I took my dogs out a few days ago and noticed some flowers scattered at the foot of the homemade cross in my flower bed. They were sprinkled so carefully: a layer of white petals creating a bigger ring with a smaller circle of pink petals inside, almost hugging the cross.
I was so touched by that, wondering which child put that there, or, did a stranger happen by? That would be unlikely, but it still intrigued me. I guessed the wrong child. My daughter had “prettied up” my little memorial,
my sacrifice,
my pledge,
my prayer,
my surrender.
Something about it called her in, and she adorned the holy ground there. To me, it was pure worship, adoration of what the cross means to us.
It’s a curious story how the cross ended up there. It all started in my therapist’s office. Yes, I have a therapist. [Feel free to reference some family therapy sessions if you like. If you find them as intimidating as I do to all be in the same room together with the eagle eye of a professional, this might bring you some relief.]
We were processing some events in my life since my father’s passing, and she suggested, in order to move on from some of the wreckage around it, I have some kind of ceremony or visual display of truly giving those ongoing concerns to Christ. That’s when I thought of Good Friday, when my husband and I went up with almost everyone else in the church service to hammer our own particular burdens to the cross. I’ll never forget feeling his muscles exert force along with mine to give those things to Christ. It was so beautiful and worshipful to do this corporately.
But what about in my own backyard?
I decided to nail two twigs together, place them firmly in our flower bed by the back door, and write a note to Jesus.
My note was simple: Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: backyard memorial, bearing burdens, burdens, direct thy paths, foot of the cross, grief, healer, heart cry, heartache, holy ground, inheritance in Christ, It is finished, Jesus, John 19:40, makes righteous, peace of Christ, prayer, Proverbs 3:6, Redeemer, redemption, relationship wreckage, restorative power, Savior, surrender, true peace
She came over to my house that afternoon trembling. Life had rocked her, and while she approached the finish line of a chapter of her life coming to an end, she was fearful. Who wouldn’t be? What if all the pieces God had helped her set into place suddenly were yanked away?
The fear was palpable. As I embraced her and held her hands, I could feel it. And so I prayed. There was no other peace I could offer than Jesus. My words were empty. I was rambling as usual, grasping at straws to bring comfort. But His words are always full, life-giving, and without end.
As I prayed, I reminded Christ of these words in His Holy Scripture:
2 Timothy 1:7, KJV
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
All I could do was remember His promise and speak it to her. I had no power of my own to take the spirit of fear away.
But I had the name of Jesus. And it was enough.
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Initial news of a diagnosis had come in. It sucker-punched
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: 2 timothy 1:7, abusive relationship, brokenness, bulls of bashan, diagnosis, fear, forsaken, goodness of the Lord, goodness of the Lord in the land of the living, I have overcome the world, illness, intimidation, John 16:33, joy that is within you, name of Jesus, no one will take your joy, Psalm 22, psalm 27:13, sorrow, spirit of fear, trauma, tribulation
Bleary-eyed with bed hair still wisping across my path of vision, I glanced down at the floor in front of the coffee maker. A shiny glimmer caught my eye, and as I wearily bent down to investigate, I saw that it was our cross cookie cutter, sharp side up, looking abandoned and almost unrecognizable against the dark browns of the coffee floor mat. I hadn’t seen it in at least a year. It usually resides in the small utensil drawer where infrequently used items like bamboo skewers and honey stirrers keep each other company. It was clear someone haphazardly tossing clean items from the dishwasher had jarred it free, not noticing it took a slight plunge to the floor. I know the child capable of this, and it gave me a pre-coffee smile, which is admittedly very difficult to achieve.
It reminded me of another time I found a wooden toy snake slithering along my floor near a 4 inch wooden cross made at Vacation Bible School. I was struck that day by the reality of spiritual warfare and how that sneaky serpent had been trying to get the upper hand ever since the Garden of Eden. But the cross. Christ on the cross put that snake under the heel of Jesus.
But this cross…the one waiting for me on a sleepy Thursday morning? It was a very powerful reminder of the road to Calvary, the one my Jesus walked this coming week so long ago.
