Sitting here smiling at the hotel jam we've got going on here tonight. Cello. Violin. Guitar. Yes! They all got packed into the van for this road trip to museums and volleyball games. Am I crazy or what? Two girls chatted it up the whole trip while the boy made weird faces at me in my rear view mirror.
Milk Duds and Gobstoppers. Things that make him happy. Me happy. The rhyming contest begins...things we do when the Shoulders is not in the car, and he smiles all gums and teeth when I bury him. Makes me wish I could be like this all the time. With this one. The one who struggles with his work ethic. The one who keeps trying and failing. Like his mom. Like me.
So good to smile with him. Laugh. Love. Such a gift to be in this room with young musicians making...quite a racket actually! The boy takes me down just once putting mice, rice, ice and twice together in a sentence. I want to take his face in my hands and kiss him. Tell him how wonderful he is, and that I love him. Forever.
Nice,
Bernadette
listening
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
A Gathering
Listening to Tim Keller because a dear friend provided his messages for me on an ipod. Does she know the full measure of her gift? Does she know the hours I spend in the car listening instead of growing angry...at all this time of mine seeming to slip away. Given away. And does anyone notice or care? Time. Again.
Tonight Keller was talking about how Jesus can be our husband, and I thought of mine so far away. My heart in Istanbul, Turkey. I know the Bible says that husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church, and can you imagine such a tall order? I wonder...if in all their strength they grow weary in doing good? Are our husbands lonely too? Do they cling to the cross of Christ and cry out to Him to be their husband too? Their shoulders? Their strength? How can we encourage these great men? How can we lift their hopes?
And what can I say to the Shoulder's daughters who cry for him and worry their lives would be over if he ever left the earth with out them? What do I say to his sons, when they need to listen, but they can't hear from their mama anymore like that? How would a woman know what it takes to become a man anyway?
The house lies, again, in ruins. The week spent weakly comforting and caring for broken bodies and hurting hearts. I want to lay my head right down and bawl. At all this failure. All this mess. And how am I going to get it all together before the Shoulders comes home?
Isn't that how we all feel when we really just need to come to God? In all the tears and snot running down. In all the ugliness. Wouldn't it be nice to enter in sometime when we've all been good and holy? When we've not yelled at our little one and silently shunned the big one? When we've not played our crumpling cards? Instead, we just show up and shrug. Here we are again, Lord, and what are You going to do with the whole lot of us? Is there enough water in all the world this time?
Tender Father. Pulls His daughters and sons right up into His lap and takes out a giant white hankie. Patiently wipes the world off. Again. And how is it He never grows tired? Weary? Of doing this good to us? Of loving like this and cleaning us up like this? How does He get us, these wild children of His, to settle down and rest our heads right there on His eternal heart. The everlasting arms.
Gathering us all in,
Bernadette
Tonight Keller was talking about how Jesus can be our husband, and I thought of mine so far away. My heart in Istanbul, Turkey. I know the Bible says that husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church, and can you imagine such a tall order? I wonder...if in all their strength they grow weary in doing good? Are our husbands lonely too? Do they cling to the cross of Christ and cry out to Him to be their husband too? Their shoulders? Their strength? How can we encourage these great men? How can we lift their hopes?
And what can I say to the Shoulder's daughters who cry for him and worry their lives would be over if he ever left the earth with out them? What do I say to his sons, when they need to listen, but they can't hear from their mama anymore like that? How would a woman know what it takes to become a man anyway?
The house lies, again, in ruins. The week spent weakly comforting and caring for broken bodies and hurting hearts. I want to lay my head right down and bawl. At all this failure. All this mess. And how am I going to get it all together before the Shoulders comes home?
Isn't that how we all feel when we really just need to come to God? In all the tears and snot running down. In all the ugliness. Wouldn't it be nice to enter in sometime when we've all been good and holy? When we've not yelled at our little one and silently shunned the big one? When we've not played our crumpling cards? Instead, we just show up and shrug. Here we are again, Lord, and what are You going to do with the whole lot of us? Is there enough water in all the world this time?
