Good morning honey,
What a controversial topic for a Thursday morning eh? But, that is how life goes I suppose. Let's talk about it. When I say social justice, do you cringe? Do you shrivel up into a safety shell and get as far away from me as possible? Or, do you feel the fire begin to burn in your soul passionately ready to hold the next picket sign or post the next big debate on Facebook? Maybe you just feel...tired. Exhausted with the conflict, the noise, the tension, the mayhem. All are legitimate emotional reactions to the world's way of approaching the issue. But, not to God's way. Hold on, don't leave. Bare with me a moment. Psalm 146: 3-9 3 "Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save. 4 When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing. 5 Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God. 6 He is the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them-- he remains faithful forever. 7 He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets prisoners free, 8 the Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down, the Lord loves the righteous. 9 The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked" Isn't it beautiful? Someone who cared about taking care of everyone who was alone, lost, poor, hungry, mistreated, and trapped? This was written way before the idea of "Social Justice" was even in the minds of the people. Before President Trump, President Biden... If someone is a true Christian, they hold by these words as the words of the God they worship. Is that true of us? "We do not put our trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save." Do we depend on the LORD alone to provide justice and to be over the problems of our land. Do we listen to His voice when he asks His body to move on His behalf? Would our world be full of plastic and trash if Christians chose to obey the command from the beginning to take care of the world God has created? Would there be starving children, racism as a nation, people living on the streets, homes without fathers and mothers? I believe only in the places the church could not reach...And nothing is impossible with GOD. So why is our country fraught with so much heartache? Why is the air hard to breathe? Maybe we've become so used to leaving it to someone else to know things, and to do things, and to move things, that we've forgotten that Christ's body is not paralyzed. I am not blaming anyone for anything. I do not despise the church. In fact I treasure and cherish it very dearly. But, it makes my heart ache that I have become so dull to the Lord's correction and conviction that I have taken part in harming His creation. Let us be sensitive. So tender toward His touch that the slightest whisper will cause us to jump into action. Let's practice His presence in every moment...Even in the realm of social justice.
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Hi Honey, it's been a while. But! that's okay. Maybe a little growing had to be done before I listened enough to sit down and write. The goal is once a week but we'll see what Jesus and I figure out. Now, back to business. As a young woman I really fought with a mantra that I heard from many a treasured church lady when I brought up the subject of wanting to be married someday (which was a precious dream of mine from an early age). Here it is..."You should try to accept that God might call you to a life of singleness. Don't cling to that dream. Surrender it." or "I had to accept the idea of being single forever before God gave me my marriage". Now, please please please don't hear a hint of bitterness. Those ladies and their advice meant all the love, care, and goodness in the world, and they were a huge blessing to my development as a woman. But... here's the catch. That idea, or the way I understood it... is maybe not completely from Jesus' lips. The idea that Jesus will strip away your dreams and take everything that means something from you completely disregarding what you care about when you become a Christian is falsehood. The bible is full of people who pursued the deep heart desires and dreams that God built into their souls and received the blessing of those dreams coming to fruition. Abraham with Isaac, Isaac with Rebekah, Hannah with Samuel, David with his Kingship, Solomon with the temple, Anna and Simeon with Jesus. Just to name a few... However, we can't forget that many of these people did not expect the way that God would fulfill their dreams. Abraham was very very old when Isaac was born, and Hannah dedicated Samuel to the temple instead of keeping Him with herself. We also need to remember the difference between what we simply want, and what we desire in our heart of hearts. Jesus does sometimes grant wants because He loves us and adores blessing His Bride, but sometimes that is not what is best for us in the moment and He also cares about that. Those deep heart desires though, He intends to make something great with. The ones that don't fade or desert us when the next want comes around. The ones we pray fervently about, or hide desperately from Him and others because we can't bare they be taken. Fear not darling, He knows how precious they are to you, and He loves it. What can we learn from scripture? That we can trust Jesus to know our dreams, and care deeply about them, but that our timing may not be the timing that He has in mind. And that the way that Jesus fulfills those dreams may be a different flavor of experience than we had originally anticipated. Now, I do get to enjoy the dream and calling that God gave me to be a wife. I am a married woman living a life that is so much more broad, deep, and lovely than I could ever imagine... Because I trusted Jesus with my dream... and I continue to talk with Him about the ones that are still to come. I'm not the only one who gets to enjoy that either. He loves you Honey. And He wants to give you His best. Let Him teach you what that's like. Ladies and gentlepeeps! (I don't know how many guys actually read these hahaha! What a crazy past few days it has been... This post really won't be very long, but I'd like to take a few moments to talk about something that my mama said to me. Now, for those of you who don't know, my mama is an angel in disguise. She is perhaps