Moving

Raindrops in the Ocean has it's own home now!  Find me at raindropsintheocean.com.

For those of you who receive email updates, or those who don't and want to, you can sign up for them there.

And a quick update on my car situation: a family from Missouri has offered to donate me a car!  I will be able to drive it home after Thanksgiving.  Glory be to Jesus, He is faithful to provide. 

Wreck

Months ago, my friend Stephanie was washing my car.  I went down to check on her and she turned to me and said, "I feel like God is saying that when something happens to your car, don't worry; He already knows and has something planned for you.  He has something better in mind."

Weeks ago when I had trouble with my clutch, God reminded me of this.  I got help with the clutch situation, and through the prayers of other and the ways God provided in that situation, my faith grew that He would take care of me.

See, my little blue Saturn was not the car I wanted at the time I got it, and though I often had a bad attitude about it, God was so faithful to take care of me.  From the time I bought it, I would have it break down (as in not even start on one occasion), and all I had to do was change the oil and pray and it would be back in good working order.  One friend was driving it five years ago and saw a mental image of the speedometer turning to 200,000 miles.  He said he felt it would keep working that long, that I would get a lot of miles out of that car without any trouble.  On a mountain top between Pismo and Portland, my car DID turn from 199,999 to 200,000 at exactly midnight.  It was cool.

I've logged a lot of miles in that car, in every way.

And last Friday, as I was turning left from a main road to a sidestreet, I got in a wreck.  I don't really want to post the story until it's all resolved, but it involves an unmarked curb, one hit and run, and one SUV...all at night.  My engine is cracked (as in torn all the way through) but I am completely okay.

From the first impact, I remembered all that God has done for me so far, and I knew I would be okay.  That faith that has been building up in me became a shield for me, and instead of tensing up, I relaxed and tried to figure out how to get out of the flow of traffic.  My car did it's job in protecting me...but I don't even have sore muscles or burns from my seatbelt or airbag.

My car is totaled and my insurance does not cover that.  I am thanking God for my health, my life, and waiting to see how He provides.

And for the time being, I am enjoying my bicycle and sharing rides.  ;-)

Hablo Esphanol?

I got to bring my favorite aspect of the Mexico trip back to Pismo with me: our students.  Before going to Mexico I had gotten to connect with some of them, but while we were out of the country I got to share a room with each of the three girl students at some point in the trip.  I got to know them much better through our travels together and then over the last few weeks before they left for Nicaragua.  It has been such a joy to share in their joys, struggles, and life lessons as they get their feet wet in ministry.  I love seeing people step out and grow in their gifting.

One example of this was with our student who left her job as a Spanish I teacher to join our Discipleship Training School.  In Mexico we often looked to her to translate for us, which was quite stretching for her.  Teaching Spanish I is very different from translating in the red light district in Ensenada.  We had a few trying experiences, but we also found a man who was very eager to speak with us: so eager that he was willing to go on in Spanish even though I had no idea what he was saying.  I was separated from our translators, including our student, so I started praying for understanding and came to understand that he was saying he had fallen many times but had hope and wanted a Bible.  I went and found our Spanish speaking student who was able to translate and encourage him, plus encourage me because I had understood him correctly!  We brought him a Bible the next day, but could not find him.  Instead we found a man who spoke English nearly perfectly.  God gave me some insights for him, and we were able to speak truth into his life, giving him the Bible we had brought.  The last night was a much more difficult evening, and after some considerable discouragement, we found the man from the first evening.  It was so encouraging to see him and talk to him again, and I had the honor of processing all these events with this young translator.

The last few weeks I have had the pleasure of praying for and pouring into all of the students on this Discipleship Training School, especially the three young women.  We sent them off to Nicaragua last week.  Please pray for them...I know it will be a life changing time.  It is exciting to get to know these students, even though I am not leading this school, I feel like part of me goes with them.

Hope and Chocolate in Mexico

In Ensenada I...

was romanced by a fierce and wild God.
lost hope.
remembered a death.
played violin on a rooftop to a butterfly dancing.
served a lot of hot chocolate.

met people who build Homes of Hope.
met people who need Homes of Hope.
met people who had Homes of Hope.

remembered what hope really is.

painted the tool shed at a women's recovery home.
played with the children at a women's recovery home.
preached on beauty at a women's recovery home.

served chocolate' caliente in the red light district.

got lost driving to Rancho Sordo Mudo, a school for the deaf.
(The children were still home for the summer.)
wept at stories of God's provision for Rancho Sordo Mudo. 

saw hope living at Rancho Sordo Mudo.

served chocolate' caliente in the red light district.

drove to Tijuana to help prepare for YWAM's 50th celebration.
joined in a worship celebration with people in LA, Brazil, Amsterdam, and other places through skype on steroids.
got my picture videoed and displayed on skype on steroids.  Awkward. 

did not serve chocolate' caliente in the red light district.

visited la Bufadora.
said "la Bufadora" a lot because it is a funny word.

served chocolate' caliente in the red light district.
played my violin.
in the red light district.

somewhere between the red light district, the cliffs diving into the sea, and my violin, I found hope.

Rest in the Lord, wait patiently for Him.  Psalm 37:7

Chuwl, the Hebrew word which is translated "wait" in the above passage means:

to twist, to whirl, to dance, to writhe, fear, tremble, travail, to be in anguish, to be pained, to whirl about, to bear, bring forth, to wait anxiously, to be born, whirling, writhing, suffering torture, to wait longingly, to be distressed


to hope.

