He is alive.................

DO NOT BE AFRAID........
We have seen the risen...........and he is alive inside of us..........

He is not here for He is RISEN..............

 Luke 24:5-6;

In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? ⁶ He is not here; he has risen!

This is the actual tomb where they say Jesus' body had been laid to rest..........The bars you see are to keep people from worshipping the empty tomb.....or becoming our golden calf....

Saturday's will come and go.....some noted with the pain..........the kind of pain that grieves the heart......We have all experienced some type of pain that the death can bring.... Jesus suffered much..............He suffered His whole life......even as a child He had to be hidden in Egypt.....He wept over the death of His friend.....Lazarus............the grief He had and has over Israel.........................He sweated blood while praying in the garden of Gethsemane........he screamed out as He hung on the cross.................suffering.........do we really understand the suffering

Sometimes the pain is used by God to purify us.

Peter even told us that suffering refines our hearts......like fire refines gold........

Paul reached the climax of the whole process with one word.........HOPE

Revelation 1:8;

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”


Revelation 21:6;

He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life.

May your weekend be one of blessed Hope.....................

"Hope by it's very nature captivates both our hearts and heads. It evokes deep emotions. It moves in and makes itself at home in our souls. It takes up residence at the very core of who we are. That is why it is so vital that we begin to place our hope in the Lord."  -Adam R. Holz

Let us not forget what Jesus went through with the pain and sufferings and how.....He came out on the other side to give us HOPE....
May we all take some time the weekend to realize.....................that Jesus' love is our HOPE.....for today and forever......even if we grieve.....we still have the blessed HOPE.
all of hope,
Robbie

Garden Tomb part two........Good Friday.....................

Today all times collide.........It was FRIDAY then.................and it is FRIDAY today....................What was once then.....is the mystery of the holy story today.....................let us faithfully and fearfully remember........

There before me a "tomb," surrounded by beautiful gardens....Amy and I take our hands and run them along side the rough walls......and around to the cave's openings......we so excited take our heads and poke them right through the cave's openings......we enter.............wanting to sit and stay awhile...............but we cannot.................we must return to tell others...............THE TOMB IS EMPTY........It is beautiful because it is empty........

...............sometimes the emptiness all around us can bring us to our knees................the surrendering kind....................where the joints do ache and the snot does fly..............the contrite heart.............a humbleness that can only come from the purging within one's very own soul..............pouring it out......pouring out your heart........like dirty water.................

The door to the tomb was a hole........a hole in stone......no higher than a human waist.......................

Praying for the opening............the opening kind that leads to fullness.....................the fullness of grace............

Luke 24: 1-5;

¹ On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. ² They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, ³ but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. ⁴ While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. ⁵ In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? ⁶ He is not here; he has risen!

me who craves the easy.........that wants the death and the resurrection all in one. Me the one than cannot bear the weight....knowing that the dark night of the soul is only for a time..............but having the hope that is promised to us........knowing that after the dying comes the living...............the re-birthing of the self.......and the everything is given back through His glorious resurrection!!!!!

    

and our precious Lord God, whose blessed Son our Savior gave his body to be whipped and his face spit  upon......Give us grace......to accept joyfully the sufferings of the present time......confident of the glory that shall be revealed; through Jesus Christ your son our Lord....(book of common prayer)

I say it over and over again today............give us more of your saving grace.........grace......more grace please as if I can beg, borrow or steal more.............as if I can store it up and save it for a later date..........

I wonder if it is the car ride to the beach this week....................because I was living the tired...........I screamed the stop over and over and the teenagers continued their fight to kill............

was it because the littlest one who cried her self to sleep because I hadn't taken the time to listen..........to listen how she had to sleep on her stomach because of her sunburn......is it because I am living the tired all the time that I allowed the hair.....the un kept hair to grow and there were the knots..............the knots of life........on this Good Friday when the world keeps turning and the world keeps aching.............am I the one living my life the undone?..............the afraid?..........the afraid that they will grow up............grow up and be just like the me?

The cry of my heart Lord from this twenty-first century girl.............. can I attend the burial?.......Your dying is never far away for my own is close...........I cry for the sorrow of  the being..................the very being of your death...............but I cry also...............the cry of gratitude..........thanking you in this sacred season. and praying to be rescued................rescued from thy self..............praying for the how today to die the self......

wanting the dying today of the me............and being reborn with the you that so clearly shows in me...

all of grace,

Robbie

Communion.............at the Garden Tomb...............................

Inside the garden tomb looking out....

The entrance to the garden tomb...there are places to sit and I do so. Thinking in my mind how Mary Magdalene loving Jesus as she did must have felt....She watched him die. Then she watched as they removed his torn body from the cross. She stayed close to the body never falling to far behind. She watched as they took him into this tomb. Weeping....weeping for all that she thought was gone.

