Just because [visual Prayer]

February 8, 2012 by chrishaun | Leave a comment

The thing about having so many photog friends is that I am never in the need of wonderful photographs. Every week, new snaps pop up on my Facebook feed and I find myself gazing at them (instead of writing) or once more paging through their albums (instead of grading papers).I look at the pictures people put on their walls; the silent history of the things that they cherish…

That candid shot of a father holding his child. That dog pile shot consisting of every smiling child in a 5 mile radius. The snaps taken when only the photog was looking; the one that shows the subjects true nature instead of mask they have worn for so long even they believe it’s real. Vacation shots, pet snaps, plates of food, I love the lot.

But the Holy Grail of pictures, in my opinion, is the landscape. Like the one to the below. Nature in all its fierce, wild glory

What does this have to do with prayer?

Everything. Abba puts himself in every facet of our lives. In the Bible, He describes the loving kindness and the care with which a father holds and protects his child. He provides a variety of food with tastes and texture that we either love or hate, not because we need all of these tastes to live; but it brings us enjoyment and He loves it when we luxuriate in the flavors and share that with others. He encourages gathering together, not just to worship him, but to build up and protect the spirit of Christ within us.

And then there is nature. This is where the power and majesty of God’s power is relentlessly on display. Civilizations thrive and are awed by nature. Photogs have filled thousands of books that showcase every aspect of nature. David Attenborough has made a career that’s lasted longer than I have been alive about nature. It never gets old.

Why? Why does He do it?

Because. Just because.

'Invisible Sun' Photo by Victor Mabry

High Traffic [Devotional]

February 5, 2012 by chrishaun | Leave a comment

“Step out of the traffic! Take a long loving look at me, your High God, above politics, above everything”

Psalms 46:10, The Message

One adjective that is constantly attributed to me is ‘busy’. I work two main jobs and several smaller ones, have a variety of hobbies and interests, a (surprisingly) vibrant social life filled with the most interesting and wonderful people, and a strong, happy marriage with one grown child and one that’s nearly there (if you ask me… ask her and you will get a totally different answer). I also have a relationship with God that is growing stronger by the day.

Busy is good, especially by Western standards, and being productive and successful is good as well. But all too often I find myself busy, busy-busy…

An hour and a half at church (Amen) then DASH-

Back to the house where I sit for a couple of hours watching folks play video games (die a LOT!!) then DASH-

To this event that a friend has going on at this or that place then DASH-

I dash here and there, trying hard to fit it all in, but never quite taking it all in. Or sometimes none of it in.

What would happen if I took fewer commitments and sat down with the Holy Spirit gave prayerful consideration to the things covered on Sunday?

What would happen if I dedicated my time to encouraging and being encouraged by a few quality people instead of being simply known and generally liked by many?

What would happen if gave up the things that make me look ‘busy’ and ‘successful’ and became more of a fixture than a blur?

When we ‘step out of traffic’, when we stop running around and being busy (or trying to look busy) and look loving at God, we find that we want to slow down, spend time, and connect, not just with God, but with those in our lives as well. It only makes sense, considering we are made in His image and He desires nothing more than to be and connect with us.

For many of us, looking to God and slowing down would mean not looking as important, popular (which is something we still seek…even after high school), or successful as we want to be. But in God and through seeking Him we become what He wants us to be… and if we have the courage, this is worth much more than anything that we have to give up. It is above everything.

weakness is a good thing [Devotional]

January 22, 2012 by chrishaun | Leave a comment

“You were the weakest of all nations, but the LORD chose you because he loves you and because he had made a promise to your ancestors. Then with his mighty arm, he rescued you from the king of Egypt, who had made you his slaves”

Deuteronomy 7:7-8, Contemporary English Version

We are taught the need for perfection from a very early age. You have to be the best, because the best are the ones that are chosen. Whether it’s not being the last picked for a pick-up game, or getting to date that guy (who in turn is doing two a days to get on the team), or not getting to date that guy because you have to study so you can get into that college, so you can get that job. In the secular world, the best are the ones that are picked.

But Abba makes it clear that the reason that He chooses us is not because we are the best. Yes, he wants our best, He wants our whole souled devotion to Him and our love, but not because we are the best. Not because we dress the best, give the best offerings, have more tithes to offer, are the most ‘righteous’, are top orators, help the most people or anything like that.

We are chosen because we are loved by Him. Because He made a promise that He would love us even though we are not the best, we are broken and undeserving. John tells us that “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation [appeasement] for our sins” (1 John 4:10, ESV).

