In Love

Apologies however for my own clumsiness in presenting this fantasticity of grace (if you're new to my rambling, I allow myself to invent words...). If you found my last rather melodramatic, that was just me trying in my special clumsy fashion to get my point across. I meant it. The point is this - God loves. Yes, it is covenant love; yes, He asks us to respond. But none of that changes the fact this way or that - God loves. Not even the fact that God judges can change the fact that God loves.

And I am still being blown away by the fantasticity of grace... Sometimes it would seem as if God says to me: Do you love me? Then act like it.

I am rubbish at being in love, I suspect. And I use 'in love' warily. I must also be rubbish at loving. I act sometimes like a complete ass - a kiss at the door, one in the evening and no remembrance of love inbetween. Does God get used to hurt? Perhaps, but I doubt it. Whatever the answer, I'm willing to bet it still hurts.

So we were standing together in my little church belting out our love for the Lord. I have meant it, I do. But this Sunday, I just stood there half-grateful I knew enough to ask if I could be allowed to not lead tonight and just sit back in the meeting. And I was more than half-miserable knowing that I couldn't say I loved Him with all my heart and mind, knowing that I would love to be able to promise it with all the others who were smiling so gorgeously. But hating myself because at some level I was holding back (and I knew it) because I was afraid of hurting Him - again.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me - I don't have to go seeking after those highly desirable things... They follow me - can I whoop with joy now? Because as I stood there longing to be able to allow myself to sing that line, God spoke. And changed my life - again.

The Breaker-Down

Sometimes tongues are like a glass of cold water after your morning jog! When you're stuck because you can't say what went wrong and what came right, and you don't know where you want to be or go but you know you must leave this place you are in... Or when you're simply floored by being in love and wonder and peace...

Habit is a hard thing to break, especially the habit of thought for me... But God goes before you to break down and destroy what stands in His way.

I have just rediscovered Isaiah 45: 1-3 and I love it.

1 "This is what the LORD says to his anointed,
to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of
to subdue nations before him
and to strip kings of their armor,
to open doors before him
so that gates will not be shut:

2 I will go before you
and will level the mountains [a] ;
I will break down gates of bronze
and cut through bars of iron.

3 I will give you the treasures of darkness,
riches stored in secret places,
so that you may know that I am the LORD,
the God of Israel, who summons you by name.

Where I come from

I am always not quite sure what people are expecting when they ask me how I was saved. My testimony is dramatic in that all testimonies are - you're born again, how much more life-changing can it get. I am radically saved. But story-wise - I don't know. You decide. There is not much of a plot, climax and denouement. But God requires us to testify of His love (love that song!), so I'm going to do it here. Because although I've blogged for some time now, I've never properly introduced myself!

When I was 10, I must have been a bit of a pain. Telling my testimony to a worker at church this morning made me realise - I definitely had some attitude problems back then! I'm sure I still have a few :( My dad was first in our family. My mum was always the one who read more, and consequently read the Bible more... But I think appa was the first to realise there was something more to being saved. That God meant what He said about no one coming to the Father except through Jesus, and about being born again. So as my father was beginning to get more interested in a personal relationship, he started to play these tapes and CDs over and over and over again. This would eventually result in my mum or me walking out of the room at some point. Moreover, my father also looked disapprovingly on our telly interests which did not help. Still does not make sense. But eventually he and our neighbours convinced us to go to this evangelistic prayer meeting - big event in the city, lakhs of people arriving from different parts of the state and neighbouring cities, must go. So we did. The evangelist is still a very popular, though sometimes controversial personality!

When we were there, I was very impressed with the message and with some parts of the worship. I was a sceptical 10 as to worshipping God openly or personally so when the person onstage asked us to allow the Spirit to minister and lift our hands if we felt like it and just feel free, I opened one eye to see what my mother was doing! I felt like I wanted to lift my hands and say this prayer that he was saying as I did feel a gentle breeze just after the man prophesied that we would. But I was not sure how cool that was going to be - so I peeked. My mother was lifting her hand(s) in prayer - it was the first time I'd ever seen her do it. I have always been very influenced by my mum and then my dad. So I was intrigued. I didn't open my eyes after that but I prayed and I welcomed the Holy Spirit. And minutes before the preacher had said some of us would feel a gentle rain - I did! I thought that was brilliant. I was only little so I had no trouble believing God could and would make the weather obey Him. Jesus in the storm had always been my favourite story.

