The Rhythms of His Heart

 This is more than just a lyric of an old Simon and Garfunkel tune.  As I look at it a bit deeper these days,  I am  reminded through times of prayer,  various books and through my monthly Spiritual Direction hour that part of being an authentic leader, person and follower of Christ means that I have to be honest with myself in recognizing the vices, sins and Pharisaical persona that is in my soul.  In these days of COVID it has been easy for me at points to just distract myself, power through and overcome instead of sitting still to notice what is really going on in me.  This year has me being a more vocal presence in church gatherings and  group settings and classes. I even have friendships that are growing into  honest confession and real vulnerability. It's wonderful and hard and a joy!  I still however find solitude and silence to be the BEST place where I am still enough to let my soul come out and look at myself honestly.  In my soul I have noticed misplaced affection,unmet 

In the last week I have sat with some women who I love deeply and lead in their lives, jobs and ministries.  It's crazy to me though how my 'false self' can take over and try to compete, steal her 'show' or want what she has.  Though I don't think that women are the only ones prone to these feelings, I am honestly wanting to be a celebrator and promoter of my sisters in God's Kingdom.  God, forgive me when I am not that!  As I prayed through the stuff that bubbled up in me, I remembered a scene from my year of School of Mercy & Justice where I  was chosen to wash a beautiful ones feet. There were a lot of significant things that happened in this moment that would make this post long, but I'll get to the focus of why it means so much to me as I live life shoulder to shoulder with other women.   Here are some lines that try and imperfectly express what I felt that day, but really I write it to remind myself that I want to authentically be a woman who c

Same hat different 'hood @ Hildegard's Bakery I have finally moved into my city apartment!   A month has gone by and part of me feels like a kid looking through a shop window at a desired donut on a day. Only now I  finally get to go in and enjoy it...with allllll the powdered sugar and jelly all over my face!! ☺  I am pretty sure that my eyes have been in 'childlike', wide open wonder and tired mode this entire month as I learn my neighborhood, pray about a job, continue Year 2 of Spiritual Direction,   struggle with finding access through doors and giggle with glee in my spacious home all by myself on an evening!!! Praise, God who has heard my wants!!!   I have been gifted MUCH after such a long period of waiting. Yes, I am LIIIIVVVVVING! I am growing and I am falling in love with my God in a deep way.  The Holy Trinity by Andrei Rublev  means much to our little church Oh, annnd I get to be a little closer for THIS time and contribute to my new church community in the

Since last September I have lived in three homes in three very different home structures. It’s been a hard year personally and globally. Here are some things I am learning...some are still in process and some are easy to laugh at. Read on...and message if you have any of your own tips and funny things about living and leading with people!  You learn that their way isn’t wrong...and you aren’t always right.    If you put the yogurt on the beverage shelf in the fridge...is it really that big of deal to move it their way?! Or even if you have a different view on a thing can you discuss and find a way to be kind in the end?! You learn to sometimes give up your preferences for the other...and then at other times own what you need and how you like things. Seriously, Do NOT put sugar in my tea. You learn that anger and annoyances must be talked about even when it’s hard. Just talk about it for realzies because if you don’t you will shut down or yell loud and resent the other. Also don’t treat

Body shame and insecurity is so real! So today I’ll share with you a piece of how wholeness is happening here for me!  It is going to be a different story for your body as you are invited by God to notice Him there and that’s okay. Here’s some thoughts that have been stirring in me as God invades and transforms every part of who I am... Our Body?  My writer friend the apostle Paul said that he always carried the death of Christ in his body so    that the life of Christ could be revealed. To carry in your physical body the fullness of the Gospel means accepting the fact that physical pain, sickness and suffering and limits and the heavy weight are    sometimes part of being a “little Christ” and all I can do sometimes is    “suffer with”—to sit, pray and shed tears because of “long night” you and I experience and ask “How long, Lord?” There is a closeness to the heart of God here in the pain as much as in the resurrection power. I also am recognizing that it’s ok to love and care for t

  The life-giving things of my Sabbath this past month have been in review.  Partly because I am part of a Church community now that celebrates and encourages it (What a gift, hallelujah!) and partly because it has been resisted and so hard to cultivate in this season.  I find myself often giving in to this "performance driven" go-go-go culture. However,  one of the things God brought to mind where I just enjoy God is listening to an audiobook.  After feeling the "yuck" of 'selling myself ' on rental applications, emails and job applications I felt it was time to remind my soul of its loveliness to God because when the struggle of your life seems to be with wrestling with rejection--it is good to cultivate that secret place of knowing you are LOVED. NO 'no' can take that away from you.  Without sharing too much of all that I have been sitting in, I was lead to the book Return of the Prodigal Son . Oh man, it was for me.  It is based on the principle

