New Years Resolution

This is my resolution. This year will hold so many changes and surprises and beginnings and endings and as it stands now the colouring in of so much of our future. Though I don't want to think about it too much, this year will contain new pain and new struggles, worse, old struggles and old pain, and good things too: new adventures and new joys.

But God loves me in a special way and always speaks to me in fresh new ways. The image of a sea turtle is not exactly new for 2011 but it seems to be sticking. A little unusual, and I'm not exactly sure the practical application of this (God wants me to be a sea turtle?!) but I'm holding to it, and have some craft projects cooking in my mind. I have really wanted to do more abiding and by really going over who I am in Christ and asking Him how He sees me and why He loves me (and using that as my protective shell from getting defensive or hurt) who knows what life could look like?!

Happy New Year!

I am thankful for a time to set new goals, wash the slate clean and begin again...Especially because this year has ended leaving me feeling less than my best, wondering if I even have a best!

I hope to take some time this weekend or today to pray and write and work out what it is that God wants for my year- and how I can humanly accomplish some of that. I know that I don't want school to take over my life and yet still want God's will in that situation to be done, and for me to learn what it is He wanted me to learn. Who am I kidding? This year will probably be much like every other day and year: the challenging but rewarding following after God adventure, trying to stay on course with his pathways for my life. Maybe it is time again to take up the following prayer each morning:

I bind my mind to the mind of Christ
I bind my heart to the deep love of God
I bind my feet to the path you have called for my life
I bind my hands to receive all that you have for me and to bless all that they touch.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Advent week 3

Even though my mind hasn't been totally focused on advent I've been taking comfort and moments of silence to just dwell in the mystery of the Trinity.

Cathy Hardy, my spiritual director is a recording artist of taize style music, and this song of her album, "trust" came to mind this morning with those three candles lit: called "encircling"

The mighty three

My protection be

Encircling me

You are our home

My life my home

Encircling me

Oh Sacred three

The mighty three

advent week 2: bethlehem and preparation

Studying for finals. It is easy to think of how that relates to preparing. But, for some reason I've been picturing preparation to look more like 2 candles burning. One morning before a stressful practical exam I lit my advent log and sat beside it. There was some strength that I could draw from them, and what they meant- so close! So soon! Jesus!Hold on! Don't forget! He's coming!
Sometimes I could do all the preparing in the world for an exam, study everything I possibly could, and still it would be too late to make the information really stick in my head. Sometimes, and especially this week, preparing is about being vigilant. Keeping those two candles in my mind throughout the week...Remembering that there is something coming (or someone rather!) that will make all of this worth it.

And God. Tonight praying, I found myself really comforted by the request that HE goes on and prepares my future. We don't really need to worry about stepping out blindly, or going somewhere totally unknown. God has always gone before us; ahead of us. He is always preparing the right friends, the right home, the right jobs and schools. While I love to dream, my 5 year plans are a total joke. If God will guide me year by year than in most cases I'm able to jump right in, confident in the knowledge that He has already planned it out. He is already hiding, ready to step out and reveal His presence to me throughout my future experiences and days.

He sent Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, but He had already reserved them a room. He had gone waaay ahead to the Sages, and to the Shepherds, and to that messy dirty stable. I'm so confident that He left his fingerprints all over whenever Mary or Joseph felt defeated along the way. He had prepared a place.

I'm so thankful for a God that has way more "beaver" in Him than me, who cares enough about me to prepare and set up wonderful miraculous things in my future. Who is planning things even for my next week, and my tomorrow and my 80th birthday...And for yours too.

Advent week two: bethlehem and preparation

My true age is one of three: 4 years old, 16 years old or 100 years old.

Today and lately I've been feeling sixteen: young, with so much pushing to prove who I am and what I can do. Overwhelmed by a future that seems so impossible to picture or grow into. Stepping through puddles of sadness that don't have reason or sense (thanks hormones!)
...And I've been reacting more like a four year old: hiding under the covers and having a good cry. Needing David's reassurance over and over. Behaving plain selfishly and foolishly with, "I won't I won't!" 's in response to tasks needing to get done.
...Which may all be due to my age of one hundred: all I really want to do is sleep because I feel so tired.

This week has started off with so much reluctance on my part. A wish for everything to stand still- to slow down. To have the Christ Child HERE not journeying first to some place I don't want to go, and can't afford to go. All the while carrying a baby whose future I don't know how to prepare for.
I wish I had the discipline of Mary. Or maybe she was reluctant like me, needing much encouragement and carrying. But I think she must have had a better grasp on the "why". Why go there. Why now. Why her.
I'm still struggling to admit that my heart is not yet a suitable place. That it is still full of coldness and locks and diseases. That only by walking the path that God has set for me will He surprise me in the most unlikely and impossible of places. Only then will He reveal his holiness and glory and fill my deep deep aches.

Advent week 1: prophecy and hope reflections

This week started out with much: friends and late nights, chaos and kids, late starts and a boiling temper.
...It seems to be ending with surprise and forgiveness, humility and grace, hope and a future, mounds of homework and a birthday date.
God really opened my eyes this week to the hope that I may have in Him.
- Meetings and retest taking that I dreaded, turning out okay
- More birthday love than was expected for a school day thursday; and a special wink from Jesus saying, "I notice you"
- God's providence again and again; reassurance that this is His joy
- Hope and trust for our little one after massaging at the at-risk pregnancy hospital that previous weeks had thrown me into panic
- Opening my heart to being more honest with God in prayer, asking for his cleansing, knowing that I am holy because of what HE has done and who HE is.

"...because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide our feet into the path of peace." - Luke 1:78-79