we need a cause to stand behind: love .

(via sublunarysolitude)

Now go and tell his disciples, including Peter, that Jesus is going ahead of you to Galilee. You will see him there, just as he told you before he died.” Mark 16:7 NLT

do you know me? 

do you see me?

do you care? 

do you understand the intricate clickings and tickings of my heart? 

do you know what makes me wild with wonder, or the atrocities that make my heart putter and stutter out of time? 

have you broken past the walls, to the place where only the trusted reside? 

have i let you? 

have you let me? 

is it possible for you to see all that i am, all that i’ve been and all that i hope to be and still love me with all of His love? 

can i do the same for you? 

can we, collectively, share in our pain and our shame, and allow ourselves to be vulnerable enough to move from this place - to let light shine where darkness reigns. 

when caged, the human heart suffers and shrivels, beneath the smiles, the laughs, and the masks, the question resounds in every human heart:

do you know me? do you like what you see? 

loneliness creeps in, and we fight, reaching for things to fill the void, validate, and authenticate. 

as we open our fists to see what we’ve grasped, there is nothing but wisps of air, and so, we begin the cycle again, spiraling, tumbling, falling, shrieking. 

we become ghosts of who we were meant to be; marred beyond recognition. 

the remedy remains unlike any other that we’ve known so far: no longer numbing, distracting, and detracting. 

lie down, allow your heart to be ripped wide open, for everything to be turned upside down - a reconstructive heart surgery, some might say. 

don’t bet on remaining the same, for once you’ve encountered this Master Healer, there is an inevitable change, a gradual process leading you to be fully and completely known.

free to be known, to know and to love. 

let me let You love me.

Your strength comes from God’s grace, not from rules about food, which don’t help those who follow them.

hebrews 13:9

 My heart has heard you say, “Come and talk with me.” And my heart responds, “LORD, I am coming.”

psalms 27:8

orangedreammachine:

after the teacher’s conference this past weekend….the one word that is been imprinted on my heart and my mind is to “be intentional.” I desire to be intentional with my students, families, my colleagues and even in my own marriage. I am definitely not perfect at it. I do, however, have a burning…

I don’t even know how to start this post, or what to think about tonight, other than the fact that I’m in awe, and totally humbled. Kyla (my wonderful housemate) and I wanted to go out for dinner, so we decided to mission it downtown to go for some good, old, all-you-can-eat sushi (SO good!). We walked past a couple of loitering homeless men, on one of the main veins of downtown Hamilton, and we were halfway to the restaurant when we passed an older looking man riding a rickety-looking bike. 

To be honest, if he hadn’t called out to us, I probably wouldn’t have given him the time of day. (I don’t know what that says about me as a person, but it’s given me something to think about, looking back on tonight’s events.) He had the strangest request- he wanted to know if he could serenade us. I think I thought he was crazy and I definitely stereotyped him right away- as an unemployed, possibly dirty and senile person, who did odd little jobs around the city to get by. He said his name’s David Malcolm Hubbard from Nova Scotia, and that he was very pleased to meet us. He asked for our names, told us that he wanted to serenade us in exchange for money, because he didn’t want to panhandle or beg. So, we agreed. 

He started off with a Janis Joplin song- Me and Bobby McGee, and I was floored. He sang three more songs for us (I guess most people only get one!): My Girl, You Send Me (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqzv1ZS6uZs) and Amazing Grace. David’s rendition of Amazing Grace was one of the most honest, and beautiful versions I’ve ever heard. His voice was smooth, though not in the buttery, melt-your-heart kind of way. It was soulful, riddled with emotion and passion. I definitely did not expect this from such a man with an untrimmed beard. 

In the midst of that song, another homeless (used loosely because I really don’t know anything about this other man) man walked up and started listening, and singing along. David and this man talked for a bit afterwards, and I was even more shocked when I heard David start speaking fluent French. Tu parles le francais? wait, what?  Eventually, the other man left, and we were left talking with David. And boy, was he ever the talker. He told us about how he sang for other people- some people gave a penny, others gave $20, and still others, he sang because their hearts needed it. 

So that’s pretty cool… a homeless guy, singing to other people- to get by, and to make them happy. 

As Ky and I talked to David, we found out that he renovates houses, paints, cooks, speaks 6 languages fluently AND is an x-ray technician. how CRAZY is that?  

