My Neighbor's Glory

As Iron Sharpens Iron...

I have been so blessed to have certain people in my life be completely honest with me. The Lord reveals wisdom in the inmost places (psalm 51) and for me, He is gracious enough to use the words of people in my life - whether they are people I've known forever, people I will know forever, or people I'll never see again. The truths I've been told are what penetrate the heart, they've peeled away the layers, exposed the charms of this world that wrap tightly around our hands and tongues. The words that I've been told have cut deeply, and sometimes tears of frustration come flowing out. I've been shocked before by the weight of sin, I've been shocked at my ugliness shown in the light. I've been defensive and utterly repulsed by accusations that later smoothed into beautiful grace and redemption. Oh. Has. My. Pride. Been. Broken. Over. And. Over. Again.

And it's times like these that I cannot believe how loved I am. By an invincible love - and a perfect love that is spilled out into His adopted children by the blood of Christ! Just when this life begins to break, we are reminded that the power, authority, and love of Christ is hidden in all who believe through the Spirit. There is hope in Christ, and we see a small sliver of that love and a small reflection of who God is in one another...
"And while God does not ask any of us to bring Christ into the world as literally as did Mary, God calls each of us to become a God bearer through whom God may enter the world again and again."
- The Godbearing Life

The friends that have told me the hard truths have been those that genuinely care about my spiritual growth. A friend once told me, "it's the painful growing that gets us there." Whether it was phone calls late into the night, stubborn resistance to God's sovereignty, notes when I wake that urge me to have confidence and not fear, or just tears and surrendering to shame - I have felt the cool, sharp reality that says, "it's not about you." These friends have taught me to have reverence in a Gracious God, and that His passion is for the zeal of His name, His glory. My friends have pointed me to the gospel, and they cared enough to press me down with the truth. These believers were firm in living out these realities of Christ and stood by their words beautifully, even if they sounded harsh to everyone else.

I came to realize, in absolute horror, that I am 100% a pacifist. In realizing this, I've come to understand that it is due to a lack of true compassion. In a lot of modern churches today, we have forgotten the fear of the Lord. Growing up, I did not know that God disciplined me because He loved me (Rev. 3:19). I did not know much about discipline at all, for that matter. In fact, you could say I was a free spirit (not to offend any free spirits out there, but I say 'was' because I've been given true freedom). So the thought of anyone telling me what biblical truths were or telling me that my interpretations were incorrect, or that my life was not producing the fruit of the gospel because I was centered around my own world and living in sin, I would have said 'screw you, you're stifling my creativity, go tell some other mindless follower.' What I failed to realize was that I was too wrapped up in the idea of individuality and 'I do what I want when I want' to know that I was actually living for approval, and being like-minded, submissive, living in humility and love was true strength and came with a peace this world could not offer me.

"If our religion is something objective, then we must never avert our eyes from those elements in it which seem puzzling or repellent; for it will be precisely the puzzling or the repellent which conceals what we do not yet know and need to know."
- C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory


What might be even harder to grasp, however, is that even with the knowledge of Christ, I fail to boldly proclaim that we exist for His Glory. I fail to clearly express truth in peoples' lives because I am either a.) not confident in His assurances or b.) afraid I'll hurt their feelings which actually leads me back to a.) and my knowledge of that confidence.

I've been truly frustrated that I cannot seem to love and care for some of the people in my life in the way that others have for me. I've had people tell me before, "look, I need you to tell me when I'm wrong. I need you to tell me to look to Jesus. I need to know I'm loved." And Oh, Father, I rejoice in your mercies that I can say these weaknesses of mine freely, because my faith was a free gift, and it is not mine to cover up. He has all ready paid for my sin in full, and I can rejoice in that freedom.

In Him, you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.
- Ephesians 1:13-14

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned...
- Romans 12:1-6
And so I can rest in the fact that I was bought at a price, and that I can freely offer my sacrifices to God, a broken and contrite heart, (psalm 51) knowing that His love never fails.

I am repelling downward into this sinful area of my life, praying that the Lord will continue to confront me with these areas that need transformation and reveal Himself to me, and I've discovered this FEAR OF MAN is, quite simply, a heart issue. For some reason, I have this preconceived notion that I have to sugar coat the gospel. I've realized that you can't walk on egg shells when it comes to the gospel.

But I guess you can - but when I say it's a heart issue - I mean, why would you want to? If you knew the reality of sin, and the knowledge of Christ that surpasses all understanding, and that that authority was within you, WHY would we want to?!
If we really believed that:
Christ abides in us through the Holy Spirit
That He was coming back
That faith is a free gift
The Lord is sovereign
Our Christian neighbor is the holiest object presented to our senses because Jesus dwells within them
On a DAY to DAY basis...

think about how rich the gospel would become to us!
think about the reverence and honor our Lord would delight in!

