The Greatest Command

Jesus said: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' (Matthew 22:33-37) 

He also said: "This is my command, that you love one another as I have loved you." (John 15:12)

"He (Jesus) spoke as though there were no other command because, as a matter of fact, there really isn't any other command. Every other commandment  and every other message is contained in this one." 
Gregory Boyd

There's no getting around the fact that as followers of Christ we have been called to love others ~ to love others in the same manner God loves us ~ sacrificially, unconditionally. Boyd calls God's love for us "unsurpassable". This is the kind of love called "agape" love in the Bible. Agape love "is the act of unconditionally ascribing worth to another at a cost to oneself." ~Boyd

I can't wrap my mind around this great call on us, maybe because I can't wrap my mind around the fact that God loves me just like this. And He does. This is the place I must abide: secure in knowing experientially this unsurpassable love God has for me. I am incapable of loving others in this manner. My call is to abide in Christ and rely on Him to love others through me.

Some recent art journal pages:

I'm also reading "Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art" by Madeleine L'Engle for the Made Course FB discussion group. A quote from chapter one:

Gregory Boyd quotes are from his book "Repenting of Religion: Turning From Judgment to the Love of God"

Little Messages

The school year is done! It's always so busy in the last few weeks as we close another year in our ministry to Keyser School ~ we wrap up tutoring, we get ready for events like Bingo Math Night and Field Day. It's fast. It's furious. It's bittersweet as we say goodbye to kids and teachers for the summer, yet are ready for a change in pace...for a little while. I love slowing down in the summer. This summer I plan to take time to dig into the conference material from the When Leaders Lose Heart conference, read some of Terry Wardle's books, do some art journaling and look into the things that lie beneath this pattern of burn-out I regularly experience. I'm starting my summer journey next week with a two day personal retreat.

This quote from Terry Wardle seems to sum up well the journey that needs to take place to position myself for God's work of healing, restoration, and freedom.

"The journey forward to our true self in Christ is a journey backward to the woundings that created our false self."

So, one of my messages to myself this summer will be, "say yest to the journey". 

Our exercise for One Little Word 2013 in May was to listen to the voices around us that are repeated and document these little messages in our journal. For me, this exercise fit in well with books I've been reading and with what I heard at the conference.

In her instructions for this month's exercise Ali Edwards said about the messages we hear from life around us as well as that still small voice within us, "Have you ever noticed how sometimes it whispers and sometimes it shouts?" Well, the messages I've been hearing from friends, from books, from conferences, from God, have all been shouting. And repeating themselves!

My Little Messages:

From the conference/Terry Wardle:

• Say yes to the journey
• Focus on one area and build from there. (In other words, I don't have to tackle everything at once. Growth and healing will take place as I focus on one area and move on from there.)
• Hold fast to His promises (This message actually came to me out of the times of worship and music that started our days. The song "You Never Let Go" reminded me of how faithful God is.)

From books I'm reading:

• It's not about fixing, it's about letting go. (Ruth Haley Barton, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership)
• Live into your true self. (So many books I've read lately have talked about our true and false selves.)

The rest have been a part of my life and are reminders to myself:

• Be who you are (based on the book of Ephesians and especially Eph. 4:1 to live out of your identity that is found in Christ.)
• Live with intention
• Be still. Relax. Breathe. (i.e. Slow down and focus!)

These Days;

Life has been busy the past few weeks. We had our annual staff retreat two weeks ago and this past week I attended a four day conference about ministry leaders and burn-out led by Terry Wardle. My head is swimming from all I have taken in. I need to go slow in the coming days and weeks and digest it all. Throughout the conference I sensed that God had led to to the right place. A place where answers begin. I've been operating from a place of being worn-out and it has brought out some unhealthy attitudes and old defense mechanisms. It's time for a change.

I came across a quote in the book we're reading for our staff book study, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership by Ruth Haley Barton. It's on the art journal page below: "It's not about fixing, it's about letting go." This quote had been running through my mind continually since I read it. I keep trying to fix things instead of letting go of them and letting God fix them. This is the place where change has to start. And so the journey continues...

