help me to surrender my timeline
the sequence of my plans
the ideas of who my people need to be
when i am overcome by expectations and this ticking clock
can i trust in your miracles and your majesty
that your vision is brighter, greater, wider than what i can see
when i sink in my disappointment and fear
can you remind me that against your plans for me, i am exactly where i need to be
when i feel
oh help me to find power in that ability
to experience what it means to be human
with a god who will catch me even still
poetry
a heavy heart & the light
when my heart feels stacked with lamentations, i reach for the salve of your psalms, the refuge and the mirror, i have permission once again to demand and expect revelations and proverbs that crack me, the parables can transform to new meanings once again, the good news can penetrate the spaces in me no letter no song no commandment can reach, in the beginning and till the end it is your quiet hovering spirit that lit up the dark
in-between faith
in the valley of the in-between
after letting go of former things or finishing well something proper
waiting for the next right thing
inhaling the weight of this unpredictable life
exhaling the fear of nothing coming again
inhaling the emptiness
exhaling the ambient loneliness ever present
i find faint comfort in darling phrases
this too shall pass
the lord is my shepherd I lack nothing
what is mine will not pass me by
instead of accepting and feeding the wallow
instead I dare to fan the flame of my pale faith
until it deepens and darkens
roots in my body so the truth
of my enoughness has already arrived even if nothing is to change
of my hope of what is to come is about to change everything
CBG: Holy Saturday
Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus saw where he was laid.
Mark: 15:47
I imagine the quiet gray permeating from dusk to dawn. The numb sweeping up and down your body Hope marred and crushed You are crushed Love dead and locked away All you have left is a cold stone reminder of everything you lost How did we get here? Your fragile heart is too afraid to lift its eyes For fear of connecting with another heartbroken soul Who will see you in your unarmored self All you want is to be held and comforted But will that even be enough? It's a nightmare Wake up Rewind Reset. Please. Please. I promise-- Negotiating in the waiting Replaying those times when it didn't feel so heavy Trying to be anywhere but here Anything to not feel the powerless, the helpless, the human in us The quiet gray ambient grief that is unable to utter any words to soothe Words are shit Shut up Stop trying to make this okay Stop moving! You don't even have the energy to scream or release You hold it in to hold on Now what Where do we go from here When here was where we were meant to be
Prayer: Look up.
Creative: What message does your former self need?
Brave: Look in.
Generous: Look out.
CBG: #14
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation. By faith we understood that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.
Hebrews 11:1-3
I hear this a lot. Trust your gut. What does that mean? What does my gut feel like? Gut. It feels like something around my tummy, so around my center. The gut feels rooted deep into purpose. Tummies. They digest and break down food…The gut takes in information and breaks it down…? The gut examines and looks for patterns. Acid breaks down food, killing the germs and leaving the nutrients. (Side: Did you know you can shrink or make the stomach physically smaller and that makes your appetites and desire smaller as well? Oh to make my desires and appetites smaller)…Trust your gut. It processes information so that we eliminate the things that harm us and distribute the things that nourish us. What do things that harm us feel and look like? What do things that nourish and sustain us feel and look like? Trust your gut. Can those in your community reflect back the things and times when you aren’t in health and living in a cycle of harm? Can people also reflect those things and times when you feel excitement, possibility and faith? What’s the wisest, kindest and bravest message your gut is telling you?
Prayer: God, help me to push aside all the distractions and doubts, and exist only in your sanctuary. Please reveal to me, what life and decisions look like if I didn’t have worry, fear or a need for comfort and security. Please reveal to me what a wise, kind and brave living looks like for me.
Creative: Read one of these hope poems and write your own in response.
Brave: Where can you do less today by asking someone for help?
Generous: Who needs your reminder of hope today? Maybe even share that poem…?
CBG: #13
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
Everyone is in a season of “refraining from the embrace.” However outside of that, no one can tell you or judge you for the season you’re in. What season(s) are you in? Knowing what season you’re in can replace frustration and anger with patience, doubt with stillness and distrust with potential. Knowing what season you’re in realigns expectation, or even better, helps you release any expectations. When you know what season you’re in, you’ll understand why some characters are starring in your life, while others should just be an extra. It’s okay. It shifts. Tomorrow, the next hour, the next minute could be a new “episode of life.” And each minute is the same length and has equal value. Each minute can matter when your focus is on eternity.
