Get over IT.

I hate that phrase."GET OVER IT" opposes the reason why I love my God so passionately. I cannot get over my past - even my present mistakes. I seek my God IN the midst of my mistakes. He speaks to me from His Word concerning every issue - every thought - every deed, and I hear Him. This is my eye to eye - heart to heart - one on one - with Jesus that endears me to my Savior. I do not get over that.

I get Luke 7:36-50, where a woman - who is described simply as a woman "who lived a sinful life", comes before Jesus crying. She is in the home of a Pharisee - a teacher of the Law - who would have condemned her without blinking, and yet she humbly moves past him to the feet of Jesus. There she cries and kisses his feet, washing them with her tears and drying them with her hair.

The Pharisee is disgusted. But Jesus rebukes him, lovingly. Jesus, instead of identifying her sin - he focuses on her adoration. He said to the indignant Pharisee - "Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I Entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell, you, her many sins have been forgiven - as her great love has shown."

Then Jesus said to her, "Your sins are forgiven...Your faith has saved you; go in peace." 


Jesus did not say, "Get over it." What he told her was she had been forgiven because of her faith in Him - and that she could have peace; - no more heartache.

Do you think she ever "got over" this encounter with her Savior? Yeahhhh - I'm thinkin' NO. You don't get over grace. You move - forward- in it with much love. I do not dwell on the past - but live intentionally for Jesus because of my past. My past does not leave me stymied - but rather catapults my understanding of God's love and favor each day. Pitfalls are avoided because of light and understanding. Are they not?

I woke with much JOY over God's truth that filled my heart on July 8th, 2012. Can I share it with you? My hope is that you will know this joy, too.

"Forget the former things: do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!" (CATAPULT!!)...I, even I am HE who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more."
Isaiah 43:18, 25

My heart to heart, eye to eye, one on one - with my God today - of all days; He speaks to me.He speaks to you. Do you hear Him? Oh please hear Him.

Happy Anniversary.

On July 7, 1962 my mom and dad were married. So today - would have been their 50th wedding anniversary. Despite the fact that a car accident interrupted his life with hers here on earth - I am still celebrating this anniversary. They never divorced, and I am certain - they never would have.

He loved her. She loved him. They committed to one another - to their marriage - no matter what.

Not so true of marriages today. Are you engaged? Are you married? Congratulations! You have a 40% chance of making it! I wouldn't even bet on those odds. Why do we give up on our commitment to love - until death  parts us?

When you look at a family that is broken...you see just that - lives shattered. What was so worth it? And what really confuses me - is that people divorce and remarry, like another life will be so much different, so much better...Really? Another marriage will defy the 40/60 odds? Because why??? Oh wait, because it isn't a human you're re-marrying??? 

Not so. Not so. People marry, divorce, remarry, divorce...and it goes on and on and sometimes still on.
I have one divorce in my past...and I am remarried, and yes my husband is human. AND I NEVER, EVER, NO. NOT. EVER. want to go through divorce - EVER - again.

Where is hope? Is there such a thing as a marriage that will last, and not even just last - but one that will thrive in love?

My hope is not in my spouse - but in Christ in my spouse. My husband fights for his relationship to our God - and he fights for his relationship with me. His love for me remains passionate - because his love for God is ferocious. He never settles for mediocrity. I am grateful, so much so - that I too, embrace this fight with him.

Happily ever after does not fall into place because you simply love one another. Happily ever after is a choice with strong intention and powerful determination - every single day, and YES that means even if you still love to kiss and hold hands. Cuz BigDaddy and I still do... ohyeahwedo!

In our marriages - (I'm rooting for you! with you!!! counting on Christ in you!!!) we will continue to fall in love when we let go of what we think that should look like, and pursue the unseen God. Loving one another is not a natural, pretty course - it's an obstacle course, a sweaty one at that! - and for as many mud pits that you and I may have to go through with our spouses - there will also be incredible pinnacles of beauty. The journey is exciting, challenging, and intense; filled with joy, laughter, tears, and sacrifice. Nothing compares to the beauty of this fight. Nothing. You know it's true! You feel it! Don't you? That is the hope of God in you!

If you are engaged, if you are married, if you are divorced and intend to be remarried...you  have been blessed to enter into a lasting covenant . Understanding this holy realm and KNOWING the God who is this bond with you - is critical to our love story. I Corinthians 13. Ephesians 5.

Wishing you every blessing in your marriage journey, and a happy anniversary - every single day.

