Secrets, one year later.

Last year, I had the incredible privilege of being a member of Refined/Undignified, and a year ago we premiered a brand-new show called “Secrets”. In the year since, RU has seen a lot of growth and changes (they now have three teams and multiple new shows), and eight members who I was on team with last year have stepped into a full-time leadership team and continued to perform “Secrets”. Tonight marked the final performance of the original “Secrets”, and it has been such a joy to have seen it from many perspectives; from being a part of it and then seeing the full-time team run with it, continuing to be transparent in exposing their formerly-secret struggles and proclaiming that Jesus conquered all their vices when he conquered the grave. I am so thankful for each of these team members, as well as the others who were in the show initially, and all that have been a part of RU since. God has done incredible things in and through the lives of all on the team, and I am so thankful for these brothers and sisters - a term I do not use loosely - and all that God has freed them from and freed them for. It’s been an incredible year, and I cannot say how thankful I am for it all.

Had a wonderful birthday :)

Very blessed for brothers and friends such as these... It's a bit late, but this was my birthday. Part 2 comes tonight :)

You make beautiful things, you make beautiful things out of us.

I've been putting off blogging for quite a while now.

It's not that there isn't any good stuff going on in my life - in fact, quite the opposite. I am in the season of the biggest joy and most substantial freedom that I have ever experienced, and this wonderful experience and love of life continues to grow deeper and stronger week-by-week, and I am so thankful that the Lord has willed my life in this direction and provided me opportunity to embrace this good and new life.

It's more the fact that what I write on here, while written for friends, can be read by anyone. Do I have a problem with the world knowing that God has given me an incredible, unprecedented (and certainly not temporal) joy? Not at all! I want to shout it from the roof tops. Jesus is alive! I am free! I'm abiding in love! It's incredible.

The reason that I've been reluctant to post is twofold. One is that typically when someone maintains a blog, it is expected that they chronicle the "big events" in their life, and the changing of "seasons"... This season began four or five months ago, and perhaps I was a bit scared that it was too good to be true. And as time went, joy and freedom increased, and the task of justifying this shift to whoever reads my blog became more and more daunting.

The second reason is that I did not come into this joy from a neutral standpoint. I was rescued and brought here from the most difficult period of my life, and to testify to his goodness I was unsure how much I would be required to post of that rough time. That's where the "anyone can read this" nature of blogs began to stifle me. I don't want to even think of how rough a season of life I was in, let alone share it with the masses.

So I think perhaps it is suffice to say that I was terribly lost, God seemed far, and I really had to endure by faith and not by sight, and in his grace and in his timing he rescued me... "he rescued me, because he delighted in me." (Psalm 18:19)

HE IS SO GOOD. And I am so thankful.

You make all things work together for my good.

I am currently sitting in a mobile home in the small town of Fessenden, North Dakota. My good friend Ben is sleeping, but I'm not tired, and I haven't written on here in quite some time. But this trip has been full of my Father's goodness.

First - the reason I'm in North Dakota. Me and Ben were on our road trip back to school, with the plan of arriving in Caronport on Tuesday. We were driving on the highway and I noticed Ben looking down at his feet and at the dashboard. He looked at me - "Matthew, something's wrong." The car's accelerator was stuck, and rising. We were already going about 100 kilometres per hour. Ben thought of simply removing the key, but thankfully he didn't - we later found out that doing so would have locked the steering in place, sending us speeding off the highway. Trying not to panic, we prayed, recalling storied of the Lord intervening in automobile mishaps, and then called a friend's parents who (a) had encountered the problem before, but (b) didn't pick up. Then, the front of the car started spraying out fluid and the brakes still weren't stopping us so we called 911. And they figured out how to make it stop. We stopped just outside a town, thankfully before we ran into any traffic lights. We got picked up by the sheriff, and the first problem, the reason behind the accelerator being stuck, was fixed easily enough.

Then we started up the car to head to the shop to get more fluid. And now the brakes - which had been struggling against the rising accelerator - weren't working at all. But that problem got fixed really easily as well.

But then it turned out the radiator was cracked. So... we've been stuck in the tiny town (ironically, bigger than Caronport) of Fessenden, waiting for the car parts to arrive and be installed, since yesterday, and should be out of here tomorrow. God's been showing his providence throughout: We went to the Motel to see about getting a room for a couple days to find out they were entirely booked up, as was the Motel in the next town over. So the guy working at the desk offers his motor home to us, free of charge, and they snuck in this morning to put ice cream treats in the fridge for us. So this has been some really sweet time of talking and preparing for Caronport, watching Parks and Recreation on Netflix, doing some work on my DL courses, and reflecting on a Summer that has, for me, been so full of healing.

So all this is to say that he is making himself known in situations that previously would have just devastated me, and that even though I haven't blogged, he has over the past two and a half months been setting me free of burdens and struggles that I had long given up on being delivered from this side of eternity. He is faithful, even when we are faithless.

