November 22, 2003
Where you least expect it...
I'm back in La Conner, WA for a couple of days, and made my customary pilgrimage to the Next Chapter bookstore and coffee shop in town yesterday with my dad.
Have you ever had that experience where comfort and insight comes when you least expect it from the most unlikely sources? John (proprietor of the Next Chapter) and I got into a long, deep conversation about presence, hospitality, the prodigal son, and what is really important when your whole world falls apart. I don't know John terribly well, but we connected on that level of shared experience which neither of us realized we had. I thought that maybe he had been reading my blog and following some of my recent physical struggles, but it was news to him when I finally got around to talking about it.
Anyway. It was funny because my dad was there for much of the conversation, trying to get his verbal spars in (as he always does in theological discussions - he has a rather wholistic, buddhist-ish way of approaching spirituality most times) here and there. When we finally left, Dad asked what that conversation was all about, what the point was, I couldn't sum it up for him any better than to say, "we did a little church in there. All of us."
It was exactly what I needed. And I suspect, what John needed too.
I'm back in La Conner, WA for a couple of days, and made my customary pilgrimage to the Next Chapter bookstore and coffee shop in town yesterday with my dad.
Have you ever had that experience where comfort and insight comes when you least expect it from the most unlikely sources? John (proprietor of the Next Chapter) and I got into a long, deep conversation about presence, hospitality, the prodigal son, and what is really important when your whole world falls apart. I don't know John terribly well, but we connected on that level of shared experience which neither of us realized we had. I thought that maybe he had been reading my blog and following some of my recent physical struggles, but it was news to him when I finally got around to talking about it.
Anyway. It was funny because my dad was there for much of the conversation, trying to get his verbal spars in (as he always does in theological discussions - he has a rather wholistic, buddhist-ish way of approaching spirituality most times) here and there. When we finally left, Dad asked what that conversation was all about, what the point was, I couldn't sum it up for him any better than to say, "we did a little church in there. All of us."
It was exactly what I needed. And I suspect, what John needed too.
Typepad
Can anyone out there reccommend Type Pad blogging software? I like the blogs I see which use it but I'm not sure how easy it is to change over my blog to type pad. Any comments?
Can anyone out there reccommend Type Pad blogging software? I like the blogs I see which use it but I'm not sure how easy it is to change over my blog to type pad. Any comments?
November 20, 2003
Okay, one more...
From Bono's speech to the Liberal Party Convention:
Bono: (laughs) That's right, he doesn't need your help. You go, "I can help God here, I'm sure he's stuck, those kids in Africa and all; I'll help." God doesn't need your help, but, there's a blessing. Somebody said to me - I said this to you last night. A wise man, a spiritual man said this: he said, stop asking God to bless what you're doing, Bono. Find out what God's doing; it's already blessed.
You don't have to guess what's on God's mind. If you're looking for God, and can't find God, he's with the poorest, most wretched, most vulnerable lives. That's where God hangs out. If you want to get closer to God, that's a key. In your own moments of despair, in your own moment of wretchedness, you're also closer to God. But I don't talk about God very much because I'm not a very good advertisement for it.
from beth's blog
From Bono's speech to the Liberal Party Convention:
Bono: (laughs) That's right, he doesn't need your help. You go, "I can help God here, I'm sure he's stuck, those kids in Africa and all; I'll help." God doesn't need your help, but, there's a blessing. Somebody said to me - I said this to you last night. A wise man, a spiritual man said this: he said, stop asking God to bless what you're doing, Bono. Find out what God's doing; it's already blessed.
You don't have to guess what's on God's mind. If you're looking for God, and can't find God, he's with the poorest, most wretched, most vulnerable lives. That's where God hangs out. If you want to get closer to God, that's a key. In your own moments of despair, in your own moment of wretchedness, you're also closer to God. But I don't talk about God very much because I'm not a very good advertisement for it.
from beth's blog
Yahooooo!
Along the lines of Pete Rollins' -10 to +10 spirituality scale, I heard some fantastic news on Tuesday. A friend of mine who has been an atheist but exploring Christianity for several months now recently told me that she believes she is now a Christian, as in having committed herself to following Christ.
