Elizabeth’s

A Few of My Favorite Things {December 2015}

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To say the month of December was a bit of a rough patch emotionally is an understatement; even so, there were bright spots throughout, which I share below. I’ve also curated the best books, blog posts, and songs that I encountered this month. I hope you like them as much as I do. ~Elizabeth

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A week at Camp Tahkodah down in Arkansas. Jonathan grew up going to this camp, as did his mother before him (the reason being that his great-grandfather Dr. George Benson procured the camp for Harding University way back in the day). It was fun to watch my kids run wild through nature, renew their Frisbee skills, and practice their new-found baseball skills. It was a blast being able to take the entire family, including our littlest one, on longer and more difficult hikes. And with the sky unsaturated by city lights, we gazed at our familiar North American skies — even glimpsing some shooting stars on our first night!

Watching Jonathan’s uncle play catch with my sons and take them to the driving range. It does wonders for this momma’s heart to watch a Trotter Grandpa pour into my boys. Wonders.

Sunday morning at Downtown Church of Christ in Searcy, Arkansas. We attended Monte Cox’s Bible class (some of my readers know who he is), which he teaches alongside his wife and one other couple. The topic was “waiting on God,” and people shared their (often heart-breaking) stories of choosing to trust God in difficult circumstances, and of the ways God brought them through. I sat in the back and cried. It was so good to hear other Christians telling these kinds of stories; it’s not often I hear that in real life. And I really, really needed to listen to their stories and realize I’m not alone in my own struggles. (I share more specifics about that Sunday morning in both the blog and music sections.)

Handel’s Messiah. A long-time church friend invited (and paid for!) us to attend the Messiah with her. It was a wonderful Christmas present and more like a worship service than a concert. I love all the choruses and can’t choose a favorite from among them. I love hearing all the moving parts. And although perhaps cliché, I do love the Hallelujah Chorus. I can’t wait for heaven when we will all worship like that, and when all tears will be wiped away (including the ones I cried that night). One more thing about the Messiah — the sound of this music is to me, like light in the book of Genesis. Though light is created on Day 1, the source can’t be seen. When I watch the singers, I see them open their mouths, and I hear the sound, but the sound doesn’t seem to be coming from inside them. Rather, it seems to be coming from above and behind them — almost as if it were coming from Heaven itself. Which, if you think about it, is actually a pretty perfect metaphor.

Attending the onething 2015 conference. Can you say Matt Maher and Francis Chan? I can. 🙂 I realize I have varying tastes here, placing a modern worship conference alongside the Messiah as the best worship experiences of my month. Oh well, I love them both! This conference is organized by the International House of Prayer (IHOP), whose worship music I’ve referenced many times before. Back in 2011, the music of IHOP began working on my spirit, changing how I relate to God, how I relate to my husband, and even how I “do” ministry. And two years ago, the onething 2013 conference capped off a spiritually-dry furlough, sending us back to Cambodia refilled and refreshed. So I’ve been looking forward to this worship conference ever since!

It finally snowed! This will probably be our last winter in the States for a while, and my kids have been earnestly wishing for snow. A few days after Christmas we finally got some white stuff. We bundled up, threw snowballs, went sledding, made snow angels, and built a snowman. The kids even rode their bikes in the snow! Then my feet started to freeze, and we all went inside and drank hot chocolate. The End.

 

BOOKS

Nobody’s Cuter than You by Melanie Shankle. This memoir on female friendship is laugh-out-loud funny. As in, my husband’s trying to fall asleep, but I laugh so hard the bed starts shaking, and he tells me to stop. Repeatedly.

Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church by Rachel Held Evans. This book is a masterpiece. Gone is the angry, resentful Rachel; arrived is the older, wiser, more peaceful Rachel. It’s artful and poetic and captures the essence of Christianity and the Church. You should know I don’t land in the same place as Rachel on every issue — a reason I haven’t liked her two previous books, one of which was mostly a repeat of her first blog (and in which I disagreed with a lot of her conclusions) and one of which felt like a gimmick. So when I heard she was writing a third, I didn’t get too excited. I was curious, but I didn’t expect anything miraculous. In fact, I didn’t even pay full price for this book. I waited till it went on sale on Kindle. But. This book is so worth it. It proves that Rachel not only has superb writing ability, she’s got grace. And whatever theological differences you have with Rachel, just ignore them (as I did), because the rest of it is magnificent.

Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith by Sarah Bessey. This felt really familiar to me. That’s partly because Sarah is a friendly voice, and I’ve wrestled with many of the same issues, but it’s also because I’ve read some of the same content on her blog. (Which makes sense, because if I were to write a book, I might say things in new ways, but I’d probably also be saying a lot of the same things as I say on my blog, me being the same person and all.) So, if you’re new to Sarah Bessey and want a primer all in one place, this book is for you. I especially loved chapter 3 and then chapter 7 and beyond. For a separate introduction to some of her more recent work, check out her Top 10 Posts from 2015, all of which I also love.

 

NON-CHRISTMAS-RELATED BLOG POSTS

Leaving Narnia . . . My MK World by Taylor Murray. I feel this SO much (except about my expat world in Phnom Penh, as I’m obviously not a Missionary Kid). Taylor says it better than I ever could, so just read her post.

Searching for Home by Kathleen Shumate. A beautiful, tightly-written narrative about our innate longing for Home, a longing that can’t be completely fulfilled this side of eternity. I LOVE this piece.

Home and Wandering by Kay Bruner. Soothing words on Home (or lack thereof) for the Third Culture Kid (or the wanderer among us). First Kay quoted some of my favorite words of Moses in Psalm 90: “Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.” Then she talked about Richard Rohr’s idea that “Love is where we came from, and Love is where we are going.” And finally she circled back to the Prodigal Son. How can I not love a post like that??

Abandonment:”Seeing Us Through the Night” by Alan Howell. At the same Sunday morning Bible class I mentioned above, Alan read a section from C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters (that famous work of fiction in which an older demon advises a younger demon in how to trip up a Christian’s faith) that had greatly impacted him, and which caused me to burst into tears:

“Our cause is never in more danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our enemy’s will [God’s will], looks round upon a universe from which every trace of him [God] seems to have vanished and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.”

Later I contacted Alan and asked him for the quote, and he sent me a blog post in which he discusses the idea at length: Abandonment and the Power of Faith. It’s part of a longer series processing his emotions after a traumatic break-in in Mozambique (where they serve) and which also touches on other feelings of abandonment that have incurred while on the field. Also in the series is Abandonment: the wolves, the ifs, and the whys. It’s hard to find a missionary who is this honest about difficult emotions, so please don’t miss these posts.

In Which the Kindly Light of Christ Can Heal Our Worst Memories by Anita Mathias. I’ve experienced what Anita talks about here, but not in a long while. Perhaps the time has come again for me to carve out some white space in my calendar and seek healing (but probably not until after I return to Cambodia in the new year!).

7 Ways TCKs Deal with Grief by Taylor Murray. Not just for TCKs.  These are some unhealthy ways all of us can choose to deal with our grief (and their unfortunate consequences). I am guilty of some of these (but I’m working on it!).

 

CHRISTMAS-RELATED BLOG POSTS

Jacaranda (Is It, Then, Enough?) by Joanna Swart. Velvet Ashes featured some stellar Christmas content this year, including this poem by Joanna (who blogs here). I love every single word:

what if
the question is the answer

and the longing is the praise
what if

the dull ache in the belly
is the love You bled first

what if
chasing the dawn

is You on the heels
what if

absence is the truth of presence
and is it,

then, Enough?

Whom Do You Seek? by Julie in Germany (also on Velvet Ashes). I loved the progression and pacing of this piece and how it illuminates our misplaced desires.

I Want to be a Woman Who Sings by Diana Trautwein. This is the cry of my heart. Always.

