Gift

(From 4 or 5 years ago... Kootenay Lake on a scorching hot day)

Our schedules have been so busy lately that David and I hardly see each other during the week...And I'm moving into a 6 day school week starting in February. We recently have been trying to schedule in some time before Baby Gil' comes along to spend together.

I've been feeling very nostalgic, remembering being teenagers together and how impossible it was to imagine our futures. Especially a future together that would work out. Now here we are, married and pregnant! I think it is a good lesson for me to remember our story and all the twists and turns it has already written in so far. To trust that the rest will be full of still more adventures and highs and lows. Every day really does feel like an amazing gift.

friendship

Last week my truth to meditate on was, " I am Christ's friend"

This picture is from a couple years ago and reminds me of a time with a good good friend. We fixed a toilet, painted the old one, drew fish at a pet store, took pictures of flowers, thrift store shopped, sang together, dreamed together, told stories and even shared a bed!

The fact that friendship even exists just seems so miraculous to me. Two people, unrelated, would choose to be there and love someone. I was walking home with a classmate the other day and we both agreed that the truth about each one of us is that we are self centered. I feel that with deep conviction, and remember realizing that at my core I was selfish at 13 or 14. Friendship is a picture of heaven because it is all about connection and innocence and sharing and supporting and really loving. I guess where Jesus' act of friendship becomes even more special to me is that friendship is intimate, and for some reason it really hit me that way the first time I read it last week. Jesus really, truly wanted to be close to me. I didn't choose to be friends with him but He chose to be my friend, not because it would be safe for him (quite the opposite) or get him higher up in the popularity scale (quite the opposite!), but He knows I need Him.

" My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other. John 15:12-17

I think being friends with Jesus has been so healing for me. Every encounter makes me laugh. He always gets to the core of things in a gentle, hilarious or loving way. He never neglects to tell me when I'm doing something dumb or dangerous. He doesn't get mad while I'm learning how to be like Him.

I encourage you to do some listening this week with Jesus. Set up the scene. Come ready to listen, and to share what you're feeling and wondering too. You could ask:

- Jesus, are we friends?

- Who am I to you?

- Why do you like being my friend?

Share with Jesus your answers to those questions for him!

And on another note...(Mark 10:27) All things are possible with God!

(I've been saying this in my head over the weeks)

floating

my tum at 22 weeks on New Years!

I don't know what God has done, but I like it. While I was making dinner tonight I thought, "this is me. Whoever I have been for the past year and a half has been a modified version. I'm really this happy and joyful and motivated". It was encouraging. I have to say- it is that wonderful joy that comes from the spirit- because I can't do anything to enhance or diminish it. And the world can't either, Hallelujah!

Soft inside

My first little craft!

I feel so thankful; I've been really really good. Before school started this week God planted this happy song in my heart and it hasn't left. I'm able to learn at school instead of despairing and feeling angry at all the teachers. I'm actually able to learn from someone who two weeks ago I could honestly say I hated! Each day God is revealing his promises to me through his presence.
Slowly slowly I am learning to let go.

This week I've been mulling over (I wouldn't call it meditating) the truth that I am God's child (John 1:12). I do feel provided for, disciplined, looked after, protected and dearly loved. I DO feel confident to run to the throne and be transparent and child like in both my joy and sadness.

And I'm also thinking about the soft insides of a turtle. When Jesus is my shell of protection, when He is my defender and strength; I have the ability to grow soft and tender and vulnerable and humble and free from fear. I feel like I'm growing at the enormously fast speed that Baby Gillen is. And I'm beginning to wonder, and believe even, that I might just give my heavenly father the delight that this little mystery gives to me.

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