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Christmas

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In honor of the season, I’m re-blogging a poem I wrote last Christmas. O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord!

Jaimie's avatarINSPIRED BY THE COMFORTER

Here lies a wandering world, numbed by silence and lulled to slumber in the bed of their own consequences. Hearts yearning for “something more”, frustration and longing for love and satisfaction gripping them with fists of disillusionment. “I thought my life would be different.”

Glimmer of hope, Jupiter crowned in Regulus, star to cut the darkness brightly. King of all wrapped in cloak of skin, divinity set aside in submission to meager mortal. Love beyond comprehension. Inconceivable wonder. (You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.)

Care and protection of the Godhead assigned to lowly frame of girl and boy. Unspeakable mystery. “Be it unto me according to your word.” Prophecies of old fulfilled in one. Odds too numerous to imagine. Proof through faith and Science of a living God who set the heavens in motion for this moment.

Christmas tree, gift…

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The Edge of the World

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winter

In my own little world I become numb

The small of my back resting in a small little chair

In my small little house on a small little street

In a small little town

Where the green grass grows all around, all around…

The days go by one by one like a blur and I forget to open my eyes

Perspective is a thing gained in increments, easily ignored, or swallowed forcibly

We can either look straight at the moments that define us

Or recover with as much grace possible when life hits hard

I hope to choose the former

mount

So here I am on the edge of the world realizing that there is a vastness so much greater than me

Adventure so much grander than I have imagined

A people gripped by more need than I have acknowledged

There are tears I have not shed in prayer

Hands I’ve refused to hold for fear of soiling my own

Eyes I have not looked deeply into

Thirsts not quenched by the reaching of my own hand

Somehow here, my mundane seems to lack meaning

To make an impact above the ordinary

To excel in the midst of the mediocre

To fulfill, suddenly becomes the only source of fulfillment

I am made full by the pouring out of all I am on the altar

The emptying of self in reasonable service to the Most High

Deep calling deep within my soul

Revealing to me that I only live when I stop living only for me

Here on the edge of the world, I find a new beginning.

Wine & Airy Dresses

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Image

We can’t always trust our eyes. They lie. This morning I kept glancing at a magazine on my table (pictured above). I could have sworn it said “Wine and airy dresses to indulge your sweet tooth”. I kept thinking it just didn’t quite make sense. It wasn’t until much later when it caught my eye again that I looked closer and realized “dresses” was actually “dessert”.

Life is like that too. My pastor always says, “Lord, stamp eternity on my eyes so I can see things as they really are and not as they appear to be.” We look at our lives through earthen glasses and miss the bigger picture. God is looking from beginning to end with a plan in mind. We need to trust that He’s got it all under control and not let our senses fool us.

I encourage you to trust Him fully today!  Have a wonderful Monday everyone!

Signs, Confusion and Forever

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I confess, I’ve been known to take a shortcut or two. Time is a precious commodity in my life. Somehow, I’m convinced that I have less of it than most people, so occasionally, I improvise. Usually, it gets the job done so I don’t sweat the small stuff.

Still, there are suggested uses provided by manufacturers for a reason. This becomes apparent when I grab my favorite sweater out of the dryer only to realize it now needs to be passed down to an 8-year-old since it was intended to dry flat. Just like that, it’s gone.

Tag

I must also confess that I’ve never taken the time to figure those dumb laundry labels out. When I do take the time to read the label, I’m greeted with Pictionary instead of language. I know I could easily look up their meanings, but ‘ain’t nobody got time for that’. So I guess and just wing it. It’s usually just fine, but not always…

But maybe the world operates on symbols and not just words. I get it in some cases. Road signs could become very tedious if we clearly spelled out the meaning on everyone. How many accidents would be blamed on “I was trying to read the sign”? Some things you just have to make an effort to learn. sign

I haven’t decided which category marriage falls into yet. Sometimes I find myself trying to decode the symbols and I just know I’m shrinking a sweater. I wish we could just find a way to clearly spell it all out so there would never be any confusion. Yet, there’s a lot of wisdom in NOT saying everything that pops into your head in the heat of argument. 

So maybe it’s just part of the adventure. There’s an art to marital communication. It’s a blend of language and charades, verbal and non-verbal, argue and make up.

Sure, I’m going to mess up A LOT, but you better believe I’m going to keep trying. I may be far from perfect, but forever is always worth the effort.