Finding the Magic When Christmas Isn’t Perfect by Amy Medina. A beautiful missionary kid’s Christmas memoir that reminded me to treasure the Christmas memories we’re making this year, as it will be our last in the States for a long while.

 

VIDEOS AND PODCASTS

Sara Groves on the concept of Floodplain. Someone recommended Sara’s Floodplain album after I shared her “Painting Pictures of Egypt” song on last month’s Favorites. (The song itself was recommended in the comments of another blog post of mine — I love how blogging is so collaborative!) So I went and checked it out, and this short little video is worth listening to. A floodplain can be a place of loss and destruction, yes, but it’s also a fertile place of health, growth, and beauty. “Some hearts are build on the floodplain,” God whispered to Sara’s heart — and mine resounded.

Andy Stanley Starting Point sermon series. We listened to the first few in this series on our travels. It’s about doubt and finding an adult faith after our childhood faith is shattered by pain, suffering, and unanswered prayer. Really appreciated his willingness to take on this idea from the pulpit.

 

MUSIC

“No Other Gods” by David Moffitt. I first heard this song on our Sunday at Downtown Church of Christ, and it simply gripped my spirit. I had just been reading about the first commandment that week, how in Exodus the Lord doesn’t say “There are no other gods before me”; He says, “You shall have no other gods.” Because there are plenty of other gods we can serve, and He knows it, but He wants to be first in our hearts.

We will have no other gods before You
Nothing on earth will compete for Your throne
You are sov’reign I Am
And You reign in our hearts alone
We will exalt You on high forever
King of all kings
And the Lord of all lords
We will have no other gods before You

That morning we also sang “You are God alone, from before time began, You are on Your throne, You are God alone” and “You are the everlasting God, the everlasting God, You will not faint, You won’t grow weary.”

I was struck by the juxtaposition of these three songs in the service. For one thing, God IS sovereign and ancient and above all gods. The King of kings and Lord of lords. We know this to be true. We also know our hearts stray so far from this God that His very first command to His people was to have no other gods before Him.

So do I actually live like there’s no other god before Him? No other god worthy of serving? Because there are so many gods we can serve, so many gods calling out to us. Not all of them have a physical representation in an idol; ideas can be worshipped too. Success, power, control, anger, revenge, selfishness, money, sports, television, relationships, food, the Internet. So these days, I’m proclaiming the words of this song and desiring to live them, too.

“Magnificat” by Randy Gill. We sang this song at our sending church the Sunday before Christmas. This is what heaven sounds like to me.

“More than Conquerors” from Rend Collective.  “We will not bow to sin or to shame, We are defiant in your name.” Love that sentiment, and love Rend Collective’s earthy sound. (And their missionary anthem “Build Your Kingdom Here”.) (And their song “My Lighthouse.”) (And their song “Finally Free.”) (And you can read all the lyrics to this inspiring song here.)

“After the Last Tear Falls” by Andrew Peterson.  Andrew Peterson is another one of those artists who doesn’t sound like all the rest. His sound is different, his words more emotionally resonant. I love this song about God’s love. (I also love his marriage song “Dancing in the Minefields.”)

 

MOST MOVING QUOTES

Marilyn Gardner on my post “When a country is etched into your soul”:

“Our creator built into us a longing and connection to place. Look at the Incarnation – God linked to time and place through the person of Christ. So displacement, whatever form it takes, causes a certain amount of pain. We were born to belong.”

Melanie on my post “Naming the Missing Pieces of our Souls”:

“When we share Eucharist, we stand in a conflation of past, present, and future that can give us hope:  we remember Christ’s last supper, we share fellowship in the present with other believers, and we yearn for that Great Banquet in the future when there will be no more tears.”

Madeleine L’Engle from Marilyn Gardner’s post “Faith, Doubt and Ames Street”:

“A winter ago I had an after-school seminar for high-school students and in one of the early sessions Una, a brilliant fifteen-year-old, a born writer who came to Harlem from Panama five years ago, and only then discovered the conflict between races, asked me, ‘Mrs. Franklin, do you really and truly believe in God with no doubts at all?’ ‘Oh, Una, I really and truly believe in God with all kinds of doubts.’ But I base my life on this belief.”

