Symphony of praise
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Tonight we briefly talked about how we enter into God's chamber. We light on praise and thanksgiving. That God inhabits our praise. So we desire to praise - to give thanks. How shall we do this? Tonight we did it this way. 3 pieces of blank paper - become a collective praise offering. Written and drawn - words of praise. Shared. Responded and added to. Line upon line- it creates a symphony of praise. What fun we had - in silence and yet loud. I have been blessed with 2 amazing women to walk this journey out. Thank you Lord.
Labels: about me, portfolio, teaching
posted by Fragrant Burning @ 12:07 PM,
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My Wierd Life
Friday, April 21, 2006
I suspect that the large majority of people in this world would say I have a weird life. And maybe from their perspective it would be true. But I love this life and I believe that it is more "normal" according to God's standards than my "normal" used to be. In fact I hope my life gets even more weird. Somehow I suspect that in doing so - it will come even closer to God's design. I love this life - I want more!
Yesterday I prayed and worshiped in the morning. Went home and napped, did laundry, ate lunch. Went back to the office to do paperwork and to plan a bible study. That afternoon I shared with the YE students about how God had told me to walk around Cairo and stake the ground. They then had the opportunity to write out their own stakes and we went and planted them at the location of their choice. Interestingly enough - they did not mock the activity. This is a miracle in itself. The verses they chose were even insightful - I was blessed by reading them.
That evening I drove an hour and a half to Benton, IL for a worship service. Spent the night in the church with some of my staff and quite a few people we didn't really know. Woke up this morning with a headache (spiritual warfare continues to plague me with headaches) and to people in the prayer room wailing and crying and sining and praying. Honestly, when your not used to that, at first it sounds a bit creepy - but was soon embraced by my ears. Took a shower and am now typing on my adopted bed as Amanda gets dressed. Our "room" is a old sunday school room - converted into a dorm room.
Today a group from First Free in Springfield will make the journey to Cairo, and call one of our converted classrooms and the resource room their "home" for a couple of nights. Time for breakfast!
posted by Fragrant Burning @ 12:25 PM,
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Amazing Techni-color Journey
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Sometimes I feel like I'm Shrek, and the crazy conversations that go on in my head are like that donkey that followed Shrek around. I'm on this journey to awaken the sleeping princess ( the bride of Christ) & bring her to the king, and there are hills to traverse & dragons to slay & dungeons to move through & towers to climb... And there's me - moving through this amazing techni-color journey while scratching my rear, belching the words to "I wish I were an Oscar Meyer weiner', occasionally cleaning my ears & my nose with my finger, wearing the same shirt for too many days in a row, and sometimes needing a serious attitude adjustment when either the donkey or the princess goes into a diatribe of whines & complaints over the nature of this journey. Add to all that the reality that a part of me really is an Ogerrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!. As I put on Christ for & in this trek, I become a Christian Oger, but an Oger nonetheless. I don't kill & eat towns-people any longer. Now I serve & protect them. But I still pick my nose... while slaying their dragons & keeping watch over the village. Turns out even Ogers have a unique purpose in the plan of God.
Labels: about me, poetry, portfolio
posted by Fragrant Burning @ 12:30 PM,
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You have done great things
We brought some of the YE students to Birmingham on a mission trip and God has surprised me with the response.
joy found in waking early - You have done great things
gifts poured out in unlikely places - You have done great things
emotion revealed in the reading of Your Word - You had done great things
ears open and hearing - You have done great things
prayers offered without mocking - You have done great things
fulfillment and satisfaction in working - You have done great things
realized joy in serving - You have done great things
laughter, sharing, juken - You have done great things
unexpected responses - You have done great things
little things and yet miraculous - Father You had done great things
posted by Fragrant Burning @ 11:31 AM,
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More Fully Myself
This morning I am in Birmingham - and in the confusion of knowing or not knowing if B-Ham was central or eastern time zone - I am up an hour earlier than planned. Oh - well it makes way for the time to put some thoughts down about my desire for the life I seek to lead.
practicing extreme obedience
fierce faithfulness
swift in care for others
responsive, rushing readiness
to move at a moments notice
when even a hint or a whisper of God's will
reaches my listening heart
no part of God revealed going unnoticed
ever repentant
throwing down the erected altars of the old me
with all its fading glory
broken though made whole
at war and yet peaceful
ruling while being ruled
rising while bowing down
extreme freedom in the midst of slavery
resting though laboring
longing for something more and yet strangely content
being me not at all
yet more fully myself than ever before
joyful dichotomy of a life hidden an yet revealed in Christ.
Labels: about me, portfolio, prophetic art
posted by Fragrant Burning @ 11:27 AM,
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God's Secret
Sunday, May 15, 2005
When I moved to Cairo I didn't have a big vision or anything. Here was my plan.
• Live in Cairo.
• Get to know my neighbors.
• Pray.
• Do a cookie ministry from my front porch to get to know the kids in the neighborhood.
There it was - Kristy's ministry plan for Cairo - prayer & cookies.
As I just wrote that - I realized - I wasn't too far off. Prayer is the foundation of what God has called me to do here - and kids still come to my house to bake cookies. God's plan has just turned out to be a little bit more extensive and requiring a whole lot more faith and dependence on Him than I could ever had imagined.
I appreciate that God is sometimes secretive in His plans for us. If He had let me see too much of His plan - I know my faintness of heart would have had me cowering in the corner.
