Sunday Song

Jesus, lover of my soul,
Let me to Thy bosom fly,
While the nearer waters roll,
While the tempest still is high.

Hide me, O my Savior, hide,
Till life's storm is past;
Safe into the haven guide;
Oh, receive my soul at last.

Other refuge have I none,
Hangs my helpless soul on Thee;
Leave, ah! leave me not alone,
Still support and comfort me.

All my trust on Thee is stayed,
All my help from Thee I bring;
Cover my defenseless head
With the shadow of Thy wing.

Wilt Thou not regard my call?
Wilt Thou not accept my prayer?
Lo! I sink, I faint, I fall—
Lo! on Thee I cast my care.

Reach me out Thy gracious hand!
While I of Thy strength receive,
Hoping against hope I stand,
Dying, and behold, I live.

Thou, O Christ, art all I want,
More than all in Thee I find;
Raise the fallen, cheer the faint,
Heal the sick, and lead the blind.

Just and holy is Thy Name,
Source of all true righteousness;
Thou art evermore the same,
Thou art full of truth and grace.

Plenteous grace with Thee is found,
Grace to cover all my sin;
Let the healing streams abound;
Make and keep me pure within.

Thou of life the fountain art,
Freely let me take of Thee;
Spring Thou up within my heart;
Rise to all eternity.

No strings attached

When you learn something it can either be immediate like a light bulb coming on at the first touch of a switch,  it can take a few tries just to clear the confusion,  or it can feel like you're beating your head against a wall because, as much as you may want to, you just don't get it.

This new journey,  this learning to love thing,  has already caused some scratches and a big ol' knot as I beat my head against the proverbial brick wall yelling "I just don't get it!" but then in the early morning the light started to grow within my heart as the comforting words of "of course you don't" appeared. 

I realized, while tending to the bruises, that I have desperately been trying to make sense of the completely nonsensical.  Grace and gospel love make absolutely no sense.   Zero.  In fact in the world they make less than zero sense,  in the world's eyes grace and love are downright stupid. (Pardon my use of the s word, as my boys would say)

Grace and love that comes from Christ are freely given, no strings attached, make no sense, impossible to earn, because not one of us deserves it, gifts of the gospel.  Even the smartest of us all can not truly comprehend how it is possible to give and be given and that is what makes it so unearthly beautiful.  We can't analyze, understand, pass a test and shove the grace card in our wallets. 

I have been attaching strings to my love and cutting them one by one when something hurtful or confusing or inconsiderate happens or something I deem not the right and obvious choice of behavior and now there is not so much as a thread left to pretend to hang on to.  While the world would call it a natural and maybe even justified reaction, it is in reality a sin that needs to be addressed because as a child of God I am not of this world.

Showing and giving Grace like I've been shown and given is the call on my heart but in no way am I even a little bit capable of doing it alone.  I have to be rid of myself and fall on the feet of the only one who can.

I have to seek and ask until I am able to give.   Even then I will fail, and repent again and again as its not a one size fits all situations kind of thing.   It's a new road every time, a new challenge to go up against,  and a new chance to let Jesus into yet another piece of my heart that I  realize I have never opened up.

"Lead Me To The Cross"

Savior I come
Quiet my soul remember
Redemption's hill
Where Your blood was spilled
For my ransom
Everything I once held dear
I count it all as lost

[Chorus:]
Lead me to the cross
Where Your love poured out
Bring me to my knees
Lord I lay me down
Rid me of myself
I belong to You
Lead me, lead me to the cross

You were as I
Tempted and trialed
Human
The word became flesh
Bore my sin and death
Now you're risen

Everything I once held dear
I count it all as lost

[Chorus]

To your heart
To your heart
Lead me to your heart
Lead me to your heart

[Chorus]

In Christ I am and a little about love

Way back in the days of 31 I wrote about identity and how vital it is in your Christian walk to know not only know you are God's but what it says about you.  It is impossible to truly love yourself if you don't understand how insanely much you are loved by God.

