Posted: January 26th, 2012 |
Filed under: God | Tags: faith, hope, purpose |
6 Comments »
God has a plan that precedes you, encompasses you and then surpasses you. You don’t even have to know Him to be part of what He’s doing. His plan trumps ours. He’s busy at work using His hands to craft different styles of pottery to use. Writing His own story with us as the characters and with Jesus as the main event.
Everything from the foundation of the world has been a set up for the crowning of Jesus. Nothing exeeds the importance of that one event and nothing can change it.
Even the unborn have been called to purpose. No matter what, you cannot undo your purpose or avoid your path. It’s not only that He knows what you’ll do, it’s that He’s designed you for a specific use and you will most definitely be used to that end. You know this is true if you really believe that it’s God moving through you and not you moving yourself. You don’t get to pick what part of you He uses. Those who know, know that God uses the parts of you that you would rather keep behind a locked and closed door marked, “Sacred”.
And the children were yet unborn and had so far done nothing either good or evil. Even so, in order further to carry out God’s purpose of selection (election, choice), which depends not on works or what men can do, but on Him Who calls [them]...-Romans 9:11 AMP
Some things between us and God are hard to explain. He meets us in places we should have never been. He recognized us when we didn’t even recognize ourselves. These times in our lives are ugly and dark, but He was there. You can’t explain it and you can’t explain it away. You keep quiet, but He keeps nudging.
People need to know that no matter how far they run, He’s always right there. He takes every step they take. He will never, ever, leave them. They need to know this so they can be saved. They need to know this so they can be righteous. Every time they are under attack, He is right there holding the leash to the one who attacks them. Every time they hit the ground, He is right there. He is the wind on the face of the one running away. He’s the leaves in the hair of the one hiding in shame. He is with you always because He is ‘I AM’.
Some of us were created to reflect God’s mercy and some of us can attest to God’s dissatisfaction. I am one who can testify to both. We are characters created to be a witness in the trial. One day we will be subpoenaed.
God lets evil plans form and emerge as they wreak havoc, only to thwart them and turn it into something that brings the beaten closer to Him. Evil exists, but ultimately answers to Him. Pain peirces, but only brings the broken closer to Him. Sin bulldozes blooming gardens only to make room for the flowers of mercy.
Everything answers to God. Everything has it’s time in the sun, it’s fifteen minutes (years?), but none of it has the last word.
No matter where your path has taken you, no matter what you’ve done, not matter what has been done to you, none of it gets the last word on your life. God does and He does what He says.
His biggest statement concerning you was Jesus.
Read part of this song David wrote:
From the four corners of the earth
people are coming to their senses,
are running back to God.
Long-lost families
are falling on their faces before him.
God has taken charge;
from now on he has the last word.
All the power-mongers are before him
—worshiping!
All the poor and powerless, too
—worshiping!
Along with those who never got it together
—worshiping!
Our children and their children
will get in on this
As the word is passed along
from parent to child.
Babies not yet conceived
will hear the good news—
that God does what he says. (Psalm 22:27-31 MSG)
Posted: December 12th, 2011 |
Filed under: life | Tags: healing, hope |
6 Comments »
She leaves work through the back door. Leaves the chatter of Christmas plans and lists. She’s dodged questions all day about her plans and what her children put on their lists. She’s not going to her work party because she doesn’t have anything to wear.
Her feet are aching from standing all day and the wind is a cold oppressor slapping her face like she doesn’t matter. She hides her hands in her coat sleeves with just a key sticking out to make the climb into her freezing car faster.
Her grocery store choices are in opposite directions. The expensive one is on her way home. Her fatigue wins and she pulls into the parking lot. Her ten dollar budget isn’t enough for the milk and peanut butter gluttons in her house. Food shouldn’t have to be so hard to come by.
She used to make cookies, candies, and pies to hug the holidays and all of it’s wrappings. They’re lucky to have a tree. What good is a tree that dwarfs the presents?
Why is this holiday so messed up? Who made the rules and why should kids think that Santa skips some houses while he overloads others?
She’s never believed in Santa. He’s not even part of her children’s lives at home, but it’s an unavoidable question in the hesitant dance of their eyes. Their excitement is touchable and they have no idea how hard it is on her.
She finishes her shopping, doubling her budget, and making her fight the guilt of overspending with the rebellion against being sorry for getting candy canes and fresh fruit.
