Well this wordpress thing was short lived and since I have history with blogspot and they are still offering pics/videos/music on your blog for free – I’m hopping back on over there. As I haven’t written in so long that I figure most people have given up on following, I’m not sure that anyone will even notice…BUT…I’m going to attempt to put some things to print again and see how it goes. 
You can link up to a sojourner’s ramblings on www.calledandcompelled.blogspot.com
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We were asked at the renewal that we just came from to make some “commitments” (which is hard for some of us who flee from most anything that requires commitment for fear that we will fail, but that’s another post altogether).
We were to ponder and pray and listen for God to speak in regards to what He was seeking to transform within us throughout the week and how what we felt Him shifting would play itself out on the following Monday morning when we were no longer in “renewal” setting. It was obvious that real life was waiting, so how would our time together with one another, and mostly, with the Lord have affected the everyday-ness of our life.
In an attempt to not oversimplify but not write a ridiculously long post – one of my RUDE awakenings throughout the week of being in God’s presence and the presence of some other folks who invited us to engage with them in the process of a “deeper life,” was that I felt clearly convicted that I had traded in my DELIGHT at being a daughter of the King and walking with Him into hard places and feeling privileged to do so – to attempt to lead a ministry. The exchange has been stinky and it’s taken the best parts about doing all of this with it. It has left me tired and frustrated and burnt out and bitter and hurt and lacking in so many places. I was offering the people I was certain God has asked me to serve, a very manufactured offering, because my cup was bone dry – there was nothing there worth anything to offer. I found myself scary dry and scary numb toward some things that should move this girls heart.
One of the largest regrets I have about ministry is that sometimes it hardens things that were so soft and vulnerable and nurturing in some far off distant place in the past. Some of that is “theirs” to own (whoever “they” might be)…for instance my heart remembers soft and vulnerable before it seemed like everyone was watching and knew how you were supposed to do things and were dishonoring in their conversations about how wrong even your best attempt at following Him passionately and serving people is. It was that way before ministries fought and competed for credit instead of working together to help the people who needed it. It was that way before people who loved Jesus didn’t act like Jesus very much at all. AND THEN…if I am honest a whole big lot of it is mine to own…It was that way before I took my eyes off Him and put my eyes on all the needs in front of us and our inadequacy to meet them. It was that way before I was able to walk past a half naked hungry soul and that feel like a “normal” part of my world, without needing to respond. It was that way before the pictures in the newspapers of murdered bodies lying on the ground no longer made me sick to my stomach or burdened in my heart and I was able to flip the page without much feeling about that at all. It was that way until I allowed my guilt over what other people thought a missionary should be to dictate what I did whether I felt God leading in that direction or not. It was that way until I began behaving as though I believed that working for God might be the same thing as pursuing God. It was that way before I thought that being a “missionary” had now become part of my “identity” instead of a really humbling piece of my journey through this life. It was that way until one day I realized that I had gotten so far from the girl I was when I came here to do this that I honestly wasn’t sure whether I really knew myself at this point at all. There’s a whole lot there that takes some “owning” from me as well.
Sure there are places that have grown and changed and shifted. There are places that are better as a result of the journey, but I think sometimes moving forward from where you are requires naming what you hate about where you are. I think this is that.
Somehow naming it and saying it and calling it what it is – liberates. There it is, honest, and out in the open, I am far from who I desperately want to be.
So now what??? Well, I think that’s where the “commitment” of what would change on Monday morning after our renewal time together comes in. At the risk of this sounding like I’m binding myself to some “law” I’ll never be able to keep, and using some tag line that has become an easy way to bury someone with guilt, I was certain that some things were going to have to change in my world. You know what I decided. I deserve an hour in the morning to seek God. I deserve a pretty place to be able to do that. I desire a cup that overflows with Him and things that would honor Him and if that’s true then it’s going to take some devotion on my part to bring that cup to Him for His abundant filling. So I decorated my patio. I bought myself a table and chairs. I was gifted with some gorgeous flowers to plant in my flower boxes. I bought some more pots and some other flowers that I just loved. I created a space to meet with God. It won’t be magic. It won’t create something I couldn’t have created in a corner of my bare room – but I want to be intentional about meeting with God and delighting in that again. I figured He was deserving of my time and energy in creating and decorating a place where we would have a date each day. So I dedicated that corner of the patio to be my “prayer chair.” Many other things will inevitably take place there but at the beginning of my day whether it’s 5 minutes or an hour or longer, I’ll seek Him there. I’ll put myself in position of surrender and listen for His lead. I’ll remember that my identity is in being His daughter…NOTHING else. I’ll be still and I will allow Him to quiet this heart that can hear the criticisms and opinions of others so loud some days I think I might go nuts. I will bring Him my mess and ask Him to start here with me first, change this before I invite or serve or “work” for everyone else who “needs” Jesus, I’ll remember that I’m pretty desperately in need of Him as well.
This prayer was one that was shared at the “renewal” and will become a regular part of my morning time…it speaks of morning, but it also speaks toward new beginnings and I feel like that also is where I am at this point in the journey.
AT THE DAWN
Our first glimpse of reality this day – everyday – is your fidelity.
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I have just had a “defining moment” week in my life.
I remember the season that led up to my reinvention of what this heart believed to be true about church and God and an authentic relationship with Him so vividly. It sticks out to me and will forever be a mark of my spiritual journey because it reshaped so much of my own walk with God. I learned in a small group of people in my 20′s what it meant to passionately love God and become a disciple attempting to follow so closely that the dust from His steps might land upon these feet. I wanted to become a follower of Christ, the platitudes and cliches would no longer satisfy all that was stirring in my heart. I wanted Him – a true version of Him – a pursued intentionally version of Him – a manifestation of Him in my life in the ways that I chose to live out every part of life. That season actually began my “relationship with Him.” My belief in Him came much earlier but His permanent home in my heart took up residence during that season. It was a “defining moment.”
