Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted

This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. We've been talking about the beattitudes for the last 3 weeks in consistent life ethics with Lane Walker. It's been really good! I've been thinking about the recent loss of my grandfather and how I'm still mourning and grieving that loss. But I've also been thinking about the other things you can mourn the loss of. The loss of hope, or trust, or knowledge or anything. I think of mourning and I think of a funeral, but God has really been speaking to me about the different times and reasons to mourn and its crazy.

Well, thats whats been on my mind lately.
Courtney

Praise The Lord

So, We were in class on wednesday night at recre8, and Aaron was talking about worship and stuff. And this guy, who has never been into recre8 before, just randomly said 'so, I can just ask for Forgiveness and I'll be a Christian?' And Aaron was like...yeah...and he was like 'I want that!!'. It was awesome. It was really beautiful to see him get saved!! Well, thats about it for now.

On being the church

The church, Jesus's betrothed, isn't always pretty. Some relish in this fact and like to point out her flaws like a group of teenage girls gossiping about the promiscuous girl in class. Overheard, we hang our heads with nothing to say but full of defensive statements. This drives me nuts, and sometimes I'm guilty of the slander, thinking my way or brand of spiritual expression is superior lacking blemishes. What a different feeling we get when we look to the admirable, noble things in others. I was reminded of this as I read from Simply Christian [N.T. Wright]:

"But there is another side to it, a side which shows all the signs of the wind and fire, of the bird brooding over the waters and bringing new life. For man, "church" means just the opposite of that negative image. It's a place of welcome and laughter, of healing and hope, of friends and family and justice and new life. It's where the homeless drop in for a bowl of soup and the elderly stop by for a chat. It's where one group is working to help drug addicts and another is campaigning for global justice. It's where you'll find people learning to pray, coming to faith, struggling with temptation, finding new purpose and getting in touch with a new power to carry that purpose out. It's where people bring their own small faith and discover, in getting together with others to worship the one true God, that the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. No church is like this all the time. But a remarkable number of churches are partly like that for quite a lot of the time."

I'm glad to say that in our neighbourhood with its surrounding church expressions that statement is true. Thanks to Servants, Jacob's Well, The River Community Foursquare, St. Ciara's, UGM, Harbour Light, Potter's Place, Mission Possible and 614 for making me feel really swell about being engaged to Jesus.

RAW!

I've been cooped up in my room all day with a lame stomach illness and I remembered it's my day to blog! how about that?!

I've been thinking a lot about R.A.W coming up in March, and I can't explain how positively ecstatic I am about it! Just hearing the talk of R.A.W and hearing students talk about how they're excited to come this year, and they're excited about what is going to happen. This is going to be a seriously great year for Ready and Willing, and I pray that we will all be "RAW" in this year of revival and new beginnings! I pray that we would WAKE UP in this new year, and continue to fix our eyes on what is eternal.

Blessings.

Wake up Oh sleeper!
Rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you!
Ephesians 5:14

Learning to Trust

God has been speaking to me with clarity lately, it's kinda been a wee bit of a struggle!!

Sometimes, hearing God's voice clearly is harder then hearing no voice at all. Having the obedience to trust sometimes is fustrating. It involves obedience. It involves a response. It involves conviction. Basically, it's meant that I've had to speak out on what I'm hearing and what he's entrusted me with [knowledge wise]

...

In a lot of ways, I have most certainly doubted and fallen short.

So Im thankful for grace and for mercy...and the reality is, we have all fallen short of the glory. It is this dependancy on grace that does, most certainly, keep us sustained!!

So, in realising that, the goal is to press on!

Life

Patience is something thats really been on my mind lately. It's something that I've had to strive for because, really, I'm not the most patient person in the world. Since being here especially patience is a big thing, but even in the last week or so its been a really big thing.

But things are good. Our friend Leigh-Anne has been so beautiful lately. Last night after knee drill, she asked me to walk her home, so I did, but then, I had to go back to the command centre to meet everyone else...so Leighanne stood in the street and watched me run back to make sure I'd be safe. I was out of breath by the time I got back, but it was really awesome. And Leigh-Anne worshiped so beautifully at knee drill. It was such a beautiful sight.

God has been working in the downtown eastside, in 614, in the War College and also just in the Conqueror Session. Its been really good to be able to observe what is happening.

Well...I'll finish with some pictures of the last little while.

Conq's CARTOON STYLE