roar

the well within her is deep

countless lovers leave her cheap

the goat wants to be a sheep

failure’s seeds. pain’s harvest reap

bundles stacked up in a heap

♥

she draws water for her tongue

like the kill she’s almost strung

her book of songs is unsung

lost from dreams to which she clung

once a child, but never young

♥

He’s here now, making her think

His glory, showing her stink

sin writes with permanent ink

He can tell she’s on the brink

from His well, offers a drink

♥

drink from me. thirst no more

I’ll transform the weeds you bore

you’re my daughter, not a whore

rest while I settle the score

beasts can growl, but I can roar

♥

♥

♥

♥

♥

inspired by the woman at the well in John 4.

who here is blind?

Those who can’t seem to get it together are better off than those who think they have a good grip. I would rather sit next to the guy who smells like pot than the woman who looks down on him. I would rather talk to someone with a million questions than listen to someone who has it all figured out. Once you’ve lost the capacity to learn, you’re dead weight.

We all have weaknesses, addictions and tendencies. If you’re not being real, you don’t know what they are. If you can’t spot them, you can’t sandbag against them. The best way to find your weak points is to live without fear of failure while still aware that you’ll fail. When the bomb goes off, trace the wire back to the trigger. Your own sin can be a huge asset when you’re trying to choose where to stand.

Everyone has a tendency toward certain sins. Do you know what yours are? Instead of feeling defeated by your failures, be empowered by the knowledge.

An alcoholic will always be an alcoholic, but he doesn’t have to drink. He can find his triggers and make a plan. If he knows he’s an alcoholic who binges when stressed, he can refer to his escape plan and fight against his natural tendency. This doesn’t mean he’ll never slip. It means he’s got an extra rail between him and the fall.

I never knew I had the capacity to cheat until I cheated. I thought it would be a lot harder to cross that bridge. Before experiencing that failure, there were a lot of behaviors that I never would have seen as foreplay to the consummation of adultery. I knew I was a good person and I saw my behavior as harmless and innocent.

Now that I know where my weaknesses are, a lot of ‘innocent’ behavior doesn’t look as innocent to me. My boundaries are further out and I can spot danger quicker. I would be a fool to say I would never do it again. Not seeing my ability in the first place was one of my biggest mistakes. However, I can acknowledge that I’ve put more distance between me and that pitfall.

If you deny your weakness or are unaware of it, then you will not know where the traps and triggers are and you will not have an escape plan. Those in denial will always be bruised because they’re more scared of labels than of constantly falling into the same hole.

It’s like a blind man refusing to admit that he’s blind. He claims to be able to see clearly, so when he destroys things in his path, he has no excuse and will get no help. If he can’t see clearly, then he won’t clean up his messes properly and will be despised for that, too. If he would realize and admit that he was blind, he would get more help, compassion and mercy. Those who claim to see clearly are expected to see clearly. Anything claiming to be perfect is judged against perfection.

“If you were really blind, you would be blameless, but since you claim to see everything so well, you’re accountable for every fault and failure.” -John 9:41

• Do you know where your weaknesses are?
• Do you have an escape route?
• What can you share with others that may help them learn from your mistakes?

cast out, out cast

“This man received sinners but he repulses none. We come to Him in weakness and sin, with trembling faith and slender hope; but He does not cast us out. We come by prayer, and that prayer broken, with confession and that confession faulty, with praise, and that praise far short of His merits, but yet He receives us. We come diseased, polluted, worn out and worthless, but He doth, in no wise, cast us out. Let us come again, today, to Him who never casts us out.” -Charles Spurgeon

a good woman

A good woman is hard to find, and worth far more than diamonds. Her husband trusts her without reserve, and never has reason to regret it. -Proverbs 31:10

She gives him gifts. The smell in the linen closet, the perfect spice, the flake in the crust.

She always knows where it is when he asks.

Her home is warm like the insides of her arms.

She diverts her eyes and lets the sad and hollow music sing what she really feels. She keeps herself for him.

Never spiteful, she treats him generously all her life long. -Proverbs 31:11

Invisible in the only world she has, but integrity is the height in her graceful walk. It’s something she sees others notice, but knows they don’t know the half of it.

A good woman is hard to find. Because a good woman keeps her best hidden from a sifting world. She is a treasure for the man she chose and a good woman doesn’t let anyone else know. Generous and reserved. Resourceful and controlled. She buys the best and scrapes till the last.

