Lemonade

I've been attempting to "make lemonade" recently.

It's really quite strange how that cliche line has been playing through my head so frequently these days.

I found myself telling people, or telling myself, "Oh you know, just trying to make lemonade out of the lemons."

Foolish. Silly. Cliche. Lame.

That's what I think after I say that, whether audibly or inaudibly.

Nonetheless, it is true.

I am making lemonade.

Some days it is sweeter than others.

Some days its plain sour as heck.

Some days it has that perfect taste of sweetness with a touch of sour at the end that leaves no doubt that this lemonade was made from fresh, REAL lemons.

And is there a better kind of lemonade than the one made with fresh, real lemons?

I think not.

If there is one thing I have learned in my short existence on this earth, it's that we can always, always make lemonade out of lemons.

In fact, there is nothing else we can do with those lemons except make lemonade.

Well, there is the option of squeezing it on your salmon, brocoli, salad dressing, or a plethora of other delicious uses for lemons in cooking that simply makes your food 100 times more incredible.

Point is: lemons by themselves--not so good. Lemons mixed with other things--DELICIOUS.

Sometimes, you get really hard lemons.

They are incredibly difficult to squeeze.

It takes two hands.

It takes rolling it around on the counter for a while.

It takes a lot of work.

But does that dismiss the fact that lemonade is still possible?

I think not.

Sometimes--ok, many times-- I don't want to make lemonade.

Many times, I just want to suck on the lemon itself.

Screw lemonade.

Forget the sugar.

Give me the frickin lemon and watch me make faces.
I don't want sweet.
I'm mad and I just want a lemon!

Sometimes that's okay.

But after a couple of days, your mouth can only take so much and you just need to bite the bullet and make some frickin lemonade.

And you enjoy it.

And you savor it.

And it is splendid.

"Seperation"

Your absence goes through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.

--W.S. Merwin,
"Separation"

As I read
these words pierced my heart
again and again
as I read and reread
again and again.

How humorous it is when we stumble upon the most apropos of words at certain moments that have never before been brought to our eyes.

Redemption?

This is what I'm meant for.

This is abundant life.

Going to sick, dark people, places, and situations and bringing life to where there seems to be little of it.

I have no power over a person's eternal state. Whether they go to heaven or hell.
That is only is God's hands and I am naive and prideful to think that I determine where they go.

Plus, who knows when that time will arise for them. Today or 50 years from now?

But, not only can I, but I am MEANT TO BE Jesus' hands and feet in the current hells that people are living in. Right now.
Today.
This moment that you are reading this.
Literal hells.

Take everything you've learned about hell and try to wrap your head around the fact that people are living in that right now--some physically, some mentally, some emotionally, some spiritually.
And for many of these people, they have all of those kinds of hells at once.
Right now. Not only when they die.


And Jesus said to be his hands and feet and be apart of bringing them redemption and salvation.

Salvation: being apart of saving people from their current hells and trusting their eternal states with the Powerful One because you've done all you can by sharing your time, resources, comfort, and love with them. (I think that this is all Jesus said to do, really. He didn't say you have the power and judgment to send people to heaven or hell eternally, right?)

Redemption: Find the darkness. Open your eyes and look for the horrible people, places, and situations. And figure out what would be light to that darkness. Figure out what would be just a piece of making that messed up stuff a little more whole. What could bring a little beauty to that rubbish? (that is why I posted that picture above: there is a tiny beautiful flower amongst the rubbish we were about to burn in Uganda. I couldn't pass up that image. I pasted it to my journal because it is the image of my own life: a tiny piece of something beautiful amidst ashes.)

Maybe this is a little more easier (and biblical): figure out what you would want someone to do for you if you were_________. (Fill in the blank with any of these: being forced to have sex with people; being beaten every day; enslaved to an addiction that you hated and wanted out of; had no opportunity to an education; forced to sell drugs for your mom since the age of 9 and now "that life" is all you know; forced & brainwashed to kill people at the age of 10; had no idea what a mother or a father was; were just released from prison for a terrible crime you regret but now no one will accept you back into society; had a deadly disease that ate away your organs so you couldn't help anyone or take care of your family; had no water whatsoever, etc.)

Figure out what you would want people to do for you in those situations. (this shouldn't be too hard, its not a trick.)
Take some time to research what the Body of Christ around the world and right around your town is already doing.
Ask the Lord what he wants you to sacrifice (not just financially) to be apart of the Kingdom of Salvation and Redemption.