Recently I am learning how much your identity can also effect how much you can love others.  How strongly I believe God's love for me determines how much love I can hold for another person.  His love is what gives me love and therefore overflows me with love to give away. 

 This all seems quite simple and obvious until there is a difficult person in your life to love.  I don't mean on days when your husband forgets to make the bed or your kids disobey all day and whine as if they'll never get another chance to do so or some crazy person takes forever in the grocery store line in front of you.  Those are all moments we are given to show great love but they are short lived and don't cost us too much in the way of heart sacrifice. 

 I am talking about people who have hurt you or your family, people who you hear about who have done the unthinkable, people who when you think about them you can feel your blood pressure rise, you can feel your heart drop and you can feel the desire to throw all your beliefs out the window just to hang on to the hard feelings or feel yourself retreat so you can pretend that they're not really there.

  

So many people have a person like that where the ache hurts but the cost of loving feels like it could hurt more.  I have that person.  I wish I didn't.  I wish I could say that I love like Christ loves me.  I want to love like He loved me first but it's hard.  On some days it feels impossible.  God is taking me on a journey, an extension of the one he started over a year ago, to help me learn about gospel love.  How to love like Christ in all circumstances and to all people.  It's easy to love the easy ones but we most often aren't called to the easy things.

I am at the very beginning of this trip.  So much so that I can still see the starting point if I turned around to glance.  So much so that it wouldn't take long to run back to the house, unpack my suitcase and pretend that I was never going any where.  My prayer is that I keep walking.  No matter what comes up, I pray that I keep walking.

I will be sharing with you what I'm learning and what I'm struggling with and when I want to quit and when God has helped me walk miles instead of yards.  Today I am kicking off a weekly reminder of who I am in Christ to help me on my journey and to encourage you on whatever path God is sending you down.  From now on, on Tuesdays I am planning to share with you a different verse I have found for my identity list.  A verse that tells me whose I am and what I am because of it.  

Today I am sharing the first one I ever wrote down.

 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  Colossians 3:12

In these few words I know that 

He chose me

He set me apart to be special

He loves me, dearly

and because of that I can be compassionate, kind, humble, gentle and patient.  

I can bear His Fruit

because He loved me first

I'll pack that verse along with me and take it on the road.

promise

I am tired.  Plain tired.  I am almost positive that any woman can say that at almost any time of any day.  Whether you are married or not.  Whether you have kids or not.  Whether you work out of the home or not.  It's just a common side effect of being female.  I think it's our brains.  The non stop thoughts that process through them.  The non stop activity around us.  The non stop feeling in our hearts to the things we see and hear about.  There is just always something isn't there?

Somehow my October just blended into November which is now blending into December and oh December.  We are two weeks in and almost all of that time has been spent with illness.  Illness of children and myself and I know I am not the only one.  I can name flus, stomach bugs, RSV, colds and even appendicitis that has gone through the friends around me.  I also have to mention this GIGANTICALLY HUGE project that someone decided at my husband's work was a good idea to have happen in the middle of December.  

I have watched and slept and prayed and gotten frustrated for him as he has been up for all hours on countless conference calls multiple nights in a row.  I have been tempted to make an appointment with whatever uppity up made this call to let them know that it was absurd, ridiculous and all the other less appropriate adjectives that spew out of me when I'm eating dinner with the boys and a man who has to have a black headset attached to his ears.  I am most thankful this is a virtually nonexistant part of his job at normal times but seriously there's nothing happening in the months of January through March.  Why not then!?

And then both of these situations are also followed by me getting annoyed with myself as I realize I'm just being a brat since I've spent so much time complaining over virtual blessings in my life.  Children who I love and want to take care of in sickness and in health.  A husband who has a great job and is a bright light of Christ in the middle of a corporate world.

