i declare...

someone (that i love dearly) posted this on facebook a while ago. and it kind of made me throw up in my mouth a little bit... & so i snapped a photo of it & let it sit in my photos to see if it was just that day that made me so weirded out by this "declaration" or if it truly was as nauseating over time as it was on that first sighting... & the answer was that it really made me feel a little bit sick every time i kept seeing it. so here is the "declaration"...

We would never imagine that getting our heart's deepest desires might be the worst thing that can ever happen to us. {tim keller}

so i tweaked the declaration a bit... 

I DECLARE that God will take His own perfect timing in accomplishing His plan for my life as I put my trust in Him. And maybe the waiting IS the most important part of learning to trust in Him. I will accomplish my dreams ONLY if they are His higher and better dreams for my life. And they will be accomplished in the perfect timing that He ordained from the beginning of time. Because the goal isn't the accomplishment of the dream, it is the faith that each step takes me further away from my own self, and closer to the REAL lea that He has known and fashioned from the beginning of time.  It may take years to overcome an obstacle, and maybe that very obstacle is the thorn in my flesh that is His strength perfected in my weakness and dependance on Him. And maybe that obstacle is the BEST DAMN THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO ME but i live in an upside down kingdom and can't tell north from south. and i will never get out of my ultimate debt that was totally paid by His Work on the cross which means that ALL things (even the things that look like horrible things) can work for my good and His glory. God is doing things faster and slower than i could ask or imagine. And His clock is eternal and actually exists outside of time itself. He will give me victory in the strangest of ways and some of the GREATEST victories will most likely look like abject defeats. He has blessings that will last through eternity and may not show up until then. and i will be grateful for it all. this is MY declaration.

i wish i could DECLARE things and they would happen. but usually it is the LORD who declares things... and i am learning to trust His declarations over mine.

Isaiah 30:1-3  “Ah, stubborn children,” declares the Lord,
“who carry out a plan, but not mine...
Isaiah 55:8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.

 

“The term is over: the holidays have begun.”

from c.s. lewis' the last battle

“The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.” 

for my dear friend, ed hague, the holidays for him began right as we went back to school.

he wrote his own obituary to be published on his blog. you can read it by clicking HERE. it is beautiful, hilarious, poignant, and full of hope with a touch of snarkiness. which is so perfectly ed. who is actually even more perfectly ed today than he ever was here on earth.

and his obit made me think about my obituary. WHICH SHOULD BE ALL IN LOWERCASE, am i right? but it made me think about the things that i want to LIVE into during whatever days God can stand for me to be a mere shadow of the perfection of lea that He has in mind for me. and let's hope it isn't too much longer, cause this mortal coil is really a bummer. 

and in typical lea fashion (and my love of musicals) i have some musical aspirations for my life... there are a couple of songs that i listen to in the mornings that really help me to focus on my intentions each day...

FIRST: that i would not be AFRAID to love anyone, anywhere, at anytime. and that i stay so close to that Source of Love that i can't help but leak it out on anyone close to me...

Stir in me a love that’s deep
A love that’s wide
A love that’s sweet
And help me Lord to never keep it to myself
And if my heart should dimly burn
And if my feet should fail to run
Call my name and I will come right back to You

There’s no fear in love

I want to stay close to You
It’s really that simple
I want to stay close to You
Just as simple as this song

I want to stay close to You
It’s really that simple
I want to stay close to You
My whole life long

 

SECOND: that i know the ART OF CELEBRATION. that i celebrated everything and anything that i could. that i never was afraid to bodily approach the Throne of Grace. because one day i am totally looking forward to approaching that Throne and that is going to be one awesome celebration!

 

By grace alone somehow I stand
Where even angels fear to tread
Invited by redeeming love
Before the throne of God above
He pulls me close with nail-scarred hands
Into His everlasting arms

When condemnation grips my heart
And Satan tempts me to despair
I hear the voice that scatters fear
The Great I Am the Lord is here
Oh praise the One who fights for me
And shields my soul eternally

Boldly I approach Your throne
Blameless now I'm running home
By Your blood I come
Welcomed as Your own
Into the arms of majesty

Behold the bright and risen Son
More beauty than this world has known
I'm face to face with Love Himself
His perfect spotless righteousness
A thousand years, a thousand tongues
Are not enough to sing His praise

Boldly I approach Your throne
Blameless now I'm running home
By Your blood I come
Welcomed as Your own
Into the arms of majesty

This is the art of celebration
Knowing we're free from condemnation
Oh praise the One, praise the One
Who made an end to all my sin

Boldly I approach Your throne
Blameless now I'm running home
By Your blood I come
Welcomed as Your own
Into the arms of majesty

THIRD: everything by ryan stuart. really there is nothing to add to this song. other than it has woken my up many mornings. woken up my heart to be fixed on the One that gave up Everything so that He could be my Everything.

