A Mentors Refinement

Five Minute Friday, on the Prompt "Refine," Go!

I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be a mentor, what it means to be called in to that position by Yahweh our God. I've thought a lot lately about the special role of mentors and how throughout my own life, God placed mentors or spiritual moms (and a dad) in my own life. They never stayed forever, but they were there for a season. Some were older than my mom and others were a bit younger, age was not the issue. Rather, it was the person with the deposit that I needed, whom God positioned in my life. I am so so grateful for each and every single person who mentored me - men and women. My masters degree mentor was and is an amazing man of God, through His Life God taught me about Love, free love, selfless love. This was the love this man displayed. Through the life of the woman who was my spiritual mom for many years (she passed away three years ago), God allowed her to speak truth in to my heart in a time when I was coming out of an abusive relationship in my early twenties. I can list the beautiful gifts, teachings, understanding and deposits, a long list of people gave to me. Now however, I am thinking about my own role in the future, as a mentor. I am so blessed to know that one special woman I was blessed to mentor, has now taken such bold steps in her own life to throw herself in to God's call for her. She has abandoned comforts for mission work in deepest Africa, even without her family supporting her. For me, I have witnessed this growth and am so amazed at how deep her commitment goes. For me, sure I was placed as a mentor in her life for a time, now as a friend, but in all honesty, it's up to the person being mentored, to give it all to God. They wont become the person they are called to be without surrendering to Gor, no matter how awesome their mentor may be! And the biggest gift a mentor can offer is to be warm, and compassionate but also to be an instrument called to refine. We have to challenge, we have to push boundaries by God's prompting and we have to tell the truth. Now, as I sit these days thinking about mentors and mentorship, I wonder what the future is bringing to me in terms of other people who may need something I can give. It's exciting to think about! And not the least bit challenging!

STop! LInking with Kate M

The Journey of Miles

Moses was a walker. His leather sandals held miles on their tread, more tread then some cars do. How do I know that? Because the Torah tells us about the journey of the Israelites, but it also tells us about the journeys of Moses, the leader of the people. There's one specific trip Moses takes, which has gripped me over the past week. It's one particular trip he takes up mount Sinai to meet with Yahweh at God's command.

Moses took a total of nine trips up that same mountain, nine. Nine times he went up to meet with the Great I am! But on this one occassion something happens when he gets up the mountain that seems pretty awful in a way. The bump and sweat up Mount Sinai is no joke, even today, it's a hard journey. Some break bones, others take a camel up halfway, all in all it still takes 3 to 4 hours up even in our modern world, there's even cafes en route these days! But in Moses' day, there were no luxuries, it was a hard grind to the top, taking hours. So, 4 hours up and 4 hours down, that was the drill. So in Exodus 19 we are faced with the beautiful moment where Yahweh chooses to give His people, His Torah. Not only that, He also tells them the purpose for their redemption, to become a holy nation, a kingdom of priests set apart to Him alone (verses 5 - 6). Then Moses goes up the mountain a few times and relays messages to the people from God and then from God to the people. But in verse 20 - 21, 23 - 24 this happens....

  The Lord descended to the top of Mount Sinai
and called Moses to the top of the mountain.
So Moses went up and YHWH said to him,
“Go back down and warn the people.." 

 

Moses said to the Lord,
“The people cannot come up Mount Sinai, because
you yourself warned us, ‘Put limits around
the mountain and set it apart as holy.’

YHWH replied, “Go down and bring Aaron up with you."

Moses gets to the top after a long tiring walk of a couple of hours and he is told by God to go back down. Imagine, hearing those words - go back down on another long journey after you've just travelled up. These words really struck me as I allowed them to sink in. All the way up, just to be commissioned for another journey down and up again. 