More to come...

Well, friends, I am back from my trip to Texas, which included a road trip across the midwest, and packing for two weeks in Mexico.  We leave tomorrow morning.  The three day turn around makes me feel like a flight attendant again: unpacking, laundry, repacking. 

The road trip from Texas was a success.  As I mentioned in my last entry, my friend needed to tie up some loose ends from an interstate move last year.  It was really incredible to walk with her as she handled the challenges of this process. 

I think the thing that impacted me most is how the things we do can have as much a spiritual influence as the prayers we say.  Letting go of a keepsake from a painful time; closing a door in peace instead of fear; walking away from a battle that is not yours to fight; going back to a dark place and remembering how Jesus found you there; all these acts of freedom were somehow a prayer for her, a declaration to everyone around that she is not controlled by things which once controlled her.  I don't know how it is that I get to be the woman who witnesses her beautiful life, but I never walk away the same.  Never. 

It is my priviledge to lay down my life for my friends. 

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.  Galatians 5:1

Goings On

End of summer, and I feel like it's time for a report.  Just the facts ma'am.

We welcomed a new family, Mike, Aleesha, and their two children, on staff this week.  They were students in the last school, and we are so excited to have them here.

More new staff are coming in October.

I am facilitating a series of workshops for the Staff Development department based on the acronym S.H.A.P.E.  (Spiritual Gifts, Heart, Abilities, Personality, Experience).  The workshops flow directly from the things I have been learning in this last season.  We each bring something different to the table...our perspective, skills, gifting, experiences, mistakes, passions, dreams...all these things make us who we are.  As we discover these things in one another, we grow stronger as a team and develop a sense of purpose from our unique identity.  So...these workshops are to grow deeper in our understanding of how God made us, and to engage one another in the process.  I am really excited to share with my team from the things God has been teaching me.

The entire staff is going on outreach together.  We do this every other year, with "family vacation" in the off years, to grow as a team.  This year we are going to Mexico, hopefully to work with a school for the deaf.  Exciting stuff.  I don't know if the students speak American Sign Language or another language, but I love any chance I get to sign.  

After our outreach, we will attend the Jubilee celebration for YWAM's 50th year.  I really like opportunities like this because it helps me understand YWAM better.

And in my personal life, I am flying to Texas this Wednesday (18th) to help a friend tie up some lose ends from her interstate move.  

Planes, trains, and automobiles...after staying in the same place for almost eight months, I will be covering lots of ground in August!

East Wind

"Jesus did not come into the world to make bad men good. He came into the world to make dead men live!" ~Leonard Ravenhill

I've been battling discouragement the past few weeks.  It has been a good experience.  I think doubts and questions are healthy, and I have been aware of God working even in my discouragement.  One question that has been on my heart is why I am called to full time ministry.  One way Jesus answered this question is through a sermon I listened to on Sunday afternoon: "Turning Back to the Mouth of Freedom."  Unfortunately Church of the Open Door only lists it's five most recent sermons, and this one was delivered on June 6, so I can't link to it for you.  Allow me to explain some of what the pastor discussed and how it has impacted me.

The story Steve Weins was speaking on comes from Exodus 14.  We join the Israelites in the wilderness, having just fled slavery in Egypt.  Their Southern journey has taken a Northward turn, due to the Red Sea in their path, but God tells them "Go back and camp at Pi-hahiroth between Migdol and the Red Sea."  Now I know you are saying, "Pi-hihawhat?" but if you look at a map you will see that He said, "Go back to that peninsula and camp between the mountains and the water on every side."  aka "Trapped." 

I know my mom, who has a cat-like affection for water, is really identifying with the Israelites who turned to Moses and said, "Are you CRAZY???  We gonna die out here." 

Directions have symbolic meaning in Hebrew culture, and the North symbolizes Deception.  Fear and slavery have driven them into the land of deception, and it is here that God tells them to turn back, to go to the mouth of the water and wait for Him.

Steve calls this the Mouth of Freedom. 

He says it is a sign of being on the edge of freedom that you think you are about to die.  The Egyptians didn't want to kill them.  They wanted to take them captive, take them back to Egypt as free labor to build more pyramids.  The Israelites felt like they were going to die.  They wanted to go back to Egypt.  They wished they had never left.

I identify with the Israelites wanting to go back, feeling trapped between the known and the unknown, and fearing the unknown enough to wish I had never left.  A friend said to me recently that she thinks when we get to Heaven, we will be amazed by the amount of fear we each experienced here on Earth...each and every one of us driven by fear right into the arms of deception.  But God calls us to turn back, like the people of Israel, surrounded on every side, and wait for Him.   

What comes next for the Israelites is one of the most famous scenes of the Old Testament.  Moses raises his staff and a wind from the East, symbolizing New Beginnings, blows across the water all night until two walls of water line a path of dry land to the other side of the sea.  At God's command, Moses lowers his staff and the water returns to it's normal course, burying their captors in watery graves. 

Over a thousand years later a man stands in a river shouting, "Turn back!  The Kingdom of God is at hand."  John baptises people in the River Jordan as they repent, which literally means to turn back, from slavery to sin, fear, and deception.  But John's baptism is only half the story.  John is preparing the way for Jesus, who brings with Him the east wind of New Beginnings.  Jesus is baptised by John, then spends three years proclaiming a new way to live.  Through His death and resurrection, He makes that new way available to us who are joined in his death and therefore joined in His resurrection.  The Holy Spirit which raised Jesus from the dead lives in us.  This is the transformation which is called salvation. 

