Dancing Lights

i sit at the bench. warm air caressing me and sunlight radiating my face.  this is a familiar space, a bench i've gone to a handful of times on those days where the beach beckons me.


i sit with hope, sorrow, confusion, angst, desire, questions....my normal companions.  as i nestle into the wood frame, only myself and the solitude and silence that sit down as well, i wiggle.  loneliness reminds me life is not as it should be and i was created for more. temptation challenges me to go and do something to make it go away.


i sit, squirmy.


the sun beaming down over me and the lovely breeze rushing by invite me to settle in.


sit for a while.


the vast pacific reminding me of beauty, art, design, forethought, creativity, pleasure...all for us.


invited in to beauty.  painted sky and rushing waves...in and out, in and out the ocean's dance flows in her rhythm.


a runner scurries by.


two friends chatter and her dog barks.


the man caresses his pregnant wife's hair.


another lays out his lawn chair.


the waves come, and the brezze wooshes by, and the sun beams his brilliant light.


and i see.


i hear.


i taste the life.


a light show before me.  unexpected fireworks and sparkly delights.


the people drown out, the vast beauty of creation narrows, and all i can focus in on is the dancing wonders.


flicker, flicker.  jumping from here to there.  in and out, in and out with the waves current.


my sparkly wonders.


the sun's sparkly wonders.


i can't take my eyes away, zeroed in on the playful dance before me.


the sun shines bright and the reflection joyously flutters about.


celestial glitter.  flickers of wonder. reflections of the sun.


i feel like someone sneaking in on a party, longingly wanting to play too.


my heart tugs and i see.


i have been invited.  the kingdom dance is happening all around me.  i get to play.  i am not alone.  each flickering light comes and goes, shines and goes away again, each resplendent capturing a different angle of the sun.


i cannot NOT see now, light all around me.  enveloped by the sun.  sharing in the flickering lights.


come and play.




That's what baptism into the life of Jesus means. When we are lowered into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus; when we are raised up out of the water, it is like the resurrection of Jesus. Each of us is raised into a light-filled world by ourFather so that we can see where we're going in our new grace-sovereign country.
Romans 6:2-4 


So, my very dear friends, don't get thrown off course. Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light. There is nothing deceitful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle. He brought us to life using the true Word, showing us off as the crown of all his creatures.
James 1:15-17

Come, sit for a while...

Every Tuesday it's become a rhythm for my week (doesn't that sound nice rhythm...perhaps a frenzied circus would be more accurate as of late) to walk up Higuera Street to visit my favorite local coffee shop Kreuzberg and write. Each week as I make my way over I walk by a furniture store window and this chair beckons me.  

Look at it!  Doesn't it say slow down, stop, come have a seat, and rest for a while.


The curves of the wicker, the face to face design, the cup holders...everything about this chair draws me and yet terrifies me.


How I long to be invited in, asked to sit, rest, and share.  To be met by interest, intrigue, insight, and most of all love.  Yet the very thing that beckons me leaves me tempted to walk on by and move on to the next thing, the goal of the day, the efficiency of getting 'it' done.  While that may be what distracts me, what really prevails underneath is fear....do you really want me, just me? uh, what if you get bored or disinterested? the silence, what about the silence? what do I do with those moments? worse, what comes up inside when there are no words.


Yet there is something about this chair, this well constructed chair, that says You were meant for me.  I designed it this way for you.  Can you see I AM what your heart craves?


I peer through the window front, much like my fictional friend Lucy from The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe, curious, a little scared, but hoping there's magic behind it.  Something greater than myself beckoning me out and inviting me into a great adventure.  But this adventure begins first and foremost with entering and re-forming the inner life, my heart.  To know and be known, love and be loved, serve and be served.


I hear His life words, Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.  I make you lie down in green pastures, lead you beside quiet waters...I restore your soul.  I will never leave you, never-ever forsake you.


