Ready for Take-off

I have had some pretty big news this week. In February I applied for a training program with 24-7 Prayer called Transit. Since my vision is to start a Boiler Room in Dublin (a 24 hour prayer room) this training program is the first step. I had an interview on Friday, and although it started out a bit rough, it ended great! And the end result is that I have been accepted and will be living and learning in London for 10 months beginning the first week of September. After waiting years for the door to open to the first step to pursuing my calling it feels very surreal. I can hardly believe it's true.

This is from today's Moravian Daily Text and it sums up, very nicely, my feelings:

Then the Lord called, "Samuel! Samuel!" and he said, "Here I am!" 1 Samuel 3:4

For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear,
but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father."
Romans 8:15 (NIV)

Loving God, we thank you for your gracious call, and
we thank you that you bring us together as your family. Help us to continue to
respond to your calling, and may we be worthy to be called your children. In a
spirit of gratitude and love we pray. Amen.

Through this entire process, in the emotional highs and lows, I just want to learn how to stay with the Lord, how to keep my eyes on HIM.

Believe in miracles and cures and healing wells

Faced with the challenge of, "now what?" following Devolution in Northern Ireland and an apparent end to the peace process this is what I feel the Lord is saying:

This is not an end result. This is not all prayers answered. This is a beginning, an inspiration for more and deeper prayers. The wounds of Ireland are bigger than Sinn Fein and the DUP. They are bigger than Protestant and Catholic. The wounds of Ireland are not limited to the North, they stretch across the entire island. And to view current events as prayers for Ireland answered is like putting a band-aid on a dirty, gaping wound.

In order for deep wounds to be healed they must first be recognized and acknowledged. They must be cleaned out. After that process true healing can begin. I believe Ireland is called to be a nation of healers, to be a nation of peacemakers. But first she must be healed and set at peace. Not a superficial glossing over, but real, true, permanent healing.

None of this is to negate or belittle what has already happened, because it is a very big thing, a very good thing. But we must be careful that we do not settle for the good thing at the expense of the best thing.

A misleading man

There's no other way to be happy in Jesus

This was a rough day. I'm inexplicably tired. Work was frustrating. And I wasted 2.5 hours watching tv.

I've been waiting for several months to hear whether or not I've been accepted for a training program that would finally get me started on my life dream. I had an email yesterday, but it was only to say that they've updated the website and that they would be in touch in some undefined time frame. Even though the program starts in September apparently they haven't even started looking at applications yet. I had mine in in February. I've been trying so hard not to count on this. But this is it for me. This is the last door I know to knock on, every other one has been very firmly shut. So, try as hard as I can not to, I'm finding it impossible to not "put all my eggs in this basket."

I've told myself all the right things, over and over. The Lord will open the right door at the right time. If this isn't it, that just means the Lord has something better ahead. But after 3 shut doors and years of waiting they are all starting to sound a bit trite.

We had a guest speaker from Germany at church last week, Walter Heidenreich. He had a really "wow" message. He said that the Lord has everything, there is nothing he is missing, nothing we could give him that he doesn't already have. Heaven is full of saved people so evangelism is out, worship, and intercession are too. The only thing missing is faith. "They don't need faith in heaven because they see everything." The one thing we can give to God to please him is faith. And I seem so lacking in it right now..........

But the thing of it is, I like to think of this dream as mine. This grandiose vision for my life as belonging to me. But here's the reality; it's not. There is no way I could come up with all this stuff on my own. And not even a hope of a chance I could accomplish even one bit of it without Jesus. So I don't know why I get so upset by the challenges along the way. It is not my job to make sure this happens. My job is to trust. Trust and obey.

So, as Jesus gives me the strength to hold on to him, I will start again tomorrow.

Now you are a lioness

I love these encounters between Lucy, Susan, and Aslan:

From somewhere deep inside Aslan's body there came the faintest suggestion of a growl. "I'm sorry," said Lucy, who understood some of his moods. "I didn't mean to start slanging the others. But it wasn't my fault anyway, was it?" The Lion looked straight into her eyes.
"Oh, Aslan," said Lucy, "You don't mean it was? How could I-I couldn't have left the others and come up to you alone, how could I? Don't look at me like that ... oh well, I suppose I could. Yes, and it wouldn't have been alone, I know, not if I was with you. But what would have been the good?" Aslan said nothing.
"You mean," said Lucy rather faintly, "that it would have turned out all right-somehow? But how? Please, Aslan! Am I not to know?" "To know what would have happened, child?" said Aslan. "No. Nobody is ever told that." "Oh dear," said Lucy. "But anyone can find out what will happen," said Aslan. "If you go back to the others now, and wake them up, and tell them you have seen me again; and that you must all get up at once and follow me-what will happen? There is only one way of finding out."
"Do you mean that is what you want me to do?" gasped Lucy. "Yes, little one," said Aslan. "But they won't believe me!" said Lucy. "It doesn't matter," said Aslan. "Oh dear, oh dear," said Lucy. "And I was so pleased at finding you again. And I thought you'd let me stay. And I thought you'd come roaring in and frighten all the enemies away-like last time. And now everything's going to be horrid."
"It is hard for you, little one," said Aslan. "But things never happen the same way twice. It has been hard for us all in Narnia before now."
Lucy buried her head in his mane to hide from his face. But there must have been magic in his mane. She could feel lion-strength going into her. Quite suddenly she sat up. "I'm sorry, Aslan," she said. "I'm ready now." "Now you are a lioness," said Aslan. "And now all Narnia will be renewed. But come. We have no time to lose."

"Lucy," said Susan in a very small voice. "Yes?" said Lucy. "I see him now. I'm sorry." "That's all right." "But I've been far worse than you know. I really believed it was him-he, I mean-yesterday. And I really believed it was him tonight, when you woke us up. I mean, deep down inside. Or I could have, if I'd let myself. But I just wanted to get out of the woods and-and-oh, I don't know. And what ever am I to say to him?" "Perhaps you won't need to say much," suggested Lucy.

Then, after an awful pause, the deep voice said, "Susan." Susan made no answer but the others thought she was crying. "You have listened to your fears, child," said Aslan. "Come let me breathe on you. Forget them. Are you brave again?" "A little, Aslan," said Susan.

They remind me of my conversations with the Lord.

Someone is Hearing the Outcry

Human beings suffer.
They torture one another.
They get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
Can fully right a wrong
Enflicted and endured.

History says, Don't hope
On this side of the grave,
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that a farther shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.

Call miracle self-healing,
The utter self-revealing
Double take of feeling.
If there's fire on the mountain
And lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky

That means someone is hearing
The outcry and the birth-cry
Of new life at its term.
It means once in a lifetime
That justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.

from The Cure at Troy
by Seamus Heaney