I Will Go - Available Now!

My life, your life, has been preserved until this moment

for one reason.

That it might be given away.

While there is life and strength in you,
          While you are young and brave, and beautiful,

Go.

Go pour out every drop on thirsty ground 

where no flowers grow, but seeds lie dormant.

From its first heartbeat this project has been woven with your prayers, enabled by your gifts, inspired by your friendship and filled with your favorites.

And it's all been such a gift to us, we can't stand the thought of ending the giving.
And we've decided there's no reason to.

This CD is a bit different... Longer, yes. Filled with nominations, yes.
But more than that, squeezed out of hearts that are being wrung with longing to see dark places lighted with the Glory of God...

Hearts thankful beyond words for the inspiration of the soldiers young and old actually holding the torches.
They're our heroes. And some of their names can't appear in print.
But this CD is dedicated to them.

And we give thanks for them, but we want to do something a bit more.
So a dollar from every disk goes to Karen Outreach. (www.karenoutreach.org)
Forever.

That's our little part.
If you'd like to send a dollar too, use the second paypal button when you order. We'll send $2.


But don't just buy the CD and sit and listen and smile and say "that's sweet."
Go get on your face and ask to be broken and spilled out.

Then we can call this project a success.

______________________________________________

p.s. Thank you isn't enough. 80 plus songs later, we have fodder for lots of dreams. And we wish we could sufficiently thank everyone that took the time to nominate songs. We still have the list..... :)
But I promised that your names would go in a hat, and a dozen of you would get free copies. So if your name is listed below:

1. Don't order a copy. It'll just come in the mail. (better email me at seannebblett[at]gmail[dot]com to give me your address though.

2. Order a copy anyway. We'll send all 15 dollars to Asia...


Maria Adams

Esther Collier

Luther Coram

Christina Ford

Emily Heagy
Beth Johns

Lydia Keener

Cami Martin

Hope Montana

Libby Orthman

Allie Westermeyer

Sophia Wichmann

Chosen Hunger [Glorious Fast - Part I]

"Is not this the fast that I have chosen?"

I know what it is to be hungry.

A little bit.

You know, where every sensation is heightened, (stub your toe and see.) and you carry with you an ache that won't. go. away...

Hunger is both a gift, and a tragedy.

And normally, we go to great lengths to avoid it...

But to choose to be hungry... 

We call that fasting. 

To choose to carry the ache everywhere--

To embrace the heightened sensitivity to seemingly unrelated woe,

Could this be what it means to have fellowship with Christ in His sufferings?

And could it be that personal vulnerability, and brokenness, and weakness born of raw hunger are prerequisite to being a channel for life and liberty?

Could it be?

Is This Not the Life I Have Chosen?

I watch the scurry from my seat behind the wheel, past noses of three cars poised to launch. 

We've gotten pretty good at our "preflight."

These engines idle; these craft of steel and fiberglass wait in precise formation, just barely holding short of the drive. We'll leave almost simultaneously. Five of us. Still pre-dawn. To three destinations 100, 200 miles apart. But we'll be back in a few hours.

I sigh, close my eyes. Rest head to head rest.

Then I look again.

Looks like a carrier deck.

How fitting...

-  -  -  -  -  -  -

This is war. 

I'm most cognizant of it when the sun sets and the moon rises. But sleep won't come. 

By day, we work. 

-changing carpets in our rental, working the relentless wedding list, building, cleaning, weeding, planting, designing, then dropping everything to operate an ambulance... (and did I mention my laundry?)

By night, we watch, we war...

-pacing, pleading, juggling strategies. praying. reading. writing. leading... hand holding.

And then we repeat the oft-quoted words of a valiant friend: "I can rest in Heaven"

 

Is this not the life I have chosen?

I'm going back to Isaiah 58. 

verse 6, verse 7, verses 8 and 9...

Because this is the life I've chosen.

And I'm going to pull it apart piece by piece... Every agonizing, thrilling little detail. 

Because I can't be satisfied until I watch "light break forth as morning"

in the darkest soul I know.

You can come with, if you'd like...

starting tomorrow.

Almost Obedience [of lights, lanes, and a lecture]

It's pouring rain. 
I'm half in your lane because the only way I can keep out of the standing water is by straddling the yellow line. 
I'm all lit up, and have been watching your headlights oncoming for the last three miles-- 

and you're going to play chicken. with. an. Ambulance.


?!!


--As my dad would say:

"Work with me."

I have to laugh.
We rumble along. I just raise my eyebrows as they go by, me fully in my lane, driving in deep water.
(because we prefer smart driving to brave.)

The rain slows and we pick up pace again. And three drivers in a row have their cars in park a half mile before I get there, and the next driver just crosses the white line enough to spit gravel everywhere and endanger my windscreen.

I can't resist a little lecture in the moments before we meet and part.

Eh hem..., driving with one wheel barely over the white line still verily qualifies as being on the road. Especially at that speed, bro. And driving with all but one wheel on the other side would too. Know what I'm saying?


[car streaks by]


This 'almost off the road' thing is really a misnomer. 
You're either on the road,

or you're... off. the...

Hey...

And suddenly, it is as if He is sitting in the passenger seat, pointing towards the next car-- the one that is almost stopped, and almost all the way off...

It is as if He turns a kind face from it to me, locks with my eyes and just raises His eyebrows a bit and smiles a little, that smile that betrays a bit of something like sadness and a whole lot of Love-- That smile I've seen too many times to count...

right. 

So... whose idea was the lecture. mine, or Yours?

-  -  -  -  -

His, I think.
I suddenly see how they are one and the same. The guy who blazes past, and the guy who almost stops. Both still on the road.

And I think of the times I mostly obey...

God's Fortress

"...It's not even American young people and European young people working together--"

"We're Adventist young people."

I sit and listen, fidget while tingles play tag up and down my spine. I brush tears away; squeeze fists together tight till my forearms bulge. 

I'm watching stone walls generations old crack before my eyes.

I'm watching the sun dip low on the heyday of materialism, secularism, postmodernism. 

Yes, even on the continent.

I'm watching a generation wake up and decide all those things are empty and they've had enough.

I am one of them.

Oh, and I don't mean to say we'll win without paying the ultimate price.

But I am saying, it's as good as over. 

We can't lose.

. . . .

I recline early, book in hand under soft glow of christmas lights that grace my office year-round. (Jet lag in my favor, I'm bright and eager at 0200)

My eyes hesitate at the end of this phrase, retrace and return. Revel:

"The church is God's fortress"

 Acts of the Apostles p.11 | photo: JN