I don't like noise.

It might come to surprise you that I, having been blessed with 4 wonderful boys, don't handle noise well.  Truly.  I turn the radio off when we get in the car.  I don't like loud restaurants or clubs.  I think surround-sound speakers were made by the devil.  God has given me the heart and patience to miraculously ignore the constant pounding, banging and shouting that often comes from our upstairs game room (they are, after all, making memories up there....) but that's about it.

And I'm not much good with the other type of noise in life either.  The kind of noise that comes from monogrammed YMCA team shirts (you all know how I feel about that), birthday parties for adults, most smart phone apps, preschool graduation ceremonies, 5th grade graduation ceremonies, professional football players (excluding, obviously, JJ Watt who is rumored to be taking over Lakewood Church from Joel Osteen), gender reveal parties, competitive cheerleading and wedding reception party favors.

On a daily basis I struggle with walking the ever-thinning line of living--in the example of Christ--in this world but not of it.  How do you do it...cut out or stand against the things that don't matter, that you don't believe in, without being a total social pariah??  And I'm not even talking about BIG things here.  Martin Luther King Jr. stood against segregation.  I'm only talking about cupcakes on the last day of school and yet it is so difficult!

One thing I've found in the wake of the mess Harvey left behind is that it's becoming a lot easier to say no to what doesn't matter.  I don't believe God intends bad things for his people, but I do believe He uses tragedy to refine us in ways that abundance can not.  Sometimes the most desperate times for a community are the times of most clarity.  We see need in a different way, give no second thought to filling it, and walk closer to God in the way we love others.

I want recovery for those affected by these storms.  I want it so badly.  But I am not eager to return to life complicated by the things that do not matter.  I don't want schedules that are so over-booked that the thought of dropping things to help a neighbor goes unentertained.  I don't want pressure to spend money on what will be dust and ashes instead of life-giving bread for others.  I don't want the WHAT to be more important that the WHO in our lives.  I want a new normal, as our pastor puts it.

I want the Kingdom of Christ.  At any cost.

Lord Jesus, heal our wounds and repair the brokenness in our lives.  Restore our homes and our community, but not to the way things used to be.  Use this time of hardship to bring us closer to you, God, and to the kind of world you'd have us live in.  Let us cling to the lessons you are teaching us right now, the goodness you are making of this mess.  And let it change from the inside out.  Amen.

XOXO...Kelly

Home

Well, friends, it's been quite a few weeks.  If you're keeping track, Hurricane Harvey blew into the gulf and onto land in Southeast Texas about 10 days ago and then, like a great big a*hole, stuck around the Houston area for 5 days only to go back out into the gulf, re-fuel and then come back onto land devastating more areas east of here.  Record rainfall has caused monumental flooding in homes and businesses and displaced thousands upon thousands of people. 

And as we in Houston band together to try to clean up all this mess (there are now about 5,000 different Houston strong t-shirts and car decals that can be purchased to benefit flood victims and Jim "Mattress Mack" McIngvale and JJ Watt have been asked to take over as pastors of Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church), Hurricane Irma--Harvey's sister who apparently got even less love than he did growing up--has morphed into the biggest a*hole of them all, setting its sights on destroying Florida. 

I'm now up to three cups of coffee in the morning and 4 glasses of wine at night and my new parenting strategy sounds something like this...."Do not hit your brother!  There are children without homes and schools!" 

About mid-way through the storm I read an excerpt from AW Tozer on being at home with Christ.  Tozer talks about a Christian brother from Thailand who, in describing the godly life of one of the missionaries he worked with says, "He is in the Father's house now."  Tozer wrote...

What a vision for a humble Christian who only a generation before had been a pagan, worshiping idols and spirits—and now because of grace and mercy he talks about the Father's house as though it were just a step away, across the street.  This is the gospel of Christ—the kind of Christianity I believe in. What joy to discover that God is not mad at us and that we are His children....

Home will have a different meaning for many people now.  Some will return to just a shell of the former house they occupied--the walls and floors eventually restored, but emptied of most of its contents.  Some will not return at all. 

My Father's house has many rooms...And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.—John 14:2, 3

I do not know what to say to comfort those that are displaced right now, who have thrown away photo albums and furniture and family heirlooms.  I don't know what to say to someone sleeping in a shelter that might make them feel secure.  But I do know that there is a vast difference in the kind of shelter afforded by this world, built by our own human hands, and the of the kind of shelter provided by Christ.  As I look around my own home, filled and decorated with things I like and maybe even love (as much as you can love a chair and silver plated dachshund statue), I MUST remind myself that when the flood waters rise this is not my shelter.  My shelter is now and forever will be in Jesus Christ. 

Lord, there is much to pray for, so much to ask.  Be with those in recovery right now and with those that might be facing it in the days and storm ahead.  Let me remember that You are on your throne as much now as you have ever been.  Build a shelter around me, God, made of love and mercy and grace, one that will not fail.  And when I see someone in need, help me to proclaim your gospel in word and in deed, that this shelter would be theirs as well.  To the glory of Your name.  AMEN.

XOXO...Kelly