Something strange has happened the past few months. Come on over to (in)courage and let me tell you about it!

The property here with this rock house has many old buildings. The outhouse is at the very back with a tree through the seat. It’s caddywompus, leaning in the same direction as the chicken house. Once upon a time this place had chickens and was a tomato cannery. Now the antique tin waves in the wind. The tool shed is hanging with iron pulleys rusted to hooks. Strangely shaped jars are full of spiders and nails. I’ve loved it that way for so long.

When Grandma lived here, the small coy pond was lined in black-eyed susans and coneflowers. The azaleas were huge, pruned and watered like a woman had made it her day job. And she had.

Now the entire place is tangled in honeysuckle. I don’t love honeysuckle any more. I pull it away like a rope around the neck of my roses. The lilacs still overcome, peeking purple heads out and filling our yard with rich perfume. The wisteria droops way up high from a towering tree. Theses plants, especially the lily bulbs, may be at least 60 years old.

Our boys are the 6^th generation to have lived in this house. Grandma planted the yellow roses during World War II while Grandpa was in Italy, the Grandpa with a purple heart who held my firstborn and wept.

But I didn’t know that when I started praying Kingdom Come how it would trump my other requests, even in my own heart. Part of asking the Kingdom here as it is in Heaven is asking for debts to be pardoned: accounts balanced, hurts forgiven, everything aimed at Jubilee.

It wasn’t our plan, but we own two houses – one where friends rent, and this rock house property. I’ve asked Him to do what He does in His strange way to set us free, and then Seth got an email from a very nice family asking if they could buy the Rock House.

They came from far away to view it, twice. And as they were making a decision, our friends in our other house decided to buy that house, too.

I walked the property, crawled through the chicken house, squished my mud boots in the horse field. I buried my face in the lilacs and stood still. The bees and the train whistle.

There’s an ache, but I am not sad, not one little lick.

I packed photographs. What meant to be a ten minute project turned into an hour. One by one, I noted the smoother skin on faces I love. Our lives are beautiful. On to the next thing, and it will be beautiful, too – such a lily, then gone.

I hope to be writing my book in the Fall, settled into a new house. We immediately found one that we love. The thing about it though is that we have to move into it before the end of May! That explains why I have disappeared from the webbernets. My brain is a scramble of furniture and what’s for supper and bow and yard sale and Man boy boy boy boy.

My extroverted heart has sucked up inside itself and has made roughly 67 lists of things to do. I also got the kind of sick that happens when you haven’t rested, the kind where you only use your voice to horse whisper scream that the baby is asleep.

I’ll have a few guest posts, and I’ll write a few, too, but these parts will be mostly quiet. I can’t wait to show you my new house and to settle into a good spot to write. I’ll have an office. I haven’t had a room of my own since I was in high school. It’s a complex, happy thing, but it’s pretty simple, too – all temporary. Let’s hold it, love it, and let it run right through our blessed fingers.

Kingdom Come.

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Working through what I processed in Part 1 of Let the Game Changer Change the Game has been such a leap toward freedom for me. I’m still working it out, so Part 2 of this conversation is over at (In)Courage today about Hope for the Rejected.

“My Great Grandmother was a young maid for a wealthy farm owner, and she got pregnant, just a young thing, before she was married.”

That was the teaser, so head on over yonder and read the rest.

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Old friends, I feel like we’re on a roller coaster, but a good one. Are you doing okay? Let me know in all the secret ways we do. I like the facebook conversations and messages a bunch. New friends, please come on to Facebook and join us!

I walk up to the edge of a canyon and hear “jump,” and I see with my eyes that I can’t make it across. “Jump!” He says, but I’m held to the ground by fear of a million things. One by one I cut free, naming and turning. Letting go – lighter and lighter. Before I have it in me to be afraid, my feet lift. When I undo from the weight, I’ve gone over the edge, and I fly.

The night I lost my cousin, I went to an All Sons and Daughters concert and sat throbbing during the song “All the Poor and Powerless.” My Jeremiah was gone, and the song said, “Go on and tell it to the masses / That He is God / We will sing out / Hallelujah.” Jude had fallen asleep in my lap, and I soaked his shirt, we in that pew, telling Jesus we would all tell of His great love for us. So much of me had said NO for so long.

