And God saw that the light was good.

Tuesday I had a horrible afternoon.  I was already stressed because I had ignored a warning I heard from God about 'not playing with fire'.  Another warning was in the form of my daughter's blog who has been asking people what their advice is to college freshmen this year.  One answer she posted, 'Don't sacrifice integrity for a relationship'. Yep.  I heard Him right, and still I was the little mouse my great aunt used to tell me about when I was little, sniffing at the cheese on the mouse trap...going back for one more tiny little sniff.  BAD idea.
No, I didn't do anything 'wrong'.   Well, actually, yes, I did.  I didn't listen to Papa.  He is soo looking out for my good, and I just buzzed by His kind warnings and did what I wanted.   The result was me feeling like crap all day on Monday, because I knew better. No, I didn't get snapped in the trap, but boy did I mess my mind up NEEDlessly.

So I was already in a bad mood from this, and then I came home from work and was in a hurry to get my son to his counseling appointment.  He wasn't ready and at the same time, I noticed that my 10 X 10 portable tent over my back porch had blown away AGAIN, and gotten punctured by the fence and the bird feeder hook.  I was SO upset.  This was the sweet porch area my daughter and I shared all summer, eating our scrambled eggs out there together and just plain old bonding together in our new (rented) home.  Right after I had dropped her off at college, I had come home and found the tent blown over and ruined.  I had to physically break it into pieces to get it to go in the trash, it was so broken and wouldn't collapse the normal way.
Here I was again, and once again I felt the ''eyes" of my judgmental neighbor on me.  No, she wasn't in her yard, and yes, she puts off a judgmental vibe, but I was dealing with the critic in me more than my neighbor.  I was going into a full blown flashback of feeling left with a difficult situation and being made fun of in the middle of it, when I could just have used some help.  I was also so sad that once again, our happy place was being ruined.
Well, the tent wouldn't collapse and I was quietly yelling at myself, and we were late...so I left the tent and came in and TRIED to pull myself together and stuff the upset me back down... and I waited for my son in the car.  I got him to his appointment only 2 minutes late, but had beat myself up in my mind, on the car ride over upset we were late, and upset about the tent, and no one to help me... and I just dropped him off at the door.
I went to the grocery store while he was there,  and got a few vegetables, and some money for his co-payment.  I held it together in the store.  When I was on my way back to find a place to cry it out alone, I suddenly realized I had forgotten his forms for his appointment he had after counseling.  I was right back in the freak out mode, not thinking I would have time to do all the running around AND get back to get him on time.
On my way home, I was starting to go to the despair place, feeling like I would never get better... and all of a sudden I heard God say..."It really IS ok." I was stunned.  I asked him..."It's ok the tent is broken?" He said..."Yep, it really is ok, I promise, you don't have to freak out about the tent OR the paperwork." I could feel myself calm down a little.  I could see that I didn't have to feel this way.  I could let what happened, happen, and it could just be ok.  Ok to be late, ok to have a broken tent, ok to not have the paperwork...  He would help me.  "Your younger self feels left and scared, and sad.  I'm so sorry you feel that way, and am so sorry for what happened to cause this reaction in you.  But you don't have to worry now.  It is ok now." I could feel myself separate from my younger self and let myself be ok.  It was amazing.
I made it home, copied the forms, got back to counseling early.  Filled out some of the forms, took him to his second appointment and got there early!  I filled out the rest in the car, and the appointment went great.

That might seem like a small situation to some, but to someone who is battling all this emotion on a daily basis, this was a HUGE victory!
So, not only is there light.. but I am starting to see that it truly is good.  One little baby step at a time. He is helping me.  He is not in a hurry.  He is showing me that there is another way.  I can believe He will help me in these 'little/big' practical things.  He is not setting me up to laugh at me.  He is not the mean voice, He is helping me to hear the truth of His voice louder than the mean voice.  His comfort is near to heal my heart from feeling so unbelievably left.