Tender Father. Pulls His daughters and sons right up into His lap and takes out a giant white hankie. Patiently wipes the world off. Again. And how is it He never grows tired? Weary? Of doing this good to us? Of loving like this and cleaning us up like this? How does He get us, these wild children of His, to settle down and rest our heads right there on His eternal heart. The everlasting arms.
Gathering us all in,
Bernadette
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Addiction
So you get called a religious nut, and folks say that you Jesus Freak people out. And I know. I get it, really I do. But I am nothing now but a woman wholly addicted to Christ. He is my holy addiction.
You know, the way He reached right down and rescued me, and the way He turned everything right side up and helped me to breathe again. The way He started the blood pumping in this heart dead black. And how I just want to keep my face pressed right up into His. So I never, ever get lost again. So I always have a home. So I know that I belong. To the One Who made me, and the One Who loves me. The One Who calls me His own. The One Who promises that He will never leave me or forsake me. The One Who finds it impossible to lie. And...
Couldn't you get lost in a love like that? Couldn't you risk losing anything? For the One Who gave you everything? And wouldn't you find yourself beating a straight path to His door...for more? Just so you could be near Him, and just so you could get the smell of Him all over your clothes, your breath, your life? The sweet aroma of Christ on the fallen down is intoxicating. You can't get enough of Him because He's the way, and He's the truth, and He's the life, and you can't say no to Him because He is really all you want. He is this one little life's obsession. And He is the reason we become wholly addicted. To Him. To this Jesus.
Our only fix,
Bernadette
You know, the way He reached right down and rescued me, and the way He turned everything right side up and helped me to breathe again. The way He started the blood pumping in this heart dead black. And how I just want to keep my face pressed right up into His. So I never, ever get lost again. So I always have a home. So I know that I belong. To the One Who made me, and the One Who loves me. The One Who calls me His own. The One Who promises that He will never leave me or forsake me. The One Who finds it impossible to lie. And...
Couldn't you get lost in a love like that? Couldn't you risk losing anything? For the One Who gave you everything? And wouldn't you find yourself beating a straight path to His door...for more? Just so you could be near Him, and just so you could get the smell of Him all over your clothes, your breath, your life? The sweet aroma of Christ on the fallen down is intoxicating. You can't get enough of Him because He's the way, and He's the truth, and He's the life, and you can't say no to Him because He is really all you want. He is this one little life's obsession. And He is the reason we become wholly addicted. To Him. To this Jesus.
Our only fix,
Bernadette
Monday, October 3, 2011
Flipping Out!
Thinking a lot today about time, and how does Jesus know? He gets me reading about Mary and Martha and shows me something I've not seen. How the Lord says, "Martha, Martha you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary." Luke 10: 41-42
I've not seen the word NECESSARY, and I'm a bit dumb struck. No wonder I crumble when I am "distracted with much serving". No wonder I fall when I'm not sitting at His feet. Being taught. Being whole.
Contemplating...oh, how I love to contemplate. How everything here on earth is flipped in heaven. How here, our most precious commodity is time, but in heaven, there is no such thing as time. What is time to eternity?
The Shoulders is, right now, in Turkey helping a mining company to efficiently and safely extract gold, one of earth's most precious metals. But in heaven, gold is tar. It paves the streets. It's flipped.
The world lives itself to death, but as Believers, we are called to die so that we can fully live.
The world says "What about me?" The Kingdom says, "Pick up your cross and follow Me." We know that crucifixion was the execution style invented by the Romans. This reference would be, to us, similar to saying, "Pick up your electric chair. Pick up your lethal injection." What??? Pick up your death? How flipped is that?
I know. To sit at the feet of Jesus when the to do list hangs around your neck. Albatross. When your family and your friends and your life pull you out and away. From this Jesus. From the heart of the Man Who hung His perfect life on a tree. For you. For me.
Can we not tarry with our Lord? Can we not give Him the thing that we value the most? Can we not give Him our time? Can't we live?
Flipped?
Bernadette
I've not seen the word NECESSARY, and I'm a bit dumb struck. No wonder I crumble when I am "distracted with much serving". No wonder I fall when I'm not sitting at His feet. Being taught. Being whole.