I need to remember that overworked or not, sicknesses or not, overwhelming schedules or not, the beauty can not be taken out of December.  The joy that is known through advent and the celebration of the birth of our Savior and Lord is there always and in everything no matter what, but I do, sometimes, have to fight to see it.  I have to fight against the distraction, the frustration, the ongoing duties, and the sorrows and memories holidays so often bring.  I have to fight against my flesh that wants to get upset when things don't go the way I've planned, or my to do list just keeps getting longer, or my body is worn out and just won't do what I want it to, or the voices that follow me around whose only communication is through a whine or the brief but sweet time of prayer and reading that happened in those wee hours before children wake seem like a distant memory by the end of a day.

So I seek his face.  I repent yet again of trying to do it all on my own and make my own way.  I rejoice again that I have everything to give praise for and none is, or ever will be, due to my circumstances.  Again, I remember his promises.

  I have been doing the She Reads Truth advent study this month and each day has been wonderful.  As I've traveled through old testament prophecies and reading after reading of people and places that served their purpose in the story that leads up to Christ, I have been struck more than ever about the promises of God.  A prophecy is merely a promise, something told long ago that God promises to happen in the future.  The things angels told when they appeared to Zachariah, Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph were promises.  Every word God spoke or left with us in His Word was a promise of what will come, of what he'll do, and of who He is and not once in all of time has he broken any of his promises.  Not once did someone look at what he said and not see what he had done.  No it didn't, and still doesn't always happen in the ways our feeble minds can imagine or even comprehend, but My Father, your Father, the Father of our Savior, has never broken a promise.

  I had this thought the other day about what God may be thinking as I was struggling with the past and of how it still effects my present and my future while sitting in my car, tears streaming down my cheeks wondering why.  Why do I still struggle over and over with this same thing?  In the innermost part of my heart the Spirit calmed me with His promises.  I could just imagine my Heavenly Father tenderly saying I promise it's ok, I can see the big picture, I can see the beauty that is being created all around the yuck. I promise I will never leave you, I will never forsake you, I will be faithful to complete this work in you, all of this will work out for your good and you have nothing to fear.

Far better than even the most well intentioned promises I make my baby boys and the most genuine love I heap upon them, is the comfort of a Heavenly Father who knows no end and the promises He has made that can never be broken.

back home

The day after mine and Logan's birthday Zach left to go to Denver for a training class.   He was gone for 6 nights and 5 days, not that I was counting, and checking them off and praying that the time would go by quickly.  

I'm always excited when he goes somewhere fun for work and I get to go with him but I am never excited when he goes somewhere for work and I am left alone.  Not that anyone is excited to have their husband traveling so I know this is a shared feeling.  When I am gone for a day or a girl's weekend or something He never fails to let me know how thankful he is for everything I do.  Being left alone with three boys that you have to clothe, feed, and keep track of and a house that you have to not let get too destroyed definitely brings out a thankful heart.

Same goes for me when he is gone.  The daily things aren't too big of a deal.  I get them ready for school everyday and pick them up and help with the homework and make the dinner and all that on a daily basis anyway.  It's after dinner when there's the clean up of kitchen and children, and then the reading of the stories before bed and the praying and the singing,when my heart deeply misses my other half. Don't get me wrong, I miss him during the day too but at least then I can just pretend he is still at work!  Added to the normal schedule there was also Connor's Thanksgiving program at school and a Thanksgiving Feast to be eaten twice in one day and doing it alone was just no fun.

Though I can be truly satisfied in the Lord alone, life is just more enjoyable with my baby by my side.  God said it was not good for man to be alone, I am only assuming it's not good for women either.  I love having my encourager, my sanity provider, my partner, my fellow parent, my escape if needed, my cuddler at the end of the day.  I prayed more for single mothers last week than I have in a long time.  My heart was opened up to them in a new and fresh way with a desire to figure out how to reach out in assistance or at the very least show the love and grace that is so needed during times of frustration and struggle.  Will you pray too?