Let there be light - cPTSD uncovered

Part of God's work with my healing process has been illuminating the fact that I struggle with cPTSD. Complex Post Traumatic Stress.
In PTSD, there are intense flashbacks to a traumatic event which has either been witnessed or experienced. These flashbacks can manifest in nightmares, severe anxiety and uncontrollable thoughts about the event.
With cPTSD is also an intense emotional reaction that can also have the same manifestations but the reactions are to traumatic events (usually relational), that occured over a prolonged period of time. A child or young person who does not have anyone to 'bounce' these on-going traumatic events off to gain comfort, safety and relief will then internalize the stress and develop a whole world of coping strategies. Much of the time, these traumatic events are not something that the conscious memory has a 'video reel' for. The reality of their existence shows up as horrible emotional triggers in usually relational or social situations that send the person into an 'emotional flashback' and the person feels as if they were right in the original pain of feeling abandoned, rejected and unsafe. When in an emotional flashback the person will react in one of 4 ways, flight, fight, fawn or freeze. (For more about cPTSD, please please read the incredible book by Pete Walker. cPTSD from Surviving to Thriving. It will help you, on your journey along with divine intervention and what he calls a 'safe enough' therapist who can compassionately walk you through your healing process.

I have gone most of my life having no CLUE I had cPTSD. I only knew that certain social events or relational issues would set me off and I would have an overwhelming need to 'get out of' a situation, removing myself from the situation physically many times, and then would go spinning headlong into anger, hopelessness, sometimes suicidal desires, and the feeling that 'this feeling' would never go away. I had a lot of thoughts go through my head, which I learned from Pete's book were my 'inner critic' who would basically be mean and cruel to myself in my thoughts, in an effort to 'keep me safe' from getting hurt. These thoughts would tell me that a person didn't really care about me, that I was horrible or super messed up, not fixable, never going to get over it, not a good friend, a slob, and the HUGEST etc.... ever. If you have gone through this, you KNOW the drill. Well, the mean thoughts are just the surface.
That's where the light comes in. When God flipped on the lights in my counselor's office, I, of course, wanted to run for the hills, leave her office immediately, phone a friend who I could tell how horrible she was and agree with me that I needed to never go back again.... until I realized that this person in my head was NOT telling me things that were helping me, or that were true, but were indeed my 'younger self' popping up 40 something years into the future and bullying me around... because she was INCREDIBLY hurt and was trying to look out for me. I know this sounds crazy, but it's just true.

When I FINALLY realized what was going on, I cried for days and days.... (not continually, but whenever I was alone and could let myself feel what I was really feeling underneath all of the critic panic and anger. What I found underneath was a WHOLE LOT of sadness and aloneness. GRIEF. Anger at the way I had been treated. And I journaled, and journaled... Every time something would set me off, I would spend time later when I was alone and would cry it out, feel the deep pain of it, and journal out what would come to my heart in the midst of that feeling of utter alone-ness.

My counselor would encourage me that many people don't want to go through the kind of pain it takes to go through the process of grieving this out...being kind to all of my parts, telling myself... 'you're ok baby...' when I was in the middle of a flare up, and just letting myself feel it all.

It has been super hard to go anywhere besides work, or let anyone besides my counselor the least bit close to me in this process. I think that in itself has been incredibly healing, because I have learned to give myself permission for a whole bunch of things I never thought I was allowed to do or feel. Telling myself it's ok to have a non-productive day... I'm in a healing process, and it takes focus. I don't need to be participating in a bunch of social activities, especially when they feel painful. I told her I just feel raw. She asked, 'like having a sunburn, and going places, or being around most people feels like it's exposing the burn to more sun? YES. Exactly.

God HAS given me a few friends from my divorce care group who are also super raw. Two of them also struggle with issues from their growing up, one in particular also had flashbacks and panic similar to mine. This was SUCH a gift to me to have someone who truly understands what this feels like and the work it is to let ourselves feel this pain, in order to leak the intense energy out of it and legitimize that it was a big deal and causing so much distress in my adult life. Somehow it's supposed to help.  For now, it's just a ton of pain with no end in sight... but I do NOT want to just stay the way I am, so I am walking forward in it... not sure where I will end up.

Recently God has brought another friend who goes to my new church and also struggles with cPTSD along with a variety of other issues. Who in a million years would think that this crap would actually be useful!!!???? It is SO wonderful to spend time with her. We met for coffee a week ago and it was so incredible sharing our stories. Then, this weekend, we got to spend more time together and we're like instant friends, not only in the struggle, but in the fun department. It honestly felt like Christmas this weekend... like I got the best present ever. I feel NORMAL again, well maybe for the first time. It's amazing.

This place I'm in, is just one GIANT mess. SUPER ugly, sometimes hopeless. But the lights are on, and He has brought me some journey mates.

Day 1. Nearness to Nothingness

As much as I want to move on to Day 2, I need to stay here a little while longer.

