God is with us in the Pain

Everyone carries around their own inner rain. We have our own hurts, hardships and pain. Sometimes when we’re in the thick of it deep in the fog with no end in sight there’s a part of us that thinks that maybe God makes no records of us, but instead maybe he forgets me, and I’m tempted to view him as the blind, deaf and dumb God.

But God is not far off he is our Emmanuel—God with us.  He is love, he is tender and sweet to us. He notes our every ache, he is there when we cry and keeps tabs on all our pain, scrapes and failings.

 

What would cause our Father to record our every lament and tear—only his deep wild ravishing love. We never ache without God attending to it and every time a tear slips from our eyes, God cups our grief and puts our tears in his bottle (Psalm 56:8).

God is with us and it is his tender with-ness that binds up our wounds.
Only by allowing him to come into the broken pieces of our lives can we begin to experience healing

The creator of the universe the ruler of the world, the one who is all powerful and is in complete control cares about your hurts and pains, the wounds you hide from the world the thoughts that fill you with sadness late at night, he sees, he knows and he cares but even more comforting than those facts he is right there in the midst of it with you. He wants you to feel his presence to reach out and experience his peace that surpasses all understanding and to allow him to come into your heart and fill you with comfort as he slowly day by day binds up the wounds of your heart as you look to Jesus as your healer and comforter. As you learn to let go of control and self-sufficiency and begin to loosen your grasp as depend completely on God, as you drink deeply of his love and grace for you and see his intimate care for every detail of your life he will transform your heart, he will take your pain and he will fill you with healing, restoration and deep joy.

If God makes a list of my laments, I will make a list of God’s love.

If God has a list of pain, I will make a list of my praise

If God writes a list of my tears, I will write a list of my thanks.

When I remember God’s love, and fill my heart with praise and thankfulness I allow my heart and mind to become fixed on my savior the only one who can heal the broken pieces of my life.

Under Attack Again

Under attack again, such is life 

in a broken world where sin still lives 

under attack again why was I surprised?

Why did I give way to anger, 

fear, discouragement, vengeance

questioning the one thing that is sure, safe 

constant, reliable?

You have promised to keep me, protect me,

nurture me, to love me and defend me.

I have hidden in the shelter of your wing. 

I have had your peace put me to sleep.

I have had your presence comfort my heart 

I have had your spirit give me new strength 

Yet somehow when under attack again

I forget you and in forgetting I did what I regret 

and said what gives me grief.

I even questioned you.

The enemies I face are too great 

The brokeness around me is too pervasive

The sin inside of me too hard to escape 

So I have come home again, 

home to this one thing I daily need.

In moments mundane and great 

the rescue that can be found only in you.

I know that in the face of your wisdom, your control

your power, your righteousness 

the enemies of my soul will stumble, will fall, will crumble

In defeat.

When evil comes and it will

I will remember you, run to you 

believe in you, rest in you and with hands that are clean

and a heart that is pure I will fight evil

not with words of evil or actions of vengence 

but with the one thing the enemy cannot defeat-- worship of YOU. 

(inspired & adapted by shelter in the storm)

God delights in you

Have you taken the time recently to think about how God delights in you?
He delights in YOU period.

There is no comma, conditioning clause or a but followed by exceptions.
He simply loves and delights in you as his child.

The Lord your God …will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.” Zephaniah 3:17

God gave me a beautiful picture of this the other day when I was spending time with my nephew. Have you ever held a sleeping baby before? (if not I'd highly

recommend it because you're missing out on one of the most precious, peaceful moments in life)

But anyways, as I sat on the couch holding my baby nephew in my arms. I simply looked down at his sleeping little body and my heart overflowed with joy and love for him. I watched his chest rise and fall to the rhythm of his breathing, the details of his little eyelashes and the warmth of this body against mine and simply soaked it all in. I was delighting in him, and my sweet little nephew did not have to even do a thing for my heart to be filled with joy. He wasn't smiling at me, holding my fingers, making adorable baby noises, or showing me his new tricks of clapping his hands, waving and standing up. No he was just there simply being and that's all he needed to do in order for my heart to overflow with love for him.

I wonder if that's a picture of how God views us. He doesn't need us to spend an hour reading the Bible every day, or to perfectly share the gospel with others, be involved in 5 different ministries at our church,  and go on missions trips every summer. While none of those things are bad, God doesn't need us to do any of those things. He delights in us and loves us because of who we are and not because of what we do. He delights in us simply because we are his children just like I delighted in my nephew simply because he is my baby nephew.

