Mission Impossible

Hi Favored One ... this is Ken,

My assignment from Jesse, as I understand it, is to hack into Tobi’s account and write a post about the positive affect Allume and her blogging community have had on her.  I’ve watched her blog long enough to know that for me this is an assignment straight out of Mission Impossible! (cue the music...)  

I’ve chosen to accept this assignment; not because I’m looking for my opportunity to break into the blogging business, but because this is the best chance I’ll have to say thank you for the incredible gift this community has given my wife.

If you read Favored One you know I’m an officer in the United States Air Force.  Tobi and I love our life, but we never stay in one place very long.  The cumulative effect of this constant moving for Tobi has been loneliness.  Not a passing loneliness, but a deep, abiding loneliness she feels at her core. Of course, the Air Force has left us in a few places long enough for us to make friends.  Amazing, wonderful friends.  Friends who are closer than our own family.  Friends who share our love of Jesus Christ and, like us strive to make Him the center of their lives.  These are the kind of friends you want to spend your life with ... then you receive orders for your next assignment.  You have to learn to mourn those you leave behind when you make the military your life.  Tobi and I have a beautiful marriage and we both know how wonderful it is to be married to your best friend, but she’s told me on more than one occasion, “Ken, I love you and you do a great job filling in as a girlfriend except...you’re not a girl!”  I think blogging has helped fill the girlfriend void.

Suddenly, I’m aware Tobi and I haven’t talked about this and I’m not sure she would say blogging has helped fill the girlfriend void, but hey this is my post isn’t it?  On with the mission!

In the beginning, I watched Tobi struggle over a post for hours.  Writing and rewriting as the words in her heart flowed out onto the page.  Pleased with the results when she was done, but feeling guilty about the time she spent away from the family to complete it.  Knowing she was called to this, but not knowing how to balance it with His other callings in her life ... wife, mother, homeschool teacher and blogger?  I’ve also watched as the number of people following her blog grew.  I read the comments and reminded her she was fulfilling her calling by touching the lives of others.  Some days she provides a laugh and some encouragement and other days she’s sharing life’s pain and disappointment, but everything is shared through the joy of a Christ centered heart.  She has moments when she knows blogging is what she wants to do and moments when she wants to quit!  (Don’t worry Favored One followers I always encourage her to stay!)

I remember when she first read about the Allume conference and told me she wanted to attend.  I told her I thought it was a great idea and soon she was registered.  She began jumping into the blogging challenges and she’s written some awesome blogs for Compassion children and even cranks out beautiful 5-minute messages that never fail to touch my heart.  These Allume challenges are great, but the most positive thing I’ve seen happen to Tobi in the last six months is Mosaics for Him, the mastermind group she is part of.  This group of ladies have truly filled a girlfriend void!  They’re there everyday, they understand the highs and lows of blogging, they offer encouragement and they share rooms at the conference.  I know my wife, I know her heart and I know how big it is.  I love her heart and I’m so happy she’s found a place and a community.  I hope this encourages every blogger who reads it, because what you’re doing is impacting someone’s life.  I know because for my wife suddenly, friends don’t seem quite so far away and life doesn’t seem quite so lonely.  Mission Complete! (this message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...)

Look

Join us over at Lisa Jo's House?

And if you want to share five minutes too, here are the rules:

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community..

LOOK

photo credit

GO

I checked my phone this morning, caught the day's word, and put Look on the shelf to be tackled after grammar and Algebra I, decimal multiplication, and President summaries.  I thought about Look as I made lunch and hurried to complete my tasks before I hit the road to see a cross-country friend for a mere few hours.

I opened my computer to write about art and paintings, creation and muses and the mystery of having a guide reveal what the creator saw.

And this is the image that opened first in my window.  And I wept.  For us.  For them.  For the messy, burned corners of humanity that paint with blood.  For smoke that burns our eyes and blurs the created image of beauty.  For the cacophony of noise that hurts to hear, especially over our own raised voices.  

I wanted to spend five minutes writing about touring the National Art Museum and the wonder of seeing what the creator breathed into the canvas, all because I had a guide to reveal these things.  How often do we stroll through the museum, priceless art hanging everywhere and miss the real life, framed for all to see.

And as I cry to God about all this ragged beauty around us, wondering what I can possibly do to restore these works of art, I am reminded as He leads me in discovery I am able to really see His word ~ alive, breathing, cupping the bloodied body of the broken close.  You must LOOK to see.  It is in looking that the covenant is seen.  LOOKING is the small seed He plants.

STOP

But don't.  Don't stop.  Look around and see His word is alive and this world is just an overlay to it.  When Jesus speaks of God's Kingdom being like a mustard seed, or poppy seed, or pine nut, this Kingdom has been planted deep in you.  Look and see the world and don't despair, instead sink roots deep and drink of His word.  Grow tall enough that over your lifetime the very eagles ~ birds of prey ~ will find shelter in your arms.  We must be more than bloodied, burned, and smoking edges.

“God’s kingdom is like a pine nut that a farmer plants. 

It is quite small as seeds go, 

but in the course of years it grows into a huge pine tree, 

and eagles build nests in it.” 

 The Message 13:32

Praying.

For our world.

For our country.

For our leaders.

For our faith.

For the ability to LOOK at another and see the beautiful work as the Creator does.