If the night is dark, I know the light.
If the world seems to be pressing hard on my shoulders, I know the one who holds it the palm of His hand.
When all seems wrong, I lean in and trust.
I have a defender and He carries me.
If I am His then what is there to fear?
Walk on weary one…walk on!
Faith
The Secret to Peace
I hear his sweet voice from behind the door. A squeaky, tired, “mom”, queuing me to come near quick. He stands in the middle of the bed looking at me with those tired eyes; bed-head pointing in each direction. I smile as he runs towards me. Wobbly feet carry him along, one resolve motivates his movement. He must get to mommy!
This same pattern repeats throughout the day. I work on my laptop on the couch as he plays with blocks. I print to the wireless printer across the room. The noise startles him as foreign sounds fill the room. He jumps to his feet suddenly and runs to my arms. Later, the thunder claps as the afternoon storm rolls in (if you’ve ever been to Florida in the summer time you will understand the severity of a little afternoon thunderstorm). The house shakes and rattles as he leaps into arms, safe and sound, secure knowing I’m near.
He, at 15 months, knows the secret to peace. Somehow it falls out of our awareness as we grow, older, wiser, more independent but the principle remains. True peace is found in the knowledge that we are loved and secure in the arms of one bigger and stronger than us. True peace is found in trust and surrender. It’s harder for us. The art of growing allows us to learn to believe in and rest in the arms of one unseen. Through faith, we know we are held. We often settle for comfort from other sources because it’s easier to lean on something with skin on. But skin fails, hearts grow weak and weary, wisdom falls victim to selfish ambition. People may fail us, but we are safe! We can be perfectly secure in the knowledge that there is one who never fails and He loves us more than we can fathom.
So today when your fears rise up and the thunderstorms rage and the rooms grow dark and you feel alone, call out. Run to the arms of The Lord. He is always near! He will never fail! He is completely trustworthy! Just as I smile and comfort my little one, He longs to comfort you. You are not alone!
The End of the Day
At the end of the day, I can rest knowing that I did all I could to stand when the daylight and dusk collided. When the sound of feet on pavement pushed resistance against my longing…when the straggler dreams long into the twilight and the voices fade, deep and gnawing at the heart of me…I hold this hope assured in love. As the conquerer’s hands grasp tight to mine, lifting my head higher to behold the place his glory dwells. Ah, rest is found there. When his voice blares loudly the song of the ages and I find arms willing to wrap me up in grace. Comforter covering me whole.
Tonight as my eyes burn to close, I will remember that in Him I live and move and have my being and that tomorrow is another opportunity for greatness. Now I rest assured, confident and safe in the embrace of the ultimate comforter. And the world turns on and the play continues. I am found here where today gives way to tomorrow.
Discovering Why
Perhaps I’m easily excitable. Perhaps I am always searching. Perhaps the promise of hope makes my heart beat wildly. Perhaps…
I utter simple prayers each day that God would take my selfish heart and expand it outward. I pray that I would truly love others and that maybe I could connect with another human in a way that’s meaningful. That in this massive stage where the tragedy unfolds, I might be able to play a part in the resolution. Where the Kingdom of God meets the longing of man, I would reach inward and help another to stand whole and restored.
Then I go about my day. sit alone in my office and do my job. I go about my life running from task to task and forget to stop and look. I sometimes forget to care. Then I crumble into the pillow exhausted after the day and feel as though there must be something more.
I love my job! I adore my family! I consider myself to be highly blessed and favored. Please don’t misunderstand the previous statements to mean I’m ill-satisfied with my life. I am most certainly not. But, I also realize that the deep longing of my heart to influence and reach others is born from the Spirit of God and his deep desire to reach men and women and show this his everlasting love and promise. It is inherent in the heart of a follower of Jesus to love others. It’s a consequence of a life surrendered. Perhaps I’m just a Christian.
I made a decision this week that seemed so unlike me and started a new venture with my husband. Here I am, this shy girl who has always struggled a bit making conversation with people I don’t know and I’ve started a business that requires me to communicate and share with everyone I meet in order to succeed. The funny thing is that despite the fact that it is so unlike anything I ever imagine myself doing, I KNOW with certainty that God is in it. He confirmed it in so many ways and I’ve been truly excited and completely full since making the commitment to run with it.
I made a decision that if I’m ever going to reach people, I need to learn to reach. I cannot remain stuck unable to start a conversation and expect relationships to spontaneously combust before me. I’ve spent the week thinking about my “why”. Why am I doing this? There are several reasons but the biggest one is that I know I’m called to be love to others. How can I ever help others if I don’t reach?
