thoughts from a sunday

 You couldn't spend your whole life in Campus Crusade for Christ,

or raise your daughter as a Promise Keeper,

or count on groups like the Moral Majority or the Christian Coalition

to sustain your belief system beyond the next election cycle.

For that kind of staying power you [need] a confessional tradition,

a church,

an institution capable of outlasting its charismatic founders.

-Ross Douthat, Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics

 

Wisdom lies in anchoring ourselves to the church

as the church is anchoed to Christ.

Across time and culture and trends,

the church remains.

-Peter Greer, Chris Horst, Mission Drift: The Unspoken Crisis Facing Leaders, Charities and Churches

 

Jesus Christ is building His church.  This gives me so much hope.  We are not building it.  He is. 
So when we fail, and people fail, and things and lives get broken, and solutions that seemed perfect don't work, when ministry is messy and discipleship is draining, He is still building and He is still extending grace and the Cross is still power to those who believe and His Word is still not returning void.

I am loving this song today.

 

I know there is poor and hideous suffering,

and I've seen the hungry and the guns that go to war.

I have lived pain, and my life can tell:

I only deepen the wound of the world when I neglect to give thanks

for early light dappled through leaves

and the heavy perfume of wild roses in early July

and the song of crickets on humid nights a

nd the rivers that run and the stars that rise and the rain that falls

and all the good things that a good God gives.

-Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts

Do You Want to Know?

Sometimes we don't want to know about pain.

It hurts too much.

It's too messy to get involved.

Why should you be responsible? asks Josh Wilson in his beautiful plea to open our eyes to see people as God sees them.

Once you see a world that's in need

and a sorrow you just can't ignore

your heart will break

and you'll lay awake

cause you'll know you could do so much more


Do you want to know?

Christ is Risen

I've been thinking a lot about Easter. . .

The empty grave has new significance for me this year. 

Daniel and I have always made a visual image of a tomb and Jesus' body for the kids on the days preceding Easter Sunday.  We wrap the little stick figure in perfume drenched white cloths.  We paint flowers on a tiny clay tomb.  We seal a stone over the door. 

And then, Easter morning we roll away that little stone and show them the linen cloth on the floor of the tomb.

He's not there! 

I am always so thankful at the remembrance of what He did for us.

This year, my heart thrills  at the remembrance of what He did.

That He defeated the grave is just so unthinkably staggering.

The more I listen to this song, the more I love it.

Christ is risen from the dead

He trampled over death by death

No scheme of hell

No scoffer's crown

No burden great

Can hold You down

In strength You reign

Christ is risen from the dead

Trampling over death by death

Come awake, come awake

O, church, come stand in the light

The glory of God has defeated the night

SMS Shine

Jacob and Cambria love this.

{Watch for the frog. It's Cambria's favorite part.}

Shelter

This is what we want our lives to be

our home to be

our hearts to be

refuge

shelter

safety

so that the hurting around us

will never walk alone.

Forgiveness (7 x 70)

I was driving through Lake of the Ozarks several weeks ago when I heard this song for the first time. Navigating unfamiliar roads, I frantically grabbed at a pen and post its so I could scribble down the artist and title.

What speaks to your heart through this song is that life is hard. Sometimes we're told that we shouldn't let hard stuff or cutting words or abandonment define us.  But that's kind of a joke, because hard stuff does make us who we are.  There usually isn't the option of just moving on or getting over it.

Tonight, besides our ever-popular {ever-patiently playing 10 games of UNO with JD and Cambria} Henry, we had another young man sharing our dinner table.  He spoke about a life that I can't even begin to imagine.

abandonment

little brothers and sisters torn apart by neglect, lost parental rights, adoption to different families

phone-call relationships with parents

unanswered questions

why didn't they care? 

That  kind of stuff does define you.

I love how Chris August writes (and sings) that forgiveness makes a way.  It doesn't erase;  it wraps around.

playlist replacement

So this week I am removing my playlist and posting our current top ten "songs."

Songs.

I need a better word.

Beautiful therapy?

Musical theology?

I don't know.

I'm posting two today, since I was a little busy yesterday with a pajama party for eight little girls.  {More on that later.}

The first, Hero, is the best way I can think of to decribe the Jesus I call God.

If you don't know this Jesus. . . listen.  This is the Man who loves you beyond anything your heart can yearn for.  He is amazing.

If you do know this Jesus. . . listen and remember why you love Him.

The second speaks so loudly to my heart right now. No one needs to have all the answers for pain and sorrow. . . but everyone needs someone to pray them through. My challenge to you: be the person who says if you fall down. . . let me carry you. . . I'll carry you. . .