Look Up, Child!

You know how it is when you've kept that new favorite song on repeat for months, until you've started to wear out its appeal and have to take a break?

That's what happened to me with Lauren Daigle's new album, Look Up Child. The title track was one of my top listens, but it's been on hiatus for a month or so.  Inexplicably, on this day, I decided to play it on the drive to a favorite hiking spot.

About half an hour down the trail, I had an encounter.

Hiking into the lake valley at a brisk pace, I'm aware of the beautiful surroundings but not fully engaged. I'm lost in the recesses of my mind, daydreaming familiar, addictive thought patterns that have no business being cherished there. Head down, eyes focused mostly on the ground in front of me, so that icy snow and gravity will not get the upper hand. The sun has been drifting in and out of clouds; the forest growing gradually brighter.

The moment was so sudden, it was almost like a reflexive reaction. I thought I saw a shadow soaring on the snow, flickering through tree shadows. Instantly remembering that I was in eagle territory and had not been watching the sky, my eyes went up. In the space of that second, I heard it in my spirit: "Look up, Child!"

And there, soaring high over my head against a sky now astoundingly blue, was an eagle.

For so many years, I longed to catch sight of these majestic raptors in the wild, but I've never been a serious birder who studies habits and habitats and seeks out the best places to watch. Yet in the last year, my Father has surprised me with several sightings! It's become for me one of those special love touches from God. He knows exactly what will delight each one of His children.

Where I had stopped, there was a perfect sun-dappled spot with a fallen limb to sit on, so I took the invitation and lingered there for awhile, drinking in the sun and the sky and watching for another glimpse of the eagle. And the train of my thoughts began to shift, as I pondered the meaning of this divine interjection.

I believe it was a call of mercy from my Father, as if He were saying, "Daughter, look up from the endless circles of your limited thinking, your anemic desires, and your shallow dreams. Look up; I'm here, and I'm waiting for you! I love you, and I freely give you Myself!"

Later, sitting by the water and enjoying serious communion with Father, I asked Him if I could see the eagle again. Some time after, as I was following the lakeside trail, the snow crunching emphatically under my feet, a huge bird suddenly winged from a treetop a short distance ahead. My breath caught; I strained to see what it was as it fled so quickly from my view, but I thought I saw the white head. When it circled back and returned to perch near the spot it had just left, I saw that it was definitely an eagle! Slowly I resumed walking, hoping to get closer. He took off again, but remained nearby, riding slow circles on the currents, and then gliding off towards the far side of the lake. I watched him still, a large speck, as he circled lower and lower, finally settling on the ice near that side. Regretfully, I never think about binoculars until I'm in these situations where I want them! I stopped there and trained my eyes on that distant bird, just enjoying the love gift from my Father, whispering my love back to Him. I stayed there for several minutes, until the eagle flew off once more and was lost among the trees.

Our heavenly Father never stops coming after us, even when our thoughts are far from Him. We can only love Him at all because He loved us first by making the way for us to come Home through the body and blood of His Son. He loves you completely as you are, but He's not willing to leave you unchanged. He already sees who you WILL be, and He is going to make you everything He intends.

Wherever you are, look up. Your Father has the words of eternal life. He is where the joy is found. He delights in declaring His love to His precious child.

Look up. He's waiting. 

Resolute Non-resolutions (Journal reflections from the dawn of a new year)

New years are for new beginnings.

Today, I make no resolutions. They are born of flesh and human resource and pride. They are short-lived and cannot change my heart.

Today, as I welcome the new year, I'm thinking of a new way of seeing. A new way of being in this world. I'm thinking about a way of living in alignment with who I already am in Christ--a practice of walking in agreement with His identity. This means I will practice putting off any and all identities I have tried to fashion for myself.

I am not my costume of flesh, nor am I any of the roles my costume plays. Daughter, sister, aunt, friend, introvert, hiker, kayaker, adventure-lover, cook, musician, singer. Fill in your own blanks.

