1000 Strands

Everything is connected

Posts Tagged ‘faith’

God is here

Posted by Nicole on January 13, 2014

God, when I sit in this room, I can feel both alone and the opposite of alone.

I can be aware of the table and my coffee. I can feel the air moving in and out to my nose. There is a chair beneath me and a black cat walking back and forth around it all.

I can choose to be aware of You, too: The I Am, The Presence. The One who is always here. I can choose to feel you in that air and in my bones.

God, when I sit in this room, I can feel both alone and the opposite of alone.

I can choose to see you as separate from me. In this way, you are here and yet different from the Me I consciously know. You are a loving relationship that requires space between us. I pray and you come. I request and you give.

I can also choose to see you as essentially in me. In this way, you are here as surely as I am here. You are a loving Presence in my cells that requires a connection with my own mind and body. Here, to love myself is to be loved by you. Here, to accept the body I am in, is to accept that this body is Us. Here, to pray for peace is to know that the peace is here waiting to be accepted already in my guts. To ask you to be with me would be like asking myself to go hang out sometime.

You are here. You are more here in and with me and available to me than my own thoughts and emotions and needs. You are the beautiful, quiet option that I don’t always know how to pick.

Jesus, I have no choice but to believe you are here in whichever way I manage to choose. You are present. YWHW – Presence.

Your bible is confusing. Your people are a mess. And yet, impossible as it seems, as real as this table or the lungs in my chest, God, You are here.

Sometimes I think you just want to be noticed. To be witnessed. I recognize the need in me to be noticed and I wonder if this is part of your image in me now – something holy demanding to be noticed in the pain, in the love, in the people, in the dirt.

I see you. In the trees. Bursting sap. Falling pine cones. Strong branches with kids hanging off them.

I see you. In the blue sky. Endless whispers. Wind from the atmosphere’s edges all the way down to my face.

I see you. In the people. Hand-holding. Laughing so hard they can’t open their eyes.

I see you. In me. Skin upon blood, ligaments, muscles and bones. A heart that beats. A body that breathes. Hopes. Loves. Hurts.

I see you in this body you made to fit this soul just right.

God, you are here as surely as I am here.

Sometimes love is just choosing to see.

 

Run with Joy 1000strands.com

Run with Joy 1000strands.com

Posted in Beauty SOS47, Free Flying Faith | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

See – a Five Minute Friday post

Posted by Nicole on January 10, 2014

Linking up again with Five Minute Friday at the lovely Lisa-Jo Baker‘s.
The rules: write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking. Hop over to her place to find out the full scoop behind FMF, and to visit other posts that were freely written in just five minutes.

****

This week’s prompt: SEE – a Five Minute Friday Post

You are not invisible.

When you clean Barbie hair out of the sink after her impromptu trip to the kitchen scissor salon.

When you search over an hour for the missing toy, place it proudly on your son’s pillow, and he barely flinches – despite throwing a full-on fit about it that morning.

When you collect all the pink cups for a special-request tea party, that your kids play for exactly 3 minutes before running to another room.

When you clear off the dining room table, again.

When, on January 10th,  you remove and wrap up the Christmas ornaments by yourself.

When you are sick and make your own tea but don’t drink it because you’re needed in the living room to find that one episode of that one show that we love and can’t find, but nothing else will do.

When you clean all afternoon and it looks the same.

When the cat pukes and you Clorox the floor and no one ever knows.

You are not invisible. As long as all of us, working all day long to make the lives of our families just that little bit better, remember and SEE each other,

we are not invisible. 

 

While I do dishes, I remember you are too.

While I clean up cat puke, I remember you are doing gross things too.

While I clean off the table AGAIN, I remember you are too.

While I search high and low for the “lucky shirt”, I remember you are too.

While I read through every episode of Jake and the Neverland Pirates so we can find the current favorite, I remember you are too.

We may each be serving different little families, but we are all serving the same big Family.

With love, Nicole

More About Family: HERE and HERE and HERE

Posted in Honest Home | Tagged: , , , , , | 5 Comments »

Advent Stories: Hookers, Heathens, and Me

Posted by Nicole on December 18, 2013

One week til Christmas. One week til we celebrate God being with us.  

For some people, their lives are so full of family and friends, hot chocolate and Christmas Lights, that the darkness is just a shadow in the corner or a fading streetlight down the road.  For others, this is a time where the darkness threatens to swallow them whole.