We are not capable of giving Him the love, devotion, worship, and commitment that He deserves. And you know what? He knows that. And He still loves us. He gave Jesus and the Cross (grace) to fill in the gap between what He deserves and what we can give. Grace is the bridge that connects our lacking, broken lives and spirit to a loving, long suffering, and just Father who wants nothing more than for us to embrace Him the way He embraces us.

This is a view that was very different than the one that I was raised with. We don’t have to stand in fear that we are not ‘righteous’, but we can have full faith that He spends every minute, every second, thinking of us and loving us, even though (and even because) we are weak.

Thanks be to God.

The Valley of Vision: a prayer for the New Year

January 13, 2012 by chrishaun | Leave a comment

The Valley of Vision is a collection of Puritan prayers that I discovered while worshiping with my friends Scott and Hannah at the Austin Stone. What blew me away was how much power and devotions as delivered in such simple language. Old English aside, this is a prayer that anyone who is truly in love with God and can feel his love for them can understand and relate to.

O Lord,

Length of days does not profit me
Except the days are passed in thy presence,
In thy service, to thy glory.

Give me a grace that precedes, follows, guides,
sustains, sanctifies, aids every hour
that I may not be a moment apart from thee,
but may rely on thy Spirit
to supply every thought,
speak in every word,
direct every step,
prosper every work,
build up every mote of faith,
and give me a desire
to show forth thy praise;
testify thy love
Advance thy kingdom.

I launch my bark on the unknown waters of this year,
with thee, O Father, as my harbour,
thee, O Son, as my helm,
thee, O Holy Spirit, filling my sails.

Guide me to heaven with my loins girt,
my lamp burning,
my ear open to thy call,
my heart full of love,
my soul free.

Give me thy grace to sanctify me,
thy comforts to cheer,
thy wisdom to teach,
thy right hand to guide,
thy counsel to instruct,
thy law to judge,
thy presence to stabilize.

May thy fear be my awe,
thy triumphs my joy.

Amen.

Call me Patches!!

January 11, 2012 by chrishaun | Leave a comment

The holiday season ended properly for me at my sister-in-law’s New Year’s Eve party. It’s the one night of the year where I dedicate myself to getting drunk (which was successful) and meeting the New Year with an empty head (and stomach once I have recovered from the hangover).

A good part of the Tribe was there as well as a few new faces. The same stories and the drama were there as well as Rock Band and Telephone Pictionary. The food was good. The laughs flowed and I slept well and made it home safe in the morning after crashing on the couch.

But there was a sharp, vital difference this year. I looked around at all the folks several times over the night and one thought just would not leave my head.

“You are not part of this anymore. This is no longer your Tribe” I nodded and I understood.

And I drank to numb the matter of fact tone in my head and my absolute agreement to it. And I felt lighter as a chunk of my old worldview, my old personality, fell off my body. I tried to pick it up and slap it back on my body, tried to make it fit, but it wouldn’t stay.

I tried to be Sique (the load, rebel-rousing good time girl type intellectual type person) and it rang false. I acknowledged that and there went another chunk of the worldview. And for the most part, I was quite fine with that.

It was the little itty-bitty part of my heart that freaked out. That was the part that wanted to be numb. That was the part that wanted to slap the pieces of the past back on body which kinda felt like a raw meat suit like a FrankenChrishaun.

That was the part that cried when I got home and had a weird, paranoid text exchange with my sister-in-law between trips to the bathroom.

It was the part that was scared. It was scared because all the bitterness and anger was gone. All the drama that fed and defined me was conversation fodder and it was actually an effort to engage. Most times I was happier being silent. And still.

And that was the scariest part of the whole thing.

I am actually accepting that my worldview changed and the things that mattered, the people that mattered, the pastimes that mattered don’t really matter as much as they once did.

They are important. They make me happy. But they are not my happiness. They are not my everything (everything? EV-ER-RY-THANG!)They don’t define me. I can live without them if I needed to and would miss them dearly. That is crystal clear. What isn’t as clear is what replaces it. Or does it even get replaced. Will I be in another group? Does that matter? What the worst that could happen? Could I handle it?

By the time I could verbalize these questions, I had already cried a patch in my therapist’s couch. I got up off of my side, looked dead at him and asked:

“Is Grace going to be enough if I never gain back anything to make up for what I have lost?”

He smiled softly. We had had the talk about not giving trite answers and I could see him measuring his answer, which was the other extreme. I didn’t want to feel better; I wanted the truth.

He leveled his gaze at me.

