Walking with God

The God of all Comfort

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,  who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. 2 Corinthians 1:3-5

How big is your God? I know my God is big……He is big enough to heal the deepest sorrow, and repair the most broken of hearts. I know because He’s done it for me.

And even though He’s big? He can make Himself show up in something as simple as a ray of light on the walkway because just now I asked Him to meet me there and He did, I felt Him there. I also prayed that He would meet you in my words.

 And how many have prayed for just that, and have not felt that assurance? He rains His Grace down at unexpected moments. You may not always feel Him, but that doesn’t mean He isn’t there.

He always has to make room for faith to kick in. And faith is always rewarded my friends, that’s a promise.

And the days when you know that prayer is the only thing holding you together? He knows that feeling too. He knows how it feels to not even want to be around a single solitary soul. Honestly, I think there were times He wanted to tell everyone to just go away. Those are the times He went off alone to pray.

He also knows that sometimes the best thing you can do for a friend is just hold them while they cry. Job’s friends did that at first and then they blew it by starting to talk. There’s a time for talking, and a time for just being there.

And no matter what you might be feeling now, you can still have hope. God has an inexhaustible supply.

You can still have hope if you know God.  He is the God of all comfort. He knows how. When our words run dry and crackle in the air and fall flat…..The Holy Spirit speaks in groans deeper than any words straight to the Father.

I believe He is even better at translating the prayers that never make their way into words.

He’s near. Nearer than your own breath.

Fighting the Change

This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Deuteronomy 30: 19,20

I awoke this morning with a familiar feeling, one I didn’t like. I was flat. Not happy, not depressed……just flat. I am in the beginning stages of that place in life known as, dare I say it? “the change.” Sshhhh, I won’t say it out loud. I didn’t use bold face type or big letters. It is not a real uplifting topic for women, (or the men who live with them.) But it is a reality.

I had a choice in that moment. To settle for how I felt, or to fight for something better. That is what it really comes down to each and every day. A choice for life or death. Victory or defeat. So I got up, grabbed some coffee and sought life in the pages of the book that was lying on the floor by the bed. The one that gives life…….I flipped open to Corinthians and there I found this verse:

“For thanks be to God, who always leads us to triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place, for we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.” 2 Corinthians 2:14,15

God has taught me that I don’t have to settle. I don’t have to slog through the day feeling like this.

I can have victory in Christ.

As I rustled through those pages, I started to feel more like life and less like death. And I realized something else. If I had settled for that feeling?  I would have missed the beautiful fragrance that the people in my life are giving off,  because they are making the choice to get up and give life to me. And I don’t want to miss it.

I don’t want to have to apologize because I have been so focused on myself that I don’t see the hurt in your eyes for being ignored, not appreciated, not valued.  

We all have heard about muscle memory. Trained athletes know it. The muscle remembers. But so does the mind.  

That is what I remembered with tears this morning on the way to work. I remembered how I had to fight for life after my healing from anorexia. The healing of my mind had to come first, but then I had to begin the long battle of healing my body. You don’t starve your monthly cycle away without having to work hard to get it back.    

I remembered getting up in the dark before anyone else was awake, and running….just running. In the cold and in the dark all I heard was my feet slapping on pavement and my heart pounding, my breath coming out in puffs. I didn’t want anyone to see me because I felt I was repulsive. I had ballooned to 125 pounds from 80, largely from fluid buildup that came from wreaking havoc with my hormones.

But morning after morning, I got up, I went out, I fought back.

And today, I can smile on that victory. Because God heard the prayers of hurting parents, and He heard me too, down there hitting the pavement. He was with me.

Later, after I felt a bit more confident my Dad went with me. It was good, just he and I running together. And someone else I didn’t even know was watching too. I later learned that my future husband watched us run from the window of Flame liquors where he worked for years. After we met he told me this. Life is amazing isn’t it?

I can rejoice now in the suffering, because of the victory at the end. Because much of life is getting back up over and over again, no matter how you feel and fighting back, because you know life is always worth it.