God loves you simply because you are his.

Now, when my nephew gets excited to see me, gives me a hug or does something cute, it brings me joy, because I see that he is responding to the love that I have for him and he shows me that our relationship isn't just one sided. So yes it does bring God pleasure when we walk with him and follow his ways, because we are showing him that his deep, unconditional love for us has affected our hearts that we have received the love and value that he has placed in us and we want to respond to that love.

BUT even when we don't and even when we mess up and we aren't perfect, God's love for us never changes. We are still his children who he delights.

Rest in that today, sweet friend. Bask in the knowledge that you can rest that you can stop striving to earn God's favor, performing and seeking to be perfect, because God has already poured out his favor on us and given us the highest value he has called us his beloved Children, and that is an unshakable identity.

You know the best part about our identity as children of God? There is nothing we can do to earn it (it is only through the cross and Jesus's payment for our sins) which also means that there is nothing we can do to lose it. This is the one identity that is not dependent on ourselves, but is instead dependent on God's amazing and unchanging grace and love for us.

So let go of the burden of performance and run in the freedom of grace.
You are a beloved child of God, and no one can change that! 

The 13 letter word

Have you ever heard of the 13 letter word? I'll give you a hint, it starts with a "V" ....

Vulnerability- it's a word that makes me cringe
when I hear it I tense up and immediately pull up my shield to block my heart.
I get antsy and immediately want to change the topic
or run out of the room.
But what is it about his word that I fear?
Why does it stir up so many emotions & protective mechanisms?
Why does it make me want to bolt out of the room?

Because vulnerability means trust
vulnerabiltiy means taking off the mask that I've spent my whole life protecting
vulnerability means intimacy
vulnerability means allowing others into my life
vulnerability means the possibility of hurt, rejection and abandoment
It means showing people I'm not the perfect girl I try to be

BUT

vulnerability also means being truly known
vulnerability means love
vulnerability means truth
vulnerability means community
vulnerability means openness, freedom
vulnerability means acceptance for you who are and not just your mask

Is it worth it? Is it worth the risk, worth the possible hurt and rejection?
I say an emphatic YES!

Vulnerability means you don't have to feel worn down and wear by putting up a front all of the time, it means leaving behind your feelings of lonliness and embracing being fully and completely known. If i'm honest as much as that thought scares me it also sounds like the most amazing, freeing thing ever!

Putting down my shield of self-protection and letting others in is a risk, it's terrifying and it makes me want to run the other way.
BUT
What if we asked God for the courage to be vulnerable, to be truly known for once in our lives and to stop pushing poeple away, but to instead allow ourselves to be loved?

Knowing that my identiy is found in Christ and not being perfect. In Christ, and not in self-protection, in Christ and not in how others view me is what frees me. When I am firm in Christ and my identity as a daughter of God than I can courageously take the risk of letting other in, of inviting them into my heart, letting them be a part of my story and allowing myself to feel God's love through the tangible love and care of others. 

When I feel like ignoring the pain in the world

Life in this broken world is hard 

There are so many things that are not as they should be, so many sorrows and so much pain

Sometimes the world makes me want to close my eyes and hide pretending that all the horrors will simply go away if I just pretend like they're not there.

 As much as I wish I had the magical power to simply wish all the bad things away and make everything better that's just not how life works. 

Actually it's quite the opposite. 

So yes there may not be a simple solution to a problem 

but when we ignore it and pretend like it's not there we're being selfish. 

We are thinking about ourselves and protecting our own eyes from seeing the pain 

and our hearts from feeling the sorrow of this world. 

We are telling all of those who are hurting, vulnerable and in need that our own safety and comfort are more important that theirs. 

That we would rather ignore the voiceless so that we can have a more blissful life 

one that doesn't include all the real hard parts. 

We are saying that their heartache and pain are not worth my compassion, energy and emotions. 

Is that the message that I want to send? 

Without realizing it when we ignore the social injustices in our world 

and the pain and exploitations of our neighbors we are only perpetuating the problem, 

shoving it under the rug and turning off the light. 

We are giving more power to those injustices because brokenness and sin breads in darkness. 

They need light to shine on them so they can be opened up to what is good and right.