When You Stop and Think About It

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Have you ever read something that’s going viral that you agree with completely and then you can’t get it out of your head? Not because it was any new concept or trans formative thought, but because you’re suddenly struck by the notion that it isn’t common sense to the mass populace. You realize that the way you try to live your life is foreign to others. Somehow you’ve become the anomaly. Selfishness has taken the place of selfishness everywhere like an epidemic.

Then everywhere you look, there are reminders of this fact and you wonder how you never saw it before. Then you grow increasingly concerned about others because of this realization and you wonder if maybe a small voice in the mass void can make a difference.

Then you realize that by nature of the fact that the aforementioned viral piece went viral, one lone voice already has. Then you realize that if that voice called to the masses, maybe yours can too.

Then you sit down and write the circular reasoning down and send it out into the void so maybe someone else can come to the same conclusion and stop and write or speak up or sing or do whatever it is they do. Then maybe one voice will become two voices or one hundred or one thousand or one million. Then maybe the collective voices will proclaim in unison that there is a better way.

Give of yourself. Make a difference.

“Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.” Francis Chan

Who Told You that You Were Naked?

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The lizard in the rough

There they were in the garden.  Man created in the image of God. A single rib taken to craft stunning beauty, a helper designed with detailed intent, a companion worthy of him. The crowning achievement of the Father warranting an affirmation of “goodness” from the lips of the one who’d just spoken the world into existence.

There were no thorns to prick the skin. There was no need to till the ground. The earth yielded abundance to them from divine mist that covered creation each morning. That alone is phenomenal to me, to think what it must have felt like to be covered by a mist sent from His own hand. What was it like to truly be kept…to walk with God in the cool of the day?

Then along came a serpent…

Even now his slanderous tongue spews poison to our souls. Did God REALLY say? Is there something more He’s not telling you? You can be like God. Dig deep within and listen and you may hear it. The scar on humanity left at the scene of the slandering. The whispered notion that it’s not quite good enough.

I hear it from time to time, the echoing accusations slither in to tell me that at the core of me I am naked and I should be ashamed. At the end of the day, when I’ve done all I could do before collapse, I hear the whisper that I have not done enough. I don’t think I’m alone in this. The scores of books written telling us how to a better parent, a better wife, a better lover, a better businessman, all serve as proof that we humans have an innate drive to be better. We forget that God looked at His creation and called it “good”.

perspective

So we sew leaves into coverings and though we are firmly planted in the garden of His grace, we feel the need to hide. We are ashamed and lulled to discontent by the siren song of something more. It looked good and pleasant to eat. Maybe the wisdom we attained, the knowledge of good and evil, was only the ability to discern the complete goodness of God juxtaposed against the inadequacies of man. We look at what God created as good and pure and view it as neither.

Don’t misunderstand me, when sin entered the world, it brought with it a world of death and ugliness. I do not in any way think that we should look upon sin as acceptable and call the ugly beautiful. But Adam and Eve didn’t just hide their sin. They also hid themselves, their beauty, their security, their intimacy. They hid from God.

God didn’t despise them, he called to them, “Where are you?” He longed for them. They felt exposed and unworthy…naked and ashamed. His simple question still rings out over the earth. “Who told you that you were naked?”

Who told you that you aren’t good enough? Who told you that you are a bad mother? Who told you that you aren’t a good enough wife? Who told you that you don’t make enough money? Who told you that you’ll never amount to anything? Who told you that you are ugly or not thin enough or too thin? Who told you that your ears are too big or your nose or your eyes?

Whoever it was and whatever it was, it wasn’t God. He looks at His creation and rests and calls it good. He looks at your abilities, your talents, your personality, who you are at the core of your being and he sees a masterpiece. You are the only you. He knows everything about you, even the ugly stuff and he still loves you.

Fortunately for us, He made provision for the ugly stuff. That day in the garden, he promised that would bruise the head of the liar and crush him underneath the heel of the redeemer (Genesis 3:15). He made good on that promise using some wood, nails and an empty tomb and exalting forever a Savior. So the next time those whispers try to slither into your soul, remember that you aren’t naked anymore and drown those whispers out with gladness.

