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)

Dependency.

I have learned about a very important word; this word is dependency.
The very word an alcoholic man said he found in AA opposed to church.

When the world falls apart around you; when your own defenses have fallen through you have no other choice but to be dependent.
When we ignore our own need for each other we are also ignoring our need for God.
And we do this.
Maybe the sinners purpose is to lead the saints to the meaning and importance of dependence.

I have found this so true in my own life.
I need a community around me and I need God.
There are no if’s, and’s or but’s about it.

I always talk about how I need the people I work with as well.
They have taught me so much about myself and what it means to be human, and how to live in God’s goodness and grace.
There was a study that was done to find out what was the point of the lives of those with disabilities.
Those conducting the study at the end had a list of things they had learned from the experience of working closely with those with disabilities.
The list included things like:
“I learned to appreciate the little pleasures in life”
“I learned about myself”
“I’ve learned to appreciate the slightest bit of progress”
“I finally feel like I am needed”

I immediately knew what these people were feeling.
Working with people that have disabilities and especially those with significant disabilities every sign of progress you find joy in, and when you are so in tuned with looking for that tiny bit of progress; you are trying so hard for others to see that soul you know is so beautifully and wonderfully made, you really find yourself, find what it is to be human and how in need you are of connection.

Henri Nouwen wrote
“Everyone who returns from a long and difficult trip is looking for someone waiting for him at the station or the airport. Everyone wants to tell his story and share his moments of pain and exhilaration with someone who stayed home, waiting for him to come back.”

We have that within somewhere. That need to connect. We are not made to be alone. We all need someone.

We want to believe that what hurts us has meaning to someone else.

In moments where this desire is strong; I know I can be held by my heavenly Father. 

It sometimes takes a lot of mistakes and a lot of moments of brokenness before I admit this need of

dependency, but it inevitably comes. For us all.

I believe the thorn in Paul`s side that he so often brings up in the New Testament and that is so often debated

was God`s way of keeping Paul dependent.

The very thing you hate about yourself is the very thing God uses to make you dependent on Him.

I heard about a picture of sin and grace like this; it is like you are on the end of a string held by God and every

time you sin God cuts the string, but His inexhaustible love for you makes him retie that string as He picks you

up in your moment of failure and need with His grace, as the string gets cut and retied it gets shorter and

shorter. Soon those very experiences of sin actually bring you closer to God as you need his grace more and

learn how to be more dependent.

I don't think we are the only ones who need us to be dependent on God, I think God needs us to be

dependent on him too. His desire is for us, and when we are not living in connection with Him the very heart

of God is broken and aches for us.
God desires for us to be waiting at the airport for him too.

It is like this symbiotic dance between us and the Divine and our need for each other.

Dependency on each other and God is what makes thriving reality.
I hope to be someone who lives truly knowing the importance of dependency.
To live in community with my brothers and sisters. To live embraced in God's grace.
I hope we all come to know this importance.