It is a gift to be in love and to remain there.

"Truly our fellowships is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ." I John 1:3
"Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure." I John 3:2
"None of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself." Romans 14:7

Still falling!

Love. Who Gets it?

While I feel like I have so much to say, the more I read...the more I realize I have very little to add, and so much less I fully understand well enough to script my own love life, let alone an explanation of it on paper.

I'm reading The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis, and it makes my head and heart hurt. Who on earth can pen like this man? His thoughts are astoundingly challenging, and the way he writes is unparalleled. My reasons for reading Lewis are always to learn and to be challenged. I leave him very humbled and silent, yet still longing to process with my own fumbling words and hungry heart.

Recently my husband and I spoke at our college group about love, sex, and relationships. Quite a challenge to say the least - but truly our heartbeat for this generation. While preparing for this series, I learned one of the most powerful truths about love I have ever realized. I was deep in study - between John 14, 15, and I Corinthians 13, Genesis, Ruth, Galatians...I ran from Old Testament to the New Testament to hear from God on love. What I came away with was more than I had ever considered, and more than my heart was ready to bear.

Even though I have not finished hearing from C.S. Lewis on the matter, I am certain that what I have studied from him and other authors, at this point anyway, aligns with what God has spoken so beautifully - so subtly - and yet so very clearly to open hearts and minds.

The lesson is simply this: Love protects others from self.

I Corinthians 13 spins the reflection of self toward the image of God. For every way in which we could choose ourselves, there is a choice for others - which is ultimately the image of our God.

Love is patient. Love is kind. And so on... The opposite of any of these is a selfish course. Consider what you hate. You hate what opposes you, correct? How arrogant our hate, is it not? Hate is complete in its self direction.

Just consider the stance we take when we declare hate toward someone or something. YOU dare to oppose me?  Remember that heated argument with your spouse? Or better still, how about that moment when your child shouted "NO!" in your face. Remember that feeling that erupted in your gut? And how about the thoughts that raced through your mind? Isn't the root of all of that churning and burning simply SELF? Of course it is. True - there is righteous anger, but I doubt your memory drew for you such an image just now.

Like the pain of childbirth, so the course of love: self surrendered - in anguish - as we literally die to what we once were, so that someone else can live - in love. Romans 6 "Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him."

I'm trying so hard to understand this, and yet in my understanding I realize I really don't get love. God help us know you! Help us know love! "The unfolding of your word gives light. It gives understanding to the simple." Psalm 119:130

How amazing, then, that God should love the world! How much more vivid is His humility in coming to us as one of us! We are born opposed to God, and yet He loved us despite our defiance, and even GREATER still - He loves us in our defiance. What love!

 Love protects others from self. God so loved the world that He gave of Himself - His Son - for the Life of Spirit in Flesh, to protect us - from what we could never bear of Him - apart from Him..

"Abide in me, and I in you." John 15. Greater love has no one - than to lay down his life for his friends. Love does not consider self, but rather exists for the purpose of  life for others. The Triune God is love.

SELF-SEEKING. Baby, I was born THIS way: seeking self, and nurtured in a world of self seekers.

To Love is only of God, and to be able to love as God defines love is a gift of His Spirit. I Corinthians 13.Our Creator's image is a map embossed on our eternal souls, and His Son is the way to repair that image in our self driven flesh. Romans 3.

The road is narrow that leads to a love life, and few are those who find it. Matthew 7.

I'll end with a note from C.S. Lewis that still has me spinning in wonder. Join me, will you?

"Is it easy to love God?" asks an old author. "It is easy," he replies, "to those who do it." I have included two Graces under the word Charity. But God can give a third. He can awake in man, towards Himself, a super-natural Appreciative love. This is of all gifts the most to be desired. Here, not in our natural loves, nor even in ethics, lies the true centre of all human and angelic life. With this all things are possible. And with this, where a better book would begin, mine must end. I dare not proceed. God knows, not I, whether I have ever tasted this love. Perhaps I have only imagined the tasting. those like myself whose imagination far exceeds their obedience are subject to just penalty; we imagine conditions far higher than we have really reached. - The Four Loves -

Summer Joy

 Joy that summer brings:

1. flip flop tan lines
2. neighbors who come out to play
3. coffee outside in the morning
4. open window breezes
5. birds
6. sprinklers
7. the smell of sunscreen
8. rainbows
9. the drive in
10. fireflies
11. car wash in the driveway
12. chalk drawings
13. hide-n-seek in the dark
14. slides and swings
15.  long walks
16. looking for bats at night
17. ice cream cones
18. barbeque
19. blow up pool
20. flowers
21. green leaves
22. bumblebees
23. white baseball pants with red dirt stains
24. softball ribbons
25. fireworks
26. lemonade
26. homemade strawberry jam
27. water balloons
28. the blue heron
29. butterflies
30. swimming
31. sleep overs
32. camping
33. smores
34. sleeping in
35. staying up late
36. natural blonde hair
37.  the beach
38. the waterfront
39. freeze tag
40. book clubs

I could go on and on and on with JOY found in the summer time...with you.