Isaiah 61:10 “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,
My soul shall be joyful in my God;
For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation,
He has covered me with the robe of righteousness”

O Ye Stubborn Masses

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I come from a long line of stubborn women. I too, am stubborn and opinionated. It’s just a fact, plain and simple. It can be a gift. I will not quickly bow to the fanciful voices of other gods vying for my attention. I firmly stand in the face of opposition with confident composure believing wholly in my cause. I am a woman of great faith. But like any great strength, once overextended it can be an area of weakness.

There are two areas in particular that come to mind where this is the case. One, when the stubborn individual is just flat out wrong. I don’t mean in cases that are subjective either. Have you ever met someone who is holding firmly to something without foundation, baseless and formless? They try so hard to stand on the vapor and can’t imagine why anyone would proffer the suggestion that it may not support their weight. They’re falling, yet every attempt to catch them only leads to more insistence that they are just fine and dandy. The rest of the world is forced to watch, helpless, as they crash. It’s so frustrating and often leads to the second area where stubbornness can be a problem, when two stubborn people face off.

The stubborn face off can occur when one stubborn individual confronts another stubborn individual on matters of principle. Both equally passionate parties will live and die for their ideal. Neither will yield or compromise. Neither will even entertain the notion that the other party may have even the slightest bit of sense behind their argument. So they lock in and stand off. Most of the time, both have an element of rightness on their sides. Sometimes the argument is beyond pointless and doesn’t matter at all in the grand scheme of things. The wise man, in such a case, would agree to disagree and walk away, but we’re not always wise are we? I vividly remember arguing with my brother for days when we were younger because he insisted that the sky was never blue, it was in fact purple. It seemed a noble cause at the time.

Other times, the argument is of vast importance. In situations like that, shots are fired, wars are fought, governments are shutdown…okay I’m not going there.

To the stubborn individual, rightness is a necessity. I know one stubborn person (who I am in a stubborn face off of sorts with at present) who will idly throw out a remark and the run before I can respond. It irks me and makes me laugh at the same time.

The truth is, I’ve decided that sometimes peace is better than rightness. Though I would be tempted to fight the battle to the end and slay the demons that I deem to be clouding the truth in another person’s mind, if I know the battle will not lead to healing, the fight will lead to deeper cuts in an already wounded soul, then the most loving thing I can do is to remain silent. Sometimes words I offer with the best of intentions, fall on deaf ears and further divide the heart of this person who I long to see live free. It is then, that I, the stubborn one, must learn to love instead of lead. I often need to learn to bind up what’s been broken instead of proving truth to a heart not ready to hear. This is not an easy thing.

Do I possess enough love for another that I can surrender my sword of correctness to offer support when the vapor isn’t going to hold? Maybe I can even come underneath the falling soul and break their fall with kindness and mercy. Maybe that is what Christ did for us. When we were blinded by our own agendas and sin, Christ loved us enough to be crushed, bruised, beaten and scarred. Then he rose victorious, taking with him the keys to all the things that could come against us. He held captivity captive and freed us from the prison of…us. He, the only one who was actually right all of the time, was willing to die, not to prove himself right, but so we could be right before the Father.

I would venture to guess, eventually we will all realize that we don’t know nearly as much as we think we do.

 

 

Words, Words, Words

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Words

Words are a powerful thing. With their assistance we brave daunting emotions and weighty issues. We express our inmost thoughts and our deepest fears.

Words can cut through the soul to the inner man bringing both healing and harm. Words can be followed by joy, embraced by laughter or lost in sorrow.

There are words we set to flight that we’d like to grab back quickly like the bug the fly snatches mid-air with his rasping, sticky tongue.

There are words we could repeat infinitely and still never exhaust; the “I love you’s” whispered, yelled, proclaimed, declared and given freely.

In the inexhaustible I find a sweet malady. When I’m struck with more emotion than I could possibly utter. Those 2 a.m., “watching the baby sleep” moments. I’m there grasping internally for a way to describe the sentiment and find myself empty but so incredibly full.

How do we pinpoint love on a page? Many have tried but is such greatness definable?

Rest

It’s no wonder the heavens declare the glory of God because we would never be able to scratch the surface of the topic. We are so limited in our vocabulary, with our finite minds and detail-oriented natures. Yet there He stands, incalculable, boundless, limitless, vast and grand. And we should be in awe. We should stumble and wrestle with our verbiage in attempt to bring Him the praise He’s due. We do this not because we know we will succeed, but because what else is there?

