Värmland, Sweden

Posted on June 6, 2014 by kayshadawn

You’re going to Sunnemo? Why?!

The Swedish police stopped us on the highway as we zoomed across the country in our Lilla Billen for a spontaneous road trip. He questioned why two young ladies would be heading that direction of all places, as the small town of Sunnemo in Värmland County is not typically known as a drawing destination to our generation.

Josefine explained that her family has a house there and we were going to enjoy it for the weekend. The officer let us move on with a confused and amused expression on his face.

Little did he know what adventurers he had happened upon!

Beauty seekers.

Photo Credit: Josefine Frendin

Our first evening at the lake house we explored every nook and cranny. So much of Josefine’s childhood and family heritage has been safely kept in this place. Treasures! Kaysha Dawn loves a treasure hunt!

Upon finding the canoe, paddles, and life jackets [of course each was locked in a different out-building] we made our way to the river.

Our mission? To find the beavers!

Small fact from Wikipedia: The beaver works as a keystone species in an ecosystem by creating wetlands that are used by many other species. Next to humans, no other animal appears to do more to shape its landscape.

It was still slightly early in the evening for a beaver sighting, being somewhat nocturnal creatures-therefore, we had some time to paddle around, have a picnic dinner on the canoe, and silently follow the river through its windy passageways.

Photo Credit: Josefine Frendin

As we floated on the stillness, munching our pizza picnic, our ears perked up when we caught the motion of a rustling in the reeds–

Beaver? No.

Photo Credit: Josefine Frendin

Out scurried a small bird running on the water full speed ahead!

Maybe I am very easily amused but this was HILARIOUS to us. So we decided to follow the little bird to see if we could get it to run again! We were giddy as children– Again, again! Dance birdie!

Photo Credit: Josefine Frendin

Well that little bird did love to run! He led us out into the open water where the light was gleaming through the breaking clouds in the smoldering skies over us.

Gasp.

I didn’t ask for this. All I wanted to see was a brown, water rodent.

And here– in the middle of Värmland County, we saw Heaven.

In His goodness He brings us to life.

All that we seek after in this world is so small and brown compared to the vastness and the fullness of his HEART for us.

See maybe I’m too quiet for you– you’ve probably never noticed me– But if you’re too big to follow rivers–

How you ever gonna find the sea?

His fullness, His love is so deep that when we experience that love, we are never the same again!

If all you want are answers to your questions– And you can’t seem to find love for free–

If you’re looking for the right direction–

Then darling look for me.

It’s a quiet love. His love. He moves in ways not seen. For His thoughts are higher than my thoughts, His ways higher than my ways.

See I can make the load much lighter; I just need you to confide in me–

But if you’re too proud to follow rivers, how you ever gonna find the sea?

“For as the sky soars high above earth, so the way I work surpasses the way you work, and the way I think is beyond the way you think.

Even as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish—

So will My words go out in love toward you.”

“Yes you’ll go out in joy! — You’ll be led into a whole and complete life. The mountains and hills will lead the parade- bursting with song. All the trees of the forest will join the procession, exuberant with applause.”

–Isaiah 55: 8-12

Song Lyrics (c) Emeli Sande; River

The Vision

Posted on February 21, 2014 by kayshadawn

What’s the vision? What’s the big idea?

The vision is JESUS—obsessively, dangerously, undeniable Jesus.

The vision is an army of young people. You see bones? I see an army.

And they are FREE from materialism.

They laugh at 9-5 little prisons.

They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday.

They wouldn’t even notice.

They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the West was won.

They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations. They need no passport. People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.

They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.

What is the vision?

The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes. It makes children laugh and adults angry. It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars. It scorns the good and strains for the best. It is dangerously pure.

Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation.

It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games.

This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause.

A million times a day its soldiers

choose to lose

that they might one day win

the great ‘Well done’ of faithful sons and daughters.

Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night.

They don’t need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: ‘COME ON!’

And this is the sound of the underground

The whisper of history in the making

Foundations shaking

Revolutionaries dreaming once again

Mystery is scheming in whispers

Conspiracy is breathing…

This is the sound of the underground

And the army is discipl(in)ed.

Young people who beat their bodies into submission.

Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms.

The tattoo on their backs boasts ‘For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.’

Sacrifce fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes.

Winners.

Martyrs.

Who can stop them?

Can hormones hold them back?

Can failure succeed?

Can fear scare them or death kill them?

And the generation prays

like a dying man

with groans beyond talking,

with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and

with great barrow loads of laughter!

Waiting. Watching: 24-7-365.

Whatever it takes they will give:

Breaking the rules.

Shaking mediocrity from its cosy little hide.

Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs,

laughing at labels, fasting essentials.

The advertisers cannot mold them.

Hollywood cannot hold them.

Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties

before the cockerel cries.

They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive inside.

On the outside, They hardly care.

They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide.

Would they surrender their image or their popularity?

They would lay down their very lives–swap seats with the man on death row–guilty as hell.

A throne for an electric chair.

With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days, they pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.

Their DNA chooses Jesus. (He breathes out, they breathe in.)

Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus.

Their words make demons scream in shopping centers.

Don’t you hear them coming?

Herald the weirdos!

Summon the losers and the freaks.

Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes.

They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension.

Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.

And this vision will be. It will come to pass; it will come easily; it will come soon.

How do I know? Because this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God.

My tomorrow is his today.

My distant hope is his 3-D.

And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great “Amen!” from countless angels, from heroes of the faith, from Christ himself. And He is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner.

Guaranteed.

* Peter Greig, Red Moon Rising