i write to believe.

I'm soaking in the words that have been written by women of faith today.  Devotional after devotional. Blog post after blog post.  I am hungry to resonate with those who have found Him. I am longing to come to know those who have lived through their own lives unraveling with fullness in Him.  And I find myself in this place where I'm called to enter a slow silence. Where do I want to be right now?   I want to be in a place filled with His peace and His love.  I want to be in a place where I too can say that I've known Him and I continue to get to know Him.  I am still in the "getting there" and the "figuring it out again" but this time I want to be more conscious of my choice.  More deliberate because now I know the source of my own discontentment.   I ponder upon Ann's words again in her Hope video.  How she focuses on Jesse's stump and how this stump are those moments in our lives that have been cut off, given up on, nearly impossib...

I've been looking through  Jennifer's blog archives  because her voice is a voice that I resonate with a lot these past few weeks and I'm learning about her journey and how God has found her.  I'm learning about how God restored her to Himself.  I'm learning about the peaceful rhythm she has found as she walked intimately with her Beloved.  A walk so inspiring and captivating.  A walk that reminds me of my own walk many years ago. But believing that one thing is everything, that the pursuit of these desires is the act of pursuing You makes an idol out of our desires. Our pursuit of what we think we want becomes more important to us than You.  (May 17, 2011) It’s true.  I have turned most of my desires into my idols.  Even the desire to be a reliable youth minister, a creative writer, a dear friend or finding true love. Even the desire to be financially successful, professionally admirable and competently consistent.  I realized ...

i find the silence louder than any attempt to still the night pregnant with prayers the sky roaring with tears and heaven longing for earth’s saints what prayers have we buried in the soil of our memories? what promises have we not kept letting faith vanish behind the mountain? what candle can we light to let even shadows find home in the dark? what sound can keep us awake that even noise can embrace silence still?

i am banished from a place  where the conversations move freely between me and you the day ends with stories  i can no longer tell like a  heart filled tale  and i am absent from the words i say like a ghost lingering in the small white frame  where what exists is only a shell of what was left between me and you like an echo whispering  over and over in the dark  remember my name remember my name remember my name or a dream that was left back into the night what has become what has become what has become and the words which are all that is left as the remains of conjoined journey forgotten become empty as  dried up seeds  of trees longing for rain

Accepting oneself is not easy especially if you’ve battled years of struggling to find a place to fit in. The struggling to adjust to the people around you and not being able to bare your entire self as transparently as you need to exhale and breathe can feel like an imprisonment or slow suffocating death.   Lately, I’ve been thinking about this because receiving God’s love means I receive it for myself and this love should be able to help me accept myself with all my flaws and idiosyncrasies.  I haven’t been able to wrap my mind around it  else I would be completely secure in His love all the time.   God’s love is not easy to anchor on especially if acceptance and affirmation is something we always rely on other people for.  It’s not easy to anchor on to someone you cannot see, talk to or hang out with. But I’ve realized that by not anchoring myself on Him, I too am not able to completely receive other people’s love completely as well.  I will a...

I hurdle constantly with the issue of expectation.  In a relative world, having expectations is a normal thing.  It's the reciprocity of human life. You give and you also expect to receive.  You love and you expect to be loved in return.  That popular Golden Rule "Do unto others what you want others to do unto you" has gotten me stuck on some issues about expectation. Living awake has made me realize that the golden rule while noble and profound is unrealistic.  What you do unto others is seldom ever done unto you.  For example.  I listen to about 10 people on the average day.  Aside from my consultancy practice, I'm also a youth minister and a daughter and a friend.  Listening is an activity that takes up a lot of my time and I happen to like doing it too.  I listen quite intently and really go deep into the core issues of people.  Just today I had a meeting with a client and he was telling me about his concerns over some...

Distractions are the common man's band aid to the small things that affect life.  I have many.  But for the past few weeks God has stripped me off my distractions to focus my attention to certain things. Sometimes I complain because I feel deprived of the more pleasant things that I see other people experience.  I grumble at how other people can be insensitive to my difficulties and play deaf to my pleas for help.   This particular season of my life has forced me to take a good look at what I value in myself and other people.  And I've realized how I can count with my  hands what I really value the most.  I value truthfulness and authenticity.  I value deep conversations.  I value learning and reflecting.  I value meaningful companionship.  I value honouring good memories.  I value true loyalty.  I value faithfulness. When you're being stripped away off everything that you thought was valuable to you, you begin to re...