The Lord is My Strength and My Shield

The Lord is my strength and my shield;
My heart trusted in Him, and I am helped;
Therefore my heart greatly rejoices,
And with my song I will praise Him.
~ Psalm 28:7

Gilded sunlight is filtering through the gauzy clouds of morning. Birds pipe their morning carols, joined by a choir of crickets. Across town, Pike's Peak is mostly visible through what appears to be the last remnants of fog. However, if I think about it, when I take a deep breath I can smell smoke. I have smelled it for so many days that I don't think about the scent any more. That probably will not change soon. Nor will I soon cease dreaming of glowing orange balls of flame. Ashes still cover my car in a thin layer, or drop onto my computer screen whilst I type. When I hear sirens I will praise God for our firefighters and emergency workers. It is going to take some time before I stop bursting into tears of grief for those who have lost their homes and livelihoods. 

 The last several days have felt like a month. I have slept in my own bed once since the fire began on Saturday. This is mostly due to the hospitality of friends all around town who are offering their homes to shelter evacuees or former evacuees (like myself). Persons all over my community have given food, clothes, money, time, their homes, dinners, and most importantly, their prayers, non-stop over the last five days. Churches have opened their doors to evacuees, set up prayer services, and have visibly been Christ to the watching world.

Tuesday afternoon and into the night, I watched the most horrific sight I have ever personally witnessed. Clouds of smoke, and ash that fell like snow, swelled over all of Colorado Springs. The front range was covered in hundreds of orange bursts that looked like lava swelling down the close side of the foothills. It was as if Mordor had sprung to life before my very eyes. I could see circles of fires, whole housing communities  lighting up the night's darkness. Two of my friends lost their homes in what looks like a war zone.  

(The photo above, courtesy of someone on facebook, is my friends' neighbourhood. I do not show this to be sensational, but to explain the heartbreaking loss incurred, and how persons are praising God through it all.)

Yesterday I was back at work, listening to worship music as I packaged books and curriculum for Summit customers. One song, Our God is Greater by Chris Tomlin, came on and these lyrics caught in a lump in my throat: "Into the darkness You shine, Out of the ashes we rise. There's no one like You, None like You." Indeed, though nearly 29 square miles of my city and national forest have burnt, there is no one like God. Job's response to God after great calamity now makes more sense to me: "Then Job arose, tore his robe, and shaved his head; and he fell to the ground and worshipped.  And he said:

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,

And naked shall I return there.

The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away;

Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

 There is great grief and sorrow at the loss of so many homes - I even feared losing my home for a brief time. However, the LORD reminded me it is only 'stuff'. No persons have been seriously injured or killed in this fire. Our firefighters have tirelessly protected us from extreme danger at their own risk. God is still worthy of our praise, no matter our circumstances. I am seeing this over and again in my own life, and I have seen it displayed in the lives and attitudes of my friends who have lost their home.

Last night the fire was more contained. I didn't feel like I was in the midst of Armageddon or Chernobyl. During conversation with my friends, we looked up and saw a rainbow over Colorado Springs. God is still faithful to keep His promises. God is still good. He gives us hope, strength, and wisdom.  In our very weakness He is our Strength and Shield, no less. He is still worthy of worship and praise.

I am reminded of this truth: "Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.  For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal." (II Cor 4.16-18)

*Please keep praying for our firefighters and city personnel who are tirelessly fighting on the front lines or behind the scenes. I praise God for them daily.*

Under His Mercy,

~ Johanna

Blessed Be the Name of the LORD

To those of you who make your way to my blog, I wanted to give a personal update... 

Yesterday a wildfire broke out not far from where I live and work. Early this morning my whole town was evacuated. I am staying with some wonderful friends across town. All of our Summit students and staff are staying at a local church who have graciously opened their building for us.

You can find the story and updates here: Waldo Canyon Fire. Please pray for cloud cover/cooler temps, rain, and for the firefighters out battling this blaze. One of our Summit staff is on the department, please pray for her to have energy and to get rest. 

I am reminded of all of the awful things that Job went through in his life, and how he responded, "The LORD gives and the LORD takes away, blessed be the Name of the LORD." Indeed, in spite of how close the fire is to my home, I know that God is good. He deserves praise whether I have a house to go back to or not. He is good whether I have a job after next week or not.  He is especially kind to provide me with a household of ladies who have opened their home to me and any others who need a place to take refuge. Indeed, blessed be His Name!

~ Johanna

UPDATE: 8pm Sunday, residents of Manitou are being allowed to return home! Praise the LORD! Please keep praying for our firefighters, the fire is 0% contained so far, but it has shifted direction.

Trajectory...

Happy those early days! when I

Shined in my angel infancy.