Baptism is an outward sign of this salvation, a way of saying, "I die to my sins, I live by the resurrection power of Jesus."  Or as Steve put it, "Baptism is a place to stand and say that I am a part of a community of people that is called to...stand at the mouth of freedom for the terrified ones who don't know what to do. To stand at that mouth of freedom and say there is a way through." 

Oh.

Yeah.

That is why I do what I do. 

I stand at the mouth of freedom for the terrified ones and say there is a way through. 

Because evil doesn't get the last word, and the resurrection power of Jesus is at work, right now, making a way for so many people who are trapped by slavery, fear, and deception.    Because there are all kinds of slaves in the world today...slaves to human trafficking, slaves to terror, slaves to selfishness, addiction, and sin, slaves to memories and a history they cannot escape.  Because we are, so many of us, driven by fear. Because there is something in this world that is stronger than fear:

Love.

I think it is fair, also, to say that I am camped at my own Pi-hahiroth (Mouth of Freedom).  I am battling discouragement, but I haven't given in.  I feel an East Wind coming over the water.  Here's to New Beginnings...

Right lane...it's the new fast lane...

This last weekend I visited some friends in Los Angeles.  On the way down, I finally figured out LA driving.  Traffick started 100 miles outside the city, 130 miles north of my destination.  I was already late leaving, and when the fast lane, where I had been driving, turned into a parking lot with the rest of the traffic, I decided to think strategically rather than get frustrated.

What I saw was that two lanes over to my right was moving faster...consistently moving faster...than the "fast lane."  I remember what a friend told me months ago, "Just remember, Angelites drift left."  I waited for a gap and moved one lane over.  I got stuck behind a slow moving truck.  One clever car snuck up and passed us on the right.  Now, in Missouri where I got my liscense, passing on the right is illegal, as is driving in the left lane.  But in an instant I saw it as a strategic possibility, not just rude and illegal, and suddenly everything made sense.  While the Angelites inched their way forward in the left lane, I wove in and out of the right hand lanes, making my way to Huntington Beach through 130 miles of stop and stop traffic, almost in the same time it would have taken me without traffic (if there is such a thing in LA).

Very early in life I developed the world view that there is a right way and a wrong way to do everything.  Cleaning, cooking, sewing, school work, ballet, art, music...the trick was to find the right way and do it, otherwise you would be wrong.  Of course as I grew I began to see that there were many ways to approach the same problem, but because it was a world view, rooted in my earliest childhood, I couldn't really shake it.  Somehow language and spirituality escaped the black and white thinking, but I have still been susceptible to the influence of others who believe there is a right way...or a better way...to keep house, to relate to one another, to worship God.  That kind of thinking will break you.  So as I scanned a quarter mile of five lanes of frozen traffic, something in my brain shifted.  Some people use their signals, some don't, but I stopped being mad that that guy cut me off without even signaling and started looking for signs other than the red blinking light that someone was going to come into my lane.  I figured it out.  I still use my signal, but I learned to pass on the right, change lanes when I could, and scrap most of the "rules of right driving" (not to be confused with traffic laws...these are things that were NOT in the manual that were part of the "right way" to manage traffic), and drive in a completely different (and changing) culture.

The Prodigal God

Many weeks ago I was considering the story of the prodigal son.  I identified more with the older brother, and I didn't really want to be the older brother.  That is because I thought "prodigal" meant "rude, rebellious, selfish, wasteful, and mean".  Turns out that's not what it means.  It means... 

prod·i·gal

[prod-i-guhl] 

–adjective

1.     wastefully or recklessly extravagant: prodigal expenditure.
2.     giving or yielding profusely; lavish (usually fol. by of  orwith ): 
              prodigal of smiles; prodigal with money.

3.     lavishly abundant; profuse: nature's prodigal resources.

This changes everything.

Now, there is a noun definition that probably came from the story of the son in  Luke 15...and Jesus never uses the word prodigal.  He didn't open by saying, "Let me tell you the story of the Prodigal Son." The story is not about the son at all.  It is about the Father.  I am not saying anything new.  I stole my post title from Greg Boyd's sermon of the same name, and he stole it from someone else.  (Now before you start thinking I'm an open theist, it's a good message.  Just take the message for what it's worth.)  It is the story of a man who has two sons.  The younger asks for his inheritance early and squanders it on the high life, then ends up feeding pigs for a living.  The older remains.  One day as the younger son is quite literally starving, he decides to come home.  The father sees him, hikes up his garment and comes running to his son.  It's a good story.  Greg Boyd tells it better (follow the link above).  Jesus tells it better still.

The thing that stood out to me today was Mr. Boyd's description of the Father's household.  In verse 17, the son remembers his father's hired servants...not the household servants, but day hires--homeless fellows who waited around until someone hired them for the day.  The household servants would go into town, find these folks waiting, then hire a few to do the menial tasks in exchange for wages.  Culturally they would provide their own food, be paid in cash at the end of the day, and then be sent on to make the best of what they could.  So the idea that they had food enough seems to imply that the Father provided food for them.  To provide food was to provide a form of acceptance, to say, "You belong here.  You are welcome."  This would have been scandalous, according to Mr. Boyd.