So when I use the words “defining moment” they bear weight in my heart. They carry with it the idea that it marked me so deeply that parts of my heart/life/pursuit of God will forever be changed from the experience.
In the same way that worshipping with a small group of folks “reinvented” my ideas about community and God and church and walking with Him, this week has marked me as significantly in my views of ministry. I have been changed forever by both witnessing these women serve and minister and by the empowering of feeling like God was challenging me to go and do likewise in the sphere of ministry that He has placed before me.
I have a feeling this blog will be the spot where I wrestle out some of what’s in my heart about my time here and ALL that has happened as a result of it. Even typing that I have a myriad of words coming to mind for blog topics…hesed, easy love/hard love and all that happens in between, Psalm 103 (which could easily be 150 blogs on it’s own), a whole host of names of women who have touched me deeply and things you should hear and know about each of them, oh heavens, I have soooooooooo much crowding for space and desperately needing a way to flow out that I’m gonna need a way (if for no one else but me) to say some of this … so this is it!!
One of the things I have read over and over and over again since someone was kind enough to share this with me is this prayer. It resonates. It challenges. It screams in some moments and whispers in others. Today this is what I need to share and what I need to log on this space, so that I never forget how much it spoke to me in this season.
An Answering and a Refusing
We confess you to be the God who calls,
Who wills,
Who summons,
Who has concrete intentions,
For your creation,
And addresses human agents
Who do your will.
We imagine ourselves called by you…
Yet a strange lot:
Called but cowarldly,
Obedient but self-indulgent,
Devoted to you, but otherwise preoccupied.
In our strange mix an answering and a refusing,
We give thanks for your call.
We pray this day,
For ourselves, fresh vision;
For our friends, great courage,
For those who search for You in places more dangerous than ours,
Deep freedom.
As we seek to answer your call,
May we be haunted by your large purposes,
We pray in the name of the utterly called Jesus, Amen.
And amen
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Ok late night last night and early morning this morning so no stories from yesterday posted yet. We should arrive early today after a build site and I will spend some time updating on some stories and such. As for today I posted more pics to my facebook account and you can check them out there. :) Updates to follow. It’s been a good few days. Please pray for our next couple days as they will be more physically tiring. We are building houses today and tomorrow and then working at a school to do repairs and build a picnic shelter and some other things Thursday. Pray for our muscles. :)
Be blessed this day as you are a blessing.
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Please check my (Jennifer Wright) facebook page for pics from yesterday -stories and pics to follow tonight when we get home. Another full day planned for today – hospital, elderly home, and Didasko. Father may Your name be lifted high as we attempt to shine Your light into every space that we enter this day.
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Well the gang is all here and we hit the ground running. We went to visit Rosa’s market (a lady that we built a relationship with when we stayed at Villa Gracia with our groups and she served selflessly, so we love to help her when we can) to load up on bulk food to be able to give out during our week and then came home to organize the donations.
We ended the night with a devo talking about the fact that the only name that Christ used to refer to Himself and chose to share with us was “the light of the world.” Interesting he never told us that we were the Good Shepherd or the Bread of Life…he chose to share His identity as light with us.
So into the darkness we shine, please Lord may it be so.
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As I’m sure you’ve noticed, you’re on a “revamped” called and compelled page. I even changed blog companies and the web address is a bit different. I really am just a fan of the way the wordpress blogs look and function, so we’re going to try this for a while and see how it goes. In some ways this will become like our website over time where we’ll create separate pages to update you on our boys and current projects we are working on, give you ways to jump in and help when you’re able, and prayer requests as you honor us with your prayers for this ministry. It will also be where I choose to process with you and think out loud.
Trust me when I say, you won’t agree with everything I write here. I don’t even agree with it sometimes after I read back over it after some time. Forgive me if this is too bold, but the purpose of a blog for me is not to write things everyone agrees with and find people who will follow what I write and think I’m wonderful, or this ministry is wonderful, or to “pitch” to the crowd. I pray to always seek Jesus and to be kind, but the purpose of a blog for me is to wrestle through the daily struggle of living in a desperate place and believing in a God who is faithful, it is to share the celebration when we get to see evidence of the way God’s goodness is manifesting itself in the “land of the living,” it’s to share with you the burden of the humanity I live with inside of this doggone flesh and confess that I wish I had more to offer on so many days, it’s often a cry for someone to remind me it matters when we feel like we’re failing, it’s a place to rejoice when that’s appropriate and to mourn when nothing else fits. It is most certainly a place to interact and engage and I pray that may be so.
I gave up blogging for a while, because I guess I had sort of just run out of things to say. It felt redundant, kinda. My plea for the impoverished and weak. My feeling like I was always begging for people to help. If I’m honest, I think I just needed to step away for a bit to feel like there was anything new in my heart to share.
I think I’m at a place where I feel ready to write again. It is healing for me. It’s as much for me as it is for any of you, so humor me while I attempt to give my thoughts and feelings a place. Every once in a while, all of you feels less cluttered if you just get them outside of yourself in some way. This blog will be that place.
I invite and welcome you to take part in this journey with me. You are an honored guest, through the terrificly murky waters of a human soul wanting to live a kingdom life out well. I pray we each find our own way to do that.
Here’s to a New Year with a clean calendar and so many opportunities to seek first His kingdom…Father may your kindgom come and your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven…
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