The value of being genuinely heard is priceless yet means the world to us. One prospers and grows, is free to ask questions, and dares to face relational obstacles confidently. Given the ability to carry a voice is life giving as we deliver our thoughts, our feelings, our essence of personality, and a representation of our culture to those around us. When each individual is welcomed on the same playing field of expression much is gained and respect has an opportunity to be reciprocated equally.
Unfortunately when our power to speak openly is muted or walked upon unjustly it leads to brokenness of healthy communication and greater conflict. Many wars have broken out for these reasons where violence became, and still becomes, a way to regain power instead of words and death fosters a way to measure success.
Being silenced can push a person over the edge and desperation may erupt louder than truth. Boiling up as anger builds like a pressure cooker on the brink of unrepairable disaster. Irrational thoughts become our friend and our actions become our enemy. Being forcefully shut down causes our minds and bodies to short circuit until our needs are met and a sense of safety returns.
I have personally experienced both sides of this equation. Being invited to share anything rationally with acceptance or not being welcome to declare or explore the facets of who I am. One leads to equality and determination to brainstorm answers without judgement and the other leads to kayos and anger where defences attempt to self protect. Ideally I prefer the communications styles that lead to love rather than death and am on a journey in learning how to empower myself and those who find themselves fearfully speechless.
Advocacy for self and others is paramount for a healthy family, community, nation, and world. Lets be on the lookout for ways we can extend to ourselves and others the chance to be heard within a safe and respectful atmosphere. Joining together for the quest of truth to be heard and the quest for love to set those in bondage free. Identifying better communication skills and knowing where boundaries and accountability have their place. Living for peace rather than leaching power.
Friday, 27 January 2012
Friday, 6 January 2012
The Greatest Gift
Have you ever thought about what it really means to love someone? What it takes, what it looks like, what it sounds like, how it feels? I have been reading a book that has opened my eyes deeper to these questions seriously worth pondering. Thinking them through with every part of who I am and then thinking through them again through the eyes of the One who really knows. He who has demonstrated love in its purest form to us already.
Ted Dekker is an amazing author whom I have had the privilege of gaining insight and wisdom from through his profound writings. Specifically, his book titled "The Bride Collector". Laying the mystery and the chase aside within the jackets of this novel, the threads of likeness to how God loves all of us- "His favourites"- are very hard to miss.
While reading the ending, a tear-jerker of realisations to be sure, I learned something revealing of myself. I am angry. I am actually really angry and I could not understand fully why until now. The images of sacrificial love, by a human friend, bounced around between my ears until they made there mark in the heart of my spirit. I became privy to the fact that I have let myself hate someone and blame them for the walls now between me and a best friend. I was even angry at my best friend for in a sense rejecting me. Mislabelling their actions as hurtful rather than an invitation for healing. I projected my anger to the wrong places and held onto it unjustly.
Can you imagine a parallel comparison, being angry at God for letting Jesus die for our freedom? How could we hate Him given the valour to conquer the very depths of deaths grip on us? The death of Jesus was in a sense "worth it" for the lives of all mankind. To silence the grip the enemy had on us.
I was angry because a great friend, my best friend, gave up their choice to love me by sacrificing themselves to love me. This might have sounded confusing. Let me say it another way to be sure you get the picture in my heart. The best way a person can love someone is by letting their personal needs and wants go in order to set the one they love free.
Recently someone did this for me and I at first did not see the magnitude of their living sacrifice. A quote depicting this, "you have to let him [or her] go [to risk their very life with and for you] because you love him [or her] and you have to trust him [or her] to be who he [or she] is for you [in order to release your grip on them so that you can both be set free]" (P. 399 The Bride Collector). This is love in its purest form. Grace to its fullest.
Seeing it from my friends perspective, through the help of one of Ted Dekker's characters, I read these words "leaving her [or him] there to suffer yet another abandonment had wrenched his [or her] heart but he [she] knew that he [or she] might never have another opportunity to save, really save, her [or him]..."(P. 401 The Bride Collector). Letting them leave because they want the best for me, in my case, was more life giving than trying to remain in love with them. Holding onto them for the sake of feeling loved, or for some being rescued by them, is wrong. Feeling loved was not as important as actually experiencing real love. Witnessing its selfless offering.
I am compelled to forgive the targets of my anger. A facet of love. To not only set them free from the arrows of my mind but to speak the truth that they are loved implicitly by another- by the One who made them. Identifying to them that no fault, no misgiving, no behaviour or human act can separate them from the Love of the Father. Silencing my anger and loving them enough to point them to whom loves them them most. More than humanly possible.