I got to thinking about the younger son and why he left the farm for the city.  I thought about how embarrassing his father's generosity might have been to him.  I thought about the kindness that ignores status and how boring that is for someone who longs for a shiny, fast-paced life-style, for recognition and esteem.  I don't want the same things as the younger son in this story.  That's why I don't identify with him.  People always talk about the cultural implications of working with pigs, and how that would have been detestable to him.  I don't understand that, and I don't detest the same things my culture detests, so I have a really hard time wrapping my brain around the significance of the pigs.  But what I see is a man who became the thing he hated most.  I am imagining that he hated farming, hated the hired hands--the day workers, and hated that his father treated them with regard.  So I wonder what he must have been thinking as he stood there, smelling like a sewer, with the Father lavishing kisses on him...

"No...you're not...supposed...to love...me...you're...supposed...to despise...me..."  I wonder if he was embarrassed for his father's public display of affection and yet broken by his need for the father's love.  I wonder if he was embarrassed by his own need, and then in turn embarrassed by his arrogant judgement of all the hired hands, all those years.

His speech...his famous interrupted speech.  He was all ready to say, "I have sinned against you and against God.  I am no longer worthy to be called your son.  Treat me as one of your hired servants," when the Father interrupts him and throws the most lavish party ever, dresses him in his own robes, puts the signant ring on his finger.  This is where I identify with the younger son.  The God of the Universe seems to be hopelessly, extravagantly in love with me.  I stand here, wanting to studder, "But I don't...derserve..." as He interrupts with joy and love.  The paradox of God's love is that, no matter how "underserving" we are of His love, the love itself makes us worthy. 

Blessings and peace,
Beth

brief update

It seems like it's been too long again since my last update.  I'd like to get back in the habit of updating during my weekly office hours, but it seems like there is so much that I am doing when I come into the office.  For instance, today I primed a wall which I will be painting on Friday. 

Things are going well with the Outreach department.  We are studying a different sphere of society each week according to the Seven Spheres/Mountains in the teachings of Loren Cunningham and Bill Bright.  These spheres are present in every society, in one form or another.  The Seven Spheres are:

• Government and Finance
• Family and Health Care
• Education
• Arts, Entertainment, and Sports
• Media and Communications
• Science and Technology
• Church 

For the purposes of study, we split up Government and Finance into two different weeks: government last week and finance/business this week.  Our desire in this time is to get a Biblical understanding of each of these spheres as well as a deeper understanding of how each sphere looks in American culture.  One aspect of the sphere of business is Business as Mission, which I have been researching this week. 

Tomorrow afternoon I will be leading this Bible study/discussion/prayer time.  Friday we are holding a bake sale at Walmart to raise funds for the base overhead costs.  But right now I need to dust the office...because we are, each of us on this base, servant leaders.  :-)

Blessings on your week!

Unveiled Faces

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.


2 Corinthians 3:17-18


Today I have finished reading Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis.  This book, unlike any other he has written...unlike any I have read by any other author, may just be his masterpiece.  It is a "Myth Retold", the ancient myth of Cupid or Psyche, set in Greek times in a barbaric kingdom outside Greece.  Orual, an ugly princess made queen, is making her complaint against the Gods for injustice suffered at their hands during her youth.  She wears a veil to cover her ugliness throughout her entire queenship, and then at the end of her life is given the opportunity to read her complaint.  She appears before a the council without her veil, without any barrier to hide her from them.  When she goes to read, she finds that her long, drawn out story has been replaced by a short, older complaint, which she reads over and over until interrupted by the judge.  After a long silence, the judge speaks again:


"Are you answered?" he said.
"Yes," said I.


And in the next chapter, she explains:


The Complaint was the answer.  To have heard myself making it was to be answered.  Lightly men talk of saying what they mean.  Often when he was teaching me to write in Greek the Fox would say, "Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that's the whole art and joy of words."  A glib saying.  When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you'll not talk about the joy of words.  I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer.  Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean?  How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?


Of course I have done a great injustice to the book by extracting the thesis statement from the end of the book and posting it here.  I am not sure if I have ruined the book for you...you will have to read it and let me know.  The bit, though, brings a certain amount of light to 2 Corinthians, which I have been studying this week.  To be unveiled means honesty, and that can be frightening, especially when we have been keeping one thing hidden for so long that we didn't even know it was there.  We move in 2 Corinthians from the veil and unveiled faces to the treasure which we have in jars of clay...more about honesty and the juxtaposition between the Glory of God and our incompleteness.  It is not by pretending to be a diamond vial that I will show best His glory, but if I am honest with myself about my clay-ness.  And even, proceeding to chapter 5, we see that all this honesty is not for some sort of emotional burlesque show, but for transformation from glory to glory as was mentioned in chapter 3.


For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 


2 Corinthians 5:4

Playing in the Dirt

My last post was April 9.  Could it be May already? 

The end of April is a "port of entry/exit" for our base.  What that means is this is the time when some staff go and other some on.  Cody will be leaving from his outreach location with the Discipleship Training School, and I had the pleasure of sending Lauren on her way last weekend.  Both of them will be in a transition time, discerning the next step in their lives.  Cody will be with International House of Prayer in Israel.  Lauren is on a short sabbatical in England.

We are also receiving a new staff member, Philip, who will be living in the Grover Beach.

Along with the port of entry, we will be having our "Big Ops" meeting, which is where we all come together, give our reports for each department, and "change seats on the bus"...which means we change which departments we are a part of, which ones we facilitate and so on.  I am currently facilitating four of the five departments I am a part of, and while I enjoy being involved with each of these departments, I don't feel that I need to facilitate everything.  So please pray that the Lord directs me on how to commit my time over the next six months. 

