I can't help myself, I just gotta say it!

Today the power of our words is just heavy on my heart. 

Seriously, our words to each other - and EVEN TO OURSELVES - can be so live-giving, or very much life-taking.  Scripture says it like this. Proverbs 18:21,  “The tongue has the power of life and death.”   and Ephesians 4:29 says, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”  

I am not suggesting that you will actually make someone take their own life with your words - but consider this...  How many times have people killed your dreams - your vision, your excitement with a negative word?  I know for me, it is too many to count.  

Our words are powerful.  Especially the way we talk to ourselves in our own mind.  Or out loud.  That’s me... I talk to myself out loud.  I drop something and it breaks, and my first thought or spoken word is, “way to go clutz”... Or, “ugh, slow down stupid...” Yikes.  I am not very kind to myself. 

I want that to change.  I want that to change for you too!  I want to issue a challenge - this next month and a half... All of March (and the remainder of February) - try to ONLY say kind things to other people (and yourself!)  I am not suggesting that you don’t share truth with someone if they need to hear it and it is difficult.  But, what I am saying... Drop your judgment.  Drop your negativity.  Drop your right to be right.  And just be KIND.  Speak kindly.  Speak with words full of grace and compassion.  BE NICE.

Give yourself a break.  When you mess something up, just say, “Oh well. No biggie.”  Let yourself get out of bed late and skip the first 15 minutes of school to take your kids to donuts.  Leave the house without make-up and tell yourself over and over that you look STUNNING!  Forget needing to do the dishes, lose weight, pick up the dry-cleaning.  Take a day to just stop and enjoy the beautiful sun... the birds chirping, and the laughter that can be had when you quit taking everything so damn seriously.  (Sorry, I got a little out of hand... But really...)

Extend that same break to other people.  Let them be 15 minutes late to a meeting with you.  Tip your waiter extra even when they give you crappy service.  Let a friend come over - all frazzled and just offer a warm smile and a lot of grace.  

God knows we could all use a little more kindness and a whole lot more grace!

Go forth and spread JOY my friends.  We have much to be thankful for if we just look for it.  Let people be thankful that they ran into you today.  :)

Without Faith...

Without faith I cannot imagine where I would be right now, or what I would be doing.  Without the ever-steady love of my God, and His heavy hand of grace upon me, I can only imagine what would have become of me. 

Today marks 2 years.  2 years since that precious, joyful boy bounced out of my house, late for school… never to walk back through the doors again.  This day, 2 years ago, I had to sit with my precious children 4, 5, 10, and 12 years old and tell them that they would never see their brother again this side of Heaven.   He wasn’t coming home from school.   I laid in my bed, shivering and unable to become warm trying to make my mind understand this reality.  Sleep could not be found without medication and a friend reading the Word as I lay still and try to rest.  My body was revolting.  My mind, overcome with grief.

I would be utterly hopeless.  I have heard stories from momma’s who spent years – many years – on drugs to escape the pain every day.  I understand that – and there are days when it still sounds like it could be a good way out from under the weight of pain.  I have never desired so greatly to just be numb for a while.  Judge if you would like, but that is the truth.  There is no way for me to explain the hurt.  By God’s grace, and because of my other precious children, the Lord has kept me from that. 

Without faith… desperation, hopelessness, constant pain.   

Without faith it is impossible to please God.  This verse rattles around in my mind.  Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.  When faith enters the picture – it is like a ray of light cutting through the harsh dark clouds.  Faith reminds me that my Jacob is surely alive.  More than I am.  Faith reminds me that this world – all of its 80, or90 years is a * blink * in reality.  Faith reminds me that the way I walk this out can either point people to Truth and Hope, or it can lead them into further desperation. 

My hope is not that God will preserve all of my other children.  My hope is not that I will stay healthy and have wealth.  My hope lies in something that is unchanging.  My hope lies in Jesus Christ.  He CONQUERED death.  Before my Jacob died… death had already been defeated.  Because Christ rose… so did my son. 

