When You Struggle With Resentments

Dear Lord, we want You to find a yielded and quiet spirit within us. To make that happen, we need You to come in like a flood. Occupy us like water filling empty spaces. Occupy reserved portions of our lives where anger is festering and the secret places where grudges are being stored. Sweep through the houses of our hearts . . . don't miss one room or a single area---cleanse every dark closet, look under every rug. Let nothing go unnoticed as You take full control of our motives as well as our actions. Deep within our hearts, sweep us clean of blame and revenge, of self-pity and keeping score. Enable each one of us to be big enough to press on, regardless what unfair treatment we've had to endure. Take away the scars of ugly treatment and harsh words. Keep us from licking our wounds. Forgiveness comes hard . . . but it's essential. Help us forgive, even those who never acknowledge their wrongdoing toward us. Give us peace over turmoil, and erase the memories that keep us offended. We need fresh hope to go on! We ask this in the name of Him who had no sin and did no wrong but died, the just for the unjust: Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Chuck Swindoll 2012

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The Imposter

In Barnabas, we talk about "The Imposter." Richard Rohr captures the real meaning of "imposter" as he relates this false self to our :shadow Self." Many of us have fallen into the trap of believing our shadow (false self, ego, imposter…) and we have paid dearly for buying into the illusion.

Search your heart and live the truth of who you are. Even though our true self is flawed and wounded, the truth cannot fall out from under us. We can finally stand on solid ground and discover that indeed, “the truth has set us free.”

SHADOWLAND

In the second half of life, we have been in regular unwelcome contact with the shadow self, which gradually detaches us from our not-so-bright personas that we so diligently constructed in the first half of life. Our “stage mask” (persona in Greek) is not bad, evil, or necessarily egocentric; it is just not “true.” It is manufactured and sustained unconsciously by our mind; but it can and will die, as all fictions must die.

Person and shadow are correlative terms. Your shadow is what you refuse to see about yourself, and what you do not want others to see. The more you have cultivated and protected a chosen persona, the more shadow work you will need to do. Be especially careful therefore of any idealized role or self-image, like that of minister, mother, doctor, nice person, professor, moral believer, or president of this or that. These are huge personas to live up to, and they trap many people in lifelong delusion. The more we are attached to and unaware of such a protected self-image, the more shadow self we will likely have. Conversely, the more we live out of our shadow self, the less capable we are of recognizing the persona we are trying to protect and project. It is like a double blindness keeping you from seeing—and being—your best and deepest self. As Jesus put it: “If the lamp within you is, in fact, darkness, what darkness there will be”

Richard Rohr

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Success and Failure

Remind me that failure is the experience that precedes triumph. Teach me that forgiving is most important in the strong and that revenge is the most primitive sign in the weak. If you take away my success, let me keep my strength to succeed from failure. If I fail people, give me courage to apologize and if people fail me, give me courage to forgive them. God, if I forget you, please do not forget me.

Gandhi

As someone who has succeeded and failed and landed everywhere in-between, Gandhi’s words spoke to me this morning. Be kind, be forgiving, be merciful and walk humbly with your God.

Lord please keep me “right-sized” so that I might place my life in your hands and experience your grace in my greatest failures. At the same time don’t let me ever escape the wonder and truth of being your beloved, or as John might say, “The disciple that Jesus loved.” - connie


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Loving Well

Following Jesus means letting go of our judgments, embracing humility and our humanity in order to see through the eyes of God’s love.

Humanity around and within

It's a slippery slope, letting go of the lines that divide, seeing people different from yourself as human. Let the walls that make me an "us" and they a "them" crumble, and there is a world of humanity to love. No longer can you ignore the vulnerability, the humanity, the absolute sinner and saint in all of us. No longer can you push others aside or arbitrarily categorize them.

Confronted by the humanity around us, we confront the humanity within us and expose our collective brokenness. We come face to face with the things we are capable of, for ill or good. We lose the ability to hide behind our self-righteousness or be cozy in our carefully constructed boxes of absolutism and superiority.

Anna Woofenden

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"Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor..."

I read this quote this morning and felt very proud of America’s history. I read it again this afternoon and thought about the Kingdom of God opening its gates and saying…

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free… Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my light beside the golden shore.”

