A glimpse of something "more"

Sunday night 15 May 2011

Some may think I am a little crazy and maybe that is so… but in documenting what is going on in my life I am hoping that some kind of inspirition is stirred. J

After my show on Sunday (Uj-fm) I was driving home and felt an urge to do something different.

Where? What? Who? How?

Edenvale Hospital :)

As I get to the hospital I feel like an idiot… like I should turn around and going home. I’m a white single girl by myself at this seemingly non-safe hospital at night… but whatever. Park my car. As I walk up towards the hospital I catch glimpses of the shadows of those lurking in the dark corners outside and I can hear their voices as they stare at me with what I would presume is complete bewilderment. (intombazana emhlophe)

It’s always a little awkward as people genuinely stare as you walk into any ward. I felt a little stupid. But after entering the general ward and talking to the nurse (asking if I can pray for people) – I realized I only had 20 minutes (visiting hours are from 7 – 8pm). So I walked up to the first woman I saw and thankfully she could speak some English so after chatting to her a bit, finding out that she has Meningitis - I prayed for her healing. I really was trusting that she would feel something different but I know that even without that happening – God was working.

I desire the complete insane. 

The miracles that make no sense. 

The supernatural. 

After that I walked around the ward – approached another lady but she couldn’t understand me as she didn’t speak English. So I decided to go to another ward… 

but as I was leaving the lady I had prayed for at first called me back and asked me to come pray for her friend in the bed next to her.

This lady didn’t say anything – just sat there with her head in her hands. Couldn’t tell if she was laughing or crying but I prayed nonetheless. 

I felt God’s presence… like he was there walking with me and smiling.      

This is his hangout.

All I want is to be where he would be.

It was like HIS heart of compassion was growing within my own.

The horrible smells, the diseases and putrid sicknesses which infest those lying in the beds are not as important as the  hearts of those lying there.

Christ came for all.

I checked out the spinal ward just before I left and found a woman all by herself in this one room. 

She could not speak English but she was able to tell me she is Zulu and her face of anguish spoke more than any sentence ever could. 

I tried to tell her I wanted to pray for her and she just looked at me with a confused expression. 

Eventually I think she understood when I said “God” as she immediately sat up, folding her hands and looked down whilst closing her eyes. I held her hands and just started praying.

It was like God flooded that room in that moment. 

His presence.

A Zulu lady wrecked with pain. 

A white girl from Dunvegan. 

Not able to communicate. 

Sharing almost nothing in common. 

Christ's compassion.

Can I tell you that as I prayed for her I knew (once again) that God was working. 

Her face gradually grew peaceful and she held so tightly to my hand that I knew, without a shadow of a doubt,

 - God was revealing himself to her. 

She wouldn’t open her eyes or stop gripping my hand – even when I said ‘amen’ and kept quiet. 

She sat there… with this peace-filled expression of ‘everything is going to be ok’… and in that moment I was reminded of how I don’t want anything else but to be used my God in power.

I asked the nurse about her and she said that this lady had no family here and had been in the hospital for 6 weeks. 

She had no one here. Complete and utter loneliness. 

Lying in pain day-after-day without a soul to speak to… 

It’s in that moment that my mind attempts to escape dwelling on this woman’s situation because if I allow my heart to feel what she must be going through – it just seems too much…

As I walked out that hospital I felt as though my heart may just explode. 

I walked as fast as I could to my car and hunched over my steering wheel for at least ten minutes sobbing. 

I cried like I have not cried in a very long time.

And I could not stop. 

I started my car and sobbed all the way home whilst blurting out how sorry I am for being so selfish and ridiculously consumed with my own little issues.

I felt his compassion that night.

I felt his heart.

And it ALWAYS changes me.

my greatest F E A R.

April 2011

In February I began fetching a little four-year-old from a school in Houghton and dropping him home. 

It was simple. Fetch him. Drop him. 

12pm every day. A little cash towards rent. 

Sorted.

His name was Josh.

And little Josh rocked my world.

He had a tiny frame with a mop of greyish blonde hair and a constant contemplative expression on his serious face. 

He would usually be sitting by himself when I fetched him and would immediately jump up and race towards me like I as a walking ice-cream machine. 

He didn’t smile much and would talk with absolute intent. I began asking him simple questions that any adult would ask in an attempt to relate to a four-year-old. 

I soon realized that Josh was unlike any kid I have ever met. 

He would answer my simple questions in the most profound way that I would sit there in that front seat of my car in complete awe. 

Before he answered any question he would stare out the window and wait a little while before answering. 

It was like he saw what most people in this world could not.

The one day I asked Josh, “Do you know who Jesus is?”

He looked out the window and after about 10 seconds answered:

 “Yes Faye. He’s the man who came to make it so that we don’t have to die.”

BAM. The most beautiful description from a little boy who looks at life as it should be viewed. 

I drove home that day and was so challenged to STOP over-analyzing every situation and possible opportunity. I want to look at this life like Josh does. I want to get down to the niddy griddy (in the words of Nacho Libre)...

And it’s far simpler than you could dare to believe.

Hypothetically, I wish someone could take a panger and rip at the skin on my chest and take out my beating heart and hold it in their hands and feel it as it beats… and as they feel it beating they could understand what it beats for. I wish that whatever THAT is would be the very THING that people see… and not my outer layer of decaying human flesh. My soul longs for more. For more than this. I want to attempt to satisfy the deepest craving of my inner being. "From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it." I wish for that to be what people see. I want to walk it out.

And yet, I feel the inclination towards passivity and self-preservation is only growing stronger. 

