alter

Everyday I must surgically extract parts of my inner, delicate self - parts that seem to my mind and the world to be perfectly justified and far from wrong - and then I must lay them on an alter and brutally murder them.

You'll scoff and say that was a needlessly violent and overly dramatic way of expressing the process of surrender. But today I was profoundly challenged to sacrifice the one thing that I have held tightly to, loved, protected and raised for five whole years. Today I was Abraham, preparing to kill my Issac.

Today God pulled from my heart my love and gift of acting. He placed it before in a memorial of all my past performances. He replayed for me the tape-recording of my thoughts. He reread my 2007 revelation. He pressed and prodded the quivering thing that had become like my only son. He asked me, "do you love me enough to sacrifice even this?" And I spoke louder than Him and rolled off excuses and ranted and raved. I refused to answer and I huffed and whined. (As I often do).

But I know that following God means loving Him more than all that He can give me. Choosing Jesus means forsaking all others. Being used by the Father means letting Him choose how. And dying to myself, my flesh, means sacrificing the very thing that seems to make me who I am.

Even as I write this, I am grieving. My heart is aching like a childless mother.

I know that God may choose to give this gift back to me. He may call me back to the stage to serve and glorify Him. He may indeed stop me the moment before I plunge that knife into this beloved creature. And though that it is my hope, I and mine must make the trek to the top of the mountain, simply and completely for love.

gaze

"Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor."

- Ezekiel 28:17

I am beautiful, inside and out. But only because I am reflecting Beauty itself. My beauty is not my own, nor my own creation. When I look at myself, I must choose to remember that what I am really seeing is the youthful, romantic, delicate face of my own God. 

When I watch another girl sweep past - confident, effortless, breath-taking - I must choose to remember it is a borrowed beauty, from the same Beauty that resides in me. 

I must take captive thoughts that fight to deny what God has spoken as truth over my very soul. I must make these stubborn, joy-dampening thoughts obedient to Christ. If He has called me beautiful then indeed I am, for He cannot lie. 


"The only things we can keep are the things we freely give to God. What we try to keep for ourselves is just what we are sure to lose."

- C. S. Lewis

I must resolve to use what has been given to me for the glory of the King. Pride teaches me to use my beauty for my purposes, but the Spirit asks me to point all gazes in His direction.

speak

"Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen."
- Ephesians 5:29


God, we give you our words:

spoken, written, whispered, dreamt.

Forgive us for the deep grooves and slices they have once made.

Forgive us for the shame, pain and anger they have aroused in our neighbours,

(whether intentional or not).

Redeem our tongues. Bring them under your authority once again.

Fill our mouths with grace and love,

that every utterance that departs them may glorify you and uplift your people.

Teach us the mystical words that encourage, heal, and love.

Help us to bite our tongues, and to not speak out of turn.

May we die to all prideful desires to speak and be heard.

Remind us that some things must remain sacred secrets between the two spirits within us.

Show us the things that we are shrouding with silence that must be thrust into the light.

Give us wisdom and discernment to know which is which.

May we not stifle a single word that is of you.

May we not give voice to a single word of dark evil, no matter how innocent.

May we honour you with your gift of language and literature. May we write and sing and shout continuous words of exaltation and beauty.

But, Lord, teach us also how to not speak. 

Teach us to come before you with a speechless, teachable and listening heart.

Show us what holy silence is.

Jesus, you are the One true Word. Humble us.

Amen.