365 Days

September 13, 2021September 13, 2021 / Jaimie / Leave a comment

Today marks 365 days around the sun since you joined us here. I remember the call. You were gone. I miss you more than I can say but I know it’s okay (I swear I didn’t mean for that to rhyme).

In my heart, I see clearly the serenity of the place you last walked. In my head, I want to call you and tell you about my day, my week, the weather, the sound my car is making, the dinner I cooked tonight…the stupid, little things.

I miss you! I wish you were here to run home to. I wish you were here to remind me it’s all okay. But I’ll have to wait until we meet again. “Remember who you are”, comes to mind.

I hope this year has been your best! I hope you’ve done your “special daddy dance” (which I demonstrate for my kids often) around the streets of heaven. I hope you’ve looked down on us and smiled. I smile for you daily!

One year, 365 days and everything has changed and everything is the same. Without you…

A hole in the center filled with light.

I miss you Daddy but I know it’s alright. (Oops with the rhyming again…whatever…I’m leaving it.)

Listening

August 4, 2021August 4, 2021 / Jaimie / Leave a comment

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!

It is Enough!

July 23, 2021 / Jaimie / Leave a comment

This post is a little different from my standard posts. I’m sharing with you what I wrote this morning while reading my Bible. Last night was a particularly difficult night for me. This morning, Is brighter because His word brings life and hope. Hopefully, you can glean something from it that will encourage you today. If you’re unfamiliar with the stories I’m referencing, read I Kings chapters 18 & 19.

It is Enough!

God showed Himself mightily through Elijah. In I Kings 18, he proves himself by sending fire to consume the sacrifice and turns the hearts of the people back to the Lord. Then he hears the “sound of abundance of rain” and prays until the clouds form and outruns Ahab’s chariot. Still, he (Elijah) was under a tremendous amount of pressure and adversity. By chapter 19 of I Kings, he’s running for his life from Jezebel, and it finally overwhelms him. He prays in verse 4 that he would die, “It is enough! Now Lord take my life, for I am no better than my fathers!” He is tired and feels like a failure.

How many times in my life, have I felt exactly this way? The heaviness of it all gets to me from time to time, no matter how hard I try. I don’t think Elijah was suicidal. He wasn’t trying to hurt himself and if he really wanted to die, he wouldn’t have bothered running from Jezebel. He just needed to rest and find the voice and peace of God in the middle of the pain.

God was there and shows up to sustain him, just like he always does for us. For Elijah, he sent an angel to tap him on the shoulder and feed him. The angel says to him in verse 7, “The journey is too great for you”. God know what we can handle and when it’s too much for us. He doesn’t expect us to do it on our own or in our own strength. He is there with compassion and provision when we don’t have the strength to keep going. His provision strengthens us. Elijah went, “in the strength of that food” all the way to the “mountain of God”.

“What are you doing here Elijah?”

God could have been asking him this because he should have been somewhere else and he was hiding out in a cave instead, but I think God asked him this because He wanted Elijah to see where he was. He wanted Elijah to see his purpose and who he was and who God is.

“Then He said, ‘Go out, and stand on the mountain before the Lord.’ And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.” I Kings 19:11-12

When Elijah heard the “still small voice”, he wraps his face in his mantle, the symbol of his prophetic authority and “went out and stood”. “What are you doing here Elijah?” It’s then, when Elijah knows why he’s there and recognizes who he is and that he’s not alone, that he goes back and follows the instructions of the Lord and continues the work of the Lord.

Sometimes this life, these trials, are too much for me. I lay down just like Elijah and pray “It is enough!” God is there for me as well. He sees and provides and leads me through. I need to lean in. I need to trust Him. When he says, “Arise and eat.”, for me that means devouring the word of God and letting His word sustain me. I need to realize that though the winds, and earthquakes, and fire, break the rocks into pieces, He is still, unmoving, constant. The seemingly smallest of things contain the most meaning. I need to lean in and steady myself in that! I need to remember who I am.

Elijah wrapped his face in his mantle, his purpose. My purpose is to glorify God in and through everything…to show Him to the world. When I remember why I’m here, I can stand up.

Like, Elijah, I also need to remember I’m not alone. God has placed people around me strategically to fight alongside me. I don’t have to find alone, and I can rest in that. Still, Elijah had to go out and appoint and anoint them. I need to stop being afraid of being vulnerable and be willing to reach out and accept help and support. That’s a tough one for me, but I’m working on it.

Under Construction

September 2, 2019 / Jaimie / Leave a comment

I realized something about myself this morning. As much as I hate to admit it. I can be a bit short-sighted. My husband and I have had big plans for our property since we purchased it and remodeled it a few years back. He is a dreamer in every sense of the word, but he’s so much more than that. He is a mover and a shaker. He tends to have several projects in the works at a time. Me, I can get stuck. He thinks big picture, long term, how amazing it will be when it’s complete. I think “right now” and get caught up on the demo.

