light

In the beginning was the WORD

the WORD was with God....was God...was with God in the beginning.

that WORD -God- created everything.

Life in it's truest form was in Him.

Was Him.

This life, life that existed purely in Him

gave light.

To everyone.

Everyone.

This light, which is Life, which is Him,

shines thru darkness.

Pierces it.

Darkness can't get rid of it.

Which means darkness can't exist when Light is present.

This Light, this Life, is Christ.

Where Christ is, darkness isn't.

Simple truth.

profound reality.

When Tragedy Hits Home

You never know how your reaction will be

to this loss of life.

Truck and man meeting for the first and last time,

and this, this meeting on impact taking

Life.

Life cut short. On purpose.

the sucker punch to us who loved deeply.

Thoughts spinning of coulda.shoulda.woulda

grasping at hope lost

for Soul is gone to location unknown.

a little bit of Crazy

Some days I feel crazy.

I know some days I look crazy.

I have been told over the last 7 years that I am crazy.

I do crazy things.

I have crazy ideas

I make crazy irrational and illogical decisions based on nothing but what I'm told.

I trust one voice and try my best to listen to it.

I am ridiculously horrible at being a "good steward" and saving my money,

Because I am crazy, and have this uncontrollable urge to give it all away.

I cry like a crazy woman over things that make no sense, and suffer from heart ache for people I don't even know.

I uprooted my family and we've been on a crazy journey that placed us 4 hours from everything we've ever known

I only ever read one book....over and over and over and over and over and over again

Music is food to me. I eat it all the time. and it fills me up!

I take a stand against things that other people don't have a problem with.

I am crazy enough to think that we are no alone here on Planet Earth.

It makes me sad when crazy people start to get un-crazy. I think its called complacent...

I have this crazy desire to make more people crazy

I trust in something that is so BIG it surrounds me, yet so small, it fits in my heart,

So old it has all the answers, yet so new that I can forever keep learning,

Something that can both precede me AND follow me.

I am crazy enough to let love control me.

I hope your Crazy too.

"If it seems that we are crazy, it is to bring Glory to God. And if we are in our right minds, it is for your benefit. Whatever we do, it is because Christ's love controls us."

-2 corinthians 5:13 and 14-

Linking with Imperfect Prose

Broken

I was Broken.

Ripped in half it seemed.

Months of life giving words spilt on the floor like sour milk, creating mess and stink and boy is it hard to clean up.

A mess I never knew existed until asking why. Why Silence. Why the change.

Faced with Answers.

Answers that wouldn't have existed, but for stubbornness and miss understanding, leading to unforgiving and then Silence.

And now I wait. I can do nothing but ask again and again for forgiveness.

For something I never knew about.

Friends, I urge you, If you have an issue with someone dear to you, talk to them. Don't let the sun go down again without working it out. Ruined relationship happen because no one says anything. And well, its just not worth it.

Linking with Imperfect Prose

Honesty

Friends, just so you know, I am not depressed like this sounds. This piece is merely a collection of thoughts and battles that I have faced over a lifetime and am still facing today. For some reason, God is bringing it all up again...and so I write because that seems the only outlet right now...

Heartache comes so easy.

The more I've given, the more it seems there is ripped away.

Or is it?

Could it be that I have over analyzed everything, read everything wrong, perhaps placed too much expectation where it didn't belong. I don't think so, yet I can't help believing the result is my fault and I am not worth the investment I was once given.

Why do I have such a low opinion of myself, not placing worth where is belongs?

Why do I believe lies spoon fed to me?

Why does this matter to me?

How can I grow beyond?

So much going on in my head but no answers to the questions tumbling to and fro.

With every lack, the reminder of what used to be stings. And with no rhyme or reason to why, the unknown lingers like a heavy blanket on my mind, tormenting my thoughts, suffocating life in places I did not know exist till darkness crept in to smother it.

Darkness....in desperate need of light. Light to shine in, shine on and birth Joy.

(and for my mind to stop over exaggerating an outcome that hasn't even happened.)

Linking with Imperfect Prose

life and questions

Life.

So many questions

What happened to it, the normal-ness that I had depended on?

When did it become spun out, wrung out, filled up and dumped out, washed up, spread out, stacked up and rebuilt?

All that seems bad, but really, its not.

Because as life has been turned around for me, I have turned with it. When I stopped clinging and released what I thought I wanted, God started to weave a fantastic story, one that I could never have written myself!

He is Good that way, isn't he.

We left our home on June 13th to go live in one bedroom with another family of 4. 8 people in small house, and in this house God has created unity of the biblical kind. In breaking bread together, in sharing our belongings, in caring for each other and for our kids, we see what the body of Christ is meant to be....together. We see what love is meant to be....open.

Other equally good things have come from this shifted life.

My oldest son, the timid one, is not so timid anymore. Our step in faith jump started a daring adventureful spirit in him. And I Praise God for that!

The vehicle we drive that was bought for us with specific conditions has been given to us as a permanent gift.

That peace that surpasses all understanding, that guards and protects your soul? Ya, we have that.

The ministry that both my husband and I are involved in is evolving beyond our expectations

God has used our story to encourage and challenge others to step out in faith, into what God is calling them to do.

We are able to bless another couple just starting on their journey of life together by loaning them our house until it sells.

And as we have been living this crazy life, I am reminded every day of God's faithfulness, for He does not forget us. As we have lived in this one bedroom home of ours, we have continued to pray that God sells our house in our old town.

He hasn't

Instead he has now provided a new place for us, one we can afford while we are still paying for our old house. So as of September 1st, we step out yet again.

There have been so many questions as to why our place hasn't sold, and what's going to happen next, but honestly

I've stopped asking them.

Because I don't really need the answers.

Linking with Imperfect Prose

Home

I have been doing a lot of thinking about home this week.

See, 2 weeks ago this was my home.

<-------

and now this is my home

<-------

literally this.

one bedroom

4 people.

And yet neither place is really mine.

The house is for sale, and in a town 3 and a half hours away, and I will never reside there again.

The room is in the basement of someone else's house, and therefore not really mine.

Which leaves me with one conclusion.

I'm homeless.

Now don't miss understand me here...I am not homeless in the definition we've created for the word, because I do have 4 walls around me and a roof over my head. I have food to eat and plenty of cloths to wear, but really, do all those things equal a home?

I have decided that they don't.

I have lived for 2 weeks surrounded by stuff,

and yet

I am home-less

Less a home. Less means without.

But Melissa, you say, Home is where the Heart is.

Is it? Really? If so, then where is my heart?

Where?

I've thought about that a lot today, and have come to the conclusion that

it is not here.

It is not at my old home.

It is not anywhere on this planet Earth.

For my heart is in another world, and its owner is Jesus.

So this homelessness that I feel, this longing for a place of my own....

What is it?

Am I longing for a place to call my own?

In part, yes.

But I wonder, could it be that the longing for "home" has always been there, but now, stripped bare and standing with nothing, I now notice it?

Just something to think about.

linking with Imperfect Prose

"Birds have nests, foxes have dens
But the hope of the whole world rests
On the shoulders of a homeless man
You had the shoulders of a homeless man
And the world can't stand what it can't own
And it can't own You
'Cause You did not have a home"

-Rich Mullins