I was listening to a "famous" christian preacher talk about "feeling God's love" today. She mentioned that we receive all things from God by faith. She mentioned that with maturity we know Gods love and presence as a deep truth, not necessarily something that makes the hair on our arms stand up and waves of sensational insensibility rush by. I agree. We do live by faith not sight, and we do know Gods love and presence as a deep truth that remains as a foundation in our spirits. I guess it struck me that maybe some of Gods children have never experienced a great, (physical) wave of sensation around knowing God's love and presence in their lives.
I suppose there are some that will say that it is pure emotionalism, which in my opinion the church is in no danger of, and that spiritual experiences like tangible manifestations of the holy spirit are not necessary components of a healthy relationship with God. I do not argue that it is not necessary to have tangible experiences with the holy spirit to be saved, or even that a believer could go many years with a deep faith that did not involve physical manifestations of the holy spirit.



I guess what I am saying is that, why would you want to?



Let me say that on a regular basis that I can feel God with me. There are times when I have to rely on my faith muscles to know that God is with me, or his word which tells me so and is perfect in truth. But I also must say that I can feel him physically with me, that at certain times I can feel the world around me shut off, the things of this earth fade and a greater presence, a tangible one surrounds me, speaks to me, comforts me, confronts me. It is God, he shows up. I do not intend on becoming someone who just jumps from spiritual experience to experience defeated in between strung out for the next rush. I know that faith is much deeper than that. I also love the word and how it, He speaks to me and shows up in my life. I love relationship with others that brings God nearer to me, but I also find a fullness in knowing his tangible presence.
I think of Moses that relied on the tangible presence of God to find direction and strength, he also experienced great trails on his journey but still had access even through that to Gods tangible glory. I love the Psalms that show mans reliance on Gods presence. Think of David who when in repentance calls out "take not your Holy Spirit from me, do not cast me away from your presence."



I know that I need his presence, yes by faith, but also by his tangible glory. He is my friend and I experience the fullness of joy through his touch.



Psalm 16:11You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

WHO is this KING???

I love when I find a worship song that fits the season I'm in spiritually...check it out:

Highs and Lows

Now I don't know where the idea of highs and lows was invented, but I was first introduced to it by a comrade CO who used it as a tool to provoke discussion and debrief after a major group experience (conference, mission trip, etc.) It has been so effective that it caught on down here in Charlotte, so we use it with the kids @ cell group, in Church and so on. It's a great way to get down to the bare bones of something - especially for chatty kathys like me. (!)

The past few days have been FULL to OVERFLOWING when it comes to activities and experiences, so it's hard to narrow it all down. So, I'm just going to give you my highs and lows. Here goes...

Yesterday

Lows

While moving a group of Christmas turkeys from the bottom floor of the Corps to the kitchen on the second floor, I leaked raw turkey juice on my uniform (shirt, pants AND shoes)

I let the myself get all frustrated about this.
For about 20 minutes. Until the juice dried and I forgot all about it. (!)

Highs

I facilitated a family of my favourite kids loving on a couple of men whose sexual orientation generally causes them to despised - the guys thought they'd bless the kids by donating a beautifully decorated Christmas Tree, but in turn they were the ones blessed up (isn't that always the way!) and moved to tears by the beauty, acceptance and Christlike love of children...

I had a very enjoyable lunch date with new friends who feel like old friends.

I connected with a family I hadn't seen in a long time and was able to hook them up with our Christmas program - the BEST part of this high is the testimony Ms. Lea shared with me. You see, we've always known her to move around from slummy run-down rental house to slummy, run-down rental house...and the house she's been in these past months isn't any different. Until she got a letter from her landlord's bank indicating that they were foreclosing on the house and that she had 8 days to collect her boys and their belongings and get out. Ms. Lea isn't a wallflower - she's feisty! She called up the bank and spoke with the manager, pleading for more time and asking if there was anything that she could do to avoid being evicted...jokingly he said "Well, if you had $1000 you could put down a down-payment" Ms. Lea told me that in that moment she only had $300 to her name - so she did what she could on a wing and a prayer and was able to scrape together the money -Ms. Lea is the proud owner of a slummy, crummy run-down house! It made my day!

Random Prayer

Twice today I have had the experience to just stop and pray with two different people, not for any reason in particular, just because I wanted to enjoy practicing the presence that way. It has been a huge blessing. I often pray throughout my day but it has been a while since I stoped and prayed with somebody else just because God is good. I forgot that we are hard wired to do just that ... praise God for being so good - TOGETHER!