Restoration and light and life waits at the end of the road. And once we’ve come through? We can help each other find the way out.

When you have had part of your life ripped away is when you begin to know the true value of it.  

All over the world today, people making the choice. Some even when it would be much easier to choose death.

Choose life with me today?

Two Cups with God

 
In the midst of the mess and the beauty of life, He listens,
 He enters into my world and I enter His.
 Two cups with my Father,
two cups with Jesus,
two cups along with the Spirit……
He sups with me and I with Him,
a window of Heaven cracked……
 
Prayer Journal
 
 
The devotional reading I picked for myself today was 1 Corinthians Chapters 1-3. It reads much like a letter from a grieving parent. Paul has spent his own time, money, and resources for 18 months in Corinth. He knew that there was a lot at stake. If the church could take root in Corinth, it could take root anywhere. A city of around 700,000, it was full of every kind of philosophy, thought, religion, as well as every kind of sexual morality you could think of.
 
Certain things were happening in the Church that deeply troubled Paul. They need to be reminded of who they were. It seems they had a case of “spiritual amnesia.” Certain people were queuing up to follow the church leaders instead of Christ. Some followed Peter, some followed Paul, some followed the dynamic new person on the scene, Apollos. Still others followed Jesus.
 
Right now we are in the midst of an election year. We listen to the speeches, we hear who speaks the best, who looks the best, who is the most eloquent, who says what best matches our philosophies and beliefs. But no politician has the power to save us, and neither did any of the church leaders of Paul’s day.
 
But Jesus does. He is our hope, no matter what happens in our economy, our country, our world.
 
Sometimes, like the Corinthian church, I need to be reminded of who I am and who I believe. I take comfort in Paul’s words today.  It is so easy to get swept up in the worries of the world and all the different voices clamoring for our attention.
 
I need to be reminded that what I do matters and that wherever I go, I am taking God with me in the presence of the Holy Spirit.
 
I love how, even though Paul is brimming over with frustration, he is also brimming over with love and thanksgiving.
 
”To the church of God in Corinth (or America), to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together all those everywhere who call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ–Their Lord and ours: Grace and peace to you from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul
 
 


Telling the story

The most authentic story is the one we are living out right now.
I felt like a kid on the playground who got picked for a game. You remember that feeling, the lineup, the choosing sides? If you are like me, you hated it. I was always short and not very competitive so I never got picked first. Michelle Fromm always got picked first, and you always wanted to be the one she picked first. I was always somewhere in the middle, and that was fine with me, as long as I wasn’t dead last.  
Today, over at Bibledude.net Duane Scott is launching something very special.
I was invited to take part in this wonderful opportunity to share some of my stories, and though I’m still not sure why, it is a great honor. I think maybe God had something to do with it. The reason this means so much is because I believe in it so strongly. We all have a story and no one story is more important than any other, especially to God.
God has written our story on His heart, and more than anything, He wants us to share His story with each other, and with the world. After all, His story is the one that matters most. Like the old hymn says:
Tell me the story of Jesus,
Write on my heart every word;
Tell me the story most precious,
Sweetest that ever was heard.
Tell how the angels in chorus,
Sang as they welcomed His birth,
“Glory to God in the highest!
Peace and good tidings to earth.” 
Well, that is part of it anyway. This song, written by Frances J. Crosby, tells the redemption story. The most important story that will ever be told. And, your story, our stories, matter.
So pull up a chair, sit down beside us on the bench and we will share a story together. Who knows what we may learn from each other…..
Many thanks Duane, again!