Before I understood this place

Appointed for my second race,

Or taught my soul to fancy aught

But a white, celestial thought;

When yet I had not walked above

A mile or two from my first love,

And looking back, at that short space,

Could see a glimpse of His bright face;

When on some gilded cloud or flower

My gazing soul would dwell an hour,

And in those weaker glories spy

Some shadows of eternity;

Before I taught my tongue to wound

My conscience with a sinful sound,

Or had the black art to dispense

A several sin to every sense,

But felt through all this fleshly dress

Bright shoots of everlastingness. 

       O, how I long to travel back,

And tread again that ancient track!

That I might once more reach that plain

Where first I left my glorious train,

From whence th’ enlightened spirit sees

That shady city of palm trees. 

But, ah! my soul with too much stay

Is drunk, and staggers in the way.

Some men a forward motion love;

But I by backward steps would move,

And when this dust falls to the urn,

In that state I came, return.

'The Retreat' ~ By Henry Vaughan 1621–1695

  Have you ever "felt through all this fleshly dress, bright shoots of everlastingness"? For a moment we see through a veil of rain into Heaven. We trace the golden light of a sunbeam back to its source: not the sun, but the One Who said that the greater Light should rule the day.

Moments flash upon us where we see through the curtain of temporal things into the world of the eternal. We see 'bright shoots of everlastingness' and have hope that this universe is not all there is. We have hope that our drunken souls will be sobered, and that we will make progress along the way.

Vaughan writes of travelling back to the time before his tongue could drip with sin, or before He walked far from his First Love. However, his last stanzas reveal that all he ever does is stagger backward like a drunkard. He hints that regression is not truly the right direction.

We cannot go back to some golden age, in our own life or in the world. We will not be 'returning to the garden of Eden' as I have heard even pastors declaim from the pulpit. No, we will be brought forward. God began man in a garden, but when we look at the trajectory of the Story, we see that he ends in a city. Not a city like we have ever known, however. This will be a city with a  River of Life, with trees whose leaves are for the healing of the nations (Rev. 22.1-2). We will be made better than we ever were. There is no retreat, only forward motion for us.

~ Johanna

Call to Discipleship

 "If we answer the call to discipleship, where will it lead us?  What decisions and partings will it demand?  To answer this question we shall have to go to him, for only he knows the answer.  Only Jesus Christ, Who bids us follow Him, knows the journey's end.  But we do know that it will be a road of boundless mercy. Discipleship means joy."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Introduction, The Cost of Discipleship

Discipleship means joy. Not happiness, or feeling good. It means that we see how wretched we were. We rejoice that God picks us up, cleanses us, and sets our feet on the path we should walk. We are no longer without direction. We may stray from the road, but He is faithful to redirect our steps.  This is His 'boundless mercy' indeed.


Discipleship means partings. We must separate from things that distract us, like 'sucker shoots' on a vine sap nutrients from the branches that need them. We must seek to have those thing pruned, even good things.

Relationships of various sorts, books or films, working out,  music, work, the Internet, and many other good things can at times be sucker shoots. Even things like 'small group' or church events can be a distraction from the LORD. We must part ways from such things, without sequestering ourselves from the world.

If we answer the call to Discipleship, where will it lead us?
Only where our Guide knows we need to go.

 

~ Johanna

Fun on a Summer's Day

 I was playing with styles this afternoon...

These are a few photos of the result. :)

 

Happy Summer!

Made for Some Reason

 

Surely a man of genius composing a poem or symphony must be less unlike God than  a ruler? But the man of genius has no mere by-products in his work. Every note or word will be more than a means, more than a consequence. Nothing will be present solely for the sake of other things. 

If each note or word were conscious it would say, "The Maker had me myself in view and chose for me, with the whole force of His genius, exactly the context I required." And it would be right – provided it remembered that every other note or word could say no less.

~ C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm Chiefly on Prayer (pp. 54-55)

Words, words, words: God made the world and its contents with them. By the word of His mouth the heavens stand firm. The Son of God is called the Word (logos). Moreover, God reveals Himself most expressly in the words of a story contained in a book. That story is the great Story, complete with a plot, interwoven themes, protagonist, antagonist, and damsel in distress. The Story has a beginning, a plight, a climax, a liberator, an ultimate sacrifice, and is still in the throes of climax resolution. God tells His Story in a variety of lives and through numerous means: poetry, philosophy, narrative, historical accounts, and letters.

Did you know that you are a part of God's grand Story? Not only that, but in "the whole force of His genius" you are in the exact context that you require. You should not have been born two hundred years ago, nor two thousand years hence. You should not have been born into a different culture, on a different continent, or to a different family (even though your family life may have extreme brokenness, God can redeems and use even that). You should not try to be someone or something you are not. You do not have to fit into the box the world offers you. You were made to be the exact person you are to carry the Story further. Your line is not just your own, but it fits into the context of the Story right now.

