Hang in there

This morning is crisp and quiet. 

I don't hear the birds or see the movement of life all around me. It is just silent. 

This year has been so hard for so many of you. Pain and loss have come. Sometimes making it hard to breathe. Kindness is hard to find, and equally hard to give. The love of many is growing cold. Hurt comes in, darkness... loneliness grips at your heart and you are scared, tired and depressed. You spend much of your time wishing this life would just get easier, or things would start to "go your way". You look around and others are struggling too, but no one quite understands you. Not in this moment. You smile, you press on. Sometimes you let people you trust know. Sometimes you let the whole social media world know. But, most of the time, you hold your hurt like a blanket - that is supposed to comfort you, but you find it brings a strange sense of comfort and pain - all mixed up together. 

Friends, there is a better way. 

Life is not easy. Loss is suffocating and the pain comes in waves. But there is more to life than this pain. If I can give you any encouragement, hear this one thing. There is more. There is a God who loves you. There is a God who sees you and cares for you. There is a God who weeps with you and is filled with compassion - to the point that He catches every one of your tears in a bottle. He knows you. He wants to draw you near. It is okay if you are angry. It is okay if you are angry with Him. It is okay if you are questioning why. It is okay if you are wrestling with trust and faith and everything around God being good. But, I promise you, He is. He is good. He is altogether lovely and He has a good plan for your life. Please know that the accuser will come to try and steal your comfort. The devil will come and accuse God and His goodness. He will say that "if God loved you, then he would have......" But, don't fall for it. This pain, these lies will only send you further into despair. You must fight to believe the truth, and you must surround yourself with those who are safe. Those who you can share your pain, your doubts, your fears with - and know that they will not try to judge you, or preach you back to "normal". There is no normal to be had here. God did not intend for the world to look like this, to act like this. Normal was a beautiful Garden, filled with light and love and beauty and no pain. We are all so aware that normal is gone. Not just in the last few years, but ages ago... the beauty and fullness of life was stolen from the earth. But, there is more. There is a place where beauty is alive and life doesn't end in tragedy. There is more. There is a time coming when all will be restored. The earth and its people will be restored and renewed. Laughter and love and peace will be everywhere. Isn't that what we long for? Tell me one thing that you dream of, one super power you wish you had... and I tell you that Heaven will be more. It will be better. We are yearning to be in eternity. We are yearning to leave this life of pain and get to the place we were created for. 

But, there is work for you to do. Believer, we are here because we are not yet finished. If you know the deep love of the Father, and the saving love of Christ, I am begging you to be a light to those around you in darkness. If you know any comfort from being in His love, lay down judgment and pick up mercy. Lay down your comforts and pick up love. No more bickering. No more slandering. No more division and back-biting. Drop it all. Pick up compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you have against one another. Forgive as you have been forgiven in Christ. And over everything else, put on LOVE, which binds the rest of these in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of ONE BODY you were called to peace. And be thankful. (Colossians 3:12) It is time for the church of God in Jesus Christ to be known for love. It is time for us to stand together and bring hope to a hopeless time. Please, lay down those things that are causing you to sin and to mistreat others, and pick up your true identity in Christ. 

Friends, even if you have never trusted God, even if you have never asked Jesus to save you from your sins, I am imploring you to try something new. This week, every time you lean towards despair, say out loud, "Jesus, come." He is so full of compassion. He is so full of love. He will always come when you call on Him. If you let Him, He will draw you close and carry the pain with you. He will not leave you alone in your despair. People will fail you. Some people will say stupid things. Some people will think judgmental thoughts. But, Jesus will not leave you. He will not fail you. He will listen and He will respond in kindness, in compassion and in tenderness He will comfort you. If you want to know more about Him - read about Him in the Bible. Pick it up and read from the Psalms, from John, from Romans... go to someone you know who prays and who you admire, and ask them to share with you what they believe and why they pray. There is hope to be had here. There is peace. There will be days ahead filled with joy and laughter. Please ask God to show Himself to you. To reveal His love for you. He is a good God. Even when it hurts. Harming you was never His plan. The one who is set on harming you will be brought to justice. In time, all will be set right, and in the meantime, Jesus will be a comfort to anyone who seeks Him. He beckons you to come, all who are weary and heavy laden. He will give you rest. 