I have greatly respected her and her real honest desire to understand more about who Jesus is. She grew up in a culture where he is not taught or worshipped in the mainstream at all, and so she has had to start from only a historical understanding of Christianity and has really set herself to absorbing as much as possible and thinking about it. One of her biggest struggles is that she couldn't see or hear God, despite many Christian people trying to explain about a personal relationship with Him.
She is different, I could tell that something had changed in her outlook even before she told me about her decision. Sometimes I forget how intrinsically attractive Jesus is... that it's not just our culture or history that makes us seek him, but his qualities alone that draw people to himself.
Along the lines of Pete Rollins' -10 to +10 spirituality scale, I heard some fantastic news on Tuesday. A friend of mine who has been an atheist but exploring Christianity for several months now recently told me that she believes she is now a Christian, as in having committed herself to following Christ.
I have greatly respected her and her real honest desire to understand more about who Jesus is. She grew up in a culture where he is not taught or worshipped in the mainstream at all, and so she has had to start from only a historical understanding of Christianity and has really set herself to absorbing as much as possible and thinking about it. One of her biggest struggles is that she couldn't see or hear God, despite many Christian people trying to explain about a personal relationship with Him.
She is different, I could tell that something had changed in her outlook even before she told me about her decision. Sometimes I forget how intrinsically attractive Jesus is... that it's not just our culture or history that makes us seek him, but his qualities alone that draw people to himself.
Music
Considering that a scant two weeks ago, worship was about the most difficult thing in my life and a constant reminder of my own brokenness (still is, actually), read the following recommendation:
If you have any affinity at all for alt worship music (NA style), check out David Crowder's latest, Illuminate. As always, Crowder and his band do kick-ass hymns, but the strength of this album is how it is put together. I've never been one to analyze the very structure of a particular album, but this is one that you don't pop in the CD player and hit 'Random.' it is a beautifully crafted, lovingly created piece of worship, one that doesn't leave the bitter 'rock concert' taste in your mouth. The past few days I've had trouble listening to this one without needing to bow down before Jesus... not something I've done a lot of. Lots of worship songs to me seem to be self-focused, but I found none of that on Illuminate.
Considering that a scant two weeks ago, worship was about the most difficult thing in my life and a constant reminder of my own brokenness (still is, actually), read the following recommendation:
If you have any affinity at all for alt worship music (NA style), check out David Crowder's latest, Illuminate. As always, Crowder and his band do kick-ass hymns, but the strength of this album is how it is put together. I've never been one to analyze the very structure of a particular album, but this is one that you don't pop in the CD player and hit 'Random.' it is a beautifully crafted, lovingly created piece of worship, one that doesn't leave the bitter 'rock concert' taste in your mouth. The past few days I've had trouble listening to this one without needing to bow down before Jesus... not something I've done a lot of. Lots of worship songs to me seem to be self-focused, but I found none of that on Illuminate.
Oooo.... Good Article!
From The Ooze:
To put this in analogical terms, if there exists in church a rule of no umbrella-opening indoors, the POMO idea is to ask "why not?"
"Because it's not right," is scoffed upon... but... "because four out of five eye-pokes in churches happen from open umbrellas" would actually be more likely accepted, assuming the reasoning was found to be logical. Or, perhaps eye pokings in general would need to be investigated and prevented, rather than just umbrellas. Postmodern mindsets need to take things to their logical extremes.
Here, then, is the question. (and the tie-in for the title.) Will the POMO movement be defined by what goes on during this time period? Or will the true characteristics come through enough to classify it? And more importantly, with Postmodernism moving steadily to the forefront of ministry, What, if anything, will take its place at the cutting edge? Or is this just a fad?
From The Ooze:
To put this in analogical terms, if there exists in church a rule of no umbrella-opening indoors, the POMO idea is to ask "why not?"
"Because it's not right," is scoffed upon... but... "because four out of five eye-pokes in churches happen from open umbrellas" would actually be more likely accepted, assuming the reasoning was found to be logical. Or, perhaps eye pokings in general would need to be investigated and prevented, rather than just umbrellas. Postmodern mindsets need to take things to their logical extremes.
