Hard Moments

Impossible is such a hard word.
you don't realize it till you're right in the middle of it.
impossible is just something that hasn't been done before.
so it looks scary. and fear paralyzes.
and you get stuck.
and if you are a perfectionist, if you've still got an ounce of legalist in you, well, you want to do everything right the first time, no mistakes and no falling flat on your face.
because the world's watching... at least, your family's watching, your friends, and whoever else is in sight.
yet, the last thing I want is the condemnation of the naysayers. the ones who wouldn't understand and wouldn't try to. yet my fear has already condemned me. I worry what they will say and do and in my mind I am already condemned by them and it hasn't even happened yet. my fear has done it...they won't have to.
  There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus.
   who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Romans 8:1
So will I walk in the flesh? walk condemned?
or stop and walk in the Spirit? stop and place my hand in His?
    For, if God be for us, who can be against us? Romans 8:31
No One. Not even Ourself. 

on my own, will I falter. I will fall, leaning on my own understanding.
its when I lean on Him. when I know that I am weak but He is strong.
when I know, without a shadow of doubt,
that the sufferings of this present time is not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Romans 8:18
when I know that He is taking me through a hard moment to unveil a heart more like His.
when He is making perfect. whole.
He is making all things beautiful in HIS time, for
every thing there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven.

Write Your Story

Oh God, won't You write Your story on my heart?

I love this song.

It has become my anthem, my song. 

It's echoing in my mind and heart each day I wake.

I want God to be brilliantly, emphatically, without a shadow of doubt, all over my life.

I want to live the impossible story because only with God the impossible is no more.

I want them to see Him.

Look at me, but see Him.

The Glorious Rescue

Satan thought he had scored the big 1.
he had got Adam & Eve. Drawn them in. And not just them, he had got every human after. Now everyone would be born twisted, hopelessly misshapen. Sin would burn its way though us. Mark us, blemish us, separate us.
Forever.
Or so he thought.

High in the heavens is prepared the Glorious Rescue. 
The one counter-move to every move satan makes.

so He chose to be carried 9 months in a woman's womb. Chose to be birthed into the most vulnerable position- a child. He was weak, vulnerable, without any strength.
He didn't come in kingly form with trumpets blaring, flags waving.  Riding on a white horse. Every eye on him. 
He could have. 
But he came small. Unnoticed. Slipped quietly into the world. With only a man and a woman to greet him. Chosen to protect him while he lives and breathes in small size. Chosen to gaze first into the face of Love. 
He steps it up a little. He reveals His presence in the angel-song to the lowly ones. The lowest of low. 
The outcast one, they get the first invite to see the secret of God. To gaze in wonder on the impossible. 
The infant that would storm the very gates of hell.

He cannot draw breath for long. Satan takes notice. 
To crush Him now while He's weak. 
Yet it's not enough to just kill him; he casually arranges the death every infant boy in town.
This night is riven with red blood, rent with mourning cries. The trail of blood runs through Christ's time. 

but He is born away to safety.

To obscurity in a small town.... and the world is left in ignorance.

30 years. 

He changes water into wine. 

Is baptized in the river Jordan and His life sealed with God's approval. 

The stage is set.

He calls the weary, the hopeless; the ones whose jobs are beneath everyone else. 

The outcasts again, to Him. 

12 to be His closest friends, the ones He places hopes & dreams in. A light & vision.

He begins to speak of Living water....we will thirst no more. 

Water that will be poured out from His very side... in time.

He calls out our very sins...but to forgive our broken hearts. 

The proud condemn their own hearts with their refusal.

He tells of a Kingdom coming. Prepare for it! Don't miss it, He wants you with Him, Loved one.

He goes on. 

He walks from village to village.

Binding up the brokenhearted. 

Healing the lame, sick, the deaf, the blind.

Bringing the dead back to life.

He restores our souls.

All the devil had taken, defiled, ruined; He gives back, purifies, makes beautiful. 

Complete and Whole.

He sets us on that Way.

He walks nearer and nearer to the Big Moment.

There are those who want Him silent.

He is Undoing faster than the devil can do.

So he incites a mob. he could not kill Him in a crowd before, but perhaps this time, he can kill Him with a crown of thorns by an angry crowd. 

Satan is doing. he is calling on every trace of blackness in any heart. he is whispering, inciting:

he leads his second rebellion. 

they ridicule Him, beat Him. they feel power: 

He has given up His own to endure the blackness for the Loved Ones.

 

Darkness falls on Him. He feels the full weight of all that has tore us body and soul since That Day. 

It is crawling all over Him, smothering Him. He cannot feel the Father. 

It is heartbreaking, He sobs. 

He releases His body, the breath leaves it. Shouts of triumph are heard, the devil has won.

Or so he thinks.

His spirit goes on. 

It comes at a full charge, rattles the gates of hell, terrifying the legions. Blows back the gates and off their hinges. Nothing will stop Him from gathering up the Loved Ones. 

All hell quakes, this is not what they thought it would be. 

He leads them out in a triumphant march, sends them on to the Father.

The appointed hour... He becomes body and soul again. Breathes earth's air once more.