Like the cookie cutter cross that at one point shaped many preschool Sunday School lessons in Play-Doh, the real truth of the cross Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: be thankful, calvary, Christ, Colossians 3:12, compassionate hearts, Conquered sin, Cross before me, Easter, forgiveness, Galilee, Hosanna in the highest, It is finished, Jesus, Matthew 21, meekness, Nazareth, paid for, Palm Sunday, peace of Christ, put on love, remodeling, reshaping, restored relationship with God, Savior, shape our lives, sin, sinless, the cross, transforming power, ungodliness
I kicked, slammed my body onto, and punched the dishwasher. It had spent the past six months vacillating between functional and dysfunctional. We would get about 15 good cycles out of it, and then it would suddenly start turning off after loading the first water cycle. No cleaning—only wasted water. Some days I would restart it 10 times. We were not friends. On those days I would hand-wash the build-up on the almost-nonexistent countertop while trash-talking my limping, lame appliance for deceiving me once again into thinking it was revived, healed, restored, capable. Nothing I could do in my own strength could make that confounded piece of plastic do my bidding.
Then, for two weeks, my husband and I taught our Junior High Sunday School class, focusing on the content-rich and highly symbolic account of Jesus raising His friend Lazarus from the dead.
John 11:32-37, ESV, Apostle John speaking
Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.
And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.”
Jesus wept.
So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”
But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?”
There are a few key points to mention before we make a crazy connection between the dying dishwasher and Lazarus—and our lives in general. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: before the miracle, brokenness, decay, glory of God, grief, John 11, Lazarus, Lazarus moment, new life, new life in Christ, raising the dead, resurrection and the life, revival, set you free, sets you free, state of decay, Unbind him and let him go
Pulling with everything in me, I grabbed hold of some stubborn vines declaring war on my pachysandra and yanked away. The morning sun beat down with increasing intensity and my muscles pulsed in ways they hadn’t all winter, yet my focus remained steady and determined.
I’ve had enough of weeds choking me over the years. They crept in silently. I would ignore and eventually get used to them, not really seeing how big they were becoming—until one day I couldn’t see past them. I was horrified how they seemed to tower over all healthy growth in my life.
The same was true when I went to the mailbox one day. I saw an overgrown, out-of-control forsythia bush and almost didn’t recognize my own yard. My stomach turned. I was disgusted that I had let my lawn get that trashy, that I lost my vision for intruders, and that I’d let my guard down, given up, lost my fight.
Know the feeling?
I look back to a year ago when the repercussions of years of long drives to therapy, IEP battles, and the never-ending search for new answers, avenues to explore, and home coping strategies for one Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: abide in the vine, apart from me you can do nothing, blessed be the name of the Lord, I am the vine, Jesus the vine, Job 1:21, John 15:5, landscaper, landscaping, naked I came from my mother's womb, pruning, pulling vines, The Lord gives, The Lord takes away, true vine, yard work, you are the branches
In the middle of my van, right behind the driver’s seat, I keep a small crate in which I store items I need throughout the week: two Bible study workbooks, the latest coupon book for BJs, a catalog for The Paper Store, karate belts, and the Junior High Sunday School attendance clipboard. If I am stranded in the cold weather in the next few months, I may not have a blanket to keep warm or a flashlight to light my path, but I can study the Bible, clip coupons, window shop, and impersonate a brown belt!
For about two weeks, whenever I opened the van door, I saw a metal serving spoon poking out of my “car office” crate. It almost seemed to taunt me. For various reasons and meetings, I had been at my church about four times since taking the spoon home to clean after using it for Sunday School, but I kept forgetting about it.
My crate is supposed to be a placeholder for me, a reminder, a way to stay organized. And yet, despite my best efforts to keep everything in its proper place for the right time, that spoon got the best of me. For the life of me, I could not remember to return it to the church kitchen drawer. I held onto it, transported it all over the local area, and
carried something I did not have to.
Know the feeling?
Psalm 55:22, ESV, David singing
Cast your burden on the LORD, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.
I don’t know about you, but it usually doesn’t take me long to grab a burden, sling it over my shoulder Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: advocacy, bear his own load, bearing burdens, caring for others, carrying burdens, cast your burden, Christ is the answer, codependence, daily bears us up, galatians 6:2, God's presence, helping others, His yoke is light, Matthew 11:28, our salvation, Psalm 55:22, Psalm 68:19
When there is relational conflict, is waiting a copout?
I would say that sometimes it can be, but there comes a point where we have to realize that even if we’re ready to move forward and heal with someone, we can’t force healing and readiness in others.
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I sat across from her pleading with my heart and eyes to offer me a different answer. She could not. She confirmed what I had been hearing from God in my prayer time:
“Wait.”
Me: “I want to, but I can’t offer peace in this situation.”
Person offering me counsel: “Why do you think that is?”
Me: “Because I didn’t take it away in the first place. My actions did not cause any of it. They need to seek peace through and with Christ. Until they surrender that, I cannot offer what they seek, and I don’t want to go ahead of what God wants to do in each person’s heart. Besides, I would only screw it up since I do not have His peace to act on this right now.”