Light flaunts its warm power in the life of one and barely flicks the skin of another covered instead in cold, dark loneliness. 

Advent is the waiting. The waiting 100s of years for God to come and make things right. Waiting generations for triumph and light and love to flood the world.  Waiting for God to be with us – really with us. We need God with us.  God, who says He is Light and Love, and yet seems to leave us lonely and scared in dark places. 

God, are you avoiding me?
    Where are you when I need you? Psalm 10:1-2

 

Advent is the waiting. We have no choice. Reminded of our powerlessness against the speed of time, we wait.  We cannot save ourselves or our friends from the pain of waiting on God to BE WITH US. 

With Christmas comes the promise of a future where we are whole and full. Christmas is the promise that while the pain is still here, God is doing a new thing. He came down to sit in the dark with us.  

And this is what He also asked us to do for each other too. While we wait, we wait together.  I will wait with you. 

The light breaks through dark’s hard shell at the exact points we meet each other.  At the loving touch of a friend, a spark ignites. 

The spark that says we are going to make it. 

Every day this week, I will be posting a story or an essay on advent and waiting and God with us. 

Today’s first story is written by Melissa Hawks.  A friend I met through adventure and spontaneity. She knows how to tell a story and she knows how to find God in the dark.

This is a story of sitting in the dark and waiting together – seeing the sparks of God’s great love in our small acts of faith. 

****

Hookers, Heathens, and Me by Melissa Hawks 

I left early that dark morning, stopping to get gas on my way. It was freezing and rainy as I stood next to the gas pump, tears threatening to spill over and mix with the drizzle. Standing on tiptoe to keep my too long yoga pants from soaking in the puddles, I was so lost in my own painful thoughts I almost didn’t hear her.

I was jerked from my inner turmoil when an “Excuse me,” escaped her chattering teeth. She was beautiful and had a black eye. A leopard print chiffon shirt bared her stomach, a tiny skirt, and platform heels to rival the ones I tend to wear covered the rest of her. Her blonde fro curled wildly in all directions and her eye make-up was smeared from tears she had cried. At the moment, mine was a mirror image.

“Can I pay you $10 to give me a ride to my car in the parking garage over there? I just got beat up really bad by the last guy I was with. I don’t mind riding in the backseat.” The pain in her eyes.

“Get in the car, girl, and don’t worry about paying me. A girl’s got to help a girl out.” I didn’t really put any thought into it. She was shivering and in pain. “Of course, I’ll drive you. And no, you’re not sitting in the backseat. Get up here in front.” I tossed my bags in the backseat and made room for her.

She climbed up into my Jeep and began to cry. “This man. He just started slamming my head into the TV. Why am I still here? Why am I still doing this? I need to go home. Back to San Jose.”

I was empty. Beyond empty. I was at the bottom of the pit called empty, broken open. All I could offer was this “Our choices, baby, we make them all by ourselves and we have to remember we are in control of our destiny. We have to choose better.”

Sitting in my car with a prostitute/hooker/call girl who had just been beaten up by a john, I’ve never felt more broken. There were no words to her about God. There was just an understanding about her brokenness because I was experiencing it myself.

I think that’s what love does in the face of broken. It doesn’t look away. It holds the face of pain in its hands and says “you’re not too much for me.”

She must have seen that deep pain in me too, because right before climbing out of the car she leaned over. In a cloud of perfume she hugged me and kissed my cheek. “We’re gonna make it, girl. We’re gonna be okay,” she whispered in my ear.

Some days we can only make one good choice in the midst of a dozen awful ones. Some days we can’t rescue someone else. Some days we can not even rescue ourselves. Instead redemption comes from the most unlikely of sources.

No promises that we’ll be unscathed or that we’ll come out whole on the other side. No false illusion covering the a fact that it’s a brutal and ugly process. Not even a pledge of some small beauty that awaits at the end.  Only one simple truth.

“We’re gonna make it.”

God speaks to me through hookers and heathens. Maybe because I am one.

 

****

Melissa Hawks

Melissa Hawks is a curator of brand and story at Hawks & Rock. She is discovering what it means to write her own story and how God lives in the detours.For her personal brand of awkward, space geekyness, and inspiration follow her @melissahawks account  Branding wisdom can be found at her company’s twitter @hawksandrock and the Hawks & Rock website and blog can be found at hawksandrock.com.

Posted in Free Flying Faith, How Can I Help | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments »

Learning New Things

Posted by Nicole on October 21, 2013

Do you hate learning new things in front of people? I do. A lot.