Here, then, is the question. (and the tie-in for the title.) Will the POMO movement be defined by what goes on during this time period? Or will the true characteristics come through enough to classify it? And more importantly, with Postmodernism moving steadily to the forefront of ministry, What, if anything, will take its place at the cutting edge? Or is this just a fad?
Trouble-making for it's own sake
From David's blog:
I try to follow/priviledge/enact the message of Jesus Christ, the Kingdom of God, but I'm tired of being "about" stuff. I'm tired of the authority structures, localized church celebrities, and marketing the next big movement of the Spirit.
Ouch. This is something I've often wondered about, possibly because, although I love the feeling of being "caught up" in something exciting, I hate the idea of 'fads' in church, even when they are dressed up as a "new movement of the spirit." I want this 'emerging church' thing to be about more than a bunch of church burn-outs, authority-phobics and dreamers, I want to be part of something that is more grassroots than that. I guess what I'm trying to say is that we could really get caught up in post-modern emergent-ism for it's own sake, instead of simply as a lens through which to see the truth more clearly.
I had lunch with my pastor's wife today. When I first met her, she represented everything that made me uncomfortable about the evangelical church. She was this perfect woman, perfect mom, perfect servant/host/worship leader, and someone that I dismissed as irrelevant in the 'real world.' I'm glad to say that I was able to see past my own disillusionment with the evangelical church and my own jaded viewpoint to realize what a truly great person she is, how unlike my first perception of her she is. How does this relate to the above? Well, we can get so wrapped up in a 'different move of God' and the emerging church that we forget that for many many people, evangelicalism is working, and not only working, it is changing, growing and genuine.
To my surprise, I saw more of my own church in A New Kind of Christian than I thought I would. I'm gratified to realize that it's possible for a modern church to grow and change and become more interesting and more conscious than before, to transition into post-modernity gradually.
So let's not be muckrakers just for its own sake. Sometimes there's life left in the modern that needs to be nurtured and discipled from the inside, to be discipled into an emergence of its own.
From David's blog:
I try to follow/priviledge/enact the message of Jesus Christ, the Kingdom of God, but I'm tired of being "about" stuff. I'm tired of the authority structures, localized church celebrities, and marketing the next big movement of the Spirit.
Ouch. This is something I've often wondered about, possibly because, although I love the feeling of being "caught up" in something exciting, I hate the idea of 'fads' in church, even when they are dressed up as a "new movement of the spirit." I want this 'emerging church' thing to be about more than a bunch of church burn-outs, authority-phobics and dreamers, I want to be part of something that is more grassroots than that. I guess what I'm trying to say is that we could really get caught up in post-modern emergent-ism for it's own sake, instead of simply as a lens through which to see the truth more clearly.
I had lunch with my pastor's wife today. When I first met her, she represented everything that made me uncomfortable about the evangelical church. She was this perfect woman, perfect mom, perfect servant/host/worship leader, and someone that I dismissed as irrelevant in the 'real world.' I'm glad to say that I was able to see past my own disillusionment with the evangelical church and my own jaded viewpoint to realize what a truly great person she is, how unlike my first perception of her she is. How does this relate to the above? Well, we can get so wrapped up in a 'different move of God' and the emerging church that we forget that for many many people, evangelicalism is working, and not only working, it is changing, growing and genuine.
To my surprise, I saw more of my own church in A New Kind of Christian than I thought I would. I'm gratified to realize that it's possible for a modern church to grow and change and become more interesting and more conscious than before, to transition into post-modernity gradually.
So let's not be muckrakers just for its own sake. Sometimes there's life left in the modern that needs to be nurtured and discipled from the inside, to be discipled into an emergence of its own.
November 19, 2003
More on Bounded vs. Centred Sets
As Lisa suggested, here's a low-tech way of representing the sets:
Bounded:
(+)
Centred:
->+<-
So I've been doing some more thinking. When I was with YWAM, our last speaker was a guy named Pete Rollins, a PhD Philosophy student at Queens University Belfast, and his topic was Evangelism in a post-modern world. It was our last week of teaching before our big cross-cultural outreach, but that's not why it had such an impact on me.