She’s perfected her domestic dance and knows just how to bend and turn. She holds him up, makes it easy for him and never looks back.

Her children respect and bless her. -Proverbs 31:28

Her children praise her, but her husband doesn’t know how. Her children look for her, but her husband doesn’t know he needs to. Her children smell her hair, but her husband has fallen asleep.

“One of the biggest things that made me vulnerable to an affair was that the outsider saw all of those things. …The exact qualities I thought worthy of being seen disappeared when I showed them.” -Grace Is For Sinners

A good woman doesn’t make her husband wish he hadn’t trusted her. When she took her generosity away from him, she fell in front of her children.

But the serpent said to the woman, “You shall not surely die.” -Genesis 3:4

Lies.

The modesty of maternity clothes mocked how she came to need them.

Now, with enormous compassion, I’m bringing you back. -Isaiah 54:7

Grace was immediate. Immediate was too soon, she decided. But grace kept knocking. Stalking. Singing and creeping.

It was a set up, getting grace to come. She knew He’d come and now that He was there, she changed her mind. She could hurt her husband, confuse her children, but this, she could not do. She had at least that much decency left in her.

‘Are you going to let your stubborn speck of decency keep you from becoming wholly decent?’

Who is playing who?

The only way to be made right is to give up the only good she had left. She had to accept a gift she would be socially punished for having. She could not make herself pay if she wanted her debt to be paid.

“A good woman is hard to find, and worth far more than diamonds. Her husband trusts her without reserve, and never has reason to regret it.”

Afflicted city, storm-battered, unpitied: I’m about to rebuild you with stones of turquoise, Lay your foundations with sapphires, construct your towers with rubies, Your gates with jewels, and all your walls with precious stones. All your children will have God for their teacher—what a mentor for your children! You’ll be built solid, grounded in righteousness, far from any trouble—nothing to fear! far from terror—it won’t even come close! If anyone attacks you, don’t for a moment suppose that I sent them, And if any should attack, nothing will come of it. -Isaiah 54:11-15

Grace made her a ‘good woman’ again. Innocence restored. She stands on a foundation of sapphires, leans against towers of rubies and watches the stones of turquoise stack among walls glimmering with precious stones. Grace is what her children have learned. Grace is the middle name of a daughter born out of sin. Grace is tattooed on the wrist of the ‘good woman.’ Grace is for this sinner, taking the ‘forever’ out of her failure.

you are not forgotten

When life is heavy and hard to take, go off by yourself. Enter the silence. Bow in prayer. Don’t ask questions: Wait for hope to appear. Don’t run from trouble. Take it full-face. The “worst” is never the worst. Why? Because the Master won’t ever walk out and fail to return. If he works severely, he also works tenderly. His stockpiles of loyal love are immense. -Lamentations 3:28-32

The silence in the aftermath of sin is not evidence that you have been discarded by God, maybe by others, but not by Him. He will never leave you, He will never take His love from you. If you know this and believe this, then you can get through anything. ‘The ‘worst’ is never the worst, because He will never walk out and fail to return.’ If He turns His face from you, He will bring you back.

Love never dies. -1 Corinthians 13:8

You are not forgotten. Love has not walked away from you. Silence does not mean abandonment. He’s not like us, he keeps His promises and He doesn’t leave when it gets tough. If He picked you out for Himself before you breathed a single breath, do you think you could do something that would make Him change His mind? Love does not waver, Love does not die.

God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. -Romans 11:2 ESV

What can you do that surprises a God who knows everything before it happens? If He knew about your sin before it happened and He took care of the penalty before you existed, then why are you so afraid? He’s not going to leave you. Even if His love for you could allow Him to walk away, He wouldn’t get far because every time He looked at His hands, He would see you.

I will not forget you. …I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. -Isaiah 49:15-16

time to let go

When troubles ganged up on me, a mob of sins past counting, I was so swamped by guilt I couldn’t see my way clear. More guilt in my heart than hair on my head, so heavy the guilt that my heart gave out. -Psalm 40:12

My artist friend made a sculpture of a gaping uterus that she keeps in her living room. She has sculptures built around soft fabric and tissue sewn under layers and layers of paper and burlap. All of her work is like that. The delicate wrapped in the tough. Metal covering fabric. She had a hollow sculpture that was unfinished white plaster on the outside, but painted in vibrant colors on the inside. Nobody could see the beauty she created on the inside.

Her art is a constant attempt to recreate a uterus strong enough to protect her baby from the abortion she had years ago. This mother’s hands were continually trying to make up for not protecting her or her child the way she, now, wishes she had.

