When God actually "comes through for you..."

HA! It doesn't happen...or to say it correctly...God always comes through for us. Today I have reached what I think of as a "breakthrough." I have been given something that I really wanted. A piece of the puzzle has clicked into place. God Came Through for me... Or did He?

In reality, what I think of as God making something happen...that I had been anticipating...was actually just one more step in a plan of His making all along. Events and milestones that are big and celebratory to me, are most likely the culmination of many other un-noticed events and milestones that are recognizable only by a calculating and calling God. God doesn't just see what I see as victories. I think He sees each step that I take with Him...following Him...as a victory for His Kingdom. After all...what is the goal of life? Success? Accomplishing my dreams? Or praying and accepting that God's dreams BECOME my dreams...that God's successes or Kingdom successes become my idea of success.

God's ideas of good are much different from what I have learned from my culture, my family and my world. In God's upside-down world, the first are last, and the last are first. The persecuted are the blessed and the poor will be made rich. The happy will be made sad, and the sad will be comforted. I pray for my enemies and for those who persecute me. I love those who try to kill me and I turn my cheek to accept another blow. I become defenseless, because I need no defense. No power can hurt me, because I am transformed from earthly being to heavenly body. I am no longer my own, but my God's. I am no longer free to be as I see fit, but I am slave to a God whose slavery is so much better than my own idea of freedom. And yet in this state of slavery, I am more free than I have ever been.

In God, through Christ, through His liberating love and sacrifice, I gain all the lasting treasures of true love. I loose everything so that I can gain the one thing that matters. And once I have it, I give it all away, freely. And strangely enough, as long as I freely give...I always have more than I need.

from Sojourners...

Dear bart, While talk show hosts spread fear of reform, Americans are going broke from health-care costs. Tell Bill O'Reilly to tell the truth about health-care reform. It’s good that some of America’s most conservative talking heads are hearing from people of faith. On a recent episode of The O’Reilly Factor [1], Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of NETWORK, a Catholic social justice lobby, did some truth-telling: "I think what Jesus says over and over again, both in our lives and in the scriptures, is that it's our responsibility to make sure that the least are cared for. And that it is a societal responsibility. Therefore, we must as a nation make sure that everyone has access to health care." Bill O’Reilly’s response, however, was out of touch and misleading: “There are a number of ways to do that and I support the clinic way, whereby the federal government could have clinics in almost every county in the country that do provide services for the poor. However, if the government takes over health care ... and begins to tell people when they can live and when they can die, and the country goes bankrupt in the process ... more people will be harmed, including poor people.” Be another voice of faith setting Bill O’Reilly straight about health-care reform. Does Bill really think that the health-care crisis is only a problem for poor people? Or that clinics alone are a real solution? While his band-aid suggestions and scare tactics obscure the issue, the health-care crisis is making people poor as costs skyrocket - even for those with coverage. Even those who may lose business as a result of reform know that, in the health-care crisis, it’s the current system that’s bankrupting America - one citizen at a time: I'm a bankruptcy lawyer, so I'm in one of the two groups that will be hurt by real health-care reform (insurance companies being the other). About a third of my clients are in bankruptcy due to medical bills (another third have some medical bills, but it's not what pushed them over the edge). Almost all of them thought their health insurance would cover the problems they had. Many had gone to great lengths ahead of time to make sure their treatment would be covered, only to find out after the fact that their insurance company wouldn't pay. They've heard every excuse in the book (or in the fine print of the policy): experimental treatment, lifetime cap, high deductible, missed deadlines, lack of notification, pre-existing condition, and so on. To me, the worst part of the American health-care financing system is that you can't tell what your treatment will cost. I know folks who have flown to Pakistan to have operations they couldn't get in the U.S. because nobody in the U.S. (unlike Pakistan!) would agree in writing ahead of time what it would cost them. [2, emphasis added] Tell Bill O’Reilly that all Americans - rich and poor, with and without insurance - need real reform now. Bill doesn’t trust the government to provide his own health care, but he thinks it’s good enough to provide clinics for the poor. We need comprehensive reform for all Americans, not just band-aids for people in poverty. No person in America should go bankrupt because they cannot afford needed medical care. The major proposals for health-care reform would prohibit insurance companies from placing an annual or lifetime limit to the amount of coverage a person can receive, and would limit the amount that can be charged in out-of-pocket deductibles. No person should have to fight serious illness and bankruptcy at the same time. The issue is not, as O’Reilly says, the government going bankrupt - it is hundreds of thousands of Americans going bankrupt. Bill O’Reilly has shown that he’s willing to listen to voices of faith when it comes to health-care reform. Add your voice to the chorus of those calling for truth-telling on this vital issue. Click here to take action today. Shalom, Ryan, Elizabeth, Duane, and the team at Sojourners ---- 1) The O'Reilly Factor, 8/19/2009 2) Source: "The View From Your Sickbed," a reader’s letter to "The Daily Dish," The Atlantic online, 8/10/2009

your soul

"Your body is a manifestation of your soul."

small words/small thoughts

lately I've been impressed with the power of words. how easily they can hurt. oh how easily they can be said. how hard it is to forget them or not take them personally. written words can hurt even more because they don't have the sounds that animate them. maybe they are even more dangerous, because the reader can add her own animation regardless of what was intended by the writer. that, my friend, is dangerous too. CAPTIALS ARE DANGEROUS, bold is too loud, THIS IS A DECLARATION OF WAR, this is a conspiring whisper, and none of these words are more than pixels on a screen...pulses of light like the ones God called into existence in the beginning.

with these words i love, i paint, i push and cajole. with these words, these very quiet words, i pray, i hate

with these words i change, i relate, i scream - notice me.

i write these words to remind me that they are more powerful than i intend. i shouldn't be trusted with words because they are too powerful...not yet. i need to practice more with actions until they look more like the words that i want to say and that i want to be.

There is no "or"

Either God will come through, or... It is something that I say alot in my head. My therapist called this "self talk." If you've been there, you know what that means. If you've read Deepak or a disciple of his, you know what that means. It's the self-affirming or condemning stuff that we say and believe in our heads about our 'self.'

Either God will do it, or... It doesn't really make sense. God is who God is. He will do what He will do. He says He will take care of us and care for us...clothe us, feed us... Help my unbelief.