8 years today

well today is 8 years since my mom passed...seems like yesterday, i can remember everything that happened that day.....crappy day for me.....but im lookin at the positive things that she taught me.....i loved her and i still do....one day i'll get to see her face.....

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I announce here in and forever more that I am a part of the church of the out of control. I am a disciple of Jesus Christ. I've given up control to the Spirit. I've surrendered control to God. I've jumped off the fence. I've stepped over the line. There is no turning back, looking around, slowing down, backing away, letting up or shutting up. It's life played against the odds., outside the box, over the wall. The game of life played without goal lines other than "Thy will be done."

I'm done primping and pimping for the over dogs, the wonder dogs, and the lapdogs. I'm done playing by the rules whether it's Roberts's Rules of Order or Martha Stewart's Rules of Homemaking or Merrill Lynch's Rules of the money minding and bottom-lining ladder climbing. I am not here to please the dominant culture or to serve any buck stops nowhere bureaucrats.

I am here to please my Lord and my Savior. This means that sometimes I am called to sharpen the cutting edge and sometimes to blunt the cutting edge. This means that I'm finished with second hand sensations; third rate dreams low risk high-risk trades and goose-stepping, flag waving crusades. I no longer need applause, approval, and affluence.

I now live by God-breathed love. Christ centered faith and Spirit driven power. My face is upward. My feet are outward. My eyes are focused. My way is cloudy. My knees are worn. My seat uncreased. My heart burdened. My spirit light. My road narrow. My mission wide. I can't be bought by any personalities or perks, positions or prizes.

I won't give up, though I might easily give into openness of mind, humbleness of heart, and generosity of spirit. In the face of adversity no longer will I hang in there. I will stand in there, I will run in there, I will pray in there, I will sacrifice in there, I will endure in there. I will do everything in fact, except hang.

I won't be seduced by popularity, traduced by criticism, travestied by hypocrisy, or trivialized by mediocrity. I've stopped trying to make things work and started trying to make things sing.
I am the institutionalized Church's best friend and worst nightmare. I won't back down, slow down, shut down, or let down, until I'm preached out, teached out, healed out, or hauled out of God's mission that has been entrusted to all of us to unbind the confined whether they're overlooked, the unrepresented, the down trodden, or the upscale.

My fundamental indentity is a disciple of Jesus--but even more a disciple of Jesus who lives in Christ. Who seeks to travel through history not just simply "In His steps" but more deeply and more intimately "In His Spirit." I must go until he comes, give till I drop, preach till I know all, and work till he stops--till He comes again or calls me home. I can be found not killing time but filling time. So that one day He will pick me out of the line-up of the aged as one of his own. And then....It will be worth it all--to hear the most precious words I could ever hear, "Well done, thy good and faithful, servant."