You are me when the light dims.
You are me when the light shines bright
We are one. We are whole!
Who knew?!?
If tomorrow were another moment in the realm of eternity, would we notice the light?
How bright can we shine NOW?!?
If we aren’t light, who are we?
Reach for light!
I was a human once.
I lived, I breathed, I knew who I was.
It was somewhere between where husband number one left me a puddle on the floor and husband number two decided I wasn’t enough.
Maybe I’m not.
Maybe they’re not.
I’m not qualified to say.
Tonight, I’m thinking I am beyond expectations and they are the fault.
Regardless, I’m here with the pieces.
Pieces are a funny thing. They fall in random intervals. They collide with ideals. They stick themselves in places you didn’t see coming.
But you hang on, groping for tomorrow because maybe it will be better and maybe peace can be found.
Maybe, instead of the ideal that someone will rescue me, I can find solace in me and my faith and the promise of tomorrow. I am tired.
I’m tired of picking up pieces and expecting gold.
Still, I am an optimist. I believe in tomorrow.
But today is real and I need to feel it to gather the gold.
So I struggle and rest in the same breath.
I am me and for tonight, that is enough. Tomorrow may be another story.
Shine when the darkness covers.
Shine when you can’t find light.
Today is a day gone…tomorrow is eternity, so live!!!!
Random thoughts from the lost and tired.
Be you!
Bring the thunder and the light will follow…at least that’s the hope.
I’ve been through a lot in my lifetime. I used to feel a little sorry for myself if I’m being honest. I can remember sad, pitiful, moments when I whined at God because “He must love everyone else more than me since life was so unfair”, blah blah blah. I’m ashamed to admit that, but it’s the truth. I’ve long since adjusted my attitude towards suffering, hardship, and trials. I can either allow the hardships of my life to break me, or I can allow them to build me. I choose the latter.
It’s been through some of the hardest times of my life, that I’ve found what it means to truly live. It’s in the suffering that I’ve learned to find true joy. It’s in the anxious moments, that I’ve learned what it means to have peace and to lean in and trust more than I thought possible. It’s in pain, I’ve learned empathy. It’s in rejection, I’ve learned love. For all of these things, I am truly, honestly, not just throwing out a cliché, grateful!
Paul learned this as well. Philippians 1:12 NLT “I want you to know, dear brothers and sisters, that everything that has happened to me here has helped to spread the Good News” He was in prison when he wrote those words. Yet, he used even his chains to further the Gospel! Nothing is wasted.
We live in a culture, particularly in the church, where we rail against suffering. We don’t want it! We don’t believe it should happen to us despite the fact that Jesus said in John 16:33 NLT, “Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows.“. We’ve created entire doctrines based on the avoidance of pain, sickness, and suffering. Ultimately, we want to control things. We feel if we were better, we’d get better things. If we are good enough, we will be blessed. We’ve missed the point. We ARE blessed but not because bad things don’t happen to us and around us. We are blessed because He has overcome the world! (also in John 16:33) We are blessed because in the worst moments, He is there to strengthen us, give us peace, and we will come through it stronger and better! Remember in Philippians 1:21, Paul says, “To live is Christ, to die is gain.”
In the worst moments of my life, not only do I have the opportunity to grow, but I have an opportunity to shine. When nothing and no one can hold me back from doing what God called me to do, those around me get the benefit. They can not only see Christ strengthening me, but I’m able to love better…to show them the love of Christ better. Sometimes, it’s in the midst of the chains, that we can spread the most freedom. Like Paul said, “Everything that has happened to me here has helped to spread the good news.“
Don’t waste your chains! Use them! Fight! Hold on tight and trust that nothing can stop you! Grow! Most importantly, learn to love deeply, trust without limits, and spread the love of God like you’ve never thought possible! You are a warrior! Don’t ever forget it.
Do you ever think about who’s out there listening
I write this blog, throw these ideas into the air
But I’ll never know who hears them.
Who sees beyond the void…
I think of the words that have changed my life
The moments I stumbled across something that shook me to my soul.
There are words I’ve read that laced up my fighting boots to endure another day.
There are songs I’ve heard that became my anthem for a time.
There is greatness in the smallest of phrases that gave me the strength to keep going.
So who are you dear friend, that I’ve probably never met?
Are there melodies playing in your heart, singing sweetness and moving your feet to the rhythm of tomorrow?
Are there words hanging in the air around you waiting to be plucked, like fruit from the vine to nourish you as you march forward?
Do you know you are loved?
Can you see the romance?
The holy one calling softly, through the noise to find your ears and whisper His promise.
Can you see it?
Can I help?
I will never know. But I’ll continue to throw some words into the void to remind you.
You are seen. You are valuable. You have been created for purpose.
Listen carefully until you hear it.
So there’s this thing about life…
We all have a story and that story defines us, empowers us, or derails us.
What will your story be?
Will you tell it openly or live in fear of what repercussions it may bring?
I, too long, lived in fear of my story.
My story, even the worst parts, makes me who I am. It makes me better.
Don’t shy away from the hard chapters in an effort to hide. Own it!