But truthfully, I don't know what happened for Moses as he journeyed down. I don't know what he needed to learn from the experience of 9 to 12 hours of journeying on one day! I don't know if something shifted in his spirit, if there was something he needed to learn from the hard journey. Perhaps the Almighty wanted him to feel something or understand something. It seems to be that the journey was of utmost importance to God. This strange, unnecessary trip could have been a trip that changed things for Moses, it could have been a trip of learning, of breaking, of growing. It so mirrors our unfathomable trips of life too. Maybe it's not going as smooth as you thought it would go, maybe you are facing unnecssary pauses or periods of waiting. Maybe there is opposition, or despair, worry or weariness. Maybe there's an extra wait, or extra mountain you have to climb, and it's hard. But on the other side of that journey, maybe it's the place where you will grow to break, and break to grow. Or maybe in the "going down" God will show up in a greater way then before. Even waiting is a place of destiny. I don't know why friend, why when you just got to the top, you have to go back down again but our Abba is good and He knows. He will use the rugged, unmarked, dusty path to grow you, to help you, to teach you and it may not be easy but it's always for your good. Look what Moses got out of his journeys up and down that mountain, he got to hear the very Voice of God and to see the very Glory of God. He got nearness, intimacy and fresh word everyday more then anyone before him. He got called "spokesman for God," humble man, who was blessed to know the King. And that is purpose beyond belief. I pray that our mountains will be places like that. Don't give up, the journey is worth purpose!

 

You Turn because it's Me, Father

Father. What a special gift to know that we are Loved by Father. Yet, not everyone starts off knowing a father's love and when the wounds of fatherlessness are present, it takes the journey of Perfect Love to heal it. Father, the journey, the reality, the depth and the messages, it's all part of what I have and continue to write. This week I am over by Altarwork, sharing my poem entitled Father. I pray it blesses and speaks to you and maybe you want to send it on to someone who needs to know Father's gate is always open for them to come home!

Altarwork - Father Poem 

Stumbling Beautiful

I'm over at Grace Notes today, writing about how I stumbled in to Beautiful, on a trip some years back, to Venice! This piece is really about finding beauty in the strangest, most unexpected places and how that beauty can touch your heart and leave you refreshed!

Join me over here - Stumbling Upon Beautiful in Venice

Arrivederci!

FMF - I stood on the edge to Connect

First FMF for the Year! Lets go, writing on the prompt #connect!

 Snow settled in some parts, and everyone is snapping away. But down here South, here in Africa, we are summering it up, with soaring heat and fires. December was a movement of a month and connecting happened differently then expected. The first week of December we flew up North to be present at a old friends wedding. The beauty of the wedding struck me when we arrived on Friday (the day before the big day!) and we were surrounded by all the friends we have back home. They flew up too! And while we were there we sat breaking bread for our Friday night sabbath and we ate together. The sound of laughter, jokes and the steady flow of conversation was literally beautiful music. We spent moments connecting, hearing, listening, talking, engaging. On Saturday morning my husband and I checked in to the hotel where we were staying the rest of the weekend after a busy few days (we had arrived earlier in the week for ministry before the wedding, so we were tired!!). I took some time out for myself and walked out in to the big grass patch in front of our hotel. As I wandered on to the grass, a deep peace washed over me and when I peered down to where my feet were, I found myself standing on the edge of a circle in the green. I waited on the edge of the circle and then stepped in to it. I stood there, fully connected. Connected with God, with myself and with the realisation that it was the friends surrounding me and the community I found myself in that had given my spirit a refreshing hug or kiss of life. I stood in the circle looking down at my feet, allowing the tears to fall freely. I was embraced by the love I felt all around me. The love I felt in the friendships I was able to connect afresh with. Truth is, we all stay in the same suburb but we hardly ever see each other. The wedding was a wonder moment of connection, where we danced together and laughed together. It was a place of connecting. When we returned back home, connecting happened over a hospital bed, it happened when I shared the joy with my family, the joy of my baby nieces entry in to the world. Holding her I felt love surrounding me like a forcefield. Connection happened when she was a mere hour old and it happened in ways differnt then I expected and how grateful I am for that!