With His quiet words, I feel my resistance rise up, but it must come, this too part of the invitation...but you are in these other things too, they are good things you gave me.  Finally the things we've talked about for years are actually happening...are you sure now is time to pull away...


I peer in at the chair.  So safe, so inviting, but I've never sat so close, so locked in the gaze of another. The cost so clear, the way prepared...


Honored but conflicted.  


Longing but afraid.


I continue to stare, looking in on that chair.

Advent Week III: Rejoice

We prepare this week by feeling the joy.  We move through this week feeling a part of the waiting world that rejoices because our longing has prepared us to believe the reign of God is close at hand.  And so we consciously ask:

Prepare our hearts
and remove the sadness
that hinders us from feeling
the joy and hope
which his presence
will bestow.

Each morning this week, in that brief moment we are becoming accustomed to, we want to light a third inner candle.  Three candles, going from expectation, to longing, to joy.  They represent our inner preparation, or inner perspective.  In this world of “conflict and division,” “greed and lust for power,” we begin each day this week with a sense of liberating joy.  Perhaps we can pause, breathe deeply and say,

“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
     my spirit rejoices in God my savior.”

(reflection from here)

I read this this morning needing some guidance into the week.  There is something about the Christmas season that expands my heart and I find myself longing for all sorts of things: new memories, community, a boyfriend, children, more ministry opportunities, travel, new experiences, play, presents, affirmation of importance in people's lives...

I long...

I thirst....

I don't often know what to do with desire for more in my life.  I rejoice in what has been given but yet still there is a place that longs for so much more.

So I read: Scripture, Devotionals, Meditations like these to settle my heart in.  The desire I have is not the problem (for years I thought it was and chose shutting down instead). Rather, it's where I take the desire and into whose hand I place it.

This week we R E J O I C E!  My heart is expanding, being prepared, and oening up to J O Y.  The reason I rejoice is not that all the longings will be fulfilled, but they are what point my heart H O M E. They are the honing device that draws my spirit back to Christ. There as I settle in to His presence, his dwelling within me, He puts my heart right.  

He affirms the longing (which most the time I'm expecting rebuke if I'm honest cause shouldn't I be fully satisfied in him?) but He also reminds me of the incompleteness of those things.  Deep satisfaction and grace to go forth in my life to love can only happen if I stay fiercely committed to betrothal in Him.  

In him, I am free to give myself over for the sake of another, find beauty and joy in the mundane, hope for a greater tomorrow, and rest in what's provided now.  The longings don't go, but they draw me back to the Source of Life.  So when a longing is fulfilled, when H O P E is no longer deferred, the hands that receive the gift are better able to enjoy it as a gift rather than entitlement.

And so we rejoice....anticipate together....and find J O Y.  Christ is coming, to the lowly manger of our conflicted hearts, to bring new life. 
I N C A R N A T I O N...in you and I.  Amazing!

Advent Week II: Prepare

"Preparation is a statement of faith. It's committing to trust even though you're hurting and heartsick." 


I'm heartsick because I know the kingdom is now but the challenges and heartache in this world of brokeness and sin are real.  I am homesick.  We are homesick. 
  
I read this tonight in an online post about this week of advent. A time when we are invited to reflect on preparation, preparing our hearts for the coming Messiah.  This the same day my daily Bible reading, Hebrews 11, points to the saints before me reminding me of trusting when I do not see.  Trust like Abraham who "by faith, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going." (Hebrews 11:8).
How true this feels.  How often are You, O Lord, asking me to walk into the unknown. So many unchartered places of my heart and relational territory you ask me to tenderly trust you with when I do not know what's ahead only that by faith you ask me to walk.


My heart expanded as I read more thinking of the lineage of faithful and I was struck that, "All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them from a distance."  (Hebrews 11:13)
How often my heart expands to hope and delights in the tastes I have here of heaven, but forgive me dear Jesus when I cling too tightly to what I've touched and don't place it back in your hands. May I trust that what you give me from your hand moment by moment, day by day is enough.  That the various ways you choose to uniquely expand my heart to love will ever keep me living by faith trusting in the Giver, the One who sees what I often do not.