This idea from Lewis surfaced in another book I read recently:  

"Did you ever notice that all machines are made for some reason?" [Hugo] asked Isabelle. "They are built to make you laugh, like the mouse here, or to tell the time, like clocks, or to fill you with wonder, like the automaton. Maybe that's why a broken machine always makes me a little sad, because it isn't able to do what it was meant to do... Maybe it's the same with people," Hugo continued. "If you lose your purpose... It's like you're broken."

 ~ Brian Selznick, The Invention of Hugo Cabret (pp 374-375)

 

If we lose our purpose, if we seek a different context than the one chosen for us, it is like we are broken. We are like a line read out of time, dropping the rhythm and rhyme. Have you ever felt out of time? As if your line had no context at all, let alone the 'exact right' sort? Perhaps you don't know what to do after school, or what job to look for, or whom you should marry, or whether you ought to remain single, or where you should live.  Maybe you feel trapped where you are. Are you really trapped, or do you no longer fit inside a constantly shrinking space?  Like a piece in a complicated machine, you will not simply 'do' in one of a number of places. You must fit exactly where the Maker has intended for you to go from the beginning.

That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

 ~ Walt Whitman, O Me! O Life! (from Leaves of Grass)

And as Mr Keating (from my favourite film, Dead Poets' Society) asks his class, I ask you: what will your verse be?

~ Johanna

In Ten Thousand Places

As today has been a lovely rainy day, I decided to record Hopkins's poem, "As Kingfishers Catch Fire" for fun. Many of the photos I took in England, a few I found on-line.

As Kingfishers Catch Fire

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;

As tumbled over rim in roundy wells

Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's

Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:

Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;

Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,

Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.

I say móre: the just man justices;

Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;

Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —

Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men's faces.

The Wind in the Willows

Cold rain falls from a dark and misty sky tonight. In fact, the whole day has been the sort in need of a mug of tea and a good book. Thankfully, I have had much of both. While I cannot share mugs of tea via my blog, I can share the story to which  I have been listening. It is none other than the belovéd The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. 

The above is Mr Grahame's gravestone at Holywell Cemetery, Oxford, England. When I was in England it had been some 15+ years since I read Grahame's delightful book. Listening to it now I can see why it is so well-loved by many persons in various times, and at all ages. Some of my favourite persons, Sheldon and Davy Vanauken, read this classic along the banks of the Thames during their Oxford years. I love them even more for it.

The story is one of friendship (friendship when it hurts, or is hard and trying to be a friend), the ache of Beauty, adventures, and having a home to call one's own. Typing that out fails miserably in conveying the depth, scope, and joy of the book... Thus, I encourage you to click on the title above and listen to the book in full - or pick up a copy from the library. You may find yourself at a loss for words, yet completely understanding, the sweet pain described in the meeting of "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn"; or laughing at the all-too-true-of-ourselves antics of the four friends. 

Enjoy!

~ Johanna

'It's gone!' sighed the Rat, sinking back in his seat again. `So beautiful and strange and new. Since it was to end so soon, I almost wish I had never heard it. For it has roused a longing in me that is pain, and nothing seems worth while but just to hear that sound once more and go on listening to it for ever. No! There it is again!' he cried, alert once more. Entranced, he was silent for a long space, spellbound.

 `Now it passes on and I begin to lose it,' he said presently. `O Mole! the beauty of it! The merry bubble and joy, the thin, clear, happy call of the distant piping! Such music I never dreamed of, and the call in it is stronger even than the music is sweet! Row on, Mole, row! For the music and the call must be for us.'...

...`Rat!' he found breath to whisper, shaking. `Are you afraid?'

`Afraid?' murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love. `Afraid! Of HIM? O, never, never! And yet--and yet-- O, Mole, I am afraid!'

~ The Wind in the Willows: The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, by Kenneth Grahame

With Our Lives

ALMIGHTY God, Father of all mercies, we, Thine unworthy servants, do give Thee most humble and hearty thanks for all Thy goodness and loving-kindness to us and to all men; We bless Thee for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all, for Thine inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory.

And, we beseech Thee, give us that due sense of all Thy mercies, that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful; and that we show forth Thy praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up our selves to Thy service, and by walking before Thee in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with Thee and the Holy Ghost, be all honour and glory, world without end.   Amen.

1928 Book of Common Prayer: The General Thanksgiving

We prayed this prayer during Evensong tonight. Much of the content gave me reason to pause and think, though the service swirled on around me.

"...give us that due sense of all Thy mercies, that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful..."   

