outWORD by Matte Downey

"Do not exchange one bondage for another and mistake it for freedom." That was a phrase that rang through my head at the end of my hour-long walk home from school today. I like walking, especially when the sun is shining, the breeze gently blowing across my path, and I know there is an ice cold Diet Dr. Pepper waiting for me in the refrigerator when I get home. But mostly I like to walk because it is when I dialogue with God. I start things off with a question or comment, and away we go...we discuss issues, we argue about why things are not as they should be, or rather, not as I want them to be, I ask a lot of questions and wonder about a lot of situations, and sometimes I just listen. Often I talk out loud. I have even been known to weep, wail, and groan on occasion when words just did not seem adequate. So today I was asking why something I did that seemed like a good idea at the time with the most noble motivation, turned into an unhealthy obsession. And this phrase ca...

1. Sometimes I get waaaay too serious about things. Enjoy the moment, be it the bug in the window or the ray of sunshine on the chair. 2. If you are hungry or in need, meow, and meow again, and don't stop meowing until the person who has the power to do something about it actually does something about it. 3. Cuddle, get close, lean against, sit on top of, lie stretched out on, and purr for the one you love. 4. Sitting next to someone for an hour just listening is a good way to spend an afternoon. 5. The dark is not a scary place. All you need is a tiny bit of light to see ahead of you. 6. Some things are worth getting up from a nap from, some are not. The secret is to be able to tell the difference. 7. Even though the dish is empty now, there will be food in it at supper time. There always is. 8. Don't get too comfortable in one position, change your perspective often. 9. There is a definite advantage to seeing things from above, get as high as you can. 10. You are responsible ...

I started a small fire in my toaster oven this afternoon. It was no big deal. The flames soon subsided when they ran out of breadcrumbs and the only harm done was that my toast had that outdoorsy flame-broiled smoky taste which I didn't mind at all. It was a contained fire and caused no panic or fear in my life whatsoever. How can the sight of such a powerful force only squeeze a bemused smirk from my face? Because it has not been unleashed. It is safely restricted to a small box and turned on and off at my convenience. It is tame. But fire, real raging fire! Now that's different! When I see that, I grab all my valuables, the two cats, and run! Our God is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12), yet I find myself too often not impressed by his presence. Perhaps this is because I have relegated him to a nice safe distance. He serves a certain purpose, but I do not fall on my face in awe and fear everytime I sense him. Perhaps that is because his nearness is in reality...

Yes. It is a bit of a b*d word in our politically correct but spiritually stupid world. A sure conversation-staller or worse yet, due to a lack of understanding, a topic that can sometimes bring alienatation between good friends or cause even the most hopeful of us to succumb to the sigh and slump of a defeatist attitude. Even in religious circles where we all claim to adhere to the undeniable value inherent in that very thing, I find that we do our best to avoid it at every turn. We want to be successful, comfortable, happy, a wonderful and shining example of how Jesus can make your life so much better, so much fuller. Full of what??!? I will venture to say that anything you have in your life right now that is of any real value came with some measure of s*ffering attached ot it. Think about it for a minute. I am. Marriage. Friendship. Children. Contentment. Healing. Joy. Love. Patience. Progress. Long Hair. Playing music. Writing a book. Peace. Winning a medal. Building a home. Ab...

The cats woke me up at 5 am to remind me that breakfast was a mere 4 hours away and I must be sure not to miss this important event. There is something to be said for hunger...it is a persistent master. Imagine your life without any pangs of emptiness to remind you to eat and no parched throat to make you reach for that glass of water. Come to think of it, what if there were no yawns and droopy eyelids to urge you to sleep, no bloated bladder to rush you to the bathroom for relief, no shivers and chills to ensure you put on a jacket and boots in winter, and no sharp pain to make you pull your hand away from the fire. All these sensations, some of them not the most pleasant, serve their purpose...to keep the body whole, healthy, functioning, growing, and alive. I am forgetful. I forget to pray, I forget to make an effort to be kind, I forget to be thankful, I forget to repent, I forget to ask for miracles, and most often, I forget that God is really, really, truly in cont...

I have been dealing with a frozen shoulder over the last year. It is not a pleasant condition, for your body just refuses to move in perfectly normal ways for its own undisclosed reasons. After much prayer, six months of treatment, determination, and continuing exercise, it started to move again. Thankfully, the only problem I have had in the past few months has been occasional stiffness which is relatively easy to work out. The word I heard often in my discussions with my osteopath was ‘compensating.’ My body had been through some injury and overuse (which we were never able to pinpoint) and legitimately compensated for the inflammation by limiting movement in the affected joint. However, it got stuck in that coping mode, mistaking it for the new ‘normal’, and by its stubborn refusal to move, spread its atrophy and twisted way of doing things down into my ribcage. The chain reaction of coping and compensating became an immobilizing disability that tried to redefine how my bo...

It is more than a wish. It is stronger than a desire or longing. It draws my soul to things greater than myself and my small existence and dares to dream bigger than life. Hope does not get tired of the wait or disappointed at the current state of things. Hope makes you turn your eyes from the ground where you are plodding to the sky where you want to be flying. Where do you go to get hope? I can't pull it up from within me, I must ask God for it. But it is a gift that requires discipline to maintain. So what kind of day is today? Is it a day where I partake of the gift of hope as I sense it in abundance around me, or is it a day when I must fight to keep it alive? Whether is it easy or hard is not the point. Is it right, is it true, is it honorable, is it loving, is it worth it? Then just do it. Don't give up!

This has been an interesting season for me. In the last four months my identity has shifted somewhat as I have endeavoured to get back to the person God had in mind when he created me. Somewhere along the way I managed to deviate from that true and simple path – it happens to the best of us. We encounter people who reject us, situations that disappoint us, and dreams that seem inappropriate and unattainable when we look at our present state or surroundings. So we adjust, and add, and subtract, and tweak and finally come up with a way of living that will allow us to function reasonably well with minimum discomfort and only the occasional twinge of guilt. But, thank God, he was not willing to let me stay in my carefully constructed lifestyle adapted to fit the demands of the world. Instead, he challenged me to cultivate the high calling of being a child made in the image of God and to live by the principles of the kingdom of heaven instead of earth. One of the side effects of th...