Monday, November 30, 2009

# 4 What is Beauty?

I'm smitten with the idea of beauty.  Today I was leaving the gym and I had just opened the door of my car when suddenly the sweetest beeze blew over me.  I was stunned.  I breathed in the sweet air-- it was like candy, this breeze.  Cool and wonderful.  I stood there, head back, hair flying, and allowed myself to simply feel the air.  I may have looked kind of silly, but when I straightened up I noticed a couple of people a few cars away watching me, and then they threw their heads back, too, breathing in the air. I'm telling you, this breeze was so delicious, it was like being kissed all over by God.   To me it's not the big things in life that thrill me as much as the small moments of beauty-- rare and wondrous,  a simple breeze after a hard workout-- a kiss from God.

What are your moments of beauty?  

Friday, November 27, 2009

#4 Heavensent Friday

How do you define beauty?  A couple of weeks ago  I had my college Creative Writing class read a piece about watching a stunt pilot fly his plane by author Annie Dillard.  She wrote,  "I had thought I knew my way around beauty a little bit, I knew I had devoted a good part of my life to it... " but watching Dave Rahm's performance in the air changed all she had known about beauty.  She wrote, "Even the Boston Museum of fine Arts was never more inspiring ..."

I was captivated by her sentence, "I had thought I knew my way around beauty..."   
It wasn't so much Dillard's artful descriptions of the stunt pilot's performance that captured my attention as the idea of beauty-- of learning something new about beautySo I asked my class this provocative question:  I said,  "What are you learning new about beauty today?"  Their mouths flopped open, eyes bulged. "Hunh?"

So now I'm asking the same question of you.  What are you learning new about beauty today?  Will you go on this journey with me?  Send me what you're learning about beauty.  Tell me what beauty means to you.  (Notice I'm not using the word "beautiful" which is an adjective--  I'm talking about the real-life in-the-moment- experience of the noun, beauty.)  Okay, I'm waiting to hear from you.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

#3 Heaven-sent

Amazing, isn't it?-- how we can come to a day of Thanksgiving with more trepidation that enthusiasm?  I teach in a college where my students speak of Thanksgiving as an obligatory drudgery.  And today I talked to Christians who are worried and stress-ridden about sharing the day with non-believers.  OhOh, Beloved, when do we get to be happy?  When do we get to have fun?  When do we get to lay down the burdens of wrestling with a negative world? 

Something has happened to me since I was in the Chicago and Wisconsin area a few weeks ago ministering-it's a sort of inner wha-hoo thing--  and I've been recording new brief meditations all about it which I'll share with you... called RadioMarie ...   What a glorious thing the love of God is.  (Please stay with me on my website http://www.mariechapian.com/ -- )
Listen, whoever you are, enjoy this year's Thanksgiving.  I've spent a few of them alone separated from anything that remotely smacks of love or family (those things we associate with the Holidays)--  and I've also spent some of them with people I don't know-- ah, here's a question for you.  Which would you choose?  To be alone or to be with people who don't care about you?
My point is, we create our own Thanksgiving.  I hurl myself before the King of Kings in the utmost gratitude and thankfulness for His love, His goodness, His sweet, sweet Presence--   There is nothing on this earth as happy as celebrating all things with the Lord.  Happy Thanksgiving.   And I mean it.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

#2 Heaven-sent just for you

A sweet touch of heaven is coming upon us now as you and I pause and  breathe in the presence of God.

If you've lost loved ones who are now in heaven, as I have, join me and access a reality bigger than ourselves by breathing in the loving atmosphere of heaven.   I pause for a moment and speak a word of truth such as "Perfect love casts out fear" (1John 4:18) and then I allow those words to penetrate every cell of me -- I speak the words, "perfect love--"  (not flimsy-flighty love, not transient love, not false or empty love-- but perfect love -- God's love) -- into every cell.  I breathe in those 4 words, the thought they contain, the idea, and the wild, happy knowledge of the Lord's perfect love for me (and for you) --  I know I am a part of something so enormous, so astonishingly beautiful that every twinge of fear falls from me.  I am breathing in the safety of heaven.  I am breathing in the living presence of God.  I am making my reality under the shadow of the Almighty-- I am living in the secret place of the Most High.
Do you receive my e-Prophetic Word?  You can email me at wordforyou@mariechapian.com to receive it if you like.  That's where the Lord Jesus speaks to us prophetically.  I have decided to blog here on this website so I can speak and share with you from my heart  personally-- be a bit more transparent.
Here's my verse for today-- its the first part of the one above:  1John 4:18-- "There is no fear in love ..."

Monday, November 23, 2009

My first Heaven-sent blog

I've decided to move my blog from my website so that I can post as often as I want.   This will be a new experience and I hope you'll join me on this adventure as I blog heaven-sent words.  (You'll be hearing from me more than once every month or so. ) 

 I've just finished writing my novel, AN ORDINARY DAY IN HEAVEN, (now in the hands of my agent-- so it hasn't found its publishing home yet) -- I'm filled with so much of heaven's realities I feel somewhat like a  stuffed potato.  Is that a good analogy?  Oozing information like melted cheese and chives on a  baked potato?  I should be able to do better than that.  Oh well, you get the idea. 

Here's a heaven-sent word just for you. 

Psalm 14:2 says that God is looking down from heaven on all of us to see if there are any who understand, who are truly seeking Him.  Here in the U. S. we are just on the cusp of our Thanksgving Day, which heralds the beginning of the Christmas season--  and God is busy looking to see who truly seek Him.  His eyes are in every place, according to Proverbs 15:3, keeping watch on the good as well as the evil. 

I want to tell you there is a place of great beauty that you alone are called to live in here on this earth.  It's a place of quiet knowing, of confidence and faith.  You are a person of many colors, vibrant and wonderful.  Heaven knows about you.  Angels are cheering you on.  God is answering your prayers.  Hang on.
http://www.mariechapian.com/