I'm still impressed with an image he left us with: Rather than thinking of our lives in relation to the kingdom of God as an in-or-out concept, he drew a scale on the board, with a hypothetical 0 in the middle, with the scale going from -10 to +10. On our scale, the -10 represented a total non-believer, i.e. someone who had never encountered the Gospel before or was completely hostile. +10 was someone who was a sold-out, Jesus-believing Christian. Pete suggested to us that our roles as Christians in this culture is not neccessarily to induce someone into 'praying a prayer' or confessing their sins, but to walk with them along the journey from one end of the scale to another. We might not ever see them cross the 0 mark (possibly signifying a confession of faith in Christ), but our jobs are to, by our lives with God, bring the people we meet a few more steps along the scale.
What I particularly like about this concept is not just that there is no magic moment, like the line around the cross in the bounded set, but that there is room for almost everybody. This 'scale' is not exclusively designed to delineate the degree of belief or unbelief, but it applies to all of us and can illustrate that by walking along with someone closer to Christ, we ourselves get closer too. It has a slightly different scope but seems to be closer to the 'centred sets' idea that we talked about at meetup.
As Lisa suggested, here's a low-tech way of representing the sets:
Bounded:
(+)
Centred:
->+<-
So I've been doing some more thinking. When I was with YWAM, our last speaker was a guy named Pete Rollins, a PhD Philosophy student at Queens University Belfast, and his topic was Evangelism in a post-modern world. It was our last week of teaching before our big cross-cultural outreach, but that's not why it had such an impact on me.
I'm still impressed with an image he left us with: Rather than thinking of our lives in relation to the kingdom of God as an in-or-out concept, he drew a scale on the board, with a hypothetical 0 in the middle, with the scale going from -10 to +10. On our scale, the -10 represented a total non-believer, i.e. someone who had never encountered the Gospel before or was completely hostile. +10 was someone who was a sold-out, Jesus-believing Christian. Pete suggested to us that our roles as Christians in this culture is not neccessarily to induce someone into 'praying a prayer' or confessing their sins, but to walk with them along the journey from one end of the scale to another. We might not ever see them cross the 0 mark (possibly signifying a confession of faith in Christ), but our jobs are to, by our lives with God, bring the people we meet a few more steps along the scale.
What I particularly like about this concept is not just that there is no magic moment, like the line around the cross in the bounded set, but that there is room for almost everybody. This 'scale' is not exclusively designed to delineate the degree of belief or unbelief, but it applies to all of us and can illustrate that by walking along with someone closer to Christ, we ourselves get closer too. It has a slightly different scope but seems to be closer to the 'centred sets' idea that we talked about at meetup.
November 18, 2003
Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance
Every day I walk across the Convocation Mall at SFU and I see the sign slung over the balcony rail advertising the Falun Dafa community at SFU. The major words on the sign are truthfulness, compassion, forbearance. I also frequently pass a sign in the window of one of the campus meeting areas advertising a weekly campus worship meeting for one of the Christian clubs on campus. The major word visible there is simply the name of the worship service.
The Falun Dafa sign makes me wish that Christians were more able to communicate the true qualities that they consider to be valuable, or that Jesus considered to be valuable. Instead of simply a poster advertising with the name of the worship service, would it possibly be more thought-provoking to post a banner in a visible place that said (in large letters): Humility. Compassion. Love. Truth. Sacrifice. Community. fridays, 4pm, Forum Chambers). Those words almost compel me more than the words church, minister, outreach, service, etc.
So how to creatively communicate what a new kind of Christian looks like in words that have jarring meaning in our culture? I think that part of the reason that the Falun Dafa sign is so attractive is that those three qualities that it lists are uncommon, valuable and hard to define... and therefore appealing almost because of their counter-culture status. We live in an age of branding, so it seems almost trite to point out that Christianity's brand is not the name Christian, but what's inside (or supposed to be. I bristle at the idea of using slogans or brands to describe or advertise Jesus, somehow it seems irreligious. But just as campbell's soup advertises using the words hearty, thick n' chunky, etc... perhaps we need to be more explicit in 'advertising' Christianity using the qualities which are expected to be found inside. Could it help people to understand when they have stumbled across 'Christ-followers' and not just no-name-brand Christians?