(As an aside, I loved Marilyn’s piece so much that I encouraged her to link up with Sarah Bessey’s “I used to think ________, but now I think _______” book-launching-link-up. She did, and Sarah Bessey read it and commented on it, which I have to say, made my heart extra happy that day.)

John and Stasi Eldredge’s paraphrase of Isaiah 61:1-3 (from a chapter on wounded hearts in their book Captivating). We spoke at a CIY (Christ in Youth) training for short-term missions, and at the end the leader prayed this over us. I love it:

God has sent me on a mission.
I have some great news for you.
God has sent me to restore and release something
And that something is you.
I am here to give you back your heart and set you free.
I am furious at the Enemy who did this to you,
and I will fight against him.
Let me comfort you.
For, dear one, I will bestow beauty upon you
where you have known only devastation.
Joy, in the places of your deep sorrow.
And I will robe your heart in thankful praise
in exchange for your resignation and despair.

 

MATH & SCIENCE FUN

Hydrophobic Sand. I used to play with this stuff when I was teaching home school chemistry classes. (For the non-scientists among you, hydrophobic materials don’t dissolve in water.)

Moving Sine and Cosine image. I can’t tell you how much I love sines and cosines (and all trigonometry). This little image shows them side by side, along with the angles that create them. (This is more for the math-y among you.)

Math equations that create the letters of the word LOVE. Also for the more math-y among you, but elegant and fun.

Star Wars: A Bad Lip Reading. More science fiction than science, but hilarious, with only one inappropriate remark. You have to be choosy with Bad Lip Reading, but this was one we felt comfortable showing our kids and was especially funny because we had all watched Episode IV together the week before.

What about you, any favorites from this month??

When God Paid for Christmas {Velvet Ashes}

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Elizabeth is over at Velvet Ashes today . . .

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Money was so tight my freshman year in college that my family cancelled Christmas. We were struggling financially, and the three jobs my dad was working afforded him only four hours of sleep a night — with too little monetary margin to waste on presents.

When my parents told us there wouldn’t be any presents that year, my two younger sisters and I were unruffled. We were completely fine with a low-key Christmas. We’d each saved up a little bit of money to spend on Mom and Dad and each other, and that would be the extent of our gift-giving. But after all, presents aren’t what Christmas is all about, and we could still celebrate in our usual way.

Which is exactly what we did. We cracked open the special popcorn tin that was reserved for Christmas Eve. We munched away at the three different flavors of popcorn as we watched “It’s a Wonderful Life” –another one of our Christmas Eve traditions. Then, in a deviation from the norm (and because we weren’t planning to wake up early to open presents) my sisters and I stayed up late into the night, past midnight in fact, laughing and joking and giggling over who-knows-what.

Finish reading this post here.

When Singing “Joy to the World” Feels Too Hard {A Life Overseas}

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Elizabeth is over at A Life Overseas today. . . .

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Sadness has found me this Christmas season. I bear sadness over the brokenness in the world, and I bear sadness over the brokenness in my own life. So I mourn. And I grieve. Then, as I am currently in the United States for a short visit, I look around at America’s intensely commercialized version of Christmas, and I wish I could ignore it altogether.

That’s why this week, in an effort to fight my Scrooginess, I set aside time to bake Christmas cookies with my mom and my daughters. It’s why I pulled out the scissors and construction paper to make Christmas crafts. And it’s why I sat down at the piano to play Christmas carols. I knew I needed to ground myself in some ancient theology and lose myself in some minor keys.

Because I couldn’t play “Joy to the World.” Not now, not yet. It’s always been one of my favorites, but it’s too happy right now. It’s too early for glory and joy, too soon for triumph and victory.

Read the rest of the post here.

