Liturgy for Lent

I've been digging through liturgy for Lent and Easter, looking for things that resonate. I really miss the influence of corporate liturgy on my life (mostly in college at Third Pres and Tikvat Yisrael in Richmond), and Lent seems like a good time to read it aloud in my apartment. I came across this prayer and thought it was beautiful. Hope it encourages you today!

Love
Has its source in you
Creator God
Flows from you like an ocean
into a world as unyielding
as any shoreline cliff
And like the ocean
which batters
erodes
and wears away
even the hardest stone
your love persists
finds cracks and inlets
in hardened hearts
flows inside and works a miracle.
Who would think that water
was more powerful than granite
love mightier
than the hardest heart
Thank you, Creator God
for the power of your love

Read more at: http://www.faithandworship.com/liturgy_Lent_1.htm#ixzz1IHSQTdtQ
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

Lenten Encouragement

My heart is so full tonight as I catch up on news from Japan. In one of the most unreached nations in the world, the Church is being mobilized.

I received an e-mail from Food for the Hungry (the organization through which I sponsor a little girl in Rwanda) detailing some hopeful stories about the Church in action. From the e-mail: "One of the pastors told of working at the feeding center and how one person exclaimed to him...'Thank you for being Christ to us!' It is just one example of how Christ's body is making an impact here in Japan."

If you haven't read my friend Sue Takamoto's blog, you really should. She is one of my most treasured heroines and writes so poignantly about her family's ministry in Japan, especially during this current crisis. Yesterday she posted a video about one American business man's (a friend of the Takamotos') impressions of the way God is working through hardship.



And another video of Eric Takamoto, who is in Sendai helping with the relief efforts through a Christian organization called CRASH:



As I was doing my Lent readings tonight, a piece by R. Kent Hughes resonated in relation to these things. He writes,

Christ was in control when life was falling in, when things looked the worst...Gethsemane was not a tragedy, and neither are our Gethsemanes. This does not do away with the wounds of affliction in this life, but it is encouraging to see that behind human tragedy stands the benevolent and wise purpose of the Lord of human history. Life may be dark at times, tragedy may come, and at times the whole world may seem to be falling apart. The wheel may appear ready to crush us. But this is not the end. "And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28), even in Gethsemane.

The Jesus who drank the cup of wrath for us and the Father who sent Him to do it are infinitely Wise, Sovereign, and Good--even when the whole world seems to be falling apart. Praying expectantly for God to continue moving in the hearts of those who do not know Him in Japan.

How We Know What Love Is

I may be the only single girl in the world who doesn't hate Valentine's Day. Well, there have been a couple of years when I've hated it. But on the whole I look forward to the cheesiness. Case in point, freshman year of college, my roomies and I staged a cry-fest, complete with The Notebook, plenty of Nutella, and ample tissues.

I love the red juju hearts, the pretty homemade cards (sooo wish I had made some this year!), the sappy movies. And I especially love the excuse to wear red and pink in the same outfit! Plus, my parents always make me feel ridiculously loved on this day when it can be a little tough to be the single girl. Maybe that sounds cheesy, considering I'm 25. But they are so sweet--my dad always sends flowers and my mom sends gifts/candy/etc. This year they combined forces and everything was from both of them. It came in waves--first a bouquet of flowers, sent to the WH office, then a package of gorgeous heart-shaped sugar cookies and Russell Stover sent to my house, and finally a sweet card in my mailbox.

Tonight though, in spite of all the extra TLC, I expected to be just a little sad. Usually I make plans with girlfriends for Valentine's Day, but this year I just worked until 8:00 p.m. I know, depressing, right? Only for some reason, it wasn't.

I came home, made some dinner, and settled in for the Bachelor. Go ahead and judge me. It is a horrible, classless show and I deserve it. But I watch it. Every week. And every week I look at Brad and his entourage and I wonder, what on earth makes these girls willing to throw caution to the wind with this guy who may or may not be in love with them? The answer is so obvious.

We are all, whether we like to admit it or not, absolutely desperate for love.

Not to get all Platonic on you, but the kind of love we conjure up for ourselves is just a shadow of the Love that we're intended for, the Love we were created to be swept up in. I don't know about you, but that makes me feel so sad for Brad and his posse. They don't even know what they're really looking for!

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.

1 John: 16

The grammar in 1 John is just so great. John writes about love using the construction above over and over again. It's like he's saying, "in case you didn't know...THIS (i.e. Jesus) is what Love really is.

I've been a little obsessed for about the past year with this Indelible Grace hymn sung by Laura Taylor called "To Christ the Lord Let Every Tongue." (I quoted it in a post about some Messianic Jewish teaching I heard around this time last year.) As I've been listening to it lately, it has struck me as so SO perfect for Valentine's Day, especially the last (and my favorite) stanza:

Since from His bounty I receive
Such proofs of Love divine
Had I a thousand hearts to give,
Lord they should all be Thine!

And there's just one last little tidbit I want to share (this post has been such a hodgepodge, I know!) from "The Love of Jesus" in Valley of Vision:

I am never so much mine as when I am His,
or so much lost to myself until lost in Him;
then I find my true manhood.
But my love is frost and cold, ice and snow;
Let His love warm me,
lighten my burden,
be my heaven.

May it be so. Happy Valentine's Day!