Day 7: Be Still, Ashley, Be Still

"BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD." Psalm 46

Over and over I must remind myself of this! In my own inability I think I have to do so much more. Instead of turning to God in my overwhelming moments I so often turn to DOING more, WORKING faster, TRYING harder. And then, a whisper catches me between winded breaths and says, "Be still, Ashley, be still."

I always think I should know more than I do. Whenever I am at a loss for what to do or say I have this tendency to assume that it was something I failed to do. But today, while reading "Holiness, Truth and the Presence of God," it occurred to me that maybe I expect myself to be at the final result before going through the process and time it takes to go from raw to refined...

This realization WOULD in fact be completely feasible for a person like myself. I am often stubborn and impatient and find it legitimately challenging to sit still and just be. Even when I think I am, when I REALLY stop and step back, I often realize, I am not.



So, Lord, as I strive to seek You and understand You, help me to just be still and know You are God. Show me what that means and what it feels like.

Day 6: Strength & Grace

STRENGTH & GRACE:
I was talking with my sister today, who has recently arrived here from Oregon to help and work with us in Mississippi, and she said something really interesting that struck me and made me think. She said, "it's amazing the way God speaks to you here. I mean every single time I do anything or talk about anything He affirms it or gives me scripture or words or something!"

It is so true of Mississippi. Ever since coming here I have known God in such a deeper and richer way... sometimes it is hard to know whether it is the heart or the place that has brought such change and communication with God. There is something to be said for the love and inclusion that you find here in Mississippi. Bay St. Louis is a unique and embracing community. But I know also that God has been in hot pursuit of my heart since my birth and I have only just realized and turned and chosen Him, so it feels like it must be a combination of both, eloquently orchestrated together in God's will and timing.

So we talked on for a little bit, in awe and wonder of our AMAZING and EVER vocal God and we started sharing stories about the different ways He speaks to us. Sometimes we don't even realize how incredibly amazing and cool something is until we sit down and talk to someone about it. Then it kind of hits us, like, OH YEAH! WOW! That is INCREDIBLE! And I realize how blessed and loved I am and I rack my brain trying to figure out how I can ever feel anything opposite. Why are we so fickle?

So I was telling her about my week. It began with STRENGTH and GRACE. How do two such words and concepts come together, you might wonder... well God is determined to show me. And every time I forget to seek Him about it or forget to pray for it, He refocuses my thoughts, right back to these two things... right back to HIS will for my present learning! I shared with Di my concept of strength and its challenges, she expressed compassionately the value of weakness. "True strength," she said, "is manifest in grace!" I pondered. "Sometimes, the greatest strength comes in allowing yourself to be weak. And when you are weak, you can administer grace. Which is what strength is."

The next day (and I mentioned this on Day 1 already), Father Sebastian said, "may God give us the grace to stay faithful during this Lenten season." And I thought... "grace?" isn't this gonna take strength to stick to our fasts and allow ourselves to really enter into repentance while we diligently and fearfully seek the Lord and His ways for us! But it is by Christ's strength, manifest in grace that we have any strength at all to remain faithful during Lent!

So I contemplated that night these two words that once seemed so ambiguous and separate from each other, trying to more deeply understand the impact of everything I was learning and hearing. The next day I got to talk with Jaron Manyama, who is as a brother to me and who always has such amazing insight into all things. We don't talk often enough so we talked about so many things, but the conversation started pulling toward the concept of strength and I was very poorly trying to articulate what I was trying to comprehend and all that I was learning. And Jaron, as he ALWAYS does, instantly had a scripture for me! Jaron said to me, "Paul talks about strength and weakness in 2 Corinthians 12, somewhere near the end of the chapter, check it out." (This is gonna blow your mind!) I looked it up and 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 reads:
BUT HE SAID TO ME, "MY GRACE IS SUFFICIENT FOR YOU, FOR MY POWER IS MADE PERFECT IN WEAKNESS." THEREFORE I WILL BOAST ALL THE MORE GLADLY ABOUT MY WEAKNESSES SO THAT CHRIST'S POWER MAY REST ON ME. THAT IS WHY, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE, I DELIGHT IN WEAKNESSES, IN INSULTS, IN HARDSHIPS, IN PERSECUTIONS, IN DIFFICULTIES. FOR WHEN I AM WEAK, THEN I AM STRONG.