Her little beauty on the inside. Unfinished. Nobody would see the beauty she created.

She sat across from me with art stained fingernails and seasoned tears. The survivor.

When a woman becomes pregnant, she is a mommy. Two heartbeats, then one. They can dispose of the inside, but the shell, the mommy, is still there.

We go through this life making a decision one day that we wish we could take back the next. Some things can be adequately fixed, but some can’t. It’s the things that can’t that leave us wrecked.

We spend our lives trying to make up for it, but it’s when we realize that we can’t that we begin to heal. There is nothing you can do to take back the pain your sin has caused. Even if you became the best you could be and never made another mistake, it wouldn’t be enough to change what you’ve done.

Forgiving ourselves and accepting God’s grace is not saying that what we did was okay. Nothing will make that okay. When we forgive ourselves and accept God’s grace, we’re saying that what Jesus did was bigger than what we did. We have a hard time because we think it’s a statement about our worth, but it’s not. It’s a statement about His.

It’s time to let go. What’s done is done.

Soak me in your laundry and I’ll come out clean, scrub me and I’ll have a snow-white life. Tune me in to foot-tapping songs, set these once-broken bones to dancing. Don’t look too close for blemishes, give me a clean bill of health. God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life. Don’t throw me out with the trash, or fail to breathe holiness in me. Bring me back from gray exile, put a fresh wind in my sails! Give me a job teaching rebels your ways so the lost can find their way home. Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God, and I’ll sing anthems to your life-giving ways. Unbutton my lips, dear God; I’ll let loose with your praise. -Psalm 51:7-15

i pick the ugly one

When a person is crushed under the weight of their own sin, the version of Christianity today doesn’t work. Demonic gouges left by evil accusations whispered in spirit deafening shrieks are not drowned out by love songs to a Jesus who won’t get dirty. They don’t penetrate the depths of hopelessness from the hell they’ve fostered.

A person who counts the seconds before hell finds them and drags them out by their hair is terrified of a God so full of justice with vengeance that they would be better off running for their lives until they died escaping. Running from hell. Running from God.

Would He stop to hear their plea or would He destroy them on site? Would He believe them if they said they were sorry? He knows the heart.

No one needed to tell him what mankind is really like. -John 2:25

Maybe that’s why they’re so scared. Better to run.

What have we become? Little princesses tap dancing in a puddle of spoiled milk.

What does your favorite religious song sound like to the woman getting beat by her husband? What kind of song would she sing? What does your Sunday school class teach that would connect with the fifteen year old cutter? Does your religion acknowledge her? What kind of promises would you sing to the woman who can’t feed her children? Can you promise peace, health and prosperity?

With our words we have flavored Him and dressed Him with our own special sauce. Which Jesus do you pray to? ‘8lb 6oz newborn infant Jesus‘? Does your Jesus wear a ‘tuxedo shirt’? Is he a ‘ninja’? (Talladega Nights)

I am disheartened, derailed and near wordless by a culture who only speak to their culture. A perpetual ball of homespun lace and sugar cookies. There are people dying a death that only a knee deep in muck Jesus can reach.

…and all the people followed, crowding around him. -Mark 5:24

We parade Him through our streets holding Him above our heads. Making Him untouchable.

What about the unclean, crawling on their hands and knees through crowds that won’t let them touch Him? There are those who know that if they can get to Him, they can be healed. Why do we make it our duty to keep the unclean away from our places of worship?

Is He a trophy? A porcelain doll that makes us feel proud to have Him on display? Jesus is not a money clip, scripture is not a deck of cards, God is unfathomable, grace is relentless and Love is everlasting.

If you are the one writhing in your own skin, fresh out of hope and in need of a savior-this is for you.

If you think you’re not good enough, let me clear up the mystery. You’re not. That’s the point of the Gospel. All of those others who think they are, they’re not either. We’re all in the same sinking boat. Some of us just talk more than others. Some have just moved out of the light of truth and are disillusioned by their own moral achievement.

Jesus will find you and you will be healed, but you have to stop looking for Him in a world that either rejects Him or won’t let you near Him. Cross haters call themselves Christians, too. Faith is what heals you. Believe that you are not good and then believe Him. He gets the last word.

I am not perfect, but I know perfect Love. I am not above sin, but I know insurmountable grace.

Sin never wins, fear never fights and the one crawling along the floor will find her Jesus in spite of the crowd.

Have hope. He’s here.