“In time. It’s like when I asked if you were ok… what did you say?”

It was my turn to smile. “I will be”

“And you will…”

And once I calmed down I realized that … I am ok.

NYE was that last push out of the skin I had been in for years. I knew that I would change and I liked where my life was headed. But on many levels, I wanted my old life back, but it was always empty (the benefit of hindsight) and to keep on that path is to do the same thing I accuse other folks of doing.

Fighting to be the Queen Bee of Nothing. Fighting to lead a group that does not want growth or grace or to progress in any beneficial way. They just want things to be the same as it has always been; a world of denial. A world where there is no tactic too underhanded, no lie too boldfaced and no depth to deep to prevent the truth to reach the light of day. A world where pity and the guilt trip rule.

I’ve done my fair share and now I’m just done.

I don’t want pity. I want God’s grace and His love. I want my husband and children to be core of my life like they used to be.

I want this new path and all the fear and joy and labor and promise it carries.

I wanted the New Year to be fresh and filled with the people with the lifes I aspire to.

The ones who the very embodiment of kindness, faith, trust in spite of, and sometimes because of, all of their faults. Those who soldier on the path of discipleship.

Just soos you know… since I started on this article, I have gone to both Holly’s B-Day and The Regifting Party, the first parties of the New Year for me. I still felt really wobbly and unsure and kinda shy, but I didn’t have to drink to get through them, either.

happy new year…

The Perfect Pen [visual Prayer]

January 8, 2012 by chrishaun | Leave a comment

But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord! Jonah 2:9 ESV

I thought I was being clever. I know that living in Christ means sacrifice. The issue was that I thought I could bargain for more time with my weaknesses, more time to ‘control’ my situation, more time with my pet sins.

More time without the pain of sacrifice.

So being incurably and incredibly clever, I tried to make a deal:

“Abba (‘Father’ or ‘Daddy’), I want to surrender all to you.

I want to surrender my earthly goods and resources, my ability to get things done, my right to an explanation, my desire to be liked, adored and generally well thought of, my desire to become a best-selling author, all of those things for you.

But I want to do it right; I want to write a surrender contract out in my own hand as I reminder of the things that I give to you. And in recognition of that, I am currently on the hunt for the perfect pen.”

But Abba, omnipotent, wise, loving and patient had a trick for me.

Two loving friends returned from Europe recently and as I greeted them, they looked at each other and then at me with wide grins.

“We brought you back something!!” The funny thing was I always thought that the perfect pen was the Mont Blanc Agatha Christy fountain pen, because nothing makes a contract water tight than a 2100 dollar pen, right?

No. A gift; small, but lovely and well thought out, given by friends full of boundless grace and kindness. With a nib that looks like it might well by flipping you off. That was as perfect as one could get and I knew that as soon as I saw it. Abba had said to me “oh, you need the perfect pen? It just so happens that it’s in Rome…and I know just how to get it to you.”

Our Heavenly Father is patient and kind, even with those of us who want to stay a little longer in the world. But He also at times shows slivers of the great joy that comes from serving him to encourage and embolden us.

Abba, thank you for your patience with me. Thank you for not giving up on me, but rather showing me that you are greater that my plans, schemes and fears. Thank you for friends that totally encourage my sense of humor and for pens that their writers off, proving that all things are for your praise.

Amen

there might be something to this…

January 4, 2012 by chrishaun | Leave a comment

Would it change your spiritual life if you knew without a shadow of a doubt that God not only loved you and desired you, but desired to be with you and to spend time with you?

Would you believe it? Would it take you some time for you get used to the idea?

My truth is that I don’t know if I believe it yet. I want to believe that something as big and grand as the Heavenly Father knows that I even exist. Yes, I have read Mathew 10:29-30, (where Jesus is talking about how a sparrow can’t fall to the ground without Him knowing and the hairs of our head are numbered), but there is a big difference between knowing and well, knowing…

Here, let me illustrate….

Imagine that you are hanging out and an absolutely devastatingly gorgeous, powerful, and rich person comes up to you and tells you that they want to be with you, spend time with you, and that they love you, always have and always will. You know your background, you know that you are broke, that you don’t have anything to offer that s/he can’t get somewhere else (with better quality than you can even imagine) and you tell them so. But they don’t care- they want you and they want you to want them too.

“Well, I would drop everything and go!” I hear many of you saying.

“If some hot, rich person came up to me, I would be gone in a minute” And I would agree and even then there would be difficulties; you would have to adjust to his lifestyle (I’m gonna use the male pronoun because I’m straight), you have to deal with folks who are upset because you are around (How dare she come here…) and ridiculed by others for thinking that you have what it takes to be with him…and keep him.