There's something about this lineage of saints that draws my heart upward, invites me into a much grander, vast narrative for my life.  That the themes in my life and various territory my heart must venture are preparing for me an eternal glory I can hardly grasp.  By faith some of it will be ventured now, yet much, much more is intended to be fully realized later.
Lord will I trust in what you give me now and venture where you ask me to go? Or will I distrust the way you bring about your promises and clamor to find what I deem a safer path? That I may choose faith....


And so this week of Advent, I am pressing in to the One who prepares the way, who tells the best story, who calls forth hope, cultivates my heart through patience and steps of obedience, and beckons me to trust in His fullness of time, the sovereign and majestic ways He chooses to get glory from my life deciding the where, whens, and whys.
O dear Jesus, when I don't see, when my heart waits, when your voice seems faint, when I'm tempted to doubt, will you yet still draw me near?  How in need I am of your touch, how much more of your grace.  Lord I pray that one day it will be said, "That because of Christ, in faith, Susie, when God tested her, walked with her Savior and was sure of what she hoped for and certain of what she did not see, trusting that God had planned something better so that only together with all the saints would she be made perfect."

Pitter Pat, Pitter Pat

It has just started raining here.


I knew it was coming and, yet, the pitter pat outside my window still hits me with unexpected delight.


Perhaps, it's the contentment of cozying up in bed with a day that has margin and room to unfold, that I feel it's peace.  Knowing cleansing and renewal is happening and in the midst I can simply rest in it.  


Aware of what is happening just outside my door yet unencumbered with any sort of responsibility. I simply get to observe, hear, and enjoy the drip drops of the water's life flowing down. Doing it's work and moistening, replenishing the parched land.


Drip, drop. Drip, drop.


This morning Clare of Assisi reminds me of the healing waters. She was ill and confined to a bed for 29 years yet what great influence and poverty of spirit she offered to so many in spite of her circumstance.  Her Savior still moved and worked and filled and invited her to noble purposes. Water poured inward and Life flowing outward.


Pitter pat. Pitter pat.


Today, reading, writing, remembering... I am invited to trust the cleansing and replenishing that is happening. I, like the parched land, receive the gift that renewal is happening even when I only sense it, am not working or striving towards it, but am simply letting it wash over me, freely given.


Drip, drop. Drip drop.  Pitter pat. Pitter pat.


"Whoever  b e l i e v e s  in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of  l i v i n g  
w a t e r  will flow from within them.” John 7:38

Little by Little

When I was thirteen I went to a junior high school dance. This event was a big deal: It was HALLOWEEN.


For the Shaw Family, Halloween is no small occasion.  Much to my mum's chagrin her kids never were simpletons when it came to dressing up.  This particular year, I decided I would be Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.  Now the dress itself I found in my closet, but the shoes... The glitter shoes at the Paylesses of the world would simply not do, the shoes must be the creme de la resistance!    


Thus, we gathered glue and sequins from the local craft store, pulled out my old pair of tap shoes, and the journey of 1000 sequins began. One by one by one....day by day after school I plopped myself on the couch and the glitter party began.


And eventually, after much perseverance and persistence, they were finished!


I braided my hair, put on my dress, applied a smidge of rouge and lipstick, and   stepped into my sparkling delights.


I met up with my friends at Lakeview Junior High and we danced the night away.  With every roger rabbit and running man (: little by little the glittering wonders began to fall, one by one by one....


The dance ended and the ruby slippers were no more.


But what a great memory and, oh, how I loved those ruby slippers.  Then it hit me....as the dress came off and the make-up was wiped away... there were no pictures!? No memento to capture the journey of the slippers.


Halloweens came and went. Year after year, I found other fun characters to play dress up in. But....but there was something about those slippers...

I think little by little throughout my adolescent and young adult years I tried to reapply those sequins in vain. Sparkling parts of myself that felt like they'd fallen off or my circumstances seemed to tell me they had. Not sure when, or how, or why exactly only that something lost its glimmer along the way.  

