My Hero

I want you to meet my friend, Lori Harris.  I have never met Lori except through her words on her blog (loriharris.me), words that wreck my heart each and every time.  Her words aren’t whinny words, or complaining word, or even “poor me” words.  They are bold, courageous words and words that make me feel guilty.  She has boldly gone to the place where the pew hits the curb, leaving most of us in the dust.

Lori is married to Thad and they live in Rocky Mount where they moved to plant a church, but not the kind of church plant that their seminary friends were planting.  Thad is a warehouse manager, and that job is his source of income – their church was not started with the thought that it would support their family.  The church supports the wider“church”.

They planted a church and moved their family of six children into what most would call the “hood”.  Lori has been homeschooling the older kids because the school they would attend is rated in the very last place of all NC schools in performance.  The kids have asked to attend the school their friends attend and this year, very bravely, the transition will happen.

Lori and Thad’s 100+ year old house is the neighborhood playground and is a safe place as the parents have come to know.  There are drug deals going down and the police are frequent visitors to the street and Lori knows all the kids by name and through them is learning about the families.

Lori has never asked for any outside support (remember she isn’t a whiner) but I have adopted her and begun mentoring her through my daily prayers over her and her family.  She makes me feel guilty because I haven’t found that boldness she possesses.  She does not just make Jesus famous, she gives Him away on a daily basis and takes on His skin.  She is one of my heroes.

Here is a blog she wrote for another website.  I think you will say you know her heart after reading it.  I hope you will pick up her passion and join me in praying for her and her heart.

    Your Work Matters: Unspoken Agreement (The High Calling)

Hope this link works! Here is the official “address”: www.thehighcalling.org/work/your-work-matters-unspoken-agreement

Please let me hear from you after you read Lori’s words.  I would love to go to Rocky Mount and sit across the table to hear her heart talk…maybe some of you would like to make the journey with me.

Lovingyougood…sd

David Crowder "All I Can Say"

I haven’t listened to this song in a long time but a playlist brought it up.

It is a heart-tender song for me. One of those songs that I have to decide do I really want to deal with the tugging of the heart and the scab scrubbing it will expose, and this morning it again brought tears and a deep sigh as I was caught up immediately in the desperateness, and utter emptying of self, and the unexplained love of God.

In order to heal, scabs need to be debrided "the usually surgical removal of lacerated, devitalized, or contaminated tissue".  The scab needs to be removed to let the air heal the wound.  Wounds heal best when allowed to heal from the inside out, but we find that too painful. So we elect to cover the wound with a scab, but for the soul to heal it needs to be debrided of the scabs and let the God-love begin its healing.

…”so tired from walking”…”so alone”…”the dark is creeping up to swallow me”…“think I will stop here to rest a while”.

Have you been there like I have?  Has this summer been a place you feel the dark is slowly going to swallow you?  Have you reached the dark place of utter exhaustion?  When all you can say is…

This is all I can say right now…this is all I can give… this is 

all I say right now…this is all I can give… that’s my everything.

Have you railed against God?  Throwing up questions and accusations, hoping to catch God’s passing ear?

Did you see me crying?

Did you hear me call your name?

Wasn’t it you that I gave my heart to?

And then the words that break me every time…

I wish you’d remember where you set it down.

There have many dark nights and valleys I wondered the same.

I have heard it said that sometimes we have to hit rock bottom before we are able to lift our head and look up towards the light and feel, ever so softly, the soothing love of God.

Didn’t notice you were standing there

Didn’t know that that was you holding me

Didn’t notice that you were crying too

Didn’t know that that was you washing my feet

He was there there all along. We were rolling around in our own mire and mud, searching how deep we could go, and there was no strength to look up.

On the playlist, this is followed by the “new” Doxology…”Praise God from whom all blessings flow”!  Amen and amen and amen. And the healing begins...

And the next song on the play list?  "Stars"!

You should see the stars tonight
How they shimmer shine so bright
Against the black they look so white
Comin down from such a height
To reach me now, reach me now

Cus i got nothing of my own to give to you
But this light that shines on me shines on you
And makes everything beautiful, again.
It'll be alright, it'll be alright.

And I have learned once again…the scab that was rubbed off this morning and the ever present wound has started the healing process and it will be alright…even when all I could say was…"that’s my everything”…I gave it my everything…and once again I bravely rubbed at the scab so he could show me he had never left, and he wasn’t going to leave…he never lost my heart.

lovingyougood...sd