I haven’t learned to ballroom dance because I do not want my husband to see me “learning” to ballroom dance. Until I try in front of him, I can keep the mysterious question going…  “is Nicole an awesome, naturally-gifted ballroom dancer?? Could be!!”

… I am settling for that.

A few years ago, we went on a cruise with a large group of friends. One night, we went to the karaoke bar. Now, I love singing when no one can hear me: loud concerts, the shower, my car. But, singing karaoke in front of people – especially friends with whom I work and will continue to see regularly…? Nope. No way. I actually remember saying the words, “I like what you currently think of me. There’s no way I am messing that up by singing in front of you.”

“I like what you currently think of me.” 

 

I am more comfortable with the
potential of being awesome than living the
struggle of becoming awesome.

*****

Before we get to all the life-lessons I should have learned by now, let’s talk truth for a second:

We are judgmental as people. Every single day, I hear people whisper critiques and make decisions about each other. Oh, he’s not great at this. She’s not ready for that.  I, myself, have seen someone try something and thought, oh. That was not very impressive.

We make decisions and categorize each other’s abilities.  And, then, as opportunities arise – both professionally and personally – we decide who is allowed to participate. Who is good enough?

Entire TV channels are built on this, this “making or not making the cut.”  You mess up once and you are out. Passion doesn’t matter unless you impress us. Perseverance is actually pitiable when you are not really that good.

This system is what makes some of us sing only in the shower and dance only when the door is locked tight.

I am so scared of not being allowed to participate, that I choose not to participate. I opt myself out before anyone else can cut me from the list.

But this hurts and limits me (you too??) in any attempt to reach goals or actually learn the best skills in life – the skills and arts that could free us and make us feel most alive.

I want to stop living in my potential and start training in the actual. Otherwise, I will spend my life dancing behind locked doors and burying my voice in the noise.

Can we each believe that as long as we are trying, we are succeeding?  Is that possible?

Can we find the bravery to stop settling for potential and start grabbing hold of actual?  Can we value the ACTUAL above the POTENTIAL, no matter what the outcome?

*****

Posted in Free Flying Faith, Wonderful Wrestlings | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

When We Were On Fire

Posted by Nicole on October 17, 2013

If you’ve read this blog since it’s inception, you know I am a woman of open and hopeful and thrashing faith. I believe in a big God who loves each individual… but that belief is a wrestling I do fresh every day. Like Jacob in Genesis, I wrestle and prevail, and like Jacob, I am constantly finding God in new places – finding Him Even Here.  I met Jesus by name in a youth group when I was 14.  This entry is a poetic remembering of that time as part of Addie Zierman’s synchroblog in honor of her beautiful new book:

When We Were On Fire.

 

We ran through fields and over chain-linked fences to escape the hands of the enemy, in practice for the rapture. Dropped off in the middle of the hills and left to find our way back to the school auditorium, we feared Jesus would someday leave us behind because we didn’t truly believe.

*

We sang at the top of our lungs with Joel Weldon at Hume Lake. We sang of love and hope and a Jesus who was everything. We knelt and sang quietly, trying to find the perfect pitch so Jesus would know we were worth loving… and so the boys next to us would too.

*

We piled in vans and went to outdoor festivals to rock for God. When we were on fire, we could do anything for God! We moshed for God. We bought tshirts for God. We floated on crowds who lifted us up on their hands – 1000s of hands lifting us up so we could be closer to God, voices of love and cheering and camaraderie.

*

We held hands and vowed to give our very bodies to God and only God, no matter what it took. And some of us kept our promises to ourselves and to God while some of us made babies… ones we kept and ones we did not.

*

When were were on fire, we shaped our gold into a god in the refining flames – A shape to worship that made sense and we could hold, until, in a fit of tears, we would melt our golden god down; reshaping Him again and again.

*

We will always be grateful for the days we were on fire, to know we can melt, that at one time we were not too cold or too far to be reached by Love – a love bigger than our confusion and much much bigger than our idols.

*

AND to know we can be on fire again, but this time we will keep the doors wide open; avoid the backdraft and explosions that happen when we try to control the fire.

 synchroblog-photohome_uk

Posted in Free Flying Faith | Tagged: , , , , , | 19 Comments »

I was out deep and a big set of waves rolled in

Posted by Nicole on February 22, 2013

Faith. Joy. Optimism. Jesus being real and Him caring about me.

These are the things I have built a life on.