I am not who I think I ought to be, or who I think others expect me to be, or who I wish I could be in my deepest heart. I am not some idealistic fantasy alter-ego, created in the playground of my mind.

Above all, I am not the author of my own story. I am not in control of my own life. I do not exist for my own pleasure and glory.

I am not God.

But by the grace of God, I am what I am...
and by the grace of God, I will be what I will be in this coming year, and in whatever days He gives me.

By the grace of God, I will be what He makes of me.

Father spoke this to my heart during the New Years' Eve prayer service with my church:

"Stop identifying with yourself. Stop identifying with your blindness. Identify yourself only with Me."

It's true. I have perpetually identified myself with everything I am not, everything I lack, and all the ways in which I fail. Do you hear the theme? I have made myself the focus of my attention, and I've hated what I see.

If you can even call it seeing.

Rather, I've been blinded by all the judgment and offense I hold against myself, my circumstances, and my life for not being...More. Better. Worthy. Desirable. Whatever I think they ought to be.

Jesus said that our eyes are the lamp of our bodies. If the eye (perspective) is healthy, the whole body is full of light, but if the eye (perspective) is bad, the whole body is full of darkness (blinded). And if the light in me (what I think I can see) is darkness, how great indeed is that darkness! (Matthew 6:22-23)

The only way to see out of this darkness is to repent (turn) from my self-identification and choose to identify myself with the Light.

Jesus, the Light, is everything that I am not. He came to be everything that I can never be.  He didn't come to make me a better me. He came to take me, hopelessly sick with sin, to death on the cross with Him. He came to make me an entirely new creation, buried into His death, and raised to a new, utterly different, life with Him!

And this new life, this "new Kari" as it were, is hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3).

Why, then, would I ever identify myself with the old, dead, sin-sick Kari?! This is madness. What should be light inside me turns to darkness, and the new eyes are blinded by an ancient, deadly condemnation of self and the world...a venom that would, if possible, condemn even God as a liar!

"God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin." (1 John 1:5-7)

So today I repent. Today I turn from the darkness of self-identification, and I turn to the light of identifying with Jesus Christ.

I will walk in the light as He is in the light, for,
"when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." (1 John 3:2)
and,
"as He is, so also are we in this world." (1 John 4:17)

"And everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies himself, as He is pure." (1 John 3:3)

This is my hope and prayer in all the days to come:

I would know Christ, and Him crucified, and my life hidden with Christ in God. I would know (experience) His love and abide intimately in the reality of that love. I would walk in the Light, being as he is in this world.

I would live in Christ.



(Credits to my kindred-spirit-favorite-author Ted Dekker for some of the inspiration behind these reflections. Specifically The Way of Love, The 49th Mystic, and Rise of the Mystics by Ted Dekker)

Blood On the Page

Today a friend inspires me to write again. A friend I've never actually met in person. But one who has long fascinated me as he's allowed me to explore a bit of his mind and connect with his story through his writing. His name is Ted Dekker. Strangely enough, or maybe not so strangely, I remembered that someone had sent me a series of inspirational talks and articles on writing by Ted Dekker...over two years ago! At the time I never finished going through the resources, and eventually forgot all about it. I guess Someone decided today was the day to revisit. On my drive home, I began listening to a podcast by Ted, and so much is hitting home. Some of the following thoughts are borrowed from this insanely amazing writer.

Life is story. All of us are living a story. And often the shortest distance from truth to the human heart is through story.

Writing may or may not be your thing. I believe I have the heart of a writer. I have dreams of being a writer, but the guts to dig in there and do it day after day after day are lacking.

But one thing I know.

Whether or not I ever write much of consequence, or have any kind of earthly success in this pursuit, I want to be real. I want to be vulnerable. I want to show my true colors and let people see that I struggle, really struggle....a lot! Because Ted says that when people read a story, they don't want words. They want blood on the page. Everyone is looking for a living, breathing connection with another soul. A soul who maybe struggles a lot like them. A soul who is hitting walls and constantly trying to discover who they are and work through the deep dark of their story to find a way over those walls.

