When You Don’t Know Which Way is Up

Posted on December 10, 2013 by melissafed

When you serve in the upside down kingdom, sometimes it is hard to know which way is up. When the metrics of man; bigger, better, faster, stronger, do not make sense with Spirit truth, sometimes it is impossible to know what success looks like. Sometimes men speak ill and abandon us. Sometimes friendships are not what they seem and sometimes people evaluate a church with the measuring systems of a corporation. Sometimes we fail, and we flail and we get pushed out to the margins and the borderlands.

Guess what? That is where Jesus wants you. There in the margins, the borders. There, among the broken and down trodden.

There, making the religious uncomfortable, making the hopeless hopeful. Right where you are.

It is about the Peace of Christ; how it rules your heart more and more.

It is about the mourners, the meek, those who hunger for the righteousness. It is about being a peacemaker and letting it fall clean off your back when men speak falsely.

Does your heart beat faster at the things that confound the world? Does your bank account, the way the money leaves, express the ways of Christ?

Is your heart softening, breaking, for the wandering and lost?

Is my identity found squarely at the foot of the cross or do I let your opinion of me spin me around?

Yes these. I will evaluate my success by the ways it is marked by the backwards, the upside down.

Lord, let me finish dead last if that is required to find myself in you.

Being Peace on Earth (Advent 6, 7, 8)

Aside

Hope and Peace. Is there anything our world needs more than these? So many of us are just plain tired. In this world of chronic diseases, betrayal, brokenness, abuse, a broken heart from a source you could never have predicted, you watch the news for fifteen minutes and you can be horrified.
But it is THIS world that our Jesus comes. Our Jesus, born in a stable, among the filth, the unmucked out animal feces, the hay that makes you itch. Born to a teenage mother, who said yes despite the magnificent mess it would make of her life. This same Jesus who dies in an equally bloody way, a gruesome death on a cross between two criminals.

“God entered our world not with the crushing impact of unbearable Glory, but in the way of weakness, vulnerability need”(Brennan Manning). It makes me mad some days. The scandal of it. I want him to come in a blaze. I want him to be in ease…I want him to give me ease. Ease to the whole world. To the sad and the broken. I just want him to fix it.

But our Jesus. He now lives in an even more grotesque place. An even bloodier mess. Perhaps the goriest place you can find. The human heart. Mine. Yours. Those of us that invite Him, have the Holy Spirit in us now. And this holy spirit invites you into the mess of this world. Jesus bids you to step into it with him. He could have done this so many ways, redeemed us, reclaimed us. It could have been so much easier, so much more magnificent. But our God invites us to the depths, to the real, to perhaps the only authentic place where there is no hiding. There is no more facade. There is no social media to bolster you, no friends to protect you, no reputation that proceeds you. No. Our Jesus is willing to get his hands dirty. He draws in the dirt, heals with the mud… Jesus has many things for you in this life. Life to the full and abundant. But it will likely not be a pinterest perfect love story, a picture perfect family, never a problem free existence. Even when things are really falling into place, the monotony of this old world can wear you down (just wait till you have to make school lunches). I was watching breaking bad the other night, and I see why so many are intrigued by it. The truth is people are bored. They are chasing a dream that doesn’t exist. Hedonism for its own sake. Anesthetic to try and drown the mind collapsing from the boredom of it.
Lots of us throw around words like calling a lot. But what I see in scripture is Jesus calling you to be hope, light and peace. Calling you to speak un-retractable hope to the hopeless. Peace to the tormented. To embody joy even in the most broken of days. It is this that a broken world needs. People think you can get it done right and things will just work out. I don’t see that in scripture. I see us stepping into the broken with him. Our spirits softening, our hearts being wrung with his BUT still we cling to hope, to peace. We enter into it.
Nelson Mandela died this week. And we have sterilized him into an icon of peace haven’t we? We trapped his face into quote photos like a cartoon. He was not. There were times in his life were he was named terror. He was imprisoned for 27 years and he let the mess and the torment shape him into a man of Peace. He maintained hope in the face of atrocity. He said
“I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying”. The very worst face of humanity. He found out what it meant to pursue reconcilliation…PEACEMAKING IS NOT SITTING ON YOUR HANDS. It is active and it is hard work. Hope does not flourish when we are selfish. These are traits that we need to pursue.