I think we can personalize our relationship with God so much so that we actually isolate our faith journey to exist just between us and him. I do not think that is a terrible thing but at best it means that our journey is one that we are on alone. I know that God is with us and that He will never abandon us but I also do not think that the fullness of joy, and Jesus said he came to make our our complete, can manifest without the fellowship of others.

The problem, my problem, is that because life can get so busy often we do not have time to just chill with other believers and share how amazing God is and what he is doing in our lives. I often live in this tension between serving others and serving "each" other. I see the example of Christ where he stopped to wash his brothers feet along side feeding 15,000 people. I am encouraged by the Acts 2 community that not only gathered in the temple courts together for prayer but also daily broke bread in each others homes.

I guess I want it all ... the fullness ... a completed joy.

I guess I will start with stopping tomorrow too.

I have been thinking on The Word these days. I have always had a deep love for the scriptures, I was blessed that when I first got saved I was stuck in a very cold Canadian town with no money and not much to do ... oh and a brand new NIV study bible I had received for Christmas that year. I spent about 2-6 hours a day in prayer and reading the word for about a month; and it was rich. I miss that time and know it was instrumental in my spiritual development, it was my foundation and it was a solid one. There is no stronger foundation that a clear, impassioned understanding of The Word. So now that we have this foundation, what do we do with it? Let me share a quote from the founder ...

Christians for generations now have been spending an enormous amount of strength upon the bible ... Christian scholars have translated, re translated it, and then translated it again. They have commented and printed and published it in every form ... They have explained and preached about almost every word within its covers. There seems to be only one thing left to be done with it, and that is to give it a literal and faithful and understandable translation of it in practice.

William Booth

The knowledge of, and belief in, this whole Bible, from beginning to end, if substituted for actual, personal salvation, will prove as great a mockery as any other sentimental belief.

Catherine Booth

So, if you have read the bible then it is time to go and "do" the
bible, and not just what it says to do but to accomplish the literal translation
of its meaning through your life. I am also challenged by the quote from CB
(above) that it is just not enough to know all the rules and dogmatics of the
bible but there must be a living relationship with The Word, Jesus. I could say
so much but I will leave you with a small/huge truth. While visiting a man
recenly, who so many would consider simple, he said this ... "The bible is
simple. You just read it and then go do it." Thats my plan tomorrow, whats
yours?

The days are rushing past - Christmas in a month!

Wow. Almost an entire month since my last post...it's not that there isn't stuff going on - there certainly is! It's just getting back into the habit/discipline of putting my thoughts up on here in a way that opens up our local experience and makes it tangible and accessible to all you folks that love us and are interested in our lives.

So this time around living in Charlotte, life is deeper and wider because our family has grown - our son Jonathan is 16 months old, and because of our time spent here from 2006-2008, we have an extended spiritual family that was ready to warmly welcome us home. So it has the flavour of a homecoming with all of the excitment and open skies of a new adventure!
(We dig it!)

Ummm...

This week some of the kids went on a school field trip - to the city water treatment plant. They really enjoyed themselves and were excited about what they had learned. Here is an example:

D.J. - Miss Heather, we had so much fun at the water treatment plant today!

Heather - what did you learn?

D.J. - we saw where the dirty water comes in and they add the chemicals to it to make it clean.

(there were further graphic details that I shall omit for our sensitive readers!)

Heather - wow...was it smelly?

D.J. - only on the outside. We learned that if your water tastes like chlorine, that's how you know it's healthy for you.

Meet Me In the Hood...it's goin' down...

So here in J.T. Williams at the PlayHouse, we're a safe place for kids to come after they get off the schoolbus, to do homework, play games, hop online and read. We have small groups, do Church together and altogether anticipate basketball season. We enjoy spending time with the kids of this neighborhood, and they're pretty fond of us too.

In fact, this week while Rob's been offsite and I've been flying solo over there, it got to be snacktime and I didn't have enough of any one thing to offer. Those of you who have/work with kids will nod your heads with me when I say you have to give everyone the same amount of the same thing, otherwise, there will be drama.

