One Thing Remains

Why haven't I been posting lately?

I've been a little busy...
I got called home from work on Thursday to attend the birth of my tiniest brother.
I had exams last week.
Work has been getting crazy as we enter the summer months...
My city is flooded... I'm thankful to be safe and dry, but disappointed that most of my plans for the weekend (and who knows how much of next week) have been cancelled.

At the beginning of the week, I felt like so many things I had been waiting for were here. I finished school. The baby was born. Everything was coming together. Its summer and now I have control of my life.

And then it rained. And rained. And the rivers started getting angry. And plans I thought were made were unable to happen. Things I had stressed about and rearranged my schedule to accommodate were gone.

It just shows how much I'm actually not in control of my life, doesn't it? And I'm probably one of the least affected people by this flood.  Some people are out of their homes. Not me.

So my reasons for being upset are kind of petty, aren't they?

So, I'm going to try to abandon my disappointment over the flood. I'm still praying for those in need and blown away by the amount of water everywhere... But past my own little disappointments of cancelled plans and missing people who live close but far enough to be unreachable because of the flooding, here's a happy little story:

When Elmer was born, he was born to the sound of hundreds of people singing, "Your love never fails, it never gives up, it never runs out on me..." over and over...

I love that.

The lyrics to that song are one of the biggest truths I have come to realize in the past year-ish. And at Tehillah, when we sang this song last week, and the worship leader said to declare it over your whole life, "In death, in life, I'm confident and covered by the power of Your great love. My debt is paid, there's nothing that can separate my heart from Your great love."

And I thought... What a beautiful declaration to be born listening to.

It took me almost 16 years before I started to really *get* this concept... And I think I'm still discovering it more every day and I hope that I'll only keep discovering it more every day till the day I die.

But I love that Elmer was born to that. Born to the declaration that, "There's nothing that can separate my heart from Your great love."

No matter what floods happen in your life, always remember the song you were born too... One thing remains, little dude.

They don't know what they've been doing.

Drafts folder post #4? Edited this week with a comment from Tehillah this past Monday. :)

"Oh, Father, won't You forgive them?
They don't know what they've been doing
Oh, Father, give me grace to forgive them
'Cause I feel like the one losing."

It's the second and third lines of this chorus that really get to me.

They don't know what they've been doing.

I was talking to a friend the other day about someone who's hurt her, and she said, "They just need to look up and see what they're doing."

They don't know what they've been doing.

Oh, Father, give me grace to forgive them.

This is the hard part.

I mean, Father, won't YOU forgive them is an easy prayer for us to pray. But give ME the grace to forgive them? Yikes. Sometimes, I think we don't even want that. We have a right to be angry, why should we forgive? Right?

The pastor at Tehillah on Monday asked if we were holding back forgiveness from people God had already forgiven.

Well, when you put it like that... It doesn't sound like we have much of a right to with hold forgiveness at all, does it?

"We think pain is owed apologies and then it'll stop
But truth be told it doesn't matter if they're sorry or not
Freedom comes when we surrender to the sound
Of mercy and Your grace, Father, send Your angels down."

Hey, you. (drafts folder post #3)

I don't like it when you're sad.
I don't like it when you're hurting.
I don't like it when you're depressed.
I don't like it when you're just in a bad mood, with reason or without.

Why can't we all just be happy all the time?

Says me.

I have my two parents who love each other. A real home. Some of the best friends and relationships I could ask for. Mentors who I can go to with my troubles, large or small. Minimal drama.

But I know something we both have. You and me. And everyone else. It's enough to make us happy. We can all be happy.

We have love.

Maybe you don't know that. Or maybe you do but you don't want to accept it.

Accept it.

I'm sure you have a list of excuses why you can't... But forget all of those excuses for a second. I don't care if you don't get that love from your parents or grandparents or friends or siblings or boyfriend or girlfriend or husband or wife...

It's there. Maybe you're blocking it out. Maybe you don't want to feel it. Maybe you're scared to?

You know, sometimes... Coming straight out and saying it just sounds cheesy. I think people say it all the time and don't think twice about it. I think people say it all the time and don't even believe it.

But I believe it. And I want you to, too.

Jesus loves you.

Now, before you write this off as another one of those supposedly encouraging and sentimental posts and stop paying attention, I want you to fully understand this.

He. Loves. You.

I don't want you to think about this like, "Jesus loves everyone."

I want you to pretend you're the only person on earth.

