Posts Tagged ‘God’
Posted by Nicole on October 9, 2015
A prayer for love and seeing. Of black cats and clean forks. A life full of Body full of Soul.
*****
Take a moment to notice your surroundings. Relax your jaw and your tongue. Feel the earth support your weight. Feel God support your spirit.
*****
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 us all. My fingers still feel wet from washing breakfast dishes.
I can choose to be aware of sensations. And in the choosing they are either a nuisance or a wonder.
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 the 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 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 the connection with my own mind. 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. YHWH – 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, 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.
I see You. In the trees. Bursting sap. Falling pinecones. 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. Laughter so hard they can’t open their eyes. A sudden embrace.
I see You. In me. Skin upon blood, ligaments, muscles and bones. A heart that beats. A body that breathes. Hopes. Loves. Pain.
I see You in this body you made to fit this soul just right.
Sometimes love is just choosing to see.
Posted in Beauty SOS47, Write 31 Days | Tagged: God, Love, prayer, self care | 1 Comment »
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
Posted in Beauty SOS47, Free Flying Faith | Tagged: faith, God, hope, jesus, Love, Presence, seen | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Nicole on December 23, 2013
Advent. We wait. We wait for God to come down here and be with us. Just hurry up and be with us.
Yesterday, I felt it, that dull discomfort of waiting for things to be RIGHT – To feel God with me and to feel Him making all things comes together for Good. I wanted it, bad.
This incredible waiting that is called LIFE drives some of us mad. We get short burst of fun, joy, beauty, and meaning and then we wait again. This incredible waiting, like watching intermittent shooting stars when what we really need is dawn.
We wait for heaven and the Light of the World to come. Heaven will not just be for our souls. Heaven involves our bodies too. This is the gift of making love.
God, your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven – not just in our hearts but in our bodies too.
In honor of Advent and Love and Making It coming together this week, today we have the gift of reading a personal essay from a woman who has never been kissed and is beginning to let herself feel the desire and hope of what will come someday. May all our waiting and longing be this vulnerable and brave.
-Nicole
****
I dreamed a few months ago that I had my first kiss.
Yes, I’m 25 and I’ve never been kissed – or even been on an official date. I was a little too “mature” (and obnoxious) in high school to stoop to “chasing boys,” and I was a little too driven in college to take time out for life. Which is strange, really. I’ve always wanted the support of a relationship and the chance to build a life with another person and love them unconditionally. I want the deep friendship of shared experience and ideas and the knowing of each other that comes from that. I want to explore the world of sensuality and romance in a healthy way, which I haven’t always. Other things have just gotten in the way.
It doesn’t take a significant other to experience growth, of course. Sometimes that can even inhibit it. I’ve grown more in these last two years at home dealing with chronic fatigue than I think I have my whole life. I’m learning to make space for myself, and that I have a right to take up room in the world. I’m learning to let go of other peoples’ burdens and pick up my own oxygen mask first in a crisis. I’m learning to lean in, to stand my ground, to experience life ready to fall and fail and make mistakes and then get right back up again.
I think it’s appropriate that my dream took place at some kind of fancy dinner. I’ve discovered a deep love for food and cooking since I’ve been home. I even remember what I was eating in the dream – it was some kind of deconstructed gourmet s’more with a white chocolate mousse and graham cracker crumbles served in a martini glass. Which actually sounds delicious.
It’s also appropriate that in my dream, I spilled some on my shirt. I’m kind of a messy person, a fact I’ve hated my whole life. I bump into things and fall up the stairs. I spill things all the time and have never managed to keep my room clean. I have big curly hair that goes frizzy in the rain. As much as I’ve always wanted to be sleek and svelte, I’m learning that I’m really a flannel pajamas and fuzzy socks kind of girl. And that I’m beautiful, curly hair and all.
So, laughingly, I tried to wipe the spill off my shirt, standing by the table. My date laughed too, kindly. He put water on a napkin and helped me clean up the mess.
