Jordan Stones Blog

This is a precious letter Ann Voscamp writes to our daughters.  Lord, help us to love them better.  Lord, be their fortress.  Be their wisdom.  Be their shape. Be their song. Be their motor. Be their Love. Here's the link: A Letter For All the Worlds Daughters

When the environment gets heavy…so many people with so much hurt…when the veil is peeled back and I am unavoidably aware of the trouble and heart-ache this side of heaven affords us… I feel I have to re-focus on eternal.  That is where I find hope.  I need to see past what is in front of me, what I see in black and white, in flesh and blood.  Sharpen my spiritual eyesight and hearing.  Examining through that God-cleaned lens external evidence in circumstance that would tear at my hope—at my confidence that He is good.  He sees, He loves, He cares, He does. Alchemy.  Its definition:  any "magical"  (a.k.a.  Divine) power or process of transmuting a common substance, usually of little value, into a substance of great value.  I bend in to see and hear differently; transmuting despair into hope and blessing. 1 Corinthians 15: 50-57 (Amplified Bible...

Painting pictures of Egypt— by Sara Groves These lyrics are so weighty—I  get all hung up on them like a tar baby when I hear this song.  It is such a fantastic metaphor of psychological and spiritual inertia. How there is a strong gravity magnetizing us to old patterns, a self that is not evolving, a spirit that is not fed. How we so keenly know where we are isn’t enough, isn’t where we need to end up.  But it peculiarly feels easier to stay where things don’t change... I don’t want to leave here I don’t want to stay It feels like pinching to me either way The places I long for the most Are the places where I’ve been They are calling after me like a long lost friend It’s not about losing faith It’s not about trust It’s all about comfortable When you move so much The place I was wasn’t perfect But I had found a way to live It wasn’t milk or honey But then neither is this CHORUS: I’ve been painting pictures of Egypt Leaving out what it lacked...

The idea of self care, self governing, is making self well from the capital “N” Nutrients that fill us up authentically. As a collective human condition, we are all over the map from rigid to lavish as we approach self care.  The middle ground is fertile with “Nutrients” that grow pure parts of our nature and identity. We feel the most like ourselves, the most pure, when we swallow this fuel.  Our “territory”—the plod over which we were given authority from the King Himself.  We have an essential charge over the goings-on in this territory He marked off for us. It reminds me of the metaphor of our God who graciously gives us territory to tend, “talents” to invest, an inheritance to claim…as a Lord in medieval times entered a covenant with a vassal and bestowed a plot of land in exchange for homage and loyalty.  Feudalism defined in medieval times the governing force over territory.  It was a relational and practical bond between a lord and a vassal.  So...

There is a continuum we are all somewhere on.  On one side, there is a militant, critical, rigid, over-ruled economy.  On the other end, we find a lack of boundaries, over lavish, over indulgent, “What’s one more?”, “Go for it—you deserve it!” So curious is the power this mental environment has over wellbeing. What needs to be keen to our senses is that Love and Care defined is found in the center of that bell curve with lavish on one end and rigid on the other. So remarkable is the reflection of upbringing on this mental contour that we bend toward. Considering that time ago when you were new and youthful, does you internal climate reflect a similar slant that is familiar from your upbringing? Or maybe you have crafted a mental environment in reaction to an approach in your childhood that you want to move away from—the antithesis? Lord, help me to govern myself with balance: grace and order.  Wake me up and help me to smell the fragrance that is sweet when I tune in and...

There is a bareness and a clarity that is inherent in this newness of year. A bit more order and routine emerges from the bedlam. And we are left with room. And a bit of weight.  The weight of the things I know my heart needs to change. And I bear the fear that it might not change. Again. As I take in this devotional, Ann Voskamp ( www.aholyexperience.com ) makes me think. After she mentions how we wear our routine behaviors, I keep thinking.  Like a nun wears her "habit" so we wear our customs, our rhythms, our patterns. We dress ourselves.  We trend toward an appearance We express ourselves and are experienced by others by those behaviors we create a trend from.  Not so much the outliers.  The habits. So, little by little the adage comes true..."we will soon be what we are now becoming"... I have to keep my heart wired in straight around this or I move toward doom and gloom and panic. “ I have got to change this! Repattern that! Determine to do it diff...

As I start to recalibrate for a new year, I am so thankful for the fresh start.  God, in the journey this year will be thank you for the description of Your Way as a highway.  It is open and nourishing, progressing toward spirit and depth that are the only things that will make me “ me ” in the face of troubles and trials.  Thank you that it is not a way that holds worry, confusion, wrong turns, mistakes. I don ’ t have to make every step correctly. I don ’ t have to turn left or right or make sense out of directions.  Despite “ external evidence ” in the landscape of my surroundings, it is a path that is safe. Untouchable from things that would decay.   I see a picture in my mind's eye of an aquarium, where there is a moving sidewalk under a tunnel of clear glass, a strong bubble protecting me from the sharks and harm on the other side. I am free to observe and move past without fear of injury. I see them, and I know they desire to harm m...