Finally, in two weeks (May 12) we will be having the "16th Street Barbecue" to build community on our street and get to know our neighbors better. 

What does all this have to do with playing in the dirt?  I have been re-potting rescued plants today.  By the time I find them they have been sent from Trader Joe's to the local food bank, where they will either die or be given away for free.  Most of them are wilty from being root bound, so I set them in the kitchen until I can attend to them.  One pot of herbs has been there a couple weeks because I needed to buy a bigger pot for it.  Several of the plants died, but a few were salvageable.  I have noticed, however, that every time I look at them they are swimming in water.  I think a roommate or a friend has taken it upon themselves to rescue the plants by drowning.  They are so root bound, however, that the water doesn't even go through the pot.  It just sits there.  Convicted of my plant neglect, I purchased a larger pot for them today and freed them from their confined little marsh.  At the base of the lavender I found nearly a half inch of tangled, rotting roots.  The poor thing...my friend kept watering and watering it when what it really needed was soil and space. 

And then I think of all the transplanting that is going on around me...people moving in and out of the base, people moving around with responsibilities within the base.  It reminds me that sometimes the most obvious solution is not the one needed, and might even be harmful without the proper care.  I pray that we all find our feet in good, spacious soil with room to grow.

New Things

Happy Resurrection Sunday!  (Even if it is a week late.)

After much prayer and consideration, I have decided to begin a search for new church home.  I did not spend time doing this when I first arrived, and I look at this as an opportunity to get a better view of the Body of Christ in this area.  Please pray for wisdom and insight as I meet people and make connections, that I will learn more about this area and myself in the process.

We had our first staff in-service this Thursday!  Life time YWAMer and long time friend of the base, Troy Sherman spoke to us his perspective on YWAM's 50th year and the Jubilee celebration.  Jubilee is a tradition from the Old Testament, where every 50th year all debts are forgiven, slaves are set free, and the land rests fallow for a year.  With forgiveness comes the responsibility to learn and grow from our mistakes, and Troy urged us to consider how we can mature as individuals and an organization.  One of the things that really stood out to me is how we steward our treasures...first how we invest the resources God has provided for us, and most importantly how we steward God's most important treasure: the people He has entrusted to us.

The discipleship training school left for their two month outreach this morning.  I am excited for them, as I have gotten to know them and invest in them through my involvement with the school in the first couple months of this year.  Even though I myself had been planning to leave for Africa with the team today, I know that I am where I am supposed to be.  Just as I myself am in a season of personal transformation, the base is also in a season of transformation.  We don't know yet what the end will be, but I feel that I am to be an integral part of what is unfolding.

Bless you this week!  Please pray for:

• Personal growth in this season of seeking intimacy with God
• Clarity on the direction for my ministry in YWAM Pismo Beach
• Clarity for the base as we go deeper in God's call for us
• Provision as I seek to expand my monthly financial support

Beth

Be Angry and Do Not Sin

We in our base have been thinking about Ephesians 4.  I spent time the other morning, listening to it over and over via esv.org.  I have heard enough sermons on Ephesians 4:26 which seem to acknowledge it's presence, and then confusingly negate it, suggesting that anger inherently leads to sin, so if you are angry you haven't sinned yet, but be careful, because anger is a foothold of the devil.

Paul does not actually say this.  Unresolved anger is a foothold to the devil, and even still we believe that it is the anger that is the problem...but what if we read verses 25-26, laying down our fear of anger and pairing down the descriptive words so that all we have is the verbs and their direct objects.  "...speak the truth...be angry...do not sin..."  What if anger is a warning sign of injustice and denying anger is a form of the falsehood we are exhorted to put away?  What if Paul really meant to say "be angry"?  Surely the anger itself can seethe and fester into bitterness, pride, and rage, but if we are somehow able to successfully conquer our anger without resolution, then the injustice goes on without confrontation, still giving the devil plenty of opportunity to work with everyone else.

In the context of "speak the truth...be angry...do not sin" I believe that not letting the sun go down on my anger has more to do with denial than it does with anger.  If I am provoked, I am to find resolution, and I am to make it a priority, resolving that day if at all possible.  (I always wondered what happened if I got angry after the sun went down.)  And what sort of resolution are we talking here?  Paul gives us a few ideas regarding thieves and talkers.  Those prone to a certain character flaw should not engage as they once did, but use their energy and strength to build up the people of Christ.  In fact we should "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice."

Now I understand the propensity for confusing sermons on this passage.  "Be angry...do not sin...let anger be put away from you."  I looked up the original language.  Angry verse 26 refers to being provoked.  Anger in verse 31 refers to a state of constant anger.  Although one word comes from the other, one has a sense of direction (vs 26) and the other has a sense of stagnancy (vs 31).  I would even argue, from other Biblical uses of the word in verse 26, that the word implies action.  And that action can be found in the exhortations to be transformed in mind and deed.  Finally, as we are working toward results, toward change provoked by anger, we are to release offense.  "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you."  Anger itself does not produce results.  It may initiate change or keep it moving, but it is not intended as a place to reside.  Falsehood and denial rob anger of it's potency for change while trapping it within the heart of a person.  Anger has a purpose, but only in the context of forgiveness and truth.

"Speak the truth...be angry...do not sin..."

For we are all members of one another.

