Unexpected times of rest...

Today, I feel like poop.  I have the flu.  Stupid flu.

Seriously, I am such a baby when I don’t feel good.  I really just want my mommy, if I am honest. 

But, it affords me the opportunity to sit - snuggled in my very soft blankie with a fire in the fireplace and read and write.  So, in that - there is beauty.  Great beauty, actually.  This is one of my favorite things to do... and the weather is perfect for it!  Again I am so thankful for my job - and the grace I am given to be able to be home when I need rest.

I am struck today by the vastness of God’s understanding.  His ways are so far beyond my own.  I believe that He crafted each on of us - and therefore He knows us full well.  He sees every good thought - and every wicked one.  He sees every act of kindness, and every selfish one.  Nothing in all of creation is hidden from His sight.  That stirs in me two different emotions.  Fear - because I don’t even know my own heart half the time, and peace, because He saw me just as I am - and He chose me anyway. 

Misty Edwards sings it in a song like this, as if God were singing over you: “I knew what I was getting into when I chose you.  I knew what I was getting into when I said your name, and I said it just the same... I knew what I was getting into when I chose you - and I am not shocked by your weakness, I am not shocked even by your sin...  I am not shocked by your brokenness...” 

I love the truth of those words.  Nothing I do or say or think catches Him off guard.  Nothing is beyond His ability to heal and redeem.  Nothing is out of His capable hands.  Nothing.  It is staggering for me to think that He is not limited  - because I have so many limitations.  I recognize now, more than ever the weakness of my flesh.  I see the pull constantly to take my life in my own hands.  I am just thankful that - He - even though He sees it too, still calls me His beloved.  His beauty, His delight. 

Truly, He fulfills the deepest longings in my heart.  He wants to fill your heart too.  He wants to prove Himself to you.  He is fully capable.  I think of that every day as I look at some things going on in my life.  He is absolutely able - and limited by nothing.  He created me with passion and dreams and He didn’t do that to torture me.  He did that because He wants to watch me unwrap them in His timing.  It is the same for you.  Geez, His timing is strange to me.  But, He knows everything.  He knows how one thing will affect another all the way down through time.  He sees it all - and He knows if what you are asking is good for you or not.  He knows if your heart is ready for the responsibility of that thing you desire.  Psalm 84:11 says this, “For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.”

He is not holding out on you as you think He is.  That is a lie from the very pit of Hell.  He just fully knows what is good - and what is not.  I have found myself asking Him for a lot of things lately.  But, quickly following it up with - “Lord help me to want what is best - not only what I think is best.”  I trust Him.  More now than at any other time in my life.  I have no concern that He will turn His back on me - even in the most desperate of times.  He is trustworthy and true. 

I look at the suffering in the world - and though I am not surprised - He told us of the days that are coming... I am saddened at how far His church is from being the instrument of healing He intended it to be.  He says the world should know us by our love one for another, and yet, I think if we are honest, we could say that the world knows us by our judgments and our pitiful display of self righteousness.  He says that the outside of the cup looks great - but the inside, well, it is another story entirely.  It is filthy.  We constantly stand with the accuser and we condemn those who already know they should be condemned and we wound those that have the deepest wounds already.  Why is it so hard to love?  Why is it so difficult to remember what Jesus came to do?  He came to set the captives free.  To bind up our broken hearts.  He came to bring abundant life.  We have settled for so much less than this - and even in the name of righteousness.  When did I become such a Pharisee?  When did I forget that it isn’t about the law - but about the blood of Christ which brings freedom?  I am asking the Lord to give me words of healing and life.  I am asking God to move His Spirit within me in ways that I can’t explain apart from Him.  I am asking Him to renew with passion the love I have for Him as the keeper of my heart.  I want to laugh more, and love better.  I want to become all that He ever intended.  I want that for you too.  I want you to embrace whatever it is that He has called you to - and I want you to run forward as if He is the only thing you have.  When it all unravels, He stands firmly in place to be all that you need for this hour, and for each one to come. 

Grace and Peace to you this blustery winter day.   

