The Hallway to Grace

On the way to work I was on the freeway and this arrogant guy cut me off. He came onto the freeway and cut across like four lanes and cut right in front of me. Then he pulled over into another lane and sped off as quick as lightning. Had to be some young jerk who thought he owned the road.

After work I was headed to get Jake from school and the car in front of me was going a good 15 miles an hour slower than the rest of traffic. Totally oblivious to the flow of traffic, the woman just drove at her own pace without any regard for the rest of us on the freeway. She had to have been too old to have had any business driving on the freeway. She was undoubtedly a menace- to herself and the rest of us.

But wait.

What if the guy in the morning was a young father who just got a call from his wife that their baby was sick? His wife was in a panic, the little one was having trouble breathing and she was begging him to meet her at the hospital right away.

And the woman. What if her car started to make a funny rattle just as she pulled onto the freeway. Elderly and frightened, she didn't want to get stuck on the freeway alone, so she was driving as slowly and carefully as possible just trying to get to the next exit, praying all the way.

The truth is, we don't know. But for me at least, my inclination is too often to assume the worst. I look at what I see on the surface, and I make assumptions like I shared in the initial descriptions of these common scenarios.

What about when these "freeway-type scenarios" happen in every day life? Maybe it's not in your car that you feel cut-off or disregarded, but rather in your "merging moments" in life. A friend cuts the conversation short when you call? A casual acquaintance doesn't acknowledge you when you cross paths in the grocery store. Someone passes you in the hall at church and doesn't say hello. Which direction do you go as you read into the situation?

Have your actions or intentions ever been misunderstood? Have you ever been denied the benefit of the doubt? It's not a very good feeling. I know how that feels, and yet I find myself so often guilty of denying others the same as well.

Is it a courtesy? A gift? I know for me, I hold onto it like a treasure. The truth is, I find it difficult to offer it to most. It's easier with strangers, or people I don't know well than it is with people I do. Why? What is it that makes us (me?) experts on others that causes me to hold back the benefit of the doubt. Why is the inclination to the negative?

Maybe it actually is deserving. Maybe often, even most often, people don't really deserve the benefit of the doubt. But you know what I have begun to realize? When I hold back the benefit of the doubt, I not only potentially harm the other person, but I harm myself as well. When I hold back the benefit of the doubt, it's as though I am shutting the door to grace.

I want to be a woman of grace. Someone once spoke a word of prophecy over me about "a posture of grace," and it has stuck with me, mostly because I know I'm not there yet. I want to be, but I'm not. But perhaps the "benefit of the doubt" is the key that opens the first door to a hallway that actually ends with me becoming a woman of grace.

This I know, there is far more freedom in assuming the best about others. Too often when I take hold of and dwell on a perceived offense, I weigh myself down just as much, if not more, than I attach a weight to the other person.

I know there's a risk. Assuming the best about others and giving people the benefit of the doubt- the treasure of it- opens the door to getting hurt, or being made a fool of. But it's a risk worth taking, because it's a choice of not only grace, but of love.

I do believe the hallway to being a woman of grace is long; and there are probably dozens of doorways along the way that will try to distract and deter me from the destination, but it's a start, and the key that opens the door to this path is simple- don't be so quick to judge, so quick to assume, so quick to decide- but rather, leave room for the grace, and in a loving way, CHOOSE to give others the treasure, the benefit of the doubt.

Maybe this post was just a good reminder for me, but maybe not.

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us hold on to grace. By it, we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.
Hebrews 12:28-29

The Thing About Bitterness

I remember being in 6th grade when we were learning about the 5 senses and we sat outside focusing on the sense of taste. Our teacher pulled out pieces of chocolate and gave us each one. Perhaps you don't know this, but you taste different things with different parts of your tongue. Our teacher told us to hold the chocolate and wait, not to take a bite, but only to lick it with the tip of our tongue. The tip of the tongue tastes "salty and sweet" but when I licked the chocolate I tasted nothing.

There is always at least one person in a group who can't follow directions, and even in the group there was a child who wasn't satisfied with their tasteless lick of the enticing chocolate we'd been given, and sure enough, one of the kids popped the whole piece into his mouth and bit down. When the chocolate touched the back of his tongue, the reaction was swift, and violent. He spat the chocolate out and began to cough and gag. We'd been fooled, because this wasn't Hershey's we'd been given but rather bakers' chocolate, which is unsweetened and bitter. Have you ever bitten into something bitter? It gags you. Your whole body recoils, fighting to expel what has offended it.

This morning I woke up depressed. My heart literally felt heavy in my chest. By no other explanation than revelation of the Holy Spirit, I can tell you, I knew exactly what was wrong with me. I could not deny it. As I was driving my kids to school and they were chattering in the backseat, I was having a private conversation with the Lord in my mind. "God," I said, "I'm bitter." There was no mistaking the "taste" in my soul.

As the kids kept talking, I was quietly praying and lamenting to the Lord. I recognized immediately that there is a root running deep inside that is strangling the life out of me. As much as I want to be free of the bitterness, I can't seem to free myself of it. A psalm of lament began to form in my heart to the Lord. (You can read it on my creative writing blog by clicking here.)

When I got to school I found a message in my phone from a newer friend. She sent me a link that spoke right to the prayer I was struggling through with the God. She had no way of knowing my thoughts, my battle, or of the depression I was fighting this morning, but God chose her as a vessel to pour His love and encouragement into my life. God had impressed it upon her to share something with me, and there was no coincidence to it, it was without question a God-incidence. As much as I would like to just move past this battle with bitterness, the word of encouragement was quite simply, that now is the hard part. Recognizing the need for the break in relationship was difficult, breaking relationship was really hard, but it's now, the healing and restoration of "after" that is hardest of all.

Until this past October, we had a very large tree in our front yard. I remember when my father planted it when I was just a little girl. It was so thin and weak it had to be tied to a post to withstand the Santa Ana winds. But by the time Neal and I bought the house from my parents, it was very large. Over the next 20 years, it became Neal's nemesis. It got too big for the space that contained it, and it began to wreak havoc on our home. It lifted our driveway, and killed all the grass in the small yard around it (you can click here to see pictures in an old unrelated post.) Neal has been pushing for years for the removal of the tree and this past fall, we finally did it. Neal was overjoyed.

The process was unnerving, huge dangerous chunks of lumber coming crashing down as the tree was dismantled piece by piece. Finally, it was leveled down just above the ground when the "tree guy" told us to go into the house while he ground away the stump. From inside we listened and he battled to level it to the ground. Big chunks of wood battering the front of our house. When he knocked on the door he assured us he's gotten the job done. We looked at the yard covered in wood shavings, and laughed about how it looked like we should have our own pumpkin patch, and thanked the man as we sent him with our money on his way.

It was over the next few days and weeks as the shavings were slowly cleaned away that the reality was revealed. As much as the man had promised us that it was as if the tree had never been there, it wasn't the case at all. The tree was gone, but the root system was very much intact. From out in the street you see a huge difference in our yard- the house no longer obscured by the giant tree, but when you step around the hedge, it's obvious, the yard itself is still far from restored. I snapped this picture as I left to take the kids to school, the living metaphor of this tree not at all lost on me.

My husband and younger son have now spent months trying to deal with this eyesore. Day after day the two of them are outside hacking away at this root system with an ax. On a Sunday morning in December we discovered a leak and had to spend several thousand dollars on rerouting our pipe system, because even after the tree was gone, the roots had busted through our pipes. When I got our water bill a few days ago, I discovered that it was nearly three times what it had been in the previous billing cycle. I have no idea how long the slow leak had been going on, but clearly removing the tree alone was not the solution to our problem.

Likewise break in relationship has not been sufficient in solving the problem of hurt and offense in my soul. Even upon removing the "eyesore," the root system has to be dealt with. And the process is not going to be near as "easy" as dismantling the tree. the root system of offense and bitterness in my soul runs and tangles in places I cannot see, nor can I fully comprehend. And like my husband who grows weary hacking away at the ground tree trunk with an ax, I too am weary at the bitterness that lingers just above the surface of my life.

It's important that it is said, I do not wish to hold on to the bitterness I am battling. Constantly I am striving against my flesh that, like the ground around our tree, tries to hold and hide the roots so they will remain untouched, still powerful, still wreaking havoc. I feel stuck, and I am begging the Lord to hack away and pull up the roots that are leaking the life out of me. But it is not a simple process.