Defiance clenches her jaw. ”We can at least have candy canes.”
Almost like an immediate reprimand, she was back under the cruel thumb of the wind. Only this time, the bags carrying her guilt drug her hands out of her sleeves of safety. She imagined the bitter cold making them old and worn. A poor woman’s hands.
That was the day she began having ‘the talk’ with herself. ‘The Talk’ that she is going to have to come to terms with who she is. The poverty is going to age her faster than her heart. She has reached her entire life. She has stretched past her circumstances out of the determined belief that she will, one day, have the life she wants. She has pushed herself beyond every boundary life has put in front of her, and now she wonders, “For what?”
“The Talk” was to weaken her hope so that she won’t be so disappointed and sad all the time.
Oh, she’s sad. All the time sad.
She smiles, genuinely, though. She has things to be happy about and she’s good at finding them. They help her catch her breath while she rests for the next lunge. She counts her blessings: Her kids. Her love. They have a warm roof. They have clothes that still work. They have shoes that still fit. They’re healthy and clean.
They have peanut butter and candy canes.
These are such good, good things. They’re the little things made big.
So, “The Talk” isn’t winning. It can’t when she takes it one day at a time. She learns something on her drive home. She learns it’s the little things that get you through the day. Disappointment takes a very long time to completely consume you. Disappointment can’t eat you alive today.
It’s always ‘today’.
If you can counter disappointment with the little things enough to get through today, then you are one day better off than you were the day before.
It’s not much, but it will get her through today.
Posted: November 30th, 2011 |
Filed under: life | Tags: grace, hope |
15 Comments »
Like every baby before her, she was pale when she came out. Blue, almost. Before her infant screams invited oxygen to pink her cheeks, she already had a name. Her mother, tired from child birth and bleeding from nine-months of preparation, whispered her name before the sweat evaporated from her forehead. Mother and child, a mess of labor, both swollen from the trauma of new life, stared in each other’s eyes. And the new mother whispered her name.
Like every baby before her, she screamed through the night, stealing her mother’s sleep. Cradling her in her arms, she sang her name.
When she was three, she would spin to make her dress float up in a magical circle that made her feel like a princess and she would sing her own name.
The years counted her age, always the same day, always one number older. One by one, her name accumulated baggage. She could reinvent her wardrobe, she could reinvent her friends, she could reinvent her surroundings, but she will always have her name.
All of her mistakes were quilted into the blanket of life she was creating. Pictures were burned into the fabric like stains against her memory. The walls of her life are marked with holes from things she has long since taken down.
Her name on the tongues of others added dirt to the curve of the letters.
She made choices without knowing the future. She set faulty bricks with mortar. She put her name on shady lines with permanent ink. She said things that she cannot take back.
Her name has lost the possibility that was whispered in her mother’s hope. She’s a disappointment losing time and the will to keep starting over. Too many people know her name and memory stains every vowel and hardens every consonant.
What hope do you have when you’ve ruined your name? It’s been called out in courthouses, written in permanent delinquent files, banned from dinner tables, and mixed with the bitter spit of betrayal. What can you do when you can’t be who you hoped you could have been?
She would almost prefer to be called a slut. A slut has one purpose and none of her mother’s dreams. She is more comfortable with ‘Liar’. At least ‘Liar’ knows who she is. Her name has too much pang of wanting to be better.
Even if she lived the rest of her life with a firm grip on her best, her name is still written on the pages of history with every single mistake she has made.
The problem with being new on the inside is that the outside is still there. You can change your sheets, but you can’t change your hands. You can’t stop the flashbacks. You have to constantly remind yourself that your mistakes have been forgiven by the only one who matters. It’s a battle of endurance with a spotty cheering section.
“To the one who conquers … I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.” -Revelation 2:17
We have a horrible habit of taking names and attributing damage to them. You may have done a terrible job with your name, you may have equated it with words I’m too intelligent to write. I get it. I know the feeling and I have been called the names. I have done more things that I wish I could take back than things for which I am able to take credit. But, here’s the deal: This life is not all there is.
You are not what you’ve done. Even when trying your best, you’re going to screw it up. You have a new name somewhere out there and not even you can mess that one up.
Posted: September 6th, 2011 |
Filed under: life | Tags: grace, hope |
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A gentle response defuses anger, but a sharp tongue kindles a temper-fire. -Proverbs 15:1
I got covered in word vomit the other day. Like any upchuck episode, it came on suddenly and I couldn’t think to back away before I was left in shock and my outlook was ruined.