YWAM Pismo Beach Structure

I thought it would be helpful, in my blog post this week, to explain the structure of the base and talk a little about the staff.

Currently, we have thirteen staff at YWAM Pismo:

Will
Lori
Brandon
Kirsten
Lauren
Natasha
Jaque
Cat
Cody
Tyler
Stephanie
Paulina
ME!

Base Ministry:  Our base has 15 departments (also called committees or ministries) that help it run.  These departments cover all the basic needs of the base: physical, financial, communications, administrative, spiritual, etc.  For instance, we need people to make sure we have paper clips, that checks are processed, that the toilet gets cleaned, that bills are paid, that people know about our base, and that we are doing the things we are called to do!  We share these responsibilities by serving within these departments.  Everybody serves in at least three, everybody facilitates at least one.  Some people also have personal ministries, which I can tell more about later.  We try to get all our work done, both for the base and personal ministries, during our work hours.  This just helps to keep us accountable for how we spend our time and also keeps our lives relevant to the culture in which we live.  A little story from yesterday will be a good example of how we all "wear different hats" and how that works together:

Lauren and Cat are both part of our Outreach Department and were going to the store to buy supplies.  I was with them on their errand because I had an errand of my own.  While we were out, I needed to take an hour from our work day for a last-minute appointment.  Lauren is on Guidance Committee (which is like the human resources department) and Cat, being in the Administrative department, is the person who is responsible for tracking time off and time away from base.  They were exactly the people I needed to communicate with!  They put on their administrative hats for a moment, we talked about the business side of what needed to be covered.  It was such a blessing!  Then they put on their supportive ministry friend hats and prayed with me.  Another amazing blessing.

The departments I am on are:

Hospitality
Intercession, Worship, and Spiritual Warfare
Outreach
Staff Development

People also have personal ministries and the base hosts two schools.  I can talk more about those another day.  I  hope this gives you a more clear glimpse into my life at YWAM Pismo Beach.

Forgiveness

This week during our silence and solitude time, which we have once a month, I spent a couple hours contemplating the work of the cross.  I remembered a teaching on the difference between mercy and grace. 

GRACE = God DOES give us what we DON'T deserve.

MERCY = God DOESN'T give us what we DO deserve.

Mercy and grace are the work of the cross within an individual's life, but I have been thinking more and more about the corporate work of the cross.  I know what it means that Jesus paid the price for my sin, but what does it mean to me that He paid for my neighbor's sin?  If He was able to fulfill God's justice through His sacrifice, to pay the debt I owed to God, can't He also pay to me the debt of injury from my neighbor's sin against me?  To forgive is to acknowledge my neighbor owes me and to release him from that debt, but then I bear the cost of his debt.  But the work of Jesus on the cross means that *I* do not have to bear that cost...Jesus can.  


Maybe a simple example with money will help.  Let's say that Joe owes me $50.  If I forgive him that $50, I'm still short $50.  So then I bear the cost.  But if someone, say, Jesus, gives me $50, then he bears the cost.  Jesus died so that we can love one another truly, free from sin, selfishness, and self-protection.  


So many in this world have endured abuses that can never be repaid to them, the cost of which they cannot bear.  When we go continually to people to collect a debt they can never repay, we come up empty and wounded.  When we step with holy confidence out of the debt they cannot pay and turn to Jesus, we find the life they could not give.  

Prophetic Painting

I have actually been doing "prophetic art" for years without realizing it.  God will speak in my heart, "Draw what you see." and when the picture is done, He will speak to me through the art I just made.  The process is like prayer, and the final product speaks something in God's heart that I need to know.  The last several weeks God has been speaking to me through color and texture.  I will try to get a better picture for the February Scrapbook, but I thought I would post the one I made tonight.  I called the file name "fire cocoon".  :-)  I could tell you what it means, but it's way more fun to hear what everyone else says first.

Delight

I would like to take a moment and clarify some things from last weeks post.

I still work for YWAM.  I have made a two year commitment here, and they have made a two year commitment to me. 

Stepping down from the DTS was in no way disciplinary.  Stephanie, the school leader, sat down with me and through tears said, basically, "What God is doing in your life is more important than my ministry.  I want you to take a break and focus on Him."  It goes down in history as one of the singularly most loving moments of my life, as Stephanie and the rest of the staff had to step up in the places where I had been serving.  They laid down their lives for me, which the Bible tells us is the test of love, that you would lay down your life for your friends.

If I am slightly vague about what God is doing in my life, it is because I don't really understand.  I posted a few of the themes that come up repetitively, consistently, across lots of different groups of friends.  It's okay not to understand completely.  Part of the reason I don't understand is because He is doing in me something I have not seen, heard, or imagined, and this is good.

When I'm not being swept off my feet by a passionate loving God who wants all of me, I am working (with Him) on my other base ministries. 

• Staff Development  This is basically "continuing education" for the staff on the base here.  You can see why, since these people have sacrificed so that I can seek the Lord on a deeper level, I would want to sow back into them by arranging speakers, finding sermons, and arranging workshops so that they too can grow in the Lord.I am facilitator. 
•  House Representative This is a new role for me, but we all take turns.  Remember that the governing structure of our base is a flat leadership structure.  Well, instead of trying to get 13 people together once a week, we have a meeting as a house, and then the house representative goes to meet with the other house representatives at the Operations Meeting.  Confused?  Draw yourself a diagram.  It will make more sense.  Anyway, being the House Rep helps me understand the process better...and believe me...I have lots of questions.
• In-reach Since we just moved into this house last November, it has taken a lot of work to get our in-reach going.  We have taken time to pray, and currently we are inviting individual families over.  When I was working the DTS, it was almost impossible to devote any time to in-reach.  Now that I have had a couple weeks to process, my ideas and excitement is building.

