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- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Thoughts
One of my favourite verses in Scripture these days comes from Colossians 1 in the Message:
"The lines of purpose in your lives never grow slack, tightly tied as they are to your future in Heaven, kept taut by hope."
This single sentence has captured me since I first read it a few weeks ago, and I've been coming back to it over and over again, daring to dream that these words might one day be true of me!
I so often catch myself overwhelmed and drifting, or frantic and kept taut by stress, but this verse has been a touchstone for me to find a middle place. I've been trying to listen for the hope that whispers purpose into the mundane or the simple. Instead of resigning myself to life as a tangled heap of marionette limbs being pulled in all directions, I've been reflecting on what my lines of purpose are really tied to.
The truth is that a lot of what I do revolves around meeting expectations from others and myself - nothing to do with my future in Heaven, and they certainly don't move me toward hope!
- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Thoughts
Psalm 39:7 - And now, O LORD, for what do I wait? My hope is in You.
I love looking forward - to the weekend, to plans with a friend, to payday, to Summer weather :) I try to stay in the moment, but if I'm honest I'm often planning ahead and thinking about what comes next.
In Psalm 39, David is reflecting on how quickly life passes - verse 6 says We are merely moving shadows, and all our busy rushing ends in nothing - but his response is not despair, it is turning to God in that moment.
As I look forward in time, I imagine that walking with God will get easier, that barriers will pass away - I'd love to work part time and be free to volunteer more. As Torre gets older and more independent, I'm able to go to conferences again to be encouraged and challenged. If we lived closer to family and friends I love the idea of sharing life and meals more often, having playdates and praying together. It's easy to get caught up in imagining how different circumstances could make life just wonderful, but then what do we have to show for it?
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- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Thoughts
This morning I had the rare opportunity to relax at home before heading to church. It's strange to think how rare it is, but reality is that Sunday mornings are usually rushed as we head to church. I can't tell you how many times we've brewed coffee only to forget it on the counter, how often we skip breakfast or just buy something from Tim's because we'd rather trade extra sleep for a relaxed morning at home.
Today was different because I went to bed early AND didn't need to be at church until 10 am, so I had a whole window of time in which everyone was awake, fed and dressed, but it simply wasn't time to go. I sat on my couch and savoured my coffee and listened to worship music and... rested.
Forgive me for being so stunned at the peaceful gift it was to simply relax and enjoy a morning off on the Sabbath.
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- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Thoughts
I was listening to a sermon online last week, and the pastor mentioned the Read Scripture app that his congregation was using together in order to get alone with God and be changed through prayer and reading the Bible. I was interested and downloaded the app to my phone, and guys! What a great resource this is!
My favourite part is the videos that have been created to introduce or explain themes from different books of the Bible and for overarching themes through Scripture as well. Tonight I watched this video about Covenants:
I've only watched a handful of the videos that are available, but each has been very excellent, and I'm excited to explore and discover more over the coming weeks. What struck me most from this video was right at the start when the narrator describes God's plan for humanity to be his partners in creating the world that he wants. It struck me because my relationship spectrum for God ranges mostly between "servant" and "beloved child," and it's a timely reminder for me that "partner" belongs in there too.
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- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Thoughts
I'm standing on my GO train this morning. Sometimes I get a seat, but not today. I'm on the upper level of a double decker train car - the "quiet zone" where nobody talks on their phone or to each other. We just read or doze or text or blog, and I'm watching rows and rows of people do their thing, and I'm thinking about how much God loves us.
It always boggles my mind when I see Torre in a group of kids, when I arrive for daycare pick up and the classroom is busy with children playing, or when I lose sight of him at a playground and then catch the flash of his bright orange shirt, because at the moment when I see him in the crowd my heart cracks open a little bit with love. I could (and I have) watch that boy sleep and not be bored, just soak in every cell of him alive and mine and at peace. What boggles my mind when I feel the heart-crack of mother love is that in the sea of children where I see my son, every child has a mother whose heart will do the same thing (or should) at the sight of them.