A future and a hope (now more than ever).

Reading Jeremiah, I have reached chapter 29, home of one of the most-quoted verses of all time, Jeremiah 29:11 ("For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future." [NIV]). I've long looked at that verse as affirmation that my Father promises to fulfill good and exciting plans for me. In this season of life, when everything seems to be falling through and I am driven farther and farther away from where I dream of being, I can easily wonder how that verse is relevant. Reading it in the context of the rest of the chapter surrounding it, I see that it is actually incredibly relevant - more relevant and applicable to me now, actually, than before: He promises this hope, this future, to his people who, in his wisdom and sovereignty, has driven into exile. This promise is FOR people who might wonder, as I've wondered, where their God is! I've wondered in these difficult times if Jeremiah 29:11 actually spoke to me in the position I'm in, and now, my thinking is reversed: was he ever speaking that to me more than he is now?

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile."

... through the dark punk rock clubs of one thousand american towns.

A visual aide, to show how much of North America I've traversed - most of this is in the past two years. Actually, I have been in every province from the west coast of BC to the east coast of New Brunswick in 2011 - all but Alberta in the past two months...

Not as fun as it sounds, but hey, it's an experience.

Too bad I spent so much of my time floating around on this continent, when I lose my cheap flights come September.

Where the healing begins.

On 1 AM Wednesday morning, I touched down at YVR for the second time in a month - this time, to stay. I don't know that I've ever had a season so rough as the one I'm in now, and there came a point in this dark, damaging time that I knew I needed to release my grip on all my hopes, plans and dreams for the summer and come "home" - an ambiguous, confusing term, which here refers to British Columbia. My focusing in coming back is to recover, to heal, from what has been the most exhausting, confusing, challenging, frustrating, heartbreaking time of my life. Doors have opened here in BC that were previously closed, and just in time. I am filled with hope and a sense that this is the will of the Lord for me this summer, and while there is a disappointment in letting go of plans and dreams I'd long cherished, there is also such a peace and joy that comes with the confidence that I am walking in the will of the Father (not that I was avoiding his will before - I was earnestly seeking it out, but simply could not see it clearly).

Coming home on Wednesday meant something sweet - I could go downtown for game 7! I've only this past year really started to watch/play/appreciate hockey (in each case, quite casually), but I thought it would be a really cool experience to celebrate what would hopefully be the first Stanley Cup win for the Vancouver Canucks. I really love Vancouver (though, as you can read here, I have wondered at that love and the nature of this city, ever since me and James' formative reading break adventure in November of 2009) and to celebrate with the rest of the province on my first day back seemed an exciting way to kick-off my summer of restoration.

I was horrified and confused, then, at what transpired instead. From where I was watching the game downtown erupted a chaos unlike anything I'd seen - and thankfully, some of which I only saw through media, and not with my own eyes. The Vancouver riots were disgusting, as anyone who has watched CTV or Global in the past few days is well aware of. What started with fires and fist-fights ended up a bloody mess of millions of dollars in destroyed property, four stabbings and one man thrown off the viaduct. People who tried to do good, police and civilians alike, were mobbed and beaten cruelly for their efforts. The VPD fought back with tear gas and rubber bullets. Transit systems were locked down for the most part, and the madness spilled onto the SkyTrain. Being in this chaos, unsure of how to safely get home, was a draining and unforeseen experience that I wish I could un-live.

But the worst part of this was the way that the so-called "small group of criminals" were surrounded by hundreds thousands of cheering supporters. The way that the moral fortitude of those around me caved, and lawlessness and destruction were embraced; it was entertaining, fascinating, even worthy, apparently, of praise and adoration. I couldn't sleep when I got back to Braden's house - the sounds and sights of it all played through my mind at a subconscious level, and the next day, seeing footage on the news of the morally upright being brutally beaten for taking a stand, I felt overwhelmed and nauseated.

Experiencing a trauma was not what I had hoped for on my first day back in BC, but already the Lord is using it to make his goodness known. Following the riots, a time when I was surrounded by so many people embracing godlessness, it was relieving to arrive home and see that the majority of Vancouverites, and people all over, were disgusted with the events as well. Onlookers back home did not find it to be excellent or praiseworthy. The amount of love and support that have poured out, in the amount of people helping clean up downtown, was incredibly heartening to see. The Canucks posted a video on their official site showcasing the clean-up efforts and heralding the beginning of a healing process.

I went downtown today with a friend who had been caught in the riot as well. We looked at boarded-up windows filled with words defying the evil that had overrun the streets a few nights prior; words of anger, yes, but more than that, of hope and love and healing. There was a police car absolutely covered in sticky-notes and letters of gratitude written by civilians. Where hate had made its mark, love spoke up louder. To see something so damaging and seemingly irreversible be redeemed gives me great hope for redemption in my heart this summer, in areas I had thought lost.

It seems to me that for both me and the city I've come home to, this is where the healing begins.