Our Week in Pictures 11/5/22

This week Jason was on vacation. We kicked it off with Trunk or Treat at church, Sunday night.

Monday we had Halloween at Kim and Heather’s and I can’t believe I took zero pictures! We had pizza and watched Insidious. I love traditions. The boys stood out front and scared the older kids that were trick or treating.  

Tuesday the kids had Fall Festival at Vanguard and I only got one photo of Jason manning the balloon game. The kids had a blast though. 

Thursday we headed to Landrum for lunch and then stopped by Landrum Eclectics. What a cool place.  We snagged Saint Francis and he’s in our front yard now. 

Rounded out our week with some cooking and games. What a fun staycation we had.  

Rest and Remember

  One of my favorite things about church is seeing everyone face to face.  So many of us spend a lot of time in front of a computer or some other screen.  Sometimes we are just so busy going about our days that we don’t just stop and really see each other.  

Can you imagine for a minute, what it would have been like some 2000 years ago, to have met Jesus face to face, in the flesh? To have him come over and just gaze at you? Can you close your eyes and picture that in your mind for a moment? 

Jesus face to face. 

Him seeing you.  

On any given day,  I am honestly often too distracted to notice the spirit of love that dwells within me.  But noticed or not He is still there,  loving me, holding me, and gazing upon me with grace.  

And that is one of the things I love about church.  For a few hours, we all get to come together, and for a bit, we lay down our distractions and SEE each other.  We set our gazes on Jesus and find He has been watching us all along.  And we remember that every moment is holy. We are welcomed home. 

I wonder what would happen if we stopped scrolling. If we fasted from striving and just stepped away from places and spaces that leave us feeling hopeless, angry, anxious, and depleted.

What if we sat with those things within us that we want so badly to escape and instead of scrolling or striving, we just met Jesus face to face.

What would that feel like? To take our anger and tell it to Him. Our disappointments, our fears. Our guilt. Instead of lashing out in our flesh, to dig in. To pray what we want to post, to sit quietly and listen. To read Jesus' words.

How might we change the world if we practiced resting and remembering who it is we follow.

What anger might be replaced with love?

What fear might be quieted with peace?

What disappointment might be blossomed into hope?

If we could stop searching and rest. And remember the One who never takes His eyes off of us.

FREE

 

I finished a great book last week, The Gift by Edith Enger. She is a 94-year-old renowned psychologist and also a Holocaust survivor. She arrived at Auschwitz at age 16. Her parents were executed the day they arrived at Auschwitz, and that first night, Edith, a young ballerina, was made to perform for Josef Mengele, a nazi known as the Angel of Death. Her life was spared and she spent months in Auschwitz before going on to the so-called Death March. She was rescued by a black American soldier in Gunskirchen, who saw her hand move in a pile of dead bodies. She weighed 70 pounds.  If you have not read her story, please go check it out! 

The book was a collection of her clients' stories from years of her practice, interwoven with pieces of her own story. She shares the 12 most common imprisoning thoughts/behaviors she has encountered over the years and her tools for overcoming them.  

My favorite story from the book was near the end.  Several years ago Edith was invited to attend a ballet portraying her own story, a retelling of the night she had to perform for Mengele.  She says “In that theater with my daughter, watching moments of my past being brought to life on the stage, I knew again what I realized that night in the barracks- that while Mengele had all the power, while day after day he chose with his grotesquely wagging finger who would live and who would die, he was more a prisoner than I was.

I was innocent. 

And free.”

Something in these lines unlocked a deep truth that was transformative for me in my own story of victimization.  When justice does not come for the oppressors, I was reminded that they are already imprisoned. They are imprisoned by their power, their shame, and their endless hungering. They are imprisoned to the self. As they perpetuate more suffering and selfishness these bars grow tighter and their chains weigh them down. They will never find wholeness or freedom in the pursuit of their own glory. They are starving. 

Mengele never was brought to justice by human standards. He fled to Argentina and changed his name.  He drowned while swimming in 1979 after suffering a stroke in the water. Helpless, powerless, sinking from the weight of his own body. He was identified posthumously via forensic evidence.

Was he ever free? 

What prisons, Oh God, would you have me unlock within myself? What chains? 

Thank you for showing me that you have designed us all to be free when we walk in your Spirit of love, and also to be prisoners when we walk in the Spirit of selfishness, anger, wrath, greed, vengeance, and pride.  

Help me be a woman who stands in Your love and freedom even as I advocate for love and freedom, even as I honor my personal story and the experiences of others, that true Justice belongs to You, and Your design is perfect. 

Swords Into Plowshares

 

“they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more; but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken. For all the peoples walk, each in the name of its god, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever.”

‭‭Micah‬ ‭4:3b-5‬ ‭NRSV‬‬

Looking at this picture of my son right before he was baptized. The face of God's love on him, and on his Dad. 

How does a young man cover himself in body armor, take up rifles and murder a classroom's worth of children.  Why? And what on Earth, God, can we do about it? 

I am so so tired of praying over all of the hate. I am tired of the words God keeps giving back to me: Love, it's love, Aimee.  Love is what fills a heart to such fullness that evil will not find a space to creep in. 

The absence of love creates a cavern of hunger that will endlessly grasp and degrade. Where there is no love there is emptiness, and it is the kindling for hate, anger, pride, greed and violence. 

I know it isn't for me to change the verses in Micah above, but if I wrote them I would edit to this: 'but they shall share their vines and their fig trees. They will look for those who need shade and carry them over and no one will be forgotten." 

When we walk in the name of the Lord, we hurt for the hurting. 

How do we beat our swords into plowshares? Our spears into pruning hooks? Do we value the cultivation of "love one another"?

Are the things I say online and out loud in my home, are they cultivating love? How about what I am reading and consuming? What about my teens? Are they being filled with loving interactions and seeing the Spirit at work or are they hearing empty platitudes and judgment? 

Show me Lord, how to make my swords into plowshares, and my spears into pruning hooks.  

Help me advocate for peace and love in all circumstances. With my life, for the marginalized, to my children, at the polls. Regardless of the cost, let me stand for love.