Because maybe, as I wrestle to discover and interpret my story, and I leave blood on the page--maybe my blood will mingle with yours. Maybe your soul will connect with mine. And maybe as I struggle and seek and begin to find the way over my wall, it might just help you a little bit to find the way over yours.

And that's what I want my writing to create. Whether I write ten thousand pages or only ten.

So consider the following lines a bit of my blood on the page.

How Long? 

(An original composition, raw and unfiltered)

How many times will I fall on my knees again

Soul wasted

After I've tried for the one-millionth time to create

What I still haven't tasted?

How many days will the flame within

Grow cold

Because I insist there's something better

I would rather hold?

How many nights will I shut out the light

Like my reborn identity curled up and died

Trying to drown the Voice calling inside

Gulping the poison like one desperate

To end a life?

How many years will I hang myself in chains

Letting addiction take me again

The spark of Life shattering into shards of me

The voice of Truth strangled,

Screaming silently?

How many moments will I cry for mercy

Begging to want what I need so desperately

Grasping for the hem of what I cannot feel nor see

Searching for fire to consume the last of me?

How many prayers will I breathe

Soul thirsty

Wondering if wasted breath is all they'll ever be?

How many days will I embrace unbelief

Desecrate the holy place and put 

My truest Love to grief

Groping, falling,

I am blind, though I see?

How many times will I cower on the floor

Bound to an idol I love, though I abhor

Never satisfied, always promising more

Then turning deaf ears to my impassioned implore?

O my soul, how many more days, how many more nights

How much life will be waste

Spurning purest pleasure 

For the spectres that I chase?

Who who save me, set me free

From the pit where I dove headlong

Rip the scales till awakened heart bleeds

Who will sing me a louder siren song?

Cut the head off the serpent

Beat the fool's gold into dust

Ignite the flame that cannot be spent

Tear out the fangs of ingrown lust?

Who will conquer, who will reign

Will I welcome the return of the King?

Will I feast, and know my fill? 

Will my mad mind be finally still?

Will the demons I madly courted

be conquered foes, finally thwarted?

Will I stand a perfect bride

The Fountain of Desire at my side

Fully and forever satisfied?

Lover, save me, or I die!

To Letchworth....With Love

As a last farewell to summer, here follows an ode to my beloved Letchworth State Park, the place that has been my sanity and my Shangri-La for the past two years. This was written sometime in midsummer, and now as the clammy wet blanket of November settles over the northeast, it seems a fitting memorial. The seasons will come and go, land and people and culture and nations will change, we will walk through fire and water and wastelands...but the Creator of this beauty in which we rejoice is unchanging, unfading, and unfazed by the sands of mortal time. Someday His redeemed children will see His face...and it will completely eclipse the full glories of all the world put together!

So enjoy--Longings from Letchworth.

Letchworth--my Rivendell.

I have fallen under the spell

of your deep green tresses.

Endless wanderings in hidden 

elven glens.

Your burnished pine carpet,

your carven stone

etched by Time.

Your graveyards of white birch,

resting dreamlessly in deep forest.

I'm captured by the voice of your waterfalls,

joining the song of your river

on its winding sojourn,

always rolling north--

to the Great Blue dividing countries.

I linger entranced in your secret places, 

listening long,

kissed by the breeze,

wrapped in serenity under your leaves.

Sunlight breaks into 

a million glittering drops,

casting themselves over the lip!

Liquid life runs icy strong over skin,

thrilling to the shivering depths of me.

It calls me to follow.

Light plays through your soaring branches,

dropping in warm patches

to your mossy carpets.

So I watch and I wander--

the song of Eternity calling,

always calling my heart--

calling me home through

your sacred halls.

Letchworth--my Rivendell.

