LOST AND FOUND    

When the rain falls and it some days will

Then the pavement under my feet

Sparkles silver and gold in reflected light

That I otherwise wouldn’t have seen

 

And when the storm comes

And the strong winds blow,

I will bow my head to push through

And every step that I take I will watch and pray

And be sure my foothold is true

 

So Jesus don’t you keep me from that storm

I want to walk that sacred ground

For you are Master of it all

And I am but a lost and found

 

And in the dry place

In the wilderness

When your Word seems so far away

Then I will think of my life

And I will bless your name

For your promises never have failed

 

And when the night falls

At the end of days

I will lift my eyes to the heavens

Where we will shine like the stars for eternal day

In Your presence for ever and ever

 

Lost and found, Lost and found

I am but a lost and found

But can there be a sweeter sound

Than singing with the lost and found

We WERE in a storm, but within it we did see beautiful things that we other wise wouldn’t have. 

This part makes my heart sing…

Lost and found, lost and found

 

I am but a lost and found

Can there be a sweeter sound

Than singing with the lost and found.

The other song that became so meaningful after Elijah died - is HELD, sung by Natalie Grant.  I just couldn't leave the song alone though it made me cry and cry.  In the first few months I could hardly hear the rest of the song following the impact of the first few lines. 

And here also are the lyrics in case you want to follow along while you listen.

HELD

Two months is too little

They let him go

They had no sudden healing

To think that providence

Would take a child from his mother

While she prays, is appalling

 

Who told us we'd be rescued

What has changed and

Why should we be saved from nightmares

Were asking why this happens to us

Who have died to live, it's unfair

 

This is what it means to be held

How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life

And you survive

This is what it is to be loved and to know

That the promise was that when everything fell

We'd be held

 

This hand is bitterness

We want to taste it and

Let the hatred numb our sorrows

The wise hand opens slowly

To lilies of the valley and tomorrow

 

This is what it means to be held

How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life

And you survive

This is what it is to be loved and to know

That the promise was that when everything fell

We'd be held

 

If hope if born of suffering

If this is only the beginning

Can we not wait, for one hour

Watching for our Saviour

 

 

Part 2 of 6

A RAFT

24 April 2009

 

In the beginning of knowing we were to be grandparents (don’t forget I was 7 months pregnant myself at the time) it felt like everything was "at sea" and all I was sure of was a little raft of what I KNEW to be true:

   God is real

   He loves me

   He is kind.

One day I asked God "what ARE your promises?" as I felt like so much I had picked up over the years actually was not promised - just Scripture taken and applied out of context with hope or desire for control.

I wasn’t miserable or upset – I just felt very clear about my raft and that that was enough.  If those three things were all I was ever certain about of God, it would have been enough. 

You see, lots of my confusion about what "faith" is comes from my season of “positive faith confession” and a short foray into “name it and claim it”.

First I should clarify something.  There is faith in a general sense – Who God is, what Jesus did for each one of us, and that we can have a direct and living relationship with Him.

Then there is faith in a more specific sense where people attach faith to a thing they want or hope for.  This is the area I am speaking of here.

Lots of my thinking on faith these days is traced to a passing comment a friend made a few years ago.  I was telling her, that so often I did not feel very ‘spiritual’ about things as I didn’t particularly pray about what to say or do or I may not have agonised in prayer over an issue – I simply went and SAID or DID a thing because it seemed obvious to do so.  She looked at me a bit funny and said “Heather… that’s faith!”

Wow!

This was huge to a girl (me) who’s still disentangling strange ideas of  a “conjuring” faith from out of her head.

While this is not a full explanation of faith there are some things now that I know are so– and some that I know are not so.

Faith simply IS.

Faith is not trying to conjure up more than what is – it just is.

It has always struck me as odd to hear people say things like “I am believing for…” Seems if one really believed a thing it would be said in that sense.  Like the difference between “I am believing that I will brush my teeth” and “I’m gonna brush my teeth”.   Anything else is hope.  And hope and faith are both only out-ranked by love, so it is not to be sneezed at.  Sometimes hope is as elusive AND as valuable in it's own purposes - as faith.

 

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.   It is not rude, it is not self-seeking,  it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil  but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies,  they will cease;  where there are tongues,  they will be stilled;  where there is knowledge, it will pass away.  For we know in part and we prophesy in part,  but when perfection comes,  the imperfect disappears.   When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child,  I reasoned like a child.  When I became a man,  I put childish ways behind me.   Now we see but a poor reflection  as in a mirror;  then we shall see face to face.  Now I know in part;  then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.  But the greatest of these is love. 

