31 Days: Embrace

embrace.
I think of hard things. things that are uncomfortable.
things that push at my comfortable boundaries.
things I don't want to do. things that stretch, transform, change how you think or do.
I go into them with great trepidation. not wanting to embrace the moment. to see its potential. to see how the hard things can transform.
can beautify a life when that hard thing has been entrusted to God's hands, is a part of His Blessing of His Will.
I dont want to hold it close, acknowledge its hardness, its roughness, its comfortable to embrace something rough and sharp to the touch.
But what if  I don't?
those hard things we see in the world, in our town, our backyard. where ever they be.
these children who are lost. wanting, needing family, cause they are gone, or broken down into chaos. children, women, men, hungry, dying on streets. the wars, the bombings, sudden destruction of lives.
the lonely, the one everyone passes by who is dying to be noticed and loved.. the kid picked on mercilessly for looking different. That same, thankless job every day that is hard work that leaves you feeling defeated. the grieving.
what if whatever one God calls us to notice, we respond?
we embrace that moment that has us swallowing the fear and stepping out in faith.
What then?

31 Days: Family

Family. Family is raw. its an unveiling. its people seeing you at your best and your worst. its close quarters, no holds barred. we fight amongst our selves, but don't ANY of you touch my sibling: I will eat you alive. We are each others best friends and worst enemies. we learn everything there is to know about each other cause let's face it: we are all in the same small house.
Or not. we are constantly surprising each other. there might even be something you dont know in spite of living together because we are always changing, growing. but we are family. God grafted us into a place specifically. we're hard wired to love each other even when things fail. even when they dont turn out like we hoped or planned. we keep on loving and forgiving athousand faults because we're family. we've been bonded together by shared memories, shared trial, shared experience, shared love. a life completely unique to us.

linking up with Kate Motaung

31 Days: Calling

Calling.
As I think about the word Calling, what jumps to mind is the sermon series we just started at church. 40 days of fellowship.
I think of God calling. 
God calling to us, inviting us to be with him and with our our fellow saints and sinners.
Our brethren. this group of believers we call family.
Calling us to spend time with him on mor than just our sundays and our wednesday night prayer meeting because even though they're very nice, He wants more. God calling to each and every heart and yes, calling it with a purpose. and placing  A CALLING, a way of life, something we are to do.
But first i think of the call to be together as believers with him.
I admit, He has been steadily drawing on my heart lately.
That God wants to be with me?
Priceless.
God is calling so sweetly.

FMF: Hope

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul - EMILY DICKINSON

Hope. 

That all so elusive thing. 

Sometimes.

Sometimes its hard to grab onto. sometimes I'm grabbing onto it for all I'm worth... Hoping for brighter days. For days that aren't ruled by fear. By eating disorders. By more Fear.

By insecurities. By weariness. 

Yes I'm hoping.

Hoping for sunshine in my soul. For that quiet confidence that He is God. that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. Hoping for peace. For rest. the deep breath of the soul that knows all is good and is content. 

hope will lift me up. entertain the imaginings of a bright future. of good things happening and joys.

Five Minute Friday: MEET

today.
today I am tired.
I hurt. In more ways than one.
I have illness that keeps recurring every time I stress out. I have something else that just isnt quite right.
and I hate having to deal with them. Despise what feels like and unending battle, a continuous cycle of pain....and then I tell myself "stop being such a baby! there are other people who go threw this too you know!"
But I think you got it all together when you do.
Maybe you don't.
 I know I don't.
the funny thing is how God shows up in my broken space.
what starts with a groan and a wondering "why again?" and progresses to a verbally rough moment with God that suddenly collapses into defeat... Or maybe not defeat. But a place where my brokenness is solidly in his hands and not mine, These are hands that CAN heal. I know that. and maybe someday. I'm Believing that. But today is more about my heart and how its wandered from its healer. How when everything was good it decided it could coast on its own. And today is healing because God met my heart in beautiful ways.


Linking with Kate Motaung for Five Minute Friday.

Five Minute Friday: Relief

There's a quiet relief in release. 

In surrender. Letting go. In stop trying so hard.

A guest pastor spoke his weekend on training, not trying. 

God doesn't want us to try harder. try harder. but to to train.
To come before him every day.
To do the same thing over and over like an athlete till its ingrained in us. 

That we're going to fail, but failure isn't final unless we say so. That our failures are, (oh yes!) the stepping stones on a path of stronger faith. And in this I have sobbed relief.
To be reminded again this weekend that its really not about the doing, the striving, the trying so hard; but about my relationship with him and everything falls in place from that starting point. That I just coming seeking his face because 'You have said, "seek my face." My heart says to you, " Your face LORD do I seek." ' Psalm 27:8

That love for a beautiful Savior who loved me first is my motivation for all my life. 

He's carrying me. 

So my heart was fun and i struggled and it took me twice as long to write as it should have, but I needed to try to express it. linking up with Five Minute Friday

FMF: visit

visit.
oh if I could just sit down face to face and have a cup of tea...or coffee.
face to face with Jesus and being able to ask all those pesky questions!
And hear audible answers.
you can wish for that sometimes. when it feels like too many decisions are staring you in the face and you just want a clear answer. straightforward. a this or that answer. definite.
but not sitting there straining to hear into the silence and hearing a permissive will of God. An either or. its up to you on this one. Just walk with me awhile? just enjoy these moments of together. he asks for communion. for breath together day by day and just a letting go of all your thoughts to him and let this flow happen, be connected. knitting life together and then it doesn't seem to matter quite so much that its not audible voice, because you are hearing.
he is there. and you hear best in the quiet. it carves out this slow, hallowed place. He's more present, more there. you learn to hear in a new way.

Five Minute Friday: Welcome

Welcome

And the new year comes. It brings a clean start. There is the sigh and the old year slips past and that drawing in of breath ushers in possibility. 

New things to learn. New rthymns of life to begin. Some right away and some not to be discovered but in time. Either way, it happens. 

There is a freshness, a sense of a unmarked, unspoiled landscape before. Just waiting for that first footstep. And then the next and the one after. 

Breathe deep! 

Begin again. Be welcomed into the cleansing of a new year. 

Let your life and heart find the rhythms Christ has etched for you. 

Be blessed!