We found out that things went downhill for him when he lost a significant person in his life a couple years ago. Later in the conversation, we found out that this significant person was one of his daughters. We found out that he’s a father, and that he doesn’t have much of an opportunity to see his kids because they live two hours away with his ex-wife. He told us that he was 100% sober now and drug-free, which is amazing! We found out that he makes a decent amount of money when he actually has a job but that he has a terrible habit of spending and not saving. He knows people on the streets because he takes the time to talk to people. He told us that 2% of people in the city would give him a time of day when he talked to them because ‘all they care about is their f-ing self’. He then justified their behaviour for them by saying that there are a ton of scammers and panhandlers who honestly don’t care about other people and that people have become jaded. David looked at us and told us not to become jaded and to give people the benefit of the doubt. Even if someone does scam you, let it go. So, I guess, live and let live, or rather- just be love. He told us that it’s great if somebody takes your breath away, but to really value the person if they continue to take your breath away. 

After talking for over almost hour, he told us to be careful and to stick together and to not fight. He told us if Ky and I that if we EVER needed a father figure (I guess he was missing his girls), or a painter, or a caterer or anything like that, to shoot him an email. David hugged us, shook our hands and went on his way.

This post definitely didn’t exhaust our conversation, but man, was it ever humbling and so beautiful. Definitely a God moment. Hopefully, he saw Jesus in us, because I could definitely see glimmers of Jesus in him. 

Kyla and I rushed on towards our sushi restaurant, toes freezing and faces smarting from the cold. But I think our hearts were SO encouraged tonight, more than they have been this entire week. We got to the sushi place 45 minutes before they closed, and we were the last customers that they let in- how crazy is that?! Two people came in, maybe 5 minutes after we did, and the owners told them that they were closed for the evening! We had got in right on time! haha, i LOVE how much God loves us! It was SUCH a perfect evening with such an amazing friend! Humbling, fun, exciting, thought-provoking and so perfect (love you, kyla!). I’m SO thankful for what we experienced tonight, and I would do it all over again- freezing toes and all- I can say, that we’re definitely emailing this man and going out for coffee. 

i’ve started reading the ‘Irresistible Revolution’ by Shane Claiborne, and so there’s just a lot on my mind right now. it’s an innnnteeeense book! and right now, all i wanna say is: 

i want to be foolish enough to think we can change the world, to think that there’s more to life than dead christianity, to desire change in myself and in others. i want to move from a place of complacency and this ‘me culture’ to a place where my life is completely, 100% sold out for God, a place of intimacy. and from that place of intimacy, i want to believe that he’s given us the power to change this world, to turn it upside down and inside out. 

to borrow a song lyric from starfield: we’re not alive to live this ordinary life. 

some people challenge us because they assume we can’t do it.

most people challenge us because they think we can do it.

God challenges us because he knows we can do it, with him.

so, for Natasha’s birthday last weekend, we took her to go see a play, Iron Will. maaaaan, oh man. i don’t even know if i can describe to you the changing and unexpected emotions i felt that night. to be straight with you- i totally didn’t want to go to some silly play about microfinance and the world, specifically Haiti (and how far has my heart fallen since last summer, again?). when kyla first emailed us telling us there were free tickets to this play, i did not want to go. but, last saturday.. there i was: second row, first seat, in a pretty cruddy mood. I have to say, when it first started, there was a looottt of inward groaning - i didn’t want to be there, it sounded like a lecture, i had been studying all day and would rather not hear more about economics. but half-way through the first act, my attitude completely changed. i don’t know how, and i don’t know when. but, the first half of the play completely drew me in and began chipping away at all the selfishness and all the apathy that had built up over the course of this school year. 

the second act broke my heart, to say the least. if the first act chipped away at my stone-cold heart (:P), the second act completely shattered it. especially the scene where the Canadian students left Haiti, to go home. SO reminiscent of my time in Morocco last year! leaving tghite, and all the little kids we had befriended there, and the bonds we had formed with the organizations, and as a team… it was hard. 

the emotions and experiences that the students experience in the play as they went over to Haiti were almost exact replicas of what i felt in Morocco: feeling like a burden, wanting to help, but not knowing how to reach out, being taught more about life and joy than one ever expected, discovering passions, frustration, gratefulness and community. 

all i could think when i watched the play was: why am i not going overseas now?

during the second act, i got this idea: why not go overseas and work with kyla’s parents? everything seemed to be working out, it seemed like God was working it all out. last night, i talked to my parents about it, again… let’s just say, i wonder what God has got up that big sleeve of his… 

i can’t believe how much You delight in me. it blows my mind how much you love me and how much you want me to see myself the way you see me:

full of potential, beauty and created for a purpose.  

and i’m realizing more and more that i’m not meant to do this on my own. i always knew that, but that knowledge never really made its way from my head to my heart. 

i am so much more than who i’ve been. a little tenth avenue north for ya! 

‘don’t you know who you are, what has been done for you?

you are more than the choices that you’ve made,

you are more than the sum of your past mistakes,

you are more than the problems you create.

you’ve been remade.

this is not about what’s been done, but what’s been for you

this is not about where you’ve been, but where your brokenness brings you to.

this is not not about what you feel, but what He felt to forgive you, and what He Felt to make you loved.