Simple. (ha)
No rules.
No boxes to fit yourself into.
No boxes to fit Jesus in.
No right answers.

Just ask Him.

Take some valuable time. Be open.
Sacrifice.
BE about salvation and redemption.
Those 2 words that have lost meaning because we throw them around so much.
(so redefine them for yourself if you need to. I had to.)

You want abundant/full/intoxicating life?
What if we stopped trying to figure out what seems natural and comfortable and figure out what Jesus talked most about and did the most?
It seems that will fill you.
And intoxicate you.

Do whatever you need to do to figure it out.

Go through the Bible.

Look at Jesus' life from different perspectives.

Pray pray pray.

Ask the Lord to show us in ways we've never known before.

Research what's going on already.

Pray.


I simply can not think about the undeserved, unconditional love that my Daddy has poured out on me;
I can't think about the people he's used in my life to show me that;
I can't think about the fact that I continually spit in his face and turn from him and yet he POURS out grace on me and blesses me and gives me immense joy anyways;
I can't think about the redemption/transformation of the way I think, the way I love people, the way i do life, the way I struggle through deep, dark things---I can not think about all of that stuff and not feel a beautiful, deep, joyful compulsion to share those same things with people who HAVE NO IDEA they can experience this too!

I'll close with this:

politics or love
can make you blind or make you see
make you a slave or make you free
but only one does it all

and it’s giving up your life
for the ones you hate the most
it’s giving them your gown
when they’ve taken your clothes

it’s learning to admit
when you’ve had a hand in setting them up
in knocking them down

love is not against the law
love is not against the law

are we defending life
when we just pick and choose
lives acceptable to lose
and which ones to defend

‘cause you cannot choose your friends
but you choose your enemies
and what if they were one
one and the same

could you find a way
to love them both the same
to give them your name?

-good ol D. Webb


(this post was originally written 3 years ago but I stumbled upon it 
and it stirred my heart again so I tweaked it and reposted it as encouragement
for myself. Writing things down is good for the soul to look back on.)

Stones of Remembrance

I am thankful for a heart that remembers.

I am thankful for the truths the Lord has etched upon my heart.

You do not know what you truly believe until you test it through the flame.

As I walk through another valley with my eyes melted closed, wobbling and shaking, how peaceful and merciful it is to reach out and feel the sensation of my hands upon a rock, grasping a staff, clutching pillars.

A sigh of relief ensues.

I hang for dear life.

Ah, I need not take on step further unless clasping these pillars!

The eyes of my emotions and flesh may feel sewed shut, full of darkness and unknown, but the hands of my spirit grasp onto the rocks of the foundation my faithful Father has laid all around me through 24 years.

I know not where I am stepping.
I know not why I ended up on this path, nor what happened to the well-lit, comforting one I was one. (How did it just disappear right out from under me and then I landed on this one?)
I know not where this path leads.

But as I wobble along,
with eyes locked shut,
I can trust.

For I have the rocks, the pillars to cling to.
The rocks and pillars of remembrance.

Just as the Jewish fathers and mothers before us set up as God commanded.
What a sweet, necessary command of the Lord.

Etched into my own stones are words like:
"Remember: He took you through the black hole in your soul 3 years ago."
"Remember: He took you through deep death and loss."
"Remember: He took you through a tremendously broken heart."
"Remember: He took you through a foreign country completely alone."
"Remember: He took you through lost and scattered dreams, plans, and hopes."
"Remember: He is faithful. Every time, He is faithful."
"Remember: He takes ashes and turns them into something beautiful. All. The. Time."

And though my eyes can not read the stones, my spirit feels the words of Remembrance down into my heart.

And I wobble along.

Holding tight to the pillars that continue all the way down the path. . . .





These two posts are Pillars of Remembrance that I can look at and hold fast to:
A Hope and A Good Future
A River of Blessing

Regret Nothing

"But this I know: you will regret nothing when you look back, except lack of faith or fortitude or love.

You will never regret having thrown all to the winds in order to follow your Master and Lord.

Nothing will seem too much to have done or suffered, when, in the end, we see Him and the marks of His wounds;

nothing will ever seem enough.

Even the weariness of deferred hope will be forgotten, in the joy that is not of earth. . .

I shall not fear difficulties for you, for I know "it is the very work of grace to transform difficulties into opportunities."
But I shall ask that the greater the difficulty, the more abundant the supply of love may be."