one of the sweetest, most gentle women that I know, and she is drop dead gorgeous. (My dad is very lucky to have her, and so are we). The other day, I was praying about a conversation that was one of those "We'll talk in person" kind of relationship talks. It hadn't happened yet, and my insides were in loops and knots all over the place! (I am pleased to say now that the conclusion was a favourable one :). Anyhoo, I was driving, and my body was so confused that I was in that weird sweating, clammy mode and freezing because my car's heating doesn't work and I just started talking to God out loud about how I felt. I told him that I knew I was kind of being selfish, but I really would appreciate if the conversation happened soon, even the next day because I was all jumbly inside that I could barely hear myself think! I surrendered my heart about all of it, and prayed for God's leading in the conversation. This was when I had to step back in faith knowing that God had heard my heart, and that He knew what He was doing. Needless to say, I did not have to wait long. About half an hour later, I get a message from my guy asking if we could have our conversation the next day. MY JAW DROPPED! God heard my little selfish heart prayer and answered it, Quickly! I couldn't contain my excitement. I sat up from my perch on the couch and called to my mom until she came fast walking (in mild alarm) into the dining room. "MOM! I just prayed for the conversation to be brought up not even half an hour ago! And he just brought it up!!!" She smiled at me in her mom way and simply told me... "Well yeah Honey, He cares about even the littlest things, and you prayed with Faith that he does." God. Hears. Me. He loves me, and He wants to be involved in my life. It is precious to him. Dearest, He wants the same for you as well, and I firmly believe He often just waits for you to ask. Don't be afraid. Believe in His heart. He will not disappoint.
Hello Darling, and welcome back.
May I be honest with you for a moment? Yes? Gut...then let us be on with it. Before I say anything, please know that I tell you this not because I am longing for sympathy or attention, but because I know that some of you can relate, and I want to offer what I have discovered. My heart has been broken. The real, painful, breath-stealing kind of broken and the source of this pain was not one that I would ever expect. For the past couple of months, I have been struggling. I have felt lonely, and unpursued by my friends and family... but especially by God. Particularly by God. As many of you know, I value my relationship with God very highly. He is someone I spend lots of time talking to, and thinking about. I love seeing the beauty of this world and knowing that there is a creator that cared enough to design such magnificently special things. Lately though, He has been silent. I have called and called, and called to Him... and it has felt like my cries did nothing but bounce back like echoes on a canyon wall. The chaos in my heart and mind that normally is handled with Him became unbearable. Like a crowd rioting in my head. I could not be still... Could not be quiet. The one that people say should be the passionate lover of my soul seems to be doing all He can to passionately ignore me...but not just ignore me... completely abandon me. It was like I had been walking with Him in a beautiful city, and He had found the one dark alley and dumped me there, without telling me where he was going or when He would be back. The most miserable weeks of my life...and I am not entirely sure what to do. Now, do not hear me saying that He absolutely is not here, or that I do not think that He knows what I am going through, but I will be honest in saying that I do not understand why He is doing what He is doing. It is possible that I am in the place of Job and this is a test of my Faith and love. It is possible that He is trying to reveal to me a different way in which He is trying to communicate that I am not seeing, and it is possible that I am just thickheaded and cannot hear anything... But I do know that it is ever so painful, and frustrating. Some things that I have learned thus far in this time are these... 1. I am alive 2. There is beauty 3. I need to keep loving I am alive. I am a living, breathing woman... and according to John chapter one, I am living because Jesus Christ has said it is so "In Him was life, and the life was the light of men..." There is a reason that I am alive... Even when my heart is hurting, and I am left gasping for air through tears, the grace is given to me to live, inherently giving an immense purpose to my existence. There is beauty. Oh there is so much beauty. No matter how dark my heart, the light of the sun remains brilliantly glorious. No matter how distorted my vision becomes, the roses in my window remain lovely. My dear, I believe that beauty is part of God's gift to sustain us when we are broken. It reminds us that there is hope, and love, and goodness remaining even while our emotions rage. I need to keep loving. So many times over the past weeks I have felt a bitterness start to creep into my heart, a callous hardness that threatens to overwhelm me, but I cannot surrender to it!! I cannot allow myself to stop loving...because life is meaningless without love. I was made for love (1 Cor 13) I cannot isolate myself and run from tenderness because the prayers and care of others and the care for them is like a lifeline reminding me that there is more. More than my sadness, more than myself. You are alive. There is beauty. And you need to keep loving. When you are in pain, these things are true. When you are deeply joyful, these things are true. Hold them tightly and keep running after Him, the keeper, lover, and dreamer of your soul. He is there, somewhere... and He promises to show up when He is sought after with all of the heart, and He will be. I am still seeking, still waiting, but I will never stop looking. Good Morning...And Afternoon...And Evening, and month of April! I must confess I've been lost in the breeze by kind of life lately. Between setting up interviews for a new job, finding somewhere to live, and spending hours in the recording studio I haven't made time to just sit down and write. Today is the day!