When “normal” people sing praise songs, they are singing from their place in life… what sorrow and what victory they know and understand.  Worship songs have always ministered to me in ways that nothing else could.  But, I am going to be honest.  Worship songs are different now.   I would have sung with my hands lifted high – singing from my guts – asking God’s Spirit to “lead me where my trust is without borders”… or telling Him that His name is blessed – whether He gives or takes away.  And, I would have meant it – from the bottom of my heart, and with all that I had.  But, now, a knot rises in my throat as I go to sing those words.  Tears stream from my eyes as I am barely able to utter the words…

He has taken away.  And, in some moments, I do not feel like blessing anything or anyone.  He has tested my borders, and I have found that my trust did have very solid boundaries, and He took me beyond them.  There was a point that my trust waivered.  Does it mean that I do not believe God is who He says He is?  Absolutely not.  But, knowing He had all POWER to raise my son to life in this life – and He chose not to do it pushed my trust to a place I can’t explain.  It seems like it would be easier to believe He couldn’t do it.  But, I KNOW He could have.  With all that I am – all the way to my guts – I know He could have.  I have had to wrestle with that.  I have had to wrestle with the fact that He can make good of something so bad.  It doesn’t feel good.  It hasn’t left me with a confidence that we are safe.  What I mean is, I do not have the luxury of imagining that I can keep my children safe.  Or, that I can pray hard enough to keep them – or myself, or my husband from getting sick or dying.  My faith does not guarantee health, or wealth… but it is a guarantee that in the life that is ahead – I have a place.  In that place there will be no more tears.  There will be no more pain.  This is a guarantee, and I am banking on it.   I have the blessed hope that my goodness will not have to be enough to get me to Heaven.  Jesus was enough.  Jesus was my full payment.  And that is my hope.  Nothing actually depends on me.  Thank God for that.  Through these times of sorrow I have grieved the Spirit of God with my sins.  I have been weighed down with shame and guilt on the earth.  But, because of Jesus, I will one day be with my beautiful mother and my precious son again for eternity for the Glory of God.  Praise God that because of Jesus, my shame and my sin is no longer mine.  It was nailed to the cross - and I have been set free.

His ways are not my ways, and His thoughts are not my thoughts.  He is much higher than I – and even though I do not understand… I will never understand…

I can trust…

well, I can trust…

…over time, I will be able to trust His heart towards me. 

That is where I am.  I am re-learning to trust Him when trust does not insure safety.  Please don’t get all religious on me and say that I am safe.  Of course, my soul is safe.  And that is what counts… it really is.  But, I mean I know every day that my children walk out the door that they are not guaranteed to come back through it.  And that, changes a person.  I know that I am not guaranteed to be here to raise my children.  My mother died when I was 17.  I was not fully raised.  I was certainly not without need for a momma.  And, yet, here I am.  By God’s tremendous grace… here I am.

Life has been a painful journey for me.  I am still healing.  I feel in a way, like I was wounded in battle… desperately wounded… and it is taking much time to heal.  I still feel like I am laying on the battlefield… war raging all around.  I am hanging on.  I am grasping at truth… and hanging on for dear life.  But, I am bloody, and I am weary, and I am still unsure how long until I am pulled from the battlefield and given rest. 

Don’t misunderstand.  I have peace.  I am not terrified of losing my life.  I am not terrified each day that more loss will enter my life.  I know that no matter what happens… God will hold me in His great big hands.  I know that this life will pass – and then there will be eternal joy and safety.  But, I am still fighting for joy.  I am still waiting for healing in deep places.  I am still wrestling it all out with my God.  And, the most beautiful part of it… He delights in my heart.  He delights that I am still wrestling.  He delights in the broken places in me… because He knows how to bind them up – and He loves me with an everlasting love.  Where man will judge and say things (that are meant to be helpful) that bring more pain and seek to diminish the gravity of it all… My God sees my heart and He is pleased with me.  By His grace every day I press forward… and on days like this – where soul crushing memories and images flood my mind and my heart – I press in tighter.  I cry out to be held – in tangible ways – to remember there is joy.  There is goodness.  There is life.  There is HOPE.  I rest in the fact that He sees every broken place, and His one desire is to bind up the brokenness, and heal that which is wounded. 

He is good.  His heart towards me is good.  He will heal me.  And one glorious day, it will all make sense… and I will cry no more.