living in light of eternity

a thought for the day...
i found these pearls of wisdom in a friend's facebook conversation. i hope they won't mind me sharing but they were just too good to keep to myself.

"marriage or motherhood is not the finish line for biblical womanhood. when we live in light of temporary finish lines or milestones, we put our identity in the finish line instead of Christ. we need to know how to live in light of eternity! it's far greater!!" 

{susie romer}

• "...and His glory is revealed through our satisfaction in Him; there's no beginning or end to that just total Jesus. my identity is in my eternal saviour not my earthly roles; brings so much freedom!" 
   {leah boden}

  
  

  there is no beginning & no end, no starting line or finish line to my satisfaction in Him. my satisfaction & fulfillment as a woman didn't start when i got married or had my first baby & it won't end when i inevitably become an empty nester. it always has been & always will be found in Him. 

someone's gotta die

forgiveness has been a subversive issue in my life. and when i stumble over something continuously i like to study it. read it. research it. understand everything there is to know about it until i have conquered it. so needless to say, you may be reading a lot about forgiveness on the ol blog over the next few months.

one of the most powerful things i have discovered about forgiveness is that someone's gotta die. someone's gotta give in, give up & let go.

the best model of this is Christ hanging in all His innocence on the horrible, despicable, humiliating cross for all the wickedness of the world. and then He said, with sheer pain coursing through His veins, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do". and then He gave over His life, gave up His rights, & died.  but as we know, He didn't stay dead. He was resurrected & is enthroned in the highest of heaven now.

it's a perfect picture of what happens when we choose the hard road of forgiveness. no wonder my flesh screams at the thought of forgiveness. we die to ourselves. die to our outraged emotions. to our own right to be right. we lay down our own power & control in the situation. and we die.
and yet i cannot say that i have experienced anything so liberating in my life than to truly forgive. never have i felt so uplifted. so strong. so empowered to give up my power. to lay myself, my pride, my own dignity down & then to be raised up with Him. there are no words for the beauty of this emotion.

it's a strange juxtaposition. a strange exchange that's difficult to articulate.
but more soon.

pssst...wanna know a secret?

i'd like to blame my brief interruption in blogging on a little secret i've been trying ti keep. it wasn't for sure until Christmas eve {best Christmas gift yet!}.
and so without further adieu...
we're moving to a farm!
we're moving to a farm in ashton, texas!
just kidding... but we really are moving to a farm in ashton, ontario (about half an hour outside ottawa) & we could not be more excited!
it has been a life long dream for us to run our own organic hobby farm & we still can hardly believe that it's ours. it really feels like the Lord hand picked it for us. it is a restored 200 year old farm {which is weird because that means it wasn't actually built in Canada... at the time we were called the dominion or something}. with it's old pine floors, massive gardens, emerald roofs, open fields, climbing trees, screened in porches, creek & piggery... we instantly fell in love & felt weirdly at home. it's a homestead. a place where we can dig our roots down deep & flourish.
although it will be difficult to say good-bye to the house we've had our babies in, the maple tree in our front yard with the swing & all of the neighbours we care so deeply for, we know God's has been in it all & goes before & behind us.

thank-you Lord for your goodness overwhelms us. 

where i come from {save the scraps}

"i never tell the enemy, i've been on the cover of time magazine, i've gone around the world.  i don't use none of that stuff up there. i reach back into my history.  your power is not in where you are, your power is in where you've been.  for Jesus said, 'I am the same yesterday, today & forevermore.  and if I brought you through that, still I am.'" 

{t.d. jakes}

i come from a long, twisted heritage that reaches back into the darkest corners of the netherlands. i have heard of stories of where i come from & i cringe. that was the heritage i heard of.  the heritage i experienced was different.  my beginnings were wrapped in love & fresh air & everything beautiful.  the woods were where i remember chiseling out my first remembrances of home.  those deep woods full of long wonderings & wild imagination.  i lived in the trees, those whispering pines always singing their lullabies.  and in the springs, when the waters would flood & pool, there i found truest joy in my black rubber boots.  and my twirling fields, my grass covered mountaintops for seeing & thinking.  and that long, graveled road where i would collect my pebbles & dreams.  i came from there until the world began to impinge on my beautiful beginnings.  it crept in like a thief in the night.  it took my deep woods & my climbing trees, my innocent fields & lullabies and replaced them with fear & brokenness, rejection & confusion.  and that is where i was born.  that is when i began pushing & digging & fighting. from places of uncertainty, places of self-deprecation.  unwanted places, too soon places, not enough places. the woods got darker, the clouds temporarily covered my sun, the locusts ate my twirling fields & the trees towered in intimidation.  

"{and the Lord says} you know a whole lot about now, but you forgot about then.  there is no way you would have made it to this present danger if I hadn't done what I did yesterday.  you wouldn't be blessed to have the problems that you have right now."

{t.d. jakes}

but He took my not-enough places & He broke what was not enough & He multiplied them & healed my land.  He restored all that the locusts had eaten.  He filled those spring pools to overflowing and i sit here now, from that restored place.  from the place of plenty.  i have lived in the light for so long i had forgotten the dark in between.  victory had had an anesthetizing effect.  the flourishing, fulfillment place had forgotten the fight, the battle places.