The Gospel of Joshua

Here's a little gospel nugget God showed me from the book of Joshua this week. We are studying through the entire book in my D Group this semester. (D Group, by the way, is this awesome in-depth Scripture-centered, accountability strong, Christ-focused discipleship group model that is building disciples all over the world, and you should check it out! Mydgroup.org)

So I was reading in Joshua chapter 22, where Joshua appoints six cities of refuge throughout the land of Israel, appropriately placed, where the accidental manslayer may run for protection from the relatives who wish to avenge the death. God lays out specific guidelines for how to deal with these situations. There is a more comprehensive description of these laws in Numbers 35. Here's something interesting I noticed: after a proper trial determines that the killing was accidental, the manslayer must stay in the city of refuge until the death of  the current high priest. During that time, if he steps outside the boundaries of the city of refuge, and the avenger discovers him there, the avenger may kill him and not be guilty of his blood. (Numbers 35:26-27) After all, God established a reckoning for the shedding of blood with Noah and his sons after the flood destroyed the rest of mankind. "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood by shed, for God made man in his own image." (Genesis 9:6)

Reading in Numbers, I again noticed this peculiar condition: "For he must remain in his city of refuge until the death of the high priest, but after the death of the high priest the manslayer may return to the land of his possession." (Numbers 35:28) The end of the chapter goes on to say that no one may pay a ransom for the manslayer to return home before the death of the priest, and that they must not pollute their land with blood. "...no atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of the one who shed it. You shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I dwell, for I the Lord dwell in the midst of the people of Israel."

Why then is there a reprieve for the manslayer to return home?

In the days of the Old Testament worship of God, substitutional sacrifices were made for people's sins by shedding the blood of animals. The high priest presided over the sacrifices and represented the people before God. It appears that in the case of the city of refuge, God allowed the death of the high priest, as a substitute, to satisfy Him in the place of those who had accidentally taken human life.

Now we do not live under the old laws of the city of refuge and human high priests. There is no need. Why?

"Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." (Hebrews 4:14,16)

Jesus, our High Priest, has been a refuge for the guilty throughout the ages. His sacrifice on the cross for all mankind was foreshadowed in all the ancient sacrificial rites commanded by God to the Israelites. By Him, those who believed were commended and made righteous by faith. Without Him, there would have been no refuge for any. None of us are accidental manslayers. We have all gone astray; we are guilty of rebellion against God and worthy of death. (Isaiah 53:6) 

Yet in Christ's death, He became sin for us; His blood was shed as if He were the one who had shed all the blood that was on our hands, all the blood that has polluted the earth. And by His death, the land was cleansed. Not only that, but we were cleansed, that God might once again dwell among us, and within us. We were made innocent. By the death of our High Priest, we were given refuge from the just wrath of God, the Avenger. And by His resurrection, we were made new--not merely allowed to return to land of our former possession--but a new, holy, innocent creation, possessing a new and eternal inheritance as sons and daughters of God!

"And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek." (Hebrews 5:9)

Conversations With the Creator

Recently I had the pleasure of exploring Chimney Bluffs State Park on Lake Ontario. Breathtaking views of the jagged clay bluffs and the Caribbean flavor of eastern Lake Ontario await those who traverse the high trail. Even the forest has a wild jungle feel.

 There is more than one trail to choose from; naturally I chose the one nearest the edge...just the right amount of pleasurably perilous for my taste!

After passing the wave of cliffs jutting into the blue, the bluff becomes gradually less steep. The water calls me. Far be it from me to pass up a favorable opportunity to get down to the strip of pebbled beach and meet the cold thrill! My slippery trip down the muddy bank is rewarded by a plethora of intriguing rocks worthy of a nature lover's collection. I am happily occupied with this treasure hunt for some time.

Presently I rest on a fallen log, my catch of stones secured in my pack, and I pull out my journal. Nothing is more inspiring for me than writing in the middle of creation's glory. As I muse over water and rock, clay and root, I write...I converse with my Creator in my favorite language.