Becoming Me: Traveling Companions

It's been quite a while since I last posted here. I have been far too busy and the excessive heat has zapped my energy. I have managed to maintain some art journaling in sporadic bits and pieces of time over the past month. I've been working in my altered book art journal about my journey of self-discovery. We all have traveling companions on our journey in life. My companions on this particular leg of the journey have mainly been my husband, Bob, and my pastor/mentor/friend, Tim. The companionship of these two men in my life has been of great value to me and both have played a significant role in helping me become who I am today and who I continue to grow into.
I have also had a group of traveling companions who have been intimately involved in this journey of self-discovery but whom I have never actually met in person: Robert, Adam, Terry, Peter and David. Here, I have a picture of them:

Along with Jesus and Paul,

these authors through these books are helping me become the real me. The me God created me to be. I'm enjoying the journey. I'm becoming comfortable being the real me.





The above books and authors are:
Invitation to a Journey by Robert Mulholland
Introverts in the Church by Adam McHugh
Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero
The Gift of Being Yourself by David Benner
Draw Close to the Fire by Terry Wardle

Be Who You Are ~ 3

We all are on a life long journey of discovering who we are. Over the past few years I've made it an intentional journey because in knowing who I am and how I am put together I become healthier. Healthier mentally, emotionally, relationally  and, most importantly, spiritually. I function better as I get to know who I really am. I serve God and others more effectively when I have a deeper understanding of who I am.

"There is no deep knowing of God without a deep knowing of self and no deep knowing of self without a deep knowing of God." John Calvin

On this journey I have some companions whose writing have helped me in this self-discovery. I'm in the process of re-reading these books:

• Invitation to a Journey by Robert Mulholland
• Introverts in the Church by Adam McHugh
• Draw Close to the Fire by Terry Wardle

And a new book I'm reading is The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery by David Benner. What I am loving about this book is that it is confirming what I've been studying in Scripture over the past few months. Over the past few months, while I have still been on the journey of discovering how I am put together, I've been on more of a big picture, theological level in my discovery. I've been studying the Gospel of John and looking at how Jesus' identity flowed out of his relationship to the Father. This thread runs through the whole gospel. This is our call as Christ-followers as well. That our identity will flow out of our relationship with Christ and with the Father. So the "big picture" I've been looking at is that we must embrace our calling as God's people first, becoming who He has created us to be and called us to be, only then will we truly know who we are. For years it seems the Church has had things backwards. We promoted finding out what your spiritual gifts are and your passions and then looking for a place to serve based on that knowledge. Rather, my own experience found that in heeding God's call on His church and on His people and being obedient to serving anywhere in order to be a part of His mission and calling, opened up a better understanding of my unique and individual calling. As I get closer to the end of Benner's book that same message is becoming clearer.

"Genuine self-knowledge begins by looking at God and noticing how God is looking at us. Grounding our knowing of our self in God's knowing of us anchors us in reality. It also anchors us in God." David Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself

"The true self is who, in reality, you are and who you are becoming...It is your total self as you were created by God and as you are being redeemed in Christ. It is the image of God that you are.
We do not find our true self by seeking it. Rather, we find it by seeking God. In finding God we find our truest and deepest self.\It is by losing our self in God that we discover our true identity." David Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself

Good stuff!

It strikes me as I write this that things are coming together for me on this journey. Each year I pray about and choose a word that will be my word of focus for the year. For two years 2010 & 2011) it ended up being the same word: freedom. This year it is the word "through". It is in what I have written about above, deep knowing of God and deep knowing of self, that I experience true freedom. In fact, Benner writes about operating out of our false self is actually "forging the chains of bondage". It is "through" Christ and knowing who I am in Him that I experience true freedom. Freedom in Christ!
My theme verse from 2010 & 2011 fits so well here.

"Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."
2 Corinthians 5:17-18.

I know I'm stretching the context of this verse, but to me, an aspect of our "unveiled faces" is knowing who we are in Christ and who we are becoming and operating out of that.