descent

today is the last day i'll be thirty-five. in some ways, i guess the descent has begun. in many ways, it feels like i've just begun to understand what the Lord would have me do (which does not make doing it easier, it just gives me some slight certainty that i am actually following the charted course).

i had a conversation the other day which resulted in a poem, allow me if you will to share that poem with you:

pastors
are businessmen
running churches
____he said

confirming my worst
____fears

my husband
____told me
this was so,
____long ago

but i refused
____to believe it.

there are things
____i just don't
want to know
____my body fat index
_____IQ, weight

and that pastors
____are just businessmen
____running churches.


this was not an encouraging word. this was not a moment when i believed the church to be in a state of preparedness. this was a crushing moment. and i have to believe we really need persecution to get things back to where they need to be.

i understand this, before we hit the skids financially, i took everything for granted. before we lost all outward comforts and certainties, i demanded many rights and privileges unearned. i had an entitlement thing going on. not anymore.

i understand of what i am made, and Whose i am. i understand my very being to be in His hand and my life purpose not my own.

i understand.

i cannot see the church being wooed into this place. even in the OT when israel went through persecution, wars, and the like, they turned their faces and hearts toward God only in the lean years, the rough times. but once comfort returned, it was, God who? Yahwho?

i don't want to go through persecution. i don't want the church to go through it. i don't want my daughter to go through it.

but more than i want these comforts and freedoms, i want to see a powerful bride again. a redeemed holy bride. not a corporate bride. not a swindling bride. not a prostitute dressed up in bridal garb, but a truly pure spotless bride.

that kind of change doesn't happen in comfort and ease. i understand this.