Creator God--You have put so much in this world to delight us! Today my heart wonders at these things:

The fresh scent of rain, the cadence of it against roofs and windows--now pattering, now pouring.
The greens of the forest, the variety of trees, bark, and leaves, the air sweet with blossoms. The mysterious magnetism of a packed dirt path winding through jungle.
The incredible artistry in rock! Size and shape, variegated colors and patterns, and a million variations of each.
The way You planned out how the forces of nature--wind and water and earthquakes and volcanoes--would affect and shape the elements, like rock and trees, sand, and mud cliffs.
The crash of waves on a beach. The soothing ebb and flow. The thrill of cold water rushing up over feet and legs.
The trilling of birds, and the way the most unassuming little sparrow reminds me of Your kind and tireless care.

Yet nature in all her glory can but speak broken phrases in the volumes of descriptive language that could be written, if there were such a worthy language, to express the beauty and wisdom and power and mercy and infinity of Your God-ness!

Why, oh why, do I ever desire anything besides You, God?

Why this fear and unbelief that leads me to doubt Your infinite goodness, perfect love, and kind, tenderhearted engagement in my greatest good--and that You would make my good fit within Your greatest glory?

Why the endless, mindless, obstinate, and deliberate chasing of pleasure placebos that can never fulfill me? Why the desperate struggle to hold on to these useless attempts to imitate the pleasure and satisfaction found in Your presence alone?

Why can I not remain at rest in you, my Vine?

Why do I continuously cast up these paltry pleasures within my soul like the restless waves of the sea upon land? You Yourself set the boundary for the seas. You said, "This far you shall come, and no further." And so it is with my fleshly pleasures. They can only go so far--they are trapped by a boundary set by Your mercy--they can never take me to real pleasure, the kind that fulfills my soul. Instead they leave me thirsty and hollow, always needing more.

Yet no matter how long I toss and foam, You wait for me to come to You. You pursue me; I cannot hide from Your presence. You wait for me to come to my senses and abandon myself to the Fountain of Life, my source and my salvation and my eternal pleasure!

Will I embrace Your freedom?

You wait.

Elvish Musings

If I could live a fantasy, I'd be a wood-elf dwelling in Tolkien's legendary Rivendell. I cannot imagine anything closer to Paradise on this earth. A marvel of nature and high creativity, a haven of sacred beauty. Protected by stalwart stone cliffs, the water catapulting from dizzying heights and glittering millions of diamonds in moonlight. I would be intimately acquainted with all green and growing things and healing arts. The forest would be to me as a second skin. Life would be a graceful dance of starlight, rivers, trees, music, and wild things. Nothing would make me afraid, for I would be immortal, belonging to the Undying Lands, far wiser and stronger and skilled beyond the ways of mortal men. I'd be a fierce warrior and an even fiercer lover - binding myself to an immortal love that I would hold forever with a single heart.

But I am immortal. I am a citizen of the Undying Lands, an heiress to unimaginable wealth and glory, a vessel filled with light and hope and power far beyond the understanding of mortal flesh and mind. I flow with the rivers of Life that bring restoration to a dying world.

And if that were not enough, I belong to a Love that is eternal, unfading; higher, wider, deeper, and stronger than anything this world of flesh can contain. This Love is stronger than death and has the last word beyond time, space, flesh, and the grave. Nothing can ever quench my Love or separate me from Him! This Love will not let me go!

He died for me. He paid the ultimate price to make me His bride. But death could not keep Him, for He is the Author of Life itself! My Hero vanquished death, obliterated my sin that held me captive, and called me from the thrall of the dark lord into His Sovereign realm of life and love and light!

Now I am one with Him....forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever....beyond the grey shadows of this fading world to the bright Undying Lands...to infinity and beyond!

"And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it. And His servants shall serve Him. They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads. There shall be no night there. They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever.
"And the Spirit and the bride say, 'Come!' And let him who hears say, 'Come!' And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely."
-Revelation 22:3-5, 17