Tuesday, December 26, 2006

wassup from the East Coast

Hey y'all...I don't know if anybody's reading, but here are some quick notes from Watertown, MA.

I prayed for you guys on the 24th that the worship would be blessed. I miss you! I have had an amazing time with the family; it seems like as the years go by, I treasure every moment more and more. I am caught up in the beauty of our relationships -- not that they are perfect, but that they are held together somehow, and honored during this time, especially. My nephew is tops -- running around like crazy and SUPER independent. I just want to squeeze him all the time. He's brilliant; what can I say?

I type this from the Watertown Free Library, which is a short walk from Dad's and has been renovated. It's pretty slick. There's a cafe, dogonnit. That's cool.

I hope everyone is doing well and I will see you soon soon!
love from Jules

Sunday, December 03, 2006

The Bleeding Stopped!

Okay, so it's late and I really should go to bed. I have no idea what tomorrow will bring. I don't feel prepared. And yet I want to share this. Here it is. I wrote it this morning before we left Hartland Christian Camp.

Honesty. Compassion. Confession. Other-centered. Take up your cross and follow. Lose your life in Jesus.

If I look at my heart, I see the time of honest confesson has passed. It should not. Lord, are you calling me to confess to others my selfishness and desire for control, my desire for comfort above all else? I can't be perfect. I can't be finished. Yet I don't want to agonize over my problems if I secretly don't desire to be more like you.

I confess: I AM HAPY THE WAY I AM. And yet I now this isn't right.

There is the beginningof a tug of discomfort. How does one live with the discomfort and surrender to Jesus, yet still not feel oppressed? How do I take his yoke and treat it as the light yoke it is?

It seems you are always calling me into action, not just to survive. I skate along, thinking I am doing so valiantly by just surviving. But you whisper that I could be freer still. Your whisper is one of love, but often it mixes with, or gets distorted by, the whisper of condemnation that tells me I must act in order to be worthy.

But I already am worthy in your eyes, Jesus. And my worthiness creates the need for action, for change. It creates the need to fight against the old self-complacency, self-centeredness and fear, so that others may receive this gift I have received.

Recently, I've imagined being the woman who bled steadily for twelve years, touched a fiber of Jesus' cloak and was healed. I actually wept with relief, putting myself in her shoes. What a joy it must have been! What freedom! Early one morning, I uttered the words I think she might have said: "The bleeding stopped! After soaking the ground wherever I went, my body is fixed! Halleluiah! Praise the name of Jesus. And who is this man who did this for me? There is no question -- I want to follow him wherever I go. I adore him!"

I know I am that woman. We all are, because we have all been healed that much -- or we could be. And once that healing repairs us, it begins to multiply. It is a lifelong struggle, to keep letting his healing touch change us, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day.

So I know I must keep fighting -- not to prove my worth in Your eyes, but do do my part to become who I already am in Your eyes. Only in doing this will your love bring the harvest. Only in doing this will I be gloriously, deliriously free.