A Few of My Favorite Things {November 2015}

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We packed a whole lot into this month! Here are some of the highlights. ~Elizabeth

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Watching the Kansas City Royals win the World Series with our kids. The Royals went to the World Series last year, but try as we might to stream the last game to our home in Phnom Penh, we weren’t able to view it. And then the Royals lost anyway. Not so this year! Yes, it’s true that these kinds of close-scoring games stress me out, and yes, it’s true that I went and hid in my room and blogged for most of the series (see here, here, here, and here for the evidence), but I did muster enough courage to come out of my writing cave for the last inning of the last game. Another plus: my kids got to learn the rules of baseball, which, since no one plays baseball in Cambodia, they didn’t previously know. I hope they always remember the autumn we spent in America and watched our home town team win the world series for the first time in 30 years.

Meeting other bloggers in person. In a two-week period I met four! First I met Robynn Bliss, who blogs weekly at Marilyn Gardner’s site Communicating Across Boundaries and who co-authored Expectations and Burnout, a landmark book for women serving overseas (and which I reviewed here). Then Jonathan and I hung out with Kay and Andy Bruner, who are on the leadership team with us at the collective blog A Life Overseas. Kay has written several books, the most notable of which is As Soon as I Fell, which women all over the world have fallen in love with and which I previously reviewed. Kay blogs here and has just written another book which I’ll review below in the books section. Lastly, we spent an evening with Aaron and Danielle Wheeler. Danielle launched the website Velvet Ashes as a watering hole for women serving overseas. Every single one of these people is a true kindred spirit to me, and I still can’t believe I was able to meet them all in person this fall.

Meeting old college friends. We were able to share meals with several sets of friends from our old campus ministry in Rolla, MO. Many of them we hadn’t seen in years — one couple we hadn’t seen in 8 years, another we hadn’t seen in 12. Yet with all of them, it was like no time had elapsed at all. We just picked up right where we left off, and it was a balm to my soul.

Viewing the night sky through a telescope. At the house of some of our oldest college friends, we stayed long enough into the night to see the sky through their telescope. (They live in the country and they home school, so yes, they do cool things like that.) We didn’t stay awake long enough to see some of our friends’ favorite parts of the sky, but we were able to glimpse the nearest galaxy: Andromeda. It’s just a smudge on the glass, and it was a reminder to me how very far away even our nearest galaxy is, that it’s not clear even with a telescope. We also pointed the telescope to a section of the sky that doesn’t appear very populated with stars, but because the telescope can catch their light better than our naked eyes can, we were able to see dozens of stars in the void.

Watching the moon. (Yes, seriously.) Ever since the total lunar eclipse in September, I’ve been simply fascinated, all over again, with the moon. Watching the moon grounds me. It reminds me how small I really am. I think about how big the earth under my feet is, compared to me, and I marvel. I stare at the moon and think about something that’s so far away but that still appears as big as it does in our sky. I think about how we see so much detail in its surface even though it is so far away. I get a thrill out of looking at the moon and imagining where everything is currently positioned in the plane of the solar system (similar to my musings on Jupiter earlier this year). I really cannot explain in words my sense of wonder at our plain old moon.

BOOKS

Mission Smart by David L. Frazier. This book isn’t too thick, but it has some really practical questions to consider when preparing to move overseas. They were things I hadn’t thought of before, and I hope everyone in training for moving overseas will read this book.

Debunking the Myths of Forgive-and-Forget by Kay Bruner. I was privileged to review this book pre-publication, and Kay drew applications from Jesus’ words that were extremely insightful and that I had never thought of or heard about before. In fact I need to go read it again! She also differentiated between healing and forgiveness and offered some helpful graphics on the topic.

How God Became King by N.T. Wright. I picked up this book again because at our organization’s Team Leader Summit this past month, speaker Jerry Trousdale talked a lot about the Kingdom of God. It sparked my imagination and resonated with me because of the little I’d read of Wright’s book. Then, at the end of his presentations, he recommended the book! So I knew I needed to get back to it.