Thankfully, unlike my poor husband and son, God can see the pattern of my root of bitterness and I am actually quite confident that He knows exactly what He's doing in the removal process. Ad unlike Neal's surprise when he discovered the leak, God is fully aware of the "damage" we are contending with. I am also confident of this, God does not just yank the root out because that too could be damaging. The removal needs to be careful and precise, and so in His mercy, the process is slow, albeit it painful and difficult. And unlike the tree roots which may never be fully dealt with, I believe with God's help, my hurt and bitterness can.

If nothing else, I am learning the importance of being careful about what I plant in my heart in the future. If my parents had known what destruction the tree would eventually cause, I am certain they never would have planted it. Likewise, I would have dealt with hurts and offenses much differently as they were happening if I had realized what a bitter root was being sown. There were times I tried to handle things in a biblical manner, but to no avail. But there was more that could have been done in me and I never would the enemy have been given such a foothold in my life. I know this, I will be far more careful as I move forward into my future.

"If you stay free from offense you will stay in God's will. If you become offended you will be taken captive by the enemy to fulfill his own purpose and will. Take your pick. It is much more beneficial to stay free from offense. We must remember that nothing can come against us without the Lord's knowledge of it before it happens. If the devil could destroy us at will, he would have wiped us out a long time ago because he hates man with a passion."
- John Bevere
The Bait of Satan: Living Free from the Deadly Trap of Offense

Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled...
Hebrews 12:14-15

Skiing the Mount - Micah 6:8

Sometimes I wish there was a "red phone" like I remember in old cartoons and movies, where if it rang, it meant it was "THE" call you had been waiting for, the answer you needed. But there is no red phone on the path of this walk of faith, because by definition faith has an element of the unknown. Believing in what we SEE isn't faith at all. It's the confidence in the unseen that is what our faith is made of.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen.
Hebrews 11:1

My journals are full of questions, me asking the Lord for answers and direction. Last year I found myself asking the Lord over and over what He wanted from me, what He required of me, and over and over again, the same scripture would come into my mind. It's probably written in last year's journals at least two dozen times:

He has shown you, O man, what is good;
And what does the LORD require of you
But to do justly,
To love mercy,
And to walk humbly with your God?
Micah 6:8

So simple and yet so challenging. They're all twisted together. And though simply stated, they are not the easiest commands to walk out.

Doing justly is perhaps, in a way, the step I struggle the least with. I see the world in a very black and white way, right is right and wrong is wrong. I think "shades of gray" are over stated. But there in my "doing justly" I have already begun to stumble in both "loving mercy" and "walking humbly." Because when you are "doing right," or perhaps I should say when I am "doing right," I look around and think to myself how that ought to be the case for everyone else as well. And I even begin to look highly on myself for my doing, and the walking with humility has gone completely by the way side. I've slipped down the slope already.

I was reading Romans 14 the other day, and I had an a-ha moment:

So then, we must pursue what promotes peace and what builds up one another. Do not tear down God’s work because of food. Everything is clean, but it is wrong for a man to cause stumbling by what he eats. It is a noble thing not to eat meat, or drink wine, or do anything that makes your brother stumble. Do you have a conviction? Keep it to yourself before God. The man who does not condemn himself by what he approves is blessed. But whoever doubts stands condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from a conviction,and everything that is not from a conviction is sin.
Romans 14:19-23

There's a truth here about doing justly. I can only define with certainty what "doing justly" means for myself, I cannot not be certain of what it means for another. But if God places a conviction in my heart, then I must be obedient to it, if I do not, then I am guilty of sin.

Now mind you, I am NOT expanding shades of gray. Much of life is STILL very black and white. Sin IS sin, even if not all conviction is conviction. For example, my husband and I don't drink alcohol, at all, ever. It's our conviction that drinking alcohol is wrong. For us it is. But we know many other Christians who do not hold our conviction. They like a bottle of wine with dinner, or a beer after work, not drinking is not their conviction. It doesn't make us better Christians (which is actually impossible to be.) Drinking may be defined by conviction, but getting drunk on the other hand is not. The Bible states VERY clearly, DO NOT GET DRUNK. So getting drunk is a sin for all.

I also find myself often struggling with mercy. I like to see people get what they deserve. Yes, I said it. I am a "justice minded" person, and when I see someone continuing in sin. If I found out (hypothetically) that someone who was getting drunk regularly was going to jail for drunk and disorderly or for a DUI, mercy would not be my first inclination, my thought would be "Well, GOOD. Now perhaps they will wake up/ wise up/ sober up and make better choices." That isn't merciful. And I would struggle with the situation if someone got off with a slap on the hand or a warning, I would not find myself loving mercy. But God says I should. And again, when I don't, I am NOT walking humbly with my God.

I am a work in process (as we all are,) and I am trying so hard to find the manner in which to walk this Truth out. Recently the Lord reminded me that if there is mercy for me, there must be mercy for all. When I demand justice, I make myself subject to it as well. If I want others to get "exactly what they deserve" when they wrong me, or someone I love, I have to ask myself, "am I willing to get exactly what I deserve?" Or would I prefer to live under the grace and mercy that I've personally traded for justice. If it's good for me, it has to be good for others as well.

This scripture, like so many is simply stated. It's beautiful and clear and its purpose is evident. It's like strapping on a set of skis. I look at them, I know how they work, I have seen others ski and I mentally "get" what I need to do, but when I put the, on for myself I stumble, struggle, fall down and fail. It is awkward and difficult. There is nothing "natural" about it. So what do you do? You keep getting up, and doing it over again and again and again, until what you mentally understand that you need to do becomes natural to do. It won't be perfect, there will always be falls, and you have to watch out for the obstacles and terrain that make it more difficult, but the more you do it, the easier it becomes.

That's where I am, trying to learn how to ski this simple mountain, that really isn't so simple at all. Mount Micah - here I come... again. Maybe I won't fall down so many times today.

Intimate God

How do you picture God?

Do you imagine Him far off and distant? Uninterested in your daily life? Do you picture Him as the the Great Disciplinarian? Watching over you angrily, waiting for you to make a mistake so He can being down His holy hammer and punish you? Think a moment about that one. When something goes wrong, do you immediately assume it's because He is displeased with you? The car breaks down because you forgot to write your tithe check? Sickness comes because you aren't faithful enough in your prayers?

Maybe you think He isn't interested in the little details of your life. He's too busy concerning Himself with war and famine and "important issues" to pay any mind to what concerns you. Hard hearted and official? Like a bean counter for eternity, a naughty and nice list for heaven? How do you see Him?

When my oldest child was a toddler I used to pray about how to make God real to my son. One of the things I find hardest as a parent is passing on the "reality" of faith, the tangible sense of knowing God. Jacob used to carry around this little green frog with him. It was not bigger than a quarter, and he LOVED it. Needless to say, it was easily misplaced. One day Jake was beside himself after having lost it. The "thought" occurred to me, we should pray to find it. So we did. He stood before me as I sat on the couch and we bowed our heads and prayed together, he asked God to help him find his "froggie." After our "Amens" I lifted my head and looked across the room. I saw a glint of green that caught my eye. I walked across the room and found the frog wedged between our other couch and the end table. Froggie was added to the list, he "once was lost and now was found."

Sincerely though, it was a beginning, God revealed Himself not only to Jacob but to me. He cared enough about Jake's little heart to help us find it. Not because it was important, but because it mattered to Jake. And Jake matters to God. In the sixteen some years since then, we've prayed for many lost things. Just last year we went over to a friend's house and found her keys for her after they had been missing for a day and a half. We drove over and found them literally within minutes. I believe the lesson for me was if I would listen, God would lead.

That's an important lesson, and one God simplified in little things, so that I would have confidence to listen to Him in bigger and much more difficult tasks. I could dismiss the "still small voice" or I could train myself to listen, and learn to respond in faith.

That's how this blog was started. After a very difficult season of not being able to serve in my gifts, I was hurting and frustrated, and crying out before the Lord. It was alone in a hotel room at a women's retreat that I heard Him whisper, "write." Then He spoke to the heart of a trusted friend who knew nothing of what I had thought I'd heard, and praying for me, she felt she heard God encourage her to exhort me to "blog." It was a confirmation, and it was the direction I asked for, because when God said, "write," I asked "write what?" He answered.

Does that sound nuts to you? It shouldn't. The Bible says, My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. (John 10:27) The Lord still speaks. He told us to follow Him,and so He leads. The Holy Spirit lives INSIDE of believers! I don't believe He lives there silently. In fact I wonder how often the still small voice goes unnoticed.

I've noticed alot lately how noisy and busy life has become these days. "Still" and "quiet" are words that only describe the dead these days. TV's, iPods, laptops, smart phones- often all at once. Even as I sit here now typing this on my laptop, the TV is on, I keep checking Facebook and Twitter and text messages. I don't fully focus one thing, much less fully focus on Him. I think about how often my husband sit in a restaurant at dinner both fiddling on our phones while we "talk." Facebook, Words With Friends, the "net," all distracting our focus- we barely focus on each other and we're sitting there face to face- how much harder is it to focus on the Lord?