I built a life.

And I find myself in a season of fog, big waves, cold wind.

Where did that life go? Have you seen it?

Waiting for the water to bring back the Faith and Life.

Waiting for the water to bring back the Faith and Life.

I am a California girl. For most of my life, I have lived within three miles of the ocean. Had a hard day? Drive to the beach. Feel like life is too much? Drive to the beach. Bills, yells, disappointments, disapprovals pulling you down? Drive to the beach. … Park. Take off shoes. Feel sand rub your feet. Exfoliate the dead life away. Then touch the water and feel new living life seep in through your toes.

.RESET.

Feel better. Move on and Back to Faith + Joy + Optimism + Jesus being real

And, when I was younger, much younger… when I was still only 5′ tall but my insides were more elastic, I would swim away any tears. Underwater no one can tell if you are crying. Underwater, even if people surround you, they can barely hear you scream out your sadness. Tears can flow. Face can be red. Muscles can strain. And it all blends into a beautiful camouflage. Water pushing and moving, hugging back the way air just doesn’t care to.

Water pushing and moving, hugging back the way air just doesn’t care to.

All the sadness and frustration could leave my body and soul.  All flowed out of me and into the healing water.  I would feel empty and ready to be refilled by the Faith + Joy + Optimism + Jesus I’d come to trust would always come back. Hurray!

Recently, though… recently, I cannot find the healing water. I still live near the beach and pools in my California neighborhood. I touch the water both literally and figuratively in my prayers but nothing happens. My touchstone, my constant, my compass is no longer working. Up and down, north and south – they are meaningless.

I read other people’s beautiful blogs about how Jesus is finding them no matter how lost they feel – even in the trash. And intellectually, I trust it MUST still be real.  I’m just lost, God’s not, right? I believe Jesus believes in me even when I don’t believe in him – or however the saying goes.

In my bones, though, my bones tell the truth my intellect cannot.

In my bones, there is pain not trust.

 A burning.

Have you ever swam in the ocean? Swimming at the beach was a huge part of my childhood.  We swam in the ocean, played in the waves. In the infinite water up to my chest, swells came by and picked me up, lifting me off the cool sand under it all. One small body bouncing in anticipation, watching the swells come up from their source. The Pacific Ocean, my own beautiful mosh pit. Waves form and if you catch them just right, they lift you up – without any more than a tiptoe of energy from your own body. Lifted and weightless. Light and free.

But, the ocean is not just lightness and freedom and happy happy zen. It’s no joke. All that infinite water has a power and weight. The same power that lifts a little girl up to the sky, can suck her into a dark whirlpool. Vivid memories still sit at the front of my brain. A big set of waves could come in without warning. When you are out that far, the best thing to do when a BIG set of waves begins is to go under each one. Under the white wash. Under the sucking, thunderous breaks. But, once or twice, I didn’t get under in time.

Little head pops up to grasp a gasp of air but can’t get down deep again in time… and I’d get pulled into the swirling, spinning water.  The terror. The confusion. The fog. Especially in deep water, you cannot even find the sand.

It is a complete loss of direction – Up and down, north and south – they are meaningless.

I couldn’t find the sand or the air. I’d have taken either one. I’d pray, “Let me hit the bottom so I have some direction. Give me the sand so I can push up to the surface.”

Lungs burn hot; burning a hole in my chest so they can get to the surface, even if the rest of me never makes it.

I remember it so clearly.

 

This is how I feel now as I swim through life. The water I move and swim in everyday does not soothe me. I am not reset, home, camouflaged, soothed or free. Instead I burn.  I was out deep and a big set of waves rolled in.

I try actual, physical water on my burns but it has lost its touchstone connection to God.

I find myself giving up God for Lent without any choice in the matter. And it burns. It feels like drowning in the very place I found my life. Where I was once lifted up by a very present, big, loving  God  – without any more than a tiptoe of energy from my own soul – Now, I find pain and confusion in that same spot.

Death where there was life.

All I can do now is wait and swim. Jesus, who is real and cares about me – my intellect says, is still here. And my brain reminds my bones that this is how it works. Life to Death to Greater Life.

Resurrection.     

Life where there was death.

Everything must die so that new life can spring up. Even Faith. Maybe I can believe that even faith, like other things, must die to be reborn. My faith must doubt & die.

