stockbridge boiler room

this week i learned

a thing or two about what it means to be food and drink for one another.

through two dear friends, neither of whom know each other, i was put into contact with a woman who has walked a path with her daughter for the past four years, a path of few words and disconnected signals from brain to body which baffle those of us whose signals are not disconnected. her daughter has apraxia, and a doctor thinks our vivienne might also. and so these friends thought kate might empathize with me.

so i wrote to her and told her of our journey so far and thanked her for letting me join her on a leg of this journey. then i was honest and admitted that i hope it is a short leg, hope like crazy viv has a language explosion and all these evaluations and fears are just a big ado about nothing.

and kate's words back were a balm for me. yes, she travelled this path of wondering and waiting. yes, yes, yes.

but then her last words killed me. 

I pray for some answers for you- ANY answers- so that you may find a path and begin to confidently walk it. 
I'll walk with you. 

 

i'll walk with you.

 

these words so full of grace and compassion and solidarity are my new favorite words. 

 

so that in what has been a difficult week in this boiler room community, when i didn't have much else to offer besides my prayers, i remembered kate's words:

i'll walk with you.

and i said them to two people i adore who are grieving. and meant it. 

and after his elder's meeting wednesday, t. said, with shiny eyes, that the people of Crossroads Bible Church have said to the Taatjes family, 

we'll walk with you.

which is, let's be honest, where the rubber meets the road. it's easy to say to someone that you're praying for them. it is not usually costly to pray for someone. not inconvenient either. i know, because i've done it. you can pray while doing the dishes or while driving and no one has to know that your prayer was practically an afterthought. it's not that prayer isn't powerful; i believe it to be more powerful than just about anything. it's just not always as involved.

but to walk with someone: messy. long. involved. tiring. 

which is why a near stranger telling me she'll walk with me on what could be a very long journey with vivienne, made me weep for the sheer grace of it.

and why walking with people who are grieving and angry and confused, is hard. 

when there is something in your path that you cannot go under, cannot go over, cannot go around, you have to go through it. and the going through part is easier if someone is holding your hand.

which of course, of course, is what Jesus did. in his own perfectly earthy, dirty-sandaled, fish-frying way, he walked. through lakes and deserts and into homes and up to people, walking walking walking with kids and his disciples and up to his death and out of the tomb, and on the road, he walked.

He walked with them because He loved them.

so what if we became a people who were not afraid to peer down the awkward and dark road ahead of somebody and say

i'll walk with you

?

what if?

i'll tell you what if: we'd become a walking army. we would significantly decrease the population of people who are walking lonely and sad. we might even lose a few pounds. 

what's not to love about that?

after the resurrection: Jesus gave his friends breakfast on the beach and then their marching orders. seriously.

::jenn::

 

 

 

wrecked

 

 

Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go. . . Follow me.  (John 21:  18)

 

Too much to tell this week.  The new biography on Dietrich Bonhoeffer that Jake gave me just wrecked me over Palm Sunday.  Then I sang "You are stronger..." at Derek's and Dylan's funeral until I thought my heart would burst in my throat.  Now it's Easter Monday and I'm sitting in the Boiler Room library, typing and watching Emily put out the Boiler Room sandwich board sign on the sidewalk "Hospitality 10a-12p and 3p-5p" as the woman with the double stroller goes to pick up her kids from school.

I remember reading Gordon MacDonald so many years ago in Ann Arbor.  Ordering Your Private World.   He wrote of the inestimable value of reading biographies in order to be changed.  As the young literature punk undergrad, I scoffed at this "antiquated" view.   Today I am wrecked by Bonhoeffer's insistence on living faithfully in the face of seemingly impossible odds.  For him to observe the Nazi juggernaut gather momentum, it must have been clear by the time he was in the United States in 1939 that things were heading south fast and his life would be in grave danger if he returned to Germany. 

 
But he heard a clear call from the Lord to return and take care of His church in Germany.  And He did.  Only to be captured and killed in a concentration camp.  Halfway through this book, you could predict that this wasn't going to end well.  But he wasn't motivated by being successful in his call to the church;  he was moved to be faithful to his call. 

When I look at Dave and Dave and Steve and Marv and Joe and Derek and Jeff and Marie and Dennis and Richard and Lisa who have fallen off so many times, I lack the faith that this demon can be overcome.  But Bonhoeffer sails back to Germany and urges me to be faithful not successful.  When I look at Larry and Robert fighting at the Love Feast;  when I see Tanner and Ladarion blowing up the dinner table;  I am discouraged that we are never going to learn how to let the little children come to Him on the Westside.  And Dietrich teaches his underground seminary students who are going to be killed as soldiers and captured as saboteurs in the coming years.  And I learn,  faithful not successful.  When I desire to see sleepers awakened throughout our neighborhood and our city and I "only" see a humbler awakening of Awake participants, I wonder if we were praying "right."  And Dietrich fights against the church (the church!) adopting racial heresies propogaged by Nazi churches as well as the belief that Hitler was Messianic.  Tilting at windmills, like the Don Quixote that he read and loved.  And I hear the call to be faithful rather than successful. 

Charity Taatjes has been writing Facebook entries documenting how God's mercies are new each morning.  How she's been able to laugh so hard it hurts.  How she's remembered Derek's sarcasm about inane Facebook entries.  How she's realized the power of the resurrection.  And this wrecks me too.  His mercies in the face of tragedies and addiction and orphans and Nazis. 