Letting my yes be yes

“But let your statement be, ‘Yes, yes ‘ or ‘No, no’; anything beyond these is of evil. Matthew 5:37
waf·fle 2 (wfl) Informal
v. waf·fled, waf·fling, waf·fles
v.intr.
To speak or write evasively.
v.tr.
To speak, write, or act evasively about.
n.
Evasive or vague speech or writing.
I have learned this one the hard way. I am someone who likes things peaceful and smooth. I don’t like conflict and I am many times too quick to agree or not agree with something if it means not making waves, or making someone else happy. I want to please people. But in the long run, I end up not pleasing them or myself.
Many times in life I have found myself in the uncomfortable position of volunteering or saying yes or no to someone or something and then almost immediately regretting it. In my defense, I have to say that I have gotten better in this area.
I have only come to understand and appreciate what Jesus is saying here more and more as I have gotten older. What he is saying is: “Hey, you will save yourself and others a whole lot of grief if you just give a simple “Yes” or “No.” If you vacillate and agree to something you really don’t agree with or want, you will compromise your character and more than that, and this is the part that’s really painful:
It is poor reflection on God’s character as well.
Not to say that God’s character can be changed because of what I do, it can’t. But if I say I am a believer and people know that? They have a right to expect a certain amount of integrity.
And if people can’t trust my word?
They can’t believe what I say. And what I stand for is in question too.
I had a friend who always had to pray about everything before she agreed to it. Secretly, I used to think that was kind a cop out. A way to get out of doing things. But now?
I am starting to see the wisdom in it.
It saves a lot of time and trouble in the long run when I don’t have to run around doing damage control. It makes others feel much more confident in me.
And me more confident in myself.
What do you think? Have you ever agreed to something and then been really, really sorry?

A Mama’s Prayers

See, I will bring them from the land of the north
    and gather them from the ends of the earth.
Among them will be the blind and the lame,
    expectant mothers and women in labor;
a great throng will return.
They will come with weeping;
    they will pray as I bring them back.
I will lead them beside streams of water
    on a level path where they will not stumble,
because I am Israel’s father,
    and Ephraim is my firstborn son.
 
Jeremiah 31:8,9
 
Ever feel like you’re in exile? I think we all do at some point in life. Maybe you are in a job you hate but you know you need to stay there until retirement. Maybe you are in school and you feel like that is exile. Maybe, God forbid, you are in jail or prison. Wherever or whatever that exile is, you are not where you want to be yet.
 
As I have been reading through Jeremiah, I have wanted to get to the “good part.” Israel rebelled as a nation, adopted other religious practices that went against everything God and everything He stands for, even going as far as sacrificing their own children on altars to foreign gods. It is painful to read, knowing what’s coming.
 
Knowing they will be exiled from their homeland, expelled, taken into captivity. Again.
 
And yet, when I read these words, I thought about Israel today. I think about all they have had to go through as a nation and how God was faithful to His word. None of the powerful nations that went against them are around anymore, and Israel is still standing as a nation, as a people.
 
Flash forward to my life right now. And my life up to this point. How like Israel I have been, ignoring God, thinking I knew best, thinking I didn’t need church, breaking my Mom and Dad’s heart when I decided to give up food. And yet……
 
God was so merciful. He never left me. He brought me out of exile, back home where I belong.
 
I am at a crossroads at work right now, and as I was praying this morning, I knew that I had to once again, give it up to the Lord. I am burned out. There is no spark left in this fire.
 
And yet in other parts of my life the fire is blazing.
 
And anytime someone invites me to write or says what I wrote helped them? I am saved a little bit more.
 
There was a time long ago. God brought it to me again as I was praying this morning, like a sweet balm to my soul. All at once I was back home in front of the fire with my Mom. Tears sprang to my eyes as I remembered how she would get up in the morning before I got ready for High School and start a fire. She and I would watch 700 Club together, just the two of us.
 
And she would take my hand in hers, voice trembling, and pray for me.
 
She knew High School was my exile. It was so hard for me in so many ways. My Dad would have prayed too, but he was in his own exile at that time. A job he hated. And yet God brought him out of that too. Because of his never taking sick leave, he was able to retire at 62. A free man.
 