Jesus loves *you*.

"He died not for man but for each man. If each man had been the only man made, He would have done no less." (C.S. Lewis)

The thing is, yeah, He does love everybody. And I could say I love everybody, too. But I'm human and imperfect... And I've never even encountered the vast majority of human beings on the earth.

But Jesus... Is God... And He knows each of the seven billion people on earth... I'm not going to say "by name" because a name is so trivial. I know a lot of peoples names... but I don't really know *them*.

God knows each of the seven billion people on earth... And He knows them... by heart.

And if there were seven billion more, He would know their hearts, too. And He would love them. Each one. Individually. Like they were the only person on earth. Just like He loves me. Just like He loves you.

Sundays (drafts folder post #2)

I'm your average teenager. Kinda.
I don't get enough sleep. I could always use a little more.
If I have to get up early or I stay up too late (or, horror of horrors... both...) it usually means grumpy Cairo.

I'm usually up pretty early on Sundays.And Sundays are full.

For example, I got up at 6:30 this morning. (except I wrote this a few weeks ago) By noon, I had driven to and from the church 3 times, taught Sunday school for one service, attended church for one service, picked up a few things for lunch at Sobeys and had a fantastic dance party.

But I get this energy boost on Sunday mornings.

From the second my alarm goes off, I'm thinking, "Oh yeah, BEST DAY EVER!"

This morning, I looked out my window, and the weather was like, "Nope."

Then I rocked out to my awesome Sunday morning playlist while getting ready.
Then I rocked out to my Revival In Belfast CD in the car. (I'm just that cool, okay?)
Even the huge dump of snow we got last night can't bring me down.

And I was all, "Oh yeah? Wanna bet, snow?"

Cairo:1 Snow: 0. Take that, world.

By the time I get to church at 8am, I'm hyped up. Like, super hyped up.

I get upstairs to where the kids worship team is practicing, and I'm like, "KIDS, WHY AREN'T YOU DANCING?! YOU SHOULD BE HAVING THE TIME OF YOUR LIVES!"

Even the CD the sound tech plays before the service starts fills me with the urge to just... dance. haha

I'd like to think my joy and energy are contageous. Let's say that. Otherwise I'm that kid that's so happy it's annoying. And no one likes that kid.

In Sunday school, we did an activity where each person had a piece of paper with their name on it. We passed the papers around the circle and each person wrote something encouraging on each other persons paper. It was so cool to see my class of 9 and 10 year old girls encourage each other like that. When we finished, each girl got her own paper back and got to read through all the messages from her class mates. We still had 15 minutes till the end of the service, so we decided to continue with the same activity. Each person got another piece of paper, but instead of writing their own name at the top, they wrote the name of someone in the church who influences them. We had one for each of the pastors, a couple of the teen volunteers and other Sunday school teachers. We passed the papers around and each time, everyone thought of something encouraging to write to each person.

At first, when I brought out the activity, the girls weren't exactly enthusiastic. I mean, its the weekend! And I'm making them write all this stuff?! But about 5 minutes in, I saw the same energy I had had earlier that morning on each of their faces.

Silly, goofy, excited, happy, "I love my life" kind of energy.

Maybe it's because they knew they were loved. Or maybe it's because they got to make sure other people knew they were loved.

Regardless. Can't we just be like that always?

Easier said than done

Drafts folder post #1. :)

"You are my everything, all I need is in You. All I have, all I am is in You."

I wonder if we really know what we're comitting to when we sing those words. Really.

It's just so easy to say, you know?

But then things happen. You gain relationships, lose relationships... Does your 'everything' stay the same?

I don't know if anyone watched the Superbowl... (I didn't. And I couldn't even tell you who was playing. I honestly just don't care.)

But I watched the halftime show.

There was this one part where Beyonce was dancing in the middle, and around her there were these holographic images of herself. As we were all commenting on how weird it looked to have multiple Beyonces on the stage, my friend commented, "Don't worry guys. The one in the middle is real. Just keep watching her." And we all laughed because, really, it wasn't hard to see that the middle Beyonce was the real Beyonce.

Maybe that's a bad example... But think about it.

There are holographic images that may come and go all the time in life.. but they're nothing, and its really not hard to see that. You just need to keep your eyes focused on the real. The one that won't leave. If the power had gone out during the show, the one that would have still been there, dancing on the stage alone.

What's on my heart?