Stop! Linking over at Kate's

MeaningFull Poetry Week - Christina's Heart

Day 5! Truth be told - our poetry week is not running in chronological order, life has happened in between but! We are still doing it and I cannot believe how inspired we all have been feeling after reading "heart words" on these pages. This afternoon I want to share the words of a fellow writer and blogger, Christina Hubbard. I loved bumping in Christina's world of words on her blog, and since then we have formed a great kinship of writing. So here's what she says about herself; Christina Hubbard is a poet who writes memoir. Her work has appeared at (in)courage and she recently hosted #write31days of Five Minute Free Writes. She loves helping women find courage and freedom to influence their world with honest, beautiful story. A wife and mom to two squirrelly kids who will change the world, Christina loves sitting on her deck and dreaming up roadtrips and overseas adventures. Find her at Creative and Free

 Christina's Heart! (I fell in love with this poem of hers!)

Come by Here, My Lord

What do we do when love beckons, 

But we fear it?

When it requires us to knock down 

The black night of our own terrible histories,

Cement with sledgehammers,

Hate with kisses,

Bitterness with hand-holding grace.

How can we welcome the murderer into our homes,

The thief to our beds?

But I tell you, It's courage to embrace.

We are still piecing together the disintegration of our lives:

Race hate.

Religious terror.

How come we by some hope?

Come, sing, friend,

Kumbayah. 

We'll weave small threads, like children around the campfire

Blazing. 

Christina's Favourite Poem

 I love poetry which socks it to you with the turn of a word, or phrase, and stays in the concrete world. Poetry is easy when we stay in the abstract. When we struggle with the details of a moment and listen to what they want to tell us, then we begin making art that really means something. One of my favorite poets right now is Laura Van Prooyen

I highly recommend her book: Our House Was On Fire. The book's title comes from her poem "Blanket." She has a way of startling you with subtle truth in a simple line,

"but tucking my daughter in bed

I ask: If our house was on fire

which would you choose?

She says: My blanket, Mom,

'cause you can run."

Sharing Christina's Poetry over at #smallwonder link up 
 

FMF - Cure for Common Work

This week has been busier then usual, hours spent on a film set, hours spent editing my new work and sending it out to reviewers. Preparing a new teaching for this weekend, along with working with my hubby to create a video for it. Taking photos on set, working hard to get a BIG project started and replying to loads of emails and being super organised when it comes to mobilising location, models, hair and make - up. Transcribing a recent interview I did, and working on a new one for next week and just everything in between. It's been pretty fun and pretty amazing but the best part of it is, the beautiful sense of God's sweet presence and Power in it all. Which leads me to thinking about the joy of sacred work. Over the years I have waited on God to help me cultivate a lifestyle of rest, of Sabbath. My husband and I are Sabbath - keepers, evry Friday night when the sun sets we light our candles and settle down for 24 hours of Sabbath. It is our spiritual conviction to remember and obey the biblical Sabbath and it is such a delight in our home. Sabbath is sacred time, the rest of the week days are termed to be "common" or "normal" but Sabbath ushers in something sacred and from this example we learn to distinguish between what has Yahweh our God's stamp on and what is just normal. 

Having said this, I know that Sabbath has become a term or reality people are familiarising themselves with a lot more these days. Yet in this I have said to myself (and to others) that "people teach us how to rest, but no one teaches us how to work."  God took years to teach me how to rest. He had to, because I had burn out a number of times even though I was a Sabbth keeper! God taught me how to rest, now He is teaching me how to work in sanctity. I have also learned that I had burn out because I was doing tasks, investing in charity work and serving in places, where I was not called to serve. I was giving out too much on things not ordained just for me. Yet, deeper still I had wounds that Father needed to heal so that I could truly rest. Yes, to cultivate a weekly time for Sabbath is fabulous, biblical even, but to cultivate a lifestyle of surrender to God's best even when you do not understand it, that's a spiritual discipline that ushers in true rest. It helps eyes distinguish between what is "common" and what is sacred. Next time you are faced with tiredness, ask yourself am I invested in God's best for me? If I am, then this is sacred work and there will be tiredness, frustration even, but it's work ordained just for you and ony you can do it best! Let's not all desire a break from our lives, but to live our lives bringing rest to our work. Resting in work means let God lead and do not strive, be smart and be discerning!

Over at Five Minute Friday