I am not being denominational at all. But that God and I could have a working relationship did not actually dawn on me before that time.

Not everyone felt the tiny drops but everyone felt the thunderstorm in an hour! The people had dispersed and everyone was walking home, when the rain poured. It was unexpected and since the meeting was on the beach, it was quite cold. They were going to remove my tonsils because it was pretty bad. Lol, I couldn't leave anywhere without carrying my mother's dupatta (a shawl about half the size of a sari) - and needless to say, I was facing major fashion crises. Unbeknownst to me, our neighbours were walking behind us and telling each other I was going to be healed. Our home was about ten miles away and we only had a motor bike. When we went to my aunt's house, she was out and her flat was flooded! So we borrowed a towel from her neighbour to dry my hair. And then we set off home on the bike. I was very wet and my parents were worried by this time.

We took one of the preacher's books home with us. I read that book for the next month. I still hadn't asked Jesus into my heart. I don't think I did that in conscious rebellion though. About a week or two later, my mother asked me if I realised I hadn't sneezed once since. I hadn't thought about it. She told me I was healed and I said 'Yeah, I am!' and replied at once that I was indeed ready for an ice-cream :D. It was probably quite a minor thing but hey, I was excited... :D

The healing and the saving happened in my life simultaneously I think, looking back at it. But the latter took a bit longer to materialise perhaps. And I get weepy every time I think about it ;D!

By the end of the book was a prayer for salvation. I said it. I believe it was the 5th of June '95. I asked Jesus into my life and told Him I wanted him to be a real part of it. I also promised him that I would be there at a certain time every day, just to spend time with him. Today's blog is part of that time! Gave my life to God and surrendered to the working of His Spirit. It's the best thing I have ever done in my life because today I can't imagine living without him. In fact, I don't think that's possible. I'm still completely in love with the God who's turned my life around!

Facades, Inadequacy and a kitchen table conversation

I'm in this place with people I completely sympathise with and am ready to love entirely. So are they. And I am part of another place where people try to be friendly. Some of them succeed, some don't. Homesickness is a funny thing. I am, after today, more homesick for Bangor than India at the moment, I do believe! But then I miss India. I am honoured to be a part of OU, but wondering if it just could be that all the offhandedness is only imagined. It is not snobbish - but it is not protective or helpfully forthcoming either. It is very hard to be away from home and on your own, and not have people coming forward to help or look after you. I am finally required to grow up. Just when I was afraid of growing old. But people are people. Everywhere.

And I do feel inadequate as I have absolutely no idea how to begin and no idea if I can ask how either. It doesn't feel like I can - or sound like it. It is a beautiful city as I remember it. My friends here are lovely - they are so warm and welcoming. Will I find friends who like me for me - or will I have to morph into this posh fashion-swinging brain-box.... I could try - I wouldn't succeed or at least not very well. Let's face it - I am inadequate. God isn't. And let's face it - I knew I was taking all this on before I came here. I miss the fatherly EW, the motherly PM, the hundred little family things of BCC, the completely open friendship and little-brother person's role GJ played and just the number of people I could call on if I didn't want to wallow in some emotional warp. Yes, I can call on people here but they wouldn't know what I need because they don't know me. These people at home here though know I need God's love and we give and take of it - and for that I am infinitely grateful.

I am here and I have no idea how to begin. But I will do it.

Added to what needs no addition is my mother wondering if I will find Prince Charming. I can't afford a Prince Charming and spending quality time with royalty at the moment ;D but even if he were to show up, I don't want one if God doesn't want that as His first option. And I am worried about how much our desires may be able to skew our vision for where we're going... Besides it's hard enough getting over imagined Princes Charming, he he... But seriously - hard enough getting over hurting Princes not-quite-charming or charming-but, and then ripping oneself apart now and then to see if you really really do have a 'but' in the picture and then ripping oneself apart because you had to rehash it for the nth time and not realise how happy you are and that there is no need to have felt guilty in the first place. I think conscientiousness can be a hard driver sometimes... And there's a difference between your conscience and conscientiousness if the Lord's in it.

Thank you because it is lovely to have this conversation with all of us - mum, Sunflower Girl, Grafx, Ta'fxkz (heh they rhyme!), Dinesh, Greeta, Switchblade... hmmmm dunno if anyone else would on the offchance read my blog but that seems to cover it - and you listening to it, Lord. Thanks for chipping in too.

