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Iain & Donna's Place, a couple of Oregon MennonitesWalking Simply with our Lord; Simply walking with our Lord. |
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July 02 Happy fourth of July I love this country. I love the diversity of its people, its terrain, and its spirit. I love my little corner of this country where I have been blessed to make a peaceful home. I love my neighbours, both near and distant. I think that the principles and morals this country was founded upon are sacrosanct and hallowed. I am proud of the heroics of its ordinary men and women. I am proud of the ways we have helped one another, and those who have needed our help.
I am also acutely aware of our failings. And even though I will celebrate the fourth of July with heartfelt gratitude and joy. I also know that my first and primary allegiance is to the Lord who makes true Freedom possible.
Happy fourth of July everyone!
Iain
June 30 Your laugh for the day...Stolen from Addi's DinerPUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
Due to recent economic crisis,
stock market crash, budget
cuts, and the rising cost of
everything, including taxes:
"The Light at the End of The
Tunnel" has been turned off.
Sorry for the inconvenience... June 25 Intimacy with God I have been asked to lead the worship service Thursday night and as I was trying to figure out what to do with that (a preacher I'm not!),
I started thinking about our intimacy (or lack thereof) with God. There is a great quote from Henry Nouwen "The spiritual life is one in which you gradually learn to listen to a voice that says something else, that says, "You are the beloved and on you my favour rests"...I want you to hear that voice. It is not a very loud voice because it is an intimate voice. It comes from a very deep place. It is soft and gentle. I want you to gradually hear that voice. We both have to hear that voice to claim for ourselves that that voice speaks the truth, our truth. It tells us who we are. That is where the spiritual life starts - by claiming the voice that calls us the beloved".
So, what is your most intimate moment with God? Did you know that in the Bible the Hebrew verb "to know" is the same verb used to describe intercourse? At the risk of sounding heretical...the intimacy that God desires with us is the spiritual equivalent of physical intercourse. In fact God Himself tells us that human marriage is a picture of our relationship with God. Jesus Christ became incarnate for only one reason; so that He could make a way for us to be what He created us to be...His friends, His lovers, His intimates. Only in Christ could this ever be possible.
Can you describe your most intimate moment with God? What was it like? How did it feel to be that close to Him? What made it possible? Why was it more intimate than other times? How did you feel afterwards?
After being sick for several weeks and then being admitted to the hospital for emergency abdominal surgery, I was weak and exhausted. I woke up in the ICU with an NG tube, an insulin IV, an antibiotic IV, two drains, a catheter and heart monitors running every direction. I was in a great deal of pain. I remember just feeling overwhelmingly tired. My blood pressure was 79/43. I was groggy from the surgical anesthetic and still in immense pain. They were reluctant to give me any pain medication because the my low blood pressure and slow breathing. The nurses repeatedly throughout the night had to awaken me and get me to breath enough to stay alive.
After struggling to remember to breathe and then struggling with respiratory therapy to prevent pneumonia, the Lord brought a song into my mind and heart. He told me (no I don't and didn't hear audible voices!) just to relax and let Him do the work...that He had given me breath in the first place and that all I had to do was let Him give it to me now (The spiritual implications of that are as obvious to me as the physical ones). So I laid back and let Him clear my lungs...not so much as a spectator, but as a passive participant...it was still my body breathing and lungs expanding, but it was not my strength or ability moving it. I had neither. My physical body was spent and had pretty much given up.
The song is called "Breath of Heaven". I can't describe how much the gift of that song meant to my spiritually...and physically, or how it felt to be so completely powerless and dependent on a God whom I'd always seen as the stern distant, not quite angry, but certainly not warm, accessible and loving (that was Jesus' job after all). A God, who in my lowest moment gave me His own breath to breathe in the most awesome display of His power to do so, and His infinite tenderness. God knew that I was completely powerless to help myself, and like the true parent He is, He just took over and did for me what I could not do for myself (again, the spiritual implications are loud and clear). I still shake my head at the reality and the memory of it.
And I will grant you skeptics that I was physically more dead than alive, that I was heavily under the influence of whatever anesthetics and painkillers I was being pumped full of, but you will never convince me that what I experienced was not just as real as the pain I was feeling, nor that my imagination dreamed up some kind of God-experience.