But I'm realizing more and more the parts I thought were the most sparkling parts about me were a false luster.  Artificial. The closer you got the faker you saw it was.  So I'd keep you at a distance so you wouldn't see what I saw deep down.

But here's the thing, once the sequins fall (and oh how they have fallen), all you see is what's bare, underneath.  And that's when the magic begins to happen.   

So, this year when Halloween neared the slippers beckoned.


Only this time, the young girl who for years only wanted to be pretty characters felt permission to be ugly, wonderfully wicked, and have some fun. 

The magic of restoration, reconstruction, redemption.  That little by little, in the everyday moments of my life, there are possibilities. The small and not so small things are being transformed with the hope of redemption.  That I get to participate in a life that doesn't settle for the artificial but trusts that the good and genuine can happen, is happening, even when the sparkle feels like its lost her luster.  


God is good and He is the creator of all good things.  I don't need to offer just a pretty package anymore. The magic of the slippers is that I come just as I am, bare, and the One whom I've given the ugly parts of myself to readorns.


He, little by little, day by day, is sealing on me a glory and splendor not of this world. A sheen, like the slippers, that glimmers and shines pointing others to the way home.

The Beauty of Becoming...

I love this word becoming.


Perhaps because it gives me permission to be in a process.  As a recovering "get it right, put together gal" I hear the gospel life all over that word.


We are being made new each day...B E C O M I N G.


Being asked to die to things that we used to cling to for life...B E C O M I N G.


Walking in faith, in the unknown that beckons us to trust and choose hope moment by moment...B E C O M I N G.


Looking away from the false images, constructed selves we use to prance around as and looking towards the gaze of Christ the only one reliable and authoritative to tell us our true beauty and worth...B E C O M I N G.


Learning to admit our faults and shortcomings to God's people and own our wrong when we've wounded a friend...B E C O M I N G.


Not taking ourselves too seriously and settling in to laughing, playing, silliness, and jest...B E C O M I N G.


How beautiful it is to be in the presence of a saint who flutters about freely, settled in to the new life of becoming in Christ, and letting the Spirit teach her to soar. B E A U T I F U L !


How are you settling into the beauty of becoming?

Girl at the Mirror

          There is a Norman Rockwell painting called “Girl at the Mirror”  A girl, no more than 12 stares into a mirror with a magazine laid perched upon her lap, an Old Hollywood starlet flaps open. There she sits, on her little stool, staring quizzically at her reflection. Her doll, now an afterthought, lays crumpled against the mirrors edge.  Red lipstick, a brush and comb, and some jewelry lay scattered about the floor.  Her tender face says it all, so vulnerable and uncertain, “Am I ok? Do you like what you see?  Will it be enough to hold your attention?” When I look at her, I see my face, my questions, my uncertainties about what it all means to transition from who I once thought I was into this new woman Christ is making me to be

  My internal uncertainty has been around as long as I can remember.  How many times have I stared into that mirror and asked?   

          My little eight year old frame makes her way into the bathroom, gently closing the door and locking it behind her.   oh how i loved to play dress up, experiment with make up and try perfume cocktails of various kinds.  the bathroom held a plethora of beautification possibilities.  my secret space where i could stare, create, and recreate me.  i don’t know what it was about the power of a hairbrush and pony tail ring but somehow it seemed in my little mind the key opening a world of transformation possibilities of transformation.  but this day my partially wavy, partially straight hair won’t do anything. Scowling, I yank open the drawer fumbling around trying to find my bristly round brush (the one like moms).  I try it again.  And again.  Why can’t I get it to look the way I want?  Yank, yank, tug, tug.  The tears start to come. Determination sets in: This will work!   Pull. Tug.  More tears and anger rise up.  Why can’t I make this work?  My little fingers begin to pull and yank again this time attempting to untie the pony tail ring that has become a tangled mess.  Why does it have to be so hard?  Why can’t I get this right?  I’ve had it.  I’ve failed.  And I want this whole fiasco to be over.  I fumble around the drawer and find them.  My answer.  My little fingers tuck into the holes and begin to cut.  snip. snip.  a locket of my hair falls to the floor.