She had heard about Jesus, so she came up behind him through the crowd and touched his robe. For she thought to herself, “If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.” …

“Who touched my robe?”

His disciples said to him, “Look at this crowd pressing around you. How can you ask, ‘Who touched me?’”

But he kept on looking around to see who had done it. Then the frightened woman, trembling at the realization of what had happened to her, came and fell to her knees in front of him and told him what she had done. And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over.” -Mark 5:27:34

broken empty vessel girl

be holy

‘You shall be holy because I am holy.’ -1 Peter 1:16

As far as I could count, the command for a person to be holy is found six times in the Old Testament (KJV) and twice in the New Testament (KJV).

Purity and sanctification are goals because we believe it’s God’s will for His followers. As a group of people who want to offer our best and keep ourselves from immorality, we use precaution. We’re told to safeguard our lives in order to keep us in ‘right relationship’ with God.

The foundation of the Christian is belief in Jesus and the label ‘Christian’ carries the weight of responsibility. A responsibility to be pure. To live a sanctified and holy life. Anything that falls short is a piercing alarm. It’s either a cause for concern or a ground for excommunication. Either way, your connection to the body of Christ is questioned.

The problem is in how to fight the fear of failure that permeates the culture. If you think ‘the fear of God’ pertains to divine expectation and the wrath of discipline, then a fear of failure is a dominant and inevitable force.

Fear is the knuckle cracking step-dad wearing a beer stained wife-beater.

There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed lovebanishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love. -1 John 4:18

Fear is the opposite of love. Fear marks the sign on the street corner: ‘The party ends in Hell.’ Fear sits on the shoulders of the kid who watches his ‘non-church’ friends play from his window. Fear is the pivot of the heel as the friend distances himself from the fall.

The fear is warranted. When you are living with the kind of religious responsibility required to be holy, the opportunity for stumbles and spills is overwhelming. You’re on a minefield of morality bombs and you’ve seen far too many comrades get blown to pieces right in front of you.

Fear is the knowing that in safeguarding yourself, there must be something that you’re missing. And they’re right. “Now if a person sins and does any of the things which the LORD has commanded not to be done, though he was unaware, still he is guilty and shall bear his punishment.” (Lev5:17NAS)

You can’t pick and choose in these things, specializing in keeping one or two things in God’s law and ignoring others. -James 2:8

No wonder people are afraid. Murdering is found in the same law as picking up a dead fly (Lev5:2NAS).

So, where does Jesus come in? He’s claimed when the man notices that he can’t reach the mark. The assumption is that he’s sufficient until he’s not, but at least there is a length of self-sufficiency and that length is the measuring tape for which he judges everyone else.

You’re either sufficient or you’re not. Jesus is not an extension cord. He’s not your safety net. He’s not your back up plan.

Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ. -Romans 3:21-22

You cannot make yourself holy. You cannot expect others to be holy. Sin is not evidence of a missing relationship with Jesus. Sin is evidence of a continual need for Jesus.

An inside track to God is not found in your good reputation. Jesus is the only way and you find your way to Jesus through awareness of sin. Your sin calls for grace and grace makes you sufficient. Your insufficiency is His specialty.

Grace is a supernatural gift that changes the recipient from unclean to spotless. The fear of the disillusioned self-sufficient is that forgiveness of sins opens the door to more sin. If a punishment doesn’t ensue, then the criminal has no reason not to offend again.

Grace is not a new suit, grace is a new identity. By the supernatural character of the gift of grace, the recipient is transformed and made innocent, not just by decree, but by nature. There is an innocence that was missing from them before. There is a desire to maintain the innocence and the lesson that only the guilty could have learned.

Grace makes you a better person because you have the wisdom of guilt and the heart of innocence.

You can’t do this for yourself. Soap can’t get all the sin off. ‘Being’ something you’re deeply not is no different than putting on another man’s suit.

‘You shall be holy because I am holy.’ -1 Peter 1:16

‘You shall’ is not just a command, it’s a proclamation. If God can speak four words and the sun appears in the sky, then He can speak four words and create His light in you. He commands it and it happens.

I’ve said it, and I’ll most certainly do it. I’ve planned it, so it’s as good as done. -Isaiah 46:11

Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’ So, it is finished.

the hard road

‘…come on, let’s leave the preschool fingerpainting exercises on Christ and get on with the grand work of art. Grow up in Christ. The basic foundational truths are in place: turning your back on “salvation by self-help” and turning in trust toward God…’ -Hebrews 6:1-2

We have this innate belief that we have to earn our way. That we are responsible for our purity, our salvation. This is evident in those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God, but cannot forgive themselves for their sins.

