OK. So. New blog post. Here it is...

And yet I don’t really know what to say! I haven’t posted for a while, because I vacillate between days when I feel like SO MUCH has happened (where do I begin trying to sum it up?) and days when it feels like not much has happened at all (and what would I fill an entire blog post with?). I think the middle point between these two extremes is realising that although so much has happened, most of it is happening in deep internal process. I know that SO much is happening in me at a heart level, and my head hasn’t quite caught up with my heart yet. Which I think is a good thing for now... Sometimes our heads get in the way.

GLIMPSES OF THE DAY-TO-DAY...

In the last few weeks we have:

·         Built, painted, cleaned and organised the top floor of the barn, which was the art room, but is now divided into both an art space and a room for Jake and Joel.

·         Cleaned out a shed that is going to be the new art-space over the summer.

·         Bashed down a wall (and parts of the ceiling of the once-car-port) in preparation for our exciting building project/expansion, happening soon.

·         Pruned the grape-vine (Sydnee and I), and were overwhelmed by new insight on what it was that Jesus was talking about when he called himself the branch and us the branches. And oh man, the amount of stuff that gets cut off! You wouldn’t believe it uness you saw it yourself. I was convinced we were destroying the poor thing! We cut off every branch that was not the main branch, and it looks rather forlorn now. But Papa Ken assures us that cutting off all these excess branches means that all the vine’s resources are kept in the main vine, so that all of that good stuff is available for the production of fruit. Isn’t that amazing?! We get so caught up with all the branches of our lives, and we’re horrified when He tries to prune us! But it’s so good... it really will make us so much more fruitful, even if we feel very bare in the interim. I was reminded about what Kamran Yaraei told us this summer: that God never adds to us, He only unlocks what is already there, and removes what is unnecessary. And it is only really painful for us if we cling desperately to what we should just let go of...

Top left: before pruning. Top right: after pruning (neither of these are actually our grapevine! I forgot to take before and after pics!). Bottom: our grapevine, waiting patiently in the snow.

·         Done large amounts of gardening – digging, tilling, planting seeds in preparation for Spring, moving plants around.

·         Taken up water-colour lessons with Papa Ken. He is an incredible artist, and is patiently teaching us what he has learnt over his years of experimenting with the medium. He is teaching us that an artist is someone who is sensitive and aware, and who is able to express emotion in order to communicate with other people. My highlight: he tells us that good art is all about contrast – contrast is what enables us to see. Think of this – the contrast of the kingdom of God lived out in the midst of this world is what enables us to see. Oooh.

·         Started sharing and recording some of our songs and music ideas. We’ve worked the most so far on an AMAZING, happy-making song by Camryn. He heard about a song entitled “God keeps a record”, and instead of thinking about a grim-faced God keeping a list of our sins (or anything like that) his first thought was that God keeps a record on His turntable – and the chorus says, “I hope it’s me, I hope it’s me, I hope it’s me He’s dancing to!” :o) I wish you all could hear it... soon and very soon :o)

·         Visited the BEAUTEOUS Apple Hill Lodge in Moravian falls, where we rested and made space to meet with the Lord. I especially loved going for beautiful walks whilst listening to the new CD “On the Shores” full blast! One particularly windy walk became a God-time moment when a gust of wind surrounded me as I was listening to Jonathan’s lyrics: “I can hear a love song all around me when the wind blows. I can hear Your voice speak, it surrounds me when the leaves move. I’m just dust without Your breath. I’m just clay without Your kiss. I’m just skin and bones without Your wind in my lungs...”

·         Hung out a bit more with various members of our incredible staff, and learnt so much from each of them. We’ve also met with Matt Peterson (pastor of Awake, the church we go to in Winston-Salem), and Stephen Roach – with whom we’re diving into “The Wizard of Oz”, and allowing our imaginations to run riot. It constantly astounds me how much of God’s truth is waiting in sneaky places to pounce on you... in children’s books especially, I find!

·         Learnt to drive on the wrong (right-hand-side) of the road, with the gears on the right, and my poor left hand hitting the driver’s door every time I forget that fact and try to find the gears there...

·         Started reading through Madeleine L’Engle’s “Walking on Water” as interns, and Ann Voskamp’s “One Thousand Gifts” on our girls’ nights. Both of these are EXCELLENT, I highly recommend that you lay your hands on them... and don’t be put off by the covers (“One Thousand Gifts” especially. The kind of cover I wouldn’t want to go near, generally. But whip the dust-jacket off, and you’re golden).

·         Travelled to various churches for worship times. Us interns man the CD tables before and after these services, and this has gotten manic at times – especially with the excitement of the new CD. But this is also a really great opportunity to meet many lovely people :o) Worshipping with the family is always one of my absolute highlights. And I love that we pile into the van afterwards, and chat about what we loved as we head back home to our safe haven. This family places great value on the fact that we live our lives here, together as family, and after times of ministry we retreat into family again. This is where we long to know and be known, not up on a stage.