Friends, Covid-19 restrictions are lifting and I have temporarily moved in with a lovely,  single, fun, sacrificial lady as I continue my hunt for renting a space of my own.  From my table at Tim Horton's sipping a drink and making use of their free wifi I popped on a few sites to look at rental spaces...AGAIN!  This process has been so long and hard and even as I sit here it hasn't changed.   The Gospel story of the lame man on a stretcher whose friends cut a hole in the roof to get him in front of Jesus comes to mind today.  The last 3 months I lived in a home that showed me what it means to have allies like these friends. They installed railings, let me take up space parking my scooter in their garage, shared their food, farm and family father's day celebrations with me.  They prayed for me, sang with me & laughed at all my idiosyncrasies.  They drove me places and trusted me with some of their most treasured things and stories.  It wasn't all dreamy though...it&

My understanding of Spiritual Direction has been flowering over the last 5 years. In the middle of my years in full-time ministry with YFC I began to sense in my own soul a disconnect between the outer work of who I was expected to be versus who I was made to be. I was on the edge of burnout. I was tired after years of offering compassion and care to others. I felt a longing in me to tend an intimate connection with God. I longed for a listening space--- a listening person with God. A space that was different than counselling (though it could be coupled with it) and something that my church community couldn't seem to offer me at the time. This would become a space that would give me permission to express my deep pains, joys, dreams, questions and tears without fear of being analyzed or fixed...or even slated as a Christian leader who was weak and not' living in victory'. A dear friend heard this underlying desire and committed to meeting with me in a mentorship/sp

Kind intention is mostly heard by my ear when I have encountered this question.  The amount of times I have been asked this finds me very grateful when I consider that there are literally people who go through their days without anybody caring enough to pray for them.  Sometimes I have felt deep,  deep compassion...other times I felt like I was to be the product of a human agenda--a controlled approach to what people think I need.  In spite of my crticism of it and in keeping with who I am in creating this blog platform  I want to tell you a story of how this ask no longer pulls at me in a negative way and share my heart as He is forming me thus far.  I have not arrived yet and approach prayer and learning to pray from a heart that cries out, "Lord, teach us to pray!" A couple summers ago I  headed  to Winnipeg with a crew of college-age friends. We would attend a monthly young adult worship gathering.  During the worship set in the middle of a song a man in a wheelc

  Silence in prayer! I never was familar with it or even found a place that facilitated it or taught me about it. Growing up and beginning discipleship of Jesus in a large ministry family and the hustle of church programs, it was hard to even get a minute of no words, conversation or schedule. It wasn’t all bad, but in all the noise I missed something. I missed the being still and knowing. I missed the trust and communication of feeling so safe and known in God's Presence that I wouldn't want to fill the air with words...only worship...only connection. All of us probably know the feeling of being with someone we love and not needing to say or do anything, but having an understanding that just being with them is enough. Though God's gaze on us is much grander and more holy than the gaze of a lover looking at his love, that feeling is the same for me as I've incorporated silence in my prayer life. It's not long...and some days I struggle with it, but it has birt

A few years ago I went on a retreat week.  Youth For Christ Canada has a retreat centre for its staff in beautiful BC! Before that time I had been coming to understand the need for my soul to carve space to “come away” for weekends of rest and solitude. It has become a way to tend and pay attention to the things of God and my soul’s relationship to Him like nothing else ever has. I tune out the noise of work, expectations, obligations and needs and be still. “Coming away” doesn’t always mean I’d leave town. Sometimes it means me, a pen, a bible, a book and journal in a room or park corner over a couple of days. Sometimes it means doing a fun, playful thing like dinner and a movie. Most times I cannot say that it’s been an earth shattering experience to practice this. To be honest there are times that I don’t want to be alone or even meet God in rest. This past chunk of the year actually has been hard to pay attention to that need. However in solitude there have been many moments of un

