Venice was our last stop on our anniversary trip to Italy in 2004.  It’s one of those places you see pictures of all your life, but you cannot even believe it is real when you get there.

It is decadent and glorious and everything you could imagine.  Even in December.

December 9, 2004

Venice Italy

Where do I even begin?

Venice is absolutely breathtaking.  The whole city is just oozing elegance.  From the very first moments on Vaporetto #1, I have been in awe.

Like a great maze, there is a treasure around every corner, a beautiful church, shops full of every possible color of glass and marbled paper, bright and elaborate masks, bridges, market stalls and gondolas.  I have waked around in a dazed dream-like state.

Yesterday we just walked and walked and walked.  We had the most wonderful sandwiches and cicchetti (Italian tapas) which we ate on a bridge.  We went to San Marco and just stood there in the square.

We went back today to tour the cathedral and we took our time because I was enamored with every detail.  The whole inside of the building was covered in mosaics and the pieces are tiny!  When I got up close to them I could not believe all the tiny little quarter inch tiles.

My favorite mosaic was the one of Jesus sitting on the throne ruling His kingdom.  Our guidebook said that Jesus was commonly pictured like this (instead of on a cross) in Byzantine cultures.  I bought a postcard of this mosaic to remember Jesus this way–Sovereign over all, his hands stretched out in front of him, welcoming.  Not to worry.  He’s handling all things.

At the moment, Mary Polly and I are traveling Europe by Mediterranean Cruise.  You can keep up with us while we are gone on twitter, instagram and facebook!  

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My sweet Aunt Jeanne gave my kids the children’s version of the wildly popular Jesus Calling for Christmas this year.  Since school started, we’ve been using this devotion book in the mornings to connect for a minute with God and each other before we all run off in different directions.

My mom uses this devotional in an app on her phone and she says that it encourages her every day.  Who couldn’t use a little encouragement every day?

Some days I think I get more out of it than the sleepy kiddos.

Do you do a devotional book together as a family?  Do you have one that you love?

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Matthew 18.

In the moments of clarity between the clouds of sickness, i have been thinking a lot about what it means to be great.

This has been a conversation on my heart for a while now. Last weekend, a friend and I spent a late night talking about how we celebrate people’s failures because it makes us feel better about ourselves.

Because we have this idea that there can only be a few who are great.

And then I studied Matthew 18 in Bible Study this week, where the disciples ask Jesus what it takes to be the greatest.

I worked through my questions. I listened to my leader talk about this word “great” as God sees it and as the world sees it.

This thinking has worked its way through me this weekend. and it is serving as a filter for all of the other muck i hear and experience.

And it comes to this sad truth. Jesus said it. My leader, Carla, said it. My friend and i said it last week.

The world loves to see people taken down.

We don’t rejoice in another’s success, because somehow we feel there will be less “great” leftover for us. When someone succeeds, we sit back, watch and wait…for them to fail. Or fall. Or both.

Why do we do this? Why don’t we long to see each other lifted up? Why are our hearts so dark? As dark as my head stuffed with the cold that threatens to explode it at any moment?

And in the midst of it…hearing different people tell their stories of being stomped on by the world or by a trusted other, a song has filled my heart.

This morning, Simon and I sat with our sick selves on my yoga mat this morning, praying as we listened to this song over and over. (i think he was praying.

Broken but singing

My life is shining

Broken but singing

My life is shining.

The song is called Walk the World by Charlie Hall.

it’s about shining the love of jesus in the world.

Which is great.

A different kind of great.

Great in God’s economy. because God chose the lowly, the despised, the weak things of this world.

And that’s what I am.

Who is great?

Those of us who are broken and need lifting up.

I prayed today for myself and all the people I know who need it, that though we are broken, that we would still be singing and shining. and for that alone, we are great.

And there’s no shortage of room in the world for this kind of great.

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Starting monday morning (and therefore my week) with yoga is one of the most sane choices i make in my schedule.

And this morning, it did not disappoint.

Our instructor worked us hard, but in yoga, you don’t realize how hard you are working.

You’re just following…moving, holding, listening, moving, holding again, and on and on.

Then before i know it, i am drenched in sweat and falling heavily into the earth.

I knew this morning that I was going to have trouble focusing.

I woke up feeling sort of exposed.

For many reasons, some that make sense and some that are completely figments of my imagination, but there you go…still, somehow, I found myself feeling just a wee bit vulnerable.

The events of the last week or so have shaken me up a bit i suppose and even this morning as i was going over some things I was studying, I just kept becoming distracted.

So as i was pulling out my things for yoga I grabbed my mantra list. This is what I am calling this list from a book I am studying with my girlfriends. We are reading and answering questions that have mostly to do with focusing on our identity in Jesus.

The whole point of the study is to be free to live out of who we are.

And in order to do this, one must actually know who he or she is.

In Christ.

So at the beginning of the study there is an entire list of declarations of who I am in Christ that I am supposed to be saying out loud every morning and every evening.

That is the goal. Mostly the three of us are just trying to say them whenever we can and the idea is that eventually the lies in our brains about who we are will be replaced with the truth about who we truly are.

It sounds tedious and simple and self-help-y, I know, but you can’t believe how it actually works. And as with all things spiritual in my life, the messages I am repeating to myself are also popping up in other places.

We have been singing this song for several weeks at church called I Know Who I Am.

The whole song is about being certain of your place as a child of God, belonging, free. When this song was first introduced, it seemed simple and almost trite to me, but now that I have been repeating it for several weeks, it is working its way into my heart and I love to sing it.

I love to declare, again and out loud that I am confident of who I am as a precious child of God. It lifts up my soul.

Also, I am hearing these same messages in a David Crowder Band song that I would not have even found were it not for the need to stay awake driving home from Taos. Taido had the ipod completely loaded with mellow songs and rap music, and so I listened to this one upbeat worship playlist about 14 times, camping on this song that repeats the lyric,

You make everything glorious

You make everything glorious

And I am yours,

So what does that make me?

Again, a declaration that I belong to God and that I have value (even glory) just on the basis of that truth.

When I meditate on that for a while, it overwhelms me. Amazes me. And again, lifts up my soul.

So, like I said, on the way to yoga this morning, I grabbed one phrase from the list of declarations.

My eyes were scanning the now familiar list and trying to just hold onto one in particular to take with me into yoga.

To chant.

So I can focus.

And when my eyes landed on it, i quickly said it a few times and took off, as I was running late.

And it wasn’t until I had chanted it for about half of the class that i realized why I had clutched that specific phrase today.

Of course. Just what I needed for today.

Which is how God works. It is a huge advantage of being all-knowing and all-powerful. He always knows. Always provides.

And as I fell into my mat at the end into shavasana, a place of total surrender.

Open. Vulnerable. Exposed.

But at rest and at peace, I said it again:

I am hidden with Christ in God.

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