Moonlight

We bound through life tossing words around like confetti, littering the landscape in an effort to bring joy, excitement, inspiration and meaning. Let us also fill the air with words of thankfulness and praise like the stars that paint the heavens as each word floats on frequency to the ears of one who hears it all.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1

Words are a powerful thing!

Sing me a Song

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I’ve been singing and playing music in church most of my life. I wrote my first song when I was three and my mother insisted that I sing it for everyone. I clearly remember refusing to do so unless she held my hand…she did. It was my solo debut. To answer the most commonly asked questions, yes, I still remember the song. No, I won’t sing it for you, but here are the lyrics (bracing for the embarrassment…remember I was only three)

Jesus, I love you

Jesus, I want you to be my friend

Jesus I’ve heard about you

How you hold the future in your hands

Jesus, I love you

Will you live inside my heart forever more?

I’m guessing it was adorable! That was all it took for me to decide I was meant to sing and sing I did…constantly.

We lived in Houston, TX for a while when I was four in a pretty rough apartment complex. I remember three things about Houston: my boyfriend whose name was Jesus (he thought all of our songs were about him), the SWAT team coming through frequently to collect whatever maniac was wielding a firearm that day, and getting up at 6 AM every morning, standing on the balcony and loudly singing to the world “See the bright light shine, it’s just about home time. I can see my Father standing at the door”. For the record, the neighbors didn’t think I was quite as adorable as everyone else did.

I was the “song leader” for my Daddy’s church when I was six primarily because we didn’t have microphones and I was the only one who could sing loud enough to be heard above everything else. I have always loved to write music. I am working on two new songs right now. We just played a new original of mine in church last Sunday. I’m not trying to toot my own horn here, just laying a little groundwork to let you know that I am very passionate about worship and music. It’s a part of me.

What I’ve realized, however, is that the thrill of operating in my calling is absolutely nothing compared with watching my daughters operate in theirs. I mean NOTHING! They are now teenagers (13 & 16) and play in the youth band at church and are on the worship team with us in ‘big’ church. Sunday, as we played the newest song I’d finished writing and my daughter’s bass guitar was ‘rockin’ it’, I was caught up in the moment. It’s a great thing to operate in your calling. It feels amazing to let God take over and use the gifts He’s given you to minister to others. It feels even more amazing to see your children or others that you’ve poured into, use their giftings to further the kingdom of God.

Proud Mama

My pastor has told me many times that I should always work myself out of a job. The best thing we can do as believers is to find someone to come alongside us that we can pour into, mentor, minister to, teach and encourage. After all, the things that will matter in the end are the legacies we leave behind. What footprint did we leave on this earth? Did we use our time to further our own agendas or did we use our time to leave a lasting impact on another person?

Parenting gives us a unique opportunity to impact another human being. Sometimes the impact our parents make on us is positive, sometimes…not so much. As I think back on my life, some of the most profound influences and inspirations in my life were people other than my parents. There were the sisters in Christ who arranged “gigs” for me throughout my teenage years. There was the pastor/worship leader who would push me to reach higher, sing louder, let go and go for it. There was the dear sister who told me the phrase I still think of every time I step out to lead worship or write something a little extra personal; “Don’t hold back”! My grandfather inspired me to play guitar. My best friend has spent countless hours with me writing and playing music, polishing lyrics and trying to discover new chord progressions. My parents definitely inspired me, but these people spurred me on into my calling.

As I think of the impact I make in the lives of others, I’m forced to evaluate how important it is to me to take the time to make a difference in someone else’s life. It is taxing sometimes to spend hours on the phone with a friend whose heart is breaking. It is hard to put work and household duties on the back burner to go have coffee with someone who wants to get to know you better. It takes an effort to teach a guitar or vocal lesson or read over lyrics or poetry written by someone you barely know and give honest feedback that will encourage them to keep going. But these are the things that matter. The encouraging words spoken today may grow into faith in the soil of another heart. The time spent just being there for someone may make all the difference. The prayers shared together may bring just enough strength in a moment of weakness. The honest critique may birth wisdom. The lesson may inspire greatness.

We may never fully know the impact we make, but even if we aren’t afforded the opportunity to eat the fruit that springs forth from small seeds we’ve sown, we are rewarded for our faithfulness to the author of life who inspired life within us. That alone, is worth more than anything.