So tell me church. As you wait for Gods redeeming work to complete where can you join him??? This week…pray about where you can be peace. Look for the subtle cracks in broken relationships, the fissures that could explode into anger. Where can you join in the work that He is already doing? Where can you stand against the gap maker?

“But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving,considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.”
James 3:17

(My kids lit the advent candles tonight…I near died it made my heart ache in the very best way.)

The first candle of Advent is the candle of Hope; the second is the candle of Peace. We light this candle to remind us that our Lord Jesus brings peace to all who trust in Him.

Let us pray:

Loving God, thank You for the peace You give to us through Jesus. May Christ’s light shine in our lives, showing us the path of peace between God and all people. Help us to prepare our hearts to receive His peace. We ask in the name of the One born in Bethlehem. Amen.

And every time I try and speak someone says what I want to say about 8000 times better. OH Ann Voskamp. THIS.

The Glory (Advent #5)

Posted on December 5, 2013 by melissafed

The Glory
by Madeleine L’Engle

Without any rhyme
without any reason
my heart lifts to light
in this bleak season

Believer and wanderer
caught by salvation
stumbler and blunderer
into Creation

In this cold blight
where marrow is frozen
it is God’s time
my heart has chosen

In paradox and story
parable and laughter
find I the glory
here in hereafter

Today…Just this (Advent 4)

Video

How to Breathe (Advent 3)

Posted on December 3, 2013 by melissafed

It was one of those mornings. You know the ones? You wake and your house looks like this, your children don’t like the homemade muffins you made and it is ‘too cold for smoothies’? You know those mornings? When they won’t get out the door, when the home reading book is missing and the communication books are scattered? You know those ones right? It isn’t just me?

I have 1 million things to do today. Actually.

So as the children leave I start rushing. Running. DO ALL THE THINGS. GET THEM ALL DONE.

But then.

What if advent this season is more than talk? What if I actually join in the waiting? The stillness? What if I hunt beauty instead of burden? What if I slip outside and breathe deep? What if I kick fresh snow and look at heavy branches, the way they shake off that snow before they break under the weight. What if I breathe deep the cold, and think about the smallness of these moments, the way my tiny story isn’t the only one? What if I turn my eyes up, out? What if I can watch the clouds shift and the trees sway?

What if I really can keep my tiny story wrapped into His? What if I can learn to hold this tension with an open hand? The longing for more, the expectation of restoration, the extraordinary beauty of the RIGHT NOW. The now and not yet.

I breathe. I stop my hustling. God is most pleased with our BEING. Not our doing. Our being that breathes him in…that senses Him. That seeks Him. That settles in on the waiting, the hoping, the promises.

And then this…

“As soon as we acknowledge God to be the supreme architect, who has erected the beauteous fabric of the universe, our minds must necessarily be ravished with wonder at His infinite goodness, wisdom and power” (John Calvin).

Ravished with wonder.

That the earth outside your window is tilted right now at just twenty-three degrees. So there are seasons and the vapors of oceans don’t simply amass continents of ice, so the planet’s bulk of six sextillion tons (that’s twenty-one zeros) spins perfectly balanced on an invisible axis, spinning you around at one thousand miles an hour, nine million miles a year. Hurtling you through space even right now in this sun orbit at nineteen miles per second, 600 million miles a year. YOU held in this moment by this unseen belt of gravity and turning pages slowly…

Christmas begins here. The Christmas story, this LOVE story – the whole blue marble of the world spinning right now on the Cross-beam axis of Love.” -Ann Voskamp, The Greatest Gift p. 13-14

Join me today? Slip outside and go on a beauty hunt. Look up at the clouds shifting, the trees swaying, that gorgeous creation sitting just to your right. Breathe it in deep, it is a gift for you today. Feel small and ordinary, admit you can’t do it all. Don’t even try.

Take a photo and send it to me? Love to encourage each other as we #beautyhunt

Linking with:

Ornament (Advent #2)

Posted on December 2, 2013 by melissafed

(A repost from the archives)

There you go running and tossing and breaking and shattering and I gotta tell you, the way I imagined this day to go is just not what it turned out to be. I wait for Christmas Tree day. I imagine us, in the woods with all our friends, sipping hot drinks, eating too many sweets, finding the perfect tree, taking photos in front of it. Instead, and suddenly, chill settles into little fingers, someone has to poop.

I want things to run on rails. This family, I want it to run like a well oiled machine. Pumping out symmetry, clean edges, pictures perfect. I want this night, gathered round the tree, decorations to hang, carols on, me in plaid, in scarf. I want you smiling demurely, hanging the ornaments gentle. I want mistletoe and candle light, but you keep blowing them out.