We were standing close then, of course, and when I noticed I felt the urge to back away. Not because I was afraid of him, but because I had heard what happens when people stand too close. Because it’s the reflex I’d developed overseas to protect myself and maintain purity and propriety. Because I wouldn’t want to send mixed signals or be rejected or make someone else uncomfortable go too far or do any of the dozen other things I’ve been warned about. There are no guarantees when you let people get too close.
But this time, I stood my ground instead. I chose to take up my own space and let someone else move out of the way, for a change, if this wasn’t what they wanted.
I looked up at him – he was definitely taller than me – and closed my eyes.
He leaned down and we kissed. My heart beat fast.
Then he put his arm around me and walked with me to a quiet corner, a bench where we could sit together and just be.
There was no rejection, only welcome. Only peace. Only the comfort of knowing I was home.
I don’t expect my real first kiss to be quite this revelatory, necessarily. But now, I think I’m finally ready to find out.
Ellie Ava: I’m a storyteller, an explorer, and an avid fan of all things science… especially when it’s fiction. After many years of exploring new cultures and perspectives in Europe, I’m back in the USA taking time to discover the things bubbling up in my own heart and mind. I blog about life at ellieava.tumblr.com.
Posted in Free Flying Faith, Love and Making It | Tagged: advent, Christmas, God, Heaven, jesus, kiss, love and making it, waiting | 5 Comments »
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 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: advent, Christmas, community, darkness, faith, God, jesus, light, Love | 7 Comments »
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:
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.
Posted in Free Flying Faith | Tagged: books, christianity, faith, God, jesus, struggle | 19 Comments »
Posted by Nicole on October 16, 2013
What is that called? What is that for?
It’s a fork and we use it to eat.
How do you know that?
We accept a lot of definitions, but how do we know for sure? What we believe defines how we will act and behave and LIVE. I’m using “FORK” as an example…
I know it’s a fork because someone told me. Our parents and our parents’ parents all agreed on this word and this function. This is cultural knowledge passed down without question: It’s a fork and we use it to eat.
Have you seen the The Little Mermaid. My sister and I loved that movie growing up. I can sing it by heart. It’s where my weird fork example comes from.
Do you remember the scene about the fork?
Ariel, the mermaid, is told by a friend that a fork is called a “dinglehopper” and it’s used to comb hair. Ariel believes this friend knows how the world works and trusts his definition. If you say it’s a dinglehopper and everyone uses it to comb hair, awesome! Combing away…
But, see, it’s a funny scene to us because we know the truth. We KNOW that’s NOT how you use that. That’s NOT what that’s for! That’s a fork! That’s hilarious! Crazy mermaid!
But she doesn’t know. She only knows what she’s been taught to believe. This is a dinglehopper… this is what that’s for… combing away…
She had misinformation.
My cousin babysat my toddler girl and taught her a fabulous new “rule” about life, “If you want to get something from your mom, just use the magic word! It’s the best way to have mommy get you what you want. And the magic word is – “NOW”.
‘Mommy, ice water, Now!’
‘Mommy, can I watch a show, Now?!’
‘Now, get me my blanket!’
That sweet babe THOUGHT she was doing the right thing. But, all it did was make me burn with great vengeance and furious anger. “Heck no!”
She had misinformation.
So, I had to reteach her the real magic word; the one that strikes a generous, true, loving reaction in me… And it is of course, “Beautiful.”
“Beautiful, can I watch a show?” yep, sure can!
We have misinformation in much more profound ways than how to use a fork (although I do think using “beautiful” as a magic word will do wonders). We think we know all about beauty, food, sex, God… we think we know the realities of life. And they’re depressing for most of us! They suck, honestly.
How many people do you know who are struggling – not only within work and money and relationships but within their hearts – truly struggling? Often it’s because the definitions we are working with exclude US. I am not “beautiful”. I’m not “sexy”. I’m not “successful”.
