation. The ones that aren't witty. I've been holding back a bit because I was scared to be vulnerable. 

Yesterday I bit the bullet. We sat on a blanket in the park and I told him parts of my hardest story. And you know what, it was ok. He heard me. He didn't run away or laugh at me. Being known may just be worth the risk.

Hope

Theodore Roosevelt said:

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

Too true. That's all we can do. My best efforts are limited by what I know today, my time, my resources, my talent and my sin. It doesn't end there, though. There is a great hope.

What I am today is not what I will be. What I know today is not all that I will know.  Someday all will be restored. All will be made new. All the painful things healed. All the wonderful things revealed for the shadow of great joy that they really are.

Philippians 1:6:

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Amen. Today, I rejoice in a life that is wonderful. I can't complain, but I look forward with great hope to the day when I can see him as he really is.

1 John 3:2

Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.