Contemplating...oh, how I love to contemplate. How everything here on earth is flipped in heaven. How here, our most precious commodity is time, but in heaven, there is no such thing as time. What is time to eternity?
The Shoulders is, right now, in Turkey helping a mining company to efficiently and safely extract gold, one of earth's most precious metals. But in heaven, gold is tar. It paves the streets. It's flipped.
The world lives itself to death, but as Believers, we are called to die so that we can fully live.
The world says "What about me?" The Kingdom says, "Pick up your cross and follow Me." We know that crucifixion was the execution style invented by the Romans. This reference would be, to us, similar to saying, "Pick up your electric chair. Pick up your lethal injection." What??? Pick up your death? How flipped is that?
I know. To sit at the feet of Jesus when the to do list hangs around your neck. Albatross. When your family and your friends and your life pull you out and away. From this Jesus. From the heart of the Man Who hung His perfect life on a tree. For you. For me.
Can we not tarry with our Lord? Can we not give Him the thing that we value the most? Can we not give Him our time? Can't we live?
Flipped?
Bernadette
Time
The school room sits just now saturated in deep golden sun light. I study the way the leaves shadow dance on the walls. HIS creation is endless and endlessly pleasing. I am letting the kids sleep in on a Monday, a school day! I need a little more time here. Time to sit with Jesus and time to pray for each child by name. My husband. By name. Time to hold each one right here in my prayers, bringing them close to me, to this tender heart. Praying for family. For friends. For strength. For peace.
For time,
Bernadette
For time,
Bernadette
Saturday, October 1, 2011
JESUS?
Heart spilling.
Loving You this way.
And You...
Your love so pure,
I think it hurts.
And how can the world?
Not want to know You?
Jesus?
How can they not fly?
On into You?
Beautiful.
The One Who said,
"B!"
"I AM setting you free!"
Life Giver.
Love Maker.
How is it?
Jesus?
That I am Yours?
Even more...
That You are mine?
That You love like this?
That You have forgotten?
Who I was, and even...
That You made me new?
Jesus?
Bernadette
Loving You this way.
And You...
Your love so pure,
I think it hurts.
And how can the world?
Not want to know You?
Jesus?
How can they not fly?
On into You?
Beautiful.
The One Who said,
"B!"
"I AM setting you free!"
Life Giver.
Love Maker.
How is it?
Jesus?
That I am Yours?
Even more...
That You are mine?
That You love like this?
That You have forgotten?
Who I was, and even...
That You made me new?
Jesus?
Bernadette
A Goodbye
Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate." Psalm 127:3-5
The Shoulders stands at the airport surrounded by arrows from his quiver, these weapons of war. His children gather 'round and reach to touch him, to say goodbye, to receive his blessing. He kisses tops of heads, cups faces in hands, takes young men by the shoulders, giving them his mantle. Giving them his strength.
I am last. Waiting there on the curb for his lips, his life and all that light in his eyes. Watching his arms circle the legacy of our love, I wait to step into the hard embrace of goodbye. Again. This man of mine travels the hard road, and we build callouses on our feet watching him go.
Jesus is here, and He is strong in our weakness. He is our hiding place and our strong tower. We continue to build this life, this family, on the Man Who gave His life on a beam. Giving us all we need. The wood to build an alter. A place for hearts on fire. Burning for this Jesus. The One Who meets every need. The One Who died so He could.
The One Who paid it all,
Bernadette
The Shoulders stands at the airport surrounded by arrows from his quiver, these weapons of war. His children gather 'round and reach to touch him, to say goodbye, to receive his blessing. He kisses tops of heads, cups faces in hands, takes young men by the shoulders, giving them his mantle. Giving them his strength.
I am last. Waiting there on the curb for his lips, his life and all that light in his eyes. Watching his arms circle the legacy of our love, I wait to step into the hard embrace of goodbye. Again. This man of mine travels the hard road, and we build callouses on our feet watching him go.
Jesus is here, and He is strong in our weakness. He is our hiding place and our strong tower. We continue to build this life, this family, on the Man Who gave His life on a beam. Giving us all we need. The wood to build an alter. A place for hearts on fire. Burning for this Jesus. The One Who meets every need. The One Who died so He could.
The One Who paid it all,
Bernadette
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