I think about these things and I am truly humbled. Please read the following passage from C.S. Lewis The Weight of Glory. One of the most beautiful passages on fellowship and community I have ever read. I know it is a little bit long, confusing or may seem out of context, but do read it; it is unbelievable..

The following Him is, of course, the essential point. That being so, it may be asked with practical use there is in the speculations which I have been indulging. I can think of at least one such use. It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hearafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbor. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor's glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you say it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. And day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feelings for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner - no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbor, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat - the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.

You knit me together in my mother's womb

Chantelle radiates light.

If you have felt the binding of an old book, crinkled at the pages

If you have danced in the sand and remembered an old conversation

If you have heard the sound of crickets and angels singing in the dark and open fields

If you have layed on a roof top and watched the stars break into a m i l l i o n pieces

If you have left in the middle of the night to be with a friend

If you have seen the skinny rim of daylight creep over the spilling mass of open water

If you have stood in the bed of a truck going through a tunnel just to feel infinite

or spun around in circles to be in two places at once

If you have walked along the railroad tracks to find their secret's end

If you have read words that make you laugh and music that makes you cry

If you have befriended the silent and promised to make the mundane beautiful

If you have seen that light

Then you have seen a little piece of her.

There is no one like her. Not one.




Since she told me the news, there was heartbreak, fear, and tears, but through it all - strength evaded the surface. I have seen her grow in her faith, her love, and her tummy. I have stayed up late listening to her beautiful mind try to reconstruct what was so often like broken glass - small reflections of what was true because of the sin and muck of our world, but pieces that could not fit together. Pieces that she tried to mold into justice, identity, and comfort, but what for so long remained little holes and cuts of an open wound.

Prayer became like breathing. I will never forget the little reminders of Christ, his perfect love reaching out in the back of Hooters where she sat, reading in awe of the reconciliation of the Lord when he said, Come. I won't forget her words, sitting at the dinning room table in the middle of the day after grocery shopping, rolling out of her mouth like heavy paper the words of her past, her mother's past, ancient past. The look in her eyes was desperate and relieved at the same time.

Waiting in those dark rooms for the picture to ingrain a figure, or outline a map to a new world. Waiting for the picture to envelop the essence of life inside blood cells, little blue veins, and a daughter. We saw her little spine curve and bend, we saw her hands praying. Praying and breathing.

Oh Lord, You crown us with Your steadfast love. You call out the starry host, one by one. You are the great divider, from present past to future eternity. You knew the depths of our hearts before You even flung the universe into existence. You knew the depths, and yet You made us Your children. How great is Your love! How great is Your name! God, You gave me this friend, to cherish her life dearly. And although You didn't have to, You gave me the peace that when I couldn't be there, when we couldn't be there, You were there. When I failed her, You were still pursuing her and giving her wisdom. Thank You for allowing me to see the moment: Sitting in her chair, reading Your Word with her hand on her stomach, cradling her child with Your presence while the whole room filled with other people's noise. When we didn't see the glory of what You were doing, You still gathered Your child and her child to Yourself.

When I hold this baby, I will praise Your name.

God, because You created life out of desolation. I cannot wait to watch this baby grow up to know her story. Your story. Your beautiful story of redemption, and I pray that she is so much like her mother. That music and words move her deeply, that she desires to feel infinite and loved. That she sits on top of a roof overlooking your splendor, talking with an old friend, and knowing, this is it. That You are light.



Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Behold, You delight in truth in the inward being,
and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
- psalm 51:5-6


O Lord, You have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
You discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, You know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
Where sall I go from Your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, You are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, You are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there Your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,"
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.

For You formed my inward parts;
You knitted me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was one of them.

How precious to me are Your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with You.......
[psalm 139]

in silence.

I took a break.


from writing I guess you could say.

I stuck with prayers, but all other thoughts and poems were put on hold. I don't really know what caused the writers block/strike, but for some reason I felt it was needed and would bring healing. Sometimes the mention of words is another idol that I believe in.

Since this summer I've really realized the failing power of words.
And sometimes when its time to write, I'm overcome with grief in the reality that words can also cut pretty deeply. I'm not always ready to hear them, feel their cold and lifeless shape in front of me.