Something that's been on my heart lately has been the idea of making time...Making time for life, love, other people... As I've been on this journey of seeking God and learning what it means to be a woman, He has put on my heart just how important time is to Him. Every moment is an opportunity gifted by Him. A uniquely wonderful and finite chunk of possibility. Think about it! There will never be another moment like this one that you are spending with me while reading this. Never be this particular beautiful frame of life again, and then it's gone. I don't say this to discourage you or usher doomsday, but I do say it as maybe a little bit of a reality check. How often do we complain about being bored, or that it's just "another day"?? But the reality is that it isn't just "another day". This day...This 24 hours has never and will never happen again. That alone makes it special, but top that with the fact that every moment you have a choice about how you are going to live it! Are you going to MAKE TIME to meet with your friend for an hour for coffee and really genuinely ask them how they're doing in their heart, and then be blessed by sharing it with them? Are you going to enjoy the beauty of the snow falling, or a flower blooming? Or are you too busy feeling overwhelmed by what's happening next and telling people that you have no time that you don't realize that you just sat for an hour doing nothing. Something that I have noticed lately about the way that our culture and frame of mind works is that we are kind of chronic time wasters. We allow entire weeks to slip by without stopping to notice that anything is actually happening. We make the excuse that we're busy when in reality we spend hours a day staring at a screen, or complaining about the woes of the world. We are UNAWARE of the PRECIOUS NATURE of our time. It is not refillable like a VISA gift card... When it is spent it's spent. My challenge to you today would be to really observe for a day how you are spending your time...What are you doing? Then, ask God to point out areas in which He wants to reclaim your time, and show you how to live going forward. Ask Him to make you AWARE. It will change your heart, life, and relationships. Prepare to be amazed. So, I usually try my best to write these so that the gents won't blush or feel awkward while reading them...But today, I can't. It's nothing so bad, but we will be talking about what it means to be truly lovely, so be warned.