Much love today and always, 

Christy

What Easter means to me

 I was going to say Happy Easter to everyone via Facebook this morning, and I realized that I couldn’t just leave it at that. 

Easter has a meaning for me personally that goes beyond a two word greeting on social media. 

When I was 17, I had to wrestle with the reality of Heaven and Hell.  I had been raised all my life in church.  I knew everything my parents and Sunday school teachers had told me about Heaven and Hell.  But, when someone you love dies... Well, let’s just say you examine everything a little more closely.  My beautiful mother wrote me a letter before she died.  In it, she closed by saying it wasn’t goodbye - she would just be waiting for me in a different place, a place where there is no more pain, there are no more tears... Then she said it is just a long hello.  Good grief that woman was amazing. 


But, you see, for that to be true... You MUST have Easter.  If eternity is real, then Easter is not just one more Holiday where you eat too much and finally get together with family.  It is the day where death was defeated.  That tree in the Garden gave up its power, and life as God intended burst back onto the scene in full color. 

Jesus is Risen. 

He does not lie in a grave wrapped in linens.  He is not stuck in a place between worlds.  Right now, He is seated at the right hand of the Almighty, and He is making intercession for me, and for you.  That means He is pleading still with the Father on our behalf.  And, that also means that my beautiful mother, Cindy, and my precious, precious Jacob, are in Heaven - and they are very alive.  When I read the words that Jesus conquered death... and that He went before us to make a way... It gives way to a hope that I can not explain. 

This world is a dark and hard place many days.  I have a precious relative that struggles daily with much hate towards God.  Blaming God for the pain and the suffering that is rampant all over the world - and that his loved one suffered while on this earth.  Right now, in his grieving, I wish I could just sit with him and hug him tight.  I know that anger.  I know the feeling that goes along with “you could have stopped this - and you didn’t!!”  His is more of an “IF you could have, why didn’t you?”  If God is real and He allowed that much pain to enter into the life of one person... how could He be good?  I just want to squeeze him and tell him that this isn’t how God intended life to be. But, He did not choose to make us robots that HAD to follow Him.  He allowed choice - and thus, He allowed sin to enter the perfect beauty of what He had created and destroy the perfection and peace that comes with residing with Him.  However, and this is a big HOWEVER... when we chose wrong... He made a way to restore everything to the beauty He had originally intended.  We just can’t see it while we are here on this broken Earth.  Like a kind Father, He instructed His children, Adam and Eve not to eat of the fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  He didn’t just set them out there and wish them luck.. He told them don’t eat of the tree or you will surely die.  They didn’t understand what that really meant.  There wasn’t ONE OTHER thing that was withheld from them.  But, when sin entered the world - death entered with it, and the beauty that was - and the life that was, couldn’t ever be the same here on the earth.  My momma suffered here.  She had much heartache, and much physical pain.  My Jacob did not, and I praise God for that.  He had heartache and loss for certain.  But, he had not tasted the pain of cancer or any disease that robbed him of his health.  Why do some people suffer so intensely?  I believe it is because in her suffering, my momma brought much glory to her Creator.  Never did she doubt His existence, or curse Him in her suffering.  The more she felt pain, the more she longed to go Home, the Home that was available to her because Jesus went ahead of her.  He CONQUERED (utterly defeated) death.  And, because she suffered well, many came to believe in God - and in His Son Jesus.  And, though we cannot see what rewards await for our loved ones who have gone before us... We know that they are many for those who have honored the Lord with their lives.  How much more so for those who suffered long, but suffered well here on the earth.  This temporary pain has been outweighed by so much glory that they will live in forever and ever. 

Easter means eternity.  Easter means there will be a day with no more tears, no more pain, and no more fear.  Easter means that the BEAUTY God intended will be restored and NEVER taken away again.  Easter means that we will rejoice together again because Jesus took all of my stuff, my ugly stuff, and traded spots with me, doing what I couldn’t do, so I could be forever with God after all. 

Easter is beautiful.  Jesus is Risen.

(photo credit to joytojourney.com)

Beauty has been restored and death has been defeated.  I want the truth of that to reside in my heart even on the days here that do not feel beautiful... Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we can not see. (NLT) 

I choose faith.  I choose hope. 

