TAKE 10: MADE TO REIGN

Posted on by fionastauch
I can’t balance.
Seriously, if my mum was still alive, I’d ask her a bunch of things, but this first: was I an inert blob my first 6 months, when this part of me was meant to develop? What came easy to others, didn’t to me. One twirl would leave me nauseous. Handstand comps were a joke, and I was often first out in jump rope games. But how deep my defect ran came only to light when best friend Lucia enthused, “Fi, “let’s go ice skating!”
Well.
It started innocently enough.
Everyone whizzing perfectly. Past me.
Me clinging to the barrier, legs (increasingly) splayed.
With the enthusiasm of the naive (“A few times round and you’ll get it!”) Lucia unplied my death grip, hoisting me upright. The memory has thankfully dimmed (a few flashbacks forever etched – Lu and me in slo-mo wipe out…. Lu and me spread eagled across the ice…… blade flash 1 millimetre from Lu’s fingertips).
After her near amputation she relented. I was planted firmly back on terra firma; wordlessly declared beyond saving.
 
Fast-forward 15 years and hubby, who skied weekly growing up in Switzerland, proposes an Alps getaway.
Skis vs blades – broader. Snow vs ice – softer. Visions of us slaloming romantically down slopes of virgin snow.
Well.
I spent the first 2 days face planting the nursery slopes, whilst kids skied past me with DUMMIES in their mouths. Resolute, I continued, fast becoming the local attraction as I re-enacted multiple variations of yoga’s Legs Up the Wall pose, skis inevitably heavenward. By day 3, even my ski instructor was sighing heavily. Also, heavenward. I remember taking a breather after a rapid -fire succession of even -for – me, epic wipe outs. The usual tribe of dummy suckers skied past. Hot on their heels, a glorious group of wish- I -wasn’t- married-yet-specimens, bound for the Black Diamond Run.
Sigh Derriere. I sighed. Would I stay or would I go.
Black slope Rockstar vs Nursery slope laughingstock. Longing trumped (almost actual) loss of face. I stayed.
 
As I write my Beagle is lying on his back in a sunspot, paws up. Doggy heaven. Aside from some bird chasing and good grub, it’s enough for him.Not us. We long to become more. The nursery slope niggle. Sometimes we get there, right? Maybe not the black slopes. Nor the red, okay flip, not even the blue. (On day 4, I gave up and went shopping.) But we achieve stuff. We become. We overcome.
 
If you stopped anyone in the street, and asked them the meaning of life, my guess is you’d pretty much come up even between (bar the cynics and realists), ‘BE MY BEST ME’ and ‘BE HAPPY’.
God’s take? LET THEM REIGN.
Those are His actual words about us.
He says them a lot.
 
Derriere, question. Do you find it hard figuring out what God’s on about half the time?
It’s to be expected, I suppose. What a let-down if He said stuff like, ‘Be nice to grannies and give your brother the spare biscuit.’ The mind of God should be a brain fuse. You know those magic window books where you pull the tab, and the sketched outline fills with colour, completing the picture…. I think His words are meant to do that.
Transform me. Explode me with life.
 
Let’s face it, if I’m made to reign, something’s seriously out of whack. (Not only, I mean, have you seen some of the locals at the Pinelands mall?) The other day, my high was frying flies with my Zap ‘Em racquet. Comatose hubby roused himself long enough to watch me, face mud masqued, serve up a deadly backhand to an unsuspecting Musca Domestica. “Mum should have her own reality TV show, we’d all be millionaires”, he chuckled, before nodding off again. Plus, it sounds psycho. And I don’t like sounding psycho.
 
What’s He on about?
Context is king. If my friend’s helping me lay the dinner table, and I say to her, “Can you grab my jugs?”, it means something very different than if I said the same thing to a handsome stranger sitting next to me on the bus.
Without His perspective, Jesus just sounds like a weirdo in a onesie. I mean, imagine walking around the grocery store saying to people, “My kingdom is not of this world, the time is now fulfilled.” Go directly to Cuckoo land. Do not pass GO. Do not collect 200.
 
But He changed things. It wasn’t just talk. His words and actions were born out of seeing a greater reality- a place of no brokenness, justice, ultimate power – and His plan to bring that perfect beauty to earth. . It’s in Him that the kingdom of God came. He healed (serious stuff). Raised (really) dead people. Restored the broken-hearted. It’s in Him the world was saved and the glory of God was revealed.
Help me see like you do Jesus.
 
There’s a sign on my kitchen wall, “The Queen never bargains”. I’ll admit, I’ve got a touch of Devil Wears Prada going on -my nature comes out in how I mother.
God’s nature also comes out in how He does stuff.
And discovering His nature is a bit like watching a firework display. First explosion…. AAH…. second … EPICNESS…. then a 3-way spike explodes centre sky: BAM BAM BAM. He unfolds His inner life for us. Father. Son. Holy Spirit. And you’re just getting your head round something – OK GOT IT – and the fireworks are off again. Wow. Oh WOW.
And, one of those reveals is that (unlike me) God shares His power. Devil wears Prada. God wears Other.
“As the Father sent me, so I send you.” Gulp.
 
Once in the Ukraine I was speaking to a pastor who had adopted a street kid. His son began to copy him in everything he did. If the pastor held his fork a certain way, so did his son. The pastor laughed telling me, that even when he spat, his son spat.
Copy Me.
As Me, you.
This is how His glory will be revealed in the world. In the flesh – first through His Son- and then through His sons and daughters.
 
Amidst all the madness, sadness, busyness…help me see like you do Jesus.
My purpose is THE purpose. I look up and remember.
His kingdom here, as is in heaven .
I kneel at His feet and am filled again with all that is mine in Him.
Let that spill out of me.
A love that gives itself up to make the unloved, lovely. A truth that is the foundation and clarifier for all of life. Beauty. Justice. A power that raises the dead and gives sight to the blind. That frees me from myself.
 
How? Where?
However. Wherever.
I love it when Isaiah overhears God asking, “Who will go for me?” The call was for everyone. Isaiah, listening, answers, “Here am I, send me!”
Lord help me speak the language of your kingdom, the hope of the world.
Here I am to adopt.
Here I am to fight for justice.
Here I am to speak your truth.
Here I am to give my life, so others may have life.
 
Back you Derriere.
It’s who you are. A kingdom bringer.
It’s what He made you for.
Reign Derriere.
Please do. Please help save the world.

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