 

VIDEOS AND PODCASTS

Laura Hackett Park on trusting God. I love Laura’s music and have talked about it several times before. I love her take on trust here, how it stretches without pushing and is honest without being fake. It’s gentle and grace-filled and freeing. Do yourself a favor and watch this 2-minute video.

This physical representation of the Pythagorean theorem, which states that the sum of the squares of the sides of a right triangle is equal to the square of the hypotenuse. Or you can just look at the pretty picture.

An expanding visual of the Fibonacci Spiral. I’m obsessed with the Fibonacci spiral and draw it on graph paper every chance I get. Fibonacci, golden, and other logarithmic spirals are beautiful and found many places in nature: galaxies, hurricanes, nautilus shells, pineapples, pine cones. Even apart from finding them in creation, I just can’t get over the numerical beauty of these spirals.

Andy Stanley’s N Commandments. We listened to some of his sermons on our long travels. Our kids are old enough now to really pay attention to a podcast and even to find it interesting. They really enjoyed the way Andy tells a story, and we had some good discussions afterward. I’m realizing that my kids are growing up and craving higher-level thinking about the Bible. Time to take it to the next level, I guess.

 

BLOG POSTS

Why I’m Grateful for My Anxiety by Heather Caliri. A life-giving post on how the struggles we think are so bad for us can actually guide us.

Where’s God in the Maze of Life by Katrina Ryder. Katrina strikes again with something fresh and original, which, I’ve gotta admit, is hard to come by these days. (And if you’re a writer who needs an editor, Katrina is now freelance editing. Let me know if you want her contact info.)

Same Same, Thankfully by Katie Kleinjung. I cannot tell you how much I loved this guest post on A Life Overseas. (“Same same, but different” is a common phrase in Cambodia and Thailand.) Katie is both funny and piercing.

Why Arguing with God is Not the Same as Not Believing in Him by Justin Welby. I’m so glad I read this piece. It’s ok to argue with God! It doesn’t mean you don’t believe in Him. Rather, it’s a good thing; it means you’re still talking to Him. Then Jonathan quoted Billy Graham in his sermon yesterday, and it made so much sense to me: “The Psalms teach us how to get along with God.” It’s true; sometimes I argue with God. And sometimes I have a hard time getting along with Him. I tell Him things aren’t fair; I tell Him things aren’t right. I tell Him I’m not happy with the way things are. It’s good to know I’m not alone in that, and that it’s ok to say such things to the ruler and creator of the universe.

Confessions of a Good Girl by Amy Medina. I’ve followed Amy’s blog ever since she wrote a killer emotional post for A Life Overseas earlier this year. Not only is Amy honest and truthful about a subject many of us have struggled with (grace), but she’s funny while she does it.

Joy in a Minor Key by Tanya Marlow. The phrase “joy in a minor key” is an apt description of where I’m at these days. Sometimes I feel stuck on Lament Cycle and unable to move on from it. I have a wonderful life — a wonderful husband and four wonderful children, friends I love, and work and ministry I enjoy — but I mourn a lot of things in life, both personal and public. It’s hard to hold the joy and sorrow in tension, but I’m trying to get more comfortable with it.

Good Will Come: How Life and Living Overseas Has Changed My Views on Suffering by Lisa McKay. I have not had nearly the number of bad things happen to me that Lisa has, but just the same I’ve had to grapple with the concept of suffering, and I’ve come to the same conclusions as Lisa. I’m so glad she put it into words here — comforting words that I promise will not hit you over the head with a God who wants to hurt you.

 

MUSIC

Commodity from Remedy Drive. This album is the perfect combination of longing and hope. We listened to it a lot on our travels, and it gave voice to a lot of what was going on inside me. If you ever tire of typical Contemporary Christian Music, Remedy Drive’s “Commodity” is the album for you. Do yourself a favor and get the entire album, don’t just pick a few songs here and there. You need the entire thing, and you probably needed it yesterday. You can get a taste of the music here.