Who let the dogs in? - Misty

Long ago - well, not so long if I didn't feel so old - we had a dog called Misty. She was hilarious. She also took it into her gorgeous Alsatian head that I was the younger member of the pack and that I could therefore be bullied.

Misty had a name for me - when she wanted me, it wasn't 'bow-wow'. It was, for some odd reason, 'Ya-woo'. Misty also pulled the warning stick out of my hand any time she wanted to. Misty jumped on me, pulled me and wouldn't let me go downstairs from the terrace when I wanted to. I mean, who was I kidding? Let it be known - she called the shots. I just called mummy. Misty never apologised - she just grinned. Elsa, my special sweetheart, scratched me in an enthusiastic frenzy just once in her life and then nuzzled me for a long time afterward in my lap with mournful eyes. Misty was always daddy's dog. But hey, we were siblings after a manner, and she was born with the right to bully me. No, she came after me but dogs come with this whole octal thing, huh.

Misty was also my protector from crows. We took an intense dislike to their violent and hostile antics from the days of our romps on the terrace. Shadow took the baton after her. Shadow, my Shadow, defender of the corvidophobic (yeah, I just looked it up), and all-round good dog. I will write about her. She deserves it.

But so does Misty - I cuddled Misty and once in a while she agreed to cuddle me. When she was much older, and just a teeny bit wiser, the girl would smile a more gentle smile instead of that war-cry-like grin she greeted me with. It was like we were playing Red Indians all the time (not that I've ever played it, and not that I don't know they're about the most peaceful people you could look up - so much for hashed metaphors).

Recently this memory came up again - when I was rehashing an old sin, fearing an old fascination, brooding over words whether two days ago or two decades/ and enjoying the feel of victimisation. Misty had another very curious habit.

We often tied her up with a leash instead of putting her in a kennel because it gave her much more room to move about. Rest assured we only ever did this when people visited. Er, Misty didn't mind tasting their ankles with of course the friendliest motives. What's a little nip between friends - she'd say. Her fashion sense was impeccable. Any uncool sunglasses, people walking about in night-clothes as if it were the fashion on the day, big straw hats in your yard - Misty was on it like a bullet. I mean, we've got to maintain some standards, puhleeeze.

So the friend who brandished his sunglasses in his hand got nabbed. As did any of us venturing out in those very fashionable hussif-y nighties, or me with a hat on ala my mum. Also as a pup, if anyone was leaving casually, they had it. Who did they think they were leaving without so much as a mention to the members of the family? - in Misty's opinion.

Well, yes I am coming to the curious habit... So with this propensity of Misty's to be law-maker, police, friend and terrorist in one, we would have to tie her up. There were times when, as a creature of habit, she would insist on it. Mealtimes. When Elsa was in. After a bath, maybe.

Misty was weirdly wary of her freedom though! When we let her out or untied her, she would just stay put. Much as if she had never been freed. I mean, we could stand outside with treats and cajoling but she would look at us quizzically from that entrance to her kennel with an eminently kissable face. We could have called all day but Misty would not have left for most of the morning, I suspect. No, she was used to being inside. Also she was suspicious in this one thing only. She never really believed the chain was off. Misty's special kink, this was!! Dumb dog! Bleh.

We had to put the end of that leash over the top of her door just where she could sniff it. Then she would sniff it and satisfy herself that it was gone. She never accepted it when the chain was just off her. I understand though - I mean she must have acclimatised herself in the space of those minutes to thinking she was a tied dog. Like me with my fears and guilt-trips! And you couldn't know for sure, you couldn't just believe that it was off without definite proof. So she would wait patiently - she must have concluded we were so stupid - and she would stay inside that kennel until that chain was under her nose, reminding her that it was the same one she'd been tied with.

All she needed to do really was step out of the kennel, just a little further than the leash would let her. But she had to see to believe. Dumb dog!

But it was finished.

Word

You search in so many places for the real me because you cannot bear the silence of waiting. It is the sort of silence one dreads. The silence in which you can hear yourself. But it is in the silence of waiting that I am found. In the truth about yourself, I come. Where I have always been, but you have chosen not to see. Vulnerability is the cost you must count.

Altars on the journey

Recently I have had what we shall call 'misty moments' rather more often. I suppose in seeking God, brokenness must come. It hurts. I've heard people say love hurts - that's probably why we don't spend enough time on our relationships. Well, I don't. I tend to think the more I love someone, the more secure that relationship is aaaand (here's the real cringer) therefore the less work and time it needs... And Jesus warned about losing the ardour of my first love. It brought a song out of me, once. In the words of Cliff Richard (lol, okay, okay I know, don't hit me ;O) - He knows me better than I know myself, eh? Because, you see, I have this idea that I've got it all together... and when the going's good, I somehow get it into my thick skull that I've got less cleaning up than some... Ooooh boy, I know I'm wrong when I think about it. But complacency happens - far too often.