:-)

So there's this box of candy on top of the fridge that they've been salivating over for a while now, but I think Rob is saving it for something special. Everyday, however, the kids ask me "can I get one of those?" with their hopeful little eyes and best "I won't tell - it'll be our little secret" faces on...but I know what'll happen, so I say "Nope, here's some applesauce instead of candy. Enjoy." Cuz I know that if I gave in to one of those cherubic faces, as soon as that candy was in their hot little hand, they'd be calling it from the rooftops (perhaps literally - these kids have no fear, and no proper playground) that they have something no one else has.

*Sigh*

In particular, one of the big boys - 15yrs old, 320lbs, 6'5 - wanted him some candy. He gave me the googly eyes and the boyish grin, but I stood firm.

" You know that if I gave this to you and the others found out that I would be shot in the street!"

I was mostly joking of course.

His facial expression became dead serious. He looked me square in the eye, and in a sober voice he said:

"Miss Heather, ain't nothing going to happen to you. All of us, we've got your back."

You know? I believed him...and I'm grateful.

So fast forward to MUCH later that night, I was working late at the PlayHouse preparing it for an Advisory Board walk-through the following day. I had been home to bring our two large dogs back with me - so that they wouldn't be lonely (don't cringe Steve!) and knowing that it wouldn't hurt to have the extra backup late in the evening hours.

So I'm working away, enjoying myself and my 96.1FM when I heard something i hadn't heard in a while - a gunshot. Now...this is how I know I've been gone too long. Curiousity directed my legs over to the front window where the dogs where barking like crazy, and I looked out.

I looked out into the dark night from a lit room. *sigh* I'm so...well...anyways.

I didn't see anything, and as there was no screaming I went back to my work (don't cringe Rob!)

As I was finishing up my projects a short while later and packing up the dogs in the minivan, I heard a couple of voices down in the street. I could just barely make out two young men (twentysomething) talking with a woman in a car. The woman's voice was familiar - one of my kid's mom. She comes up to the PlayHouse from time to time to chat with us and check online to see if her current boyfriends has any warrants out for his arrest (yeah - you can do that online here, it's crazy and helpful) I didn't pay them any attention, but my ears perked up when I heard her say to the two men:

"No no, you just stop all that talk she's the pastor, and just leave her be. I'm sure she didn't see nuthin and anyway all y'all shouldn't be messin' around down here with no guns anyhow, so you just put those things away, and don't you mess with her or you'll have a problem with me and everybody else 'round here. Now go on, git."

What a beautiful gift, to know that I've been accepted as a part of a family that takes care of one another, and watches each other's backs. That's something I've experienced in a number of "rough & dangerous" neighborhoods.

There is a shield of protection that exists for me here , that's harder to find within the 'safety' of the walls of church community. Folks there will take you out with gossip, backstabbing, jealousy, factions and the like and the brother or sister who will stop someone short and call them to account when they're spreading that kind of mess about the pastor, the worship leader and everybody else is a rarity.

I still lean on my personal revelation and spiritual belief that when I'm in the place that God wants me to be, right in His Will - wherever that is geographically - it's the SAFEST place to be, cuz He's got my back, and so do the scariest people in the 'hood.

Amen to that.

Cookin' Up Somethin' Good...

we've been baking crazy at the PlayHouse lately, and it's been delicious! The kids are getting pretty good and they're having a blast. It's no "Christina's Cakes" but it's a start!

OOps.

Okay, let's try that again. Here's the video that goes with our last post:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt995uv4f6s

2 Beautiful Church Experiences in One Day...

It was a small crowd today at my Chapel Service at the Centre (small crowd is my way of saying me and two other people!) Regardless, I heard something that I'm going to ponder for a time.

In discussing life at the shelter with over 200 other women & their children, my friend (a young mother of 2 children in her 28th week of pregnancy) said this:

"Around here, I try to stay focused on where I'm going and what I'm doing and also to have patience. There can be so much drama with all these women, but drama brings confusion, and when you're confused you're blind and you can't see where you're at or where you're going and then you're stuck."

Wow...sounds a lot like how to have victory over a scheme of the enemy.

On a different note, Rob had the kids re-enact the parable of the Good Samaritan - I only caught the last bit on film, it's too bad, because the kids really got into the part where the traveler is waylaid in the 'cut', his money gets stolen and has the tar beaten out of him...

I just had to post about this beautiful experience I had yesterday afternoon. I've been spending part of my time down at the Centre of Hope here in Charlotte, The Salvation Army's women & children's shelter as the chaplain. I'm really enjoying it and yesterday was just fuel for the fire.