I've been working a lot to still my heart and my mind, taking quiet walks with the Lord, trying to listen. I've stopped taking my phone in my room at night, I don't go and retrieve it in the morning until I have spent time reading the Word. Even still, I find my mind running a thousand directions. I know in my spirit, the Lord is calling me to come, to be still, to listen for His voice. Why? Because he cares about the things that concern me... because He cares about me.

But know that the LORD has set apart for Himself
him who is godly;
The LORD will hear when I call to Him.
Be angry, and do not sin.
Meditate within your heart on your bed, and be still.
Psalm 4:3-4

Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!
The LORD of hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah
Psalm 46:10-11

Selah is a musical term, it is a rest, a break. I believe it is made in anticipation of what is coming next. Like a gasp of air before submerging under water, it is a gasp for the breath of life before entering fully into Him. Perhaps? Could it be like the whispered beckon. God is our refuge, breathe deep, enter in. And listen for your Shepherd's voice.

Was 2011 a Success?

I've been pondering 2011 a lot these last couple weeks. And as I sit down to write this blog, there are just under 37 hours left in the year.

Last New Year's Eve all five members of my family sat down and wrote out a letter to the Lord- a list of our hopes and prayers, of our goals for 2011. Tomorrow sometime we will open them and see if and how things were answered. I suppose in a way we could use it to evaluate whether or not we consider 2011 to have been a successful year.

Honestly, I have forgotten a lot of the things I wrote in my letter. I do remember three goals. I wanted to lose 75 lbs, the term "epic failure" doesn't begin to express how bad I dropped the ball on that one. Another goal was to journal to the Lord every day. I didn't make it. I started out strong, but it didn't last, but I did fill two journals full of prayers and conversations, and am into my third. It's not a failure, it's just not the success I was hoping for. My third goal was to read through my entire Bible this year. I'm very excited about the fact that that goal will be accomplished by tomorrow evening. I've never done it before, but this year I will have (in Jesus' name.) One thing I didn't dare to hope I also accomplished, I wrote my first book in 2011. It's not much more than a stack of papers right now, but the potential for God's purpose is there. I know He was with me in the process.

Last New Year's Eve at a church service I was given a Bible verse, just as I was practically every year for almost two decades. It was Psalm 34:19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all. And I'm going to be honest, I wasn't thrilled, the only one I liked less was when I got Psalm 23:4 a few years before (Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil...) But as always, even with Psalm 23:4, I saw the Lord was in fact speaking into the year ahead.

My reaction was eyes rolling and a heavy sigh of "not again!" My family laughed that once again I got one of THOSE scriptures. I was focused on the afflictions when the Lord was all about the deliverance, but I just could not know. I tried to rebuke the verse, but it was just a couple weeks into the New Year when Victoria came home with a Bible card she'd earned at school. She was reading it to me from the back seat of the van on the way home. "And the Bible verse is Psalm 34:19, Mommy, do you know it?" she asked. I told her I did, and I asked her if I could keep the card.

My prayer for the year of 2011 was a prayer for "jubilee." I was praying for freedom from financial debt, but the Lord answered it in His own way- truly a better way, that I could not have foreseen. I'll keep praying for freedom from financial debt, but I am grateful for better kinds of freedom, like freedom to hope again.

I lost my voice over the Christmas season this year. Funny thing about induced silence, it makes you a better listener. I was disappointed not to be able to sing Christmas carols with my church family. As I stood silently though, the Lord reminded me how often I get distracted by the sound of my own voice. I lose its purpose, giving honor to the Lord, when I become too consumed with how I sound. It's not just true in signing in church, it's true in life. I need to beware of becoming so consumed with "appearances" that I lose track of what the heart is supposed to be behind them. God was able to move my heart when I couldn't move my lips. It's a fact I am continuing to ponder.

This picture represents the best parts of 2011 for me (not counting people.)



My mom bought me the "Unlocking the Bible" series and my Kindle for Christmas 2010. I used the reading plan in the back of "Unlocking" and read through the books as they corresponded and it was life changing. My Kindle became a constant companion, and as a formerly avid reader, the e-reader re-Kindle-d my passion. I read probably two dozen books (after the prior year of not finishing two) and two of them I would consider life-changing: Anonymous by Alicia Britt Chloe and A Tale of Three Kings by Gene Edwards (read that one in just the last two days.)

The 100 Verse Challenge was birthed our of the 100 Verses Everyone Should Know By Heart, we started it in September and I've memorized 30 verses already - awesome. I had the privilege of facilitating not one, but two bible studies this year. Who could foresee the irony of "Becoming a Woman of Freedom"? And the transtion represented in "Duty of Delight" has been an ongoing theme this year for me. The women I shared these studies with have established themselves firmly in my heart.

My journals represent a year of finally fully striving after the right thing in my life, a closer walk with the Lord. My new church, and particularly the "Hole in the Gospel" series we went through has has an impact on my life I could never have foreseen. And my Max Lucado Bible has been a gift, and my best companion in 2011.

This New Year's Eve I won't be pulling a card with a scripture like I have all these years before. So I asked the Lord to show me what the scripture was for me to hold to. After I asked I opeened my Bible to check out what reading was coming up in my plan, and the book of Habakkuk stood out to me. The next morning at church my pastor shared a verse from it.

For the vision is yet for an appointed time;
But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie.
Though it tarries, wait for it;
Because it will surely come,
It will not tarry.
Habakkuk 2:3

When I asked the Lord for my scripture, I prayed He would help me be sure. I have been asking Him questions of "when?" and "how long?" all throughout this year. Some He has answered, some I stillwait and wonder. When my pastor read this verse the next morning, he read it, and he said, emphatically, "wait for it, wait for it, wait for it, wait for it..." I knew the Lord was helping me be sure. And just to confirm it, a mom at Victoria's birthday party brought it up again later that day. I feel confident this is the verse I am to hold to in 2012.

I am waiting with hope and expectation, confident not in the answer, but in the One who answers. Because I have learned in 2011, even if it isn't the answer I might imgine, the Lord's way is alwas the best.

For the first time in a very long time, I can say with all honesty that I feel like I am in a very different place spiritually than I was a year ago. And in all honesty, that makes 2011 an absolute success. I look forward to what 2012 will bring.

Suffer an Awakening

We've been at our new church home for eleven Sundays now. Honestly, we couldn't be happier. All change has its challenges, but God has had His hand in our transitioning.

We've been slowly getting plugged in, meeting new people, making new friends. We've joined a home group, Jake has been attending youth group, Ethan and Victoria have started Awana. We took the membership class (and signed on the dotted line) and even participated in a couple of outreach fundraisers, and even attended a really fun concert with one of the pastors and several members of our church.

We haven't plugged in yet to serve, Neal's not playing drums yet, Jake hasn't stepped up to get involved with children's ministry, I haven't even found a place where I fee like I might belong, but all of us still feel a part. My younger kids have actually started serving, and I have been reminded about the Lord's encouragement that what they need as we're raising them is different than the things that were best for Jake.

It's starting to feel like home, and all of us feel really grateful to be there. But for the past few weeks, I have been feeling something else, something new, and painful.

As a church, we are currently going through a series based on the book "The Hole in the Gospel" written by World Vision CEO Richard Stearns. It's a powerful and thought provoking book that talks about where our "personal gospel" is missing the mark, and the way each of us as individuals is missing the heart of God, specifically in what the book of James calls "pure religion."

Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.
James 1:27
The pain I've been feeling, is the slow realization that my personal religion has not, at least for sometime, been either pure or undefiled. These last few Sundays as my family and I drive away from our church, I have sensed such a heavy pain and ache in my chest. It's almost as though I can feel the weight pulling my proverbial heart from my core.

It's a funny thing this ache though. As much as it hurts, it's a good thing. It reminds me of the way I have felt when my arm feels when I've laid on it wrong at night and I wake to a numbness in it. When I shift and move and the circulation is restored, it begins to tingle, and to ache. It's because where life has been held back, the blood begins to flow, and feeling is restored, but before it's "well" and feels healthy again, it has to suffer the discomfort of awakening.

I feel like my heart has been suffering an awakening. Where it has been asleep, and the blood of Christ has not been flowing, life is slowly returning. When the flow of blood is fully restored, so will its strength be.