By the way, on a lighter note, maybe I'm just wired that way!! My mum would probably agree - I leave a couple of clothes on the bed telling myself it's only a couple. I will use it soon enough. Makes sense, doesn't it? Why shove it into my already ready-to-deliver-at-a-nudge wardrobe? Well, there's a couple more tomorrow because something happens and I can't wear just what I thought I'd wear... so the clothes wait, until I need to sleep on the floor and not just out of choice! Sigh! Sometimes I'm so all-girl-stereotype, I could laugh. I mean why can't I wear what I thought I decided to wear? Beats me.

Anyway, that's about what happens to my life often. Thankfully because I am being taught to listen - I am able to see the clutter more clearly. Not because I'm particularly perceptive (sob!) but because... well, what Cliff Richard said. Lol, Jesus knows me best. And I'll admit, I panic sooner and much more when I hear the distance than when I see a messy bed... The trouble is learning to listen takes a lifetime. But God is good and He speaks.

In seeking and listening, as I said, a lot comes out in the raw... And I am so grateful for it. It shakes me out of inertia. And when I feel as if I am reaching out for God, and I know He is holding me so close and holding out to me what He wants for me just before my eyes... and yet, I grope because I am crying... Well, those times it pays to remember the altars on the journey. That's what this blog is about - to say how thankful I am for the times God has led me to write. Because when I want to speak, but can only sob (in a quite-unromantic-big-snivelly way!) or when I want to pray and words will not suffice - and I am waiting on the tongues - when I am overwhelmed - then God, like today, shows me the altars we have built along the way. To comfort and rest and refresh and maybe even give me a cuddle :O!! God holds you when you're breaking, you know... So nothing falls away. So He takes me along and says Okay, it's time to remember. Not relive, not glory in the past, nor bark at a memory just remember what happened that made me write that something, or made me feel that way or what I had heard or seen or learned or received. Yes, I am glad for the altars. Because they trace out a cross.

Bubble and squeak

Here I sit in my little Christian bubble, using 'faith-speak' and hoping to speak to the uninitiated. I don't want to 'convert' people, I am not trying. Yet I am inadequate in expressing the vastness of a love that is beyond telling. A love that flows into you and makes you love other people. A love that is so strong that it changes the definition of 'unrequited', and always nullifies it.

When I blog of these feelings, are they too intensely private to share with everyone? I am not talking of this post at all. If they are, am I being exclusivist? I don't mind making this URL my little confession box of sins and non-sins. But I do mind making my visiting preachers feel left out in the cold.

Here I sit in my little Christian bubble, with the colours that make me happy, rolling around inured to the air around me. Maybe there is bubble-time and broken-time. I suspect God prefers broken. I break it, and I am me. As much me as I was inside the bubble. But bubble-squeak and bubble-gloss are gone. And the people happen.

Ancient paths

I just read a post by 'Lord Veritas' called Heaven Without Christ and it hit home. Reminded me of something I have always held a dear cause... Why preach if you don't preach Christ? Surely philosophy and theory and opinion have their place - but I'm guessing people already know or have their own opinions about it. I am probably going to go off on a completely wide tangent here - but hey, hence this blog's convenient title ;) This is perhaps not a take on Lord Veritas' but just the expression of something it triggered in me - which is what good writing does.

I have a friend (whom I always seemed to be arguing with, until God decided I needed to hold my ahem peace!) - and he believes that God has called him to provide for the intellectuals. And that they can only be reached through expositions of philosophy. My issue with this friend is not that he is right in not including me in the band of intellectuals ;) but that he often makes assumptions of situations, that I (perhaps arrogantly) claim to know better of simply because I am in them. Sometimes even assumptions about being female, or being in my family - in good spirit, he explains what he believes is Truth. LOL Yes, he capitalises the T ;). But that is my point - I would only capitalise it if in reference to Jesus. Some things are absolutes - I live in a country that reminds me of that everyday. The Bible is. But there are interpretations and opinions that are militant against another's - they are not salvation-stealing or power-pilfering, but they are discounted nonetheless. I suppose I have been guilty of having rejected another's view summarily, without listening for God's take first... But in our urgency to give our truth to the people we meet, we forget to give God's truth; forget that at the foot of the cross the same God changes and speaks; forget that the Spirit's discernment is far more understanding than our own. And we are also guilty of universalising personal revelations - no, we do not just share them. We 'absolutise' them. To me, the Bible remains the bottom-line on drawing lines... as does the God of the Bible. No, I am not speaking for those arguments that allow and liberalise everything the Bible says - face-value is not dispensable in our search for depth, is it?