It’s been about 10 weeks since, I think, and I’ve stood at the edge uncurling my fingers. Some days I tighten my grip, but other days I am released. When we sang that song, I broke. Then in my processing how to let go of my need to be accepted by others, my friend asked me what I was so afraid of. I know that ministry is hard. It will hurt, and what if no one ministers back to me?

I knew immediately that the LORD Himself would minister to me. He gives endurance, peace, hope, compassion, comfort, and Love. When from God, these things do not go away – even with fire, even in all the pouring out.

Last night was my first time to speak to a large crowd. I sat on a stool and had a podium and a mic. I said it outright that I was totally nervous. I had waves of fear and tall waves of peace. But then when I began to speak, I looked in the eyes of all those beautiful college babies, and I loved them so much. I told them everything hard and wonderful that I knew in the moment, how I didn’t know what I was doing.

I didn’t do a spectacular job, and I know some things to change for next time, but I promise the Holy Spirit used my lack. Some sat with me on the edge of our seats like cliffs at a canyon. Do we plunge? Do we live in darkness or in the light? Do we ride the wings or do we plummet? Either way, we’re going over.

When the band came back up, I sat to worship. In that moment I desperately wanted to hear someone, or everyone, say that I had done well, but then I asked Jesus to minister to me instead.

The one leading the band with the young Sean Hayes voice was up there for his very first time, too. And what song did he lead last, after I asked the Lord to come to me? He played “All the Poor and Powerless,” the song that broke me, the one that sent me out. The crowd was extra big, and they all sang, and I knew that’s all I ever wanted was to hear them sing Hallelujah. The young man prayed at the end, and his voice trembled. We were moved, and it was never me. Never ever.

A girl came to believe last night. I know that the invisible work He calls us to do will last forever. We’re going over. Kingdom Come.

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This may be one of the best weeks of my life. I keep having new beginnings. That how it is with Jesus. New every day. It sounds cliche until it’s not.

Yesterday I texted my dear friend/therapist and called for a session STAT. I seriously didn’t feel like I could wait another minute to get rid of my junk. I needed her to help me process through the layers of this idolatry to acceptance, through all the fear of rejection. I released expectations I’ve had toward others, my family and friends. I released my expectations and fear and how I have desperately longed to find my fit with others.

Continuing to work throughout the day to forgive and understand where I’ve really been accepted, I let go and sent away so much of what has hindered me, and in the place of those void things, I received something beautiful.

I received a love I haven’t felt in a long time, not just from the Father toward me, but also from the Father toward the world. My boys. You. I fell in love again, yesterday.

Suddenly I remember the point of this whole thing – not in the way that gives a clean answer, but rather in the way that is overwhelmed, broken even.

Suddenly I knew that all the times someone had encouraged me or claimed me or shown me approval, all those times it was God Who Moves Through with His love for me. Suddenly we were all vessels again. I filled up and started running over. This is freedom.

When I picked the boys up from school, I grabbed a book and commissioned the boys to keep the baby from falling in the fish pond. We let the sun touch our skin. We felt rocks and tree bark. We counted the wild violet blooms. This week, I have set aside all the wrong ways I’ve carried burdens, and I have taken deep breaths, asking God for more and more of Him. I’m making room. I’m taking “jars of clay” back from the band. I’m taking it and knowing my heart.

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us” (2 Cor. 4:7).

I am not the magic. A certain friend or group of women, they are not the magic. Neither marriage nor church are the power. But every smack one of us can be full of it. The power that surpasses time, space, and all these flammable things, it is in God alone. The Love is from God. The Love is God. By Him, For Him, and through Him.

When some of you wrote me messages on Facebook the other day, that changed my heart, too. I see you as sheep with me. I see you as one pouring out. I see you as a minister of the gospel. I do – whether you know that about yourself or not.

My Ian, too, is a minister. He asked me to put my work down. He said, “Mama, I think it’s time to make cookies.” So we did. When I set the timer, he said, “I know what we can do while we wait. We can dance.” And so we did.

For God so loved the world that this is what He gave …

His son, His glory, all, and it doesn’t stop with me or you or with future generations. He gives, and then we give back to Him. All Glory. All Power. Kingdom Come.

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