What does it mean to live fully?

In one day I came upon  a glorious quote twice.
What are the odds of that happening?
Since I’m not a big believer in coincidence but a chaser of God’s fingerprints, I knew a message was trying to reach my soul.
Here is the quote -
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming/ but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails while daring greatly. So that his place will never be with those cold timid souls who know neither victory or defeat. ”
Theodore Roosevelt
To add to this delightful quote like a a perfect bookend I came upon this quote this morning.
“You can live on bland food so as to avoid an ulcer, drink no tea, coffee or other stimulants in the name of health, go to bed early, stay away from night life, avoid all controversial subjects so as never to give offense, mind your own business, avoid involvement in other poeples problems, spend money ony on necessities and save all you can.  You can still break your neck in the  bath tub, and it will serve you right.”
I had to laugh between these two quotes lays my life.  The glory lies in the risk. In my minds eye I can see the hand of Jesus standing on stormy seas, extending a hand to me and saying – come on girl, let’s walk on water.
I’m choosing to live big with my whole heart.  Maybe we can squeeze out all of life that it has to offer when we take His hand and get out of our boats of safety and false assurances.
See that bird on the top of the page. Let’s do the same today.
Throw back your head and let your life rip!

One Thing

Father in Heaven! What are we without You! What is all that we know, vast accumulation though it may be, but a chipped fragment if we do not know You! What is all our striving, could it ever encompass a world, but a half -finished work if we do not know you: You the One, who is one thing and who is all!

So may You give to the intellect

wisdom to comprehend that one thing;

to the heart,

sincerity to receive this understanding;

to the will, purity that wills only one thing.

In prosperity, may you grant

 perseverance to will one thing;

amid distractions,

collectedness to will one thing;

in suffering,

patience to will one thing.

You that give both the beginning and the completion, may You early, at the dawn of the day, give to the young the resolution to will one thing.  As the day wanes, may You give to the old a renewed remembrance of their first resolution, that the first may be like the last, the last like the first, in possession of a life that has willed one thing.

Soren Kierkegaard

30 years of marriage looks different than the young imagine.

Today I woke up weepy and sentimental.  30 years ago today I put on a big white dress and walked down an aisle to a very handsome man with shiny blue eyes and a big Irish grin.  We shared this secret few people knew about, it wasn’t our first time being married.  We actually ran down to city hall in Florida because of a logistical snaffoo we hit and were really married a whole 8 days before the ceremony.

It made the whole day so much more fun for us.  We were the center of attention for this elaborate fun day that my parents planned from beginning to end.  It was beautiful and perfect and all I really remember was the handsome man whose eyes twinkled when he looked at me.

30 years bring situations that will bring out the worst and best in people in a marriage.  The truth about marriage is that you stop feeling all sweet about it the first time he makes you mad but you also fall in love again and again with greater intensity if you push through the hard parts.

Here are a few of my favorite memories and they are not what people might expect.

• Being in a mobile home on a pull out couch with 3 children, 4 and under with the flu. We were surrounded in vomit and I looked at my husband as he held one of our sons and wiped his face. Our son smiled because his daddy was helping him and he loved his daddy and we both broke out laughing.  The situation was ridiculous but we had each other and we loved those vomiting babies more than we ever thought possible.

• I remember taking a day to be at the beach with my man one day. Roger went to go do something and I looked up and a gorgeous man was surfacing out of the water with the sun making him all sleek and beautiful. I put my eyes down in an effort to not lust at this stranger. I wanted to practice being a faithful wife in my every moment. I got nervous as I scanned the beach looking for my man and realized the beautiful man was walking towards me. I remember my heart beating as he kept approaching.  I looked back ten times trying to find my man.  Finally the feet of the stranger were right in front of my towel and as I stared at them, they looked familiar. As my eyes rose up his whole body, I realized I was trying to not lust over my own husband. A lovely memory as I smiled all the way down to my toes.

• Roger waking up from open heart surgery and staring at him wondering if he will ever be the same.  They stopped his heart for hours as they worked on him.  He then realizes that I am close and he says to me with his eyes closed.  Hey baby, I’m looking good huh, want to have sex?  I then realized he was perfectly fine and things were going to be alright after all.