Am I unfeignedly thankful? Without pretence, without contrivance do I thank God for little things? The orange rosebush or purple allium along my morning walk are cause for praise. As are the sweet-scented lilacs, spicy poppies, and soft snowy dogwood petals. May their beauty cause me to bow the knee in worship to the One who is Beauty.

Often I wonder if I am truly grateful for the things most of us take for granted. I certainly appreciate hearing out of both ears clearly now, after having a blocked ear for a few weeks not long ago. And I am often thankful for running water and water pressure in my shower, having had times without both. There is a greater appreciation for  a 'common' thing when I have lost that thing for a time. How sad when the separation of death causes one to realise how much they loved another!

I pondered, too, being thankful in all things - in trials, loss, suffering, and pain. I have been reading some thoughts by Amy Carmichael on her response to a great injury that befell her. The injury caused her to be bed-ridden for the last 20 years of her life. She could have been bitter. She had times of frustration. However, she chose to let God use that loss as a gain - for His glory. She trusted His goodness in all things. Miss Carmichael was able to give thanks as Paul said:

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (I Thessalonians 5:16-18)

~ ~ ~

"...and that we show forth Thy praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up our selves to Thy service..."

On my kitchen window I have a line, paraphrased from a prayer written in the front of my Bible. The prayer is this:  

 Lord, I give up all my own plans and purposes, all my own desires and hopes, and accept Thy will for my life. I give myself, my life, my all utterly to Thee, to be Thine forever. Fill me and seal me with Thy Holy Spirit. Use me as Thou wilt. Send me where Thou wilt, and work out Thy whole will in my life at any cost, now and forever.  ~ Betty Scott Stam

That last line is rather frightening. Am I willing for God to send me where He wilt? Am I willing to give God my life at any cost, or are some things, dreams, or persons too dear to really mean that? 

The General Thanksgiving calls for much the same as Mrs. Stam's prayer: that I might show forth God's praise in my whole life, sacrificing myself to His service. Sometimes His service is pure bliss. Sometimes it is weary drudgery. Other times sacrifice is lonely or painful. Often, surrender is freeing, if we would but do it. There's the rub - am I willing to give up myself to God's service, or will I serve my flesh?

~ ~ ~

"...by walking before Thee in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord..."

Holiness and Righteousness all our days... Does anyone even believe a person can be those things? Many persons in Scripture were called 'righteous' persons, and we know they were not sinless. So it seems that a 'normal' person can be righteous. Further, the Bible commands believers to be holy as God Himself is Holy; and Peter calls Christians 'holy priests'. 

Note how the prayer book says this holiness and righteousness is accomplished: 'through Jesus Christ our Lord'. It is not our own goodness spoken of, or our own efforts that make us holy. It is Jesus Christ working in and through us that brings about change. This is only done when we lay down our wills (now, at any cost), and ask Him to be very present at work in us.

Are YOU unfeignedly thankful?

Is your life showing forth God's praise?

Are you allowing God to purify you with His Holiness, and to make you righteous?

~ Johanna

Restless Heart: Is There Something More?

Do you ever feel like you could run on the currents of the fresh night air? You would run boundlessly until your lungs and legs ached, if only you knew where to go. You know you should go to bed, but nervous energy keeps you wide awake, eyes refusing to close. 

Is there more to life? More than a nine to five, more than college, a spouse, kids, career, and a white picket fence with a dog inside? Do you find yourself on the outside of every 'inside' in which the rest of the world expects you to dwell?

Questions quiver like the new green leaves on Spring zephyrs. What is this aching inside? Why this restless feeling? Where am I to go? Am I supposed to learn something? Will I learn more if I stay here, or if I trek on a new adventure? The sky is the limit, and even that cannot hold me captive. There is outer space to explore, after all. 

Innocent, trusting eyes look up to the Maker of all things, querying what He would have me to do. Go or stay? Go where? And if I stay, what is the 'more' I am seeking? Is it something I ought to be doing? How can I better accomplish what is at my hand to do? How can I open my heart more to being shaped by the Spirit of the Holy One? What is obedience and how do I practice it? Where does one gain a heart of Wisdom? How does one hone the art of discipline?

In short, how do I go 'further up and further in'? 

How can I be living daily to know God MORE? 

I WANT MORE.

More of God. More Holiness. More direction. More diligence. More Wisdom. More faith in Him and His plans. More obedience. More discipline. More LIFE.

My heart is restless in me
My wings are all worn out
I'm walking in the wilderness
And I cannot get out
I need You, Oh, I need You
Blessed Savior come
I need You, Oh, I need You
Fill the every longing of my soul

~ Josh Bales, I Need You ~

~ Johanna