Generally twice a month I show a movie - there's a monstrous tv in the Chapel - and with it being a rainy, grey day yesterday it was just right to stay in where it's warm, eat some popcorn and watch some Madea (the unofficial african-american matriarch of the south). The movies have a strong Gospel thrust, with some soulful Gospel and of course - a lotta humour.

ANYways, in the last scene, which you can watch here it just got so powerful in the chapel, and Holy Spirit just came down on us, and all the women started to sing, spontaneously in a deep, deep way, from that deep, deep place that exists in a woman when she's walked through the Valley of Baca and has places of brokenness that only the Lord can touch.

It was beautiful - man, I love Holy Spirit. She's the best.

In The Abiding

In my daily reading, I came across these words from Oswald Chambers:

"All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth.
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations." Matthew 28:18-20

"He (Christ) does not say the heathen will be lost if we do not go; He simply says - "Go ye therefore and teach all nations."
Go on the revelation of My sovereignty;
teach and preach out of a living experience of Me." OC

Love it, love it, love it!

It is a demanding text, and I love a challenge. In those words I read that I MUST be having a LIVING and ever-evolving daily experience of Christ to be able to teach, preach and especially LIVE powerfully & effectively for the Kingdom of God.

So what kind of living experience can I testify to?

I don't mind being real with y'all, my Christian life has been a series of seasons - ranging from a forward surge in passion, purpose and precision, followed/preceded by seasons of pause, leaning in more closely to the Divine and often times of "whoa. slow down Dad, I need to stop and take this all in."

I'm not ashamed or embarassed about that, it's been my process. It has been my relationship with the Eternal maturing over time as He shows Himself faithful, compassionate, no-nonsense and adventuresome.

I've been married coming up 5 years this May. Even though I knew Rob before we were in marriage covenant, I've discovered over the years - as the emotions of our wedding day fade -that there are depths to him, and to me and to the two of us together that were hidden to my understanding beforehand. That is to say that as we grow in knowing each other in the everyday, experiencing 'life together' I know him more, and come to know myself more as well.

I've been a Salvation Army Soldier coming up 8 years this June. Even though I knew God before we were in covenant, I've discovered over the years - as the emotions from the night I got saved fade - that there are depths to Him and to me and to the two of us together that were hidden to my understanding beforehand. That is to say that as I grow in knowing Him more, in the everyday circumstances, experiencing 'life together', I know Him more, and come to know myself more as well.

"If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you..." - that is the way to keep going in our personal lives." OC

When my husband and I spend time with one another in a quality way - giving one another our full attention, listening carefully, and making ourselves available to one another, it strengthens and safeguards our marriage relationship.

In the same way, when I am feeling 'far' from the Lord (plunk in whatever imagery you like - dry, lukewarm, stale, stalled) I take myself aside to a quiet place and firmly, earnestly ask the question, "am I abiding?"

Today, beloved of God, I am.

*quotes drawn from 'My Utmost for His Highest' Oswald Chambers, October 14th

Let Them Eat Cake! (then send them outside to play)

We decided to do some baking at the PlayHouse this week, in fact, there was a group of boys that were begging to bake a cake. The rest of us were hankerin' to eat some cake, so it was a win-win situation. (!) We did a bit of improv (note the 'cake pan') but in the end, not only was the cake delicious (chocoate with chocolate icing) but it was just what the rest of the kids needed - more sugar. haha. No seriously - shortly after chowing down on cake (with a double layer of frosting) the entire Playhouse erupted in a serious, take-no-prisoners pillow fight. It was all fun and games until someone hit Miss Heather up the side of the head with a super-bouncy-ball.

Interestingly, I was chatting with one of the guys about baking and his viewpoint about it was: "Why not just go to the store and buy a cake already made, then you don't have to do all this work?"

My response? I think baking is fun because of the satisfaction that comes in creating something from nothing and inviting other to join in eating whatever I've made. And let's not forget the whole 'licking the bowl' thing. I really really dig that...

It's nice to just have some fun though, I'll think we'll bake every week.

sorry it's sideways. i'm technomalogically challenged.

Loving That Sunshine

One of the things that I love about living in the South, is that in mid-October I can hang my laundry on the clothesline in the backyard and they'll be dry within the hour.

That's a beautiful thing.

I've got a t-shirt on my line that mysteriously appeared in my van this past week, so I thought what the heck? and I threw it in the wash...I wonder though, how it got there, and who it belongs to?