We have this unfounded belief that we have the ability to not sin. We try to be good, cutting out things that may cause us to sin. Yet, we still sin.

Why is it that you think you can carry out what you could not begin? When you first became a Christian, you knew the truth. You knew that you could not make yourself pure, so you accepted the gift of salvation because you believed the truth about Jesus. What gave you the notion that your salvation made you your own savior?

I believe that, because of the changes within yourself, you got cocky. You were proud of the things you were able to get under control and you got comfortable in your new identity. It started out as your identity in Christ, but somewhere along the way, it became your identity by achievement. Jesus was enough to get you started, but then you drifted away from the Source when you found your own footing.

How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God’s Message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren’t smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it? Did you go through this whole painful learning process for nothing? It is not yet a total loss, but it certainly will be if you keep this up! -Galatians 3:2-3

Human effort always runs out.

Scripture tells us who we are. We are ’saints’, ‘children of God’, ‘one with Jesus.’ Churches build this up and up and we own it to the point of excess. Your true identity is the internal Eternal. It’s true what the scripture says. It’s great what our churches teach. It’s faith and assurance to own it. But, it’s talking about the eternal you. The inner you. Have you forgotten that the outer you, the mortal you….the flesh and blood you is still in the picture? I believe you have.

You are not made one with your flesh and bones. You are to ‘die’ to that. You do not take the body with you. You are not that body. You are not that ‘human nature.’ You are not that! If you forget that, then you will be confined to the limits of it and its finger-painting faith.

It’s a hard road to for the believer because we forget who we really are.

You will sin until you physically die. You will choose yourself over God, often. You will always need Jesus. You can never do this on your own. If you are unable to forgive yourself, it’s because you have stepped away from that truth. Somewhere along the way, you started relying on yourself.

You have two choices, either you maintain your salvation or you trust that Jesus does it for you. You can’t have it both ways. If you believe you are responsible to keep yourself presentable to God, then it’s impossible for you to trust Jesus.

Once people have seen the light, gotten a taste of heaven and been part of the work of the Holy Spirit, once they’ve personally experienced the sheer goodness of God’s Word and the powers breaking in on us—if then they turn their backs on it, washing their hands of the whole thing, well, they can’t start over as if nothing happened. That’s impossible. Why, they’ve re-crucified Jesus! They’ve repudiated him in public! -Hebrews 6:4-6

Washing your hands of the way of salvation is when you turn to an alternate way of salvation. It’s thinking that you could do what only He could. It’s not forgiving yourself for your failures because something deep within you believes you had the ability to not do whatever it is you did.

If you had the ability to not sin, then He did not need to die. Jesus came to do what you could not do. If you believe you can avoid sinning, you are rejecting Him.

You can always look back with a new pair of eyes and see where you should have turned. It’s not hard to see why you can, now, think you have the ability to make different choices. It may be because ‘now’ you do. For that particular space in natural history, you have learned a lesson you feel you should have already known, and you ‘now’ have the vision needed to equip yourself to not repeat that exact mistake. Don’t use that amazing knowledge to condemn yourself for your past behavior, use it to avoid the same pitfall in the future.

What’s done is done. Mourn it until the mourning process is over. Make it right if it’s in your power to do so. Then, let it go.

You are not your mistakes.

Self-condemnation is evidence of pride. I’m not trying to add to your load, but think about it. You thought you were better than that, right? You were above that level of failure. Are you walking around with your wounded heart, trying to earn the forgiveness of others?

There is no set time limit for the aftermath of sin. Sorrow is good because it’s the mother of repentance. It’s not the same as feeling remorse for the one’s you’ve hurt. I’m talking about a sorrow that goes deeper than that. You can’t rush the introduction of that kind of sorrow. But, when it comes, then it’s almost over… repentance isn’t even swallowed before deliverance sweeps sin off the table.

With no sin, there is no longer a place for sorrow. Sorrow stayed for the night. Rejoicing comes in the morning. Don’t fake this, the judgement of others doesn’t affect you, but if you’re still dragging the old behind you, then you have not experienced Godly sorrow.

If you have come to the realization that there is nothing that you can do to make this right and you trust in the finished work of Jesus, then let it go. Do you believe or not? Are you in or are you out?

‘There is, therefore, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.’ -Romans 8:1 NIV