Yes it may be hard like watching a prostitute be grabbed and taken away by a man, 

hard to process, sad to watch and difficult to understand or share 

but it's in acknowledging the problem and being bold and brave enough to allow our hearts to feel their pain and break for them  that we begin to be able to advocate for them. 

To be a voice for the voiceless 

to let these people know that they aren't invisible, 

that we see them and the horrors that they are going through 

and that we are courageous enough to take a stand against the evil 

to talk about the things that are uncomfortable, hard and broken in our world 

in order to take another step towards ending it 

to shine a little more light and bring a little more hope

 to the world, to these people and to these faces. 

That's all I can ask anyone to do. 

Yes, you may not be able to change everything in the world but you can change someone's world by showing them that there is hope and there are people who care and a God who loves them!

Grace is the greatest Brave

 Grace is the greatest brave.

 Everyday we face battles, and for each of us those battles look a little different. But we all live in a  world with broken people and so relationships, friendships, and family are hard. 

 

Sometimes its battles of people persuading us that we’re failing

Tearing down all that we’ve tried to achieve

Or its gossip and rumors

Other times it’s people breaking our trust, lying to us, hurting us

The battle of trying to be good enough, smart enough, pretty enough

The battle of trying to be accepted and loved

But no matter what it is the battle never seems to end

When we’re caught in these battles with people giving grace doesn’t come easily or feel natural at all.

It takes a lot of courage to give grace to the person who hurt you, the one who gossiped and slandered about you or the one who won’t let you live down your past.

But, as hard and difficult as it may seem, it is possible to give grace, and Jesus proved it. He showed us how to give grace even when it is hard

 He gently and lovingly reminds me that

 I was the one who was warring against him

 Living for myself and worshiping the world

 Yet, Jesus gave me grace

 I used to do things to him that people do to me. 

 Promise things to him and then break those promises

 Tell him that I loved him, and then turn my back on him

 And I took from him

 I lied to him and made fun of him

 Yet he was courageous enough to take all of that sin and give us all of his grace

 We didn’t deserve it, but he gave us a second chance.

 So yes, I am weak and unworthy and I don’t want to forgive people who have hurt me, but his grace  is enough for all of me 

 I can be brave, because Jesus Christ was brave

 "We don’t get the luxury of looking like Jesus and holding on to our hurts"

 Grace restores, rebuilds and changes mindsets

 But grace doesn’t just happen, someone has to be brave enough to give it.

 Will you?

Dear Grandma,

I have memories of coming into your house as a little girl with pigtails, running straight into the kitchen, because I knew that’s where you would be and then jumping into your arms for a big hug! Memories of when you would let me make a mess by taking out all of your pots and pans to play with, sometimes I would make musical instruments out of them and other times I would pretend to be cooking like you were. The times where you would let me help you make jello and we’d make it into fun shapes, and then you’d be so patient with me as I would check every 10 minutes to see if it was ready yet. Memories of sitting at the table having life chats with you and the way you always made me laugh and gave such good life advice. And my absolute favorite were the way you would take us all out on dates for our Birthdays, we’d get to have a special grandma lunch and pick out some new outfits and somehow you always knew what clothes I would like and remembered such little details about each one of us grandkids.

 

But time is ticking and with every day I realized how quickly it is slipping away from us, how precious each and every second is, every conversation and every hug. While I may not be able to do all of those things that I used to do with you anymore I’m learning that I don’t need that to feel loved by you. Just holding your hand fills my heart with joy and love, or being able to sit next to you. Seeing a smile on your face or the sparkle in your eye when you see us kids. These little things mean a thousand times more than I ever realized before and I treasure these little moments even more than all those big memories you’ve painted my life with growing up.

Thank you for always being there for me. For being such a fighter and being so strong. For not complaining but instead enjoying life and your family as much as you can. Dearest grandma, I love you more than words can say and while it’s hard to see you hurting and sick, and it breaks my heart to see you losing your independence. I am so grateful that I am still blessed with getting to make these simple little memories with you and treasure these little moments of eating chocolate together, and simply sitting there holding each others hands.

But I would be very grateful if time would slow down just a little bit so I can squeeze in as many of these moments and memories with you into my heart to keepsake forever!

Sweet Grandma I hope you know how much I love you, and how dearly I treasure all of the sweet memories you’ve etched into my heart and the love and care that you’ve brightened my life with! I'm storing up all of these memories with you & I can’t wait to hold your hand again in just a few weeks!  <3