Just to let you know - He still has to reveal things a little at a time - and though my faith and trust has grown immensely in these past few years, I still have Peter moments - where I jump out in faith on the water and then start to look around at the circumstances and begin to doubt.
I'm glad God keeps secrets!
posted by Fragrant Burning @ 10:49 AM,
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Bait and Switch
Thursday, April 14, 2005
It was time - I knew it was time - but I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing.
September 2000 God called me to 30 days of intercessory prayer. Every night I went to my church sanctuary and prayed. Sometimes for an hour, sometimes for 5 or 6 hours. 30 days turned into 60, then 90 and finally, in February, almost 6 months into this prayer thing, I knew God wanted me to resign from my position at the church.
This had not been the expected outcome of this journey in prayer. I was looking for revival in my life, in my church, in the city. Instead, I lose my job. I put in my letter of resignation. Friends and family ask, "What are you going to do?" I don't know. I have no job - so - I buy a house. This doesn't make sense. My uncle, who is a banker, says no one is going to give you a home loan. It's my first house, I don't have job. Why would they. But they do.
I find out about a youth mission ministry on the internet "YouthWorks." It sounds like a great ministry and I don't have to raise support(remember - it hasn't been to long since my two year support raising venture) - in fact I get paid! I have a job for the summer, but I have to move to Red Lake, Minnesota. A Chippewa Indian Reservation becomes my home for 10 weeks. It is an amazing summer of God's power at work. I love it.
I'm offered a full time position with YouthWorks. I didn't apply for it - they just ask me to consider taking the job. But, it would mean that I have to move to Minneapolis. It's a great opportunity, the perfect job as far as I'm concerned. But the timing doesn't feel right. I just bought a house and I'm looking forward to living with my brother this next year before he gets married. I love my new church and I have been growing spiritually in new and exciting ways there. I turn down the job. A week later, they offer it to me again, this time with chance to continue to live in Springfield and commute to Minneapolis. Whoa! God opens the door for my perfect ministry opportunity. I take it.
Fall of 2001 and Spring of 2002 are amazing and exhausting, wonderful and challenging. God shows me a lesson in His faithfulness all year long. Random meetings and opportunities are not random, but God's supernatural working on my behalf to accomplish His will. I'm learning some very important lessons here. Fall of 2001 I visit Cairo, IL for the first time (except for the random times that we drove through the town on our way to somewhere else). I'm shocked by the poverty and decline of the town and am excited that YouthWorks will be here this next summer. At the end of 2001 a GreaterWorks Intern comes to work with me in Springfield. I meet Anna, who will become one of my closest friends, ever.
Late Spring 2002
I think it may be time to consider moving to a YouthWorks community - I love this GreaterWorks Internship thing, but I really need to live in a community where we have a summer site to make it work. Maybe St Louis. Maybe next year.
Summer 2002
I help to get the Cairo site started - I love our summer staff there and am looking forward to the last week of the summer when my church, Glad Tidings Assembly will take their first YouthWorks mission trip to Cairo, IL. God is tugging on my heart about something but I'm not ready to acknowledge it. The summer is a wonderful whirlwind of God showing up. Second week in August, I'm in Cairo and my life get's turned upside down.
I'm supposed to move to Cairo. I know it. I don't want too. Small town - uggh. I'm a city girl - St Louis - that's my choice. Cairo - that's God's choice. End of the week - I'm driving to St Louis. I cry most of the way. Yes God. Yes God. I want you more than my own way. I'll go. BUT, you're going to have to make a way. Where am I going to live (there are hardly any rental properties), what am I going to do with my house in Springfield, will YouthWorks even let me move there, what will my parents think? (In the back of my mind I'm thinking - that's a lot of variables, maybe it won't work out, and I will have a way of escape!)
YouthWorks not only says yes to me moving to Cairo, but wants me to try to be there and set up to receive an intern by January. WOW - that's quick. Mom and Grandma Lindsay come with me to Cairo to look at houses. I'm assuming that I will have to be making the mortgage on two homes (the one in Springfield and now one in Cairo) so I set a max house cost of $50,000. There are a lot of homes and they are amazingly cheap, but I'm just not finding what I'm looking for. I really want a two story with two bathrooms, to accommodate all of the people that will eventually live there. My grandmother doesn't like Cairo, and she's afraid for me to live there.
I come to Cairo a second time.
posted by Fragrant Burning @ 10:51 AM,
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About Me
Tuesday, March 11, 2003
- e*nig*ma: a mystery, secret, closed book, riddle; one that is puzzling or inexplicable; something that baffles understand-ing and cannot be explained; a difficult problem.
I'm an enigma even to myself. See there is a desire in me, a desire daily to live & to die in order that I might know God intimately. My heart desires radical obedience & unwavering servanthood - but my flesh screams against each step that takes me deeper into these realities.
- soul: the spiritual nature of humans, regarded as immortal.
- up*ris*ing: moving or progressing toward a higher level or degree; coming to maturity; emerging; the leaven or yeast used to make dough rise.
My soul desires this - this UPRISING. It desires to curicfy excuses, to surrender itself, to be consumed by Christ and to come into maturity, into the fullness of life that God said could be mine. But my flesh is so very weak.
A couple of quick facts about me. I'm a missionary in Cairo, Illinois. I'm in love with a man named Jesus who has captured my heart in the most amazing way! I am the bride of Christ and I choose to lavish my love on this One Man, Jesus Christ, Lover of my soul. I choose HIM, because He chose me. I love HIM because He loved me first.
Labels: about me
posted by Fragrant Burning @ 10:46 AM,
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