     Wondering what she was thinking as they rolled the stone into place....Was she simply thinking; "it's over?" But it was far from over.......Oh how she remains me of......so many of us "women," we can only grasp with our hearts with what our eyes can see......We have faith........but not enough to just believe................But oh how gracious the Lord is........He waited........waited until the men were gone and their wept Mary...........and He called her name.."Mary."

She thought it was the gardener......then she realized "RABBONI."

The tomb is surrounded by resplendent gardens.....

The burst of color with the well tended flora take you to a quiet place......a coolness that you feel, even in the heat of the day.....It draws Amy and I in......along the carved paths into the rocky earth....

Communion Site..................

How many times? How many times do we bury the living Lord in the graves of ourselves whom he changes?

The Holy Spirit of God himself lives within us.......lives within us to change us..............to take us from the death to the life.......................This is the gift!!!! May we remember every time that we faithfully eat and drink in remembrance of what He has done.............that the Holy Spirit within us is the same as if Jesus was right in front of us........How different would our lives be if Jesus was standing face to face with us?

We are living the full..................the full life. We have no hunger for Jesus because we are the full.....full of the things of this world............on this Maundy Thursday what shall we do? What shall we do to the emptying of ourselves? Isn't the emptying after all the way to the fullness of Christ? We need the purging kind of emptying....we must remember..........

EUCHARIST.....(Holy Communion) let us celebrate in rememberence of what Jesus himself modeled for us..........

When he gave His disciples bread..........He said; "this is my body and wine saying this is my blood....

      Leonardo da Vinci's 1499 mural painting in Milan, Italy being perhaps the best known example. The Last Supper,  is the final meal that Jesus shared with his Twelve Apostles in Jerusalem before his crucifixion.   The Last Supper provides the scriptural basis for the Eucharist, also known as "communion" or "the Lord's Supper"

 May we cry out today: "Holy, Holy, Holy.........let the whole world be full of your Glory......................

Traditional Garden...............Israel

Garden of Gethsemane.....has come from the Gospels in its Greek form.......but it comes from a word in the language Jesus spoke on a daily basis...."Aramaic." It means.......(olive), "oil-press."

This tree was the oldest living tree located in the "Traditional," side of Gethsemane.......every crack and crevice of this gnarled trunk showed the marks of Jerusalem's history........................

The dome of the Rock........and the Golden Gate................framed by Olive trees at Dominus Flevit....a chapel marking the site where Jesus wept over Jerusalem......(Luke 19:41)

What will Jesus weep over when He returns? A people that are luke warm? half hearted? in their walk.....what will He see when He returns?     A people who are being ensnared by the Babylonian culture?

As Julian of Norwich stated; "the highest form of prayer is to the goodness of God......"

 God's desire is to find us....clinging......clinging to His goodness...........

As I cried out to God during my prayer time telling him all about me.....me....me.....the one who begs for the easy.....telling him how I live in Babylon....how I am not secluded out the middle of the no-where, away from all the intoxicating things of this world............how I live right smack in the middle of Babylon.......a metropolitan city..........one who has it's claws wrapped around my children and me..........one who's grip is so strong and won't let go of my family...................with no escape or exit in site......the woman- children who are in massive public schools.....................there's no home schooling here............there is no reading of the bible before and after meals..................we can barely sit together once a week for a meal.....there is the husband whose time clock is so different......stays up way to late into the night.............me who hates to cook the dinner...........kids coming and going...........the front door more like a revolving door...............the friends who all have their license and can drive to the anywhere at anytime..........the different parenting styles.......................the instant gratification life-style......................and God so gently whispers deep into my soul;

But Daniel resolved...................and he CHOSE not to defile himself with the things of Babylon.............

Wow...........how true that is.............he didn't have a choice either, he had to live in Babylon........but he did have a choice to partake of things of this world.........truth ringing in the ears today..............

I  have seen someone who has attracted the grace of the Lord.......only one.........now I want it.....................never know if I will see it.............but Daniel did..........he simply resolved........................he who protected himself from the being.............the ensnaring kind.........the temptations.....he who protected himself from the ensnaring temptations of the Babylonian culture........he CHOSE to use their diet as a way of retaining their identity as Jewish exiles and avoided complete saturation in a Babylonian culture.................(which was the king's goal)....just as it is Satan's goal for you and me today.....................what am I doing to RESOLVE? What are we doing to avoid keeping ourselves from becoming saturated in this Babylonian Culture we live in?