What do you do when someone tells you things they shouldn’t be saying? I make a point to stay out of drama. Ignorance is bliss. In all of the times I can produce words with ease, this was a time I responded with a stutter. “This is news to me. I’m in shock from you telling me.”
I wanted to be gentle, but also let the other know what just happened. They just got sick on me and I was dirtier for it.
Word vomit is contagious. The sudden outburst of emotion catches.
Knowledge flows like spring water from the wise; fools are leaky faucets, dripping nonsense. -Proverbs 15:2
The tongue reveals the fool. I’ve been that fool and I know how it feels to want to take the words back. I’ve practiced silence and it feels so much better. No pangs of regret. Time reveals the truth and I’ve learned to not fill that time with the words of nonsense. If you must speak, speak as though the situation is on the road to healing and the person with the leaky faucet just doesn’t know it yet.
It’s not, “I hope it straightens up.” It’s, “This will work out and maybe the road to healing can be helped by you?”
God doesn’t miss a thing— he’s alert to good and evil alike. -Proverbs 15:3
The tongue is the hardest thing to control. But you must control it. If you’re angry about the fire, then stop fanning the flames. A kind word… a gentle response… this is what is needed in an unstable situation. Be the stability with the “God works out all things according to his purpose” frame of mind.
Wisdom is found from the end looking back. Scrambling to be heard, to get people on your side, to taint or even just reveal the flaws of the other side is not an act of wisdom. If, in the end, you’re all on the same side, then what do your words look like then? More reasons to apologize. I’m sure we’ll all have enough apologizing to do when this life is said and done. Don’t make it messier. Life is messy as it is.
Kind words heal and help; cutting words wound and maim. -Proverbs 15:4
I backed away from the word vomit and gathered myself enough to wipe it off. I walked away with a fresh reminder that words should be few, especially when you’re angry. It doesn’t matter if what was said is true, it’s an ugly thing to witness someone get sick on their words.
Angry, backbiting words are not inspiration from God. It’s all you. Silence should be the choice when yours is the only voice you can hear.
Take a deep breath and be kind. Situations get worked out when the vomiting stops.
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Posted: June 2nd, 2011 |
Filed under: life | Tags: grace, hope, sin |
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“If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step. The first step is to realize that one is proud. And a biggish step, too.” - C.S. Lewis
Pride has more than one side. One is the obvious straight forward side and the other is the cleverly hidden side. The cleverly hidden side is the pride of being humble. An underhanded way of pride to survive in the climate of personal failure is found in the attempt to pay the unpayable penance.
Do not drag yesterday into today as a means to openly debase yourself for the sake of those who are watching you. You are paying a debt with so much interest that it will never be paid. Even if you could reach a point when people tell you that you are free, you are trying to earn the deed to your free life from people who do not own your life. Waiting for the people around you to say that you can move forward is like paying the wrong bank for the deed to your home. They’ll take your payment, but they cannot give your life back.
After you admit your fault, rebuild the fence, and make appropriate amends, then move forward. There are certain debts that you cannot pay without the ability to go back in time and choose different actions. Any attempt to earn back your reputation and good name is only to serve a shrouded sense of personal pride. I’m specifically talking about people who run the risk of tying themselves down to rigorous religion, becoming more concerned with rules and regulations as a means to outwardly prove that the insides have changed.
The mirror is a liar.
When all of the fight and frenzy is in outward appearance, the core of the person remains untouched. You cannot earn a gold heart. You cannot perform to become. When the inside has changed, the outside has remnants. Refuse to work outward-in. Commit to an inward-out approach and keep it personal. Pride is the messenger of the soul who refuses to accept the free gift of grace.
People who have it backward end up becoming moral police and imposing judgment on everyone else. It’s a clever way of evading examination when you are pointing out the failures of others. On the other side of that, a heartbreaking way to avoid the prospect of people pointing out your flaws is to point them out for them. Stop dancing on the surface. It’s way too capricious to trust.
Not a single person on this planet would be found innocent if we were examined in a court room without Jesus as our advocate. All of the attention that a person can give to keep themselves out of court is a focus on a life where Jesus is not real. Those who understand Him and understand themselves rely on His grace as they are scrutinized. The verdict is always the same: guilty. The sentence is always going to be: served.