The Glorious Rescue had begun.

5-minute-Friday: that Whisper of Grace

Well, not quite five minutes. running on a little longer than that, running maybe a little messy, but this 5-minute-friday sounds...good.


What am I but a daughter trying to live without a father?
I go day by day. I breathe in and out. because my body does that automatically. 
I look at things that storm my day and determine to get through them...if its the last thing I do.
I carry the weight of the world on my shoulders...because that's what I do. It's my job. right?
 To carry my burdens unaided, to carry those of my family, my workplace, my friends. 
it just is, it's always been that way.

Words that have won their way into my mind. 
They seek to keep me on a certain path. Bound for a destination I did not choose...but now have.
They are constant. 
Unrelenting. 
Unforgiving. 
Cycling endlessly to tell me there is no hope.
That I'm alone.
Unprotected.
Un-cared for.
Unloved.

Till that whisper of grace.
The one they tried so hard to drown out? It's there.
bubbling up.
streaming from the WELLSPRING. 
Bathing tired thoughts. Washing away the weariness of mind, soul. 
It tells of love unending. Reaching heaven to earth. Deeper and wider than I can imagine.
Forgiveness. Free, without any need to do.
Rich, rich mercy, my life is saturated with the lavish gifts of a Father. 
A loving, adoring, heavenly Papa who takes me in His arms and tells the darkness, "MINE".
I can no longer be bought and sold by the enemy. 
Thrown about by the fierce winds of his hot accusations. his blustering rage. when I see him from the safety of my Papa's arms, I see an enemy defeated. 
with nothing left to stand on. 
I see the life He would give me. Not a coddled princess, no. 
But a Beloved one, protected, cared for. 
yes, bought with a price immeasurable.

Connections

''We’re not made for performance but for connection.

We’re not made for perfection but for growth.

We’re not made for achievement but for worship.'' Holley Gerth

Amen! This hit me squarely when I read it this morning. I have a tendency to anxiously perform...and realize later that I lost a moment of connection with some one. The 'performance' probably did not impress them, in any event it brings me no closer to friends...just a sickening sense of loss.
  Nor do I want anything less than perfection. Somehow, someway, on my journey I have equated perfection to growth, maturity. If I've grown at all, then something must be better.
  I mark my life by achievements, with goals met. But they fall hollow. 

I need my Christ and Him alone and Him glorified in me...resurrected and alive.

'For in Him we live and move and have our being...' Acts 17:28

Take no thought...

 I hold my life with tight fists. All too often.
And all too often I figure this out after my day has been spent in that attitude. 
Lord Forgive me... and help me to grow.

Luke 12:22-32

Therefore I say unto you. Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, neither for the body, what ye shall put on.

The life is more than meat, and the body more than rainment.

Consider the lilies, how they grow, they neither toil not, nor spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

If then God clothe the grass, which is today in the field and tomorrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, o ye of little faith?

And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind.

For all these things do the nations of the world seek after, and your Father knoweth ye have need of these things.

But rather seek ye first the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you.

Fear not little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

Doesn't that just say it all????

These words so comforted me!

How caught up I get each day in little 'everything'.
But life is more. 

More than me trying to make sure I've got it all. That I've got everything covered. That I've got enough.
I control each little detail so it fits in.

And it just don't work.

    if (well, l guess he does!)then God clothe the grass, which is today in the field andtomorrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, o ye of little faith?

and seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind.

...for your Father knows...

He knows! He knows me. And what I need. And not just what I need to be physically, but on every other level. I'm so caught up in physical needs and I'm setting growing in the Spirit aside!?

I'm getting so wound up in what I think I need, that I will not even let myself experience what I truly need.

I need to worship Him in Spirit & in Truth. 

 'experience' Him. 

seek Him first...and then all else shall be added.

unafraid for it is His pleasure to Give.

Hear is my prayer.

Because I forget. My day begins and gets busy and has gnawing worries and i forget. Right smack in the heat of the moment. I'm forgetting.

I'm forgetting He loves me.

I'm forgetting He bears burdens.

I'm forgetting that He will never give me more than I can bear.

I need to remember. Because He is good.

I need to remember and act like I remember. 

Live like there's no other way than Him.

Blessing & Promise

I have been thinking a lot about blessings lately.
Just seeing how wonderfully God has ordered things for me.
And how closely intertwined the things of my life are.
How the good and the bad are so closely linked.
I would rather just the good. I don't like pain and trials, things that weary me.
That chafe against me and my will.
I like the good, the quiet, the gentle, the things that make me feel good.
But I have blessing in trial.
Someone speaks careless words and they hurt.
Another take my words and twists them.
Things hoped for are not...there is more than just my will down here.
There is the thoughts and loves of others intersecting with mine.
And one learns grace... for every hard word. To keep quiet and so keep a quiet heart.
Can anger flourish were there is no heat to feed it?
To breath in grace and so release a soft answer.
One learns peace... for every time wills conflict. There I would go, yet here you would I stay.
So I learn to wait upon the Lord... His timing not mine. I rest in this blessed assurance.