It has just "dawned" on me. ha ha... LITERALLY...that God's BIG story of creation may just potentially be MY story of creation.
I don't want to get ahead of myself, but I will say that if I am to take hold of that as being true, it means 2 very incredible things for me on this "Day 1" of my new life.

Day 1 was and is all about Him brooding as a dove over the place of Nothingness. My place of Nothingness.
He was and is not in a huge hurry to get to Day 2. Not only was He NEAR to the place of Nothingness, He brooded that quiet, wordless, song of hope over His creation, and does the same over my life. The fact that He would weave these two together all in the same day, just blows my circuits.

I will start with Nearness to Nothingness, and touch a little on my struggle with HOPE.

My question is..................How could He be that gracious?

He knows when to let HOPE just be a place of His silent holding over our lives. I say our because I KNOW I am not in a million years the only one He does this with. If He is THIS Awesome with me, He is THIS Awesome with all of His lovelies.

It's HIM, not us................... Ha, sounds like a bad break-up line... only the opposite.

Sometimes when we're in the place of nothingness, the most painful thing is to have hope shoved down our throats. At the same time, being in a place of nothingness without hope is deadly. I think this is why He holds onto both, quietly out of love and safety over us. Well up to a point. I know we have the freedom to choose to yield to His hope over us or not... but how far He will go to try to overt our efforts at self destruction is probably farther than we can imagine, although pushing this too far is extremely dangerous.

At my old home of 18 years, I "had" to yell at crows to get them to leave my property. They represented a sassy, scavenger, territorial spirit that I knew I couldn't just ignore. I have had many situations where I stood my ground, and even if it made me look foolish, I didn't care. I knew I couldn't let it slide.
I think that this 'stand' represents many other stands I needed to be constantly taking while I was in that place. I was on the offense, needing to be taking charge in the spirit over what was not God's heart for me or my kids.
All the while, I continued to stand in a place of almost mandatory hope. I was on an intercessory prayer team where we prayed for things that were not as though they were. This was my identity for years. I was on our worship team, where I literally declared hope and God's HUGENESS over our congregation, inviting them along with us in leadership to exalt the ONE who could do ANYTHING, who held ALL THINGS in HIS hands.

I was a HOPE declarer and spreader.

This was more out of a cerebral knowing place though, I am realizing. I didn't feel like I could let hope go and give up on anything.
It wasn't godly.
Years of praying, believing, trying to set boundaries, begging God for help and strength, which He did give me, but after 20 years of this being my identity, I chose to stop the war on one front, which sort of lead to other fronts, somehow.

I wanted out of this place. This wasn't going to get any better, and if it was, I didn't think this broken everything could be fixed.
There were patterns and beliefs that I had adapted over the years, ways of coping with unpredictable...etc...and it all was crashing down on me and the kids. I didn't think we were going to make it much longer without one or all of us going over each of our edges.
There had been damage done over the years from choosing to be in this environment out of a fear of giving up. But now I knew this was an actual choice I could make.

I had to do it.
I chose to do it.

 A HUGE decision that I will live with for the rest of my life.

Now, in the process of 'giving up', I wasn't thinking about new AT ALL. I just knew, I couldn't do old anymore.

God did help me.
He did provide for me.
He made a way out.
He literally helped me get out.
He provided wise counsel COUNTLESS times.
He provided the finances.
He provided a place for us to go.
He was THERE through the whole process.
He spoke to me and gave me direction, and let me know He wasn't asking me to go back.

I didn't make Him do this.
He JUST DID.

I KNOW this is hard for a Bible believing Christian to hear and nod his/her head to.
What about all the verses about God hating divorce, about a believing wife praying and believing for her husband and him being 'won over' without a word, about Jesus' conversation with his disciples about the 'ways out' of a bad marriage. Infidelity and abandonment.
Can't exactly undeniably check either of those boxes.

Well. I can tell you how God spoke to me. What His Spirit spoke to me in relation to all of these passages, but it would never answer every question.

I GAVE... up.
Yes.......I......did.

This brings it back to the combination of HOPE and Nearness to Nothingness that is MY Jesus. The one I know intimately. I would even dare to say..... Jesus of the Bible.

He broke the law with His blood. He just did. You could say he came to break the law. He broke its power over us.
HE KNEW we would get to a point......well, it wouldn't take too long from the time he made us......that we would screw it all up. We wouldn't be able to handle walking in the cool of the garden with Him, trusting Him to be good, trusting Him to be near and all we need.
HE KNEW IT, but still chose near and intimacy.
He chose to go near the woman caught in the act of adultery, we read about in the Bible, who LEGALLY was sentenced to death....and he CHOSE mercy over her.
He chose HONOR over her.
He drew near to her when there was a flock of 'truth speakers' all around her, who totally had a case. They WERE RIGHT!