Footprint

When you look back at your life, do you remember yourself in places that you wish you'd never gone? Are there relationship scars in your memory that you wish you could erase from your heart? "If only I would have..." are words that seer my thinking often when I turn to look at who I once was, who I hurt, and the places I went where I should have never been. Regret is a harsh teacher, Jesus is not.

In 14 years of college ministry at The Chapel at CrossPoint, I have spoken with countless young women who are burdened with the guilt of their mistakes...wrong decisions that cost them more than they could afford. Why don't we realize that what feels like the freedom to choose SELF is really a lifetime sentence of guilt? Nothing declares to me more boldly that we were created in the image of God, than the excruciating ache of despair in the midst of our self driven choices. In their tears, in their pain - I encourage every broken girl with the truth that God's image is imbedded in her. If that were not true, she would not sense His Spirit urging her to turn to Him.

"Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in hell, you are there...Search me God and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way of everlasting."
Psalm 139:7-9,23-24

The guilt I have felt is a gift of God's Spirit leading me to Himself. I do not look back with tears of regret, but tears of awe and wonder now overwhelm me because I realize the GREAT love that pursued me into the heights of my arrogance; down in  the depths of my selfish pursuits, and never let me go.

"Great is Thy Faithfulness, Oh God - My Father. Morning by morning new mercies I see. All I have needed Thy hand hath provided. All Thou has been Thou forever wilt be."

Vintage small groups are reading Psalm 119:97-112 today for our Bible study. We read independently - the same Scripture - all week long and then discuss what God has taught us when we get together after Vintage on Tuesday. I love being in step with these young women! God has used the gift of mentoring to spur me on in my relationship with Him. Their faces - their names on my heart - are a tool that God uses  to remind me - young hearts are hoping in Christ in me. I cannot see His face - but I can see theirs. I look to them, and I see He is present. God knows how we need one another to grow forward. I can't help but wonder where I would be without the young women God has placed in my life.

So this morning, as I read this Psalm, joy filled my heart. I had to write. I just had to.

"Oh how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long!" God has poured joy for His Word over the sorrow of my regret apart from Him.

"I gain understanding from your precepts; therefore I hate every wrong path." Passion for what will destroy me, keeps me running toward my God.

"Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path." My parents no longer hold that lantern, as it was for me in my childhood. I have chosen to reach for the Word of God every day. 

"I have taken an oath and confirm it, that I will follow your righteous laws." This oath is to me more vital than the vows of my marriage, because it holds me in love to every relationship - everything that is dear to me, so that I will not cause pain.

"Your statutes are my heritage forever; they are the joy of my heart. My heart is set on keeping your decrees to the very end." This is my fight song. For Jesus who freely gave Himself that I might live a  Kingdom life  with ZEAL. Holy Spirit, you are IN ME!

Grateful this morning to inhale and exhale Truth with my Vintage Babes.

Choices are waiting to be made for King Jesus today - that need not be lost in self - but can be found - like a footprint on a lighted garden path.

Family Night

I am consumed with an aching heart for a friend of mine who is in the midst of fostering. Family is redefined for she and her husband, and their two young children.

The safe and private boundary of family has been interrupted.

Father's day included the fatherless.

Family night is no longer an event for US.  US strives to be one with THEM.

Family is not a protected unit, as we would understand protection; Family has become a UNIT OF GOD extended - interrupted - stretched - strained - and redefined daily.

Conflict is inevitable.

Little children struggle with  how to share, don't they?  In a foster home, a loud battle of  children's voices wages for a mother's attention while, silently, and without tears, this mother's heart is torn in four directions.

My tears will not stop.

Children change marriage. Nine months of preparation, gifts and baby books, do not equip a husband and a wife to love one another well in the midst of parenting. Husband and wife must learn to be married all over again when the dream of their own children comes true.