 

1 Corinthians 13:4-13  

Before Rod was a Christian I started reading a book about living life with an unbelieving husband.  I got cross with the book and never finished it as I refused to dwell on the idea he would not believe – either forever or for as long as the testimonies in that book.  In retrospect, I think that what I did in putting away that book was an act of faith (though I didn’t think of it inthose terms at the time). With no forethought or planning I put it away thinking "nup - not having that".

 

Faith is different to hope – it’s like a pre-knowing of what ‘already’ is in the future.

Now these are very incomplete ideas on the whole topic of faith – just one tiny area where I feel a bit clearer.

I’ve learned that many of our misapplied ideas on faith come from incomplete understanding and sometimes incomplete or inaccurate teaching.  To make this point I had been going to use a couple of verses, but what happened when I set about doing that makes an even better point.

It began when I wanted to tell you two things supported by a verse on each to prove it.  These “proofs” were ideas I’ve carried for nearly 20 years and last night both went kaput in a puff of smoke because when I read them afresh with the surrounding verses I realised:

• I disagreed with what I’d been taught on both verses

• I was about to pass that on to you as ‘proof’ to support my thought

• And that I’d never considered them for myself but swallowed hook, line and sinker what I’d been taught ABOUT them.  Not only that but what I’d been taught sounded good and went unchallenged for nearly 2 decades.

• That some of the struggles I've had in making faith pieces fit the puzzle are because I'd been trying to make pieces fit that actually don't. Some times God still honours those misapplied faith pieces but that is unmerited grace not promise.
  

• Finally, that I was using Scripture to support my ideas rather than sharing what the Bible had to say on it’s own merit.

This snippet and the article it’s from say it better…

A story is told about a captain in the U.S. Cavalry many years ago who was riding through a small town in Oklahoma. As he passed by a barn, he suddenly pulled his horse to a stop, because right there before him on the sideof the barn were dozens of bull's eye circles drawn with chalk, and in the center of each one was a bullet hole.

About that time another man walked by and the captain asked him, "Do you know who is the marksman responsible for all those bull'seyes?" The passer-by nodded his head and said, "Yep, that would be Billy Hawkins. But he's a mite peculiar."

The captain replied, "Well I don't care what he is like. The Cavalry can use anyone who can shoot that well." "Ah ha,"said the other man, "But I think you should know that Billy shoots first,then he comes over and draws those circles."

The above story is an illustration of a common favorite pastime—making the Bible say what we want it to say. First we shoot out a particular idea. Then we start circling verses to back up that idea. Conversely, the only legitimate approach to discovering biblical truth is tolet the Bible speak for itself before we draw our conclusions. Likewise, we all would be wise to look at the many issues of our faith in their original context.

 

So what’s all this got to do with catching you up on our last 18 months? 

 

Well, one night  some months ago, I sat in bed and wrote six pages of life areas as single words or short sentences – one per line -  that I felt God was ‘making over’ in my heart and understanding.  I quit at six pages as I got too sleepy to continue, but I could have written another six.  Auntie Jenny once said she felt like God had taken a great hulking toilet brush and scrubbed her clean and raw on the inside.  Being that I already thought she was marvellous I didn’t really understand that, but now I do.

“Faith” was one line in six pages getting a make-over.

My raft...

God is real.

He is kind.

He loves me.

 

 

 

 

Part 3 of 6

MY PERSPECTIVE, MY BELONGINGS

30 April 2009

 

 

What you read in these entires, is purely my perspective.  In the time of the pregnancy with Elijah, I needed to learn what belonged to me and what didn’t.  The majority of the story is actually not for me to share - the major portion of it does not belong to me.

This was brought home to me one day at the hospital when I went to ask a nurse a question in the neo natal unit.  The question was half out my mouth before I realised that I should have asked – either EJ’s mum or dad who were right there – either the question itself, or,  if it was OK to ask the nurse.  I’m so used to being ‘centre’ stage’ of my own life that to recognise I was not the "pebble drop centre" of these ripples, took a while.  The effects of it all were still huge for those of us not central, but no matter how huge, we were not the centre.

My prohibitive conscience is quite high (the state of perpetual possible guilt).  I can invent guilt or shame where there is none.  I have improved over the years but one example from many years ago– pre-children in fact, was when we were returning from a holiday in Penang and Singapore. I had had a fantastic time at the marketplaces everywhere we went and I was dressed in my hippy-est gear, dripping with bangles and beads, when at customs I began to think “what if I look like a drug runner?”  I got a bit twitchy and nervous in case someone thought I was a criminal, and sure enough the officers came across to have a few words!!!  I had changed our circumstances by projecting imagined guilt!!!

