hackett to my soul.

what a week.

all i can say at this point is that an amazing worship cd will get you through times of joy and times of brokeness and if you're looking for one try this one:::

http://forerunnermediagroup.com/Groups/1000048438/Forerunner_Media_Group/Forerunner_Music/Artists/Laura_Hackett/Laura_Hackett.aspx

Laura Hackett.

i can't turn it off... or even down...

phew.... LOVING IT.

she sings to my soul. the Spirit of God was so present and full as this blasted thru my house.

i've been soaking up the Nov 2009 album, some favorites::: Beautiful Mercy & There's a Gap.

hope you enjoy xx

{ happy 2nd birthday baby boy }

I couldn't have imagined what it would feel like to wake up Saturday morning and realise that it somehow had been 2 years since Max and come & gone. I was so angry. Angry that it happened, angry that it has been 2 years and we are still waiting to see two lines on a pregnancy test, angry that life seemed to move on like nothing ever happened for everyone else ... and yet we still feel this huge hole. Don't get me wrong, I don't feel like this every day. In fact, these days...most days, I feel completly normal. I have an amazing life, amazing husband, beautiful baby girl and much more & I think about Max every day... but usually its not so painful... its a beautiful happy memory... so I suppose I was a little suprised to feel this way.

Here's the thing though...

Something in me knew that I couldn't stay in bed all day. As much as I wanted to recluse... I knew, with everything in me, that I needed to get up and face the day.

And we did.

We spent the day in Palm Beach, NSW (about an hour from our house), on the beach, with a picnic/my brother and sister in law/our haylee and a big bunch of blue balloons to celebrate Max::: then that night we went to dinner at a beautiful restaurant by the Opera House and let our balloons rise to the sky as matty whispered a little "happy birthday Maxy"... and it was beautiful.

It was a beautiful day : to remember a beautiful boy : who changed our lives forever.

The more the day went on, the more I realised how much Max is a part of my life. I realised that the person that I have become is so much in part to what happened when Max was born, and what happened when he died. Living that day and seeing the things we saw and the way we wept isn't easy... but the fact that we are more in love, that we love God more than I could have ever imagined, and that our capacity as people and servants in the kingdom is so much greater/different makes me see that somehow its a beautiful thing. I would do anything to have a little two year old boy called Max playing with his trucks on the floor as I blog... but at the same time, I wouldn't change anything about the last two years because somehow the place God has brought us to makes it all worth it. Like the Word says... HIS LOVE is BETTER than life. ::: I know this verse so differently now. And He always reminds me of his loving-kindness... and faithfulness. He is our Sustainer... Comforter... closest Friend.

SO.

I learned...

:that its ok for moments/days/trials to get to you...
:its ok to deal with the emotions that we naturally have...
:its ok to suprise yourself...
:its not ok to wallow in a pool of self-pity because you throw chains all over yourself and miss the ability God has to make all things beautiful...
:that God is in EVERYTHING::but if you shut off, there's a good chance you'll miss Him and accuse Him of being absent...

This blog has always been about being open about where I am with this whole loss/life/moving on thing... so i hope that its serving its purpose... i'm just on a journey... and i know its heaven focused ... and the Holy Spirit has a lot to teach me still on the walk... but i'm gonna keep walking:::

thats all for now x x x x
jilly

the new colossus.

"The New Colossus" is a sonnet by Emma Lazarus (1849-1887), written in 1883 and, in 1903, engraved on a bronze plaque and mounted inside the Statue of Liberty.

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

—Emma Lazarus, 1883

This kept creeping into my thoughts the last few days as I've been a bit homesick for America. Isn't it amazing the foundations that the United States was built upon?? I know, I know... its far from its foundations at times it seems... but still, under the years and years of politics, poor decisions etc etc... this was proclaimed... a call for the broken and lost to find light and be welcomed in. What a beautiful picture. You can't help but see the likeness to our invitation from Jesus...

I love this invitation. I needed it. I accepted it. It changed my life forever.

sobering thoughts.

There is something absolutely sobering about life and death. When it visits your doorstep, or a house very close, the reality of how short life really is comes soaring home.

This past week a good friends little brother passed away, unexpectedly, alarmingly, it was something no one would have seen coming. The shock of it resounded in our house and throughout so many homes around us as we mourned and grieved with our friend and we reminded and all to aware that life is but a vapor. The same evening, a good friend gave birth to a beautiful baby girl in a hospital not to far away from our home. It struck a chord in me, that this is life, full of joys and sorrows... that we live in a world plagued by the truth that it is not our eternal home. This place, after the fall of man, was never again meant to be a place that we would live forever. I feel somehow renewed knowing that in this sorrow there is also such great rejoicing, as our beautiful friend is in heaven right now rejoicing with the angels:: and whilst we are left here on earth, there is much to be done before we see him again.

So, in these hard days after such a loss, we are mourning with those who mourn... and speaking hope and life::offering love unconditional::and a shoulder to cry on.

As for the other side, the beautiful baby girl that was born, she is such a promise of hope and life just by taking her first breath, that I am still absolutely overwhelmed at her perfection! (and i'm totally gonna go see her tomorrow and have cuddles!!)

the Spirit hovers.

on this beautiful monday morning i have been arrested by hope, once again. As i flipped open the thin almost transparent paper of my leather bound bible, i couldn't even make it past the first couple verses-of the first chapter-of the first book. Something in my heart prompted me as i opened the Book of books, to take the title page-index page-so on page by page until i ended up at Genesis 1:1 and began reading. When i say it arrested me, i mean in that way that my whole being was absolutely overtaken by the beauty of His word for us. Weeping in my large white arm chair i have realised once again this morning the hope He extends to each of us.

i'll begin with you were i started not much earlier this day:

Genesis 1:1-2
'The Beginning"

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless & empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep & the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters."

I don't know how to convey what God did in my heart, to translate it off the pages of my journal to this post:: so i'm going to give you the words straight off the page of my journal:: please understand that i don't ever do this lightly... as the words that happen in the pages of my journal are the closest parts of my heart:: I hope that it somehow reaches you the way He reached me this morning::


::::::::::God-the absolute beauty that there was nothing, and you were there, in an earth that was unformed : barren : desolate : empty : Your beautiful Spirit was hovering ... You were THERE my beautiful God... out of nothing you created. I look at the beauty of this earth - every flower and tree, the vast expanse of the ocean and I am so overwhelmed that in Your glorious & wonderful imagination You formed all that i see. My whole being springs to joy & life; knowing that even in the seemingly barreness of my womb Your Spirit is hovering_waiting_to create... You are imagining the child that is to come, with Your wild and beautiful imagination, You ARE creating_TRULY_You make the barren woman sing_You bring Life_and healing.:::::::::::::::


Something about this verse - i just saw the pieces of my soul - where i am waiting for all these dreams - that even where it seems empty and unformed and just a dream - that the Spirit is hovering... creating... and the expanse of what He can create is ENDLESS... BOUNDLESS...

and i feel He is saying to us this morning:::

I AM HOVERING ...master of a craft .. an artist with brush in hand ... dreaming up the glorious thing(s) that i am about to create... don't underestimate that I know no bounds...


well:: baby is awake :: i can hear little squeals of delight coming from the nursery so i'm off :-)
:::::::

love xx jilly