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- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Thoughts
In Christian culture, it is so often glorified to live "sold-out for God" - trusting him for everything and not being ensnared by worldly things. John the Baptist and almost all the other Biblical prophets are good examples. Modern examples abound as well, and they can inspire and challenge us. But I wonder if focusing only on the most dramatic examples of faithfulness sets us up to feel like failures if we end up having an ordinary life.
What about those of us who don't get a radical prophetic call? Can we be sold out for Jesus and still take a mortgage? Can we make friends without evangelising them or indulge our kids in ice cream truck treats without guilt over the panhandlers we passed by? I think the answer is sometimes yes. Does that sound like a middle class cop out? Maybe it is - I'm trying to figure out where to draw the line!
I don't believe God gave us life simply for us to suffer (not that a life of sacrifice is necessarily a life of suffering). His promise is for abundant life to all who believe in him, and abundant life can take many different forms I think. At the centre of all those different forms is obedience to Christ and I think that's where it gets tricky.
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- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Thoughts
The Christmas season is approaching, and stores are already sparkling with tinsel and wreaths. I've ordered my first gifts online, and my calendar for December is already half full with commitments big and small. Leaves are still clinging to the trees outside, and we've decided where to place the Christmas tree in our new apartment.
["Obviously," you think - except I wrote these words two weeks ago before Remembrance Day had even passed.]
It is possible to spend so much time getting ready for Christmas that the holiday itself passes by in a blur of peppermint extract and paper snowflakes, and when Christmas is over we sigh with relief and hunker down to nap off the calories.
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- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Thoughts
We sang this song in church yesterday, and I was reminded as I have been over and over that God is not limited by raw materials when he creates. A few years ago I wrote a poem that says, no spark caught dry tinder, no switch sent electrons shooting through copper wire, before there was fire before there was sun, into the darkness God spoke, "let there be."
And I wanted to share this vision that was triggered by this song, of light streaming out from the heart of a dark place. The world feels like darkness is creeping over it with war and rumours of war. ISIS gives us a common enemy but not necessarily a common cause to fight for. We can speak of unity and pray for unity, but the fact is humanity is divided. We seem to only have the capacity for so much love, so much compassion, and we ration it out disproportionately around the globe.
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- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Thoughts
I am a British Columbian at heart, a Vancouver Islander in my bones.
To be fair, my Ontario roots go just as deep – generations of my people on both sides of my family were born on this Great Canadian Shield scraped level by ancient glaciers, fertile with farms and highways and the dreams of new immigrants. I was born in Toronto, but I grew up in Victoria, and perhaps my return to this city should have felt more like a homecoming.
My Grandma drove me around her town the summer before I started university and told my stories from my Dad’s growing up years – the places they lived and the schools he attended, and I walked up a stranger’s side yard to see a black cross emblazoned in concrete that marked the death of a pet bird. The people who live there now don’t know what that cross means, but I do. And a few months later, my Great Uncle drove me around his hometown and showed me the river my Grandpa used to fish, and the old post office that was a corner store for a few years, and we bought cheese curds at Reid’s Dairy because Grandpa always missed squeaky cheese after he moved out West with my Prairie-born Grandma. I have a rich heritage with deep roots in the earth, but my heart is hungry for a changing tide, for the smell of salt and moss and cherry blossoms, and smoke on the shore rising up to bright stars.
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- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Thoughts
We had a white Easter this year, drove home through falling snow from our family dinner Saturday night. Sometimes seasons don’t come as you expect.
And the bus transfer I received this morning says it is the 100th day of the year, which got me thinking how many different ways we measure days and count seasons, 100 days into 2015, 10 days into April, 5 days into Easter, 20 days into Spring although like I said, Winter has been taunting us on its way out the door. Today I am 26 months into motherhood, which seems both completely normal and utterly impossible, and I am realizing more and more how motherhood is a whole genre of seasons unto itself.