• Roger stringing hundreds of Christmas lights on every house we have ever owned while he mumbles under his breath in the cold or rain or snow.  Knowing that he hates this job but then the look on his face when he is all done and his family loves his handy work.

• Toys R Us runs for Christmas and birthday’s for our babies.

• Driving across the country with our small children while he takes the boys in his car and lets them play crazy boy games in the back seat, forming memories that they still remember.

• Every wonderful camping trip we ever took with our kids even the time we got soaked in the tent!

• Trying to figure out how to make love in a pop up camper and not rock the house with our kids sleeping on the other side of the thing.

• Waking up from every surgery I’ve ever had a knowing you never leave my side.

• The tears you shed when you first held your children.

• The time we were in an argument and you asked me if you had to prove you were sorry by hitting yourself in the head with a shoe (as you held the shoe in your hand by your head) and I smiled and said, “sure”.  We both burst out laughing and that was the end of the argument.

• The box of love letters you have written me over the years and the terrible but wonderful poems that you have given me that make me laugh so hard I cry.

• Both of us falling asleep at Le Miserable because we were young exhausted parents and leaving during the intermission.

• Snuggles on cold winter days.

• Watching you push past your fears in Ireland when you had to drive on the wrong side of the road.  The look on your face each time I offered to drive for us.

• The sheer joy you have for travel that I get to borrow because you love it so much.

• Watching you play with our grandchildren and wondering how so many years have gone by so fast that our babies have babies.

Roger I just want to thank you for praying harder and not giving up when things got hard.  You never worked to get out of our marriage you always worked to make things better. I am honored to call you my husband.

For working however many hours you had to so that didn’t have to miss a day of our children’s baby years.

Thank you for always making sure your family was protected, provided for and cherished by you.

For being a man of integrity and teaching our sons what is means to be a man with your life and not just your words.

Thank you for loving our daughter so well that she knew how to recognize a man of character to choose for her mate.

Thank you for always making me feel beautiful and valued.  I’ve never doubted it for a day since you first opened the door for me on our first date.

Thank you for the cups of coffee in the morning when I don’t want to get out of bed.

For playing Mario games with me or navigating me through all the worlds

For being the first person I want to share the rambling in my head with and for all the calls to me in the middle of your day to just say hello.

Thank you for being the kind of man that gives up his trip to Bali with his wife because our little girl needed us.  That makes me love you even more than I thought possible.

Thank you for being man enough to own up to your mistakes and godly enough to change when needed.

Roger who have made my life so rich that I can’t help but let the tears fall in gratitude.

Silver, from the deepest place in me to the softest place in you, I love you and thank you.

Perspective

To have perspective is to have a proper or accurate point of view.

How you perceive life affects how you  respond to all situations.
People act what they believe not what they are taught and often not what they say.

I often tell leaders don’t listen to what a person says, pay attention to what they do. There actions will tell you the truth of their beliefs.
This life will offer you experiences that you are not ready for and many of them will cause you to gain the wrong perspective.

When hurtful situations happen to you, you see the world through brokenness.
When you view the world through fractals and fractured glass you are only seeing partial truth but in your life it equals a whole lie.

When you keep responding to your situations with wrong thinking which leads to wrong actions your problems become magnified. Whatever you concentrate on grows.

As your problems grow – your faith diminishes.

*So if you are staring at your problems through binoculars the items in your range of site appear larger than they really are.

Sometimes our beliefs are utterly ridiculous like all men are bad, or no one will ever love me. God can do all things but work out my issues.

* Sometimes we walk around looking at things we fear as if they are huge and we are little.

*If this continues in your life you will undoubtedly become very negative in your perspective because you will stop believing in the power of love of God to transform and deliver you.  You see the world through darkness and stop being a witness to the light.

*Some people just choose to become delusional and choose to see the world through rose colored glasses because they don’t choose to handle the truth.  We have seen the sheer insanity of this on show’s like American Idol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPr7k6dBzqs

*We have all witnessed this delusion also when people first fall in infatuation.  We have coined a saying that says love is blind.

