2010 Day 1 - Change

I've made some changes and I have a new blog. You can find me here from now on ....

http://annsopendoor.wordpress.com/

Last day thoughts

Last day of the year.

Last page of Chapter 1.

A year of stretching - are those stretch marks I see. I will wear them willingly and hopefully with humility. Funny how through the years you think you have been through the hardest time of your life - over and over and over. Then comes another. Labor pains. Birthing the real you.

Birthing Christ.

Am I done? Dunno. But that's OK. As Father goes ever deeper I am ever free-er to be.

I'm so glad that God is faithful. That means I can be human. And it means that I will not forever be trapped in this humanity. I will certainly wear it in this time/space place but it will not always rule over me.

I actually wasn't going to share pictures of our Christmas at all this year. I especially didn't want to share my candle display. It's very special to me because it's the first time in all my adult years that the thing I did for Christmas was the thing that was in my heart.

Also because it’s a little cheesy – but that quiet voice inside me that keeps me coming back here won’t let it alone.

I warn you - what you are going to see in the pictures below IS kinda cheesy - but keep two things in mind. 1) I really didn't want to spend any money on decorations and 2) it's a prototype - the first such display. Now I know where I'm going .

This idea came to me from two places. It rang in my mind, it rang in my heart. I’m not saying that it will mean the same to you as it does to me. That’s OK. The Lord has a unique expression through each one.

The words from John Chapter 1.....

¹In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He was with God in the beginning.

³Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴In him was life, and that life was the light of men. ⁵The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood^[a] it.

⁶There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. ⁷He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. ⁸He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. ⁹The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.

¹⁰He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. ¹¹He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. ¹²Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— ¹³children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

¹⁴The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only,who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

And a little song learned ... maybe in my childhood - or maybe in the years I spent teaching Sunday School 30+ years ago. The words....

Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world.

Red and Yellow, Black and White, they are precious in his sight

Jesus loves the little children of the world.

The small lights are us in all our diversity basking in the greater light that is Jesus. Shining the same light that He shines.

Maybe His light is even for kitties - Honey loved sitting with us on Christmas morning, looking at the light of the candles.

This was not the first time that I had been captivated by the verses in John. They are old favorites. To me the fact that Christ came and brought light is the important thing. A study of the world light one time showed me that that word "light" means "vitality" - life force. He came to be my life force - He is my life force. I cannot imagine life without him.

He didn't just bring this for a few favored ones. He brought it for the whole world. Religion does not always work for everyone but everyone can receive this "life force" and let it live through them in their life what ever it may be.

I want to close this year with this thought ringing through all the parts of me.

He is my Light and my Life

Toward midnight Larry and I will meet by the fire and quietly commune with our God.

He is our Light and our Life.

This weekend we'll get together with friends and we will share - give AND receive - this Light and Life with them.

And so I share my candles.....

The following is from the Old Farmer's Almanac which I get all the time through email. I like to read the stuff they say about the seasons and the holidays. As I read it I thought about how as the years have gone by I have more and more wanted to find myself in a quiet place at midnight. Could it be that my spirit was longing to allow God to be the one taking me into a new year? Could it be that my spirit, without understanding, was trying to yield to his expression instead of the world around me? I like to think so and this year I will think of the words below and with greater understanding will let my mind be in agreement with what my spirit is drawn too.

From the Old Farmer's Almanac......

New Year’s Eve—December 31
Among the various superstitions surrounding the advent of the New Year is the nearly mandatory practice of noisemaking at midnight.

Now looked upon as mere revelry, it was once meant to drive out the old year and banish evil spirits, who would be scared off by the noise.

Many end-of-year practices actually date from ancient times. As early as 2600 B.C., Babylonians celebrated the new year with 11-day-long feasts and originated the noisemaking habit.

• In ancient Thailand, guns were fired to frighten off demons.
• In China, firecrackers routed the forces of darkness.
• In the early American colonies, the sounds of pistol shots rang through the air.

Today, Italians let their church bells peal, the Swiss beat drums and pots and pans, and North Americans sound sirens, car horns, boat whistles, and party horns—as well as set off fireworks—to bid the old year farewell.

The end of Chapter One

This year is almost over.

This is the year that I called Chapter One. We may be 50 somethings and we may have been married 35 years and we may have moved many times but even so..... it was right to call this year Chapter One.

This last month has epitomized what this year is about.

As Thanksgiving and Christmas approached we stopped to talk about starting over with these holidays. So many times down through the years these holidays have been subject to any thing other than what would be lifegiving to our own little family - for many reasons that I won't try to deal with. Yes, sometimes it was great - but a pattern of a great holiday followed by a not so great holiday gets old.

This year Larry and I talked about starting again. We talked about where WE want to go with these holidays. We walked in agreement with each other letting our hearts connect in purpose and direction. That's bigger than you might know, dear reader, and there is such hope and peace in that.

The other significant thing about these last two months is that God dug deeper into the deepest parts of me by turning my attention to the issue of shame. This was a hard one to tackle but absolutely necessary to understand why I could not seem to get over some things and why I kept reacting to people and words and situations. (I've concluded that I am a very, very deep person. : ) )

So I am here at the end of chapter one with a better understanding of hope.

I'm looking forward to chapter two.

Many years ago - like very early 90's God gave me this definition of faith:

******Faith is perceiving what God is doing in the spirit realm and joining him there.

Does that mean that if you join him there (where ever that is at the moment) then you are on a mountaintop experience? Or that you are resting beside still waters.

I say not necessarily.

I think that often there is a path to getting to those places that is part of that faith walk but has a flavor all it's own. And it can be a bit messy and stinky and all kinds of stuff like that.

Larry and I seem to have found ourselves on such a path at this point as Father once again digs deep into some areas that we, if left to ourselves, would probably just cover up or walk away from.

In times past I would have despaired at finding myself in this place. But now I know that this part of the process is just as much walking by faith as anything else that is walking by faith. We must go this way to get to the resting place.

Interesting - I just had a sensation of the still waters being right along beside me. And with that comes the understanding that they are there for me to access at anytime - even during the hardest moments the place of rest is right there with me.

So the destination is not the resting place but freedom? Yes, I think that's it. It's freedom from some shackles that we're after. And along the way we at least have times of rest if we are not yet able to do this from the place of rest.

But evidentally the rest is always with us. The quiet pasture.