Defeat.

Trying so hard to make it right. 

At eight.

Eight?  

Even now, almost thirty years later, I stare into my reflection from the window.  Watching cars go by one by one, anguish sets in, as I stare avoiding the computer keys in front of me.  What do I possibly have to say to you that matters? How is this even interesting?   

Yank, yank. 

Tug. tug.

Will I ever get there? Who is this woman in the window staring back at me? I cannot begin to talk about authenticity unless I’m willing to face myself.  But how can I ever do this when there’s been years of hatred, judgement, and contempt.  Nice veneer, covering over a tangled mess. tugging and yanking, Unless I look into the mirror of his response........

       Who's reflection am I looking at to tell me my worth? (confession)

       How would things shift I were to look in the reflection of my Savior's response? (contemplation)

       What does he say? (scripture, listening prayer)

God Reality is Good (but hard)

I wrestle.
God is good.  He is good all the time. All the time He is good.
I sing about this in church, pray it with others, yet I wrestle.


I feel like there has been weeks of soaring--high in the sky being carried by His wings. Then, there are days, sometimes weeks, where it feels like I fell off. 
If I'm honest more like I was dropped.


My heart starts to feel disrupted and confused as h o p e expands and gets bigger and bigger and then 
P O P, the circumstance or unfolding reality goes topsy turvy. 


My faith....wains.
And I wonder, where did I go?  The girl who just days ago was in awe of God's kindness, involvement, and care?  And it's hard. Harder than I ever thought cause I don't like what I'm seeing.  And I don't like what I think He may be asking.


It is then that I see.
See where my faith wandered and what I started to trust in.
An outcome I wanted.
A result that didn't come to fruition.
New territory I'm asked to walk in a very old struggle and it all feels too much.


And it is here, here, that He beckons, "Will you trust me? Trust me even here, yet again, that I am good. Will you trust I am guiding your heart to the Promiseland, and it is good. Good in a Kingdom way you have yet to understand?"


And you know what?  I want to understand it all, have answers, and then step.  But Jesus never let's me figure it all out. He asks for my heart, not my cerebral, conceptual head. Faith always requires stepping, then more unfolding, then stepping again.  Trusting the goodness of His life is somehow redeeming and transforming mine at each bend and new step.


God reality.  Seeing with e y e s  W I D E   o p e n.  No longer hiding. No longer pretending.  Stepping into the unknown and trusting (rather learning to trust) in the depths... 


GOD IS GOOD.  He is good all the time.  All the time He is good.

Majestic & Mundane: Yes, this is life.

Hi Gang! Too tired to write today.  Here's another video blog (o;

Friday Arts! "Rooted"

This is a small, mixed media canvas I did after a women's small group. We were discussing the joy of being transformed from the inside out through love.

I decided to put the fruit on the bottom to symbolize that a strong root system established in love will always blossom but it may take a while to see it on the outside. The important thing is that the roots are growing deep.

Ephesians 3:17-20 (Amplified Bible)

¹⁷May Christ through your faith [actually] dwell (settle down, abide, make His permanent home) in your hearts! May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love,

¹⁸That you may have the power and be strong to apprehend and grasp with all the saints [God's devoted people, the experience of that love] what is the breadth and length and height and depth [of it];

¹⁹[That you may really come] to know [practically,through experience for yourselves] the love of Christ, which far surpasses mere knowledge [without experience]; that you may be filled [through all your being] unto all the fullness of God [may have the richest measure of the divine Presence, and become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself]!

²⁰Now to Him Who, by (in consequence of) the [action of His] power that is at work within us, is able to [carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly, far over and above all that we [dare] ask or think [infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes, or dreams]--

The Dress(es)

My birthday is June 26th. As long as I can remember I have loved gifts. Giving them. Getting them. The process of finding just the right one. Love it! (I think I get this from my Mom and Dad who have an unbelievable track record of picking out just the right things).

