May 27, 2010 by Teri Frana.

…continuation from Part One or Part Two.

I’m exploring the concept of the “dark nights”.  Traditionally, this is a time in the life of a Christ-follower when God gets very serious about molding and sculpting in the most delicate places of our hearts.It is a time of severe testing and suffering.  The dark nights is where God shows His infinite patience, His incredible power, and His relentless, passionate love for us.

First off, it might be easier to describe what a dark night is not.  A dark night is not one singular trial or circumstance in our lives which causes us pain and suffering.  For example, you are not necessarily in a dark night just because you lose your job, or your spouse, or suffer great loss of some kind.  I spoke with someone who thought she was in a dark night as she struggling through a divorce.  However, every other aspect of her life was pretty good.  The dark nights typically affect most or all areas of your life.

People who are in a dark night season usually experience loss of one form or another in many areas of life.  You may lose your job, your marriage may be struggling, a child may wander, your health may suffer, and you may find yourself having significant problems in a close friendship all at the same time.  More times than not, your whole world is shaken to the very foundation and even that foundation may become unsteady.

Even though it feels like open heart surgery without any anesthesia, God is working hard to remove the barriers you erect between you and Him.  I clearly see now the only way God can reveal the things you cling to harder than you cling to Him is to remove them.  It is then our choice to choose to cling to something other idol or to reach for Him.

When we allow God to remove the distractions that keep us from really knowing Him, our eyes are opened to infinite new and wondrous possibilities.

“My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.”  Job 42:5

More to come…

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May 26, 2010 by Teri Frana.

My dad is finally over the hump.  He’s still in the hospital for the next few days, but much stronger today. Thank you again for your prayers.

I haven’t had a lot of energy to do much deep thinking lately.  When I’m at that place, I tend to go look for inspiration from others who have had energy to do deep thinking.  I found some yesterday in this video:

Today I’m looking at this not necessarily from the corporate perspective, but from a church perspective.  It seems to me that the Church of the United States needs a creative revolution to break out of the bonds of what enslaves us.  It seems like we are stuck on the isle of “sameness”.  Somewhere along the lines so many of us subscribe to the belief that the ideal Christian has a nice house, nice cars, a nice family, a good job, a solid retirement nest-egg, and a comfortable lifestyle.  It seems to me that many churches put a lot of energy toward getting us all to that same place.

I’m not saying this is anti-Christian.  I’m saying that I don’t believe this is God’s ultimate goal for us.  I believe God is much more interested in using His incredible creativity to reveal our giftedness He created in us.  I think He is more concerned with our relationship with Him and with others than He is our portfolio.  And ultimately He is interested in helping us live out His dream for our lives rather than our American Dream.

Right now, I don’t have very many ideas on what needs to be changed.  But, I wonder what it would be like if our focus was on how to allow God to creatively reveal His vast creativity through His creations…

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May 23, 2010 by Teri Frana.

I just caught a bit of sleep here at home.  Spent the night in the hospital with dad.  Thank you for your prayers - he is doing better.

Everything is still seems very surreal to me, yet I am fighting to actually live it, feel it, and experience it so it doesn’t get stolen from me.  It seems like someone has turned on one of the fog machines they use in the dream sequences in a movie, but I know I’m awake. The music plays from the machines that blip and beep and clip along to my dad’s heart rhythm. The lighting varies from starkly unfriendly florescent overhead lighting to soft, diffused sunlight coming through the windows once the nurses leave.

The noises from the hallway cover the spectrum between laughter at the joke of the day, to the clinical discussions between professionals trying to determine the next steps, to the frightening sounds of suffering in other rooms.  I know that after you hear the words, “Code Blue”, you see bodies with multicolored scrubs flying around one of the rooms. I heard those words twice in the ICU the first night.  I grabbed Dad’s hand even tighter then, thanking God the technicolored scrubs weren’t coming in our direction and praying for the person they were running toward.  

I’ve had a chance to read a lot the last few days in between helping to get ice chips and water, fluff pillows, help my dad reposition, and lots and lots and lots of praying.  The books I’m reading right now are about creativity and what it takes to create art.  They leave me breathless and wanting more.  They make me wish there was a much larger tube running between my brain and my fingers like my dad has between the IV bag of fluids and his arm.  I’d like to be on the same genius drip as those authors.

I don’t have much of a point today except to give you something to munch on.  I was just out checking on the “theme” for this blog because I’ve had some troubles with spamming.  My tag line caught my eye, “In passionate pursuit of Jesus Christ…”  Yeah, that is definitely me.  I don’t care how foolish or feeble I am, I’m going to keeping seeking Him with everything I am.  Everything I am isn’t much today.

As I was pondering that, another thought  struck me, “Today, Lord, I think You are going to have to chase me.  I’m kind of tired.”  I can’t be sure because my brain feels very much like oatmeal right now, but I think I heard the words, “You just need wait to be caught.” For some reason, this notion is making me smile from the middle of my soul.  You know, that kind of smile that you get when your insides go all warm and squishy and you feel like you have just been given something that was  designed for only you?

Just color me waiting to be caught…
“But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.” Psalm 131:2

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