Hiya Everyone!

I know this is for us to share thoughts and stories with each other and I had this rolling in my head for a bit. I feel I need to share it, but please excuse me if I ramble!

Recently, I’ve been seeing a lot of drifters in my area. I don’t know if they’re all passing through at the same time, or I just didn’t want to see them before…so I didn’t. I try and follow the whole “if someone asks, give” idea, but I’ve really been wanting to help these people I see on the street. At first, I had to find the right balance between being helpful and being safe. And then, whenever I would go to the place I had last seen someone I thought I might reach (cause they’d been there a few days), they were gone. The last time this happened, I saw a younger guy with the “will work for food” sign, freezing near a blockbuster as I passed. I wanted to give him money, but my husband warned it better to give food, incase there were drug issues. Made sense. We continued with our day of going to the golf range. I had very little fun. He stayed on my mind. The next day was Sunday, I thought, “I’ll go back after church and buy some things for him.” When I get home, there was feeding the baby and eating lunch and Noah’s nap time, and finally I went out to where he had been. He wasn’t there. I was struck with a very clear thought. I’m trying to do God’s will, but I’m trying to make it convenient for myself. I felt like my insides had been scooped out. How very obvious. How very like me to take something as good as caring for those in need and twisting it so it fits my schedule.

I know we’ve been talking about walls lately. I feel like a couple of mine are crumbling that I wasn’t even aware that I had. Perhaps I was blocking out those who needed help because I didn’t have time for them. I see them now. And with God’s help, I’ll learn how to go when he sends me and not wait for my own convenience.

Thank you to everyone at the meeting on Monday. Katie’s worship music, the chance to sing and dance with friends, everything helped to ease my mental and physical burdens. You guys are like an Anti-enemy barrier and it rocks!!! Talk about Praise frightening the enemy!!!

Love you all!

Brandy

Hello everyone.:)

I don’t have a lot of time to put words here right now, but I wanted to follow-up my mother’s thoughts with a resounding, TRUE THAT.

I have to say that I feel the press of performance from the very first moment I am awake in the morning. My head and heart fill up with words before I even know that I’m not sleeping anymore. Resting starts to feel like digging a hole in the sand by the ocean- as soon as the tides of my life come in, every bit of peace that I have attained gets swept away and pressed down beneath the weight of the waves. This is when I realize that maybe peace is unattainable.

Maybe peace is something I have to sink my spiritual roots deep down into, and not something to add on top of all the anxieties in my life, like neosporin for the soul. Peace is an inside-out kind of phenomenon, where the Spirit of God inside of me, my Counselor, is ever convincing me over and over again that I do not need to be in control. This is so much harder than it seems.

Anyway. That’s about all I can afford to divulge at this moment- it is a busy weekend already (but full of good things!).

I love you all! Write words here. I want to see your thoughts.

always,

Annie

Okay, I admit it, this whole “ten minute rest” thing has got me all discombobulated. It is an effort of a leader who sees that her team needs rest and safety from the storms of life, to commune with God and find peace and purpose. This is a very good thing.

The problem comes in with our human nature and how we want to ritualize it. We somehow believe that an outside force will somehow change our inmost parts. It was never meant to be this way.

As of late, I have been in the throes of trying understand the whole law vs. grace or maybe better said, performance vs. grace. God is not interested in our performance. That much is clear. There is nothing we can add to our value in His eyes by what we do as it has already been done, all of it, in Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. I know this in my head, and yet, on a daily basis, I find myself trying to earn God’s love, or measuring myself by a standard that He has not demanded of me. I think this is somehow easier for us, as it feels like we have some control in the matter. The truth is, performance is a demanding master , and is never satisfied. It will steal our very life breath.

And so, back to my original thought. This whole ten minute rest idea was not meant to be a ritual, or something to check off the list, or something else to make us feel that we are failing. NO! Please hear me on this. It is about finding God, as best you can, or letting Him find you , so that you may know how deeply you are loved. Oh, how He loves you.

In a book I am reading there is a powerful quote in which God is speaking to a man (fictionally) ” I don’t want to be the first among a list of values; I want to be at the center of everything. When I live in you, then together we can live through everything that happens to you. Rather than a pyramid, I want to be the center of a mobile, where everything in your life- your friends, family, occupation, thoughts, activities- is connected to me but moves with the wind, in and out and back and forth, in an incredible dance of being”.

This speaks to my heart. It frees me. When we are trying to earn God’s love, we are asking a question that has already been answered. The answer is a resounding “YES!!!” “YES, I love you! YES, I am pleased with you! Come let me show you how much!”

This brings my heart rest. I hope it does yours too.

I so enjoyed being quiet with you all this week, listening to sweet worship, and then dancing out our hearts in response to His eternal invitation.

Hope you get some rest this week~

Love you all so much,

Mary Anne

Hey My Girls,

So I have been thinking ~

As I was spending my time trying to get quiet before God and rest yesterday (okay, last night) I realized a few things. This is not easy or necessarily intuitive. There are so many things that fight for this time, during this time. Getting your mind to settle down can be a very difficult thing, and this may have to be taught for some of us. We are so used to doing, rather than being.

So during this time, I confess I had all of you on my mind. I wondered what you were dealing with and how this process was working for you. Simple thoughts like ” what should I be thinking?” came into my head as I considered what some of you might be experiencing. So, I would like to propose a few ideas. First, let us openly share our journey in this process. (through this blog for one) I know we are all at different places in this journey, but I feel our honesty and vulnerability will greatly encourage each other. Saying things like, “today, during my time, I felt…” might really help someone else on their journey!

Secondly, I think it would be great if we could model this in our time together. This may sound strange, but let me explain a little. Okay, maybe a lot.

I know some of you have heard me talk about the three stages of worship dance, and how I believe our team is the second stage. If not, it goes like this: View the rest of this entry…