--Amy Carmichael

Amen, Amen, again I say Amen!

I read this passage about a month ago and it dug straight into my heart, causing my soul to scream in inaudible, gut-wrenching words, "Hallelujah, yes, yes yes!"

"nothing will ever be enough."

I may suffer.
Things may not go as I think is best.
I may sacrifice, again, and again, and again.
My good, God-given desires may not come to fruition.
I may lose the people that I love more than anything in the world, by death. By distance. By sin.
I may suffer great physical pain.
I may live in complete discomfort.
I may live fearing for my physical life, daily.
I may feel as though I have a deep, dark hole in my soul and live in emotional pain.

And none of it will ever, ever be enough.
None of it will compare with what He has done for me.

When I read that passage, I just imagined myself kneeling before God himself, Christ himself, in all his glory and splendor and majesty.
Kneeling because my knees have given out.
Kneeling in awe.
And not glory, splendor, and majesty in a far off Queen-of-England-sort-of-way but the glory, splendor, and majesty that my soul will be encapsulated by simply by being in His presence.

The splendor that comes from feeling completely known and at home.
At home.
Having the hole inside me that has cried, since I was a little girl, "to go home," quenched.
Completely loved and adored.
Basking in splendor and majesty.

And then I imagine thinking to myself. . .laughing to myself, actually. . . ."Ha! That was nothing! That life I lived--nothing! I want to give more and more and more!"

So I will keep striving
for more.

JuJu is going crAAzy!!

It's official--I've reached a new stage of life.

The stage where you start to go crazy about kitchen utensils, appliances, and gadgets.

The stage where you can't leave the kitchen area of Bed, Bath, and Beyond, even when the kids are complaining.

The stage where it is literally like Christmas day when you bring home your salad spinner and test it out.

The stage where Aiden cries out several times, during this Christmas-day-experience, "Juju is going crazy!!"

Because it is true--Juju IS going crazy. About a salad spinner with a built in grater and mandolin chopper. And an olive oil mister to top it off.

If you know me, you know how many salads I eat.
And not just any salad, but huge, colorful, time-consuming-to-make salads.
So this was a big day.

AND, the plans are to be getting fresh lettuce right off the farm most of the time now, so this salad spinner is NEEDED without a doubt.
So this was a big day.

When the kids started to say, while at Bed Bath and Beyond, "Ahh Juju is looking at EVERYthing. When are we going to leave???"
I had flashbacks to my childhood with my mother.

What has happened?


The fun gadgets. =)
In process.
The finished work of art.
oh and this is the other stuff Juju was going crazy about!
We made home made cleaners, shampoo, conditioner, face wash!
Next is home made stock, yoghurt, whey, soaking nuts!
Its just beginning!

8 year old Innoncence

We were driving to dance the other day and, out of no where, Aiden decided to break the silence with:

"Why didn't Bush just ask were the weapons were?"


10 second pause.

for Juju to figure out what the heck he's talking about.

Ah yes, the Iraq war that I had just tried to teach the kids about earlier in the day.
The war that I really do not know many details about.
The war that I am not a very big supporter of and never have been.
Off-the-cuff lessons by Juju for 8 year olds are always the best. =)

Once I figured out that Aiden was thinking about the conversation we had had 4 hours earlier and was so innocently and rationally wondering, "If Bush wanted to get rid of the weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussein had, why didn't he just ask where they were?". . . .once I realized this, I said naturally answered, "They did ask, Aiden, but Hussein kept saying he didn't have any. . . .but Bush was convinced that he did have them, but he was hiding them. . . so we had to go look for them."

"Oh ok."

Done.

For now.

Then, the best part was a few minutes later. . .

We passed an apartment complex that is one of those new, rich-college student apartments. Its the one that has that big pool right off of 2818. . . Well there were tons of college kids out there in their bathing suits, standing around the pool. And there was a big tent.

Obviously some pool party that a radio station was putting on or something for a bunch of college kids to stand around and mingle in their bathing suits.

I commented out loud, "Wow, look at all those people! They must be having a party."

Aiden: "Yeah maybe, but no body is in the pool. They are all standing around it. . . maybe they are doing a baptism. "

Of course. Yes. Maybe that's exactly what they were doing, Young Innocent Little Child Whom I Love So Dearly!

I love that when he sees a bunch of people standing around a pool, his mind automatically goes to a baptism.

I love that when he thinks about countries fighting one another, he thinks such simple, rational thoughts.