Read this; it's good

"On the flip side, I imagine that He intended us to be engaging fully and embracing our roles, circumstances, struggles and the blessings that He’s given us – all which are intended to reveal more of Him to us – and are instead able to sit back and enjoy the surprises that He has for us with the giddiness of young children on Christmas morning." (Read more here.)

I like to think of it is as we are all on parallel paths (assuming we are indeed going the same direction (narrow road v wide road)), but we wear different outfits. Along the way we may change up the outfits, but in the end we end up at the same Gate.

Poem

When I'm in heaven

Tell me there’ll be kites to fly,

The kind they say you can control

Although I never did for long,

The kind that spin and spin and spin and spin

Then sulk and dive and die,

And rise again and spin again,

And dive and die and rise up yet again,

I love those kites.

When I’m in heaven

Tell me there’ll be seasons when the colours fly,

Poppies splashing flame

Through dying yellow, living green,

And autumn’s burning sadness that has always made me cry

The things that have to end.

For winter fires that blaze like captive suns

But look so cold when the morning comes.

I do love the way the seasons change.

When I’m in heaven
 Tell me there will be peace at last, 
That in some meadow filled with sunshine 
Filled with buttercups and filled with friends
 You will chew a straw and fill us in on how things really are, 
And if there is some harm in laying earthly hope at heaven’s door, 
Or in this saying so, 
Well, have mercy on my foolishness, dear Lord, 
I love this world you made – it’s all I know.

by Adrian Plass

Weeds

Weeds grow, well, like weeds. They grow tall and thick and quickly. They don't need much water and they can grow in terrible soil.

At church, Pastor Matt recently did a sermon on the need to pull the weeds out of our souls. The context was a sermon series on the fruit of the Spirit and how the fruit won't / can't grow if our souls are full of weeds.

The weeds will always win, Pastor Matt said, unless we get rid of them. They will continuously take over unless pulled out by the roots.

I was mulling over this sermon as I was riding my horse through a particularly thick patch of weeds in an remote pasture the other night. The weeds were over my head even as I was sitting on my horse. In other words, they were about 8-9 feet tall. This forest of unwelcome foliage had grown and flourished in spite of a particularly bad drought and in mostly terribly rocky soil and with zero effort on part of the land owner.

I then thought about the correlation of the weeds in this field and the weeds in my soul:

• weeds = sins, roots of sins, sickness of soul
• soil choked in drought = a soul with no nourishment from Scripture
• remote pasture = no community, no fellowship, no soul care-taking

As my horse and I navigated this ugly patch of tall, strong, smelly weeds, I received renewed encouragement to weed in the pasture of my soul and bring to it the water of Scripture and the care-taking of community and fellowship 

Deep thoughts on riding horses

This past Saturday I went out riding with some barn buddies. At any given point on our ride, at least one of our horses was being goofy.

I was riding my four year old, Caspian, who has frequent bouts of no steering and no brakes. It's a four year old thing, and won't last forever, I keep telling myself.

Another horse on the ride freaked at a bird in a bush and jumped like a deer.

We started having a conversation shortly after this that went as follows:

We get on 1000+ pound animals who have a strong flight instinct.
They may or may not stop and turn when we need them to.
They only get scared by two things (things that move and things that don't move), but when they do, they jump and run like deer.
They have the mind of two year old humans and you have to use that kind of "reasoning" to talk them through whatever stubborn, angry, scared, or all of the above emotions they may be currently feeling. 

And we do all this under no duress and very willingly! We ARE crazy horse people!

Daily Life

My life looks very different from (one of) my sister(s). This sister has the hardest job in the world - she is raising the next generation. She is not only raising kiddos, but she is also raising one tiger, one bear, and a future to-be-named (I'm voting for a lion cub). Read her blog and she will quickly become your new heroine.

In contrast to her daily life, here is a snapshot of mine of late:

• work projects that are both tedious and rewarding
• wrapping up one job this month and venturing into a completely new one next month
• twice daily walks with Mr. Darcy as he is wrapping his physical therapy post-surgery.
• complete enjoyment of working with and riding Caspian. This has been a long-time coming and the fruit of efforts from Eryn, Virginia, Shelly, JR, and many more. 
• root beer floats and tex mex!
• working with a blind horse and a paralytic student at ROCK and getting perpetually reminded that even the seeming "worthless" things have reason and beauty and purpose. 
• a weekly small group at church of dear friends, where we are learning to go through life's ups and downs and sideways turns together

I trust that while I am not raising the next generation, the work I'm doing is nonetheless exactly where He wants me.

For eternity

Life on Earth is a Prologue. It is a whisper of eternity. When our life on earth ends, it is not THE END. It is the BEGINNING. The life we live prepares us for eternity. How differently we would live our lives if we thought of it as training or preparation for a different life in another place.

Life is a proving ground where we learn our own strength. It’s where we learn to be what we were originally created to be. But instead of being able to live as we were created to live, we must spend our lives re-learning what was erased by the Fall. We must re-learn how to love, how to hope, how to have joy. And all this must be done in the confines of a fleshly body that is decaying and prone to limp and stray.

It’s all part of Restoration. God is about the Restoration and has asked a frail, ragged army of skeletons to join Him in the work. And as we join in, we are slowly and painfully transformed from skeleton to sculpture and from sculpture to saint. This transformation is a mystery that is not beyond God. It’s all part of His Restoration process. And when the Restoration is complete, there will be no more tears, all things will be made new, and we will be with Him for eternity.