All my talk about otherwise? I still want our family to look like an ornament. Sparkled and spackled and flawless. And instead, God keeps whispering something about being an instrument: of peace, of reconciliation. He keeps on whispering about how very broken we all are, how he has plans for us this season it is true, but none of those plans involve our perfection. Just His. Made flesh. Because of our brokenness, like the nutcracker I glue back together (sorry Michelle…). He says “That is the point of this thing child. Relax”. Look for the cracks, the fissures, lean into them. Bring that peace on earth, be it.

I sigh, pull you into my lap and we read quiet and slow and we start our advent readings and you seem to get it. And I do too. The beauty is right here. In your soft skin (because you took off the coordinated outfits I put you in), in the soft glint of Christmas lights I hung (though they are clumped, and cluttered), in the pine boughs on my mantle (that snapped off as we dragged the tree in the door).

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.-St. Francis of Assisi

We Wait…And We Hope (Advent #1)

Posted on December 1, 2013 by melissafed

Mary’s “How can this be?” is a simpler response than Zechariah’s, and also more profound. She does not lose her voice but finds it. Like any of the prophets she asserts herself before God saying, “Here I am”. There is no arrogance, however, but only holy fear and wonder. Mary proceeds – as we must do in life – making her commitment without knowing much about what it will entail or where it will lead. I treasure the story because it forces me to ask: When the mystery of God’s love breaks into my consciousness, do I run from it? Do I ask of it what it cannot anser? Shrugging, do I retreat into facile clichés, the popular but false wisdom of what ‘we all know’? Or am I virgin enough to respond from my deepest, truest self, and say something new, a ‘yes’ that will change me forever?

(This post inspired by a beautiful piece by Kathleen Norris, and especially this quote from “Watch for the Light” p. 44)

We hop onto the quad, all four of us. We head out into the woods, we find new trails, spot the tracks of rabbits in the stand of birch trees. There are spots on the trail that surprise us, dips in the road, the cold wind whips our faces, all of us turning our faces skyward to the pines, the breeze blowing them and we feel small. We sense the mystery of this place, how anything could be just around the corner, the elk I passed on the highway, the wolf our neighbor spotted, the moose tracks we’ve passed here before. We know this and we chase out anyways; the adventure is in the mystery.

We say yes, even when we don’t know what is before us. We, as the Christmas people, we choose hope OVER fear and we chase the hope bringer down paths uncharted. We trust Him enough with our lives that we say YES even when we are unsure what we are accepting.

This is the season we think about Mary, “let it be to me as you have said“. Without any assurance of what is to come. Even if the path before us is unmarked. Even when we are uncertain of what we are saying yes too, we go.

This first Sunday of Advent is named HOPE. We are the hope people. We are the ones waiting what is to come. We step into and wait on the mystery of the God incarnate. We don’t understand it all. We join in the mystery anyways. We become HOPE to the dark world. We walk in the mystery and we say YES to the things of God. We choose the adventure of life in Christ over the stagnancy of life unmoved. We choose the HOPE of the world over the anaesthetic that so many of our generation choose. We let that hope infiltrate us and change us. We push that hope past our usual boundaries into the dark spaces. This advent we wear that hope like a merit badge…despite how foolish we may seem.

This month, this advent, we move into the mystery of Christ, and we plan to say YES every time. We plan to choose hope every day, believing that,

“He begs us to spend the attention of Advent on the little, the least, the lonely, the lost.” –Ann Voskamp

We are the hope people. Tell me how you hope?

Country Chronicles: What I’m Into November 2013 Edition

Posted on November 30, 2013 by melissafed

I’m into the sun setting in splendor and three elk crossing my path on my way home from school. I am into comet sightings and the first snow falling.

I’m into slouching into a posture of listening, of holiday, of waiting. I’m into slowing my steps and retraining my eyes to notice the miraculous ordinary.

I’m into finishing my first class towards my graduate degree and loving every minute of the learning. I’m into my work again too, and the way my voice sounds like passion and I feel like this might be a good part of my call. I had a quick trip to California early November and I met some inspiring people, made some amazing connections, ordered room service, sat beside a pool. Sometimes there are just reckless blessings, my eyes are being opened to the fact that they don’t always look the way I think they might.