The scale does not measure your past against your present. It does not measure your mistakes against the mistakes of others. The scale only measures your sin, their sin, against the gift of Jesus.
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Posted: April 8th, 2011 |
Filed under: life | Tags: hope |
8 Comments »
let today be the day that you leave yesterday behind
let the birds tell you that new has arrived
let your body sway to what only tulips can hear
Spring sings of hope finally drawn near
look up from your toes once covered in shame
look up from your legs once crippled and lame
look up to meet eyes and smile the new
look up and you’ll find hope’s there for you, too
i know you’ve been broken, you cry in your sleep
i know you feel naked, chaff stripped from the wheat
naked is innocence, the lies are all gone
truth is the hope and Spring is your song.
Get up, my dear friend, fair and beautiful lover—come to me! Look around you: Winter is over; the winter rains are over, gone! Spring flowers are in blossom all over. The whole world’s a choir—and singing! Spring warblers are filling the forest with sweet arpeggios. Lilacs are exuberantly purple and perfumed, and cherry trees fragrant with blossoms. Oh, get up, dear friend, my fair and beautiful lover—come to me! Come, my shy and modest dove— leave your seclusion, come out in the open. Let me see your face, let me hear your voice. For your voice is soothing and your face is ravishing. -Song of Solomon 2:10-14
Posted: February 15th, 2011 |
Filed under: life | Tags: hope |
3 Comments »
an easy gate
slow breath of depth
a storm of wind
but her face set
a night of howls
ruffles the sleep
moon of unknown
that silent creep
a pregnant wait
doubt to be sure
no birds of song
long winter tour
the ice so thin
crack, the splinter
square her shoulders
shrugging the threat
the days are long
but spring is yet.
“What’s the price of a pet canary? Some loose change, right? And God cares what happens to it even more than you do. He pays even greater attention to you, down to the last detail—even numbering the hairs on your head! So don’t be intimidated by all this bully talk. You’re worth more than a million canaries.” -Matthew 10:29-31
Posted: January 10th, 2011 |
Filed under: life | Tags: hope |
9 Comments »
“We seem to gain wisdom more readily through our failures than through our successes. We always think of failure as the antithesis of success, but it isn’t. Success often lies just the other side of failure.” -Leo F. Buscaglia
God would not have allowed you to be broken if He did not think you were worth rebuilding. Natural life builds things within and without that God does not intend to keep. Buildings built on buried childhoods are knocked down so the child can be free.
I will always show you where to go. I’ll give you a full life in the emptiest of places— firm muscles, strong bones. You’ll be like a well-watered garden, a gurgling spring that never runs dry. You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. -Isaiah 58:11-12
He brings us to the place where hope was clear. The time before the journey made you old. The place where children live. He brings you back to yourself so you can remember you and Him.
Posted: January 8th, 2010 |
Filed under: life | Tags: hope |
8 Comments »
“Are your ears awake? Listen. Listen to the Wind Words, the Spirit blowing through the churches. I’ll give the sacred manna to every conqueror; I’ll also give a clear, smooth stone inscribed with your new name, your secret new name.” -Revelation 2:17
I was watching a documentary on human trafficking the other day called ‘Very Young Girls.’ Most of the film was based out of a place called GEMS located in New York. GEMS is a facility for girls who are trying to get out of ‘the life’ and the cameras followed a few of them as they went through that process.
Most of these girls are manipulated into prostitution at the age of thirteen. They are told they are beautiful, loved and promised a better life if they can just make the money to get out of where they are. The psychological trap is not a lot different than a woman who stays with her abusive husband. ‘He loves me.’ The girls are so torn down that they are dependent on the dysfunctional combination of daddy-boyfriend-pimp for everything. When the girls are selling their bodies, they are doing it out of love (as they understand it) for their pimp.
I connected with an experience that one of the girls had as she was signing in to the GEMS program. She was filling out her paperwork and didn’t know what name to put down. She could write the name she used in her prostitution world: Vanessa, or she could use the name she was born with: Carolina. The hang up for her was that nobody knew her as the girl who wasn’t a prostitute. She was so detached from innocence that she didn’t know if she could use her own name anymore.
It made my heart ache because, though all of our lives and choices are different, self loathing feels the same. This girl, as she heals, will be able to separate herself from her mistakes a little bit more than most because she has a ‘clean’ name. She wasn’t her ‘real self’ when she was living that life. That was somebody else.