I’ve also realized that we spend our time spinning our wheels in the day to day. My husband is a business owner and works so hard. Often, 50-60 hours per week. I work full time as well. We have four children at home going in four different directions every day. We are the epitome of busy! I’ve found an opportunity to build a business that offers the potential of financial and time freedom. I desire to work smarter and build our dream of enjoying the time we have with our family and taking back our lives. Yes, it will take work and sacrifice for awhile, but the promise of time freedom is worth the work. Imagine what I can give back to the kingdom with financial freedom and time freedom in my grasp!
My “why” is simple. The ability to give. I desire to give of myself to others. I desire to give the gift of time to my family. I desire to give financially to those in need and to the furtherance of the Kingdom of God. I’m sure there will be those who think I’m crazy or think my goals are unattainable. That’s okay with me. Nothing good was ever accomplished by living life for the approval of others.
We are building a team in the US and branching out to Canada this month as well. I would be remiss if I didn’t put the plug out there that you can join us in our endeavor and find your “why” as well. Click here to find out about our business and join our team. Or visit our products page and support us by being a customer. Above all, pray for us and our new endeavor that God would build our team and expand our territory and be glorified first and foremost in all that we do. Thank you!
*Addendum: This post was in no way intended to be a shameless marketing ploy but rather an update on what’s going on in my life and an attempt to get you, my readers, thinking about your “why”. Why do you do what you do? Make everything you do count!
The Little Word “When”
I’ve always felt a little bad for Job. Here’s this righteous man of God who’s so amazing that the Lord actually brags about him (Job 1:8 “8 Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”) yet everything that could go wrong goes wrong FAST! He loses everything and still remains faithful, a bit whiny perhaps, but faithful. His friends spend many chapters lecturing and criticizing him. I don’t really blame the friends though. Isn’t that our nature to decide that someone MUST have done something wrong to deserve all of the bad in their life. We are the first to jump in and criticize. Lord, help me to not be like Job’s friends. But I digress…
We know the story. In the end, God shows up and speaks out of a whirlwind revealing his awe-inspiring power and shaking earth and sky with his glory. Job, the righteous man, feels as though he is no better than the dust beneath his feet in the presence of The Holy One. Job laments that there is no mediator between this awesome God and lowly man. We read it and rejoice knowing that we have such a mediator now in Jesus Christ. The God who shakes the heaven and sees Earth tremble at the sound of His voice, loves us so much that He sent His son to make a way. That always blows my mind. Then God in His glory restores to Job twice what he’d lost to begin with.
I realized a little word I’d missed before. In Job 42:10 it says that God restored Job’s losses WHEN he prayed for his friends. Before Job was given back double, he had to forgive his annoying friends. This righteous man who would certainly be justifiably angry at his so-called friends who came against him the second calamity hit, had to be reconciled to them BEFORE his blessings came. I’d missed that little word “when” before.
If you desire the blessings and favor of God in your life, do yourself a favor and love your neighbor. When you walk in love, purity and forgiveness, there is nothing that can stop you! The blessings of God follow the believer. We don’t have to work for them or conjure them up. They are a consequence of a life lived in service. Don’t wait around and waste time looking for apologies or feeling justified having an attitude. Get over yourself and forgive and the rest will fall into place.
Okay, now the practical portion. I vividly remember being a young, hot-headed gal who thought it was a nice theory to forgive, but I couldn’t figure out how. It can be hard sometimes! Here’s my practical solution and Job demonstrated it perfectly. Pray! You may not want to. You probably won’t feel like it. If you are having trouble forgiving someone, pray for them. Keep praying for them. You don’t have to like them. You don’t have to continue to let them mistreat you. When you start praying for them, you loose the hold they have on you and forgiveness comes. It is a process. Be patient with yourself and when those feelings of anger start to rise up, push them back through prayer. It’s the most practical thing you can do. And as the Bible says in Job, when you pray, God’s blessings are released. You become free!
Who’s in Control?
Reactive, by definition is the tendency to react or to be characterized by reactance. I think most people I know fall into the category of chronic reactors. We so often relinquish control to others or our circumstances. We see it in the lives of those terrified to move because they are so afraid of what others will think. We see it in our relationships as we react in anger. We are driven by words hurled toward us by careless humans, who unwittingly (or with intent), bite with condescension or malice. We are so easily wounded and broken. We are selfish.
Ben Carson says in his book Take the Risk,
“The more rights you think you have, the more likely someone is going to infringe upon them.”