Faith like a mustard seed, right? Seeds die before they grow giant trees and climbing vines. Death is the beginning of a much bigger life for the seed. Maybe, just maybe, this is part of what Jesus meant…

Luke 17:6 “If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed…”

+

John 12:24–25, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

What if I put the two together? I have faith like a mustard seed and it’s time to let it fall into the earth and die so that it can bear much fruit.

A tiny seed falls to the ground. Once the seed coat breaks, the seed begins to grow roots. Inside the seed is new life: Roots. Height. Depth. Reach. More seeds. More Fruit.

Death is the beginning of new life for a seed. Maybe it will be for me too. Maybe in a year from now, maybe in three days, I will be reborn with a bigger and more expansive faith.

Until then (and believe me I do not take lightly saying “Until”) I will just keep swimming.

…For anyone struggling with faith today. An offering, poured out.

-Nicole

  Just Keep Swimming

 

Hey Mr Grump Gills
You know what you gotta do when life gets you down?
Just keep swimming
Just keep swimming
Just keep swimming swimming swimming
What do we do we swim, swim, swim

Posted in Free Flying Faith, Wonderful Wrestlings | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Water, please (a parable of sorts)

Posted by Nicole on February 19, 2013

“A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.”
– The Everlasting Man, GK Chesterton

**********

I can see it, the water, just across the room… and yet, I never get all the way there. And, I’m thirsty.

“Why don’t I ever get there?”-  I wonder.  I look down just to check again, as I often do. Yep, all good.  I’m running on my treadmill and it’s working just fine.  I don’t know how you do it in your town, but around here we all run on treadmills. It’s the absolute best way to get to the water. My treadmill is smooth, adjustable, modern.  Everyone uses one – some are better than others, though.  The one I have is good for my knees, I hear. And, I’m extra fierce on mine because there’s a racing stripe down the middle. I feel faster this way.

Lately, though, I’m really, EXTRA thirsty. The water is about 400 feet from me now, I think. I can’t totally tell. It’s definitely closer than last week. Definitely. This new treadmill is working better.

And, I’m working hard at my new program. I bought a new program that helps me improve my running so I can get to the water faster. But, it’s making me thirstier – ah, Catch 22…

I must work harder and harder to improve my skills, my stride, my incline capabilities… the more I strive, the more I want the water, the more I strive!

It’s competitive up in here!  So I keep workin’ it. Studying. Reading articles and books. Trying new products to make me a better runner.  But I really wish I’d make progress more quickly.

This is torture.

Honestly, can I tell you something? I think I’m going crazy because there’s a voice in my head telling me to get off the treadmill. HA! That’d be ridiculous.

We all know that’s crazy in THIS town. EVERYONE is on a treadmill. I’d be stupid to get off.  I’ll fall behind. AND I know someone will steal my spot, too, if I even move off for a moment. I’ve been running a long time. I’m sure I’ll get there soon. I must be closer. I’ve been working really hard on my stride. …

 

…. The voice is still here, though. I’ve been more tired lately for some reason and the voice is somehow louder when I feel more tired. It keeps telling me to trust it and step onto the ground. It says that the ground is actually MORE helpful for reaching the water than my treadmill is. But, I’m not sure I can believe it.

**********

It says that the ground is actually MORE helpful for reaching the water than my treadmill is.

But, I’m not sure I can believe it.

The voice of our Creator is always here offering us MORE. Telling us the ground is solid beneath our feet.

If we are honest, we all know there’s more available than what we choose to survive on. We all know that the “getting ahead” on our treadmills is an illusion. We were made my Someone that had better plans than this.

Our creator offers us a solid ground to walk on.

There’s more available to us than we have been told by the powers that want the powers to stay the powers. 

The folks on the treadmills at the front of the room want to stay in the front, so they’d like us to all stay on our treadmills. They can continue to tweet and share and sell their tips on how to move faster on the treadmill so we can move up to the front with them.  We read and study but never quite make it. Plus, the folks that make the treadmills can keep their power and money only if we stay on and keep a runnin’.

If I just started walking on the ground – trusted its trustworthyness is actually real – I could finally rest and breathe. I could stop buying, striving, and comparing myself to the other treadmill runners.  If the ground is actually real and good for walking on…

I would be free to drink. I could finally reach the water I need to live. This would be GOOD NEWS.

**********

“A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.”
– The Everlasting Man, GK Chesterton

You are ALIVE, my friend! You are alive. You are not dead. You do not have to go with the stream unless you want to. If you want to change things up, you can.

Posted in Free Flying Faith, Wonderful Wrestlings | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »