My Broken Cisterns Never Seem to Stay Filled...

"My people hae committed two sins: they have forsaken me, the Spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that hold no water." (Jeremiah 2:13)

I haven't blogged in a really long time. Mostly because I've been "too busy" which is really just a cop-out. After a lovely conversation with my beautiful friend Melody the other day, I've decided that the best way for me to process today is to get back to my blog.

I've been super tied up with moving into our new house and getting ready for the wedding. In all of the kafuffle, I feel like I've forgotten how to plug-in. I found myself getting extremely frustrated with everything in my life this morning and I couldn't figure out why. Nothing was all that terrible. Then I realized. It's been about 6 days since I've really had any good God time. Then this came up in the book that I'm reading when I finally sat down to have some time with God and it totally applies to where I'm at at this moment. Funny how that happens, eh?

I just love this picture. God is there. He's the Spring of living water. He's completely available and longing for relationship with his people. And the people of Israel, his chosen nation, the ones that God chose to bear his name to the nations, are completely ignoring the only true source of freedom and fulfillment and chasing after other things that they think are going to make them happy. Broken Cisterns.

So, this is me, trying to figure out what my broken cisterns are and stop trying to get what I need from them.
Instead of seeking God, the Spring of living water, I'm seeking purpose and freedom and fulfillment from other people and places. I'm so fickle. The way to God is even more open to me than it was to the people of Israel. In their time, Jesus hadn't come yet and opened the way to God, so the people could only experience God in the temple. God's presence was confined to the Holy of Holies in the temple. A place separated from the rest of the temple by a veil. Only the high priest could enter the Holy of Holies and only once a year. When Jesus was crucified, that massive, heavy veil was torn in two from top to bottom. God sent his spirit to dwell in people instead of just in the temple and we are called in the book of Hebrews to "approach the throne of grace with confidence." (Hebrews 10:19)

So, I will do just that! I will approach the throne of grace knowing that Jesus has made a way for me and that God will forgive me for seeking what I need from broken cisterns. It's nice to know that my tendency to seek what I need from other places is something that everyone struggles with. It's nice to not be alone. What I need now is to keep on going back to the Spring of living water where my only true freedom and fulfillment can be found.

I tried the broken cisterns, Lord
But, ah! the waters failed
E'en as I stooped to drink they fled
And mocked me as I wailed

Now none but Christ can satisfy,
None other name for me;
There's love and life and lasting joy,
Lord Jesus, found in thee.

What a relief! I knew I needed to get things out!

Wow! It's been a ridiculously long time since I posted last and too much has happened to even be able to catch up. Bottom line of life right now.

The Lord is amazing and his grace is sufficient for me!

Peace.

Lisa just posted a picture of this quote written on the wall of an art gallery in Glasgow and I really like it, so here it is:

"Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing."

~Camille Pissarro

Beauty.

There have been a couple of spectacular sunsets in the past few days of my life and I feel the need to talk about them.

The first one happened on Friday night when I was driving home from camp. Usually I'm sad when I'm stuck driving during a great sunset, but I was ok with it this time. The clouds were all silver and grey. There wasn't really any bright colour. That's what made this one so amazing. There was so much depth and brilliance in the sky! The clouds were big smears of charcoal grey with edges of glistening silver. Where the clouds overlapped, the brightness was almost blinding. The beauty of the grey sky over the bright green trees was stunning. It was breathtaking.

The next one happened tonight when I was driving Abby home to Geraldton. The sky started off clear blue and the clouds were firey orange and pink with dusty purple streaked across. The first glimpse I caught of the whole sky was over Lake Nipigon when we turned onto highway 11. The whole expanse of the sky was reflected in the lake with a blindingly brilliant stripe of sun up the middle. As we drove along the highway, the sky changed. Each glimpse we caught of the horizon through the trees was a new picture of beauty.

Sometimes I feel sad that the beauty in a sunset is so fleeting, but I was thinking today that the image of every sunset I've ever seen is burned into my memory. And a picture never truly does them justice. God is so good! He's made this world for us to enjoy and I wanna enjoy it to the fullest!

Mountainside.

Mountainside. That's kinda where I'm at right now. I've been in a valley for a while which has been a little perturbing and discouraging, but I feel like breakthrough is in the process of happening. I'm really glad for breakthrough. It's been really hard to pray for the last while and there's been lots for me to pray through, so I've been pretty out-of-sorts. I had a really good pray time with Claire last night and it was a cool reminder for me of the blessing it is to live with these girls. I'm so thankful for all of the people that the Lord has blessed me with to challenge me and encourage me and need me. Life is good.

On another note, the young adults' retreat was super! It was a good time for people to relax and enjoy creation and each other. I'm really thankful for the way it all came together. Now it's on to new tasks. Today I start working on my prayer and support letter. Should be interesting since I've never done one before.

It's absolutely gorgeous outside today, so I'm going to emerge from the house and enjoy it. :)

Peace.

It's May 16th and I've just recently started hanging my laundry on the line outside to dry. Things were going very well until I woke up this morning to a raging wind/snow (kinda) storm. I think I'll take a different approach than most I've seen to talking about this weather. It's pretty cool. That I went to bed last night wishing that there were thunder and lightning to go along with the pouring rain and woke up several times in the night because the wind was so loud.
I just came in from taking my snowy laundry off of the clothesline and I feel like an icicle! However, I'll choose to view my iciness as a blessing. Here's why: My next move will be to jump in a nice, piping hot jacuzzi to get warm and then put on my coziest sweats and a warm blanket and snuggle up to finish the work I need to get done today. Feeling warm and cozy is one of my favourite things, but it wouldn't be as nice if my coziness weren't in direct contrast to how freezing cold I'd been before. So, I'm thankful for the raging wind and blowing snow. To the jacuzzi I go! :)

THE INTERVIEW

So, my interview was a million times better than I could have hoped! The board asked me a lot of really tough questions, but only so they could find out what my heart and vision was for my life and be able to support me in that. They were super-supportive about everything I shared with them and they really took the time to understand my motivation and purpose. They interviewed me for about an hour and then kicked me out for a while (after having some snacks) so they could talk about me. I got to have a lovely walk with Leesa through Hagersville which is a beautiful town. It was 25 C that day, so it was really amazing! Leesa and I had a really good visit. When we got back to the mission office, the board was ready to tell me their decision.

This was it: The board wanted to take me on as a part-time year-round Youth Ministries Worker in Thunder Bay. Focusing on camp for the summer and helping with that through the year and making connections with youth through discipleship and mentoring and also possibly camper reunions and things like that throughout the year.

They pretty much just left my position up to me to define in detail according to my vision.

I'm super-excited to be starting in on all of this and I'm really pumped to see where God takes it. I'm in the process of planning a Young Adults' Retreat for camp and that's been going really well too. I'm excited to see who shows up and how it goes!

Life is good! :)