Person offering me counsel: “Then that’s your answer. You’ve prayed. You’ve sought godly counsel. You’ve daily surrendered this. You are so right to not go ahead of the LORD. He cannot be rushed.”
And that settled it in my heart—what, in many ways, I already knew:
While the reassurance came from another Christian, I needed to check myself with God. God would not Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: abandonment, conflict resolution, do not let the sun go down on your anger, Ephesians 4:25-27, godly counsel, going ahead of God, Psalm 109, relational conflict, relational healing, relational repair, relationship conflict, relationships, speak the truth, speak the truth in love, surrender emotion to God, taking anger to God, taking emotion to God, waiting on God, what to do with anger
I could feel his presence as I entered each room. He had only been gone one year; past conversations and memories bopped around in my mind—random flashes of the past with no clear timeline. Dad making himself known in my heart and thoughts. His love was tangible. The house was pregnant with his solid faith and unconditional love. We missed him terribly, but we walked the legacy he set in place before us. With each step of remembrance, I felt his nod of approval, his pleasure.
It was the first time in his home since he had passed. I was so relieved his blue recliner chair was there, the leather worn in places where his hands used to push forward to fold out for a nap. The seat of it revealed the wear of a consistent presence like the dent in a blanket left by a warm dog after it gets up and stretches.
During some of our last visits, an external bladder pouch sat next to him on the floor, taking the role his cancer-ridden organ used to play. Sweet as he was, he used to ask if it would upset my children to see it. I was honestly glad they did. They remember the battle he fought so courageously and the toll it took. His robe would hang slightly open where the tube delivered its contents to the pouch on the floor. None of us minded. At the time, we were so grateful he was still with us.
I can’t look at that chair without seeing the red-white tufts of hair poking out over its high back or the freckled, hairy, lanky arms sitting on the armrests. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: 1 John 4:16, abides in love, abiding in God, death, Deuteronomy 31:8, Dwelling place of God, exodus 33:14, Fullness of joy, God is love, God is near, God with us, God's presence, grief, i will give you rest, immanuel, Lord goes before you, loss, mourning, presence of God, Psalme 23:4, relationship with God, Revelation 21:3, valley of the shadow of death
In the previous post, we looked at the beginning of Gideon’s story in Judges 6, when God spoke the seemingly impossible into Gideon’s circumstances, but we stopped short of another twist in the account. Gideon’s need for reassurance went even further than the back-and-forth with the angel of the LORD. Gideon was called a “mighty man of valor” at a time when he was hiding in a winepress threshing grain, trying to stay under the radar so Israel’s enemy didn’t find him. Considering how weakened Israel was at the time, avoiding the enemy and living in constant fear, it is understandable how much he needed to be sure he was hearing from God.
Judges 6:17-18, ESV
And he said to him, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me. Please do not depart from here until I come to you and bring out my present and set it before you.” And he said, “I will stay till you return.”
Speaking to the angel of the LORD, Gideon didn’t mince his words. He clearly asked for a sign.
Was this wisdom, or a lack of faith?
One thing is clear: Gideon Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: angel of the Lord, asking for a sign, blessed assurance, conversation with God, destroying idols, Gideon, God's voice, hearing from God, idols, Judges 6, needing confirmation, voice of God
He was sitting in the middle of a winepress, hiding from his enemy, threshing wheat. Defeated and discouraged, Gideon was hardly a man you would describe as part of God’s inheritance of the Promised Land. If he didn’t thresh his wheat in secret, the Midianites, his enemy, would come and plunder the food, leaving him more hopeless and desperate than ever. And yet in the middle of this sad state, an angel of the LORD visits him:
Judges 6:12, ESV
And the angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, “The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor.”
Um, what now?
There may be circumstances in your own life where you feel completely done under, barely coming up for air, sitting in the dark threshing your own wheat just to get by, trying to manage making it through one more day. You simply want to go unnoticed and un-harassed. Oh, I know several folks sitting in that place right now. It was me last year this time. And I know that in these moments, we certainly don’t feel like “mighty men of valor,” but when God Himself calls us that, He has a clear vision of what’s ahead and how He is about to use us for good.
For good? In these circumstances of certain defeat? How can He possibly use it for good?
Well, Gideon sure didn’t jump in with both feet initially. He needed a bit of reassurance, some confirmation. Do you know why?
At first he did not Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: blessed assurance, Christian faith, Gideon, God speaks, God with us, God's plans, God's purposes, God's reassurance, God's rescue, hope of Christ, Judges 6, mighty man of valor, presence of God, winepress
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