Every day I walk across the Convocation Mall at SFU and I see the sign slung over the balcony rail advertising the Falun Dafa community at SFU. The major words on the sign are truthfulness, compassion, forbearance. I also frequently pass a sign in the window of one of the campus meeting areas advertising a weekly campus worship meeting for one of the Christian clubs on campus. The major word visible there is simply the name of the worship service.
The Falun Dafa sign makes me wish that Christians were more able to communicate the true qualities that they consider to be valuable, or that Jesus considered to be valuable. Instead of simply a poster advertising with the name of the worship service, would it possibly be more thought-provoking to post a banner in a visible place that said (in large letters): Humility. Compassion. Love. Truth. Sacrifice. Community. fridays, 4pm, Forum Chambers). Those words almost compel me more than the words church, minister, outreach, service, etc.
So how to creatively communicate what a new kind of Christian looks like in words that have jarring meaning in our culture? I think that part of the reason that the Falun Dafa sign is so attractive is that those three qualities that it lists are uncommon, valuable and hard to define... and therefore appealing almost because of their counter-culture status. We live in an age of branding, so it seems almost trite to point out that Christianity's brand is not the name Christian, but what's inside (or supposed to be. I bristle at the idea of using slogans or brands to describe or advertise Jesus, somehow it seems irreligious. But just as campbell's soup advertises using the words hearty, thick n' chunky, etc... perhaps we need to be more explicit in 'advertising' Christianity using the qualities which are expected to be found inside. Could it help people to understand when they have stumbled across 'Christ-followers' and not just no-name-brand Christians?
Yaconelli pt. 2
I wrote about the tragic death of Mike Yaconelli a few weeks ago and followed the links back to his site with Youth Specialties, the ministry he founded. There I found that in lieu of flowers and cards, the family (his wife, Karla) has asked that donations be made to three ministries that were close to his heart. When I visited the page, I found that none of them were Youth Specialties, but instead were ministries which impacted Mike or that he had seen valuable ministry in. Somehow this simple thing touched me. They could have welcomed donations to YS, after all, it is a supported ministry as well. But they wanted to share the wealth, so to speak, so that Mike's death and people's rememberances of him would minister to an even wider group than he did in his life. Notable in the list is the L'arche Daybreak Community, where Henri Nouwen lived and wrote in his later life.
I wrote about the tragic death of Mike Yaconelli a few weeks ago and followed the links back to his site with Youth Specialties, the ministry he founded. There I found that in lieu of flowers and cards, the family (his wife, Karla) has asked that donations be made to three ministries that were close to his heart. When I visited the page, I found that none of them were Youth Specialties, but instead were ministries which impacted Mike or that he had seen valuable ministry in. Somehow this simple thing touched me. They could have welcomed donations to YS, after all, it is a supported ministry as well. But they wanted to share the wealth, so to speak, so that Mike's death and people's rememberances of him would minister to an even wider group than he did in his life. Notable in the list is the L'arche Daybreak Community, where Henri Nouwen lived and wrote in his later life.
Amazing Race
So somehow I am now in charge of planning an Amazing Race for my young adults' group at church for the non-boarders on the Snowboard Retreat. The hitch - it's in Kelowna, a city I love and know a good deal about, but don't live in. Another hitch - I've never seen the show before so I don't know how it works! Yikes! Can anyone out there give me a synopsis of how the show works? Or suggestions for Kelowna destinations?
So somehow I am now in charge of planning an Amazing Race for my young adults' group at church for the non-boarders on the Snowboard Retreat. The hitch - it's in Kelowna, a city I love and know a good deal about, but don't live in. Another hitch - I've never seen the show before so I don't know how it works! Yikes! Can anyone out there give me a synopsis of how the show works? Or suggestions for Kelowna destinations?
Think outside the box....
World's first inflatable church opens for business in England
By SUE LEEMAN
LONDON (AP) - It's got its own steeple and pews, it could float if necessary - and for a fee, the devout can erect it wherever they want.
A movable blowup PVC structure billed as the world's first inflatable church welcomed its first worshippers Tuesday, and its owner said it is already drawing interest from around the world. Some 14 metres from floor to steeple, 14 metres long and eight metres wide, the church made its debut at the Christian Resources Exhibition at Sandown Park Exhibition Centre in Esher, west of London.
