My One Word: enough:: Women who Love

My one word journey led me to a wonderful women's online magazine: SheLoves. I've read a bit, you'd like it. And as I perused I noticed a manifesto for women who love completely. It starts with

Let us be women who Love.

Let us be women willing to lay down our sword words, our sharp looks, our ignorant silence and towering stance and fill the earth now with extravagant Love.

Let us be women who Love.

Let us be women who make room

.Let us be women who open our arms and invite others into an honest, spacious, glorious embrace.

It goes on. You can read it here. But before you go, really read these words. "Let us be willing to lay down our sword words..." I think about the girls on my daughters volleyball team who can level each other with a word, "...move your feet," or an eye roll at a misstep. I think about my friend who is proud of the fact that she needs only one word and a look to make her point. I recall the biting words leaving my mouth in frustration at an co-worker, a sister, my child. I wonder what it would be like if we all agreed that we didn't need to take ground, show some one, or make a point. But instead, loved. Made room. Opened our arms and invited others into an honest, spacious, glorious embrace.

We'd have enough and we'd offer enough. (Extravagant love rears it's beautiful head again.)

For me, I'll live in the first stanza this week and I don't think I'll wait for the rest of the we. I have the will and the Spirit driven power to simply love, without the sword words, offering room.

I have that to offer and to share.

The Speaking God.

God always amazes me. But I have to be awake. And present. And listening. This week He humbled me in a very beautiful way. I'm part of a speaking/teaching team of women at my church. We're assigned topics based on a study with a rather large women's Bible Study group.

The group is called Woman's Walk. It's a big room of women who meet faithfully each Wednesday morning and, well, walk together through scripture studies. Last year, I was spoke on Rahab and Lydia. I loved every minute of preparation and then sharing. Rahab was prepared and ready to go, complete with a red satin chord for each of us to hold onto and pray that we'd be so obedient to the God of the Hebrews. The night before I spoke, God awakened me at 1:00 to revise my talk. As I reread the story He showed me that Rahab must have been spoken to by His Holy Spirit. Because she knew who God was. She trusted Him completely with her life and her family, obeying. Joshua 2:9 has her saying, 

 “I know that the LORD has given you this land and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you."

I know. She knew.

It was wonderful fun to share how we meet him through Rahab. My experiences have been wonderful. I learn so much each time and have the pleasure of hearing from women, later, as we go about how the LORD spoke to them in the study.

This time? Limited prep. I shared the story of Jairus. The study had us look deeply into what happens to our faith in the face of death. It was good. I'd told the story more than once in VBS, where God takes me deeper than I ever expect. I reviewed. I prayed, but I didn't get to the real preparation the way I like to. Somehow though, I didn't feel fearful.

At 1ish, God met me at my dining room table and showed me how He wanted us to look at the story. (Mark 5, Luke 8) He wanted a comparison of the man, the (hemorrhaging) woman and Jesus. And He wanted me to precede the entire discussion with a heart-piercing observation from a book by Elizabeth Alves. The author and her husband were in Africa in the 70's and saw huge works of the Holy Spirit. 23,000 people had been healed of illnesses, etc. and she was taken by the fact she was living out the book of Acts. She pondered the why and why not and asked God if it were that we don't receive these healings because we're so attached to doctrine and tradition. She shared His reply:  

"No, Daughter, these people are receiving because they have no fear of man."

The words are perfect. We don't receive because our fear God is eclipsed by our fear of man. But it wasn't for Jairus. Or the bleeding woman. Jairus set aside his status at the synagogue and knelt at Jesus feet. Desperation meets understanding of who Jesus is. And he sets aside the truth that the priests will likely be furious. He risks much.

And the woman, the unceremonially clean woman who can't be touching the people in the crowd, to say nothing of this amazing Rabbi, Jesus, sets aside all fear and makes sure she touches the tzitzit. She knows there is healing there, with Him, and she doesn't care what the people of Capernaum think, or perhaps, do to her. 

My fear of man is on notice. It gets in the way of living the abundant life and has no place in abiding in Him.

So, I got to share more than the story of the miracle, but the reality of what might be stopping us from receiving from the One Who Loves Us. And isn't that a miracle in itself.

Fear.

THE BETTER YOU BECOME ACQUAINTED WITH GOD, THE LESS TENSIONS YOU FEEL AND THE MORE PEACE YOU POSSESS. - Charles L. Allen

I'm taking an online journaling and class. Within the first couple of days, I was required to face some small fears. Tear a bunch of pictures out of a magazine. Pictures of things I like, places I'd like to be, and the like. I was then to make a collage of them, take a picture and put them up on the class website.
I felt the fear creep in when I started gluing the pictures down. The questions became, "Can I do this? Can I pull the picture back up if I don't like it? What if they don't all fit? What if it doesn't look good? This is an art class after all." And it went on. I was happy with the outcome and was equally happy to put it up on the page. And when I was finished, I wondered, "What was all that?"

Is this really my process? To listen to the somewhat-motivating self-doubt? Is that what pushes me toward a good product? Could I get there more joyfully? There was joy in this process, no doubt, but what is all this fear?
As I worked forward in the class, the assignments have required my attention and have summoned even more fear. I'm a "nose-to-the-grindstone, work-it-out, whistle-in-the-dark type." In some respects, my perspective is to take it on and move through.
But, I'm keenly aware that fear might not be a gift, after all. There should be joy.

This morning I read from the Psalmist:
You have given me greater joy than those who have abundant harvests of grain and wine. I will lie down in peace and sleep, for you alone, O Lord, will keep me safe. -Psalm 4:7-8

Oh yes. The Author of my faith has given me greater joy. His perfect love is promised to cast out fear.

Perhaps I need to do what I'd tell my kiddos or you to do: Invite the LORD into the process. Sit at the art table (which in my case, is the kitchen table) and ask Him to reveal what His gracious Holy Spirit wants to reveal. Allow Him to work through this process with me. Leading and guiding me into the art He has for me to explore and execute.

Oh my, what would I have to fear in that?
I'll report.