I am into the seasons changing and fall giving way to winter. I am into the way cold air feels on my face and the way my house smells when the firebox gets refilled. I am into the peace of snow and the way we all slow in the presence of it. I’m into the new movement of God in my heart, the way my words feel powerful and spirit filled and I sense Him again, just there under my skin. I’m into lessons learned. Like how my destiny is mine alone, how there is no one else who can live it. Learning that no one can take the place at a table that HE has set for me. That even when it seems that a dream has been lived by another? There is room at the table for me too. I’m learning what can be stolen are my quiet moments and secret places with the Lord…these are the only things I need to fight for my place. I’m learning that truth is in the subtleties; sin is in shift to the right or to the left, the corruption of the best and beautiful things (like friendships turned to interest of self, like motherhood turned to show).

I’m into the kitchen again now that the weather has cooled and am loving this squash soup, these naan and chicken sandwiches (with chutney and curry yogurt dip).

I’m into ‘too much television’ and making all sorts of hibernation plans. My reading pile is growing. My writing plans are deepening. December…I love you.

I’m into her highland dancing, his reading improving. I’m into the way they are both growing and thriving and the ways they challenge all I thought I knew about myself, what I believe about parenting.

I’m into preparations for advent and slowing my heart and picking up some books. (Watch for this blog to become a bit more active over the advent season. If you want to join me in the readings that will inspire it pick up this and this).

What were you into this November???

Linking with Emily for “What I Learned in November” and Leigh Kramer:

– See more at: http://www.leighkramer.com/blog/what-im-into/#sthash.ULTZfGB6.dpuf

Your Fear Makes Me Wonder…

Posted on November 19, 2013 by melissafed

On Tuesday morning I prayed, “God, make me light in dark places. Make me a vessel of hope. Help me understand what love is”. Turns out, God doesn’t waste an opportunity like that. Perhaps that is his very favourite prayer.

This weekend was strange. On Saturday, Joel spent the morning as a pall bearer at a funeral. In the evening, I spoke at candle light vigil I organized for a student of mine that died this week. We were deep in the hearts of broken people. People praying freedom prayers, people grieving, people standing up to injustice, people watching sadness and joy kiss.

Saturday afternoon, our family went sledding, had a tea party with fresh muffins and took our Christmas card photos. Life is such a striking contrast sometimes, the mundane and ordinary going in and out, mixed up with all the soul stretching horror that sometimes defines life on earth. I wanted to wrap my kids in bubble wrap, hide them away from all of it, cozy down in our cabin in the woods. I am never so tempted to give into fear as when I stare darkness in the eye, when my life stands in opposition.

I wrote this letter to myself in my journal, it is a declaration of hope. I am sharing it, because every conversation I have is leading me back here, the choice of hope over fear. Maybe it is for you too?

Oh Melissa.

You have me wondering. You who is afraid of this world.

Your insecurity, don’t you see it? The way it looks like a lack of faith.

Don’t you believe the faith you profess? Do you not believe He that is in you is greater?

Don’t you see that protecting your kids automatically alienates the others?

Don’t you see the way exclusivity and protection is the opposite of a Christ-Chasing life?

Don’t you see how your feigned righteousness makes everyone run from you?

Don’t you see how life shrinks? How your fear grows?

Don’t you see?

I’m not saying close your eyes, I’m saying see the dark, look it in the eyes and be hopeful anyways.

Cause my God? He didn’t give you a spirit of timidity

My God is not afraid of the dark. Or the day. Or the Grave.

My God is big enough to redeem every evil this world can throw.

And IN HIM:

There is no intellectual who could trip you.

No freedom song sweeter then the one you sing.

No thing that you are missing.

No knowledge you need to fear that will strip your children of their faith.

No sin that cannot be redeemed.

No person that we cannot love.

No condemnation for you in Christ.

No ideology that cannot be moved.

No kingdom that cannot be upended by the counter cultural ways of Christ.

There, is no power greater than the Spirit living in me.

No wound He cannot heal.

Nothing that could separate us from the love of Christ.

There is NO guilt in this life and there is NO fear in even death.

I am not saying close your eyes. I am saying OPEN THEM WIDE and choose HOPE anyways.

Don’t you see?

The whole of humanity begging for the light you have?

The hope you should possess?

The LIFE you should be LIVING….

You are the light of the world. The salt that keeps away decay.

How can you hold back the dark, the death, if you are hiding in your ivory tower?

We claim hope. Despite all else. We claim it and we walk in it.