All the Happy People

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JoyI confess that when I was pregnant with baby man I spent a few too many hours watching shows like “A Baby Story” and “The Business of Being Born”. I think it’s inherent to pregnant women to read and watch everything pregnancy related they can get their hands on. This seemed strange to me only because you’d think by pregnancy number four I would be ready to write the material instead of reading it.

Something started to bug me as the months progressed. If you’ve ever watched “A Baby Story” you’ll remember that at the end of each episode, they usually have a clip of the parents saying what they want for their child as he or she grows. I realized that almost all of them said the same seemingly noble thing, “I want for my child to by happy.” Ah, the sentimentality.  Isn’t that what every parent wants… a happy, well-adjusted, smiling brood following behind them like a row of ducklings. It seems so normal and selfless a request.

Bubba

I don’t think I realized why it didn’t sit right with me until this week. Now it seems epidemic. People everywhere I look are touting the need to be happy. It is an inalienable right after all, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. If it’s in the Bill of Rights, it must be a noble aim. Who am I to argue?

Still, I think we’ve gotten it all wrong. Happiness is so circumstantial. It comes and goes like the tide. I’m happy when things go my way and I get what I want. I’m not happy when the hard times come. I’m not happy when I can’t pay the bills or when the kids are sick or when I’m completely soaked with baby spit-up at the office (circa today), or the car or the microwave breaks, or my marriage gets rocky, or my friends prove unfriendly, or…insert whatever else here…

The “pursuit” of happiness is a great way to put it because it’s fleeting. It often seems just beyond our reach and we stretch and fight and push harder and farther hoping to achieve it, the whole time wondering what we are doing wrong. We must be doing something wrong if we can’t grab it! After all, it’s the goal, the dream, what our parents wanted for us, what we were taught to desire and follow above all else. What is life without happiness anyway?

I contend there is a better way. There is such a thing as joy whose purest form can only be found in the Lord. Joy is a gift given freely with salvation. It’s a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.)

I heard the following quote by Pastor Greg Surratt recently, “Happiness is what happens to you but joy is produced in you.” Joy should well up from inside simply because we are His, because the Spirit of God within us is the source of all joy. Nothing else matters.

Paul says in Philippians 4:11, “for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content.”  Somehow, we feel like our lives shouldn’t be messy. Somehow, we’ve convinced ourselves that if we’re serving God, everything will be perfect and we will never suffer. This ideal is totally contrary to scripture. Paul was beaten with rods, shipwrecked, thrown in prison multiple times, yet he was content. The disciples were martyred for the sake of the gospel. They suffered horribly, but I don’t think you can convince me they did so without joy or peace.

Ultimately, true joy comes from trust and obedience. If we trust in the Lord, nothing can steal away the joy set before us. If we truly believe what we say we believe, we won’t be thrown by the circumstances of this life. “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” Romans 8:18

Some may think it seems a little easy for me to say such things when I am now incredibly happy, but I assure you, I know what it is for circumstances to steal the wind from your lungs. I know the ache of life not going as planned all too well. I speak of this amazing joy that permeates everything, including the ugly, not from a place of a life well lived, but from the remnants of a life torn apart and rebuilt after “I never expected things to turn out like this”. I’ve melted to a puddle on the floor of my closet crying to the Lord begging Him to change situations in my life. I’ve spent hours or my past telling Him that I didn’t think I could take anymore. I know pain. I also know that in the midst of the worst of it, He was there and so was a deep peace and everlasting joy.

Now on the other side looking back, I can see it so clearly, the brightness of glory as He carried me through. I see how he molded me into something lovely. He didn’t blow away the ashes of a life once lived and start fresh with new material. He used the ashes of every moment seemingly wasted and shaped them into something beautiful.

He didn’t promise us “happy”. He did promise us joy. For my children and for those I love, I don’t wish for happiness though it seems a nice gesture. My prayer is that my children, my loved ones, may know Him and the fullness of His peace, love and joy. I pray they would dive deeply into every precious promise and seek first HIs kingdom. I pray that they would know that no matter what life throws at them, they can be content.

Lord, I thank you for the hard times in my life. Thank you for being there with me even when the darkness seemed to overtake the light. Thank you for allowing me to know that my joy comes from you alone and that nothing can ever steal it from me or snatch me from your hand.