I want my heart to feel the full flow of the blood of Christ, so that it may wash clean my "personal religion," and make it both pure and undefiled, but the process is painful. Even admitting that this pain is a reality is hard. It's not as though I was backslidden or in rebellion, I was just missing the mark. Which in reality is how sin is defined.

I have been challenged to pray for the Lord to break my heart for what breaks His, and I think this crushing pain I feel is exactly that. He is breaking my heart. But I am grateful for the pain, because it is a sign of life, renewed life, I pray.

God, In My Pocket

I can hardly believe that the month of October is almost over. 2011 has gone by so quickly. In some ways it feels as though it has gone in a blink of an eye, but as I sit and look over the challenges and changes we have faced, things that happened only months ago feel like years.

I started 2011 with two goals: I wanted to read through my entire Bible in a year; and I wanted to journal to the Lord every day. 2010 was such a difficult year for me spiritually, and in some ways a defining one, because never were my faith and character more challenged than during that year. It was just over a year ago now when I had my "come to Jesus" moment and realized I had to decide who I was and what I believed. And in the end, I knew I had to seek the Lord with a renewed passion and purpose. I didn't wait till the New Year to do that, but I knew I had to enter 2011 with a resolve.

The Bible reading has remained solidly consistent. I know it has to be Holy Spirit powered, because honestly, like a fast or an oath, certain things don't get accomplished through sheer willpower, not in the spiritual realm of things anyway. It hasn't always been easy though, and often I have had to try to break the tendency towards my reading becoming just a check on my "to do" list. I have to stop and remind myself often that the Word IS God. It's not just reading, it's relational. And when it becomes just reading, it isn't being done right. (But some books of the Bible, quite honestly, are just harder than others.)

The journaling commitment has not held up as well as the reading. When I write in my journal, it's not your typical diary style keeping, it's not even writing with an awareness that God is somehow peeking over my shoulder. I guess the best thing I could compare it to would be taking two tin cans and tying them by the string, making a makeshift telephone like we did as kids. I think it's a good metaphor because although as I write to God, and I try to listen to hear what He says in return, the message doesn't always come across clearly. And likewise I often find myself struggling to speak my own heart clearly. Someday when I am dead and gone and my children find my journals they will find the deepest and darkest places of their mother, pride to humility, hope to pain, anger to love, all poured out. And because it is deep, and intimate, there are times when I don't have the strength or desire to go there with the Lord. And so I don't. I break my promise, and I stay away, those are often the days I struggle most with my reading being a check mark.

I did a great study over the summer, "Becoming a Woman of Freedom." It many ways I think that title was prophetic, though I didn't realize it when I started it. I don't think the prophecy has come to full fruition, but leaps and bounds have been accomplished. I'm doing another study now, called "Duty or Delight," and without intention, it has turned out to be the perfect continuation of the summer study. God has continued to stretch and grow, stripping and healing, refining and redirecting. But the process of growth can be painful.

I remember when my middle son was little and he would cry at night with pain in his legs. The growing pains he suffered hindered his rest. I've been mindful of the fact that spiritually speaking, "growing pains" don't rob you of rest, but they do weary you at times. Only in God's hand can you find the underlying peace in a storm, and rest in weariness. And that is very much how I have been feeling this past year, and in particular the past couple months. There has been a lot of change and a lot of loss, and sometimes I feel extremely lonely in it, except for the fact that God, Himself, feels very near.

I came across a verse in the current "Duty or Delight" study that has really become an anchor for this season. Isaiah 30:15 says, This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it."

The Lord is speaking to the nation of Israel in the midst of (one of their) rebellion(s) against Him.

"...but you would have none of it."

That was me, not much more than a year ago. I was going to do things my own way without counting the cost. I was silencing the Lord's voice, and His Spirit's conviction. I thought I knew better, and then I came to my senses. And so I look at this verse and I see, I don't want to be that person. I want to be the one who believes what God has said here:

“In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength..."

Repentance has been ongoing, rest is a reality from the Lord, I am grateful to say, I do know He is trustworthy, and I do trust. BUT... Quiet isn't always easy for me. But I am working on it. I am finding something about the moment- the moment where instead of moving and speaking, even barreling ahead that I just stop, quiet: God is in that moment, and just like He promised, strength is found there too.

In our study this week we were advised to write on a stone one of the characteristics of God that really spoke to us. Because of what I was learning about the truth of this scripture, the best attribute I could come up with was "Present," so I wrote that on one side and the scripture reference on the other. As I have at times carried this stone with me, it has more than once been a reminder to me to stop and be quiet before the Lord. Moving and feeling the weight of the stone in my pocket, God has established again his truth in my heart, and revealed Himself there and with me, in the moment, very present, very real, very much my God. When the stone has not been there, even it's absence has been the reminder to stop in the struggles and find my strength in quietness before Him, wherever I am.

God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
Psalm 46:1

"And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Matthew 28:20b

Battling Bitterness

When I was in the 6th grade, I remember a lesson that we had about the 5 senses. We sat outside on the grass near the basketball courts and our teacher was talking about taste. He held out a plate with chocolate on it and all of us took a piece gladly. Waiting till he told us to take a bite, when the moment came, for half of us, what we got was far different than what we expected.

Popping the chocolate in my mouth I tasted nothing for a second, and then as I began to chew, my mouth filled with bitterness. I'd been fooled, I hadn't been given regular chocolate, it was baker's chocolate, and it was awful! Half the class made sounds of spitting and gagging, over the sound of my own spitting and gagging, I heard the "distaste" of several of my peers as well. The rest of kids, who got the good old fashioned milk chocolate, just stared at us in confusion.

What I remember most was that even after I spit all the chocolate out of my mouth, the nasty taste remained. That's the thing about bitterness, it lingers, sometimes long after it's cause is gone.

The week we were studying about laying aside bitterness in the Becoming a Woman of Freedom bible study, I asked Neal to build me a cross. I also asked him to buy me a big bag of rocks. The night we all met for study I used both props to share what the Lord had been showing me about needing to lay our hurts and offenses at the foot of the cross. That night I carried the very heavy bag of "offenses" and my cross back to my can and brought it home.

Late that night, I felt the Lord draw me out to my car to unpack it, and that's when He used the same props to speak to me. I knew I was supposed to set up the cross and the rocks somewhere here at home to serve as a reminder. As I stood in my yard after midnight, rocks and cross by my side, I looked for a proper place to set it up, finally the planter in the center of my yard seemed like the ideal place.

I set the cross down, and began to unpack the rocks. Too heavy to lift the bag up into the planter to pour them out, I began to unpack them one by one. It took quite a while, and as I unloaded the offenses, I talked to the Lord. I asked for help to be a woman of forgiveness. I prayed for help to heal from hurts that had been done to me. I begged the Lord to help me be quick to lay offenses at His cross so as not to let a bitter root even begin. Eventually I just found myself thanking and praising Him for even allowing me the privilege to come to the foot of His cross and find health and wholeness there.

When I finished laying all the rocks around the bottom of the cross, I noticed how similar it looked like a grave. I prayed the Lord would help me keep bitterness and unforgiveness there. As I stood up I realized where the Lord had impressed upon me to plant the cross, it was beneath our olive tree. The olive tree, which represents both victory and peace. I knew it wasn't an accident.

There is both victory and peace in the decision to let God be sovereign, even over our hurts and offenses. If I choose to hold my offense, it is the same as saying that God can not be trusted to bring good of it. The truth is, all that holding on to it does is weigh me down.

Later that week our assignment for bible study was to spend quiet time alone with the Lord. We were just supposed to sit quietly in His presence, resting, and listening for the voice of the Lord should He choose to speak. On this particular day sitting on the curb across the street from my house, I was having a hard time laying some of the offenses I'd been feeling at the foot of the cross. I was holding on to them, not trusting the Lord. As I sat dwelling on hurts I felt at the hands of other believers, I heard the Lord speak to my heart.

He said, "You're right." And I bolstered in the pause. Then I heard Him say, "Because of what Jesus did on the cross." I felt the wind leave my self-righteous sail a little, but He wasn't finished, and then He said, "And because of what Jesus did, so are they." It pierced to the core of my heart. The realization that offenses are settled in the body of Christ because of what Jesus did on the cross. I find not only forgiveness there, but I also rightly surrender my right to justice. If my idea of justice can only be played out in some real time validation, then I have lost sight of exactly what happened at Calvary. Jesus died once and for all. So if my sins are covered in his blood, so are the sins of those of His kids who have offended me, and likewise, if there is no grace for their sins, neither is there grace for mine.