Every one of these situations will leave more deeply incapacitated and wounded as you journey through you life.

Your only hope of a prevailing life is gained through prayer and self awareness.
Scripture walks us through an amazing picture of this in Matthew 8:1-4

Matthew 8:1-4

What is a leper? Let’s talk about leprosy for a moment. It is a disease that causes disfigurement, skin lesions and permanent nerve damage. It its onset you break out in sores that don’t heal and in time become desensitized. Isn’t that interesting that everyone can see you wounded and oozing but you can’t feel it.

Leprosy is the perfect metaphor for sin in our lives.  It comes on like an open sore.  If left untreated that sore becomes numb. That numbness spreads deeper and deeper until there is disfigurement and permanent damage and ultimately death.

You just got a glimpse of what happens to your spirit when left unattended.

Now let’s go back to our story and see in this perfect metaphor what unfolds. Let’s dissect the message and find our lesson.

Vs. 2 The man came and knelt.

The man humbled himself and admitted his condition before the all powerful God.
He believed that Jesus was good.  He believed in God’s willingness.  Willingness comes out of a loving heart where compassion and mercy reign.  The man believed in God’s power and that God’s desire towards him is good.  This man has a great perspective because he first humbled himself and got out of his own way so he could see Jesus correctly.

Now isn’t it interesting that what he asked for was to be made clean? Not just healed but clean.  Leprosy was a double curse.  Not only did your body die faster than your spirit but it cut you off from all community.  No one was allowed to touch you because of fear of it spreading.

Here we see again that this story grants us the understanding that sin cuts us off from God and community.  It cuts us off from love.  It stops us from being able to physically love others or to be loved or touched by them.

This man wanted wholeness, restoration not only of body but back to community. He wasn’t allowed to worship because he could not enter the towns where those celebrations commenced.  He wanted complete restoration.

This gives us a clue to what we should ask for, complete wholeness.

So we have taken a moment to talk about the importance of perspective.

We have looked at scripture that has shown us the power of sin and also the power of proper posture and perspective of God and his desire towards us.

Let’s discuss the traps on Redemption Road

Quitting – How many of us have faced this trap in our faith walk?
If your hand is not raised. You lie. We wrap ourselves in a cloak of worthlessness and excuse our efforts.  Let’s examen this trap. What are the lies we say to ourselves?
It’s too hard.
It won’t make a difference.
Nobody cares.
I don’t care.
God’ doesn’t care.

2. Let’s look at the second trap, excused victim.

You ever heard the saying, that your past may explain you but it doesn’t excuse you.

Every negative experience in my life has granted me the opportunity to kneel before God and say, Lord if you are willing, and God has always said yes Rozy my beloved, I’m willing.  No matter who was at fault in causing the wound the truth is I carried the wound. It was on me whether or not I caused it, I owned it.  My job was to find healing, not justice or hide in excuses.

3. Hard hearted – That is when you call good what God calls sin.

When you start playing the conversation in your head that begins with justifications you know you are on this path. The Holy Spirit offers a conviction about a movie, some time that you are wasting that He is asking for or an act of service that you are prompted to do and you ignore.  For you to know to do good and not do it, for you that is sin.
There is always a price to ignoring the voice of God.

That is why the tool of spiritual journaling is such a gift.  It keeps your life open to continuous evaluation along with the power of prayer and God’s Word you will increase in sensitivity and obedience.  That will lead you to wholeness.

Obedience is the objective to the journey through Redemption Road.

Hungry Eyes

 

Let me preface this with the fact that I am not a writer. I’m a woman that has found herself hopping a plane every 2 months to different countries around the world. Places that I probably couldn’t find on a map if I tried. I’ve had many profound experiences in the last 3 years but last week I fell down the rabbit hole.