And He chose to call them all out on the 'you're a sinner too dudes' carpet, and shut their hopeless condemning spirit down all in one sentence. When they all walked away, His private words to her in this place of NEARNESS to her Nothingness were words of HOPE.
Girl, you don't have to live like this anymore. You're not just a piece of property, you can live in the light, you can choose a different path. AKA....go and sin no more, an invitation to a different life, one that lets Jesus bring all of His power and love to bear on her nothingness.
Girl... you've got options. You really do.

He did this SO many times.

He did the same thing with the woman at the well.
He chose nearness to her.
He flipped the lights on, in the middle of their conversation about getting him a drink of water, and let her know.
Precious one, I see you, and I'm still here, extending what you REALLY need. Even if you don't drink of the living water I offer, I still made the trip here to be with you and offer life to you. I will not turn my back on you in shame.

Another example is the city of Nineveh. They were SOOOO messed up. God knew they would KEEP being messed up. BUT...

He still chose to show them mercy and grace and HOPE.

He knew they would go back to their evil way of not walking with God, but He still wanted Jonah to go and extend His mercy to them with skin on.
GOD KNEW the outcome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He didn't see His kindness and love as a waste of His time.

THIS IS WHO HE IS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's not just a story. This is for real His character. I am not like that. ONE BIT. HE KNOWS when to be near to our Nothingness, and all the while, He is a brooding dove, just cooing the song of.....I'm not saying a word here, but I KNOW the plans I have for you baby. I know what is to come of this creation I want to do in you. With or without your willingness to participate, I hold out hope and I will not go away from your mess.


While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, pretty much sums it all up.

He extends a solution to our mess, but does NOT cram it down our throats. It's OUR choice.

This brings me back to the Crows and the Doves. Ever since we moved to our new house, I have had only one encounter with a crow. One of the first days we moved in, one was sitting on the top of 'our' house, it's a duplex and we rent it, so it was trying to bring up some authority issues.... and I just yelled at it and told it...
'Don't even think about it. Get out of here!"
It flew off immediately and I have never had another crow on "my" property since then.

In exchange, God has sent me doves. I hear them at the most amazing times. I will be super stressed out about something, or there will be a very difficult situation going on, or I will be having hopeless thoughts, and in those moments I will hear a dove cooing outside my window, singing her peace and hope over our 'house'. They eat at my birdfeeder in the backyard. I see them all over our neighborhood.

God brought the doves. They represent His Spirit and Peace and Word over our lives and situations. The brooding sound they make, speaks the quiet, kind and, for now, wordless hope He holds over our lives, my life.
There is a future, but even if you don't believe it, or can't believe it yet, I AM HERE and I'm not going anywhere.
I will be with you till the end.
I'm not afraid of this place.

Let Me hold that for you baby.

The Beginning. Day One

So in the beginning, the Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God's Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss.  Genesis 1:2 The Message 

Before anything was set in order, God just was near to the soup of nothingness, brooding over what WAS, and also what was to be. And the first order of business?

Flip the lights on.

God spoke "Light!" And light appeared. God saw that light was good and separated light from dark. God named the light Day, he named the dark Night: It was evening, it was morning- Day One. Genesis 1:3-5 The Message

I am in awe that the way God chose to create His perfect world was to start with a bottomless emptiness, and then just turn on the lights

Let's just sit in that place a minute. Part of perfection, part of His design in creation was to allow things to not look as they were destined to be, but to not shy away from looking straight at the black, empty, nothing, achy bottomless pit of near hopelessness that was right in front of Him. This was HIS DOING. He worked WITH hopelessness from the BEGINNING. He didn't make due with it. He USED IT as part of His perfect creative process.
He so could have just ...POOF....and everything went from nothing to AMAZING all at once. This is not the way He did it. OR DOES IT.

I get so impatient with process sometimes. I mean, it's cute when a toddler is taking his or her first steps, or when he or she first says... daaa daaa... but I feel Him, in my place of beginning again, not impatient, one bit. Flipping the lights on and not screaming, but rather saying. "Baby girl, this is "Day One"... It's part of my perfect process."
I also love that He separated light from dark. He gave some 'lights out' time too each day. Sometimes we can look at it, and sometimes, we can just take a break. I am here and near, with or without the lights on. This is what Day One is all about.