Be unapologetically you…the “you” God created you to be.
God created us with purpose and destiny.
Our stories make us stronger and reveal the glory of God to the world.
Fear has no place here.
Shine!
Show His goodness. Because no matter what, you’re standing. Even when your legs give out and it’s too heavy. Tomorrow will bring strength. If not tomorrow, then the next day or the day after that.
Never ever give up! Someone needs you to succeed.
Go all in! Make today your moment! Shine! If you can’t do it for yourself, do it for the next person who is watching.
The dark can be so daunting
The light can seem so dim
Still, from heaven, you are calling.
Can I hear your voice again?
No fear in death or life, though all of hell presses in
Your voice, the roaring lion, shatters mountains and hangs on the wind.
Still small voice, speak to me. I’m listening!


I’m just a girl
Standing on the edge
Ready to jump
Knowing I can fly
The water waits below
His word
And I can never dive deep enough
There is no bottom
Only grace
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!
The whole of the gospel speaks of dying to ones self in order that Christ may live within. I have often prayed the prayer that David prayed in Psalm 51:10
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.”
There’s risk involved with praying such prayers. For the heart of man to be clean, it must first be revealed unclean. As a general principle, people don’t enjoy having their sins revealed. For sin to remain in our hearts, it needs to hide away from the light. My pastor used to always say that sin acted much like cockroaches; when the light is turned on, the roaches scatter. They aren’t comfortable hanging out in the light for everyone to see them. There’s danger in the light. Light inherently defeats darkness.
So we hide and hope no one sees who we really are. An atheist friend of mine once told me that his most fundamental problem with Christianity in principle was the notion that men (and women) are inherently sinners. He preferred to start with the premise that men are inherently good. It’s a nice thought, but in practice, it just doesn’t hold true. There is vast evil bound up in the hearts and imaginations of man.
More striking is the fact that when we do something ‘wrong’, we inherently know that we’ve done something wrong. Ben Carson mentioned this phenomenon in his book, One Nation. He recounted a story about when he shot a bird with his BB gun. No one had told him not to shoot a bird, but he felt so guilty and knew that what he’d done was wrong. We do sinful things and feel the effects of those sins not just in respect to consequences but in our hearts.
The beauty of grace is that God has provided a way that we can live in freedom from guilt and shame. Sin no longer holds us captive because it was crucified and buried so that we can be raised to new life with Jesus Christ. Though we were once slaves to sin, we are now completely free. Hence, whatever is revealed in our hearts as unclean or wrong is not a source of condemnation but rather a reason to rejoice. Once we are aware there is an area of need, we can become free from that which held us bound. With every need, we find more freedom. The closer we draw to Christ and the more we take on his likeness, the more we are able to find complete peace and safety.
Suddenly, nothing can hold us back. Where once the voices of our accusers rang out, the voice of our Savior answers that he remembers our sin no longer. Though they call us a slave, he calls us a son. There is absolute freedom in truth.
“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:32
“Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.'” John 8:34-36
“Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’ Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ” Galatians 4:3-7
Some have mistakenly believed that Christianity is a religion of guilt but the opposite is true. The gospel was never about finding fault that is a human thing to do, not ordained by the divine. In fact when Jesus was asked the question in John 9:2-3 “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.” The disciples were interested in assigning fault. Jesus was interested in revealing the glory of the God through healing.
Yes, God hates sin. He hated it so much that he made provisions so that it would never have a hold or claim on us again. That is the gospel. That Jesus LOVES! That Jesus HEALS! That we are FREE!
The next time your accusers come (even if that accuser is your own inner voice) and try to tell you aren’t good enough, answer back in truth. That, “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8. He doesn’t demand perfection. He doesn’t sit around counting our mistakes and writing them in the stars. He is faithful to show us who we are in the light of his holiness and we then can continue conquering those things that try to hold us captive. We have been reconciled to him and he is ever working to draw us near.
There is no shame or guilt for the former things or even in the ways we fail today or tomorrow. Like a loving father, he continues to love us and allows us to start each new day whole and clean before him. Rather than hiding from our innermost battles, we should stand up and confront them with the power of the gospel and the knowledge that we are more than conquerors and we are free from their groping little claws. One touch of his blood and all is renewed.
Autopilot – when I go through the motions
Head down, resolved, ready to do whatever it takes to make it happen
And then I sometimes break as resistance pushes me to realize I’m not built to maintain; I’m built for greatness.
Not greatness I’ve built with the persistent efforts of my hands, but greatness that comes only when I let go of my ambitions and allow yours to take over.
I ask so often for you to take all of me and then I feel injured when it’s pointed out that I can’t do everything on my own.
Why I allow the stubborn me to crawl off the altar of sacrifice and proffer a vote, I’ll never understand.
So today, once again, take it ALL.
Take my rights, my self preservation, my emotions, my ambitions, my plans.
Make them yours and use them for your glory.
I will fix my eyes firmly where they should stay, on the prize of the high calling of Christ.
There my feet find wings and fly, above the clutter, into your presence.
There, I find peace.
INSPIRED BY THE COMFORTER 