We cannot reconcile the messages and definitions we are getting about how life is supposed to be… how WE are supposed to be…
Sometimes there is a hint within us that our working definitions are incorrect – questioning the established rules. (Ariel questioned her information too.) We feel some hazy doubt about the way life is presented to us. On and off there’s a sense in each of us… is that REALLY the truth? This doesn’t feel quite right but we don’t question often or deep enough to change our beliefs…
Episodes of Scandal call to us, grocery shopping or crying kids demand our attention, or Pinterest’s seductive ways distract us really well and we stop questioning.
We stop questioning, but the problem is that we are left with definitions that tear us apart.
What is beautiful? Who is qualified to be sexy or worthy of having amazing sex? What is a Christian?
Today, I want to question my beliefs. Especially of the definitions causing me discomfort and pain.
Why do I believe this to be true?
Is there another way to look at this?
I can use a “dinglehopper” to comb my hair, but it is really better suited as a fork. They are actually quite sharp.
I feel the same way about how I use those words: beautiful, sexy, christian… Those words are really quite sharp and I need to constantly rethink how I use them – both on myself and with others.
If I am poking myself in the head with a sharp definition, perhaps it’s time to rethink how I am using it.
What if we changed our definitions? In very practical ways, what if you chose to believe that your hair IS beautiful and you don’t need another bottle of shampoo? What if you chose to believe that you are sexy and don’t need to hide under the covers or wrap a towel around yourself to hide the “bad” parts?
Imagine, just for a moment, that you had never seen anyone else ever having sex. Now, don’t get all shy, if you can use the internet I am pretty sure you have at some point seen someone else at least pretending to have sex. Just seeing them in these images has changed your definition of who gets to have sex, what it should look like, what the woman does and what her body looks like, what the man is supposed to do… etc.
Note: Someone else made that movie or picture; They chose an image or actor based on their tastes.
Imagine you didn’t have to measure up to someone else’s definition of sexy – and you could just BE it.
Imagine you didn’t have to measure up to someone else’s definition of beautiful and you could just BE it.
How would it change your life?
-Nicole
Posted in Beauty SOS47, Wonderful Wrestlings | Tagged: beauty, beliefs, definitions, God, self esteem, sex | 1 Comment »
Posted by Nicole on July 11, 2011
“…what we must do now is share everything. Everything! If one of us likes anything, there must be something to like in it – and the other one must find it. Every single thing that either of us likes. That way we shall create a thousand strands, great and small, that will link us together… And our trust in each other will not only be based on love and loyalty but on the fact of a thousand sharings – a thousand strands twisted into something unbreakable.”
– A Severe Mercy
A thousand strands twisted into something unbreakable. Unbreakable. I want to have unbreakable relationships. I want to have the things I care about matter to someone else too. Life can be made of unbreakable stuff when we tie ourselves, knot ourselves, anchor ourselves to the eternal God who made us and is here already making everything new and unbreakable.
Have you ever read something in a book or article and it just hit you hard? You laughed til you cried. You just cried. You spoke out loud back to the book, “Holy @*#! I’d never thought of that!” Your soul moved a few inches … permanently.
Whatever it was, it mattered to you in your core, and you just HAD to share it with someone. When a friend matches your enthusiasm… that’s bliss.
Each of these little encounters changes us. This is chemistry. Falling in love. Making a friend. Bonding.
“The actual thing – inloveness – requires something like a spark leaping back and forth from one to the other becoming more intense every moment, love building up like voltage in a coil.”
-A Severe Mercy
Love requires sharing. Mutual sharing. This is a core truth of life. In this place I will share the things and thoughts that connect with my life. I believe there’s a God who wants that same kind of “spark leaping back and forth… love building up like voltage in a coil.” And, He wants it with us.
Feel free to share back. Let’s create electricity … and a thousand strands of sharing twisted into something unbreakable.
-Nicole
Posted in Free Flying Faith | Tagged: God, Love, Memory, Severe Mercy | Leave a Comment »