I locked eyes with a little boy in India. I’m certain he has no idea that I can’t stop thinking about him.
They were dark brown and startlingly gorgeous but they screamed in hunger. Beauty and pain were intertwined and he stared at me begging for food.
He was on the outside and I was in a car. He banged on the window and I put my hand up on my side and he put his hand on mine, but glass separated us. I scrounged through my purse and backpack for any morsel of food that I might be carrying. I gave him all I had. His actions verged on violence.

I can’t even imagine being that hungry?

I’ve never seen people, especially children be that desperate. I’ve seen animals react badly when they are in need of food. These children were bordering on aggression but all they wanted was food. I know in India they are trained to beg but hunger is an unmistakable state of being.

All I could think about was my children and my grand-babies and what if they were the ones on the other side of that glass.
How could I turn away from this beautiful child and not allow myself to feel his pain. I felt something on the inside of me unraveling as if someone was pulling the yarn on my reality. I don’t know how to describe how undone I was becoming in the seconds that passed.

Our car was stuck in traffic and it took us a few minutes to pull away. By the time we did we had about 7 little ones around our car. The group of people I was traveling with started placing all their extra food on my lap. I think they realized I was losing it and they had mercy on me and the little ones banging on the car windows. I handed it all out while I while I wept and tried not to sob out loud.

One stunning little girl reached out and grasped a pomegranate. I will never forget the look on her face as she lit up as if I had handed her a feast. I couldn’t stop staring at them. A part of my brain kept saying, just look away, just look away, but I couldn’t. I wanted my eyes to say “I’m sorry, you are so beautiful, God loves you, I love you, I wish I had more to give you.”

Falling down the rabbit hole is where things don’t make sense and up is down and down is up. I’m not out of the rabbit hole yet. Something in me broke and my brain which is normally a very reliable muscle, has turned to mush. I can’t talk about it without it coming out as sobs. I can’t sleep without seeing them.

This is what I know. I can’t go forward without going back.

An unscripted life.

The last few years of my life are radically different than I had planned.
Having sat in a church with a strong leadership emphasis, I was diligent to set out goals and worked to achieve them.  There is generally nothing wrong with that unless you happen to be praying for the “more” of God.

Then all of a sudden I read books like Crazy Love by Chan or Radical by Platt and my heart became disenchanted with my limited experience as a disciple of Christ.  Don’t get me wrong I was busy and productive on paper and on the church calendar but there was this deep witness in my spirit that what I was living was too safe and scripted. It was like I had written out a complete manuscript and I just needed God to fill in the few empty spaces.  Somehow God wanted a whole blank page and the thought of that just filled me with anxiety.  God was asking me to live a life I couldn’t control.

Something in me kept whispering that it was time to take the love of God out of the walls of the Church and that the church needed to have legs on it.  The Lord has always been relentless in my life.  God thoughts can at time feel like a thorn in my brain that cannot be forgotten.  The dialogue when a little like this:
“Rozy, when are you going leave this safe structure behind and go be the church?”
“Rozy,  when are you going to take the light into the darkness?”
“Rozy my grace is sufficient for you, why don’t you trust me?”

My answers sounded like this:

“I can’t afford to travel the world Lord, what on earth are you thinking?”
“ It’s not safe to travel to areas where their governmental structures are unpredictable or non-existent.”  “What if I get into an accident or need a hospital?”
“ I don’t have a missional call on my life, I never wanted to be a missionary.”

On and on those conversations would go and at time I thought I presented my case quite well but winning was losing in God’s economy.  I kept talking myself right out of the more of God.

Then one day I stopped making excuses.  An invitation was given. I said yes and never turned back.  In the last few years I’ve worked, cried, laughed and invested more intentionally than I ever thought possible.  I’ve walked on the 5 different continents and I’ve lost count of how many countries I’ve visited.  I’ve ministered to missionaries and loved on strangers. Fed and housed more young people than ever before.  My heart has been torn open to be an unrecognizable size.  I have had to face fears I never imagined and experienced extraordinary measure of the grace of God I didn’t know existed.

I feel like I’m finally part of His plan instead of having God in mine. I have only one regret, that I didn’t say yes sooner.

The Circles – Control, Influence, Concern

The Circles – Control, Influence, Concern

Life is lived in 3 circles.