I think this is what Jesus would want us to know about His death for us. That He knew that leaving us, for a time as a human man on the cross, would be immeasurably far greater a love than to simply remain with us. Preventing the pain and fear of the unknown, the cross for a time brought for our sake, would not keep us safe from what hurts us most. Allowing the confusion and heart wrenching emotions, for a time while people mourned, was more beneficial to our future than safeguarding our hearts in the moment of His death. His pain and desire to have us experience the purest love of all hurt Him, yet it offered an eternal solution to false love and the fear of rejection for all eternity. Proving before all creation that the greatest gift really is not having all the answers or feeling loved, but instead, to lay ones life down for a friend. The rawest act of being loved- beyond all cost.
Ted Dekker is an amazing author whom I have had the privilege of gaining insight and wisdom from through his profound writings. Specifically, his book titled "The Bride Collector". Laying the mystery and the chase aside within the jackets of this novel, the threads of likeness to how God loves all of us- "His favourites"- are very hard to miss.
While reading the ending, a tear-jerker of realisations to be sure, I learned something revealing of myself. I am angry. I am actually really angry and I could not understand fully why until now. The images of sacrificial love, by a human friend, bounced around between my ears until they made there mark in the heart of my spirit. I became privy to the fact that I have let myself hate someone and blame them for the walls now between me and a best friend. I was even angry at my best friend for in a sense rejecting me. Mislabelling their actions as hurtful rather than an invitation for healing. I projected my anger to the wrong places and held onto it unjustly.
Can you imagine a parallel comparison, being angry at God for letting Jesus die for our freedom? How could we hate Him given the valour to conquer the very depths of deaths grip on us? The death of Jesus was in a sense "worth it" for the lives of all mankind. To silence the grip the enemy had on us.
I was angry because a great friend, my best friend, gave up their choice to love me by sacrificing themselves to love me. This might have sounded confusing. Let me say it another way to be sure you get the picture in my heart. The best way a person can love someone is by letting their personal needs and wants go in order to set the one they love free.
Recently someone did this for me and I at first did not see the magnitude of their living sacrifice. A quote depicting this, "you have to let him [or her] go [to risk their very life with and for you] because you love him [or her] and you have to trust him [or her] to be who he [or she] is for you [in order to release your grip on them so that you can both be set free]" (P. 399 The Bride Collector). This is love in its purest form. Grace to its fullest.
Seeing it from my friends perspective, through the help of one of Ted Dekker's characters, I read these words "leaving her [or him] there to suffer yet another abandonment had wrenched his [or her] heart but he [she] knew that he [or she] might never have another opportunity to save, really save, her [or him]..."(P. 401 The Bride Collector). Letting them leave because they want the best for me, in my case, was more life giving than trying to remain in love with them. Holding onto them for the sake of feeling loved, or for some being rescued by them, is wrong. Feeling loved was not as important as actually experiencing real love. Witnessing its selfless offering.
I am compelled to forgive the targets of my anger. A facet of love. To not only set them free from the arrows of my mind but to speak the truth that they are loved implicitly by another- by the One who made them. Identifying to them that no fault, no misgiving, no behaviour or human act can separate them from the Love of the Father. Silencing my anger and loving them enough to point them to whom loves them them most. More than humanly possible.
I think this is what Jesus would want us to know about His death for us. That He knew that leaving us, for a time as a human man on the cross, would be immeasurably far greater a love than to simply remain with us. Preventing the pain and fear of the unknown, the cross for a time brought for our sake, would not keep us safe from what hurts us most. Allowing the confusion and heart wrenching emotions, for a time while people mourned, was more beneficial to our future than safeguarding our hearts in the moment of His death. His pain and desire to have us experience the purest love of all hurt Him, yet it offered an eternal solution to false love and the fear of rejection for all eternity. Proving before all creation that the greatest gift really is not having all the answers or feeling loved, but instead, to lay ones life down for a friend. The rawest act of being loved- beyond all cost.
Tuesday, 3 January 2012
Life: An Internal Ropes Course
One has opportunity to face challenges head on or to ignore them. Seems to me that many life experiences are a form of climbing test with a beginning, middle, and end. We can 'storm the walls' within, reach our Mount Everest, and sail into our futures boldly. Often though, in the climb, I realise I have forgotten to bring my safety harness- my coping tool box. These times are crucial in determining ones resilience and determination to keep climbing. To succeed and go the distance or to let ones drive die and 'Jack and Jill' back to the start.
