Peace Treatments

For a number of reasons I've been in a very dry place spiritually.  There have been times when all I wanted to do was give up.  Walk away from more than just my life, job and faith.  Temptation is a harsh thing and thank God He delivers us from evil, and leads us not into temptation...we do that all on our own quite well. Long story short...He found me this weekend.  In fact, the prayer and word spoken over me was that "I was lost and now I'm found".  God is good.  So faithful.  So incredibly faithful. Too much happened this weekend to blog it, and besides, it's mine and God's anyway.  Some things are just meant to be pondered in the heart, cherished between Father and daughter.  I will say this though.  We pray - I pray - often, for the wrong things.  Like we pray for faith when we ought to pray for trust or we pray for clarity when we ought to pray for obedience.  Let me put this into perspective... Let's say I'm wa...

Having to make a decision.  Tough work that.  Particularly when the choices are equally attractive for different reasons.  One choice appeals to the head with it's logic and rationality, while the other appeals to the heart, with it's compassion and need to make a difference.  I've been faced with 2 very different choices these past few weeks at school.  Head / heart;  marketplace career / ministry vocation calling.  In the midst of these choices, I've also been faced with the ease of falling back into old patterns of behaviors, because when I'm stressed, those old patterns are useful for distracting me. One option is that which I'm called to, compelled to, while the other is the "set up", the counterfeit, designed to get me out of the game.  But which is which?  Therein lays uncertainty. One thing I do know - it's decision time and I have to pick one and commit to it, 100% no holds barred commitment.  You can't sit on two...

Sometimes my rational, logical and pragmatic mind bids me well. And sometimes I need to ignore it while it attempts to talk me into and out of things,  and simply listen to my heart. This residency at school has convinced me of one thing - I didn't listen to my heart (His whisper) and rationalized myself into something that I now feel just a little silly about. When I first began this journey into the world of conflict resolution, it was always with the future vision of doing post conflict capacity building with a specific focus on traumatization and truth and reconciliation.  You know...forgiveness work that makes conflict transformation sustainable. More specifically, working with women in post conflict zones training and teaching them how to do trauma healing and restorative mediation in their own communities (though the idea of doing problem solving workshops in post conflict also tugs me) So, why did I chose organizational conflict? Because I'm in an o...

I'm sitting in a dorm room at RRU in the 2nd residency of my master's program, taking a break from endless readings and assignment outlines. What a crazy journey this has been, getting from "there to here". The irony is that RRU is in my old neighborhood, where I grew up, where all the things that tried to interrupt or even destroy me, happened.  In fact, I walked up to the old neighborhood today, stood in front of both houses, and felt this really tangible sense of triumph.  If I wasn't so dignified I would have danced a jig and sang  "na na na na boo boo!"  From a violent, abusive past to drug addled high school drop out, to master's level student.  Somewhere in there I  got to find, almost lose, and then salvage a marriage to a wonderful man who, 29 years later, I still love with all my heart;  raise up in a "hit and miss, did the best I could with what I had, but no excuses" sort of way, two absolutely incredible, intelligent...

Baylor University did a study of couples in conflict, and found that spouses stated that they would rather see their significant other give up power than apologize.  And when asked to define what giving up power looked like, spouses reported that they perceived their other as having given up power if they were to accept blame or responsibility, acknowledge harm, and work collaboratively towards solution...in other words, things that don't involve lording it over or typical "I win - you lose" scenarios. It got me thinking...isn't apology really about accepting blame, taking responsibility, acknowledging the effect or harm and then working collaboratively to solution which might be another way of saying making amends or fixing the problem? If apology was what it's supposed to be, then apology is synonymous to giving up power. But apology isn't what it's supposed to be...it's been cheapened and diminished by culture, cop out, and self serving mot...

It seems to me that the most intimate relationship we can have is with Jesus.  He knows everything there is to know about us, including those things we don't know about ourselves, and that makes it pretty intimate.  There is nothing I can hide from Him.  There is nothing that I want to hide from Him.  There is nothing that I hope He doesn't see.  That's not to say there is nothing that is down right selfish, or self serving or sinful in me, only that I hope He always sees it so He can always redeem it...a sort of rescue me from myself kind of thing.  I love Jesus.  I want Him to be my be all and end all, and I want to grow even closer and even more intimate and authentic in relationship with Him.  And this morning, while standing alone (Jim was ushering) in my 4 campus "mega-church",  being led into the intimacy of worship by a leader I do not know, sitting next to fellow worshippers I have never met, and being taught ...

This is interesting...at least to me. In Matthew6:9-15, Jesus teaches the disciples to pray.  In His model prayer, He teaches us all to request of the Father, " And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors" (NKJ) .  Other translations say "our sins as we forgive those who sin against us".  Jesus then elaborates..." for if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses" (Matt 6:14-15) This discourse is early in Jesus' ministry.  The apostle's to whom He is speaking are relatively "young" insofar as spiritual/Christian maturity goes.  Later on in His ministry though, in fact, after His resurrection, Jesus makes another statement about forgiveness, this time in John 20:21-23.   Jesus has resurrected and finds the apostles shut up behind closed, locked doors.  He appears to them and says , "Peac...