What can we control?

The first circle contains the only thing we can control in the world.

Ourselves!

Problems arise when we exert all our energy on trying to change other people instead of ourselves.  We cannot control all our circumstances or other people.  But if you find yourself often stressed by the behaviors of others you may not understand the power of the circles.

 What people or situations can be influenced?

Our second circle is a bit larger and is an example of all the things we may have influence over.  We can influence loved ones, friends, and environments.  Anything or anyone that we invest time and energy into can be considered an area that can be influenced.

What areas in life are we concerned about?

An example of places where we show concern would be world hunger, poverty and injustice.  Anything that doesn’t have your direct involvement and but occupies a place in your thoughts.

Our lives start to spiral out of control when we exert energy and focus on the wrong circle.  We cannot control world events or other people.  It’s a waste of time and energy to focus trying to change anything but ourselves and then our contribution to areas of influence so that they affect our places of concern.

My husband told me about the circles one day when he came home from a conference.  It was a day that I felt like I light bulb went off on top of my head.  I got it!  Most of my frustrations in life came because I had things in the wrong circle.  I spent too much energy trying to control other peoples behaviors and not enough time controlling my thoughts and actions.  I sat down and wrote down the amount of stress or energy I spent on people or situations and then was honest about what part of the circle I had them in.  This was one of the lessons in my life that changed my life for the better.  When I learned to think through the truth of each situation and place it in the right circle, I gained peace and perspective.

So now I offer you my light bulb lesson.

How are you doing with your circles?

Following the whisper….

“Prayer is the key that unlocks all the storehouses of God’s infinite grace and power. All that God is, and all that God has, is at the disposal of prayer.  But we must use the key.  Prayer can do anything that God can do, and as God can do anything, prayer is omnipotent.  No one can stand against the man who knows how to pray and who meets all the conditions of prevailing prayer and who really prays. ‘The Lord God Omnipotent’ works for him and works through him. ” R. A. Torrey

As I am blessed with a rich community of praying people. I come before you with specific requests for a month that is rich with kingdom opportunity.  I know without a doubt that the prayers of those that love us have ushered us forward beyond anything we could have imagined for ourselves in ministry.  Especially the prayers of my parents whose prayers I depend on, and know are the first that are carried up to the ears of God as the sun rises and are repeated often before the sun sets.

This month is a bit unique as we will be visting 3 countries and 4 Squads in little over 2 1/2 weeks of travel.

We begin on the 6th on March with our travel to Haiti to visit the Squad we are coaching for the year, C Squad.

Returning on the 10th we board a new plane to Thailand on the 12th of March (yes we will only be home 1 day to repack) and will be there until the 18th.  Then on the 18th we will be in route to China until the 22nd.

During that time we will be with W,X & Y Squads.

Prayer requests -

Personal – Travel grace, minimal to no jetlag while on the field, connections of all flights, no lost luggage, health, energy and both earthy and divine connections would all be made.

Now for the good stuff -

I’m asking for a downpour of the Holy Spirit for each persons individual journey.  Only the Holy Spirit can minister to  almost 200 people and give them each exactly what they need.

That God would break down any walls that hinder them from wholeness.

That their hearts would be ministered to and healing would flow to them, and through them.

I ask for a great revelation of the love of God.

Empowerment of His Holy Spirit of their lives and teams.

Release of their gifts and talents to further the Kingdom.

Courage and boldness to permeate them through and through.

Vision to impact the Nations for the years to come.

Wholeness and Holiness of their minds, body and spirit.

Souls, souls, souls, souls, souls, souls, for the Kingdom.

Territorial strongholds would be pulled down and Kingdom ground taken all around the world.

Yes, we might as well go big, or go home!

I stand as a witness to declare that the hand of God is moving through this generation in ways that motivate me forward with fresh courage, hope and excitement.

Wrap us in Isaiah 61 and Ephesians 1:17-19

Here are a few stories from the field to stir your spirits to pray.