The first step in a remodeling project is planning and dreaming. Then you move on to demo. When we started remodeling our home, I would stop by to look at the progress and inevitably more had been taken out, more walls were gone. I remember walking in the kitchen one day and seeing nothing but daylight streaming in from the open concrete wall where my sink should have been. I understood the interior demo, but looking at my backyard through the wall was enough to make me panic.

My Kitchen Before the Demo (It was pretty bad!!!)

It’s a dumb thing actually. I completely trust my contractor husband, especially in matters of construction, yet there I was panicking over a hole in a wall. I know nothing about construction, other than what I picked up during our project, and what I’ve heard from his mouth while managing the office of his company since he came into my life. Yet, here I was standing in an empty, soon to be kitchen, panicking at the chaos, instead of dreaming of what it would one day become.

My kitchen now.

I did it again this morning watching a worker rip out some old brush and clean up the back yard. He really made a clean canvas for us to create something beautiful, but I sat there thinking “he’s tearing up my yard”. It’s a character flaw I suppose. But what matters most is that God does the same thing in my own heart sometimes.

This last year especially has been like that. I’ve been in a demo phase and that should excite me.

“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” 2 Corinthians 4:8-9

I should be grateful and happy knowing that when God begins a good work, he is faithful to complete it. (Phil 1:6) and the end result will be better than I can even begin to dream. But I get lost in the moment. I get stuck in the chaos from time to time.

Here’s the thing though, I will gladly take every moment of chaos, every tear, every trial, if it makes me more like Christ. I will gladly walk through the craziest internal construction project if it’s necessary to make me into a woman through which His glory is revealed.

Nothing we go through is wasted. 2 Corinthians 1:6 says, “Now if we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effective for enduring the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or if we are comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation.”

There is always a reason even in suffering. I’m not saying God is smiting us with afflictions. What I am saying is that in suffering and affliction, He is there with us, not only comforting us, but also strengthening us. If we’re going through something, He will cause us to grow through it. It is grace and His unfailing love that always advocates for us and calls us to dig deeper. If it takes a bit of demo to make something beautiful out of me, I’m in!

I don’t know what you may be going through right now. But if you find yourself like me, panicking at the demo phase, I encourage you to trust the contractor. God knows what He’s doing and He’s got you! Try not to fear the process, but rather try to envision the finished product.

Here on the Edge of Dreaming

May 14, 2014May 14, 2014 / Jaimie / 1 Comment

When dreams seem to be dying before your eyes and hope is dwindling like a campfire guarded by a nodder, there is only one answer.

There comes a time when we are required to act on all of the things we believe in.

Suddenly the lofty ideals become necessities of survival.

We earnestly listen for the voice of our king to whisper a reminder that it’s all okay.

Our circumstances might be trivial in the scheme of eternity but they are our present and they feel like boulders, heavy, pressing.

My pastor has always said to see what kind of fruit something is, squeeze it and see what kind of juice comes out. (Eph. 5)

I’ve felt like a lemon this week, hoping for sweetness, love, joy, peace…instead finding sour.

The stinging remnants of old fears dropping in to say hello.

All I thought I’d sacrificed on the altar, shooting for a comeback and I stagger slightly until I remember to command my soul to listen.

“Why are you cast down, O my soul?
And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God” Psalm 42:11

Here on the edge of dreaming I hold on, knowing he didn’t bring me here to watch me fall.

I trust him.

Random Beauty – Grace

August 17, 2013 / Jaimie / 11 Comments

We’ve had a lot of rain over the past month here in Southwest Florida. The ground is saturated and consequently when more rain comes, we flood. The odd thing is that most of our street is high and dry, but our yard is a swamp. It’s inconvenient in a lot of ways. We can’t mow certain areas so the wild is overtaking the manicured. Bugs are invading the house more than normal.

If you’ve never visited South Florida, I can tell you that it is an education in strange bugs and arachnids. We have some mega spiders and odd-looking creepy crawlers. Most of these don’t bother us a bit, but I have to admit that spiders the size of my hand appearing in the bedroom (as a general rule) do not inspire happy thoughts in me.

I warn my son daily to be on the lookout for snakes and gators when he’s playing in the yard. Living by a canal, we usually look out for these anyway, but with the extra water, comes extra cottonmouths and you never know when and where a snake will pop up as we learned earlier this year (The Snake in the House).

Despite all of this, I’ve been intrigued by the water. It’s random beauty standing out from the otherwise consistent. The fact that it’s just our yard strikes me as well. It’s like God sending a little beauty just for us, washing us with the water, changing the landscape. Sure, problems sometimes come with the beauty. God never promised us a life of roses and relaxation. The greatest character is built through the storms and the chaos. In the midst of these, we learn to trust him and find the wonder. In that, he is glorified and we are changed a little more into his image.

I pray I always find the wonder in the midst of the flood, that I find the beauty in the chaos, that I look for the ways he’s romancing me and reminding me of his love. Nothing he does is haphazard. He paints the skies with us in mind. He plants flowers to amaze us. He smiles at us in the midst of the brokenness, wraps us up in his love and inspires us to be completely his. There is truly nothing better than that.