But I am hopeful.


uncrowd my heart, Oh God,
until silence speaks
in Your still small voice;
turn me from the hearing of words,
and the making of words,
and the confusion of much speaking,
to listening, waiting, stillness,
silence.
- Thomas Merton

i like you

What is this welling up inside of my very heart

should I fear the touch of your eyelashes on my check bones

whispering gently the purpose of their being

enthralled by the life in your lips and the way that they curve and bend

I cannot seem to ever leave them

Your hands are so sweet when they meet my own

I want nothing more than to lose them in your embrace

I pine for one more kiss

one more promise that this is different

can it be?

I am so bewildered by the sincerity in your voice

the desire to instill in me the belief that

I am something worth holding to you

It penetrates and evaporates all other thoughts of doubt

Your heart seeks adventure and life

in simple goodness of the day's first promise

My mind is awake with the thoughts of

what God will graciously pour into my life

I wait in the storm of your eyes

reflecting clouds and complex mosaic structures

that keep me still and at peace

for He has made you to be a heart so loving

something I have never known or dared hope for

but I pray to know deeper still

even in the simple touch of your eyelashes

against my slender check..

time, words, and fears

Oh beauty, why are you not enough?

Why am I crying after love?

- Sara Teasdale

Translucent time is closing up its moments
and ripens inwards, throwing out its roots,
it grows within me, occupies me wholly,
its foliage flings me out deliriously...
- Octavio Paz

Words hang like wash on the line, blowing in the winds of the mind.
- Rameshwar Das

a cross-centered life

Rilke said "if you think you are capable of living without writing, do not write" and I've tried to live it but it gets too heavy.. you know? I've gathered up my thoughts from this summer, weaving them together like waves, like particles of light (deb talan's method) and I too have imposed it on myself like a vow made in war: I will write or die. But you'll have to bare with me, its all very hazy, its all very grey. It's all very obsolete as everything becomes without recollection. But all the more, I figure I can at least poke at my thoughts with words and see what comes of it. Maybe a few rambled on pages, or maybe something from the heart. Who really knows?

I've come to the horrible realization of my ugly failure. Now I've said it often in the pit of inadequacy which seems to always rise around the time I must write it or die. But this time it sort of blind side hit me, with more hopelessness I could ever dare imagine. He lived the life we were created to live, and then He died to pay the price for the life we now live instead. We've heard some form of this over and over in our lives, as if it were some sort of an equation and we're supposed to figure out where we equal out, where we fit into it all. But the truth is, I don't think I'll ever be able to figure it out. What could possibly be in exchange for that kind of beauty?? And yet I do it everyday, this great exchange. We hear about the "great fall of man" This great descent into darkness. How foolish are we?! It wasn't a descent at all, it wasn't a fall, a trip, a hiccup, it was an exchange rather, a great exchange of truth for a lie. And that's why we will always be victims in a battle that we never had to fight. Then why. Why do I feel like I'm fighting everyday? If everything is said and done and paid for in the full with more grace than I will ever be able to understand or be gracious enough to pay back, than why does my brand new heart desire this world's attention so easily? If I am made new, not just a cleaned up, better version of my old self, why does my heart still love what is only temporary?

John told believers "My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense - Jesus Christ, the Righteous One." - 1John 2:1
John tell us not to sin, but he knows that if anybody does sin (which we will, and he makes that quite clear) than we have an advocate in the Father. Jesus becomes the substitutionary atonement for the believer's sin. In this way the Father's wrath is propitiated, satisfied, turned away from my sin and directed towards Christ. So when I wake up everyday with this idea of who I am, what I think I have, what I think I can do, Jesus stands beside the Father and says No. You cannot punish her for that. You cannot punish her for her sin, her selfishness, her fear, her pride, her envy and jealousy, her lack of trust in everything You are, You cannot punish Mollie for the way she is grieving you, because I bore it all. I already paid for that, and Your grace is sufficient of all things.

This hurts. A little.

So by asking God for a redemptive heart, I've discovered a few things. It hurts. Redemption is a two way process. First its repentance, and then its like a downward slope into discovering the depth of how deeply sinful I am. I am more sinful than I've ever dared to imagine, but He is more loving than I've ever dared to dream. Until we see ourselves as "big" sinners, we cannot see Him as a "big" savior.

And this is where it hurts.

John also said, God is light. in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with Him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
- 1John 1:5-7

It hurts me because It's hard to walk in the light. I can walk in the light in a lot of aspects of my life, but a lot of areas remain cold and lifeless. I can have fellowship with God, and yet I deny the fellowship around me as a witness to my family.