Krystle Desales on the A squad fell in love this month with baby Crystal in Mwanza, Tanzania. Baby Crystal has hydrocephaly which means there is fluid in her brain. Krystle started to pray… http://krystledesales.theworldrace.org/?filename=what-you-did

“I left the hospital unsettled, still thinking about Crystal and her mother. I prayed that God would just miraculously heal her. Two days after the hospital visit, I looked at my bank account and noticed someone put in one hundred dollars into my account, which is the exact amount Crystal needed for the surgery. I know that this wasn’t just some coincidence, some fluke chance that this happened…This coming Monday on February 6th, baby Crystal is having surgery.  After 11 months, finally she is receiving the miracle she has been waiting for. “

–

Allison Prysianzny on the W squad is in Mozambique. She writes a blog about being ‘up and healing before noon,’ and describes just another day of ministering in the bush!  Read about the healings here: http://allisonprysiazny.theworldrace.org/?filename=up-and-healing-before-noon-just-another-day-on-the-race&bookmark=true#comments

“One man in particular stands out in my memory. He showed us how he couldn’t lift his right arm and then pulled up his sleeve to show the little razor marks the witch doctor had cut into him. He said he had been there many times, but he still couldn’t lift his arm. We prayed for him and watched as he lifted his arm high above his head. PTL!”

–

Jamos and Emily Mitchell, also on the W squad in Mozambique, share the below story about how God showed up and moved during a spontaneous prayer time in the middle of the marketplace.  Read an excerpt below and check out more here: http://jamosandemilymitchell.theworldrace.org/?filename=african-adventure-into-the-bush

“It was around 8am and we stopped for some bread and bagia in a small town.  Let’s be real, I also wanted a Coke Zero. Felito (our pastor) wanted to see a man who he met at an outreach event 10 years earlier, who was saved and now a pastor in the town.  We met up with the elderly pastor and prayed for him before we left.  When we were done praying for him in the street, there was a crowd gathered and they wanted prayer for themselves!

First, a lady, who was selling pineapples on a blanket on the roadside wanted prayer.  She could not believe that we would pray for her – for FREE!  We were like, ‘yes, of course, we would love to pray for you’. Each time we were in a circle praying, and when one person was done, another person made their way into the circle and we surrounded them in prayer!  People would tell us if they were sick (most were) and one man had even visited a witch doctor to help with his arm, which he could not lift up at all.  The witch doctor (who you pay money to) made small cuts in his skin and he had the scars to show us. We prayed over his arm and when we were done, he could lift it above his head! Another miracle!

The praying continued for nearly 2 hours and when we were done, another man who was healed, came up to the pastor, Felito, and said, “ I want to give you land to build a church in my village – so that my village may know God and be saved” So, he hopped on the back of our truck and we headed to his village to see the land he was going to give our pastor to plant a church.  AMAZING!”

–

Shayna Black, Y squad, took personal money and helped feed a whole community after she heard God speak to her this week.

So, after much prayer and conversation with our contact, this is what God said to do.
“Feed the village!” -God
So this is what we did with the money:
35-25kg bags of rice
32-50pkg/box of noodles
10 skirts

It went to feed 35 different families in the village both Christian and Buddhist alike.  Here’s the crazy cool part……

Our contact later told me that he had prayed for 2 years for someone to come help him feed his village and here I was answering that prayer!”

Check out pictures here: http://shaynablack.theworldrace.org/?filename=part-2-seeing-gods-plan-photos

–

Stephanie May (A squad) has an incredible way of telling her story and how she is experiencing the Holy Spirit on the Race–as NOT creepy. Her whole perspective has changed because she’s seen the Spirit manifest. She’s learned to prophesy, pray in the spirit, and has witnessed healings.  Read her story here: http://stephaniemay.theworldrace.org/?filename=7A35CE9F101140A78B4227CF9A6B53

“We walked into a room that looked like every other African living room, concrete with a set of curtains and some tacky fake flowers, and sat down to wait.

A few minutes later, an old woman walked into the room.  ‘Walked’ is a stretch.  She hobbled in, dragging one of her legs, holding herself up on the crudest set of crutches I’ve ever seen. Her face was screwed up in agony, and she barely got herself the five feet to a chair before slowly and painfully lowering herself into it.