As I walked back up to my doorway, I stopped momentarily at the cross by my olive tree, symbolically I tossed the imaginary rocks that represented my hurts at the foot of my little cross. The thing is, this was one little victory, one battle won in the war that lasts a lifetime as a follower of Christ. Today I found out someone very dear and close to me had been talking about me behind my back. It's actually the second time I have heard something like that in the week's since we began the chapter on forgiveness. This time though they really hit me where I lived, calling me a bad mom and tearing down my kids. I spent some time being wounded and hurt tonight before I realized I needed to go and sit at the Father's feet.

The Lord showed me that what had been spoken had been overflow out of a bitter heart. Bitterness begets bitterness. The conversations that had been had and the root of the attacks came out of a bitterness that didn't even have anything to do with me. And the Lord showed me, I had a choice to make. Would I let that person's bitterness infect my own heart, or would I choose to go back to the place of victory and peace.

It wasn't an easy offense to lay down, but I responded to the lie with Truth. The Truth is that even if I am not the perfect mom, I am loved and accepted by my heavenly Father. The truth is that my sin is covered, and if I believe in God's sovereignty, I have to let Him cover the sin of this offense as well. What I found was that the best way to do that was to change my focus.

I took my eyes off of myself, and off of my hurt feelings. I took my eyes off of the offender and the hurtful words they'd spoken over me. I took my eyes off of all the imperfect and looked firmly at the Lord. I gave Him the offense and my hurt, knowing and trusting that His pierced hands can be trusted with my wounded heart. He is sovereign and He has promised. He can be trusted, so that's what I decided to do, to trust the One who loved me enough to cover all my sins.

Becoming Free (Part 1) - Knots

The last two weeks of our Bible study Becoming a Woman of Freedom, the study has really lived up to its word. I have felt myself moving into freedom in some really challenging areas in my life.

The last two weeks of study have been about Forgiveness and laying aside bitterness, and then Rest, laying aside busyness.

As I spent the week studying about forgiveness and and preparing for our meeting to discuss the chapter, God and I did a lot of talking about forgiveness and bitterness, and anger too. By the time the day came for our meeting, God had given me several word pictures to share with the ladies about what the Lord was speaking to me about.

I spent the week talking to the Lord about offenses. We've all experienced them, from both sides even. We have all been offended and we have all been offenders.

I spent several evenings that week with a ball full of yarn. Each night I slowly unwound the yarn, tying knots in it, one after another. By the end of the week I had pulled out about a third of the of the yarn and had it tangled and tied into a mess of knots. As I held it in my hands, I realized there really was no way to untangle it. Truth be told, knots were on top of knots and you couldn't even separate one from another. Each knot was so tight and some of them were so close together, there was just no way to rectify the problem.

By Monday afternoon, a few hours before our meeting, the Lord had spoken volumes to me about this ball of yarn. He showed me several things:

(1) The knots in the yarn represented offenses. Sometimes one offense leads to another. Offended people are easily offended.

(2) The tangle represented the bitterness. The knots took on a life of their own, and bitterness allowed them to get so twisted up, the yarn had become useless.

(3) He showed me that sometimes you have to just make a clean break and and try to salvage what remains.

He also showed me where this hands on example applied to a real situation in my own life.

I had someone special to me who I felt betrayed and abandoned by. I was hurt, I was offended. And what did start as one offense, him not being a good steward of friendship, my reaction to it caused that one offense to become the cause of several more, because a perceived offense is in fact an offense, because it is defined by the one who is offended. But like I said, offended people are easily offended.

As my bitterness developed, Something happened. I allowed myself to go from being the offended to the offender. Although I didn't start the damage to the friendship, I completely exacerbated it. Little knots that could possibly have become easily undone became a knotted mess because I was angry and eventually bitter. I became a knotted mess, our relationship became damaged and tangled, useless.

This revelation led to a phone exchange with my friend. I apologized for being so angry for so long. And his response was relief. I asked for forgiveness for my bitterness and what I received was grace. My friend seemed genuinely happy to hear from me, ready to forgive me, and willing to make a fresh start.

Truthfully, the relationship won't ever be what it was. When the "yarn" is cut, and all the knots are removed, the ball that remains isn't what it once was. There is a loss, however, there is also a restored potential for what remains of the yarn to become. Restoration begins, hope is renewed, and life can move forward with healthy potential.

When I "cut the yarn" on the phone that afternoon I told my friend he didn't have to be uncomfortable around me anymore. I confessed the sin of my bitterness both to him and to God. I really was willing to lay the knots aside- both the ones I tied and the ones he tied. I was willing to dispose of them, and let there be potential for new life and purpose for the rest of the "yarn". Even if nothing new is "knit" together, at least what remains is in good condition.

My husband had built a cross for our meeting that night. As I shared, I laid the knots down at the foot of the cross to show the other ladies at Bible study what God had spoken to me. One of the ladies said jokingly, "Don't pick it back up!" but she was right. Even after I had the conversation with my friend I felt the temptation to mull over the offenses again. When it crossed my mind I told the Lord, "Yes Lord, I know, I cut it off, and it's at your cross."

I may have to remind myself of that again a few times, but it will be worth it. Because now what remains can be knit together into something good and God might just get glory in it.

Handicapped

I was in a head on collision Tuesday afternoon in the parking lot of Baskin Robbins. There were no cars involved mind you, I was run down directly by my 6'2", 230 lb. seventeen-year old son. Mom's first lesson of the week: Be careful who you tussle with (even playfully). In hindsight, the revelation that came to me is my Jake is a little like an oversized puppy. He means no harm, but can be a little dangerous, nonetheless.


Long story short (is it too late for that?) in the process of our tangle, I ended up with a sprained and bruised ankle from the process of the fall, and a big bruise on the back of my head and an extremely sore jaw from the landing. (My head, on the asphalt.)

I came home from the ER cleared, but feeling pretty battered and bruised. I forsook my crutches quickly for a cane because I felt like I was going to kill myself trying to use them. Walking was almost impossible the first night, but painful after that. Eating quickly lost lots of it's luster because quite frankly, my teeth are not lining up properly and it hurts to bite down. And the back of my head - very sensitive

That's what I was well aware of the first night, but in the days that have since passed, I have been far more aware of aches and pains in far different places.

Wednesday we had to drop our kids off at summer camp, and unwilling to miss the tradition of dropping them off in their cabins,I had to do some heavy trekking for a newly sprained ankle. The walk between my daughter's cabin and the cabin where my boys were was particularly steep. But what I noticed as I walked slowly down the decline and then back up the hill as well, was that the place I felt the worst pain was not in my newly injured left ankle, but rather in my "healthy" right leg.

I noticed also that my left shoulder and arm attached first to the crutches and then to the cane was really feeling a lot of pain. The only comfortable way to move on my tender left ankle was to turn my foot out slightly when I walked, that caused pain in my hip. Bottom line, the injured "body parts" was specific, but the pain was very general and felt throughout the whole body.

It reminded me of a scripture. Interestingly enough, my friend who sends me scripture via text message every day, sent me this passage Thursday morning:

For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.
Romans 12:4-8

This passage came to me as well:

Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
1 Corinthians 12:12-26

I know that's a lot of reading, but it's critical. Wednesday morning before I took the kids to camp, I said to Ethan, "You really don't know how much you use your ankle for until you injure it." I would feel the pain of its weakness in ways I never imagined. Who realized you need your ankle to sit down? But you do.

It makes me think about the "Body" of Christ and how it can be weakened and hurt when people don't perform what God has called them to. The Romans scripture says it perfectly, what God has called you and gifted you to do, DO! If you don't, then other parts of the "Body" are bearing more weight than they should, and feeling the stress and strain of it.

Likewise, as a "Body" we shouldn't be hindering one another from serving in our gifts. We shouldn't be letting "hands" decide that "ankles" serve no good purpose, because when we do, suddenly the abdomen is feeling the pain of it. But sadly, it happens every day. But those hands are not The Hands that rule the world, so trust that the "Head" (Jesus, Himself) will reveal to you the place He has for you to serve even when other body parts don't think you should. So press on, find your place.

Don't be handicapped, and DO what God made you to DO. Remember, where it's God's will, He'll make a way.

Splinters - Retreat part 1

Retreat was good.

Even going with the best of attitudes and the most purposeful expectation, there are certain things for me that rise closer to the surface than any other time at retreat, this trip was no exception. But I didn't go unprepared and I was in battle mode, ready to take up the fight required to bring captive my thoughts to the obedience to Christ.

The fellowship I had with the girlfriends in my cabin could not have been better. There were seven of us, six who came with the intention of spending time together and the seventh who was God bringing us perfectly to the number of "completion." Everyone got along and enjoyed each other so much. We had lots of laughs playing games and sharing meals together and it was an awesome time.