I'm sure I will do more as time goes on, but at the moment, since my assignment is to "be still", I am trying to be faithful to that.

Thank you for praying for me this week.  It was a hard week, but it has ended extremely well.  Thursday I got to talk to several lovely people, and today, Saturday, I spent at a prophetic painting workshop hosted by Oasis Church.  I really love the Holy Spirit. 

Doing a New Thing

This may come as a surprise to many of you, but I will do my best to explain and am confident that the Holy Spirit within you will help you to interpret and understand this new thing.  I have been released from staffing the DTS.  As much as I adore the students and working with them, as determined as I was to make the DTS kitchen an offering to God for His glory, as excited as I am about discipling the people who will bring God's justice to the nations, the things that I have been doing have been in conflict with the things God wants to do in me.  So, in obedience to my leaders and the Lord who love me deeply, I have stepped down from staffing the school.

Several words have been spoken over this season...which is to say that as I and my friends from all different places pray for me, the same themes keep coming up.  I would like to share with you some of these themes so that you can pray into them, speak into them, and celebrate with me the sacred honor I am being given.

• Urgency- God is jealous for me, and His intensity toward me seems apparent to all the people around me (this is the part which I, quite frankly, don't yet comprehend).
• Inner healing- I am being given a vision for the healing God wants to do in my life that is different from anything I have experienced before.  The model I have always known is to go back to a painful memory and have God touch that pain.  This is a long process, especially for survivors of extreme trauma (to whom I am called) and I (and many others) have been praying for a faster way.  As always, God likes to train me through my own experience.  He will do in me first what He wants to do through me.  I'll share more as I understand. 
• Peace- I have asked specifically for authority over the things (of the world, flesh, and demonic) which come against people's minds.  Of course that authority is the peace of Christ which guards our hearts and minds.  Peace is, overwhelmingly, the word I hear most often when people pray.  It is a difficult process, because in order to experience true peace, God must first disarm all my defenses and efforts at false peace.  Ugh.  I have experienced bits of the peace He is bringing me into (Glory be to Jesus) but at the moment, the process does not feel like peace at all. 
• Receive- This is the word I hear most in my own prayers, and it is, for me, the most difficult part.  God has brought it to my attention that since I was a little girl I have been giving (and giving and giving and giving and giving and giving and giving and...). Now I come with empty, open hands.  It is a daily...sometimes hourly... discipline.

Practically speaking, my tasks on base have shifted significantly.  Our guidance committee met with me this week and will continue to meet with me, helping me navigate this season.  I am dedicating time to receive from the Lord.  The base guidance committee has encouraged me to focus on raising support, which is a huge blessing because I will get to spend time connecting with the people I love; I also need to make sure my financial needs are getting met.  I will still facilitate the staff development department, which brings me great joy; I have other tasks which help me continue in orienting to the base and YWAM as an organization.  I am no longer staffing the DTS outreach to Nigeria, which means we are back to the drawing board on my new staff outreach.  I will bring this up in my next meeting with the guidance committee.

I have grown tremendously in the week since this decision was made.  The month and a half of staffing the DTS was joyous and difficult, and I feel like I am enjoying the fruit of submitting to God in both the joys and difficulties.  I believe the Spirit is telling me that I am to enjoy the fruit of my hands in this season, the fruit of years of loving and serving the Lord, and that from this fruit we will plant a vineyard.  The ending of the 1995 moving French Kiss has been haunting me since I got to California.  The character Kate is more like me than any other character I have seen in any other movie.  The entire movie is available on YouTube...click here to spoil the entire movie and see the ending.  The cute one with the blond hair is me.  Kevin Kline will be playing the lover, who for me is the God who Knows Me, is jealous for me, and longs to have me as His bride.

Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her.
And there I will give her her vineyards
and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth,
as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.

And in that day, declares the Lord, you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal.’

And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy.  I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. 

And you shall know the Lord.  

-Hosea 2:14-16, 19-20

I will restore her vineyards, and she will know that she is my bride, not my servant.

-Prophetic word spoken over the group I was gathered with last night

Images from Silence and Solitude

I took these pictures during our base silence and solitude time on Tuesday.  God was speaking to me about growing things...how silly climbing roses look with nothing to climb, but how much work it takes a gardener to train them along the fence.  I really love the pictures of the thorns.  They are so crazy and wild, all different sizes of thorns covering the branches.  I can't so much explain it; I just love it.  Even the shattered rose hips, swollen with seed, everything about the wildness of a growing thing...the messy-ness of it all.

Messy.  Healing is messy.  So is love.  Beauty is messy.  So are most artistic things.  I'm okay with messy...and that is a gift.  So many Christians are not okay with messy.  We want things to fit neatly into the little boxes.  Of course, that is because we do not see as the Gardener sees.  God is the Bride-groom...the ultimate Husband.  Husband comes from the word husbandry, which means to garden.  So He tends to us in winter, spring, and harvest...growing things with a structure and order we do not understand.

Stroopwaffles and Discernment

Welp, the title pretty much says it all.  I have stroopwaffles...the lovely Jael, our emissary from Holland, gifted me them from her birthday care package (her birthday was Friday)!  Glory be to Jesus.