I get that…

Now… what if you have never seen this person in life? You have heard of him, his power and what he feels for you, but never actually saw him? And the only communication you ever get from him is through emails and other people telling you? Not even the Charlie’s Angels voice box- you can’t hear a voice- just written communication and hearsay?

Would you be so willing to drop everything then? Would you be able to believe whole heartedly? Would you be able to trust?

I wasn’t able at first… because at first the thought of God wanting anything to do with me seemed foolish and stupid… and all I had to go on what was written in the Bible. What I didn’t know was adamant He was about being close to his followers in the Scriptures, especially those who have less to give than others (Deut. 7:7-8).

And the more I studied and prayed, the less it started to feel foolish and it started to sound less stupid. But then I had to deal with the outside ridicule. And what I realized was that for every ridiculer, there were many, many more that came to my aid and encouraged me along this path. People who are loving and patient like He is and can attest to how loving, kind and patient He has been to them.

And now I am starting to hear the love of His voice in the chorus of his true witnesses, those who truly follow and tell all of His loving kindness, long suffering, and tender mercies and show them through the lives that they lead, even though they are as broken as I am.

I said all of that to say this….

That I don’t fully believe or trust that God loves me or wants anything to do with me, but this last year has proved that opening my mind to even the concept that that could be possible has changed my physical and spiritual life more (for the better) than I could ever imagine.

This is the Way… and I am walking in it. Not kicking and screaming anymore, just going slowly.

in the beginning and at the end [Devotional]

January 2, 2012 by chrishaun | Leave a comment

“Give thanks to the Lord, because he is good; his love is eternal…Give thanks to the God of heaven; his love is eternal.”

Psalms 136:1, 26, English Good News Translation

These verses open and close Psalm 136. What comes in the middle is not covered here, because that is not the point of this piece. The point is that in the beginning and at the end, no matter how difficult, awkward, painful, or depressing the things are in the middle- all things being said- God is good and His love is eternal.

This is a thought that I easy to dismiss based simply how many times we have heard that.

“ow, god is good, chil’…”

God is good. But it is easy to forget that simply based on the things that he has allowed to happen.

“but why did this had to happen to me?”

But it does not dismiss that fact that God is good. His goodness is present in everything in nature. It is present in the beauty of the ocean, the awesome spectacle of a night sky full of stars, the horrific destructive power of the hurricane, and the ability of the human mind to create everything from chocolate the space shuttle.

It is present in the ability of kindness to sooth the pains that we come across, no matter if we are the giver or the receiver. It is present in the power of God that excels all thought that keeps us when all human understanding has failed us.

I want to trust what I can see. I say that I don’t trust good because I don’t trust Him. I blame God for the things that I have had to go through. But it is during those times that I forget about all the tiny, random, little things that bring me joy and peace. When I go through hell, I forget about all the people and things that God provides that truly comfort and instead rely on food, cigarettes, and shallow companions to ease the pain.

It is times like this when I have to remember that I see the past that was shaped by a friend that taught me about the real world and gave me the strength and the knowledge to live that world, one that was foreign after years in the [cult]Church. I see the girls who again and again gave me something to live for. I see all the wonders of the world in a search for myself. I see the Great Lesson that brought me down enough to be able to hear the Call and follow the Path, even as messed up as I am. I see the mentors and guides that have patiently helped me process my past.

I have gone through so much hell in this life that the one on the next life seems almost like a release. But I have also seen that God is good.

I don’t always believe it. And it sometimes takes me time to remember it, but that knowledge makes enough of a difference to keep me going.

Because God is good.

Thanks be the God.

visual Prayer: from the top down

December 21, 2011 by chrishaun | Leave a comment

I still can get over that he sees us from all the way up here. That is awesome and slightly scary.

This lovely photo is by Philippe's public Picasa gallery. It is so lovely and so belonging to Philippe.

I see a picture like this and try to imagine how Abba sees us. People seem tiny and insignificant to me from 3 stories up. From over 500 stories (about 5000 feet) up, people seem nonexistent.

You can understand why I find it nearly impossible that Abba sees and love us from so far up.

So I pray:

Heavenly Father, I find it so hard to believe that You care about anything as small and insignificant as me, but I thank You for loving me all the same.

I know that I have let you down again and again, but Your grace persists and your Holy Spirit dwells within me, making me whole, happy, satisfied.

There is nothing like your love for me. Thank you so much for that.