Saturday was a particularly battle filled day for me. I took some time to wander off alone in nature to seek the Lord but He was very quiet. While I was out I got a several splinters in my hand. I tried to pull them out, and was able to remove all but two. The two were deep. As I came back into "civilization" with my friends I was doing my best to pick them out.

I took note that when I didn't pick at the two splinters, they were uncomfortable, but they didn't hurt. It was only when I tried to pull them out, without the proper tools mind you, that it really hurt. The irony of the comparison to the thoughts and hurts I was battling wasn't lost on me. That's the thing about heading up to retreat, the "discomfort" of my issues develops into full fledged pain because of the picking that it brings.

I eventually went to my cabin and grabbed a safety pin, a "proper tool," to remove the splinter, quite literally, the thorn in my flesh. As I came back and sat at a table where my friends were playing cards, I began the work of removing my thorns. The first one came out relatively easily, but the second one had sunk deep and required some serious digging. I got it out, but it left it's mark. It hurt a little even after the splinter was out, but it was the kind of hurt that I knew would heal.

Unfortunately, thorns in the spirit aren't always as easy to pull out. And over the course of the weekend, one of my friends and I talked about the fact that sometimes, God chooses not to remove the spiritual thorns in our flesh. Instead He speaks straight to our hearts and says, "My grace is sufficient."

That was kind of how I felt this weekend about my spiritual splinters. I think the Lord did a little digging and actually removed one or two that I didn't even bring to Him. I wasn't unaware of them, but they weren't painful, so I was satisfied to leave them there. But now that He removed them, I am glad, I realize it's so much better.

But there is another deeper thorn that I feel like the Lord said, "My grace is sufficient." Interestingly enough, that brings a whole different kind of healing.

When I came home from retreat, my nightly devotional made this statement: "Focus on God's Presence in your present." (paraphrased) It was a profound statement for me. So much of my "splinter" issue comes from looking in the past and from focusing on the future, instead of being where I am and focusing on Him, remembering His grace is indeed sufficient.

What I have taken from this admonition from my devotional, and all the things the Lord has been speaking in the weeks that led up to it is this:

"Dwell, delight, depend."

The Lord is in my now and He is with me and for me in it. He has left my past and has asked me to hand it over to Him as well, not to keep carrying it around. My future is in His plans, He will be there, but He's not there yet and I should never try to run ahead of Him. I need to be here in His presence now, abiding in Him and enjoying Him, and relying on Him, in confidence and trust.

Three Years

I had big plans. Yesterday was the three year anniversary of the blog, and in my mind I was going to write my 300th post on the third anniversary. I wanted to celebrate with my first ever giveaway too.

But the day passed, and the post count didn't make it. This post will be #293, seven posts short of my goal.

I did get a package in the mail for a giveaway, but it wasn't what I specifically solicited for, although still good. And so I will do a giveaway with it, just not today.

Instead, today I am pondering the process of planning. Funny how it doesn't seem to work out the way we want it to most of the time.

A man’s heart plans his way,
But the LORD directs his steps.
Proverbs 16:9

There are many plans in a man’s heart,
Nevertheless the LORD’s counsel—that will stand.
Proverbs 19:21

The truth is, it can be pretty frustrating when things don't work out the way we want them to. Everyone likes enough control in life (even the non-control freak types) to be able to see plans come to fruition.

But often, they don't.

This "plan" of mine was just a little one. It's a slight disappointment that is not too difficult to overlook. I can look at the ways I spent my last couple weekends, one on retreat with a dear friend, the other hanging out during the day with several dear friends and an evening discipling my son and several of his friends, and say, "it was worth it" to pass on rushing to keep up the blog. Truth be told, I don't want to write here just for the sake of it.

I started this blog three years ago as an act of obedience. I was away at a very difficult women's retreat, and as I spent a great deal of time alone with just me and the Lord (that wasn't the difficult part) I sought Him, and more than once that weekend I heard Him say very plainly, "Write." As an unsolicited confirmation, the following week at church He sent a very revered friend and mentor to me with a more specific word. She said to me, "I was praying for you recently, and I felt like the Lord told me to tell you to blog." It immediately testified to my spirit that I really had heard God at retreat.

Saturday night, I was talking with the boys of Envision (our youth bible study with Jake and his friends) and we were talking about passions and talents and how God gives them to us for a purpose. I watch these young men all in the latter part of high school and all of them have the future on their minds. The truth is, even in Christian families, as we guide our kids, our inclination is to do so from a worldly view. If we look at our son and his two options for a future are either worship leader or engineer, we direct toward the engineer, where success is more easily defined and provision is more probable.

I wonder though, if that's how good looks at things. I know I have on many occasions taken stock of this blog, and looked at hits and comments and tried to determine if this blog would qualify as successful. The fact is, most of the time, the answer would have to be "no." But I realized when I do that, I am looking at things from a very worldly perspective, even if it is a Christian worldly perspective.

As I talked with the boys at Envision, we also talked about the challenge of hearing God's voice as He directs us. I do know there are times when the Lord is silent, but I suspect that far more often the issue of His silence resides more in our inability or unwillingness to listen more than in His lack of desire to speak. But sometimes it really is just hard to know.

My advice was to the boys that when that happens, you have to go back to the last thing you are certain you heard the Lord say. If you feel like you might have gotten off track or you're just not sure about the next step, go back to where you knew He was clearly directing. For me, that was three years ago, and I heard Him very clearly, He said "Write."

As nice as it is to get good feedback, it's not why God has called me to write. The Lord has given me a passion for disciplship and sharing His word. He has given me a gift with words and a talent for putting them down for a reader. And whether something I write ministers to one reader or 100 readers, it has value. And the beauty of it being here on the internet is that it could be something I put "on paper" today, and minister to someone 20 years from now or more. The important thing is that I use my gifts and talents for my God given passions and use it for His glory.

So although I still have dreams and aspirations, and I hope that this blog is the beginning of something rather than the end, I know the LORD directs my steps, and it is His counsel that will stand.

God is faithful to me, and I pray in some small way this blog can be an act of worship toward Him, for however long He sees fit.

As for now, happy anniversary to My Walk of Faith. I pray it blesses many.

Duct tape, multivitamins and eating with your mouth open

I've shared before that I am doing my best to stick to a reading plan to read my bible through from beginning to end this year. So far so good, I have stuck to it and yet to (by the grace of God) fall behind.

I think I also shared that I really like the plan I'm using. My mom bought me the "Unlocking the Bible" series. It doesn't feel cumbersome to me, and I like the way it breaks things up. It literally includes just a verse or two from Proverbs each day, a Psalm or part of a Psalm each day, never more than a chapter of the New Testament (I read all those in the morning) and somewhere between one and three chapters of the Old Testament that I read at night. I really enjoy it, I read the Bible first thing in the morning before I even step out of bed, and it's one of the last things I do when I settle down for the night.

I've already made it through the challenging books of Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy! Those are the places in the past where I have found myself easily stumbled by the very detailed dissertation on the law. But the way it was broken up in this reading plan, I really found myself enjoying it. I tend to be looking at the clock at night anticipating when it's time to go in and read the Word.

I have always been one to remind others of their need to be in the Word, I'm happy to finally be taking my own advice. I really do love the Word, and spending this time consistently in it helps me remember that. This morning I was reminding my kids, and encouraging my younger two that they (at 9 and 10) need to start developing the habit of reading their bibles daily. The Word of God is living and active and has the power to change us and transform our lives.

One thing I am doing this year that I have never done consistently before is not just reading the Word, but reading the Word out loud. There is power in God's Word, and God's spoken Word is powerful too. When God created the heavens and the earth, He spoke them into existence. When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, He called them forth by His voice. He healed the sick, rebuked the demons, opened the eyes of the blind, even push backed Satan Himself with the spoken Word. Why wouldn't I want to exercise the power of God's word in the same manner.

The Bible also says, So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. (Romans 10:17) and I believe that is true. And when you read it and hear it out loud at the same time, I believe it's like securing it down even further into your heart and mind. Consider it a form of spiritual duct tape, if you will. It's like bathing yourself in the Word, inside and out, and I believe it can make a powerful impact.

Speaking the Word of God builds up your faith and your spiritual fortitude. It is wise to pray it out loud and to praise it out loud. Even in just a practical sense, it strengthens the learning process, it applies both the visual (reading) and auditory (hearing) learning styles, and I believe it goes deeper into our minds and hearts.

Now I wish I could say that every time I open my bible I had some palpable, supernatural, hyper-spiritual experience, but the truth is, I don't. It's not as though I never do, but it is not the norm. But I know (and believe) the truth of the power of God's Word and the importance of taking it in. The effects are not always immediately felt and seen, but I consider it a spiritual multivitamin. Just as your body benefits from taking a vitamin everyday, your spirit is strengthened by taking in the Word daily.