We’ve all fallen into this spot again and again, and when sitting in that place – living for the weekend and planning the next outing, trip or getaway – it’s like our greatest pleasure begins to become the need to self-satisfy oneself with entertainment, attention or safe Christian events. The kind of soft, un-radical, norm that becomes what we live for. I hate it. Yip. Real live “hate”. We’re in something of the end of times as the birth pains emerge world-wide. It’s blatent. In our faces. Images of devastation and destruction which bring with them a whole range of emotions. The horror of human suffering. The fear of THAT happening to us. And then we roll over, turn around, look away and talk about what’s for supper, who’s dating who, where she went with him on that day, how insane the petrol price is while singing along to “I whip my hair back and forth”.

Our little worlds. Our self-protecting attitudes. Our inhibited mind-sets.

Seriously?

“We were meant to live for so much more.”

The screams of those who don’t know HIM are becoming louder. Their pitch is recognizably desperate. The opportunities are everywhere. The questioning is obvious. How can we NOT respond with a truth too extravagant to hide? How can we NOT burn with overwhelming desire to see lives being changed? How can we NOT see what the Father sees?

My greatest fear in this life is my life not counting for Christ in the way HE sees.

It’s as simple as Josh puts it. It’s making the changes that count. It’s living out the truth.

Jesus Christ died for us.

We live for him with everything that we have.

Simple. Profound. Beautiful.

How to be an explorer of the world:

• 

  
  

  
  

  
  
  

  
  

  
  

  1) Always be looking. (notice the ground beneath your feet)

  2) Consider everything alive and animate.

  3) Everything is interesting (look closer).

  4) Alter your course often.

  5) Observe for long durations (and short ones).

  6) Notice the stories going on around you.

  7) Notice patterns. Make connections.

  8) Document your findings (field notes) in a variety of ways.

  9) Incorporate indetermininancy.

  10) Observe movement.

  11) Create a personal dialogue with your environment. Talk to it.

  12) Trace things back to their origins.

  13) Use all of the sense in your investigations.

< closer than you think >

A realization from 2010

Over the last few days I have come to realize (once again) that I don’t care about anything else in this world but making a difference for the ONE who endured the agony of the cross for me. The ONE who sits and stares and laughs and speaks and dances and is so deeply INVOLVED in every aspect of my daily life even when I am too tired to care. I know that this year has been a good one, a learning one, a victorious one, a crazy one, a rough one… I know that I have disappointed many people. I know that I have disappointed myself. I know that I have failed, judged and fallen into wrong patterns of behavior and thinking. I have found myself clinging to worthless idols and speaking words of disgust out of hurt and anger…

I have found myself in a place of wanting.

And, in that place, HE has found me.

He hasn’t burst out of the clouds in a great fury of fire and emotion.

He hasn’t tip-toed into my room and remained, waiting, quietly in the corner.

He has walked up to me, effortlessly picking me up, and gracefully placed me on his lap with the authority of a dad.

He has held me in his arms of overwhelming strength like a lover who cannot let go.

He has kissed my head and spoken weighty truth into my heart.

He has held my gaze with a sunset while gently altering my perspective.

He has taken my small hands in his huge ones – teaching me how to dream again.

He has traced my face with his fingertips – owning me with his touch.

He has sat with me and laughed uncontrollably till I can feel the trembling of his laughter in the thunder.

He has sat with me and sobbed, his body shaking with turmoil, as if my human tears were his very own.

He has held me through agony, aching confusion and my screaming human desire for answers.

He has closed his eyes sometimes… not out of frustration or irritation, but because he is remembering something.

He is remembering a moment…

A moment when he walked in indescribable agony up to a cross on a hill.

A moment on that excruciating journey when he thought of me and KNEW it was for me.

He remembers that moment… as he holds me… and he simply pulls me CLOSER whispering:

“You’re worth it. You’re mine. You always will be.”

He is my God.

He is my Savior.

He is my King.

He is my Lover.

He is my Best friend.

He is my Everything.

And my desire is for YOU to see him in all that he is and can be to you.

fire.

Monday 12th July 2010

Dear reader

I have this fire in my heart.

Hot. Boiling. Beautiful.

It started many years ago. I was seven.

I remember it clearly, standing on my bed, hands clasped together,

my mom’s arms wrapped around me as I repeated life-changing words I didn’t fully understand.

Dormant embers

began

to

warm.

I grew older, I moved, I changed, I discovered, I lost, I sought, I ran, I fought, I laughed,

I tried, I hid, I cried.

He never let go.

Grade 8. The embers flickered.

Briefly.

Momentarily.

Soflty.

2003. The year I surrendered.

Smoke began to rise.

A change.

Joy.

Freedom.

The only One.

A flame began.

Light.

Bright.

Evident.

2004. 2005. 2006. I obeyed. I trained. I stood. I fell… In love.

I moved with every motion he whispered. I danced to every step he led. I questioned. He answered. I hungered. He fed me. He spoke. My mouth moved in unison. His words became my own.

His heart within me grew.

The flame

became

a

burning

fire.

2007. 2008. 2009. I tasted. I saw. He fulfilled. He revealed himself.

I climbed. He paved the way. I grew weary. He held me.

I fell. He picked me up. I dreamt. He blew my mind. I knocked.

He opened doors.

I felt further than the moon.

He came closer than my skin.

The fire

became

a

fierce

furnace.

2010. I have this fire in my heart.

It keeps growing deep within. Intense. Unstoppable.

How can I explain?

I need the world to know.

My Saviour.

His love.

His Death.

His Resurrection.

His Life.

My Heart.

Red.

Hot.

 Fire.