He wastes nothing that good God of ours. nothing. not even the scraps. 

"until we can be thankful for what is not enough, what is not enough can't be multiplied into more than enough.  the blessing is in the breaking. that which refuses to be broken, refuses to be blessed. the breaking of life produces the blessing of life." 

{t.d. jakes}

esau moments & soul adrenaline

i have always been intrigued by pioneers. i fell in love with laura ingalls wilder when i was in grade four. those who forge their way into the unknown, the unconquered. with nothing but the faith that they can & will make a way for themselves & their family to live better.

i know i'm called to be a pioneer in many ways. blazing the way for kingdom come here on earth.  but the funny thing about pioneering is that you forget, that no matter how long you've pioneered for, you are never the first. there are those that have gone before me. ancestors. great clouds of ancestors.

"we have stories of those who were stoned, sawed in two, murdered in cold blood; stories of vagrants wandering the earth in animal skins, homeless, friendless, powerless- the world didn't deserve them! - making their way as best they could on the cruel edges of the world.
none of these people, even though their lives were exemplary, got their hands on what was promised. God had a better plan for us: that their faith and our faith would come together to make one completed whole, their lives of faith not complete apart from ours.
do you see what this means - all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans, cheering us on? it means we'd better get on with it. strip down, start running - and never quit! no extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began & finished this race we're in. study how He did it. because He never lost sight of where he was headed-that exhilarating finish in & with God- He could put up with anything along the way: cross, shame, whatever. and now He's there, in the place of honour, right alongside God. when you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility He plowed through. that will shoot adrenaline into your souls!" {hebrews 11-12:1-3, the message} 

every so often i have an esau moment, where i try to trade God's lifelong gift, my calling, my birthright, to satisfy a short-term appetite. where in mid stride, i just decide it's too hard & i want to give-up for temporary relief.

pioneering ain't for the faint of heart. it can be just downright scary heading out into the great unknown. it takes a lot of brow sweat & a lot of faithful faith & trusty trust, if you know what i mean. but not everyone is called to pioneer. a great amount of people think the way steve & i have structured our lives is downright crazy & outlandish. and although we may find comfort & empathy in the stories & journeys of others like-minded, it's important to remember that only He will truly understand. and only He is the knower of the unknown.

it's like the good book says, look at Jesus, study Him, spend time with Him, look into His eyes..."that will shoot adrenaline into your souls!" {hebrews 12:3} not to mention, the privilege of joining & completing the heroic faith of the pioneers who have gone before like abraham or john the baptist {it's just so cool!}. 

we are in good company in this race. though it be hard. though it be ugly & impossible at times. and though we may feel like it at times, we are never alone. 

never lose sight. 

plough on pioneers, plough on!

10 things every mom needs to know

this made me laugh cry. a very weird emotion where i both laugh & cry at the exact same time. usually when i'm tired & usually when i really need to. :)

just take 3 minutes to be reminded of how awesome you are. :)

sinking deep {a song diary}

it happens like this sometimes. so unexpected. moments so unworthy to hold the glimpse of eternity they reveal. but i think it happens like that a lot... at least for the mamas of the young. how He so graciously unwraps Himself in such insignificant places. amongst the crumbs & crumble of life.

and i just broke. right there amungst the dirty floors & sticky counters & the signs of life littered all over the windows & walls. the kitchen spinning around me into nothing. all the things that only moments ago tethered me so mercilessly to the earth, the concern & tangly weight of people & their messes. confronted with the ugly realities, the dirt of life hanging heavy & syphoning precious hard won life. and i was afraid. afraid to make all the wrong choices. afraid of how to wake up tomorrow & face the next brutal day. and then it all crumbled beneath me. and the earth just faded and all i could see was heaven, the glory of His face.

standing here in Your presence, in a grace so relentless

i am won by perfect love

wrapped within the arms of heaven, in a peace that last forever

sinking deep in mercy's sea

a love so deep that it didn't matter if things would be alright. i didn't need the answers. i only needed to see Him. touch Him. hold Him. and i sobbed there on the musty, dog dirtied floor, beholding His beauty, His splendour. i couldn't see anything else. so beautiful i couldn't open my eyes. His mercy swelling waves of all consuming love over my heavy shoulders.

i'm wide awake, drawing close

stirred by grace, all my heart is Yours

all fear removed, i breathe You in

i lean into Your love, Your love

and i never heard the phone ring with news of yet another sewage flood at the rental. i didn't notice the odour of urine imitating from the little boys bathroom or the mountain of pukey laundry collecting at the bottom of the stairs, didn't notice the needy e-mails collecting in my inbox. i didn't even notice we were out of advil. i just sat there a moment & basked.

when i'm lost You pursue me/ lift my head to see Your glory

Lord of all, so beautiful

here in You i find shelter, captivated by the splendour

of Your face, my secret place

and there in the ugly imperfect, i beheld the most perfect thing i've ever seen. 

my everything.

Your love so deep is washing over me,

Your face is all i seek, You are my everything

Jesus Christ You are my one desire,

Lord hear my only cry, to know You all my life.