Narnia

I’ve been thinking a lot about a place of complete peace.

Peace has been a constant theme in my life over the last two years.  It has been something I had found I lacked and something I continued to strive and pray for.

I always loved stories that were about some magical place. A place of beauty, clarity and peace.
Among those stories that I treasured growing up were the Narnia series.
I wanted to live in Narnia, and would find myself day dreaming about being there.

LeeAnna and I have talked about what we envisioned heaven would be.
She saw the gates with a giant water park behind them, which makes me smile because it is testament to how she views beauty.
My vision was a place like Manitoulin. I give that earthly picture because it is what I know. I see myself walking the sun lit streets, laying amongst trees or on a dock, and feeling so connected that I am experiencing wholeness, clarity and peace overwhelming me. 

There is something to be said about untouched, pure God made beauty.

God placed something in His creation that allows us to be amongst it and feel Him.

I like to escape to this place sometimes.

In moments where I feel too plugged into the world around me and unable to quiet myself, I pretend I am already there. I am lying on a forest floor, it seems bare around, except for the great trunks. It could almost be seen as illuminating and scary to some, but for me I look up to the sun through the tops of these great trunks and can almost feel the Divine lying beside me, meeting me, like He does, with warm acceptance.

It works. You get to a place, I have learned from my early days of C.S. Lewis as well as in my more mature ones, that fairy tales can be for those that are older. What Lewis would define as “fairy tales” allows you to picture a life beyond this one, and maybe one we were even created for. Our “home.” Of course we can’t live in this home yet; it is for the future, but we can get glimpses of it here on earth, and we can strive for the things of that world and for that world to be brought to others.  

I wrote this post about a month or so ago but never posted it, and it was this picture (which I saw tonight) that made me come back to it. It seems too suitable to ever pass it up now.

Your Narnia may be completely different from my own, but sometimes radical things need to happen within you and you need to escape to keep you from distraction, even if it is just for a moment. 

Fairly self explanatory. Just shows Lewis's belief in "fairy tales."

I'm convinced these are mine and Ben's future children...

Check out the very talented Andrew Hyatt...

I've known Andrew since he was my Jr. Youth Leader, and probably before that!
He is incredibly talented and deserves to be heard.
We were blessed to have him sing at our engagement party!

Click Here to Hear!

 You can also Get his EP on iTunes!

What our Spirit Needs Waking and Sleeping

      I always avoided anything written about prayer. I loved reading, and would read about all the topics my favourite authors put out…except I would always skip the books on prayer.     
Then I read (in a Brennan Manning book, of course) that it is important to get our prayer life to a place of need.

  

     God instantly made that become a desire for me; getting to the place where I felt the need to rest with God.  I realized that was the thing missing in my walk.  I needed my time with Him and needed prayer with Him to feel fulfilled and to feel some sort of connection and peace that I could never get in the busy, noisy, and crazy world that we all inhabit. 

     Now, that is truly what those moments bring me. Those moments are quiet places of rest, where I can catch my breath and unload my burdens, my fears, and myself and expect in return grace, compassion, and love. It is in those moments I can find my identity consumed in truth and not the regular lies that are fed to our spirits throughout the day.

     In a moment where that becomes a need for me, where I know to calm myself and get my spirit to a place where I will find contentment, I sometimes close my eyes and picture myself on a forest floor. No one in this world exists outside of me and the Divine. I am just staring up through the trees and feel surrounded with a peace beyond description.  I feel safe here.

I think Jean Vanier described this time of stillness best when he said:

    “We need time to listen to the inner voice of hope calling us back to the essentials of love, essentials that we may have forgotten because of busyness and selfishness. To pray, then, is more about listening than about talking. To pray is to be centred in love; it is to let what is deepest within us come to the surface. For me, it is all that and more. Prayer is also meeting with the One who loves me, who reveals to me my secret value, who empowers me to give life, and who loves us all and calls us forth to greater love and compassion. Prayer is resting in the quiet, gentle presence of God.”

    My humanity avoided that connection that my spirit so desperately needed until I heard someone say that it truly is a need. I hope hearing the same can do that for you as well. Insecurity vanishes, fears fade away, and peace is restored as you walk through your day after you’ve fed your spirit with some time of quiet prayer. When I don’t fill that need I feel my identity sink back into the lies that hold me in a place of insecurity and fear.

If I could replace my mind with anyone’s I think it would be C.S. Lewis.
I will leave you with his thoughts on prayer

“I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time- waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God- it changes me.”

As the day gets closer; more becomes real to me.
We have made a bunch of decisions for the big day in the last little while and I had to put together my vision for the décor before we met with the decorator this week.
It’s really been hitting me that it’s so close, a mere five months away now.

That day symbolizes so much; the start of a new life. The biggest moment and promise of my life is so near. The only thought more beautiful to me is the fact that it’ll be Ben standing up there with me making the same promises in return.

I was looking up Bible verses for that day and found some of the most poetic words, of course rooted in utmost truth, about love:

• “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.” (1 John 4:7)
• “Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death” (Songs of Solomon 8:6)
• “Complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.” (Philippians 2:2)
• “With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” (Ephesians 4:2-3)