Derek's and Charity's life verse from Job says, "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord."  Bonhoeffer understood this.  Jesus' week of suffering and resurrection screams this over the din.  To this we are called.  

And He does give us His mercies.  He shows us today as Dee from the Mission Church helps Dave to pray the prayer of surrender.  And we (to be transparent) hold our breath for Dave this time while saying "we trust you Lord."  Then Dee prays for Dennis who is distraught beyond imaginings at the pain in his life.  And His mercies are new each morning.

Bonhoeffer's students in his underground seminary kept a rhythm of prayer and worship in the face of capture and martyrdom.  He wanted them to sing their songs to the Lord.  He wanted them to learn the biblical foundations for a life of following Jesus.  And so they kept this rhythm.  Bonhoeffer kept it all the way to his death. 

Isaiah wrote, "I am ruined."  I think in a humbler way, I am wrecked.  All my vain worries about success and recognition are chaff in the face of such loss and suffering.  I am wrecked by Jesus and his death and resurrection.  I am wrecked by how Jesus in Charity and Jesus in Dietrich and Jesus in Dee proclaim the truth of the resurrection. 

May we all be lead where we don't want to go;  with joy and singing.

::tony::

 

so i wrote a little something

 

about Good Friday, yesterday, of course, but then moments before i published it, there was a crack of lightening and possibly the loudest thunder i've ever heard, and all the lights went off, the computer went black, and i don't mind admitting i called the dog to my side and sang Jesus Loves Me under my breath, something my sisters and i would do when we were little and scared.

and that was the end of that post.

so here it is, the eve before Easter, and i just finished reading a few pages to the children from the Jesus Storybook Bible and finding my voice cracking and tears blurring the words about Jesus' Secret Rescue Plan, about how He and God had this plan all along to rescue their people from the sin that killed them.

and that plan, it was so perfect and brilliant and terrible that it took His breath away.

the plan involved nails and blood and unspeakable pain. but that was not the worst of it.

the plan involved the absorption of every sin ever committed. but maybe that was not the worst of it.

maybe the worst part of their plan was that at the moment the Son took on all that sin, His Father would turn His back and walk away. 

and as soon as that happened, Jesus gave up His spirit.

which means Jesus literally could not go on without His Father.

sometimes i say that i want to be more dependent on God, but i think i have gotten this wrong; i think i am more dependent on God than i will ever know. 

i'm going to bet that if God the Son needed the abiding presence of God the Father in order to live, we might too.

this breath you're breathing. means. God. is. with. you. 

this moment? living proof of God's presence.

because you would die without it.

which is why it was only when Jesus' sentence in hell was finished and He was reunited with the One who loved Him, that He came back to life. Father present, Son alive.

Emmanuel.

Allelujah.

 

::jenn::

 

 

 

 

 

testimonies from Awake: 40 Days of 24-7 Prayer

 

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Each time we gather with the larger 24-7 family, God surprises us with His word, His joy and His refreshment.  Prayerfully consider taking a road trip down to Tulsa and meeting us there.   

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::Tony::

thank you note

photograph by brooke at intern breakfast

photograph by jenn, after intern breakfast

 

six weeks ago, dave d. came to the first lab of healing prayer.

he thought it was a healing service and his knees needed to be healed. five surgeries had not healed. pain killers had not taken away the pain. twenty-four hours a day his knees hurt.

he was wrong about it being a healing service.

he was right.

he stayed anyway.

he came the next week.

and the next four.

he came and he sat silent while brooke taught us about this ministry of the Holy Spirit that is quite a mystery to me, but which He seems to have down pat. 

sat quiet while we practiced listening to this new language which sounded like the quietest thing in the room.

sat silent while we asked and answered questions, while we learned about the anatomy of sin and wounds and healing.

and a world opened up to him: listening to the Holy Spirit. healing with authority that has nothing to do with us and everything to do with the Healer. why the heart might need to be healed before the body.

and on the last night, chris prayed for dave's knees. because if God doesn't care about knees, then the sparrows are in trouble and so are we. seriously.

so Chris prayed that God would heal. and He did. I saw it. i saw dave walking up and down the stairs without pain. saw him hop up and down. saw him say over and over, this is so weird, there's nothing in my knees but a dull ache. no pain. this is so weird.

mostly i saw it as a gift straight from God to encourage and edify this motley group of disciples who want to be healed and to heal and who honestly have no idea how to do that and all trust that God does.

does do miracles. does listen to our prayers. does transcend time and space and dimensions to be with us when we are wounded. does forgive. does heal. does redeem. does crown. does satisfy.

does all of that and more.

so this is my little thank you. i told you i would give you the glory, so here it is.

you, my Father, are to be praised and honored and served and talked about for the duration. 

::jenn::

 

p.s. for those of you who live on the west side, there is a planting party and plant sale saturday morning from 9:30-12:30 at the 4th street garden oasis.

mesclun. sweet peas. spinach. yum. all cold-weather plants, all for you to buy and take home and plant and share. see you there?

Join Us

We had a picture from listening prayer on Monday during Awake. 

We were facing a huge line in the distance.  And it was for the game Red Rover.  "Red Rover Red Rover let ____ come over."  And the challenge is to break through the line.  But what the Lord said was you need to link arms with as many brothers and sisters as you can before you start running for that line.  And He said, when you do this, you will break through.

We're going to be praying together with thousands of believers on April 16.

To prepare for that time, we're calling all of our spiritual family to join us in a fast. Download Fasting Invitation

Join us.  For Kingdom breakthrough in Grand Rapids.

::tony::