This very part of God is healing my heart SO much. Somehow, I learned that God just wants to use people. He wants us to be perfect....be like Jesus. Be kind. Jesus, others, you. That's how you spell JOY. I have felt like I HAVE to choose God, I HAVE to walk perfectly, I HAVE to...even, be a Christian. And the answer is....no. No, I don't. For the first time, I feel His gentle with-ness. Here with me, just as I am.

Not doing much of anything for the kingdom.
Not helping others out a whole lot
Not writing in my journal
Not digging deep into the Word like I used to with my Strong's Concordance
Not doing any ministry.

I feel for the first time, in the uniqueness of a place like this, Him being right near me, LOVING ME, and not forcing me to do anything, include trust Him. He is not forcing me to have hope. He is not making me hang on to Him. He is just loving me. Over and over....

I'll give you one tiny example of MANY.   I have a plant in my window that I have had for not quite a year. It means a lot to me for many reasons. I have been afraid to plant it outside because I haven't wanted it to die. It has looked scraggly for quite some time now, and has a little more brown than green on it. Well, the other day, I moved the blinds on my window and there were 3 yellow flowers that had bloomed on the other side of the blind. I know it's 'just a plant'... but the fact that He let it bloom again, spoke a powerful message to my heart AND..it just made me smile because I LOVE this plant so much.  He does this kind of thing ALL THE TIME.

I have sweet cuddly pets, I have kids that say funny things, I see license plates that say "GOD SEES" and "JSUS4U". I see heart shaped mud puddles, He has given me a job I absolutely love, and co-workers who I have so much fun with.

LISTEN TO ME......................... I DON'T DESERVE HIS KINDNESS!!!!!!!!!!

I am not suffering from low self esteem here. In my self-construed God economy I have felt like, well, we follow God, we obey, we pray.... He answers, He steers us the way He wants us to go.
I AM NOT DOING THIS!!!!
I'm not saying I'm being super disobedient, but I am NOT doing ANYTHING that a Christian would think is setting me up for God to move in my life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am not super spiritual, I am not sharing this point of view from a doctorate in theology, or whatever would deem me to be an expert on the subject.
I am telling you, THIS IS REALITY!!!!!!!! This is ACTUALLY how God is working.
He just LOVES US!

This used to sound so cliché to me growing up. Jesus loves you. Honestly, it actually made me cringe to hear that because it didn't line up with anything I was actually experiencing to be love.
Love is being NEAR TO THE MESS. It's saying.. I'm HERE, and you can choose or deny me. I am not going to force you to do either.

Now, don't get me wrong. I KNOW there is a penalty for my sin condition. I KNOW that without a relationship with Jesus, without His blood to cover over me, I'm going to stay in the pit of inky nothingness for-Ever.

I...GET...IT.

But that's not the pathway to His heart. It's not hanging hell over peoples' heads.
HE LOVES ALL OF HIS CHILDREN.
No matter what each has done.
No matter where each is at in believing in Him.
This is HIS idea.

I don't love this way. I would not do "BEING GOD" that way.
I would not be that kind.
I would not be that patient, or giving, or resilient to rejection.
I would not be that hopeful... and...
I would NEVER give up my kids... ANY of them....to sacrifice their purity in my place.
I would NOT send them to a world marred by choice towards AWAY from Him, in order for them to feel like I UNDERSTAND what it is like to experience the fruit of making crappy choices and not choosing relationship with Him.
I would NOT choose to let my kid be born in a parking lot of a town that has every single Motel 6, Huggy Bear Motel, bed bug infested $45/night motel room taken with no other place to be born. And then in that parking lot, he gets to sleep in the backseat of an abandoned car that is filled with used McDonald cups and wrappers, and smelly diapers on the floor.

THIS IS WHAT OUR KING CHOSE!!!! HE CHOSE to KNOW poverty, to KNOW rejection and betrayal, to be able to understand what in the world would cause our hearts to stray from His perfect love. And He did all this without beating us down with a heavenly hammer and demanding our submission to His will.

He just LOVES us.

Then... we get to decide.

Will we let this kind of LOVE radically invade our lives.
Will I TRUST THIS GUY?
Will I let Him have the pieces of my life and heart, and willingly say... HAVE IT ALL LORD!!!

I am not giving my life to a power hungry, woman degrading, impatient, Holy User who just wants perfect followers. I am giving my heart to the KING of LOVE!