So I encourage you, be building up your spirit. You wouldn't eat 2 meals a week, once on Sunday and Wednesday night, and likewise you shouldn't feed your spirit only on such rare occasions. An emaciated spirit is a bad idea. You also would never allow someone else to feed you as you grow. And likewise, we shouldn't just go in places where pastors and teachers are spoon feeding us, we have the buffet of goodness at our demand, and we ought to indulge continually. Unlike a thick waistline, a fat spirit is good for us all.

So, go, dig in, and eat with your mouth open!

Shame

Shame.

Have you ever felt it? I mean REALLY felt it.

Me too.

The sick pit in my gut, waking up next to someone, knowing we had just used each other. Without even actually knowing I had given something away of value for absolutely nothing, even if I didn't really understand what it was at the time, shame settled in anyway.

That's a kind of shame you try to push off. You validate your actions, you say things like "It's my life, I'll live it however I want to. I'm not hurting anyone."

You say them like they are words of freedom, but really, only the outside changes, not what you feel on the inside. You may say to the shame "I don't accept you," but in that circumstance, you have just moved it, not unarmed it. And things will happen, or people will say things, or you will even repeat your actions, and shame will whisper back at you through the door you thought you closed. Muffled? Maybe, but not silenced.

Shame is sitting in the doctor's office and seeing the heartbeat of your unborn child on the ultrasound and then walking into the next room for the "procedure" anyway.

Shame is waking up on a table to the sound of other women screaming and crying, and knowing that where there was once life is now emptiness, and it's your fault.

Shame is keeping secrets from people you love. Shame is being so sure that your choices make you unlovable. Shame is believing your secrets could cost you everything.

Shame is like death, and when another death comes, shame increases. Shame is listening to the doctor say "It's just a miscarriage, it's not your fault," and believing to the depth of your being that it really is.

Shame is feeling so broken, so hopeless, so devastated, so low, and so wounded, that you cannot see anything past that shame.

It is the heaviest of burdens. I know, I dragged mine and it liked to have destroyed me.

One day, I couldn't drag it any further. I stopped and sat on my "backpack" and all the heavy shame it held. And I gave up. Shame had won, and I didn't want to fight it anymore. I was resolved to the fact it was eventually going to consume me. It had become who I was.

Thankfully, someone saw me sitting there alongside the road. Actually, she had been sent to find me, though I don't think she totally knew it. She came up to me carefully. She just sat down beside me. We didn't even look at each other.

At first her presence made me sit stiffly. But when I realized she just came to sit by my side, I relaxed a little. When she put her arm around my shoulders I could feel something breaking inside.

"Heavy bag," she said, "I bet you're tired."

I sat in silence. I was so tired. I was exhausted.

She just sat there with me a while, her arm around my shoulder, the long we sat, the more I began to lean into her. She was so patient.

Finally she asked, "What are you carrying?"

Shame.

I couldn't even say it.

We sat and we sat, and we sat some more until I found the strength and caught in my throat I barely whispered it, "Shame."

The shame of promiscuity.

The shame of unplanned pregnancy.

The shame of cowardice.

The shame of abortion.

The shame of lies.

The shame of fear.

The shame of deceit.

As it eked it's way out my new companion stood. Was she leaving me?

She reached down, and grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me up. As I held to my bag, she grabbed the handle on the other side. "Come on," she said, "I don't know what to do with all this, but I know who does." And she walked with me, and she helped me carry my shame.

I didn't know exactly where she was leading me. I still had a hard time looking up from the shame before me. I looked at my feet, I looked at the bag, only on occasion would I try to sneak a peek and look up at her face. We walked, and she talked.

She talked about love, and forgiveness. She spoke of redemption and of hope. I didn't really know if I believed in these things, but I wanted to. But I was afraid. So I just followed her and I listened. And suddenly, we stopped.

I didn't want to stop. I stood there looking at my feet. She pulled at the bag and said, "We need to leave this here." And as she said it, my mind raced. LEAVE IT? I had to guard this with my life, no one else could see what was inside. Everything in me tensed. "This is where it belongs," she said.

I took a deep breath and then I let it out. And then I looked up, and I found myself standing at the foot of a cross.

And I broke. I collapsed there at the cross, and the tears came pouring out from inside me. All the years of shame and the hurt and confusion and ache is had caused came pouring out of me. I cried and I cried till there wasn't a drop left inside of me to release. And I was on my knees and broken at the foot of the cross. And then I felt a hand on my shoulder.

When I looked up, it wasn't the friend who had brought me there. It was the One who had sent her after me. He knelt down and put his arms around me, and pulled me into Himself. And He just loved me. And there were no words.

Truthfully, before that day, I believed He was the One who had sent the shame. I believed He was angry and disapproving and He didn't love me and never could. But I was wrong.

He didn't open my bag and pull everything out and try to rationalize through every part of it with me. There were no lectures, no disappointment, no judgment. HE just told me that He never intended me to carry it around. Not ever. And He told me He wanted me to let go of it, and let Him have it.

Honestly, it was hard. And I didn't do it right away. He brought others, and He had them tell me about the shame they had carried. They testified of the freedom I was supposed to have. The whole time, He held me. Each of us holding onto my bag.

It took a while. And finally, I took my first ever "leap of faith." And no sooner did I loosen my grip and pull back my hand, and instantly, it was gone.

I could still feel the ache in my back, and even my grip was sore, but the weight was no longer there. And Jesus, kept on holding on to me.

I was lucky. Jesus took my shame during the first days I met Him. It's not an automatic process though. I know lots of people, a sad too many to count, who come to the cross, and even take Jesus' hand, but they don't let go of their bag.

Jesus is patient though. He will not strip us of our burden. He will just continue to wait patiently until we are ready to let go. He wants you to let go of the bag. He wants you to do it so He can take you by both your hands, sit before you and look into your eyes and truly convince you, that He NEVER intended for you to carry the shame that you did.

I know, because the moment He took both my hands in His, my life was changed, forever.

It's not as though I've never come in contact with shame again. The enemy and people will still try to place those weights in your bag. Even once you've been given a new bag with the baggage tag filled out with the words: "Destination- Heaven." Sometime, even people on the same path as you, headed the same direction, will at times try to put a weight in your bag.

Don't let them.

Look to the Lord and let Him remind you,

"I never intended for you to carry that."

Shame, it isn't meant for children of God.

It's meant to be laid at the foot of the cross where it disappears, to be remembered no more.

And if you are like me, and you left it there upon your first meeting at the cross, or whether the enemy has somehow continued to bind you with it even when your eternity has been settled, walk back to the foot of the cross and leave it there,

It is never to late to leave that shame where it belongs.

Truth, Whatever Way You Say It

The steps of the righteous are ordered by the LORD,
and He delights in his way.
Psalm 37:23

I love this verse. Sincerely, it is one of my favorite of all the wonderful verses in the Bible. It's one I find myself quoting with a decent amount of regularity. Over the course of my walk with the Lord, I have probably quoted it hundreds of times.

Many times I have stated it, "The steps of the righteous are ordered by the LORD, and He delights in his way."

The righteous, that's any of us who have made the exchange of our righteousness for His. As a believer, I am righteous, not in my own doing, but because the Lord died to give me His, to make me right with the Father. Deep sigh of relief, I am righteous in Christ. I am thankful that that means this promise is mine to claim because of that truth.

There have been many times I have quoted this scripture to myself or another like this, "The steps of the righteous are ordered by the LORD, and He delights in his way."

Ordered. I'm a girl who suppresses her potential Type-A personality for the sake of her children (translation: if I expect life to be orderly and clean with three kids, I will have to be a gestapo to keep it that way). The reality however, is that I really love order. If you can step outside of my messy home, you will find in my cell phone my contact list is extremely ordered,and in my computer my files follow a very obvious logic, even my Facebook friends list is broken down into categories: church friend, high school friends, internet friends, etc. Order in the midst of chaos is appealing. And often in life we find it far easier to find the chaos then the order. So there is peace to be had knowing the God is in charge of what we don't easily understand. In my little world I crave, "a place for everything, and everything in it's place," so it brings comfort to my heart knowing that when things seem out of place, they aren't because God has placed them there for His purpose.