At times I have butterflies in my stomach as life turns into a sort of spinning tire-swing experience. Pivoting and reeling until everything on the outside is blurred and threatens to expel everything on the inside- the eye of the storm. Willingly, I would hope it would be the time to surrender all my have-nots, what- nots, cannots and want-nots. Even the knots that tighten my heart gripping me like a noose. Purging all the frayed edges of my character and curing them, bidding them to be steadfast. It is in the curing (purifying) process one feels the burn, the melting of dreams and expectations, necessary to 'come out on top'.
Wrestling, I feel at times like I am on the end of a pendulum in its deepest pull against gravity. My emotions fall in the room, can by cut by a knife, leaving hints of rope burn in their wake. Often I try to zip through my feelings like on a ropes course and yet find I am ill trained. Taking the high leaps before I am ready. It shatters my confidence. It is better to wait and even ask for a 'spotter' before engaging such monstrous endeavours. Better not to put the cart before the horse.
Exploring my heart like a figure eight, I notice the walls, the caverns, the deepest parts, the facets that have shaped who I am today. Each experience like a helpful knot, when pursuing the challenge of climbing a rope, giving leverage to reach higher ground. To conquer the lows and become victorious. Perhaps one really should take a knot tying course- questing for role models and vantage points that encourage the moving up, the moving forward journey of life. Providing better footing for the climb. Engaging the legs and other body parts to aid in the battle- instead of surrendering it to a singular set of muscle groups. Making use of mind and body to stop the waves of failure that threaten to capsize us.
One thing I know I need in my tool box of coping is a three strand chord. One without frayed edges and can take the force of my ups and downs as I rollercoaster to the finish line. Exchanging my areas of weakness, where my climbing rope has gone slack, and replacing it with taughtness- succinct knowledge and the purest wisdom of navigation. Directing my internal compass True North and instructing me where I need the help of a safety net. Revealing to me the best 'spotter' of all- God. The best climbing companion of all, who cheers us on, even when we are tempted to place Him on the sidelines. At least then, when the pedulum swings, I know it is He who holds me.
At times I have butterflies in my stomach as life turns into a sort of spinning tire-swing experience. Pivoting and reeling until everything on the outside is blurred and threatens to expel everything on the inside- the eye of the storm. Willingly, I would hope it would be the time to surrender all my have-nots, what- nots, cannots and want-nots. Even the knots that tighten my heart gripping me like a noose. Purging all the frayed edges of my character and curing them, bidding them to be steadfast. It is in the curing (purifying) process one feels the burn, the melting of dreams and expectations, necessary to 'come out on top'.
Wrestling, I feel at times like I am on the end of a pendulum in its deepest pull against gravity. My emotions fall in the room, can by cut by a knife, leaving hints of rope burn in their wake. Often I try to zip through my feelings like on a ropes course and yet find I am ill trained. Taking the high leaps before I am ready. It shatters my confidence. It is better to wait and even ask for a 'spotter' before engaging such monstrous endeavours. Better not to put the cart before the horse.
Exploring my heart like a figure eight, I notice the walls, the caverns, the deepest parts, the facets that have shaped who I am today. Each experience like a helpful knot, when pursuing the challenge of climbing a rope, giving leverage to reach higher ground. To conquer the lows and become victorious. Perhaps one really should take a knot tying course- questing for role models and vantage points that encourage the moving up, the moving forward journey of life. Providing better footing for the climb. Engaging the legs and other body parts to aid in the battle- instead of surrendering it to a singular set of muscle groups. Making use of mind and body to stop the waves of failure that threaten to capsize us.
One thing I know I need in my tool box of coping is a three strand chord. One without frayed edges and can take the force of my ups and downs as I rollercoaster to the finish line. Exchanging my areas of weakness, where my climbing rope has gone slack, and replacing it with taughtness- succinct knowledge and the purest wisdom of navigation. Directing my internal compass True North and instructing me where I need the help of a safety net. Revealing to me the best 'spotter' of all- God. The best climbing companion of all, who cheers us on, even when we are tempted to place Him on the sidelines. At least then, when the pedulum swings, I know it is He who holds me.
Sunday, 1 January 2012
Forget The Hamster Wheel
So many times we find ourselves at the start of a new day, a new year, a new dream. Questioning what will unfold next. What will this next season bring? Sometimes there is even pressure from "the norm" to make certain choices or to follow a certain criteria. To make resolutions that are not fully rooted but rather just for the sake of making them... just like everyone else.