Where the Rubber meets the Road

Tonight I sat outside for a little while.  My back porch has a really nice breeze and the clouds were beautiful passing in front of the moon.  It was nice.  I shared my deepest thoughts with Jesus.  I whispered to God that I knew He was there, and He was good, and that I know He sees me.
I told Him how I am tired of things breaking my heart that don't break His.
He reminded me that He catches all of my tears and keeps them in a bottle.
He reminded me that when my heart aches, His aches for me.

It was sweet to remember how very much He loves me.

I am asking Him to heal me.  I am asking Him to heal my broken heart.  I am asking Him to be near to me.  He is hearing me.  And He will answer.

Tonight I thanked Him that He sees me.  I thanked Him that He will come back for us.  I asked Him to make my heart grieve over the things that aren't about me.  I asked Him to help me with my perspective.
He is hearing us.  He will answer us.  He knows everything we need before the words form on our tongues.
It got me to thinking that this is really where the rubber meets the road for me.  The last year has been full of hardships.  More than I can put words to.  But, the greatest of them all has not been resolved.  By my human perspective... it is hopeless.  Thanks be to God that He hasn't left it up to my human perspective!  So, tonight for me, in a significant way, I had to ask myself what Truth is...  and I have found that Truth is that nothing is impossible for God.  Nothing.  Truth is that my God will never leave me or forsake me, and I can rest in that all day long, every day.  Truth is that He is coming back to get us, and what matters is how we spend our days between now and then.  Truth is, this life is not about me....  but about the One that made me and created me for a purpose.  He created you too, and for a distinct purpose, and for such a time as this.
I will rest tonight, full of peace and grasping tightly to the Hope that I have in Jesus.  And, I will be caught up in His love and in awe of His glory as I rest in the shadow of His wings.

Restless....

Have you ever found yourself restless - not in and of itself a bad thing... or is it? 

I mean, not restless - in an anxious way - as if everything is about to come falling down.  Just restless.  Like there is something more out there that you are missing.   Something important that you are supposed to be doing, but aren't.  I found myself in a restless state today. 

My heart is at peace.  And yet, my mind is convinced that something is missing.  I believe with all of my heart in the abundance of God.  I also believe that sometimes we miss the abundance because we get caught up in the dailies of life.  God is in all of the dailies... but there is more.  There is that conversation that you won't even remember later that has the potential to change the course of someone's week - or more!  There is the two minutes you took to do something nice for someone who had just come to the conclusion that people just don't care anymore.  Every action - every single one of them has an effect on other people around you.

Tonight my son broke a piece of glass.  A very large piece of glass over the nicest picture frame in my house.  At first, I was just angry (he was supposed to be in bed, and he was horsing around).  Then, I was just sad.  We cannot replace it.  Those precious pictures... that beautiful frame will not be hung anytime in the near future.  Sadness.  Then, I realized - as he came down the stairs (again) crying and saying, "I'm sorry momma" - I had a choice.  I could reveal my anger, my sadness...  or I could offer forgiveness and grace.  I could help him rest easy knowing that the stupid glass doesn't change my love for him one iota.  Not one. 
I won't say it was easy to offer that grace.  I was still upset with him.  He has been increasingly disobedient and his sin is beginning to affect more and more people.  Yuck.  But, today, I remember how many times I have sinned - just this very day - and I am reminded of a grace that far exceeds my own.  And, I am thankful for that Grace, and it is easier to extend forgiveness in light of that. 
Today was a restless day for me.  It was a day that was hard to discern.  It was hard to know what were my thoughts, and my plans, and what was the leading of the One who whispers to me and sings over me.  It was a day that I felt like I was missing out on something.  I don't like that feeling.  But, I am restless until I rest in Him.  What I wouldn't give to have a few days of quiet with Him alone. 
God is my ever present help in times of trouble.  He is my rest.  I spent time quietly with Him this morning.  I have had time with Him this evening.  I am praying that there is not something He is asking - calling me to that I am saying no to.  He is the only answer to the restlessness inside of me. 
Now, it is time for this restless lady to rest - fully in Him - as He sings me to sleep.