In the beginning when I shared with Joan (GFA National Director) about the pregnancy, she had said very firmly to me "Heather there is no shame in this.  You are going to stand beside him and say "this is our son and we love him and we are proud of him” ".  She was right.  The sparkles of silver and gold that we saw in the time of Elijah's life were the proof of that.    (As in the song in part 1 of this series).

I was also genuinely worried for the faith of many who might be affected by the news.  I know in my own life when there’s been issues in the lives of others that have mentored me, or who have a leadership role, that I’ve experienced all manner of reactions.  Confusion, anger, sadness, judgement, doubt,faith crisis, questioning - and most of this from a somewhat distant and poorly informed position. Those that I feared judgement from were in one camp that I knew I could do nothing about.  Those whose faith I worried might wobble were the ones I longed to DO something about but - I had to learn to place them in to God's hands and ask Him to care for each one - just as He did me.

See, I’ve had to learn that my faith belongs with the one who died for me.  I can admire, look up to, love, learn from and follow those who lead, but when their lives take a ‘hit’, my faith should stand none the less.   (There’s an article here that fits with this theme)

 

Also the comment "How could this happen?" had come back to me - I had to see that the people who posed that question with that measure of incredulity that 'it' should happen in OUR family, needed to have the same - or in fact more -incredulity that God's kids chose sin in the first generation.  These parents need to recognise the grief they are setting themselves up for.

My Granpa is another of the people I admire most in life.  There’s lots of reasons, but the one I’ll mention here is that when he died at 90-something, having been a Christian for over 70 years of his life, he would still want to talk about the things in God's Word that he was learning or understanding, just weeks before he went Home.

If I want to be like that, and I do, it stands to simple reason that I’m less than halfway ‘grown-up’ now.  At 42 I’m a better parent than I was at 32, but not as good as I should be at 52.

I am not ashamed of my mothering.  Oh yes, it’s had its low points but I’ve been to whichever child concerned and the God who sees, for forgiveness, so there it rests.  Mistakes and all, I know I’ve done my best.  You see, when a child is learning to colour in they are going to go outside the lines and when they do – it’s still their best effort.  Three years later they wont go outside the lines but they’ll be working on colour matching and shading (perhaps).  They don’t need to be ashamed of earlier efforts; their development and skills have increased as they should, so there it rests.

 

 

 

 

Part 4 of 6

PLEASE PUT BACK IN!

4 May 2009

Over the months after Elijah died, I told God I knew I had stripped away too much of Him and would He please 'put back in', 'restore' and 'increase' Himself to me – but only what really belonged. 

Remember the raft in the first of this series?  (God is real, He loves me and He is kind).  While for that time that was enough, I also knew God to be so much more. 

 

I wanted to come back to a place of wonder – and not just comfort; excitement –and not just peace. 

 

So much of my study and understandings of God over the years had come from OTHER people’s revelations and OTHER peoples teachings, or, from studying God’s Word with a goal already in mind which then often shapes what you understand instead of purely what IS.  Many people across the ages have acted abysmally off of what they have ‘proven’ from the Bible.  In the same form, so many of the beliefs we try and live in our daily lives – in the pursuit of God or of holiness or in the name of “faith” - are the things we cling to because of what we’ve been taught and of how we’ve read the Bible with an end point already in mind.  When you get free of those preconceptions –God can frequently take your breath away with surprise and clarity.  Sometimes this comes with great joy.  Sometimes with sadness.  Sometimes with humiliation.  But if it’s truly God bringing about a new understanding – it’s always for FREEDOM.

GAL 5:1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

It was about this time when I began thinking on the fact that the Bible has only been around and available to common man to read for ourselves,for a relatively short time.  (The last 500 odd years).  Yes, dreadful things happened without the light of God’s Word but those who truly knew and loved Him, had to actually Know HIM through the spirit of God active in their lives.

In this period of time, I began to see the Bible as both less AND more in different ways – than before. Less was it now about rule and structure, and more was it about Life and knowing the Real “Him”. 

It was also in this time that I read “Jakes Story” otherwise known as “So You Don’t Want to go to Church Anymore”. (Read free online here – but only if you don’t mind having a bit of a shake up).  I felt when I read this, that I’d never seen so many of my own thoughts written by another person before.  I was restless and antsy, and this book scratched an itch but it still didn’t get to the core.  We took a break for about 6 weeks from going to church.  In this time we did a few things at home with the kids and did a lot of thinking - and this was when I read the book I just mentioned – it was not the cause of us taking time out.  In this break I came to some new understandings of why we do this regular Sunday thing called church.  It truly is the people. 