Interesting idea... I guess it truly doesn't matter where we worship, but could you imagine trying to hold a traditional communion service in this thing? Wine everywhere, little bread crumbs stuck in the corners...
World's first inflatable church opens for business in England
By SUE LEEMAN
LONDON (AP) - It's got its own steeple and pews, it could float if necessary - and for a fee, the devout can erect it wherever they want.
A movable blowup PVC structure billed as the world's first inflatable church welcomed its first worshippers Tuesday, and its owner said it is already drawing interest from around the world. Some 14 metres from floor to steeple, 14 metres long and eight metres wide, the church made its debut at the Christian Resources Exhibition at Sandown Park Exhibition Centre in Esher, west of London.
Interesting idea... I guess it truly doesn't matter where we worship, but could you imagine trying to hold a traditional communion service in this thing? Wine everywhere, little bread crumbs stuck in the corners...
November 17, 2003
And the screws turn tighter...
Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons:
"My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline,
and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
because the Lord disciplines those he loves,
and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son."
Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons....No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. "Make level paths for your feet," so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed. (Heb. 12:3-7,11-13)
Yet another passage of scripture that I can barely read. The reality of it seems like such a big lie, but yet I know unquestionably that God exists and that He loves me... but this just seems so backwards. Discipline I understand. But punishment?
I've been struggling under the weight of some heavy questions lately. My pastor covered the story of the woman with the bleeding disorder who touched Jesus' robe (Mark 5:25-34) yesterday and I was so challenged by it. It's impossible for me to not identify with her. I am in a place of desperation for God to act, but I can't see it. I am forced by that to consider the possibility, not that God can't act, but that He won't act on my behalf to bring healing from this pain. What if this is my test, my chance to carry a cross, and I am unable to bear it? Why did her faith make her well and mine not? Must I wait 12 years for that kind of healing (Mk 12:34)? What a horrible thought.
For most of my life I have lived in the glow of redemptive reality. Just the fact that I was born with a disability and I have seen God use it for so much in my life and the lives of other people convinces me of God's power and desire to redeem suffering for his purposes. I know that it is possible, but I find myself disappointed that I don't want that to happen in this situation. I am like someone clinging to a palm tree in a tropical storm, battered by the wind and rain and flood but unwilling to let go of the idea that there is still solid land left to hold on to. I refuse to believe that God will leave me in this situation. He says that he will give me a way to stand up under it, but that feels like such a lie sometimes. I struggle to believe even that God would not tempt me more than I could bear. I don't want to believe that this is it. I'm mad.
Consider this my cosmic temper tantrum.
Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons:
"My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline,
and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
because the Lord disciplines those he loves,
and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son."
Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons....No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. "Make level paths for your feet," so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed. (Heb. 12:3-7,11-13)
Yet another passage of scripture that I can barely read. The reality of it seems like such a big lie, but yet I know unquestionably that God exists and that He loves me... but this just seems so backwards. Discipline I understand. But punishment?
I've been struggling under the weight of some heavy questions lately. My pastor covered the story of the woman with the bleeding disorder who touched Jesus' robe (Mark 5:25-34) yesterday and I was so challenged by it. It's impossible for me to not identify with her. I am in a place of desperation for God to act, but I can't see it. I am forced by that to consider the possibility, not that God can't act, but that He won't act on my behalf to bring healing from this pain. What if this is my test, my chance to carry a cross, and I am unable to bear it? Why did her faith make her well and mine not? Must I wait 12 years for that kind of healing (Mk 12:34)? What a horrible thought.
For most of my life I have lived in the glow of redemptive reality. Just the fact that I was born with a disability and I have seen God use it for so much in my life and the lives of other people convinces me of God's power and desire to redeem suffering for his purposes. I know that it is possible, but I find myself disappointed that I don't want that to happen in this situation. I am like someone clinging to a palm tree in a tropical storm, battered by the wind and rain and flood but unwilling to let go of the idea that there is still solid land left to hold on to. I refuse to believe that God will leave me in this situation. He says that he will give me a way to stand up under it, but that feels like such a lie sometimes. I struggle to believe even that God would not tempt me more than I could bear. I don't want to believe that this is it. I'm mad.
Consider this my cosmic temper tantrum.
