Lent Day 3

I am so tired...

But, it has been a great night...

Great chicken soup [thanks Nancy]...

Great cornbread [thanks Josh]...

A quiet night inside on a cool FL winter night -- I refused to go out tonight...

A glass of red wine...

A fire in the fireplace...

Jeep [our new white Boxer pup -- Josh has pics of him on his FaceBook page] cuddled up next to me on the couch -- he is so sweet that I could barely tear myself away to write tonight...

AND IT IS FRIDAY -- thank God!!!

After years of brutal fundamentalism [of various varieties] which made sure that I kept beating myself up over my imperfections [and secretly wondering if God had really had enough of my failures and had given up on me] -- NOW, I am coming home spiritually to the remarkable reality that I, in all my brokenness, am God's beloved!

NOTHING can ever rip me out of my Father's embrace of love...

NOTHING can thwart his plan for me...

NOTHING can compromise his irrational and all-powerful love for me...

I am secure...

I am safe...

I am home...

I belong...

I am his...

What a difference it makes to accept ALL of me -- even my shadow -- not trying to destroy that part of me...

Stop and think -- it makes no sense to pursue authentic wholeness or holiness while at the same time rejecting whole parts of who we are [THANKS JIM]...

As Richard Rohr says:

"Isn’t it wonderful news, brothers and sisters, that we come to God not by our perfection but by our imperfection! That gives all of us an equal chance, and utterly levels the human playing field. No pretending is necessary.

Deep within each of us live both a leper and a wolf in Franciscan imagery: Francis embraced the leper on the road, and called it his conversion; then Francis tamed the wolf in Gubbio in his later years. The stories did happen historically, but first of all they operated in his soul.

It is on the inside that lepers and wolves first must be found. If we haven’t been able to kiss many lepers, if we haven’t been able to tame many wolves, it’s probably because we haven’t first of all made friends with our own leprosy and the ferocious wolf within all of us. Name and forgive your inner leper today. Nurse and tend her wounds. Name your inner wolf. Tame him by gentle patience and forgiveness."

I love his imagery...

And Nouwen as well...

"What is the basis of our security?

When we start thinking about that question, we may give many answers: success, money, friends, property, popularity, family, connections, insurance, and so on. We may not always think that any of these forms the basis of our security, but our actions or feelings may tell us otherwise. When we start losing our money, our friends, or our popularity, our anxiety often reveals how deeply our sense of security is rooted in these things.

A spiritual life is a life in which our security is based not in any created things, good as they may be, but in God, who is everlasting love. We probably will never be completely free from our attachment to the temporal world, but if we want to live in that world in a truly free way, we'd better not belong to it. "You cannot be the slave both of God and of money" (Luke 16:13)."

My security is in MY TRUE IDENTITY -- I am a beloved son of God...

Praise God...

I will sleep much easier tonight than I used to...

I have firewood to cut on the farm tomorrow so I am headed to bed...

Don't forget to check out our little Jeep on Josh's FB page...

Blessings...

guy

Jeep just sighed GOOD NIGHT to you all...