"The steps of the righteous are ordered by the LORD,and He delights in his way." That's one of my favorite ways to quote it. So often in my life, I feel like I am failing and falling horribly short. My heart often aches at my overwhelming sense of insufficiency. I am too short with my children, my house isn't clean enough, I spend lots of days feeling like I haven't accomplished anything of any purpose, much less anything of any eternal purpose. So when I stop for a moment to remember and realize that my heavenly Father is always looking fondly upon my stumbling efforts, it gives me a sense of value that far exceeds any possible sense accomplishment I might have in getting caught up on all my laundry or having a clean bathroom. God's delight in me, warms my soul.

But lately, I've been quoting this scripture like this, "The steps of the righteous are ordered by the LORD,and He delights in his way." I've heard myself a lot lately quoting it this way, both to myself and to others. Life is very uncertain for many these days. I would almost dare to say "for most," but I'll err on this side of presumptuous. But I do know many are living in a world of uncertainty. I know much of my life feels very uncertain these days.

It gives me great comfort that the Lord leads His kids one step at a time. Too often I, and many others I suspect, want to run ahead. We want God to give us a bigger picture, and a giant peephole into the future. We don't say it quite so plainly, perhaps, but many of us I am sure would like to say, "Lord, show me what's going to happen, and I will absolutely trust you." But it doesn't work that way.

Mercifully, God doesn't show us the big picture. Truth be told, I suspect if He did, we would just argue with Him about how we have a better plan anyway. No, he doesn't give us a long term plan toward an ultimate goal. What He does do is direct us one step at a time. He asks for just enough obedience for the very next step. It doesn't mean that it isn't ever a very big step, maybe even a leap (of faith), but it does mean He only asks for one at a time. Hand in hand, Him in the lead, He desires to direct our very next step.

Not to say this is an easy way to live. Truthfully, it requires a lot of patience and faith, it requires a surrender and trust that is not easily given. Sometimes the steps may seem illogical, or may even be into a dark pathway, sometimes they will be so close to an edge, you cannot imagine how you will not stumble and fall.

The thing is, the terrain we walk is unknown territory to us. The pathway may twist and turn in ways we cannot anticipate. Truth be told, we can't even be certain exactly where the path is leading to, or where we may detour along the way. The Lord, on the other hand, is extremely familiar with the territory. He knows the peaks, and the valleys and He walks securely and with strength of them and every area in between. He knows every twist and turn, and He is not only Expert on it, he is the Designer of it. Holding His hand one step at a time is the wisest choice we can make.

When we don't know what the future holds, we have to choose to remember who holds our futures. It behooves us also to remember He not only holds the future, but He is the God who is a "very present help in trouble," (Psalm 46:1) and in His love and care for us, He longs to guide is all along the way. When we let Him, in the end we not only end up where we ought to be, but we come out with a much deeper relationship with our Guide.

But this is what I commanded them, saying, ‘Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people. And walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you.’
Jeremiah 7:23

Yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will joy in the God of my salvation.
The LORD God is my strength;
He will make my feet like deer’s feet,
And He will make me walk on my high hills.
Habakkuk 3:18-19

Infected

Spent much of the past weekend and early part of this week painfully aware of my eyes. When I woke up before the 5K last Saturday, my left eye was crusted shut. I had to go in and clean off the gobbly gook off of it with a warm wash cloth, but even after I did, my left eye looked rather sickly. It just looked off, it wasn't red, or even a hot pink, but the white of my eye wasn't white at all.

I pulled up "pink eye" on google to peruse some photos, and my eye didn't look nearly as bad as the wealth of pictures that popped up on my screen. I pulled down my lower lid, it didn't have an exceptionally bright color either, but all day long, my eye just seemed to run and run with a clear watery substance. It was constant.

As I went to the 5K, I thought about my eye.

As I walked the 5K, I thought about my eye.

At Ethan's two soccer games I thought about my eye, and about my foot, because it had a big painful blister from a bad sock choice in my shoe for the 5K.

That evening while I sat cuddled with my kids at the drive-in, I was constantly thinking about my eye, and my feet.

Sunday morning I woke up and my first thought was to my again crusted eye and my very sensitive feet. As I made my way to the bathroom to clean out the guck this time, I was mindful of every step I took to get there. And as I spent the day going to church and going to the movies with friends, constantly, my mind focused, again and again, on my eye and my feet.

I discovered something interesting while my eye seemed to be an issue for me, it was also an issue in my home. My oldest son was a little freaked out by the thought that I might have pink eye. He fell short of actually throwing holy water at me while making cross motions, but it was very clear, he didn't want to take any chances of catching anything from his mom. (I knew he was a freak about stomach viruses, had no idea he felt the same way about a little eye bug.)

By Monday morning my left eye seemed better, but now my right eye was bothering me a little. When I woke up they were both a little runny and a little crusty. Thankfully, my feet didn't hurt anymore, but now I was worried about what was spreading to my second eye.

I decided a trip to the doctor would be a good idea. I called and made an appointment but they couldn't see me till 11:30. I went ahead to work, and my co-worker wasn't at all happy I was there. He, like Jake, kept a wide berth between us because he was worried about exposure. He's not quite as retentive as my son. His wife is facing major surgery soon, and knowing he'll be her primary caretaker, he didn't want to take any chances for her sake.

By the time my appointment was actually approaching, I started to question whether or not I should even go. Almost all the pink had faded, the runniness seemed to have subsided, and I started to think my doctor would wonder why I was even there. But for the sake of my co-worker, his ailing wife, my children, especially the worried one, I decided I should just go check things out.

By the time the doctor came in, he could barely see what I was referring to. He said I probably did have conjunctivitis, but that in his estimation, I was on the road to recovery, and there was no point in treating it medically. It was probably viral, and I was close to having the whole episode behind me. So I left the doctor's office $75 poorer, but with little else to show for it. Except for the spiritual lesson that continually ran through my mind, the entire time I was so very aware of my eyes and my feet.

I thought it interesting how my son's focus suddenly became so profound on his own eyes, when mine were not fully healthy, and I thought to myself, "I hope he is as aware of the risks to his spiritual eyes, as he is of his physical ones." Because I happen to be certain that he is constantly surrounded by people whose spiritual eyes are far more infected than my physical ones were.

Likewise, I questioned my awareness of my own eyes and feet, as well as those around me. I suddenly became very aware of how my eyes had an ability to have a negative effect on those around me. I was a little toxic, if you will, if I was at all contagious. But the worst I had to offer was maybe a week or two of sickness that would in fact be rather easily remedied with special drops.

How much more power is there to do harm to others with what I allow my eyes to see and where I allow my feet to go in the spiritual sense? Am I as constantly aware of the need to protect, and encourage my loved ones to protect their spiritual eyes and feet every day, as I was physically for those few?

Sometimes we get so caught up in our physical bodies, that we fail to remember we are not "bodies with spirits" but rather we are "spirits with bodies." And we so focus on the temporal when it is the spiritual and eternal that needs and deserves our attention.

I am convicted by how often I allow compromise in my life and what I allow my spiritual eyes to be exposed to. The things I watch on TV, or the movies I go and see. I dismiss them, as though somehow I am immune to the exposure, that it doesn't really matter when I allow things that are unhealthy for me to be seen, sometimes repeatedly.

It makes me think of the old nursery school song, one of the few I remember from when I was very little. "Oh be careful little eyes what you see..." it sings, and it goes on to sing to the ears about what they hear, and the mouth about what it speaks, even about the feet and where they go. It sings, "For the Father up above is looking down in love, of be careful little eyes what you see." This silly sing-song has a huge depth of truth to it that is worthy of being pondered.

Why do we dwell on a temporary physical risk to inconvenience far more than we concern ourselves with the care and protection of our eternal souls... and in the name of entertainment??

I have a bit of a reputation for being legalistic, and even above and beyond in my limitations to the movies I will go and see and the like, and I am often tempted to "lighten up" for the sake of the crowd, but I have sincerely felt like these couple of days while I was so aware of my physical eyes, that God was reminding me, that the spiritual ones are of far greater worth, for doesn't it even say in the bible that if our physical eye should stumble us, it is is better to pluck it out than continue in sin? Clearly, on God's scale, spiritual matters far outweigh the physical ones, and I just don't think I am willing to compromise for a few moments of enjoyment.

I love this passage of scripture, it is one of my favorites from the book of Proverbs, and it has been running through my mind continually this past week.

My son, pay attention to what I say;
turn your ear to my words.
Do not let them out of your sight,
keep them within your heart;
for they are life to those who find them
and health to one’s whole body.
Above all else, guard your heart,
for everything you do flows from it.
Keep your mouth free of perversity;
keep corrupt talk far from your lips.
Let your eyes look straight ahead;
fix your gaze directly before you.
Give careful thought to the paths for your feet
and be steadfast in all your ways.
Do not turn to the right or the left;
keep your foot from evil.
Proverbs 4:20-27

Be careful...