Painting Pictures of Egypt by Sara Groves. When I talked about longing for the past in my most recent Velvet Ashes blog post, one of the commenters told me about this song. It.it.perfect. Every word, perfect. I love this song, and it’s going to be in my head for a good, long time. This is the chorus, but you can read the rest of the lyrics here:

I’ve been painting pictures of Egypt
Leaving out what it lacks
The future feels so hard
And I want to go back
But the places that used to fit me
Cannot hold the things I’ve learned
Those roads were closed off to me
While my back was turned

This I Believe (The Creed) by Hillsong Worship. Even in the midst of all my complaining to God about this world He’s made, the world we broke that He has yet to completely fix, I can still fully declare my belief in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and in the Resurrection. It’s something that’s imprinted more deeply in my heart than even the Lament I sometimes get stuck in. God’s character and redemption story feels like one of the truest things I know. And I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again: not many songs get my hands raised high to the sky. So when one does, I pay attention to it. I find the song usually speaks to deep, core beliefs of mine, truths I need to return to over and over again:

I believe in God our Father
I believe in Christ the Son
I believe in the Holy Spirit
Our God is three in one
I believe in the resurrection
That we will rise again
For I believe in the name of Jesus

I believe in life eternal
I believe in the virgin birth
I believe in the saints’ communion
And in Your holy Church
I believe in the resurrection
When Jesus comes again
For I believe, in the name of Jesus

 

THE LORD’S PRAYER

Seven Reasons to Ban the Lord’s Prayer by Steven Croft. Although I’m not English or even Anglican, and as such am unaffected by the controversy this post describes, if you read a bit further down the page, you’ll get to his theological reasons for why the Lord’s Prayer is important in the Christian life. Beautiful.

And in that same vein, Jerry Trousdale, whom I mentioned earlier, did some teaching on the Lord’s Prayer at the Team Leader Summit. It impacted me greatly, and I furiously scribbled down the following notes. This is how he unpacked it:

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

(Our ministry should be unbranded and not for ourselves. We’ll work with others, we won’t care whose name is attached to the results, and God will get the glory. ALWAYS.)

Your kingdom come,

(Jesus is the King; we are His subjects.)

Your will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven.

(It’s all about transformation, about the restoration of Eden, about bringing heaven down to earth.)

Give us this day our daily bread,

(We must depend on God for all our provision. Just like manna.)

Forgive us our debts,

(We take sin seriously.)

As we also have forgiven our debtors.

(And we take reconciliation seriously.)     

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

(This is about spiritual warfare, which he didn’t elaborate on.) 

I really latched onto Jerry’s explanation of the Lord’s Prayer as a prayer I can pray personally, but with more meaning than before. It connected the prayer I usually think of as a personal prayer to the larger world of missions, something I really appreciated.

Naming the Missing Pieces of Our Souls {Velvet Ashes}

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Elizabeth is over at Velvet Ashes today . . .

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I grew up in a faith tradition that sang acappella. Worship could arise in any place and any time: our voices were all we needed. We didn’t need advance planning. We didn’t even need songbooks, for the words were written on our hearts.

The songs of my childhood held such depth and resonance. There were four-part harmonies and four-part songs, echoes and counter melodies, descants and rounds. There were the “Greatest Commands” and the “Magnificat.” There was “Lord, Be There” and “Someday.”

There was singing in the stairwell after Sunday night church, where acoustics were the best. There was singing in the dirt at summer camp, amongst the bugs and under a canopy of stars.

No one could sing “On Zion’s Glorious Summit Stood” or “O Lord, Our Lord, How Excellent Thy Name,” like the Kansas camp counselors of my youth. And no one could sing the seven-fold amen of “The Lord Bless You and Keep You” like the Arkansas camp counselors I later worked with.

The singing of my childhood was like none other. These days, however, I worship with an interdenominational fellowship that uses instruments. (And I love it.) But somehow when I’m there, the acappella tradition of my past seems distant indeed.

Finish reading here.