And I am currently discerning God's heart on a new opportunity that has come my way.  Please pray for wisdom and...you guessed it...discernment.

And just because I love you, a passage from Colossians:

For in [Christ] the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him who is the head of all rule and authority. (2:9-10)

Isn't that amazing?!?!!?

I lead my first department meeting this week!  I am head of the staff development ministry, and we had our first meeting.  It was short and productive.  :-) Hurrah!

Below, as promised, the Loren Cunningham talk on Nigeria.  I heard him in Kansas City this last December...you will want to fast forward to 1:58...unless, of course, you want to experience the amazing IHOP worship and Mark Anderson's talk.

Beth

T R A N S F O R M A T I O N

Happy Friday!  Today is Fun Day Friday...hopefully I will have pictures for you from our awkward 80's day.  :-)

The DTS students are fun and hilarious.  I can see how God is growing each one of them, so differently and yet so profound.  It is fun to be on the leadership side of a school, looking for Him as things take shape.  Each of my roles gives me a little window into these magnificent young souls.

The kitchen has had a bit of a rocky start as I figure out what is required of me and then how to delegate, when to delegate, and what to delegate.  The hardest part, though, is that I have to know what needs to be done before I can delegate!  Jesus is teaching me interdependence in just about every area of my life, and this can be seen tangibly in the DTS kitchen.  While figuring out the food prep side of things has been tricky, relationships have been forming and growing in the kitchen...so my goal to feed their hearts as well as their tummies is working out quite nicely.

My small group is made up of three lovely individuals.  As with many of our students, these three are called to leadership specifically in ministry.  Each of them comes with a strong foundation, but I feel that God wants to take them to the next level in knowledge, understanding, and compassion.  They desire to be challenged.  Please pray for me as I seek God's heart and will for them as their leader.

God has been reminding me of all the things I have learned in the last 10-20 years.  It is easy to forget that I have so many resources within me.  This last year of my life has been so transformational, and yet my students need all of me, all that I am, all the paths I have walked.  A silly example of this is today for Fun Day...I am in charge of coming up with games to play.  I was laying awake last night, thinking to myself, "Eek!  Egad!  I didn't plan any games.  I should have looked some crazy games up online.  I bet if I did a google search..."  God interrupts, "How about Improv. games?"  Suddenly I remember all of the games I have learned and lead over the last 15 years.  "Oh, yeah, there is a wealth of information and experience within me.  I have been equipped for every task God has for me."  I need to remember.  It's good to remember.

Cocooning  The DTS season has been way more intense than I anticipated.  My church began 2010 with a 21 day Daniel fast, and this fast set things in motion within me, a season which is best defined by the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly.  Check out this article  on About.com and scroll down to the Pupa Stage.  Things I noticed...the chrysalides looks like it is resting, but there is a LOT going on inside.  The little caterpillar, which spent most of it's life eating, is now fasting (like me).  Stillness is important to transformation (Be still and know that I AM God...).  God activates something within the caterpillar, something amazing that was always there, and this initiates the destruction of the caterpillar's old body (my flesh is dying and being destroyed).  The entire body of the caterpillar is destroyed.  This process has two names...programmed cell death or histogenesis, (histo=tissue; genesis=beginning).  It is an end and a beginning.  I asked God when this season will be over.  I believe He said, "You will know."  :-)  Just like the butterfly, I will rest here until some change in light or some change within, calls me on.  I hope it's before we leave on Outreach.


Our outreach locations will be: Nigeria and Russia!  The entire staff got to pray with the students, and there may be another location for the Russia team.  I will be assisting Paulina, who is leading the Nigeria outreach.  I am sooooooooooooo excited.  I will try to post Loren Cunningham's talk from the One Thing conference later this week.


Be blessed, my friends!

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Romans 12:2

Longing, Aching for Him

Song of Solomon 5:2-6


I slept, but my heart was awake.
A sound!  My beloved is knocking.
"Open to me, my sister, my love, 
my dove, my perfect one,
for my head is wet with dew,
my locks with the drops of the night."
I had put off my garment;
how could I put it on?
I had bathed my feet;
how could I soil them?
My beloved put his hand to the latch,
and my heart was thrilled within me.
I arose to open to my beloved,
and my hands dripped with myrrh,
my fingers with liquid myrrh,
on the handles of the bolt.
I opened to my beloved,
but my beloved had turned and gone.
My soul failed me when he spoke.
I sought him, but found him not;
I called him, but he gave no answer."


I am like the bride, awakened in the night at the sound of her beloved, longing for Him.


When I was in Kansas City during the One Thing conference with International House of Prayer, I experienced the presence of God like I never have in my whole life.  It is not to strong to say that I am addicted to His presence.  I find myself back in California, longing for Him, aching for Him.  The Holy Spirit did monumental, life changing things in me the last week of 2009, and yet here I am in 2010 realizing that this was only a taste, only a glimmer, only a knock on the door of all that Jesus can do in and through me.  I am longing, aching for Him.  My church is in the third week of a 21 day Daniel fast (No, Daniel wasn't fasting per se...but we base our fast on his diet in Daniel 1).  We are fasting to go deeper in prayer and outreach in 2010.  I am fasting because I miss His presence, because I long for Him.  I ache for Him.  Matthew 9:15 says, "And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast..."  I am the friend of the Bridegroom, fasting to know the love of the Father, fasting for more of the Holy Spirit, fasting for Jesus return.