kingdom & me

I haven't felt very creative lately. Weeds. The weeds of life have been pestering me, cropping up around my ankles, and I've been madly trying to root them out. Moving and changing jobs again has meant many are the "cares of life" , and of course, many are the questions: have I made a good decision? was the timing right? should I have waited until I was more secure financially? The questions are really kind of rhetorical at this point. The deed is done. I am moved, employed, and living HERE now. These questions are like a favourite record (yep, the vinyl type) that has a groove where you have most often played it, and once it plays through that section, it just slips right back to the beginning. Over and over again.

Thankfully, during this present round of questioning, I have been able to ask a better question: Lord, are you with me on all this? And what are you up to?

ANSWER: What kind of deal is it to get everything you want but lose yourself?

I've been thinking hard about his answer which was a question and wasn't the direct answer to anything I asked anyway. But my soul knew the congruency right away in that answer. The last two years have been ALL about this. Why should Jesus, who has promised me the Kingdom -- in the here and now as well as later -- give me everything I want, albeit good, if what I sacrifice, to have it, is my truest self ? The self that was borne of his heart, the me that he knows is becoming? The soul that is uniquely being conformed to his nature?

So, he put his foot down. And what I have discovered is that part of what is restored to us and given to us in the Kingdom, part of that pearl of great price, is actually....me. The me that he knew existed and knew was hidden by sin, shame, and sadness is part of what is promised to us. I used to to have the idea that you sacrifice everything -- including your truest self -- to gain all the good of the Kingdom. Jesus is not a bad trade up. But my conclusion in this banked on the idea that my truest self must have been bad, and therefore in need of getting rid of. Isn't that what we read about all the time in the Bible? Die to yourself daily, forsake your old life? This is different, and unfortunately, I had thrown the best part of me -- my little piece of the mosaic of the Body of Christ -- to sink in a cesspool, because I thought it belonged there.

I and my me IS Kingdom. Who would have thought?

back in the saddle

hi there dear friends of Blog World....I have MISSED you!!!!

i am here tonight to tell you i am back in action. I did a little disappearing act for the summer. Things got hectic and my computer schmatzed on me and it wasn't until just today that by an act of God (truly) I was able to get it up and running and hooked up to some telecom devices.

lots has changed since i last weighed in on films, books, life issues, so i will leave you with this much: new job, new flat, a return to Denver and friends and a church. i think it's gonna work this time around. and I can't tell you how special it is to have a place of my own where I am not subject to the dictates of others and how they prefer to have their lives organised. i love that i can leave a glass on the kitchen counter and return hours later to find it in EXACTLY the same spot. Home. For a season. And it IS good.

now that my computer has been delivered from its Windows demon and i live alone, i shall be blogging a bit more i hope. as always, TALK to ME....comment! Tell me what you're thinking and doing these days or what the blog gets you thinking about.

that's it for tonight. let's pray for the folks in New Orleans....and I WILL be back SOON!

hugs to you all :-)