Author: kelrohlf

Confide: Open Your Heart; Entrust

Silence is praise to you,
    Zion-dwelling God,
And also obedience.
    You hear the prayer in it all. (Psalm 65:1-2 The Message)

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Does a particular word ever catch your attention?

Often a word visits me, and won’t let me go until I delve into its origins. Confide came to me the other day. It suggested that intimacy develops and grows between people who confide in each other.

I wanted to know more. One way to get more acquainted with a word is to break it down into its pieces. Knowing the meaning of prefixes comes in handy at times like these, and a few semesters of Latin doesn’t hurt either. “Con” means with, and “fide” comes from “fidere,” which means to trust. It also brings to mind fidelity or faith. So literally, I began to think of its meaning as “with faith.”

With faith, I approach another person believing that I can entrust myself to them. It takes courage. And it takes time for the trust to deepen. We have to bide our time with each other, allowing faith to do its work.

Advent is like that for me. It’s a waiting time. A time to be silent. To sit at the table with our coffee mugs, while my husband and I stare at our Christmas tree. No words.

I gently pull the red candle out of the second day marker to place it in the third day spot. Time quietly moves forward. A ornament on the tree catches my eye. It encapsulates the scene at the table in its orb. I ask my husband how to capture the moment on the camera. We talk technique, and I scurry off to get my camera and tripod. He gets up to go to his office downstairs. I tell him have a good day at work and give him a quick kiss. This trust works for us. The moments, the days, the months and the years of living together in confidence is like an unspoken prayer between us.

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Prayer is silent communion. Prayer is getting up each day and doing what’s indicated. Accomplishing in faith the work given to each one of us. Prayer takes courage. And in time, while we wait, answers arrive.

God answers by sending messengers. Messengers who remind us to wait, trust and believe. And sometimes those messengers come in one simple word.

Confide.

Posted on by kelrohlf 8

Spiral: Circling Around a Central Point

Silence is praise to you
    Zion-dwelling God,
And also obedience.
    You hear the prayer in it all. (Psalm 65:1 The Message)

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Happy New Year! I love saying that this time of year, because you probably think I can’t read a calendar. But in the realm of the church calendar, it is the greeting to expect. The liturgical year begins with Advent.

We often associate Advent with counting down the days until Christmas. Many novelty and craft stores offer Advent calendars with pockets for notes or miniature doors with chocolate candy behind them. (I used to get the candy ones for our boys. Last year they agreed that they might be a little too old, seeing that they are in their mid-twenties. And they admitted the chocolates weren’t that tasty.) So we put a tradition to rest.

As a family, each year our Advent observances would vary. We had a wreath with the traditional purple, pink and white candles. One year, I bought a wrought iron candelabra for our Advent centerpiece. And a couple years ago, I spied this wooden spiral wreath crafted by a young man in Canada,which I would have purchased, except my husband thought he could replicate it. I agreed to give him the pleasure of crafting one for our family.

I don’t know why, but the spiral design intrigues me. It evokes movement. The spiral reminds me of a path that leads me along on a journey. A journey that looks like shepherds, flocks, angels and kings and a holy family. A holy family that invites me to take the pilgrimage to the interior landscape of my soul.

My soul being the place that longs for connections. Connections that intertwine present day expectations with memories of the past. The past cries out for me to hope into the future. Life can spiral out of control, yet the spiral circles around  to the central point.

The central point being: What will I center my Christmas desires around this year? Will I embrace the silence or scramble to recreate outgrown traditions? Will I rush to make rash judgments about others or will I walk in joyful obedience to love others? Will I see both silence and obedience as forms of prayer?  To be honest I will weave in and out of these questions on a daily basis.

The spiral reminds me that I don’t have to waver, there is a path that leads to joy-filled days. (See Psalm 16:11) The spiral reminds me that God’s grace surrounds me every moment, clearing away the debris of sin and ushering in His mercy and peace and forgiveness.

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How does your life spiral these days: frantically veering out of control or joyfully twirling in the presence of God? What connections are you making with the past, present and future as we behold the coming of the King?

Posted on by kelrohlf 5

Good: Of High Quality

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. (Genesis 1:31a)

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The last couple times I’ve used my camera phone a message pops up reminding me that I can’t take a picture because the storage is full. I could download those several hundred photos to free up space, but I just don’t make the time.

Or I could just delete photos as I go, but I am afraid I might lose some of the goodness. As I scrolled through the pictures, gratitude welled up in my heart. I will not post them all here, because they wouldn’t necessarily evoke the same gratitude for you. You’ll have to scroll through your own phone for that.

This has been a year of transition and celebration. And as we enter the holidays, I sense the need for reflection.

One of my ideas for the season ahead is to keep my eyes open for sightings of goodness in the land of the living. (And to capture them with my phone, of course!)

Here’s a little prayer I prayed in my journal this morning:

Dear God-
You are good! You always intend good. I will trust your goodness. Help me to be good and to choose good paths. Help others to live good lives filled with your goodness. Thank you for creating us, and declaring us “very good!”

What sightings of goodness have you witnessed lately?

 

 

Posted on by kelrohlf 7

Vision Quests & Random Journal Day

Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly. (Matthew 11:29-30 The Message)

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Where did this year go? Where have I been? On a detour, and I must admit, I’ve been sort of lost. But thankfully detours eventually return us to the main road that leads to our destination.

A few years ago, I wrote a mission statement with six simple words: “Follow Jesus, generate ideas and write words.” When I feel lost, I return to these statements.

I want everything I do to honor Jesus, to be wrought out of love for Him. He has gifted me with a very active mind and LOTS of ideas. Writing is the main way that I process life and all those ideas.

Recently, I tried substitute teaching. My idea of how to make some extra cash to pay off some debt. It was hard work. It was valuable work. But it was not the work for me.

So I “resigned” and came back home. I returned to generating ideas and taking time for my creative pursuits. (Many of these ideas are flowing out of the work, I call souldare. Stay tuned for new workshops, new events and an etsy shop with journals made from re-purposed book covers and colorful papers!)

I’ve spent the past few weeks in my own journal, processing the perennial question: What’s next?

Journaling helped me to return to the vision of making time and space to encourage others to discover their created selves. I remembered that I work best in a collaborative environment. I realized that I enjoy students who delight in learning new things and making personal discoveries that lead to joy-filled lives.

Recently, I enjoyed the opportunity to partner with my dear friend and journaling revolutionary, Lynn Morrissey, for a day retreat. Through writing exercises and collage work, the Lord Jesus rekindled our passion for Him.

One of the exercises was to write “alpha poems” using the words, “my turnaround.” Here’s my offering from that day:

Mysterious,
Yet not so mysterious, how

Time after time, I neglect to
Understand that Your
Right path for me
Never leads me
Away from You, but
Right back to Your
Open heart, full of
Unfailing love.
Now again this
Day I return to YOU!

Linking with the Random Journal Day-ers!

What’s next for you? How is your vision quest going?

 

 

Posted on by kelrohlf 2

Acceptance

then man prays to God, and he accepts him; he sees his face with a shout of joy
(Job 32:26a ESV)

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TODAY, I will accept. I will relinquish my need to be in resistance to myself and my environment. I will surrender. I will cultivate contentment and gratitude. I will move forward in joy accepting where I am today. (The Language of Letting Go, Melodie Beattie)

Will you ACCEPT today?

Posted on by kelrohlf 0