I have a bunch of things on my heart. There's a bunch of things I'm thinking about. A bunch of things I'm writing about but am not ready to share quite yet...

I decided to go through my drafts folder. I have way way WAY too many drafts.

Some of them are silly stories about my family.

Some of them are silly stories that have weight to them in the end.

Some of them are heartfelt letters written to no one in particular - to the world in general.

Some of my drafts aren't my words at all - just song lyrics that moved me.

All of them are things that were on my heart when I wrote them.

I think I'm going to post them all. Even if some of them are maybe not what's on my heart at *this* moment. What's on my heart at this moment will get posted, too. I just haven't gotten it from my heart to my brain to my fingers to my key board yet.

Here are the lyrics to a song I found typed into a draft... I had planned on writing about it, but I guess I never got around to it.

"Your love has ravished my heart and taken me over, taken me over... And all I want is to be with You forever, with You forever.

So pull me a little closer, take me a little deeper... I want to know Your heart, I want to know Your heart.

Your love is so much sweeter than anything I've tasted... I want to know Your heart, I want to know Your heart.

Oh, how great Your love is for me... Oh, how great is Your love."

Dear Octavia

Hi, baby! You probably don't know me that well. Maybe we've never even met. I'm your oldest cousin.

You've been born into a broken family. Our grandparents have gotten a divorce, and our families in a way have also seemed to 'divorced' each other. It's sad.

But, we weren't always like this. I remember a time when Granny and Gramps still lived together and played music and laughed together, and all three of their daughters loved each other more than life itself.
It was during that time that most of my most treasured memories took place.
I want to tell you about those times, because I think that's how we really are. The big Sloan family. That's the real us - not this.

Imagine this: 21 children (You would have made it 22 *since the writing of this, I can add that my new brother coming this month would make it 23! The number was always growing!) all playing together. Quading, biking, playing ball, riding horses, fiddling, singing, building forts and running through the bush. All through the property you could hear laughs and shouts of joy - you could also hear native war calls and whistles that meant something in code. It was actually beautiful.

At some point in the afternoon, Auntie Jess would sound the car horn, and we would all race back to the house where a huge feast was prepared for us. Usually, there were a few kids still hanging around somewhere in the house who didn't come at the horn. They all came running when we started to sing the blessing over the food. "Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him all creatures here below. Praise Him above Ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen" The grandparents and aunties adding in beautiful harmonies. Because that's what it felt like. Harmony.

After lunch, Gramps would stand up and yell over the noise, "You know what I like to do after eating?! I like to make some music!!!" And everyone that knew how would pick up their violin, guitar, mando, piano, banjo, ukulele, drum, triangle or accordion. If you didn't have an instrument, that was ok... We would do a couple songs that the little kids liked to sing, or you would just clap along. Everyone was 'making a joyful noise'.
After we had exhausted most of our group repertoire, the Jespersens would play one or two of their newest tunes, and we would all applaud. Then the Fehlers would stand up and recite their newest poetry, and we would clap again. Then my family would perform a play (usually written by me) and the clapping would flare up again.
To finish the 'talent show', the moms would sing a song or two in their famous trio.
After that concert, everyone wandered away again to do what ever they pleased - friendly games of "take over the world" (risk) were popular after dinner because everyone was starting to get lazy and sleepy. Some of the kids would go out to the hot tub and the babies went to bed or downstairs to watch a movie. But when the sun started to set, we were all called back again for a snack and one of grampsies famous gopher stories before bed.

Maybe you're wondering why I'm telling you all of this. Its not to make you jealous or sad, but its because I love you.

As I write this, you're not even born yet. But the nine months you're spending inside have been the hardest nine months for our family.
You were inside during all the divorce that happened, so, I'm writing this to tell you about the good in our family. So you'll never have to look at us and think we're all bad, or all hatred. We're not.

We never stopped praying for you, when all the separation happened. We prayed for YOU specifically, every single day! Did you know that, baby?

I also wanted to tell you about our family because Sloan family gatherings were the happiest days of my life. I got 15 years worth of them, and I'm SO grateful, but you, baby, will never have any of what I had.
So that's why I wanted to give you this letter.  A happy image for you to hold onto in your heart when you think about us, the family you belong to.

xoxo,
Your Big Cousin
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Since the writing of this, lovely little Octavia was born. Today is her first birthday. I still haven't met her yet, but she's a beautiful little girl and I hope we get to know each other soon. I love you, little girl!