Christ says, "my GRACE is sufficient for you!" Not His strength! And then He calls us to let go of our strength and allow ourselves to be weak; that His power is "PERFECT in weakness." It is when we allow our "strength" to be weakness, that Christ can administer His grace, which will bring us HIS strength!

AMAZING! When I am confused He speaks to me! When I am forgetful he reminds me!

My Discipline this week:
Psalm 46: 10 "Be still and KNOW that I AM GOD."

When we are constantly exerting our strength in moving and judging and striving to DO, we forget that when we allow ourselves the weakness of being still, we will KNOW WHO GOD IS! And that He can administer His grace to us.

My Bible verses for the first day of my discipline this week:
2 Corinthians: 7-10

HAHA! You did it again Papa! I'm gettin' it, I'm gettin' it!

Final Reflection: It was by grace that Jesus laid down all His own strength and power and gave us life eternal! His strength was that He was willing to be weak, that we might know grace!

Day 5: What would you have me write about...

I am resigned to write tonight... and even feel like writing... but I know not what about! What, Holy Spirit, would you most like to write about? What would you have me say, Jesus?

We visited with Di today. Always an enlightening experience, but even more refreshingly an open environment to share, process and learn. A setting that allows and embraces all three is often VERY hard to find. We talked about a lot of things, but one of the most interesting realizations I made tonight was about food... I got your interest now! Let me explain further!

We were talking about the inclusion of food in our lives and how it is present for all of our meetings, gatherings, family events, church functions, workshops, and on and on. We realized that we are so enamored with food, and life so often seems centered around its influence. Cake is expected and often anticipated at birthday parties and weddings. We have potlucks, barbeques, community suppers, charity dinners, and picnics. There is a saying down here in the South: "Lets do lunch." In the words of Morgan tonight this mentality seems "addictive". Why can't we discipline ourselves? Why don't we do other things as much... like exercise?

But after a minute of contemplation I realized I actually like going to dinner with family and friends. I really like cooking a meal for friends, or more often practiced, eating a home cooked meal at someone else’s house. HAHA. I like that focus. And then, as I tend to do with EVERYTHING these days, I thought about how the topic related to my walk with God. In my own spiritual life and communications I prefer to focus on things of substance instead of just fluff and air. I like to talk and live and walk in things that will leave me and others present with something to chew on and fill our "spiritual bellies". I like to have a focus and I prefer (at most times require) conversation, prayer, worship and so on, to center around "spiritual food". The danger, I guess, is in the type of "food". There are some edibles that leave us empty afterward because they were hollow, or leave us sick because they were false or rotten, or leave us "spiritually fat" because we take it all in and add it to our "spiritual waistline" instead of using it and sharing it.

What better "spiritual food" can we fathom to be more filling than Jesus Christ, Himself? Every Sunday, when Father Sebastian does Communion he says, "We offer these gifts to Jesus who has made Himself for us our spiritual food!" In Matthew 26: 26 when Jesus breaks the bread during the Last Supper He says "...take and eat; this is my body." Jesus, who has made Himself our food, asks that we center our lives around Him in order that we might enter the Kingdom of God.

We so often mirror the spiritual in the physical. Food, in both the physical and the spiritual is so important. It is what we eat and who we share it with that will determine its effect on us and its level of value and worth in our lives.

Day 4: I will write anyway...

I am at the END of this day... some nights come too fast and I find myself up into the night because I'm not ready to let it pass... some nights, I am ready for the day's close. I am ready to fall asleep and see what dreams and the new light of tomorrow morning will bring. Tonight I am ready for this day to end. I could lie and say every moment is bright and full of unabounding bubbles and sunshine! Or I could wash the cosmetics from my heart and realize that I have not yet overcome all that I long to overcome. I have not yet learned all that I dream of learning. I know, Jesus, that you are there. And that is progress! TRUE progress. Even in my gloomier moments I feel You beside me. It is my sustaining joy and comfort, though it doesn't always manifest itself in laughter and lightheartedness. Knowing You are there regardless of my present state. This was not always true of my past. In fact this was never true of my past! You were there and I failed to know it. I refused to see You.

I am sorry I didn't want to write tonight, Papa. I didn't feel like I could. I felt that block that has stopped me so many times. But I am here anyway. I write anyway... I give you all my heavy load Jesus... and pray for peace and renewal tonight as I sleep. I admit I cannot fix everything, every one, every problem around me... I acknowledge my inability... And I hand over all my "teeth-gritting strength", God, that You might transform it into an "inner strength that come from You"... that it might reveal Your grace...