I am, in fact, arguing for the ancient path. I am no post-modern, although there are remnants of truth in nearly every philosophy. I don't entirely hold with co-authorship... I long and hope that the Author will speak sooner than the readers of the Text. But that capitalised Truth? Lol, I believe we will find it here. Here in India, I belong to a church that because of its structure has someone at the top giving it its sermons. And because of its structure, there are several visiting pastors and theologians who preach. Theologians who preach philosophy... forgive me for the pun on those two words, but the wisdom of man is foolishness to God, and vice versa...

Many times you will find me ranting on the opposite side of the track (I have said I was a BoC) - that face-value foolishly forsakes the Spirit for the letter, but not when the Person is lost for the principles. The reason Christianity is different is because it is personal. In my responses to my Muslim students who chose to take the offensive on quite a few occasions, the one point at which they balked is when I told them fuss-free that I knew this fantastic, wonderful, entirely lovable and so-let-down-able Jesus - and that He loved me even more. And the gospel of Christ and the cross, God's love and sacrifice cannot be compromised. God's love not ours... I think that our relationship with Jesus is the centrifugal force that gives our Christianity its validity. Call me old-fashioned. I probably am. But the Bible is never out of fashion. And the Bible has copyright on love, not you or me. When I think of 'old-fashioned-ness', it's not about ideals and values - fashions are much more about the self.

Yet in my worship and in my meditation - if life and truth are not real, then I have lost my way.

Fruit of the Spirit

I know that I have subjected you, dear reader (I told you I had a Bronte complex, just be glad I didn't go with 'gentle reader' :P), to a recent prolificacy (I checked and that word does exist :P) of short spurts of creativity... And I am probably going to do it again. Maybe you're better off without the longer, rather interminable rambles ;)

God taught me something, gave me a flash of insight that I am deeply grateful for. There are nine qualities or virtues listed out in the Galatians 22:5,6 bit. But the collective noun for them all in that sentence is 'fruit' and it is singular. I spotted this a few years ago and quite predictably, being the inimitable if slightly patience-testing me, I thought Aha! Grammar mistake - probably a typo!! Call Zondervan! LOL. But in a few more moments I realised God definitely meant for it to be that way. God was saying something - immense yet succinct. I was not exhibiting the fruit if I failed in one of it. I could not ever take it all at one go and be the super-Christian. And I realised it only came as a fruit of the Spirit. God was who I had to seek.

Time has taught me that spending time in His presence, seeking intimacy with Him, just loving Him and learning to love Him makes that fruit happen. See, I can't take and mould the creation out of clay like God did... all I can do is water the vine it falls from :D Well, what can I say... I'm thick and it often take me some time to figure it out ;) His presence brings His glory among us.

But the recent insight was a little bit deeper. There was this moment when I suddenly realised with a hard little catch that I had lost a little bit of the joy. It was only a brief period, but as thoughts go, I then realised I had also been a bit worried and nervous all day. The thought hung in the air before it took shape inside my slightly foggy brain - I knew it was going to be born. LOL.

So I'd lost my peace. Then I saw how the love had gotten chipped away too. And faster than I knew it, I finally grasped what God was saying. I have never realised how dependent they are. Without peace, my heart was not going to be as joyful. Without love, the irritability and not the calm surfaced. Patience (which I dearly need) allows peace, kindness patience... For instance, self-control will not let me act on selfish impulse, it spells patience and peace and love and gentleness and faithfulness...

I am no goody two-shoes. My friends and family will vouch for it ;D I might still take it upon me to tell little M to cut it out - but she will know and I will know that I care, and she doesn't take more than a few minutes to come back and ask if she can visit. As it is, for those who are interested, she has been invited to visit and made arrangements even before she was asked... Let's see if today finds me watching Lion King or the likes and enjoying myself hugely :D.

Lord, You are beautiful. Thank You for being You. You're just fantastic, and thank You for us!!

PS Not quite as short as you'd hoped, eh? ;P