Happy Easter my friends. 

Scattered every which way....

I'm gonna try to be brief... but I don't know if that is possible...  :)

Growing up as a tiny girl we were part of a fellowship that was amazing.  We were a tiny little fellowship... and we loved each other well.  We ate together, studied the Scriptures together.  We were there for each other.  We loved God, and we loved each other.  How dear to me are those who were part of Word of Life Bible Church in Southlake, TX.

As an adult, or almost an adult... a wife and a mommy, but only 21 - Ken and I found a fellowship of our own.  It was the closest thing to Acts 42 I had experienced since I was 8 years old.
And now, 14 years later, we are part of another amazing fellowship of believers who know what it is to love God and love each other.

We are a forever family.  We hurt each other, and we comfort each other.  We love each other well.  We pray for each other.  We know what it means to mourn together and rejoice together.  The common denominator is that in each fellowship, we all loved God, and we all loved each other.  We gave as anyone had need - and we lived in community.

All along the way, I developed friends who I love dearly who were just starting college... and then, just finishing college... and then just moving away, some getting married... some just having their first baby...  some moving to other countries...

It has been a whirlwind when I think about it.  But, I realize that tiny pieces of my heart are scattered across 3 continents (at least) and all over the US.  I love so many people that sometimes it really just hurts.  My heart aches because I miss "my"girls.  But, then there are friends that have known me - the real me for a long time - some ten, fifteen and even twenty or thirty (!) years.  I think I could type for an hour straight and not get all the names down of the people who are dear to me that my heart longs to see and spend time with.  And then there are people that I almost got to know, but I want to know more.... who I am not sure I will get to know much better this side of Heaven.  Which makes me feel like I have a million holes in my heart - pieces of my heart are scattered all over the place.   But, did you notice the phrase "this side of Heaven"?
God is so sweet to remind me that these friends are my forever friends.  Not just because we have bonded well here on earth, but because we are bound by the blood of Christ and will be forever together in eternity.  We are sisters now and forever.  This life is a mist.  One day - and in a short time - in the blink of an eye... we will all be together for eternity.  No tears.  No separation.  No pain.  No sin.  No boundary of time.  We will be forever together worshiping a Holy and Righteous and Beautiful God - and bowing before the One who was given the Name above every Name - at which every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord!
Hallelujah!  I am ready to have a party.  I love my family.  I love my friends.  But, I am about ready for our forever celebration where we come to know what it means to dwell in glory... our God given, untainted glory.  Whew!

It is almost Christmas.  It is time to celebrate the birth of a baby who came to change the World.  It is time to celebrate the Christ-child.  The Messiah.

It is no wonder that the dragon - that tempter, Satan was standing wanting to devour Him even as a baby... because with His birth came the certain destruction of that proud, beautiful angel - Lucifer who was cast out of Heaven.  (Revelation 12 paints an amazing picture of all of this).   The night Jesus was born, a great war broke out.  Real war - and though we do not yet see it with our eyes... that war is still raging.  I am so thankful that I know the end of the story.  I am so thankful I know the One who wrote the story, and the One who came to give me life - and freedom from that fierce dragon.  I am so thankful for each of my friends that have a piece of my heart - because we are a forever family.  We will get to rejoice in the Lord always - and again I say REJOICE!!! 

So, this Christmas, I am spending some time thanking God for each of you by name.  Each one of my forever friends - I am praying a blessing over you even now.  And for each of you that don't know my Jesus - who are skeptical of all of this "religious" stuff.  I am praying a special prayer for you.  I am praying that you will come to know my Jesus for yourself.  It has nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with a relationship.  A relationship with the One who will never abandon me, or forsake me.  A relationship with the One who let His blood be spilled so that mine wouldn't have to be.  The One who came to die - because it was the only way that we could know God - for ourselves, without separation.  The One who the angels worshiped and the wise men sought out.  This Jesus.  If you let Him, He will change your whole life.  Yes, tonight, I am saying a special prayer for you, my sweet skeptical friend.  He loves even you.  Even when you curse Him and doubt Him.  He will never quit pursuing your heart.  He loves you far too much for that. 

Merry Christmas.