Foster children happen over night. The phone rings. The request is made. The door is opened, and little feet step over the threshold. Marriage is challenged again. Will love endure?

I grind my teeth.

Where does wisdom dwell?  The eye- the mind - the heart do not invoke wisdom. Her dwelling is not with men, but with our God.  What I think is good and right,  home and family -  is not.

"Do not be wise in your own eyes." Proverbs 3:7
"I will instruct you in the way of wisdom and lead you along straight paths." Proverbs 4:11
"Wisdom has built her house; she has set up its seven pillars." Proverbs 9:1
"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." Provers 9:10

"Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him. Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken." Psalm 62:1-2

I am moved to pray these verses, but it is not enough to pray with words. Prayer is just as active as faith.

My stomach turns.

We will seek God for what He would have us do. The right thing is never what I think, and seldom what I want to do.

I went to bed angry. I am angry that children are abused and fatherless. The fatherless are everywhere, aren't they?  They are next door. They are across the street. They even have parents.

We must seek God to redefine family. He taught Israel. He will teach us. Family, to the Trinitarian God of the World, is not a protected UNIT. Family is to be extended, interrupted, stretched, strained and redefined daily.

"My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you." John 15:12

http://vimeo.com/44119459

The Buddy System Works

Hey! You're not trying to go it alone, are you? I have to ask - because...that is what I often try to do. I'm not quite sure if it's my pride, or if at times, I just don't realize I'm trying to do something alone and what I really need - is help..But - whatever the case, there are times when I try to "go it alone", and I strive terribly and then fail in the process.

So - I'm reaching out to you today with some encouragement. Please know you are not alone, nor are you meant to be.

First of all, God is with you;  He knows our frame. He knows what we are made of and capable of realizing and accomplishing in flesh.

 "Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them, for the Lord your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you. ...The Lord, He is the one who goes before you. He will be with you, He will not leave you nor forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed." Deuteronomy 31: 6, 8.

Strong encouragement to Moses, who must have thought - "HOW on earth can I accomplish what you are asking me to do???" God did not leave him without help. Moses and ...Aaron...right? Moses and...Joshua...God equipped His people with people - who, together, accomplished God's great purposes. CRAZY good stuff! Crazy good!

God did not create man to be alone in this life, He created man for relationship. You know I don't mean just marriage either, because although marriage is the ultimate earthly relationship, marriage is not everything in this life. Right? Where would we be without our friends? People who come alongside of us - even in our marriages, if you're married, - to help us grow, and serve God, and live out our faith; what a gift to our lives! You know what I'm sayin', right? Our marriage is stronger because of the godly women in our life - and the godly men in our husband's life who teach us, encourage us, and hold us accountable as we love one another. HUGE THANK YOU JESUS! Yes, I'm thanking God with you! So so good! So true and good!

And why would it be different in anything else? Scripture upon scripture I see the fortification of God's purposes through the buddy system. Consider this idea - story upon story. It's true. There is always someone or some people who come alongside of another person or people to accomplish what God is working out in them and through them. Are you thinkin' about it?

Adam and Eve
Noah and his family
Abraham and Sarah
Isaac and Rebekah
Jacob and Esau
Rahab and the spies from Israel
David and Jonathan

Should I go on? Because the Bible is filled not only with these examples, but instruction to support every one.

"Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works." Hosea 10:24

What are you trying to accomplish all by yourself? A heart issue, a faith issue, a personal goal whether spiritual or physical, a challenge in your marriage, with your children, with your family, in your home, at your work, a project, a dream.... what are you doing all by yourself that you could accomplish if you would just seek the help of someone else...someone who will love you, encourage you, and come alongside you in your efforts...???

Who do you know that loves you? and better yet - will love God with you - and pray for you in your efforts while putting hands on to the project with you... Got a name? That's a gift from God my friend! And if you don't have a name yet - keep praying...you will. God is faithful to equip us with EVERYTHING that we need to live a godly life. II Peter 1!

Do you believe what I am telling you? I hope so! I have tried too many times to go it alone, and I know that it does not work...no matter what "it" is. If you don't believe me...Listen to our God. Be encouraged! You aren't a failure for not being able to do it alone - you are God's design...and that means you were never made to do anything alone. You can't remake that image. FATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT image in you. Forever. Not alone.

"The Lord God said, "It is not good that man should be alone." Genesis 2:18

"Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls. for he has no one to help him up."
Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

"Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." Galatians 6:2

I'm with you! We need one another!