This conviction has knocked the wind out of me:

being able to love on friends and the young life ministry, pursuing those relationships
and yet not being able to love my own family outwardly and deeply in the same amount.
It breaks my heart over and over again,
because I can preach the gospel in my foolish wisdom, something so dangerous and arrogant,
but the real tragedy, the real hurt, the real violence that is more alarming to me than seeing them stray from the path of Christ, is not what I say over and over to make them see the need for Jesus, or my ignorant attempt to persuade them the truth, it is the way that I throw away that need everyday, it is the way that I have not lived out the gospel to them in such a way that they can rightfully blame me for the way that I live and point out the gap between my words and my actions, the gap between Christ's salvation in me and my response to it, they can point at my faithlessness so raw and lifeless that I have nothing more to say about God's joy in my life.

And the truth is any potential I have for transformation in me is Christ himself, none of it is me. And yet I don't receive it. Day in and day out I leave it there because I say Yes Christ, I believe in you, Yes Jesus, I trust in you with my WHOLE life, but right now, in this moment, I need ___ (this) to make me happy.

It makes me sick. I guess this is where I am.. On the edge of diving into the depth of my sinful nature.. where I will then repel downward into this lonely, painful place, until I have been broken down to where I can only see Christ.

....................______......................................______
......................................................\................................/......................
........................................................\_____/.......................

He will be my trampoline back up and out of my despair, and even still, knowing all of this, it breaks my heart that I can take the beauty of His grace, and accept that salvation for myself, what He did for me on the cross, and then turn that beauty into filth as I try and earn the rest of that righteousness with the way I follow Him and my behavior to constantly be proving my faith to myself, Him, and other people. Jesus says that my best attempt is like a filthy rag. Ouch.


So I guess the purpose of my writing is to make it known so that loneliness, something that Satan uses in me often by isolating and suppressing my emotions so that I feel like literally the only one going through this, wont be able to enslave me any deeper. I need to see these shattered, frustrated, and confused pieces of my life that are still walking in darkness so that I can begin to respond not simply by a 'right behavior' but by being truly compelled and consumed by a love much bigger than I ever could dream, and letting that fall afresh on my life, breaking me free of my chains, and transforming me.
The deeper I dive into the pit of my sin and need, the deeper love and electrifying grace I will find. I just pray I can be brave enough to surrender to it all, that I can have Him search all of me..

Please, make this a dialogue.
I need to see more clearly.

doctor doctor my hearts made of glass

I heard a song today and it made me think about something.
There are a LOT of songs out there that include the whole doctor metaphor.
Although, it's interesting, because the lyrics seem to reach out for more than just a doctor to help with cures or phsyical needs, but they seem to reach more profound places, touching on a need for something more.. our world is crying out for a Healer, it's absolutely everywhere, just turn on your radio and do a little more than just hearing the music.. really listen to it.


How long must I wait held up in depression?
I tried to erase my past, to make a good impression
But my broken horn's lost the tune
And only shattered mirrors fill my room
Fell for you and only got me down
Well Doctor Doctor come give me the cure
Easily obsess on an open sore
Doctor Doctor can't get no relief
This losing sleep is misery
Won't you come and rescue me?
Doctor, Doctor
- matt costa


I came upon a doctor who appeared in quite poor health.
I said "I am terribly sorry but there is nothing I can do for you that you can't do for yourself."
He said "Oh yes you can. Just hold my hand. I think that would help."
So I sat with him a while and then I asked him how he felt.
He said, "I think I'm cured. No, in fact, I'm sure.
Thank you Stranger, for your therapeutic smile."
So that is how I learned the lesson that everyone is alone.
- bright eyes


And despite what all the studies had shown
In what was mistaken for closeness was just a case of mitosis
Why do some show no mercy
While others are painfully shy?
Tell me doctor can you quantify?
‘Cause he just wants to know the reason why
Why do they congregate in groups of four
Scatter like a billion spores
And let the wind just carry them away?
How can kids be so mean
Our famous doctor tried to glean
As he went home at the end of the day
In this Nature show that rages every day
Well does anybody's intuition say
That we are all basically alone.
- andrew bird


Since my people are crushed, I am crushed;
I mourn and horror grips me.
Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then is there no healing
for the wound of my people?
Oh, that my head were a spring of water
and my eyes a fountain of tears!
Jeremiah 8:21-22...


Nevertheless, I will bring health and healing to it;
I will heal my people and will let them enjoy abundant peace and security.
I will bring Judah and Israel back from captivity
and will rebuild them as they were before.
I will cleanse them from all the sin they have committed agaisnt me
Jeremiah 33:6-8



Praise God! There is a Healer!