“It wasn’t until I backed off enough to take myself out of the center that I realized reactions like that [anger/negative reactions] were not signs of strength, but rather indications of weakness. Such reactions meant I was letting other people, the environment, or circumstances control me, and I decided I didn’t want to be so easily controlled. But if I took myself, my rights, my ego, my feelings out of the center, I couldn’t be.”
“Once I was able to take myself out of the equation, to look at things from other people’s perspectives and not feel that all the rights belonged to me, the things that could make me angry were suddenly few and far between.”
When we are brave enough to stop thinking about ourselves and put others first, we may find that we gain the power and the freedom that we’ve been searching for. No one can hurt us if we don’t let them. All it takes is the wisdom to know that we are loved completely and fully by the creator and we can move beyond reaction to freedom and begin to go beyond “me” to “them”. Be free today!
Hope
Steady rain pelts, swift and monotonous, on the roof above me
I feel the water purify, washing away the old, carrying with it the promise of hope
Standing singularly like a monument on the horizon
Lingering long enough for me to reach
Long enough for me to believe
Hope, that droplet swiftly coming near
Waiting for me to see it
Impact, as it falls to form in my soul a place where ignition can take effect
As lightning follows the particle to the earth
A blaze begins with a solitary moment
Hope springs from the cleansing of past colliding with the promise of now.
The Map
There’s something about the promise in a morning. A new day peaks over the mountains that stood, ominous, dark, hours before. There’s opportunity inherent there. There’s hope that maybe today will bring with it all the things we’ve been searching for.
That’s why I’m making a diligent choice to sit for a moment, still, with coffee in one hand, treasure map in the other
seeking.
I may not know what adventure awaits me today but I know the means of survival are right here in my grasp, the living word of God, breathing before me
leading me.
It’s wisdom better than gold or rubies making me better.
Proverbs 8:10-11 Receive my instruction, and not silver, And knowledge rather than choice gold; For wisdom is better than rubies, And all the things one may desire cannot be compared with her.”
Hebrews 4:12 “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
Messy
As I was cleaning up smashed strawberries and bananas off of the floor under my son’s high chair this morning, it hit me…not just the peaches he was chucking at my head…also the realization that life is messy. There’s really no way around this fact. Sure, I’m in the thick of it, with four kids at home and a full-time job and ministry obligations. There’s always something more to be done and some inner voice telling me I’m not doing it all well enough. But I think all of us have an element of “mess” in our lives. It’s that stuff that always comes back, the house, the bills, the relational problems, whatever it may be.
I, for one, tend to rail against the mess hoping if I grimace enough, it will all go away and sparkle in the radiant light of my annoyance. This approach rarely works. Go figure…The better approach would be to realize that the mess has purpose and accept it. The mess serves to make me better and if I’m better at the end of the day, then it was all worth it.
For me, the mess tends to ‘mess’ with my psyche. I am my own worst critic. Consequently, I can be so hard on myself when the mess is too grand for me to tackle in a day. Sometimes, I find myself on my knees in the morning scrubbing day old fruit like this morning, as today’s peaches fly like rockets. And that’s okay.
There’s an odd little story in 2 Kings chapter 2:23-24. Elisha was going about his day and some young dudes decided to mock him and call him “baldhead”. Elisha turns around and looks at them and curses them in the name of the Lord and bears come out of the woods and eat them up. Elisha just keeps on going to where he was headed. Weird right? I’ve heard a lot of commentary on this passage, and honestly, I never thought too much about this passage and just attributed it to Elisha being sensitive about his receding hairline. Plus, how dumb to mess with the man of God! Today, I’m thinking a little differently.
We all have those things that we are sensitive about. Mine is my inability to “properly” quell the messes that confront me. I fight with myself regularly as my internal accuser tells me I’m failing. Today, I’ve learned to stop arguing and just pull an Elisha. When the mocker comes, I can stare it down and curse it in the name of the Lord. I can do this because I know who I am. Elisha was so much more than a bald guy. I am so much more than my mess. So I can boldly stand at the edge of the woods that would seek to drag me down and bury me deep in shame and insecurity and I can call on something higher than myself to deal with the problem. I don’t need to fight my own battles, I need to rest in who I am in Christ and keep going.
I don’t know what mess is mocking you today. It could be flying peaches, anger or even addictions, but I do know this, there is a defender who loves you deeply. He will help when you call upon his name. You never have to face this life alone. I pray your day is filled with cleaning, smiles and bear calling…and those flying peaches may be sticky, but don’t let them bring you down.
Expression
When pressing upon me, the world appears, to express from my lungs a song
May divine word spring forth in melody rising far above the fall
INSPIRED BY THE COMFORTER 