Day 3: His Sacrifice

STATIONS OF THE CROSS

Today St. Rose did the first Stations of the Cross for this Lenten season. I remember going for the first time last year, and discovering the meaning behind the small Roman numeral marked bronze prints adorning the church walls. In all my "glimpes" of Christianity I had never even heard of The Stations of the Cross. The impact was deep and profound... and painful. Each station offers an incredibly honest and striking event in the crucifixion. If one is able, and more importantly willing, there is an opportunity to leave ones self and enter that dark and affecting and victorious moment in history. To walk among the crowd of witnesses, or maybe, beside Mary and John themselves. To feel the greif of those that knew Him and loved Him and the heat of the anger of those that hated Him. To see the tears, the fists, the faces. To hear the cross hit the ground when Jesus falls or the hammering of the nails into His hands. "Boom! Boom! Boom!"

The crucifixion has always brought me such tremendous heart ache. I think because I have always wondered what it must have been like for Christ to be beaten and cursed and rejected by His own people. The very people He was trying to help in fact. But the stations offer a much more dimensional visual of the crucifixion. A much more dimensional grasp of the sacrifice.

To know the pain of Mary and know I have walked in her shoes before. I have watched the persecution of someone I love. I've seen the suffering of the innocent and undeserving. I wept and grieved for them! Imagine Mary, who brought Christ up knowing He was God's, set apart and perfect. Imagine watching Him betrayed, accused, persecuted, hung on the cross to die. To see such love returned by such hate.

Then imagine how many swings of the hammer we ourselves have taken at the nails in His hands and feet. When His sacrifice did not outweigh our own hate or lust for worldly vices. When they hung Him on the cross I could hear the sound of the iron on iron as I did last year, and this time I could feel the vibration of the instrument in my hand. The impact of that contradiction. The realization of my own sin with the simultaneous enlightenment of the magnitude of His love and grace and sacrifice and the desire of my heart to weep and grieve for Christ like Mary.

This time, as I experienced the Stations of the Cross I didn't just witness it... I entered it. Oh, Christ, how much you have loved me and given for me. Even in your weakest moment you were carrying the weight of the entire world on your shoulders. You gave up your physical strength and in your weakness you administered grace to everyone!

Day 2: The Joy of Friends

Today is my 25th birthday! And though it has had its snags it was such a blessed and wonderful day. It started with a very loving and beautifully intended act. Morgan got up before the sun to go and buy Heather and I balloons to go with a plethora of gifts and silly string she already had to kick off a morning birthday bash. Then I was totally blessed to have over 15 messages from friends and loved ones on facebook and in my e-mail. The phone calls were steady all day from family and friends. Words of love and friendship and kindness. Di gave us both a wonderful gift. Elaine bought us a pineapple that served as a perfectly adequate and incredibly DELICIOUS birthday cake. The entire day was showered with wonderful words, gifts, blessing and prayers from all of the amazing people that God has BLESSED my life with. New and old. I just realized how many incredible people God has placed in my life. I was just washed with an overwhelming sense of gratitude and awe for all of the love and care and kindness and joy that God has gifted me. I remain utterly amazed.

THANK YOU, PAPA!

Another year... passed. Ash Wednesday is here again... a whole new Wind blowing in my life. When I look back my head spins with the revelations, the growth, the joys and the plain fun of this past year. I have made wonderful friends; I have found new depth in my old friendships; I have acquired incredible, unbelievably loving family; I have found Jesus in places, at depths and in ways I never IMAGINED! If all the blessed instruction and wisdom I have been passed and fed were really food, I'd weigh 900 pounds! Probably 9 thousand! Much of it I'm still chewing. Some of it has radically changed my life forever and ever. Some of it has brought me everlasting hope. Some of it has opened my eyes to pain and suffering I never knew I needed to pray for. Some of it has train wrecked me. Some of it has built me back up. All of it has taught me about the Most Important LIVING, MOVING PERSON IN MY LIFE: Jesus. His truth, His beauty, His LOVE. Jesus IS all of these things. And He has given me a purpose and an identity in Him of which we are only beginning to unlock the glorious surprises and mysteries.

My Lenten fast:
I will GIVE God my time in writing... EVERY DAY! I will spend as long in front of the computer, my diary, a notebook or whatever avenue He chooses for as long as He wants me to.

As Father Sebastian said in mass tonight: God, give us the GRACE (not strength... isn't that interesting?) it will take to stay faithful during this Lenten season.

AMEN