God’s grace continues to render me speechless.

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Happy Birthday Ricardo!

Today is my son Ricardo’s birthday. I just wanted someone to know. You see I love him so much it hurts. He is my hero and in his presence I experience the unlimited depth of God’s love. Ricardo is not “normal” by the world’s standard and most people have no idea that today he is twenty-seven years old. We will have a small celebration with our family but for some reason, I want to remind those who know him to remember this precious miracle who has touched so many of us with the indescribable love of God.

To Ricardo, "I love you son. You’re “abnormal” life gave me a life of love deeper than any other love I have or will ever encounter. Though you cannot grasp today’s significance, I thank God you were born and I am honored to be your mom."

For those of you who don’t know Ricardo, here is a brief description of how we met and a reflection of our unique journey together.

Today is my son’s 27th birthday. So why is that so special? It is special because Ricardo is special. At the age of four, Ricardo survived both parent’s suicide, as he watched them die. He then survived being left at an orphanage eighteen hours away from his birthplace. At this orphanage he developed meningitis that was left untreated, causing total hearing loss. He survived that illness only to suffer severe abuse that left him fearful of anyone or anything.

While on a mission trip to Mexico, I met him when he walked over to the small trailer I was staying in and tried to peek in to see what was going on. He stared and said nothing. Having no idea he was deaf, I asked him to come in and he cautiously backed away. Over the next few days little Ricardo could be found sitting out by our trailer anytime we were there. Eventually, he came inside, sat down and just stared at us with a smile that melted my heart. I could go on and on with details of our divine introduction but I would shed too many tears and the blog would become a novel.

I ended up adopting Ricardo hoping I could help him not merely survive but thrive on a consistent dose of medical treatments, therapy and lots of love. He did thrive but it didn’t look anything like I had hoped for. He never developed the ability to communicate with “normal” people. He could not be educated with “normal” kids and has never had a “normal” friend. Instead of thriving physically, his ability to play, run and walk has slowly deteriorated to being confined to a chair or in his bed unless assisted. In 2004 he was diagnosed with a rare genetic disease that will prematurely cause his body to shut down. I spent years begging God to heal Ricardo and lamenting about the undeserved trauma one little boy had to endure. I’ve asked the question “WHY” more times than I can count.

So why am I celebrating today instead of grieving all the losses? I celebrate because Ricardo has “gifts” that “normal” kids don’t have. He touched my heart and changed the course of my life. He has loved many of us unconditionally in a way that “normal” people are incapable of loving. For twenty years, he has screamed “Mama” the minute I walked through the door. My presence matters to him and his presence reminds me of the face of God, even when he is out of control. (Well most of the time.)

I can’t lift him or put him in the bath by myself anymore, but last night, his caretaker put him in the bath for me and I bathed him as I did for twenty years. Caring for his physical needs and bundling him up in a towel before putting fresh pj’s on him is one of those rare times between a mother and child that is indescribable. Even at twenty seven, because of his disabilities, there is nothing like tucking a clean little boy into bed with prayers and a good-night kiss. Thank you, God, for giving me one more day with your gift of a very special son.em>Click on the envelope below to send to a friend.

A Much Needed Prayer That is Neither Democrat or Republican

In our world of labels that divide us: Democrat-Republican, Liberal-Conservative, Black- Hispanic-White, Baptist-Methodist, Rich-Poor, we would all change for the better if we began to live "working on behalf of a God that chose justice and mercy and compassion to the most vulnerable."

"As I travel across the country folks often ask me what is it that I pray for. And like most of you, my prayers sometimes are general: Lord, give me the strength to meet the challenges of my office. Sometimes they're specific: Lord, give me patience as I watch Malia go to her first dance where there will be boys. Lord, have that skirt get longer as she travels to that dance.

But while I petition God for a whole range of things, there are a few common themes that do recur. The first category of prayer comes out of the urgency of the Old Testament prophets and the Gospel itself. I pray for my ability to help those who are struggling. Christian tradition teaches that one day the world will be turned right side up and everything will return as it should be. But until that day, we're called to work on behalf of a God that chose justice and mercy and compassion to the most vulnerable."

Barack Obama
Prayer Breakfast speech

When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you? Then the King will say, I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me. The Message
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