And because of my Mama’s prayers, I graduated and was removed from my exile too. Through it all God taught me the lesson of faithfulness, and never giving up because someone else is believing in you. And that God is with me wherever I go. And He caused some good things to happen in those four years too.
 
I wrote a poem for my favorite teacher back then, my music teacher Wylie Moffat. Even then words were longing to break free in me. He had it framed and it hung in his house up until he died. And my words were used on the cover of his memorial service bulletin.
 
Today, I am thankful for fireside prayers. They are still working.
 
Thank you Mom, for being so faithful.
 

Chicken Wars

They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit. Jeremiah 17:8

Chick-fil-a boss Dan Kathy has been taking a lot of flack these days for coming out and saying that he supports the traditional view of marriage. And those who exercised their own free right to support someone who was exercising their free right to free speech by going to buy a chicken sandwich yesterday are taking the flack too.

Yesterday, we didn’t see anything at all uncommon. We saw Americans doing something that has been part of our culture ever since a group of rabble rousers threw some tea overboard in the Boston harbor. They were putting action behind their beliefs. Taking a stand….backing up someone they wanted to support.

Independence and individuality is something that flows through the veins of our country’s DNA. It is built into our constitution and framework of our entire belief system. But it is not always easy to know when to step up and when to back down. At what point do we act on our beliefs?

Do we act on them even if by doing so we further widen the gulf between differing views by making it about “us” versus “them?” Someone has to be the enemy. Someone has to be wrong.

Many of the comments I read  opposing the support of Chick-fil-a were very troubling. It seems many people have very definite, and in my view, warped ideas about Christianity and Christians in general, most of them not favorable, some of them outright disturbing.

We were labeled, fundamentalist, racist, gluttonous, stupid, ignorant, hateful, uneducated and uninformed. And the Westboro Baptist Church kept popping up in comments, as though all Christians should be branded with that particular (and I use the term very loosely) church.

You could argue the point that if the church and Christians in general had done a better job historically of loving and reconciling people of differing viewpoints maybe this all wouldn’t be an issue. But then again, no one ever loved and forgave and tried to reconcile more than Jesus, and they crucified Him for it.

Because they didn’t want to hear the truth. They didn’t want to be told what they were doing was wrong. Lets face it, none of us does.

And the very same spirit that existed then, continues to wreak havoc in the world today. He is our true enemy, and he has only one goal. To Kill, To Steal, To Destroy……Lives. That’s been his goal from the beginning.

Hurting people sometimes strike out against something they may not even fully understand themselves. The enemy is the spirit behind the hate, and it is he who we must fight, always. Never the individuals.

There is a war we are in. But it’s not us against them. It is God against all sin whatever the flavor.

Are you ready?

From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.“You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.” John 6:66-69

I had just finished reading John chapter 6 during my prayer time a few mornings ago. I closed my eyes as I digested all I had read……this chapter is swirling with action. I needed to reflect for a moment on all I had read. It was just getting light out and I heard a dove calling from a few houses away. My little candle was flickering away silently casting a reflection in the little shop window.

I was surprised by a question that was breathed into my heart…..I had just read that saddest of verses, the one where many of Jesus disciples hit the road. It was another instance where Jesus had just finished confounding people with the truth, and it wasn’t want they wanted to hear.

“Are you ready to be my Disciple?” that was the question I heard.

I sat there conflicted. “Of course I am,” I thought. But then I remembered how many of them ended up.

And what was required. Am I ready to take a plunge off a 500 foot drop? Am I ready to commit the rest of my life to a God who commands the wind and the rain? Who can speak the world into existence? Who is many times unpredictable and scary? Am I ready to go wherever He asks? Wherever He leads?

Then I thought about life itself. If someone would have asked me when I came into this world, knowing what I know now, all I would go through, would I have so been quick to say, “Bring it on?”  I most likely would  have said no, I am not ready. Who is ever ready? 

But do I want to do it anyway, also knowing what I know now? And has it been worth it thus far?