I am not doing that this year. This new dawn of a fresh start. Instead, I am focused on simply finding out what it is that is worth everything to live for. The answer is not a simple one, as it should be, but comes with some doubts and unmet expectations. Hmmm. Expectations. The things that hang us up and dangle us by a thread, taunting and teasing, begging us to relent and give into mediocrity.
Stuck in the between places without solid start or end, we often stand waiting for something that never happens. Find ourselves wondering what comes next rather than who am I becoming. Stumping our toes with projections into places that have not even begun yet. Futuristic focus without proper footing in the present.
Grasping hold of fragments of budding truths, I want to know who I am and who I will be without slipping too far forward or falling too far backward. One might call it foundation or identity. Nudging myself from the inside out, I seek self identification and awareness from internal clues that tell me I am not all that I should be yet- not who I was called to be yet. Sort of like wearing shoes that are two sizes too big but expecting myself not to stumble or falter when life speeds up.
I am learning the art of being gentle on myself without being too mushy or slack. Giving myself room for choices yet limiting certain hang-ups from appearing on my horizon and calling my bluff when I fail. Offering myself to be re-sized and measured by the correct form of measurement- I surrender my slip ups, my not enoughs, and my should-have-beens. Replacing them with encouragement and clarity from the One who, at the very least, knows my correct shoe size.
The concept of a new year can start anytime we chose it to. We are not limited to our calendars for the source of renewal or freedom. Stepping into each new day with determination to let the wants, whats, whys, whens, and hows fall under our feet. Making room for the best questions of all. Who am I? Who loves me? Who do I love? Who carries me and walks beside me? Who... whom? To what source do I put all my trust and hope in for the right direction? Who holds my heart's compass and guides me home?
Good questions... I am still learning there are no solid answers on this side of life, this side of heaven. The only foundation is found on the cross. Not on my goals, or dreams, or desires... My identity is not in the whats of life but in the Whos of the Spirit. The One who knows our end from our beginning. God whom knows my heart best, better than I know myself. The One whom challenges time as we know it and fills us with the strength to walk forward. Forward on the threads of hope, peace, love, and joy. Correcting my faulty thinking, the relying on self, God removes me from the hamster wheel of life. Grounding us in heavenly realms. Guiding us through the nows and thens into something greater than our resolutions will ever accomplish. I resolve to trust Him.
I am not doing that this year. This new dawn of a fresh start. Instead, I am focused on simply finding out what it is that is worth everything to live for. The answer is not a simple one, as it should be, but comes with some doubts and unmet expectations. Hmmm. Expectations. The things that hang us up and dangle us by a thread, taunting and teasing, begging us to relent and give into mediocrity.
Stuck in the between places without solid start or end, we often stand waiting for something that never happens. Find ourselves wondering what comes next rather than who am I becoming. Stumping our toes with projections into places that have not even begun yet. Futuristic focus without proper footing in the present.
Grasping hold of fragments of budding truths, I want to know who I am and who I will be without slipping too far forward or falling too far backward. One might call it foundation or identity. Nudging myself from the inside out, I seek self identification and awareness from internal clues that tell me I am not all that I should be yet- not who I was called to be yet. Sort of like wearing shoes that are two sizes too big but expecting myself not to stumble or falter when life speeds up.
I am learning the art of being gentle on myself without being too mushy or slack. Giving myself room for choices yet limiting certain hang-ups from appearing on my horizon and calling my bluff when I fail. Offering myself to be re-sized and measured by the correct form of measurement- I surrender my slip ups, my not enoughs, and my should-have-beens. Replacing them with encouragement and clarity from the One who, at the very least, knows my correct shoe size.
The concept of a new year can start anytime we chose it to. We are not limited to our calendars for the source of renewal or freedom. Stepping into each new day with determination to let the wants, whats, whys, whens, and hows fall under our feet. Making room for the best questions of all. Who am I? Who loves me? Who do I love? Who carries me and walks beside me? Who... whom? To what source do I put all my trust and hope in for the right direction? Who holds my heart's compass and guides me home?
Good questions... I am still learning there are no solid answers on this side of life, this side of heaven. The only foundation is found on the cross. Not on my goals, or dreams, or desires... My identity is not in the whats of life but in the Whos of the Spirit. The One who knows our end from our beginning. God whom knows my heart best, better than I know myself. The One whom challenges time as we know it and fills us with the strength to walk forward. Forward on the threads of hope, peace, love, and joy. Correcting my faulty thinking, the relying on self, God removes me from the hamster wheel of life. Grounding us in heavenly realms. Guiding us through the nows and thens into something greater than our resolutions will ever accomplish. I resolve to trust Him.
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