LOVED. SEEN. KNOWN. HEALED.  These words have become very important to me.  They are words that come to me in prayer often when I sit before God.  My prayer life no longer is a one-way conversation where I only examine my heart before God, but it also is a conversation where I imagine how He feels about my coming to Him. He loves it when I come. He sees me when I come and there's now a deep familiarity between us where we can be with each other with or without using words. The simple invitation is just to "Come!"Don't get me wrong some days there is  too much talking, there is the  shadowy, sinful awareness of myself that can keep me from coming. Yes,  He wants us to see and know what is true of ourselves, but in recent days it has been more simple.  I  just "Come" and hold my heart in all of it's good and bad before Him--the God Who Sees, Loves & Knows. Why is this important to me?  I think because for most of my days I wanted this seeing, knowi

Sent to me by this 'brother' and drawn by one of his students It was just a year and a bit after I had moved across the country.  It was a warm sunny Sunday morning in August and I had hopped on my scooter and gone to church.  From the outside no one could tell that morning I had been in a deep pit of wanting to give up.  I wanted to pack up my little apartment and move back East.  I was tired of ministry, tired in my body and tired of being alone.  I went through the motions of church that morning.  No one really stopped me to reach out, but neither did I reach out and ask for a listening ear, prayer or encouragement. In my scooter wheel chair I scootered out the church door when it was over and was on my way home. I got to the side of the parking lot that allows me to cross the street and there was a man I had never seen before enjoying the day.  He was a stranger on that day, but years later has become one of my most precious "big brothers" and cheerleaders in

Here’s a few jumbled thoughts that bubbled over  on an Instagram post aka my mini blog space. I  have been doing some reading/prayer on discernment and decision making. I also have sat as well in conversation with people (via video or phone)  where fear has been so real. So here's some thoughts that are deeper than a tattoo on my skin, but real to my soul in these days.   "Permission to acknowledge fear and live in questions is not the norm, but truly leads to peace.Some of us have been taught that if we are afraid or have questions that we are bad and ‘not a good Christian .’ My experience has been when I push it down and ‘put on face’ it only makes it worse. If you’re afraid —-say it and pray it...if you are worried —-say it and pray it...if you are anxious about unknowns—-say it and pray it. If you have more questions than answers talk about them when you pray. Don’t just be a good Christian...be a real Christian and don’t shame yourself or others for being afraid!  Let

 I woke up in the night with a picture of a bride walking her aisle wounded. Her white dress ruined by a bloody wound that needed tending to.  She was visibly upset, but wasn't making a lot of noise actually.  You see,  her wound was not very visible from a distance.  It was only as you got close that you could see little drops of blood on her back from a sword that cut her deeply.  She had tried to cover it up with layers of cloth, but it was still bleeding through to her beautiful fairy tale gown. There were some  that saw the blood and asked "What can I do to help?" There were some that stayed at a distance thinking all was well and good.  Some began in anxious fear running for band aids, peroxides and ointments that would take care of  the surface of the wound, but failed to go deep. Some even thought it good to take more swords and cut around the wound intending to see it clearer, but instead caused more damage. There even were people who in good concern were pr

A year ago around this time I sat with a Youth who became very angry and volatile at the drop of a hat.  One evening she came to sit in a space with me to "cool off."  Honestly, I was anxious about it as soon as I got the text she was coming!  Even though I knew this was the job I had signed up for,  I was tired of being yelled at and sworn at for no apparent reason.  It was a harsh reminder of what happens when kids in care have lives of not learning love, not learning trust or true family and blame those who try to give them glimpses of anything different.  If you are a group home worker, social worker,  foster parent or youth worker reading this I know you know what I'm talkin' about :) High fives to you when you do your job well--for caring long hard hours and enduring such emotional stress!  I pray your heart stays tender with a "thick skin" that gives you courage to continue to do your work well! I also need to give a few fist bumps to you if you are r

“My wheelchair is my monastery.” I read this in a book recently where the author quoted his Spiritual Director and I feel the truth of his statement. There are things that a life on wheels teaches you that you can never learn any way else. There is a closeness to God and intimacy birthed in suffering and disability that is so precious I barely even want to talk about it out loud. It is the place where the Scripture “He is near the broken- hearted “ is more than just words, but is embodied in the every ordinary day of my wheeling/crutch life. For me, this ol ‘ body and all of its needs has been a place where I’ve felt His Presence ...it’s a sanctuary...a worship space and a place of being known uniquely and knowing    God    even more. You won’t understand it fully ! You also need to know that there are days where I ask  God to heal me, days where the attack of the Enemy poke and accuse this place and days where the shame of it all could keep me a recluse for the rest of my days! Still