God in my living     There in my breathing
God in my waking    God in my sleeping

God in my resting    There in my working
God in my thinking    God in my speaking

Be my everything    Be my everything
Be my everything    Be my everything

God in my hoping    There in my dreaming

God in my watching    God in my waiting

God in my laughing    There in my weeping
God in my hurting    God in my healing

Christ in me   Christ in me
Christ in me the hope of glory    You are everything

so, ed hague, i will see you in the next chapter... it is going to be AMAZING and ETERNAL and full of HOPE and HILARITY. the best kind of HILARITY.

“And as He spoke, He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.” 
― C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle

book review and hearty recommendation...

every bitter thing is sweet. by sara hagarty

from sara's blog....

"Hey you, the one with a neat and tidy life that seems to be slipping through your fingers (the one who cringes at the thought of walking through what I describe),

Might the person you’re resenting or the circumstance that seems to be dragging you away from the life you’ve patterned be the very thing you need?

That son, that wife, that husband — that child you adopted — could it be they’re stationed, purposefully? Yup, right in their mess. Your mess. Could the end of “neat and tidy” be the beginning of passion and the pursuit of Him you’ve secretly always wanted but has evaded you whenever you’ve tried it on? Are you dragging a dustpan to the parts of your life that are mess — when He’s whispering in the background “this may be the greatest turning point in your story”? Find Me here.

Can I say it again? This may be the greatest turning point in your story."

I LOVE THE TURNING POINT IN A STORY!!!! in theatre class we have a fancy smancy theatre word for that point... it is PERIPETEIA. from the greek word "reversal". the thing is that the turning point (especially in greek drama) means that EVERYTHING changes. i have had a lot of PERIPETEIA moments in the last few years. seems that teenagers, kids moving out, going back to work... those things all mean TURNING POINTS in our stories. and as donald miller says in a million miles in a thousand years (really, have you read this book? because i have mentioned in a million times in a few blog posts...)

“And once you live a good story, you get a taste for a kind of meaning in life, and you can't go back to being normal; you can't go back to meaningless scenes stitched together by the forgettable thread of wasted time.”

nd this one by the donald also...

“If the point of life is the same as the point of a story, the point of life is character transformation. If I got any comfort as I set out on my first story, it was that in nearly every story, the protagonist is transformed. He's a jerk at the beginning and nice at the end, or a coward at the beginning and brave at the end. If the character doesn't change, the story hasn't happened yet. And if story is derived from real life, if story is just condensed version of life then life itself may be designed to change us so that we evolve from one kind of person to another. ”

i want my story to change me. i don't want to be the same person year after year. and it is really God's ultimate peripeteia reversal that the bitterest parts of our story end up being the sweetest parts as well.

look who's writing...

have you missed me? (insert sound of crickets chirping here)

i have missed writing. and reading. and laying on the couch watching HGTV all day. 

but it is summer time and the living is easy. and there are marathons on HGTV. and i have been home for 6 days with NO CHILDREN HERE! and i am just getting around to writing...

BECAUSE HGTV, MAN!!!!

and i just needed some decompression time. and so did some areas of my house.

it has been a good year. a good (but hard) transition back into the classroom. back into a very scheduled, every minute purposeful, every minute planned with twelve things that have to happen before the next minute is up or someone is going to drop a plate that she is juggling. and i have loved (almost) every minute of it.

this is how i feel about my theatre teaching job this year... 

i work with some wonderful teachers who have become friends as well as mentors to me and it is stressful and involves over a hundred middle school kids EVERY STINKING DAY, but it is glorious, and gritty, and good.

and i am profoundly and profanely grateful. 

i was talking to someone about being OVERWHELMED this year and she said, "i think overwhelmed just means that you got a ton of great things at once and you just don't have the shelf space for all that goodness. yet." 

and i think she might be right. so i am trying to figure out how to make shelf space. moving some things off the shelves. maybe building new shelves (you know i love new shelves.) or just figuring out what needs to be out on the shelves right now, and what can stay back in the box for another time out on the shelf. and what needs to go to goodwill. and what needs to go in the trash. 

overwhelmed is better than underwhelmed. that is what i say...

and for your theater amusement...

i have just finished teaching through the structure of a greek tragedy using oedipus rex with the middle schoolers. and i have to say that there is NOTHING quite so entertaining as reading through the classic play oedipus rex with middle schoolers and seeing the light of understanding come on into their little eyes when they understand the climatic moment of the play. 

so i have collected some little funny oedipus moments to share with you here. because i can't really share them with middle schoolers...

and here is an actual activity we will be doing in class... comparing oedipus rex to frozen and finding all the elements of classic greek tragedy that they both display... (and i may have made up the last element of tragic form, but it was too good to leave off the list...)