Aching to be something less damaged is not exclusive to the obviously damaged. We all walk around with the pain of not wanting to be what we’ve done. A believer can have faith that God sees them as clean, but not have the ability to see themselves as clean. God does not remember, but people do. You can see the reflection of your sin in the eyes of someone else and it has the power to cripple you with shame.
I hope that it comforts you to know that God sees you as something you’ve never even imagined. Your identity in Him is so detached from even your best qualities that He’s given you a new name and, one day, we will be known as He knows us.
You’ll get a brand-new name straight from the mouth of God. You’ll be a stunning crown in the palm of God’s hand, a jeweled gold cup held high in the hand of your God. No more will anyone call you Rejected, and your country will no more be called Ruined. You’ll be called …My Delight…because God delights in you. -Isaiah 62:2-4
I want to add that the GEMS website has a ‘donate’ page and among the opportunities to help them are wish lists for Target and Amazon.com. They need simple things like bras and underwear and items to take care of the babies. These girls escape their pimps with nothing but the clothes on their back. If we can make it easier for them to survive in practical ways, the chances of them not going back are better. It’s a great idea and an easy way to contribute to a fantastic organization. Here’s the link: Donate to GEMS!
Posted: November 5th, 2009 |
Filed under: God, life | Tags: hope |
1 Comment »
You cast your lot and you’re waiting for the engine to roar to life. Your bags are packed, belongings sold, windows boarded.
But, the wet from your goodbye kiss has already dried. Your stomach is growling, your new boots are pinching your toes and the clock keeps reminding you that he’s there. There was no band to greet you and there are no familiar faces waiting to guide you.
You knew doubt would be part of your journey, but the onset is like a blanket of fear that covers the brochures you tattered while you daydreamed in your bed.
When is it okay to get angry? Can you step out of Keeping It Together and scream at nothing? It’s all falling apart and maybe it’s supposed to, but it still hurts like hell.
‘Take heart,’ He says. ‘Don’t quit.’
But you have nothing to hang on to. You have nothing to let go. You have given up everything for a promise and the promise is a breath in your ear rather than substance in your hands.
They’re all watching. Those who heard the lilt in your voice and watching you carry your estate to your front yard. They tried to give you an out, but you refused. You knew your Hope would not let you down. But, oh, how if feels like He’s letting you down. Letting you drown. Forgetting the command to pick up your cross and follow Him.
Warm me, your servant, with a smile; save me because you love me. Don’t embarrass me by not showing up. -Psalm 31:16-17
‘Take heart’, He says. But you rant and cry. You cramp and quake until your whole body aches. You drink to numb, but still wake up alone.
Sometimes I ask God, my rock-solid God, “Why did you let me down? Why am I walking around in tears, harassed by enemies?” They’re out for the kill, these tormentors with their obscenities, Taunting day after day, “Where is this God of yours?” -Psalm 42:9-10
‘I have nothing to hold on to!’ I have nothing to hold on to. The cries of the one who found out Who was sovereign and Who can do as He pleases when He pleases whether or not it pleases me. ‘I have nothing to hold on to’ are the screams of ‘self’ that is giving it’s last effort to find something within existence to give her hope other than to simply hope in the One who says we can put our hope in Him.
Be brave. Be strong. Don’t give up. Expect God to get here soon. -Psalm 31:24
I am not brave, Father, and I am not strong. I’m just a girl who wants you to show up. I listen day and night for the sounds of the drummer in the distance announcing the arrival of the One who will turn valley’s into mountain tops and groaning into laughter.
And so we wait. When you have no voice left to scream and no tears left to cry, when you don’t care about getting and you just wait for sleep to come while you breath in and then breath out. The quiet is comfort the shivering has subsided. The ‘self’ has succumbed as the lamb lies on a bed of grass under the stars.
Morning is peering through your dreams and creation wells up as if to speak.
What’s God going to say to my questions? I’m braced for the worst. I’ll climb to the lookout tower and scan the horizon. I’ll wait to see what God says, how he’ll answer my complaint.
And then God answered: “Write this. Write what you see. Write it out in big block letters so that it can be read on the run. This vision-message is a witness pointing to what’s coming. It aches for the coming—it can hardly wait! And it doesn’t lie. If it seems slow in coming, wait. It’s on its way. It will come right on time. -Habakkuk 2:1-3