Without missing a beat, we got to work, praying for healing.   A half an hour later, I was holding the woman’s hand as she took her first pain-free steps across the floor. She walked 15 feet heading straight for the door. She stopped there, looking out at the world she had been missing, before turning and walking again.”

–

This is kind of a different update for Friday Updates, but this blog from Leah Malone on the C squad caught our attention. Her uncle with Downs Syndrome passed away this last week and she went home for the funeral. She writes about his life, his relationship with Jesus, and what he has taught her. It is beautiful. http://leahmalone.theworldrace.org/?filename=pancakes-on-friday

“…Thanks to my uncle, I have the most vivid picture of what that looks like [to receive the kingdom of God like a child]. For example, in the last year of his life Jerry loved his Bible. He hardly went anywhere without it. He would read his Bible all the time. The funny thing is…my uncle can’t read! You would look over and his Bible would be upside down and sideways but his lips would be muttering something 100 mph! I love it. You tell Jerry that Jesus loves him and he believes you. You tell him Jesus died for him and he says ok. You tell him he’s going to heaven and he just smiles. Pure faith…so beautiful. I decided today that I’m actually super jealous of him.”

CHOKING on closures.

Be warned… if you ever have an artist friend or two, they will dream about you.  In my world I happen to be surrounded by artist.

Recently one of them had a dream about me.  Let’s call her Momma Brilliant.

She dreamt a simple dream of holding one of her babies on her lap.

It was simple until she realized the baby had a mouth full of buttons and the babe was choking on those buttons.  Momma B quickly wrapped her arm around the middle of her child and worked to dislodge the buttons and clear the airway.  She woke up with a start and a quick realization that the dream was meant for me.

Here are her exact words.  “Rozy don’t let yourself choke on closures.”

That might not mean anything to some people, but it hit me like a ton of bricks.

Closures are the things in my life that have shifted or changed and are beyond my control.

My mind can hold onto things that are past or are negative, and it rehearses and rehearses upon those things until it literally chokes.

Here is where God is amazing and so kind. I understood the dream.  God is the Momma and he has me right on his lap.  I have a mouth full of troubling thoughts I’m sucking on, just like a child would on buttons.

I have an overactive tongue so this dream hit home for me. Have you ever had a cavity your tongue couldn’t stay away from?  The tongue is a sensitive part of the body and it has a propensity to return to a part of the mouth that feels off. It goes over and over it until it is literally raw!

My mind stand for my mouth in that dream. My mind has been raw lately from all the happenings around me.

As I read through the Bible, I continue to fall more and more in love with David.

David’s secret weapon in the midst of his greatest struggles is that he would STOP and Worship.  He would rehearse the greatness, power, and faithfulness of God. David would then go forward because he would encourage himself in the Lord.

So I’m spitting out the buttons and meditating on the goodness of God.

Present Wanderings

Those are two words that are actually hard for me.

Present – To keep my mind in the moment and not let it race forward as if life were a chess game.  I’m always thinking, planning and strategizing and I often fail to stop and be present.  I have found that worship isn’t in the future. I can’t worship while thinking because I’m somewhere else and God is in my present.  So I stopped my thinking this morning and went for a walk. I looked and followed beauty all around my neighborhood.

Which leads to my other word – wandering.

To wander is to walk in a leisurely and aimless way.  If you know me I count the seconds of a day to try and max them out so wandering is not in my nature.  Yet I have discovered that God Has asked me to wander around the world for two years and His methods for me have had great purpose.  So I decided to be present and wander without regard or panic this morning, in a new place without pressure. My only purpose was to  connect with beauty and worship.

Here are a few things I came across.

Red birds danced in mid flight before me.

A meadow of green that hid a flock of birds that all took flight at once.

Manicured lawns that looked like they had been loved  and hand crafted for decades.

My eyes feasted on homes with character and warmth while I listened to the delightful sounds of chubby happy birds.

A sun that has remembered to shine once again.

Today I worshiped by staying present and wandered towards beauty.