Disneyland!!

My wonderful friend Jenn came to visit me for a long weekend a couple weeks ago and she and I got to spend a day in the Magic Kingdom--then on Saturday my friend Jenn Moore (AKA Pocket) joined us and the three of us had a picnic dinner on Zuma Beach in Malibu before going to the Chart House for dessert. It was a wonderful & relaxing weekend--here are some pictures...

The Pirates of the Caribbean ride was closed--apparently they are updating part of it to include Captain Jack Sparrow, but we could at least take our picture in front of it :)

Jenn used to own a horse & rode every day--so she was more than happy to demonstrate her riding skills...granted this horse didn't exactly move...but still...

On the Jungle CruisePocket and I enjoying her first Pacific Ocean sunset--it was a LITTLE chilly

I think it is safe to say that our God is a truly awesome God.

Because I know you all care...

Those of you who know me, know that I LOVE to read books—mostly fiction :) I always have some type of fiction novel going at any given time and love getting to read each night before I head towards bed. So, for anyone who cares, here’s what I’ve been reading this past month.

The Time Traveler’s Wife—a strangely wonderful story about the concept of time and time traveling by Audrey Niffinegger. The main character is a man who has a genetic disorder where he will randomly disappear from the present and show up in another time in his life—sometimes he will appear in a scene from his childhood, other times he arrives in the future. He meets his wife, the love of his life, when she is 6 years old and he is in his 40s (he is really only 8 years older than her but because of the time traveling when they originally meet there is a huge age difference.) His wife, Clare, is unbelievably patient and faithful as he randomly appears and disappears in and out of her life—and for me this book raised the question of whether I would have what it takes to be that faithful. I know it is a fiction novel, but it brings up really interesting questions of fidelity, time, and relationships. Definitely worth reading but be prepared for a strange story!

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini—one of my new all time favorite books! An incredibly powerful story of the bonds of friendship, a huge falling out, and redemption. Some chapters & mental images that Hosseini wrote were so poignant they made me want to weep for the characters and the country of Afghanistan. The character Hassan is, in my opinion, one of the most beautifully crafted characters in all of literature, and the loyalty and humility he demonstrates is sometimes so difficult to read it leaves the reader feeling completely raw. It also takes the country of Afghanistan and puts it into a context that is understandable—it begins in the years before the Taliban and concludes during the reign of the Taliban and September 11th. If you haven’t read The Kite Runner—definitely add it to your list!

Prep by Curtis Sittenfield—probably not my new favorite book ever :) It is the story of a high school girl and her four years at a private, preparatory boarding school. Lee is from a small town in Indiana and struggles for her entire high school career feeling left out and different from her incredibly wealthy classmates. She experiences the typical traumas of high school—boys, girl friendships, unreasonable teachers, and battles with her parents, and while it was a fun and entertaining book to read in a weekend it definitely didn’t change my life :)

Mudhouse Sabbath by Lauren Winner: ok so I’m only on chapter 2, but this book is AMAZING! Lauren wrote Girl Meets God several years ago and it became hugely popular. She grew up as an Orthodox Jew and during college converted to Christianity. Girl Meets God is her story of this conversion and searching process, and Mudhouse Sabbath is somewhat of a follow up. Her whole premise is now that she has been a Christian for 7 years, she loves being in love with Jesus, yet she misses the rhythm of the corporate celebrations of the Jewish faith. The disciplines, the festival days, and even the things Christians often see as “restrictions” are hugely central to the Jewish community and these are things that a vast majority of the Christian community does not participate in nor do they take the time to understand. She stresses that things like honoring the Sabbath, keeping kosher, and celebrating specific holidays can by no means save a person, salvation is not something we can ever work for, but that these things draw us deeper into the community of God and the disciplines of practicing these things makes us be more aware of ourselves and our relationship to the world around us. I could definitely go on for quite awhile about this book but I think I’ll just have to leave you with the idea that you should definitely take the time to read it! It’s short & goes super fast, so there are no excuses! If you do happen to read it, let me know—I’d love to talk about her ideas and how the Christian community is and can be implementing some of them!

"Just"

So I think I have a new favorite quote from a movie…actually I have liked it for awhile now, ever since I saw the movie for the first time, but I’ve been thinking about it for awhile now…

In Finding Neverland (an AMAZING movie), young Peter tells Mr. Barrie that his dog wasn’t anything incredibly special, that he is “just” a dog. Mr. Barrie responds with:

“just a dog?! Porthos [the dog] dreams of being a bear and you want to shatter those dreams by saying he is just a dog? What a horrible candle-snuffing word. That’s like saying ‘he can’t climb that mountain, he’s just a man,’ or ‘that’s not a diamond, it’s just a rock.’ Just.”

What an incredible statement, and how profoundly true it is. I’ve been challenged lately that this is how we approach God. When we pray we often lace our prayers with “God if you could just be with us…if you could just heal him…if you could just hear us…” “Just.” Those things we are asking for, and the God of the universe who we are asking are HUGE things, not things to be prefaced with “just”—like Mr. Barrie says “what a horrible, candle-snuffing word!” We serve a HUGE God, a God who loves us and literally died to pave the way to His throne so that we might approach Him with confidence. We talked some on our Presbyterian retreat in February about how we seem to have a much smaller view of God—we don’t ask Him for the big things, we don’t boldly approach Him. Instead we tentatively creep up to Him and ask him to “just” hear our prayer—as if we are ashamed or fearful that we are somehow bothering him. Learning how to pray with boldness and confidence is difficult—I often feel like God has better things to do than to hear my prayers for my friends, myself, or my family, yet scripture tells us the opposite—He can’t wait for us to come before Him! May we all continue to work on eliminating “just” from our vocabulary and approach God’s throne with confidence and joy!

Lift High the Cross...

Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed--Alleluia!! What a joy these words are to hear pronounced at the beginning of each year's Easter service--there is something so unbelievably powerful about those 8 words that causes me to never tire of hearing them or proclaiming them with those worshiping around me. Christ is Risen! We serve a risen Lord! I love Christmas time, I really do, but there is something about the season of Lent that speaks so powerfully to me. When I was at Bethany, even if one chose not to fast from something in their personal lives, it was a season that was impossible to ignore. The purple alter cloths draped the communion table, the worship service takes on a more somber tone, communion is served each week as we remember Christ's death & the broken body of the new covenant, and if you ask any kid in the congregation what the season of Lent is for, you will be told that Lent, like Advent, is the time of year when purple comes out in the church and each one of them knows that purple means we are all waiting for something. They know that in December we put the purple out to remind ourselves that we’re waiting for Jesus to be born and then to come again, and during Lent we put the purple out to remind ourselves that we are waiting for Jesus to die and then rise again on Easter.

I had the joy of getting to celebrate Maundy Thursday here in Burbank at a wonderful communion service remembering the Lord’s Supper, his crucifixion, and his death. Each year as we leave the church in darkness and silence I find myself wanting to rush through the next two days til Sunday morning, but I realize that if we ignore those two days we miss a HUGE piece of our faith. They make Easter so much more joyful—it’s an amazing day even when it stands by itself, yet when one experiences the entire season of Lent, and one pauses at the foot of the cross for two days, walking into church on Sunday morning to see the purple gone—the waiting is over!—is an incredible experience. The white linens drape the pulpit and communion table, Easter lilies are lined up on window sills and the alter steps, and the silence of Thursday night is replaced by joyful organ preludes and trumpet voluntaries. The lyrics of “Lift high the cross, the love of Christ proclaim” and “Christ the Lord is risen today…” resound throughout the sanctuary as people lift their hands and heart to our risen Lord.

Join me in celebrating…
Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!