If only for myself...Eucharisteo

Eucharisteo: The Daily Pursuit To Recognize His Blessings

1. Wet headed little girls singing...
2. My mother...ever giving...
3. Community...
4. Conversations...
5. God whispers at the end of the day..."Just come to me"...
6. Texts to my Best Friend of inspiration and a Savior...
7. Chinese right out of the carton after a day of starving...
8. Heart of Eucharisteo through the fog of life...
9. Moonlit car rides home...
10. Health...
11. My Father...ever kind...
12. Nine year old gangly legs and heart all wrapped around me...
13. Hope...
14. Joy rising...
15. His Words...ever true...
16. Holidays...bright...
17. Dreams coming to fruition...
18. Peace...
19. Music...sweet music...
20. Quilts...
21. Six year old baby girls who worry about the little girls asking Santa for food that are hungry...
22. Big hearts...
23. Freedom...mind, body, soul...
24. Grace for the times I feel inadequate...
25. And Love...glorious Love...in all forms...

I am ever so blessed.

When overwhelmed and tired...all I must do is practice Eucharisteo and I am set free from earthly chains...

Grace n Peace,

A ~

Screwing up = Teachable Raft Rides :-)

I just finished Hebrews. The last chapter was beautiful. Full of truths that I loved and thought about expounding on...but I felt...nothing.

I sat here. I felt nothing. My mind...feels tired. I feel like today I might have not been very present for many parts.

I'm not sure exactly why...except that when my life is busy...I have to make a conscious choice to pursue presence.

I've been slammed. Then there's the incessant chatter of my 6 year old. Music to my ears...laughter to my soul...but right about eight o'clock now...I'm craving solitude.

I'm learning to recognize when I'm a little out of touch with myself and Him...

The day flies by and I can't remember poignant moments where I stopped and marveled at Him...

I spend the day doing "busy" work and no "spirit" work...

I sit down too late too tired to really fully digest His word and I'm struck again by my humanness...

These are the moments I find I'm teachable...these are the moments He ushers me back to meaning...to presence...

He sits with me on the leather couch and reminds me that I'm not this world's...I'm His...

All the while reminding me He loves me...because I'm fallible...I'm faulty...I'm imperfect...

I have to live in this world...I need communion with others...I need to listen to my little girls and hear their thoughts even with pounding head...

I need to give myself to chores and laundry with cheer and thankfulness...these too can be acts of worship...

I truly believe anything we do with gratefulness to the Father can be formed into worship...

It's a beautiful thing. 


This ebb and flow.


This grace river I float in with God.

He leads me and when I begin to go adrift...he grabs my raft and pulls me back to the deeper rapids where I can continue to move forward...where this a current of Him...

This is the beauty of failing some days...failure results in teachable spirits...

When he pulls me back I'm reminded I'm a nobody...a flub...and what's incredibly startling is that this is comforting...I'm actually comforted that I'm a flub...a screw up...because that means I'm still acutely aware I can never survive the ride without Him...

For this reminder...I am grateful this day...


For failures past and present...I accept with grace today...


For the rapids He pulls me back into...I rejoice...


Because this all means my spirit and soul are alive in Him...

Glorious.

Grace n Peace,

A ~

Retinas and Peace

Sun gazers. I watched a documentary on: Sun gazers.

Sun gazers are a group of really dedicated individuals that stare into the sun in the hopes of finding peace, tranquility, and appetite control. No seriously. Appetite control.

I watched these people stand barefoot across America and stare into the sun in what seemed to be a very Zen like state waiting for their peace. I have to admit I was captivated. At the end of the documentary, the young man filming went to have his eyes examined after a few months of sun gazing.

He had permanently damaged his retinas.

I turned to my father and said (yes I know...cliche') "People are desperate for deeper meaning and peace."

There have been times in my life where I'm pretty sure I might have tried Sun gazing if it would have given me peace. I think we've all had those times.

You want relief. You've tried everything to calm the storm and...well...IT AIN'T WORKIN'!

I'm reading Hebrews right now. VERY. SLOWLY.  Hebrew's requires digesting...thought...pondering...GOOGLING...

I'm trying to reap truths out of it one verse slowly at a time...

Tonight I was reading in chapter 12 and the subject of peace arose...I read it. I re-read it. I read it thrice.

"Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord."


OK...hold up...did He say that I will not see the Lord if I do not live in peace? Really?

(Yeah holiness too but the purpose of this blog is peace)

Then as I'm typing it hits me...OK so I MUST live peaceable with all people...OK I generally do that...I love all types...I think I've got that down...

But wait...aren't I a "people"?

Does it mean that if I am not peaceable with myself that I will not see my Lord? Out there I know...

But let's talk straight...Don't we really war with ourselves more than we war with others most of the time?

How about this scenario of the mind: You can't do that. You're used up. You're damaged. You've got nothing left to offer.

Or this one: You're stuck. Utterly stuck. This place you're in today...man you'll always be RIGHT HERE.

Maybe you roll this way: I don't need to surrender. If I can predict this situation by ruminating on every possible outcome I can control the events of my life.


Anything connect? I hope you are much more evolved than I am. I hope you never war with yourself.

But if you do...maybe God wanted us to know that if we war with ourselves...if we are not at peace with ourselves...if we attack ourselves...We are against Him.

Because He is IN us.

I'm a big believer in surrender. I just have found for me...it's truly the only way. When my days of wonderment and pondering of all things futuristic and question-marked come...I've learned to surrender.

I don't have to fill in the blanks. I don't have to make everyone happy. I don't have to solve every problem.

I do have to live in peace.

If He is in me...peace is in me.

If I am at war...I'm replacing Him with an idol of self-reliance.

It doesn't take me very long any more to surrender quickly...I'd rather spend my days chasin' dreams and the perfect tree than trying to solve where I'll be in 10 years. It's all good. He's got me.

He's IN me.

I wish I had the digits to those poor people burning up their retinas in search of peace...I think I could save them spotty vision and frustration...

Grace n Peace,

A ~

Incarnational Living

Living Incarnational.

I've never ever thought of this in terms of myself and my own little life. Let me explain.

I'm reading Margaret Feinberg's book "The Organic God". She writes of the incarnational way God lived out his life on earth through the son Jesus. One line she writes rocks me to the core, "He was literally born into the stench of this world, and he embraced those in it." Feinberg goes on to relate this to our lives and living "incarnational" with the world. Purposeful. Somewhat painful.

I think of the woman I heard about on my hospital floor yesterday...40 years old...bleeding profusely from her rectum. Doctors have searched for a diagnoses for a year...they found one: Terminal Cancer. All throughout her body.

I think of the little girl in my babies school. She is cross eyed. Poor I would imagine since her clothes are too small....full of life...hyper even. She runs to me every time I come to eat lunch with Laine. She is desirous of love.

I think of my brother. My sweet brother. My wreck of a brother. (He would tell you this.) High-maintenance sometimes...yet filled with the biggest heart you can imagine. Addicted. Broken. Hard. Yet tears filled his eyes with every sentence as I sat on the floor beneath his chair on thanksgiving...just listening.

I think of my children. Bright. Beautiful. Full lives ahead. Broken by abandonment. Hurt by adults that were too attuned to selfishness rather than innocence. I hear their stories, I hold their hands...weep inwardly and try to help them sort the pain. Pray in dark car rides home for them...fill their days with hope and their minds with a Father that does not abandon and will always love...

And I connect with the process of incarnational living...I get it...Christ showed us the way. He showed us with lepers touched...women healed of hemorrhage...disloyal disciples...misunderstood prostitutes...rich rulers that deserved snubbing for injuring the poor...

He lived dirty. He felt the pain. He walked among them even when it broke His heart. Incarnational.

My prayer today is that I can continue to evolve incarnationally...to reach out more even in the midst of my own chaotic over scheduled life...to drop all when the need arises and get dirty...Incarnational. Living.

Grace n Peace,

A ~

Quietness and Confidence...