Prayer: What time is it?
Creative: What season do you want to be in? Imagine it. Create something as if you’re in that season.
Brave: Call someone in today.
Generous: Tell a mentor or someone who’s really shaped you in a former season, how much it meant and what you learned from that season.
CBG: #12
Can the world say, GOTCHA, this was a joke HAPPY APRIL FOOL’S…let’s go back to…? Back to what…? Back to all the things we took for granted like going to the store without anxiety of invisible virus attackers in the air? Back to daydreaming in a coffee shop and building relationship currency with the barista? Back to hugs and physical closeness and to a time when you didn’t know physical touch was on your top 5 love languages? Joe Biden always talks about going back to when….? To when…? When only some of us were aware of the rampant racism bubbling under the surface ready to launch at anyone who isn’t alike on the outside? When most of us let the leaders do the “organizing” and we sat back? When the lucky few of us thought this world isn’t too bad?
There’s no going back. We are changed. We may not have the words or know what the change means for our future decisions, however, things have and will continue to shift.
- What has shifted because circumstances have shifted? This is the stripping of all those YOLO decisions.
- What has rooted deeper because what is unshakeable glows brighter? This is the building of all those YOLO intentions.
Prayer/Meditation: For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith — that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. Ephesians 3: 14-21
Creative: It’s national poetry month! Write a poem.
Brave: Where have you been living in scarcity? How can you shift that?
Generous: What was a service that you loved? How can you honor the person who gave that to you?
CBG COVID Challenge: #3
It seems like even in the midst of rhetoric reminding us to slow down, be still, take notice…there is A LOT OF advice, newsletters, even devotionals to help us through this time. I am not excused from that latter. I do not want to add more TO DO’s, more alliteration bullet pointed advice (although I do love alliterations), more noise to the quiet we have been challenged to become comfortable with. Take a breath. In the name of Jesus, release any guilt or need to accomplish more, to achieve more, to have answers for why this season exists. The amount of content shoved down our throats, from news to meditation tips is our humanity trying to feel less helpless in the face of uncontrollable circumstances.
What if this time to be present is a space to expand our seeking without an agenda, our curiosity and our capacity to live in questions? What if we finally can acknowledge how vast the world, our lives and our community are as the unanswerable things become the normal? What if we finally see our own humanity in the presence of a huge God? Have we forgotten that God is that big in the midst of our plans? Have we forgotten God’s promises in the midst of our own desires and schedules? Have we forgotten our truest purpose in the midst of really great callings we’ve discovered in our enneagrams and personality tests?
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, and when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord.
Jeremiah 29:11-14
I must love the questions
themselves
as Rilke said
like locked rooms
full of treasures
to which my blind
and groping key
does not yet fit.
Alice Walker
Prayer: God, I want to find you. I want to know you. I want to hear you. I want to sense you with all my being. I want to feel your presence in me, around me, before me. How are you expanding how I experience you during this time?
Creative: Break out the colors (on nails, on paper, in the pan…)
Brave: Thank someone you haven’t in a while.
Generous: Reach out to a small business to see how they’re doing.
John 16: Tell all the truth but tell it slant
I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father.
Metaphor
Similes, As If’s and like’s
Make the medicine go down
Movies art
Poetry
Make suffering and realties
Digestible and gentle
Candy coated like gardens of Eden
Hold the stories and feelings we understand
Growing and pruning truth in its core
What if Jesus is a metaphor?
What if the words we take to be so inherently true
Are true in the sense that they point to truth
But within itself are malleable and allow for shifts
According to where the light hits
And the time of day
And season of life
Flexible allows for faith
Flexible holds a God that has inherent worth
A God who is unafraid of your doubt and anger
I want the truth
Straight and slanted
Joy
A manual on how to hurt
Navigate the silence and strangling of imminent gray, a gray that shades the colors of life to a muted fade
The inability to understand and rationalize the heaving chest and heavy eyes
The pressure to push it all away
A manual on how to hurt pt II
Hold
Embrace
Sit quietly
Hold
Embrace
Accept
Hold
A highway into glimpses of the good times of the past and how they mirrored good things yet to come
Hold
Embrace
Sit
Dare to cry
Dare to laugh
A manual on how to laugh
A guide on how to heal.
Are you there God? 