One particular birthday stood out for years, but I wasn't quite sure why? That is until Jesus invited me back there, wanting to rewrite the story in a way only He could.

It was right before my 5th Birthday. I can still remember the anticipation and excitement looking through the children’s catalog (I'm telling you gift giving is a BIG deal). I carefully circled the pages and items I liked. And then... in this cornucopia of catalog goodness... I found it . . .

the most beautiful,

fuchsia pink dress I’d ever seen!

I specifically marked the page and eagerly showed mom my one special wish for my birthday—my princess dress!

My mom always delighted in my over-the-top dress up games and acting antics, I just knew she’d try to get it for me.

That is....

Until....

Mommy had to go away.

"She needs her rest. She'll be back when she feels better."

My dad and family did their best to give me a special birthday, despite not having mom’s help. I got to have my birthday at Chuck E. Cheese! Nothing beat that mouse, my friends, ski-ball and Ms. Pac Man, and, of course, presents!

After the pizza and games, I began to tear into the glorious gifts with great anticipation. I opened them

one by one,

Ooooooing and ahhhhhing at each special gift

... all the while anticipating the Big One (you know, the

one that’s always strategically left last).

THE LAST BOX…and…and…

A Barbie?!

No dress?

Where was my dress?

The one thing I wanted...

The special thing I had asked for.

I was confused...

But she knew?

Nothing in my little heart understood why the very thing I had wished for and delighted in wasn’t given to me? Why would mommy and daddy withhold something good?

And that's the story. This has always been where the memory ended. As I got older, I got my facts organized, completely understanding the impossibility of my mom or dad being able to get the dress because of my mom's medical needs at the time.

So...Jesus, what?

Go there Beloved....let me uncover other things that were going on. Who else was at work in the midst of your confusion and hurt. (When the Lord brought this up , my heart was ripe for the uprooting. There was so much heartache and confusion going on in my present circumstances somehow it made it easier to go there).

No dress?

Where was my dress?

“They tricked you.”

They tricked me. (doubt)

I could hear the deceit.

The distortion of truth.

Exposed.

But Jesus I know the truth now? She couldn't do anything about it?

"Facts” don’t change wounded hearts.

Jesus wanted truth to penetrate that “inmost place," that is where He wanted the transformation, to rewrite the story.

Sweetheart, your heart was assaulted by the enemy, he distorted the picture. And it was intentional. Think about it darling a beautiful, princess dress. Princesses long to be cherished, chosen, rescued.

You see the Evil One has used "the dress" event and numerous other events throughout my life (but the Lord chose this one) to tell me a twisted message; “See what happens when you open up your heart to desire? Don’t get your hopes up because, they’ll only get crushed (fear). Don’t open up your heart and ask for your desires because you’re never going to get it. Just settle, keep that stuff hidden, it’s always safer. And I know you want safety, right?”

He’s right, that wicked, sly, sick serpent is right, I do want safety, but at what cost?

Jesus was gently exposing the cost of self-protection and tenderly showing me more about its origins.

He also exposed the enemies scheme. The enemy used this disappointment and many others to unearth fear, “If you keep your heart open you will only be hurt. Your heart is too much anyway. It’s not safe to let them in. I’ll help you find a way out of your vulnerability so you feel safe again.” (bartering control, a way out of pain).

Fear and control are his greatest tools.

If he can get us to distrust God’s heart, skew our image of God through life’s hurts, make us believe we have nothing to offer, and take us out by bartering back a measure of control (a way out of fear and pain), He has our allegiance. We live a protected, safe, fearful life.

B U T .... once his twisted strategy is exposed that's been

hidden in the darkness,

R O O M is created...

JESUS' light can now permeate!

The Gospel can now touch a place that has yet to hear it in that inmost place...

Enter Dress #2

(to be continued...)