But this choice comes with the option to continue to trust Him and the way He does His Kingdom. He doesn't do things the way I do.... remember??? 
He doesn't make everything beautiful on Day One.

He....just....doesn't. 

Even when He created everything in the beginning... it wasn't all done in a day. And now, with His heavenly OK on us doing our lives the way we choose....
We're left with that mess.
We're left with the casualty of living this way.
We're left with broken lives, death, sickness...

He doesn't just come down here and fix it all.
Boy do we get mad at him for not fixing everything.
He doesn't HEAL EVERYONE. Come on. I know that By His stripes we are healed. BUT Let's Get REAL! It does NOT happen every time.

He HEARS these cries in our prayers for Him to PLEASE....for all that is good and right in the world... GOD WILL YOU PLEASE HEAL MY LOVED ONE??!!! Will you breathe life into this relationship? Will you provide for this deep need?

And we pray in faith,
We stand on His word
We do EVERYTHING RIGHT... on our end...

and
it...
just...
doesn't...
happen.

And we blame the devil, we blame ourselves... and we blame Him.

And do you know where He is... when we're left, holding "death" in our arms,
When we're left in the soup of nothingness??
...the bottomless emptiness of grief and hopelessness?

He is RIGHT there.

Father is right there, knowing EXACTLY what it is like to hold death in His arms. He did it with Jesus, but He has done it millions of times before that even... some recorded, and millions not recorded. Because THIS...IS...OUR...KING, our CREATOR. He just does His Kingdom that way.

We know that all things work together for good. Sometimes we can understand that good, and sometimes we're fighting, and screaming and clawing at Him with tears mingled in our agony. Sometimes we're quiet, and distant in our lack of understanding.
But however we choose to walk in His kingdom. He IS NEAR.
He is loving us every single way He can get through to us.

"You don't have to fix this. You don't have to understand. You can trust me or not. I am here."

And when we get to the place where we have let enough of His love into our hearts, this is where our kingdom eyes can start to see life springing up. But that's for another day.

Introduction

So here I am starting over. Literally, figuratively, spiritually, emotionally. I went to get my Bible this morning, which I haven't spent much time with over the past many months, and I couldn't find it. I felt called to my bookshelf where my gaze rested on Eugene Peterson's masterpiece of the Bible in contemporary language..................................................................................................................... Start at the Beginning.................................................................. So I opened up to the Introduction to The Message. I don't usually read books this way. I don't think I've read any Bible's introduction page before, but right now, I need an introduction................................................................................................................. "Reading is the first thing, just reading the Bible. As we read we enter a new world of words and find ourselves in on a conversation in which God has the first and last words. We soon realize that we are included in the conversation. We didn't expect this. But this is precisely what generation after generation of Bible readers do find: The Bible is not only written about us but to us. In these pages we become insiders to a conversation in which God uses words to form and bless us, to teach and guide us, to forgive and save us. We aren't used to this. We are used to reading books that explain things, or tell us what to do, or inspire or entertain us. But this is different. This is a world of revelation. God revealing to people just like us- men and women created in God's image- how God works and what is going on in this world in which we find ourselves. At the same time that God reveals all this, God draws us in by invitation and command to participate in God's working life. We gradually (or suddenly) realize we are insiders in the most significant action of our time as God establishes His grand rule of love and justice on this earth (as it is in heaven). "Revelation" means that we are reading something we couldn't have guessed or figured out on our own. Revelation is what makes the Bible unique." (Eugene Peterson. Introduction to The Message).................................... And so I read the entire introduction. God is saying... "Come" in the most gentle yet enticing ways I have ever heard. And so it is my intent, to sit and read, leisurely and thoughtfully, and to listen with my heart as open as it ever has been. I need to "Get it". There is far more to this world than me. More than what I see and it all has to do with God. I am reading a book that will read me as I read it. I am being invited to make myself at home in the "World of God". I am being invited to read a book that was written in everyday language during its time. A book full of unspiritual characters and an "everyday Jesus". Bible world isn't "nicer world" or an ideal world. It's full of suffering and injustice and ugliness, not purged from the world in which He works and loves and saves. God works patiently and deeply, but often in hidden ways, in the mess of our humanity and history. I am not assured to get everything under my control. My 'dream world' is being exchanged for a real world of grace and mercy, sacrifice and love, freedom and joy, the God-saved world. (More from Eugene Peterson's Introduction to The Message.)..................... So, I choose to step forward past the introduction, and through the door of "Beginning".