·         Learnt some new photography skills with David. So far we have experimented more with our Holgas, and have developed film and made prints from that. We have also started taking some photos with some far better quality photos (35mm too, not the 40mm Holga film), and will be making prints from those next week. I’m loving getting to do this stuff hands-on in our little dark-room!

·         Watched large amounts of Downton Abbey with Molly. This is now absolutely one of my favourite BBC period dramas. You need to see it if you haven’t yet!

·         Celebrated birthdays – Melissa’s with a beautiful candlelit dinner, and many words of appreciation over her. Cadence, Joshua and Camryn’s with a massive screen set up in the woods for playing Wii Mario Kart etc. Melissa’s birthday evening was the first (and only!) time it’s snowed here this winter. I am told this is very unusual! The snow made for a VERY happy and excited evening :o)

·         Pulled of an EXCEPTIONAL CD release! Of course, this has been one of the major highlights of the last few weeks. It was one of the most overwhelming and exciting nights I’ve ever had. The privilege of being joined to a family like this is that you get to partake in the inheritance of that family. Which means that even though us interns haven’t been around for the many years of sowing and hard work and sweat and toil and living and persevering and fighting and dreaming with Heaven that went into the CD... we got to experience the joy of it coming into being and being released to bless other people. We sang our hearts out, danced madly and rejoiced deeply because we felt the rich joy of the moment – we felt the weight and the privilege of God allowing His glory to shine out of our family. We got unique perspectives on the evening too... getting to be out in the lobby when the first wave of excited people arrived. Joining in the choir/gang vocals on some songs, to sing with everything in us! Getting to worship back-stage, with our family just metres away on stage, and the excitement and expectation of the crowd rolling in to us like waves. The evening started with Stephen Roach and some friends making some BEAUTIFUL music, and already ushering the crowd into worship... man, people were eager! And then John Mark McMillan came on with a small band, further opening up the way. Towards the end of his set, he started singing a line from Jonathan’s song “I’ve Seen I Am”, and you could feel honour and the Spirit rush into the room. One by one members of our family ended up joining him on stage, rounding out his skeleton band, and raising the roof with praise. It seemed like every one of us sang with all there was in us: “Open up you doors, you everlasting doors! Open up you gates, be lifted!” What an extraordinary way to begin the evening! This meant that right even before our family started to worship, people’s hearts were open and ready and willing. And oh my, did the Lord respond!

So that’s my attempt at a summary of the stuff we’ve DONE. But that doesn’t seem to even begin to cover what’s been going on INSIDE of me! The more I read of the Wizard of Oz, the more I feel like Dorothy, blown out of Kansas and finding herself in a new and remarkable land. But I also feel like the Cowardly Lion, who has tried to run out of the poppy field, but has been overwhelmed by the sweet fragrance, and put to sleep. How long have I been asleep amongst the poppies? How long will it take the sweet fresh breeze to fully revive me? There’s been a lot of adjusting to be done! for starters, it’s pretty WEIRD to be in a space where I don’t really have any leadership responsibilities! It’s been so many years of living in that space, that I’m having to relearn how to just be. Weird, but SO good. I think I’ve also been wrestling with: “what happens after August?!” It’s such a blank (and therefore intimidating) canvas. But I don’t want to be swallowed up with the ‘what-ifs’ when there’s so much that God is speaking in the present. And especially when I know that He is good, and that whatever happens after August will be good too, because He has said it is so. Lyrics to a new song of Jonny’s have been rocking my world lately.  

The chorus says (God speaking!): “I want these dreams even more than you. Faith is believing that I do.” I’m finding that this is a time for me to dream with God again – to allow Him to scrap my meagre ideas and wannabe plans, and remind me of things I once dreamt, and also breath new and wild dreams into me. Because the deepest desires of my heart are not things I have to hesitantly and pleadingly beg Him for. I don’t need to fear that they’ll never happen, or that they’ll be less than everything He’s promised... because as much as I’m keen to see and walk in those things, He is even more so! He placed them in me in the first place, and I choose to believe that He’s more excited and expectant than I am! We got to hear Heidi Baker a few nights back, and she spoke about Mary, who carried the promise of God to full term, not miscarrying it, or aborting it because it was inconvenient. Madeleine L’Engle talks about this too, in “Walking on Water” – the importance of saying “Yes Lord” to the overshadowing and favour of the Lord. L’Engle quotes Aristotle, who says, “that which is probable and impossible is better than that which is possible and improbable”.

I hear the Lord saying to me, “How far can you think? How big can you dream? How deep can you press into my heart for you? How much will you dare to ask me for?”