Let us be known as a people of HOPE.

(And just because…I have tickets to opening night…thanks YAYA!)

Linking with Emily,and Heather the Tell His Story Community

In the Company of Women

Posted on November 10, 2013 by melissafed

That morning, the lake stood still, the mist settled in. As I walked onto the dock I watched the ripples run across the water, each of my steps sending tiny waves out. I was suddenly an earthquake disturbing the peace. I stopped, sat down, I didn’t want to ruin anything, had no interest in rocking that blissful boat just sitting there, minding its own business.

I’ve stepped shyly in other parts of my life too you know. Lightly almost. Not sure where I fit in the land of women, always more comfortable in the company of men. I feel like I send ripples out, change things, and I never know if it is for the better. I am a woman who revels in statements like “you are not like other women though”, I’ve made myself at home in mocking stereotypes and all the ties that bind. I’ve stayed away from the women’s retreats. I’ve made fun of scrapbooking (and knitting….and…). I have attempted to make myself something else. Something different. A hybrid. I’ve elbowed my way into the circles of men, thinking, perhaps the conversation might be more my speed. That perhaps, I would offend less often. The whole of my life, I have found myself surrounded by many male friends. I played soccer at lunch. I was on the basketball courts playing 21 at camp when the other girls were curling their hair.I speak the language of the dudes easily. The harsher. The sarcastic. The jokes. Lets talk about everything but our feelings ok?

The truth of it is I just never, ever felt like I fit, so I would rather find my place around the outside. I called women who spent too much time on their looks shallow, when maybe I was just envious that I have no concept of how to do my own hair. When maybe both of us are just terribly insecure and perhaps we both could’ve stepped back challenged the assumptions about one another that were binding and walked in a truer version of ourselves instead of just trying to be?

You see the problem is this:

I am a feminist. A raging one if we are honest. My parents left the church partly because they didn’t want their daughters bound and gagged. You hear that? Getting this theology right matters to me. I want to see women and girls walk in the fullness of their giftings. I want them to live life unafraid…of anything…especially their own skin and the way it feels to live in it. I want them to believe in the power of their voices, the call of their God. I want them to believe they have a place in the Kingdom, that their place is important, necessary. If they are married, I want them to be extraordinary wives and mothers who inspire their men to be better, to fulfill their call too. Do you see that? When a man walks in freedom his woman does too, when a woman releases her gifts in fullness she inspires him to do the same…it isn’t either / or. It is BOTH / AND. When my husband is thriving, so am I. When I am ragged with expectation and a life that doesn’t fit, it doesn’t fit him either. I tie him to the ground with my neediness, my dependence. Freedom reigns in our home when we both have voice, when we mutually sacrifice, lay aside our agendas for the dream of the OTHER. Somehow, don’t you see how time expands? Life becomes a passionate adventure into the call of God on our lives…as one…each serving the other, each freeing the other to dream more, dream again.

So how can I, a woman who believes all that, still try to separate herself? Do you see ugliness of that? The way our competition creates false divides, broken bridges, broken hearts? There is something very wrong if you are happy about the fact that you are not like ‘other women’, it means you are actually not a feminist. You are not a freedom fighter. If we are achieving something while breaking another womans back, which direction are we moving? If our life causes another to cower or to feel inadequate in our presence…what are we really accomplished? If I believe that this freedom song is ours to sing, how can I not call other women into it? How can I not actively help them to find their voice? We cannot be a freedom fighters if we are eating our own, pushing other women down so that we can reach higher, gain a false identity.

So I’ve been stepping out, attempting to find my place, and helping others to find theirs. I’ve been building bridges and circling around the women in my life, attempting to find my place among them. I’ve been brave (for me) and I’ve been bold. I hosted a womens retreat. For real. I authentically made confession to other women… things about myself I’ve never breathed out loud. I trusted them with myself and they’ve yet to fail me yet. I am finding my place, a company of women who feel like sisters, who get me, who heal me, who inspire me, who convict me. People I want to build with, dream with, people I believe are changing the world.

I want to be among the brave ones, the women who stand up straight and strong. Who strengthen the backs of each other, who see and break the chains of injustice, who bravely step into our callings, who help others to discover and walk into theirs. I think, I might be ready to rock the boat, stepping out on the water with the God of the universe, inspiring us all to just stand there, waves lapping on our toes.

(This post partially inspired by Ann Voskamps breathtaking piece here🙂