The song "Breath of Heaven" is actually a Christmas song. It is a story told from Mary's point of view as she begins to give birth to the Saviour Jesus. After I had recovered sufficiently so that I could sit up in bed and write, I re-worked the lyrics to the song to reflect the perspective of a man struggling with the dual realities of living in the real world and whether or not God was trustworthy at all. In case you are wondering; He is. Here are the re-worked lyrics with apologies to the writer of the song.
Breath of Heaven
(re-worked lyrics 1/25/2009)
I have traveled
Many moonless nights
cold and weary
with no end in sight
and I wonder what I've done
Holy Father what I've done
for this silence & grief
that won't be released
I am waiting in a silent prayer
I am frightened by the loads I bear
in a world as cold as stone
must I walk this path alone
be with me now
I've traveled so far
Breath of heaven
hold me together
be forever near me now
Breath of heaven
Breath of heaven
lighten my darkness
pour over me Your holiness
fill me with Your
breath of heaven
Do you wonder
as you watch my face
if a wiser one
should have had my place
one who would offer all to You
and then trust what You
say and do
Help me be strong
Help me be strong
Help me...Breath of heaven
But you found me as You said You would
Lit the stars and
led me close
back to Your arms
And I wonder at Your love
Holy Father
You have come
and Carry Your son
close to Your heart
Breath of heaven
Hold me together
Be forever near me now
Breath of heaven
Breath of heaven
lighten my darkness
pour over me Your holiness
Fill me with Your
Breath of heaven.
So that was probably my most intimate moment with God. Write me and let me know yours.
Iain
June 17 Nothing much exciting Donna has been enjoying her time off. She has already gotten the plants pruned, and dozens of other jobs around the yard she wanted to get to. It looks great. I have finished splitting the green wood for next fall so it is drying in racks in the wood area. The garden is growing nicely although we are fighting raccoons, squirrels and slugs for the privilege! Our cherry tree is putting out a bumper crop of cherries and if we are lucky we'll have a fighting chance for some of those against the birds. The apple tree is also completely covered with tiny apples. I am going to have to really thin them if we are to get any that are of good size this fall.
I got to sleep in this morning. It felt so good after getting up at 3:30 AM all week. I need to mow the lawn and do a few small things around the house, but other than that my day is my own. We are getting all of our gear ready to do some "weekend" (Mine's mid-week) camping and hiking, and we've already planned our McKenzie River whitewater raft run for the year. We'll be doing it early so that the water is a bit higher.
The horses have gotten their shoes and are ready to take on the 4H and other kids for the summer. Melissa has horse camps planned to keep them all busy. We are hoping to at least visit with Melissa soon, though she's going to be busy for sure.
Guess I'll go mow the lawn. Have a good rest of your week.
Iain June 09 The Power of Hope Dr. Karl Menninger, co-founder of the famed Meninger's Mental Hospital in Topeka, Kansas, tells a remarkable story about the power of hope in his book "The Vital Balance". His brother Wil was among the first group of doctors to visit Buchenwald's Nazi concentration camp after it was liberated by the Allies during World War II. Against all odds, several dozen prisoner-physicians had not only survived, but linked up and formed a kind of unearthly medical society. These doctors, along with tens of thousands of other prisoners stood in the shivering 4 A.M. roll calls, endured hard labour under unspeakable conditions, and consumed their cold bowl of gruel at the end of the day.
Now comes the unbelievable. After the other prisoners fell into exhausted sleep, these emaciated doctors would get up and huddle together to talk. They shared information, prepared and delivered papers on medical topics and set up a clandestine clinic to treat their fellow prisoners. They begged, bribed, and even stole what medical supplies they could from their captors and the outside populace with whom they worked.
They decided to build and x-ray machine. The parts had to be located, concealed in their clothes, and carried back to the prison on long exhausting marches after work. Incredibly with the aid of electricians among the prisoners, these doctors managed to assemble a workable x-ray, and used it secretly at night in their efforts to treat some fellow prisoners.
Menninger concludes by noting, "This was what dedication to medicine and humanity could do: they were kept alive by hope".*
If human hope can exert such power, imagine how much more divine hope, grounded in the resurrection of Christ can accomplish.
Without human hope we cease to want to live at all. Life has no meaning without hope. But human hope is a small, pale substitute for the true and living hope of Jesus.
*C.S. Cowles, May 31, 2009 "Standard"
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McKenzieBridge, OR
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