"The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart." Dorothy Day: Part 1
I recently made an observation (by way of a comment from my mom) of my life. I have changed. I have grown. I have blossomed. And it would not have happened if life had not been so grossly uncomfortable for the last bunch of years.
Hindsight really is a gift. I was able to look back, ok maybe for the first time in many months, and see the thread weaving through. I can see why one door closed and how another opened and how, while one path crumbled (think Indiana Jones type path crumbling), a new one appeared. (So wierd, but my brain is seeing this in video game format.) I can see that my heart broken, body rocking crying was not for nothing. I've started to feel life pumping through my veins. Please don't get me wrong, and think that I was unhappy being a wife and mother, this is something I was made to be. But something was missing in me. One of things I have realised is that my Christian walk had become so religious. It had become so much about me and me being righteous and me growing and blah, blah, blah. I don't want to ever be like that again.
Awhile back, while at my previous church, I was given a book by Donald Miller. The book, Blue Like Jazz, spoke in a simplistic, real language that for whatever reason did not correspond with the way I was growing. I managed to read all of one chapter and decided that, while something in me began to move, I could not accept the freedom from which he wrote. If anything I decided it was probably wrong and possibly against the Christianity I knew. I loved my previous church, but, through human error, got incredibly hurt. Then we moved to a new church where I have had to start the whole prossess over of making friends, finding fellowship, submitting to leadership. And it has been hard. I had a new baby, we had no money much of the time, dealing with a gorgeous toddler with eating issues and ecsema, a marriage that almost fell apart and a new church!!!!! And then I started reading Blue Like Jazz again, when I was raw and broken and in so much need of a redeeming God. I lost the book 3/4 of the way through, somewhere, somehow I put it down and it stayed put. I so badly want to finish it! What I read spoke the beginning of a new walk, one that I can be excited about.
My character while gentle, always lent towards critical and judgemental. That is being shifted. I really want to love. I want that my life reflects the Christ in me and speaks to the Christ in you and in everyone I meet. I also see for the first time a concreteness (is that a word?). No longer will there be a flitting or a flirtation. This is it.
Oh, and in case you were wondering how The Irrestible Revolution by Shane Clairborne is going, it has blown my mind. I recommend that you try and get yourself copy and read it and Blue Like Jazz.
Happy to share my heart with you
Philippa
Hindsight really is a gift. I was able to look back, ok maybe for the first time in many months, and see the thread weaving through. I can see why one door closed and how another opened and how, while one path crumbled (think Indiana Jones type path crumbling), a new one appeared. (So wierd, but my brain is seeing this in video game format.) I can see that my heart broken, body rocking crying was not for nothing. I've started to feel life pumping through my veins. Please don't get me wrong, and think that I was unhappy being a wife and mother, this is something I was made to be. But something was missing in me. One of things I have realised is that my Christian walk had become so religious. It had become so much about me and me being righteous and me growing and blah, blah, blah. I don't want to ever be like that again.
Awhile back, while at my previous church, I was given a book by Donald Miller. The book, Blue Like Jazz, spoke in a simplistic, real language that for whatever reason did not correspond with the way I was growing. I managed to read all of one chapter and decided that, while something in me began to move, I could not accept the freedom from which he wrote. If anything I decided it was probably wrong and possibly against the Christianity I knew. I loved my previous church, but, through human error, got incredibly hurt. Then we moved to a new church where I have had to start the whole prossess over of making friends, finding fellowship, submitting to leadership. And it has been hard. I had a new baby, we had no money much of the time, dealing with a gorgeous toddler with eating issues and ecsema, a marriage that almost fell apart and a new church!!!!! And then I started reading Blue Like Jazz again, when I was raw and broken and in so much need of a redeeming God. I lost the book 3/4 of the way through, somewhere, somehow I put it down and it stayed put. I so badly want to finish it! What I read spoke the beginning of a new walk, one that I can be excited about.
My character while gentle, always lent towards critical and judgemental. That is being shifted. I really want to love. I want that my life reflects the Christ in me and speaks to the Christ in you and in everyone I meet. I also see for the first time a concreteness (is that a word?). No longer will there be a flitting or a flirtation. This is it.
Oh, and in case you were wondering how The Irrestible Revolution by Shane Clairborne is going, it has blown my mind. I recommend that you try and get yourself copy and read it and Blue Like Jazz.
Happy to share my heart with you
Philippa
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