"For thus says the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel; In returning and rest shall you be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: but you would not." Isaiah 30:15 The call came in...I was astounded...heartbroken...simmering...appalled... Outcomes were incomprehensible... Broken, angry, and in need of justice I took a moment...stood in the bathroom at work and spoke to Him... Surrendered...again...this situation has been surrendered over and over for quite some time...yet here I stood again...cold tile...sterile environment of the hospital matching the sterile black and white feeling of injustice and the need for an ethical resolution... So...I surrendered...for I've learned that surrender is the only way...the only way to empty myself of longings that although ethical and justified impair my judgements and sensibilities to act as a Christ follower...longings to lash against the blackness of the evil imparted...longings to cave and feel victimized... I spoke words of worship in my soul throughout the day...replaced anger with praise...begged for purity within while shuffling patients through the system and answering call lights... Then it came...He came...in the form of a tweet...Isaiah the prophet...words from old ring true to my soul..."In quietness and trust is your strength..." Riveted...heart and head spun...I stopped....wrote the verse on an index card to remind...and marinated in the truth of this... I had no need to defend...I had no need to impart justice...I stood secure...In my Savior that imparts my justice, needs, and favor through His love and unmerited grace...I am HIS. Since that day...I've lived again surrendered in this situation...aware of the solid backing of truth...no words or justice need to be imparted by me...I am not victimized..I am free...I am whole...I live in quietness and trust...blind faith really... Because. He. IS.  That. Is. Enough. I need nothing more than my Savior. I possess no need to create justice for myself. He is the ultimate justice of the surrendered. Grace n Peace, A ~

And We Walked...

Today I walked with my girls...we trampled through leaf strewn roads and soft ground...we climbed trees and touched hearts...we touched the divine...It was perfect...

The poem below I penned quickly so as not to ever forget this perfect day...

"We Walked..."

We walked side by side...

One tall two small...

Leaves chasing our heels...wind blowing away cares...

We walked...

Stick in hand of the littlest...

Thoughts in head of the oldest...

Gratefulness in my heart for this...moment...

We walked...

Trees beckoning to be climbed...

We heeded...

Tall on it's branches we climbed and stood...

We paused...

Stories of the old tree beneath us...

We dreamed...

Connection of spirit to spirit...

We paused...

Drawn back to our legs...

Thoughts of our home...

Scampered down we did...

Then we walked...

Stopping to twirl in the road...

Mental pictures I took...

Filled with Joy unspeakable...

We walked...

One day I will be less than I am today...

They will hold my hand to steady me...

We will remember this day of dreams and youth...

And we will walk...

Grace n Peace,

A ~

The First Picture of Grace

I find the love of God to be so perplexing and amazing all at the same time...

I fight to be clean enough to gain it...

Then, I ultimately shun it through my humanity...

I draw close...I run away...

But the closer I grow to Him...I realize the depth...cliche as it may sound....the depth of this God love...

Reading in Genesis this morning, I read the story of the forbidden fruit. God clearly told Adam and Eve "Eat of the fruit and you will surely die."

Surely die.

Not maybe.

Not possibly.

Surely.

Then we see the story play out as Eve is so drawn by what she cannot have that she partakes of the fruit...inviting Adam to indulge with her. They partake...become aware of their nakedness and humanity...and thus the first story of humanity running from God begins.

Yet...God.

This "Surely you will die" God...paints the very first picture of grace.

I can't believe I never caught this before...check it out.

So God has warned Adam and Eve that should they eat the fruit they will die. Yet he comes to them...calls out to them in the garden...and talks to them...calls them out of their hiding place.

This all powerful Creator of humanity...able to create another obedient Adam and and Eve and demolish the first set...talks to them.

He relates to them.

He corrects them.

God allows them to have scars and further pain that will remind them to not eat of the forbidden again...

YET...they DO NOT DIE.

Grace. Unmerited love and favor.

Grace.

God has been painting His love and grace since the beginning of the world. Did Adam and Eve eventually die? Sure. But He extended grace to those wayward children and loved them through the pain  they created for Him.

Rather than exercising His word to kill these wayward children...God first relates to them...explains to them...corrects them...THEN continues to love them...

Blows my mind.

Excites my soul. 

Spurns me to grasp it further, spread it farther, engage it deeper. 

God. LOVES. Me. 

Enough to put up with sin since the garden so He could meet me...caress my soul...engage me...and walk with me...

I plan to get the word out today of this God love...not in the form of tracts and free Bibles...but in lunches with growing child disciples...in smiles at the grocery store...in practiced presence with Him...

I pray I can engage someone to feel this God love...

With Joy and light to the earth...

Grace n Peace,

A ~