 Zach has been gone for extended periods of time before but for some reason last week the thought of living life like that hit me more than it ever has.  Probably because I now know all to well how quick something like that could happen and how thankful I am that it didn't.

looking ahead

My birthday was two weeks ago.  Well mine and Logan's birthday was two weeks ago.  For three years now I have shared a birthday with my 3rd son.  Yes some people think it's sweet and amazing.  I think my son is sweet and amazing but the jury is still out on the sharing thing being such as well ;-)

It never fails that I feel a little off around my birthday.  It's not a bad feeling per say, it's just a different feeling.  Many people spend the first of the year reflecting on the past and making plans for the future and while I am definitely a new year, fresh start, list making fool, a lot of my reflecting goes on around the time where the number associated with my years on this earth is about to go up by one.  This year that number went from 32 to 33 and my heart just wasn't sure what to think about it.

In the week leading up to the Saturday celebrations, my mind wandered through the past and what the previous year had brought, but I also spent a little too much time thinking about what it had taken away.  Without even trying too hard my mind kept wandering to the negatives, the hard stuff, the things that make my heart sink and tempt me to forget the wondrous things God has done.  I fell head first into that temptation the Tuesday before and spent the majority of the day in tears, but praise God for not allowing me to dwell there too long.  He took my eyes from the negatives and reminded me, yet again, of where I am now, who I am now, who I have now and who He is always.

Even after all this, it still wasn't until the day after my birthday at our community group that I began to understand where my thoughts needed to go.  As we were sharing our weekly "what is God doing in our lives" a friend talked about how God has been bringing up situations in her life that have initiated conversations with her husband about their future and what they should be looking forward to.  Something woke up within me when I heard that.

This past 15 months has been full of both heartache and joy that has required an immense amount of looking back and while in a lot of ways there was nothing but moving forward, in a lot of ways that moving forward was just to get us back to level ground.  I'm ready to rise above.

Looking back is always a good thing when you are looking back and seeing the faithfulness of God in your life.  I look and see what the Lord has done and it is GOOD, but I think after so many months of looking back I am ready to not just look at the past of what He has done and not just look in the present of where I am now but to look to the future of where He is taking me.  I think I am finally ready to live out the first verse I wrote in this new year 11 months ago.

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own.  But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.  Philippians 3:12-14

next

It's November.  I didn't think I'd make it through October.  I remember eating dinner with Leslie on October 1st and looking at her and asking her to pray because I was already tired from everything that was going to happen that month.  I am so thankful and humbled to be sitting here a week into November not only having made it through October but having made it through, by grace and grace alone, better than when I started.

The Holy Spirit has been stirring within my heart pointing and pricking and pushing and convincing and setting me toward a path that is difficult but one I am finally ready to walk down.  I'm in the early stages, just a few short steps in, but as I continue the trip forward, with no step backs or at the very least no turning around and fleeings, I will continue to share.  We all have hard roads we need to walk and we can't walk them alone.  While my official sharings of clinging to my beloved God of Hope is complete my desire to write about His work in my heart is not.  Whether just for me, a handful of others or enough to fill Jordan-Hare (which is HIGHLY unlikely and not a goal just for the record) I want to continue to bare it all, to process it out and to pray it encourages just one.

I've been nervous about continuing on and letting all the doubt and insecurity try to weasel it's way back in or maybe inviting it back as the case may be.  But then a word from a friend or a well timed verse from the bible or a devotion shared by my husband encourages me and gives me truth, sometimes hard truth, in love.  I don't know why I'm always surprised when God shows up.  Of course with that surprise comes awe and to lose that feeling toward my Creator would be a sad day indeed.

I want Him to use me.  I want to share my heart and to keep none of it to myself.  I want to show others and help others to do the same so that all masks are off and the only thing we see are the beautiful hearts of other sinners who are firmly in the hand of God ready to be on each other's team, on the Kingdom's team, and not fighting amongst ourselves.  I pray this desire never goes away.  I pray it only grows stronger.  I pray that He will continue to surprise me as I see Him show up in this desire or keep in awe as He drives it in different ways.  Will you pray with me please?