As I've sought after God since I started my relationship with him six years ago, he will sometimes put a word into my life that he prompts me to focus intensely on and learn from. At one time it was gentleness, and it ended up that that focus on gentleness lasted the entire year. That year was spent searching out the true meaning of gentleness...In word but especially in action. Soon after gentleness came sweetness, and though sweetness is not technically a fruit of the spirit and appears a rather flimsy word, focusing on that idea for months profoundly changed my heart, my relationships, and my life. As of now, the word that has been on my heart is LOVELY. Lovely is a word that I have noticed has faded into the background of vocabulary and our culture. You hardly ever hear people genuinely calling something or someone lovely, and if you do it's usually someone like your grandma. Personally, I think that it is one of the most magnificent words in the English language. It means so much while saying so little. (As a poet, my favorite kind of word) Even the definition in the plain English dictionary is breathtaking...Lovely:"Exquisitely Beautiful" "EXQUISITELY BEAUTIFUL!!!" Have you ever seen something exquisitely beautiful? Something that simply takes your breath away because it is truly lovely? If you say that you have not...My dear you are very truly about to, but in order to do so you must leap... And you are leaping into something so terrifyingly wonderful that you will never go back. YOU ARE LOVELY... YOU...ARE...LOVELY Now do not dare brush this off as some motivational self-esteem boosting Facebook quote!!!! Do not dare do that because if you do, this time will have been wasted. You may have read this hundreds of times against some colorful sunset background and said "yes, my eyeliner looks great today and my rolls are a little less noticeable than usual... I can sort of feel good about that." But have you ever stopped to think of WHY? Why are you exquisitely beautiful? Because you are made in the image, and are constantly reflecting even when you do not acknowledge it... The very nature of "exquisite beauty"... My love, you are not lovely because you have beautiful eyes, or perfect brows...You are lovely because you were formed as a mirror and painting of the most lovely One in the universe. GOD. He loved you so much, that He HAND CRAFTED a body, mind, spirit, and soul that was an absolutely unique reflection of his goodness and beauty. You have a kind of loveliness that no other soul in this universe possesses because you possess just the kind that God personally gifted YOU with. This kind of loveliness is in every human on this planet because this is the story of every human on this planet. If that is indeed the case, then why does our ability to see loveliness seem so distorted? Have you ever wondered why humanity tries so desperately to create an image of loveliness to conform to? May it be that the evil that be in this world is trying to convince us that only the external ideal is lovely? Maybe because if people knew that they were exquisitely beautiful because of their beloved creator they would turn to Him and stop focusing on themselves and their self-alterations, and begin reflecting that knowledge to others? How powerful that would be eh? ... And terrifying for Him. He keeps us ensnared in our vanity, "self-esteem", and worry so that we become ineffective and dull on the inside... Our mirror, the one that enables us to reflect our own unique loveliness and see it, and that shines light on others becomes foggy and defective because without light to sustain the reflection there is no reflection. My loves, you are not here on this earth to build good self-esteem. You are here to enjoy the loveliness that your creator is, and has placed in you, and in the people around you. We are not yet perfect reflections...We often have cracks and smudges and cannot even see ourselves well, but if we choose to pursue vision of this "exquisite beauty" that is God and his creation, our lives will begin to reflect that pursuit...And we will become all the more lovely because of it. His light will illuminate our reflection so that it cannot help but be seen. We will draw others to us, and be drawn to HIM together. Hello Darlings! So lovely to meet and sip with you again!
Today, because of a draw that I have felt on my heart, I would like to pose a challenge to do a bit of heart-keeping and reflection in this next few minutes. Have you ever stopped to take notice of how you respond when someone asks you a question like "how are you?" I am not talking about when a customer or coworker casually grunts as they walk by without listening to or even waiting to hear a response. I am talking about when a dear friend, or family member, or a church member stops you to ask how you are. For many of us, our response is quick and automatic. A short "good" or "really busy" is usually enough to satisfy or at least brush off any further question or thought, and then you go back to your text, or scrolling Instagram feeds, or whatever you may have been doing. Now, there is nothing inherently wrong about those responses in themselves. You very well might be busy, or the generic "good". I mean, your arm probably isn't falling off, so life could be worse. The point is though that how much meaningful interaction are you missing because of a lack of thoughtfulness in your response? With a cheap response, you are missing a critical moment to invest in and build a foundation of trust and honesty with someone. Something that is rare and beautiful in this life. I was deeply convicted of my cheap responses when I realized how much time I had wasted and how many opportunities I had missed for good conversations. My challenge to you would be to never allow what is cheap to replace the beautiful opportunities given to us by our Creator to love and invest in the people around us.
I would like to close this update in prayer. If you would like to, please pray with me, making sure that your heart is open to His leading and loving direction for your life as well.
Dearest Daddy, Thank you for the beautiful year that has finished. I know that there was no moment wasted even in my times of failure and deviation from what I knew I should have been pursuing, and I thank you for the many moments in which you just showed up and stayed with me. Thank you for your comfort, love, and truth that you so generously just pour into me all the time. I also just thank you so much for such a beautiful beginning to the new year. I am so excited to see what you have planned moment by moment of this life ahead. Thank you for being so beautifully glorious, and for being so faithful. You are so so good. In this moment, and every moment to come, I surrender my heart, soul, mind, and strength to you. Please take me and use me for your purpose. Amen |
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