Even with that book under my belt, I still felt antsy and couldn’t put my finger on why.  (In a broader sense than just church going). Rod and I did recognise another portion of this general restlessness, was being fed up to the eye teeth – with things that don’t matter.  There’s too much that DOES matter to get knicker-twisted or even particularly involved about things that don’t.

One day leaving the school to head to the hospital to see Elijah, I was passing by a mum of a year one chitlun looking all bothered.  She told me what the matter was and I said what I thought, which she went off to do, and I marvelled at the things I used to worry about as I was on my way to visit a terribly ill little grandson.

Clarity.

Simplicity.

Things that don’t matter and do.

 

Keeping my knickers untwisted.

Perspective.

Growing up.

“But Lord –please put back in, I’ve stripped too much, Increase yourself to me in truth”.

 

 

Then one day I had a super special time with Tarri.

Yes I had still hurt, but yes He’d been there all along comforting and whispering “Iknow, I know”.

A while after that driving home one day, I realised as I thought about the lady in the shop, that over the past year I had truly come to know God as Emmanuel - God with Me. 

In the Christmas holidays I ordered and read two nice simple kids books on how the Bible came in to being in it's present form.  I also learned about a host of other writings and why they are not included in our Bible though some extra's are in other versions of the Bible.  I learned that some are considered historicly accurate but not inspired of God, and much more – a fascinating study on it’s own.  This lead me to reading "The Book of Enoch" and a variety of other things (online for free).

Then I read two Novels (of what will be a series of 5) by Wendy Alec called "Chronicles of Brothers" from the perspectives of the three named Biblical arch-angels, Michael, Gabriel and Lucifer.  Not really my style of fiction but fascinating as she (author) was drawing on the whole breadth of Scripture plus some of the 'other' historical books that I'd just learned about - as sources for much of her novels... places, names, customs, events etc.

As I read these novels I followed trails I wanted to know if were based in truth... things like the existence of an ancient "Monastery of Gabriel" in Israel (there is) and a whole bunch of stuff on the Nephilim.  This was v. weird and v. speculative the more I saw and read, but an interesting sideline none the less.  (There are those who believe that much of what people call abductions/encounters with "aliens" is beyond delusion, not 'merely' defined as demonic but some sort of re-entrance of the Nephilim.  There is a lot of weird cross over in New Age belief... 'angels', spirit guides, aliens etc that is ALL set to distract from the message of Jesus).

Then what I was studying kind of exploded into a feeding frenzy of all sorts... archaeology, flood, end times, codes, communion, feasts and festivals, The Blood of Jesus and Covenants.  (As able, I'll put the best of these as links on the "Fascinations" page").  What has thrilled me most is a dawning understanding of Covenants and of the meaning of the Biblical  Feasts and Festivals.

I've always felt "the Blood" held great power and mystery that I knew a fair bit about but didn't really 'get'.  A sense that something I thought should be sooooooooo wondrous had NOT knocked my socks off.  Oh yes, I had studied and KNEW plenty but I still felt there was MORE to be understood.  THEN I studied Covenants and what I felt I was missing came in through that study (though I don't think the work of it is fully done yet!).  I have felt the themes of the Bible and our faith coming together and linking with so much more depth and meaning.  The Word of God IS living and active!

THEN - or at the same time really - I was looking at the Biblical Feasts and Festivals and in a nutshell - had the dawning realisation that they are prophetic!!!!  I wont say too much about it all here and now as I am writing something more detailed which I’ll be posting here soon, but I’ve never been so in awe of God as I am these days.  (There is a short video on You Tube here).

So it hit me – He has answered my prayer of a few months before, to ‘put back in’, restore and increase Himself to me.  Just this week I drove home with music blasting, tears streaming and singing at the top of my lungs (to Tarri’s great interest) “How Great Thou Art” and was amazed at the difference in my heart from just twelve months ago.

From God, Emmanuel my Comforter, to God my King!

        If hope is born of suffering

        If this is only the beginning

        Can we not wait for one hour

        "If hope is born of suffering -

        "If this is only the beginning -

        "Can we not wait for one hour -

       "Watching for our Saviour -

Watching and waiting for Him to return, participating in this life and His suffering to the degree He calls or allows it for this short short time of prelude.