To that I can give a resounding, and emphatical “Yes.”

God, in His great wisdom, chooses to bring us through a bit at a time. He allows some pain for growth, but also baptizes us with joy and wraps us in His love and comfort through His Holy Spirit.

That is where I stand today and rejoice along with the 12, for as Peter so rightly said,  “To where would we go?”

Indeed.

Thank you Lord, for giving me the chance at this wonderful adventure of following you. Everything this world has to offer pales in comparison to what You have to give. Amen

In the Refiner’s Fire

“I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Matthew 3:11,12

Thank you Lord, for my devotion time this morning. Thank you for Your Loving Presence today. Your Spirit holds my sins up to the light exposing them for what they are, so that I can confess them before you honestly and draw near to you once again.

Thank you for knowing the real me and loving me anyway.  Sometimes I don’t know how your Spirit, your Holy and perfect Spirit can tolerate living with mine, still so filled with the world and all its griefs, cares and worries.

Help my fears diminish, Lord, so I can be filled with your perfect love that your peace may take its rightful place in my heart.

And help me to see the small trials I go through in this life as Your refiner’s fire of love burning away all my impurities. In all the things we could ever hope to accomplish in this life, there is only this one thing that counts.

That we know you

and in knowing you, we find our true purpose in this life.

I lift the gifts to you today Lord, in gratitude of all you give and keep giving………The wonderful rain that poured down in this dry desert…….worship that comes in little spontaneous moments throughout the day…….a little extra money this month…….God’s continued protection when I don’t even know it……melons and okra sprouting like wildfire in the garden……..a good day yesterday…….seeing old friends again…….music that upliftts and burns hot in the soul in praise to God……answered prayer for a first day of school……a good walk this morning……911-921

Big Red

For the word of God <sup class="crossreference" value="(A)”>is alive <sup class="crossreference" value="(B)”>and active. <sup class="crossreference" value="(C)”>Sharper than any double-edged sword, <sup class="crossreference" value="(D)”>it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Hebrews 4:12

I hold it to my chest, knowing what it contains……..all the mystery and words of life. I felt the power it held as I pressed it close. I would open it, but not yet.

Content in the weight of memory within, I hold it close and feel all the years behind it. It was my first real study Bible, one I bought during a Walk through the Prophets study at my church. It was the most beautiful book I had ever seen. The day I carried it home was April 19,1980.

When I first got it, I devoured it. I read it for hours. I loved the delicate rattle of the pages and the gilded edges when they caught the light of the lamp.

All these years, it has been by my side, though there were years when I left it untouched on the shelf. Even so, I knew the words of life that it contained. I had felt that lifeblood of its pulse flowing through my life. I could never deny it.

For these words are alive with the very breath and Spirit of God.

I have other versions now, but when I need to feel the hope of all that God has brought me through, the Red Bible, “Big Red” I call it, comes out. It is the best prescription I can think of for a heavy heart. It’s amazing really, how I can feel better just by holding it. The words within hold the healing, the hope. I know that without cracking the cover.

It holds memory, it holds life, it holds me.

The verses highlighted in yellow, the ones I clung to when I did my first solo in church, the personal notes I scrawled in the back on special days, things I never want to forget are there.

This old friend is in me and I am in it, I feel it as I hold it close. Tears have spilled on its pages and they do now too, as I remember the times it brought me back from darkness, death. Notes of mine are co-mingled with my Mom’s from when she borrowed it. That makes it even more precious.

I think of all the promises held in the Bible, and how each and every one is true. It is the one thing we can always count on. What in the world gives us that kind of hope? In the beginning was the word……and the word was God……and even beyond eternity it will still be there.

Last year it came unglued from the spine and I had to glue it back on…….and the leather cover is more pliable with every passing year. But its still the most beautiful book on my shelf.

I am celebrating His promises today, won’t you join me?

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. Matthew 24:35

So is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. Isaiah 55:11

The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.” Isaiah 40:8

I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Matthew 5:18