Trying to stop the blending................the blending in.......to a culture that will leave us empty.................

all of grace,

Robbie

Washing To Remove Dirt

I know that it has been a while since you all have heard from me, but I wanted to share with you today. 

I am in school and have not been able to blog as much as I would like to, but I am still here in the background. 

As I looked back at some of Amy and Robbie's Israel pictures I came upon this one and was reminded of some things that God shared with me through a time of fasting and seeking Him. 

What water are we drinking?  Where are we getting it from?  Is it filling us?  What well are we drinking from? 

God can be the water for our soul.  If we drink from Him, we are filled. 

His water will fill us, wash us, and change us. 

I was putting a load of clothes in the washing machine and as I put them in, I felt that God was using the whole washing process to speak to me. 

These were some of the thoughts that came to me...

we can put the clothes in the washing machine and they will stay dirty UNTIL we do something...

if we put the soap on them, it will just sit there UNTIL we do something...
we can turn on the water and not put any soap in and yes, they may get "washed" but will all of the dirt come out?  Not UNTIL we do something.  
We must TURN IT ON.
The washing process is just that...a process. 
We must take the clothes, put the soap in the water, let the clothes soak, spin, drain, be rinsed, spin some more, and in the end come out cleaner than they were when we put them in.
I was at a "washing machine process" time in my life.  I needed for God to pour into me, and then I needed to soak in His presence for a while so that the stains that were deep down could be cleansed and removed.  There are times that we are pulled and yanked around, and God will allow certain things to occur during certain times in our walk to help strengthen us.  "God only gives you what he knows you can handle. So if life seems hard, remember that God knows you are strong enough to get through it." I heard this catch on that phrase that we seem to use so often and I loved it. God does know what we can get through. He knows how much He can allow in our lives before we blow. And He knows already how we will respond.


We are not meant to stay the same...we are to change to become more like Him.  I asked God during this time to cleanse me, to wash me with His water, to pour into me and to let me soak for awhile.  To get all of the stains out, stains that needed to go through the "agitation process" to be removed.  And it wasn't all comfortable.  BUT when I was done, or should I say, WHEN I am done (because I want to constantly be in the washing process with Him...allowing Him to reveal things that need to be removed and then going through the process of removing them) I will come out clean...whiter than snow.
Let's ask Him to put us in the washing machine, dirt and all, stains and filth, and bring to the surface the things that need to be removed, and then ask Him to reveal how to get these things out...some of us need the bleach to get some of the stains out and THAT IS OKAY...God can cleanse us, He can reveal the dirt and remove it and make you spotless. 
Don't you love what starch white feels and looks like?  We may never truly be starch white, but we could strive to be and that is what changes us.


I have missed blogging and sharing with you all.  May God continue to show up on this blog and through it spark new ideas, new life, and new growth in all of us. 


God bless you all...


Jennifer

sixteen.........................

This is the perfect picture of the twenty-first century "live in the moment," face..........................Sixteen Candles................Where is the Joy?...........We are struggling to fight the good fight of faith because we have lost our Joy in a generation that wants it their way and wants it fast..............Having Joy gives us strength......I keep telling myself to breath.....the Nana has driven up for this mile stone......the love child the one I birthed from the passion.....oh where did I go wrong? I start out so good with the devotion thing....then its the pushing....of the words.......the ones where the voices elevate and the tears stream like rivers running wild......the eyes become blood shot...........from the fuming flames of fire......the rage........How can I tell this woman-child about God when I can't even purge....purge the untamed wildness that comes forth and pushes its way out; while I am screaming no.......give me more of the easy........

We are merely pushing......pushing forward in this race we call "Life".............rushing......rushing to grow up and grab a hand full of "LIFE," that leads to emptiness...........I hang my head down low and sink.........but I am the parent and she the child.....why do I buy into the game......the game I never really wanted to play.......it is a choice....freewill we are taught....is it my choice to see and watch the joyless teen....one who says, "I hate my life."

Happiness is circumstantial........but "JOY," cometh from the Lord................These women-children have turned the corner but do they get it? Do we truly get it? Or is it a lesson that a wise old man taught us:

Sadhu Sundar Singh, an 20th Century Indian missionary, wrote:

"A silkworm was struggling out of the cocoon and an ignorant man saw it battling as if in pain, so he went and helped it to get free, but very soon after it fluttered and DIED. The other silkworms that struggled out without help suffered, but they came out into full life and beauty, with wings made strong for flight by their battle for fresh existence."

Life can be a struggle. But maybe it is God who sometimes allows the struggle with suffering because He knows we will come out full......full of life and beauty......strong and ready..........ready for the battle that is ahead................

It is hard to watch your own struggle for their place in this world....sometimes the best lesson is the one learned.

all of grace,

Robbie