With Arms Wide Open

I spent a few hours today carefully               (yes.  I can be careful.)                        taking picture frames down from my best friend's walls. A favored daughter's ballet photos.                   A prized son's personality caught in a moment on film. My friend has a decorator's heart and true  talent.  I love visiting her home.  Her modest walls are covered in beautiful family photos.  But  God answers big dreams , and my friend is packing up her starter home of fifteen years and moving to a bigger home with her family. What a privilege it was to examine each picture as I took it down and carefully wrapped it... to wonder at the memories trapped behind the glass and the parts of their life that happened way before I came along.   As each picture came down, my eyes were captivated m...

I have that heavy heart feeling.      You know the one I mean? The one that feels like someone kicked a hole in you... and the pieces of what's left are settling on the floor. It's been one of those days... Mama said they were coming. The dark kind. The kind that leaves a cold ache.  And a need for something to fill that hole right back up. So I turned to those things. You know... those things. First, I went shopping.  I wandered.  I tried on.  I wandered.  I tried on.  There was a new find every other aisle!  It was a great trip. Then, the chocolate.  Chocolate chip cookies for dinner!  Oh boy!  (When the hubby is away it's anything goes!)  Yummy. Last, I went for the TV.  If I bury myself in my favorite drama series, nothing about my life can possibly be that bad .  Right? Except here I am. With a hole. Feeling like you're full of holes?  Join me in the Word tonight....

A friend who delights my heart spoke to me last week about how God was stretching her...    stretching her... in ways she could never have anticipated. And those words struck hard. A sensation I could remember feeling... a work I knew the Lord had done in my life.  But He is faithful to only give us what we're ready for. And I wasn't ready to know. I wasn't ready to know how BIG He is.  Or how wide.  Or how deep.  Or how vast.  Or how holy.  Or how perfect.  Or how beautiful.  Or how terrifying.  Or how just.  Or how true.  Or how merciful. Or how small i was in comparison. Sometimes He has to make us bigger so that He can fill us up.  I only have the capacity to hold as much of Him as He allows.  Sometimes He has to make more room.  Because He knows me. He knows I live a life less thankful.  My small mind is focused on my small problems.  I lose sight of HOW BIG HE IS. ...

A new start.     more of the same... A fresh slate.         more of the same... A blank page.             more of the same... Don't misunderstand me.  I cannot deny this God who gives new starts and fresh slates and new mercies moment by moment. I cannot deny His power that called this hopeless wretch out of a Walmart parking lot and into the LIGHT OF HIS LOVE.  He's a God who changes and restores and takes my brokenness and makes something beyond new.  Something wholly different... something striving for holy... I watch others celebrate a new year and a new season.   And my heart is singing with them.   God, You are holy, and You are doing a new thing, and You are wise, and You are good, and I trust You.   But my heart knows... for me it is more of the same.  One twitch of a number... a one turns to a two.  And God tells me... more of the same. I expect that more...

Can you picture it?  The one by one by one dirty, nitty gritty, love relationships that Jesus formed?  The GRUNT work that this man-who-was-God did with intentional  grace.  Tearing down walls, peering behind the veils, lifting away the masks until all that was left was bare, raw truth... and loving what was there.   Seeing the potential in the broken pieces.  The worth.   The value.   The possibilities. Leaving people changed. Changed in such a way that there was no choice but to respond. Can you imagine it the way it was then? Can you imagine the sheer joy of the creation of Jesus?  The glory? For you created my inmost being;                 the creation... of Jesus... you knit me together in my mother's womb.                 a King... in the womb of a young girl... I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;       ...

What if the thing you are called to do does not look at all like what you thought it would look like? From fifth grade my strengths were pretty clear- as were my weaknesses.  I could diagram a sentence about as fast as I could trip over air.  And once I knew what those strengths were, I latched on.  I took great pride in honing my skill in language arts.  I took great pains to hide my awkward clumsiness.  Isn't that what we do?  Isn't that we should do?? Play up the things we do well.  Hide the imperfections. But where is GOD in that?? How can God be glorified in my weakness if I HIDE it?  How can He shine through if my PRIDE blocks out His light? What if the thing you are called to do does not look at all like what you thought it would look like? I thought I would write best selling novels.  I thought I would teach packed rooms how to twist a phrase into a new creation.  I thought.  I knew.  What my calling was. ...

Francis Chan says, "Something is wrong when our lives makes sense to nonbelievers." David Platt says, "We seemed to have organized ourselves, not to engage in battle for the souls of peoples around the world, but to indulge ourselves in the peaceful comforts of the world." Jesus says, "Therefore, go and make disciples of ALL the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, EVEN TO THE END OF THE AGE.” (Matthew 28:19-20) Being a missionary is not a calling.  It's a command.