So... Ezekiel?

"So... Ezekiel?" I asked, trying to sound casual, but actually feeling so excited I was about to burst.

After trudging through about 20 chapters in two months, I'd finally landed on some exciting verses that put all the rest into perspective that felt relevant. So much of what I had read was about God destroying, completely annihilating whole nations, wiping their name off the face of the earth permanently. And then... in chapter 29-30, God speaks to Egypt. He tells them that they will be scattered, crushed, and broken... but not completely destroyed.

“‘Yet this is what the Sovereign Lord says: At the end of forty years I will gather the Egyptians from the nations where they were scattered. I will bring them back from captivity and return them to Upper Egypt, the land of their ancestry."

They would never again be a great nation, but they would be redeemed and would come home. He had plans for Egypt, and he wasn't done with them yet. I thought about Egypt as it is now. I have a Christian friend from Egypt, and I've heard how the Church is strong there. And God knew that his people would live there, grow there, worship there, and die there... He saw that there was hope for Egypt, and even though Egypt had done terrible things in the past, and would again, he showed mercy and grace, in the midst of utter annihilation around them. This is comforting and beautiful to me... the mercy of God. 

My friend, Todd, is also reading through Ezekiel, and when I shared this excitement with him, he said he got to read a little further, and wanted to share what he had learned, too. 

"So... Ezekiel?" I said. 

"Yes! Ezekiel! I stayed up reading for a long time last night," Todd said quickly, and his face lit up. Oh good, I thought, he's excited too. "I got to chapter 36, and that's where the theme of the whole book of Ezekiel is found."

 “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: It is not for your sake, people of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name..." 

"Everything God does is for the sake of his name, his glory... so people will know him. Connie, the things that happen to us - they aren't about us. Everything is about him," he said, and I could tell that he'd been thinking about this a lot. It is a hard truth to submit to, but it is worth wrestling with, because it has so much freedom and power. 

I remembered the many times throughout those difficult chapters, where God said, "Then you will know that I am the Lord." Over and over and over again, he reveals that his drive and motivation in all things is for people to know him as Lord. 

We talked more about the different analogies used throughout the book, and the ways God received glory then, and how he is receiving the glory now in our lives, through the painful, dark times and through the beautiful things we experience. It changes the way we look at life, the way we approach life. And there's more... so much more! Keep reading and you'll find heart transplants, bones coming to life, rivers flowing from a new temple... so challenging, so powerful, so beautiful. 

So...Ezekiel?

Chaotic cooking

"There is nothing to eeeeeat!" Brie wailed dramatically the other night as we both leaned in to the refrigerator. I saw lettuce, cheese, eggs, and an assortment of salad dressings. Then she opened the freezer and it was packed full of kosher meats and ice cream.

Braving the wrath of my exceptionally-emotional Brie, I said, "Well, it looks like there is a lot to eat-"

"Noooo there's noooot!" she cried and slammed the door. She spun around a couple times and sighed deeply, and I decided it was best to be quiet and still. Clearly her soul was in tumult, but I also know that cooking is very good therapy for her.

She gathered some of her wits and said, "I do have an eggplant roasting in the oven."

? ? ? Really? Who does that?

"Ok, well that's... something," I tried to be positive. "What do you put with eggpl-"

"I don't knoooooow!"

"...How about you just make me an egg?"

"NO! You can eat eggs and eggplant together because that's like planting an egg and that would just be wrong!"

I'm not following her logic... Ok, ok, quiet and calm. I noticed a cutting board on the counter. "Did you chop up a sweet potato?"

"Yes, it's also roasting."

"Well then! Eggplant and sweet potatoes are roasting! Sounds like a good start." I do not feel like I am being helpful at all, but trying to stay encouraging.

We started to talk about our day, and as Brie processed her crazy life and got things off her chest, she began to flit around the kitchen in magical fairy fashion, chopping vegetables, boiling couscous, and adding this and that to the concoction. I love watching Brie in this mode. Pretty soon, what started as "nothing to eat" became a brilliant gourmet meal, artistically combined colors and flavors. It was like Brie was able to take all the chaos in her heart and translate it into something beautiful and delicious to bless others and bring healing to herself.

And I think that is something that Jesus loves to do too... When we are too crazy to be able to look at our lives and see anything of worth or value, he takes the chaos and creates something beautiful out of it that can make a difference in the world and bring us closer to Him.

Love is magic

"Love is magic - it's a beautiful, wonderful, marvelous, mysterious thing.
Love is magic - makes you wanna dance, wanna laugh, jump around and makes you sing."

Kelsey and Gabe got married a couple weeks ago, on March 30. They are one of my favorite couples to spend time with, and I will try to explain why. They are each great people individually - they both love the Lord, they are both super-creative and talented, they are very authentic in their relationship with each other and other people, and they are both passionate about the things God has given them to do. But together... together their potential sky-rockets. Together, they are so much more powerful. Their ministry, compassion, and light just explodes. And that is exciting to see. It's exciting to watch, to experience, to be a part of. It was exciting to stand (sit) with them on their wedding day, to hear them exchange vows and promises, to see them kiss and dance and laugh and hug and start their life together. It is good - very good - to see true love in action, in the beautiful way God means it to be. It gives me hope.

Last night, Hannah and I went on a long walk and talked about love and marriage. "What would you say," she asked, "to people who think marriage is obsolete, overrated, or unnecessary... people who think just living together is enough and divorce is completely normal? I know it is fundamentally wrong, but emotionally how would you handle it?" I thought about it for a few minutes, as we passed Jared and Shannon's little apartment, and then up a block to the future home of our Joe and Lisa. I thought about Gabe and Kelsey, who I think are still on their honeymoon, and I thought of my parents who just went away for their 36th anniversary, and I thought of my grandparents who are still in love and faithfully care for each other. I thought about Westley and Buttercup in the Fire Swamp, and how true love really is never meant to die.

And it breaks my heart to think of people believing that it isn't possible. What would the world be like if promises meant nothing? if commitment wasn't valued? if love was just a watered down hormonal response that could bloom and fade away? There is fear, apathy, and weakness in that sort of life. But there is power in love that lasts forever. There is inspiration and truth and hope in swearing "til death do you part" and meaning it. I've seen it, so I know it's real and it's possible. And I hope one day it will be my story too.