The World Isn’t Like Her

I’m highly emotional. I often wonder if I’m the one wired crooked. Even a realtor, who has known me less than 30 minutes said, “99% of the world isn’t like her…”

I think it was a compliment. But it can also be a burden.

And my neck hurts from straining, from the weight of all the emotions and order and chaos I try to get a grip with every day.
I cant seem to figure out how things will play out; I am a roller coaster. But faith in what we see isn’t faith, its knowledge.

Faith is what you don’t see. Trust is believing God will weave it beautiful, if not eventually.

I’m highly emotional and highly controlling, and I want to be held and loved loudly.

If I could just slow down I would realize I already am, in a thousand different ways…every single day.

• J

The Holy Option

Exodus 22:51 “you are to be my holy people…”

What does it even mean to live a holy life?

Yes, I’ve got Jesus.

Yes, I pray. Yes, I know I am forgiven without mosaic rituals. But what in MY personal journey needs some redirecting…could use some holy water.

Needs refocusing to “seek him first”

Striving for holiness is like striving for perfection, except failure is an option and expectation thanks to grace and mercy.

So, as a Christchild, a daughter of royalty, holiness IS my high throne, my birthright and gift.

IF I choose it. IF I am willing to seek him first and again and again.

But the question remains, what in my life must I purposefully redirect on Christ.

And the answer comes fairly simple to me, yet hits hard. Love.

I like to think I live love out. I love hard and obvious and my love standards are high.

I also snap, hard and obvious and it hurts those I love most.

Tensions can be high. Love is strong.

I get to choose which one will be louder. And I pray for grace and mercy and strength to choose the holy option.

Keep awake! Watch at all times. The devil is working against you. He is walking around like a hungry lion with his mouth open. He is looking for someone to eat. – 1 Peter 1:5-8

And so I know I must purposefully choose love. It may not come naturally, but it is my holy calling.

– J

He Speaks

“And the dialect of God is the day just as it comes” Ann Voskamp

 

I pray a lot more now than I used to. I’m a mom and a wife, on my knees is a way of life: scooping up toys, lifting up babies, cleaning up spills… begging for new mercies and more grace. Desperately seeking wisdom in this journey.

 

God has the ability, but in my experience rarely speaks loudly. His message is powerful and perfect and He can bend the winds of my life, I suppose that’s why He doesn’t shout.

 

He is communicating constantly, it’s just in our amplified neon world it is easy to miss the wind.

 

My God talks in subtleties; in rainy days and perfectly timed peonies, in traffic jams and puppy kisses, His guiding hand a forceful slow down child.

 

He wakes me before dawn to ponder life with him and see the world in the clear dark of dew.

 

Faith, communication, is more than a feeling or a justification of wants and I cant rightly explain it.

 

But He speaks all day and I can only hear when I quiet down, and its worth the slow down.

-J

 

Please Be Ridiculous!

What is faith?  Hebrews 11 describes it as” confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”  I like to think of it as belief in action.

Like Joseph (as in Jesus’ earthly dad, not technicolor dream coat).

Joseph responded repeatedly in obedience every time God directs him…and these are crazy  directions by all earthly understanding!

“Mary, though pregnant, is a virgin.  Marry her!”

“The king of all the land wants to kill your baby.  Leave!”

The king has died go back to Israel…oh wait, there is a bad ruler there. Go to Nazareth!”

These are NOT normal commands.  Yet, Joseph obeyed.

God would have ensured Jesus’ success as a perfect sacrifice regardless of Joseph – because His love for us is too great.  BUT, Joseph listened and followed God.  He played his part to bring God’s perfect will of how Jesus would come to us.

I want faith that responds to the seemingly ridiculous…

because often the seemingly ridiculous leads to the mirculous!

• S

 

A Self-Reliant Man

I married a good man, who was taught to need no one. That kind of mindset is highly applauded these days…

Take care of yourself

Do your own thing

Depend on no one

Plant your own flowers

Frost yourself

 

Which are all great sentiments, to an extent. Except for the wife who was loved too much as a child and wants to be lavishly loved on as an adult.

 

The world is shifting – I know more people with divorced parents than committed.

 

It’s really no wonder people think independence and self reliance is the key.

 

Yet, I was raised to rely on each other. I was raised based on the most dependent love, Christ love. The most pure, uncomplicated, yet wholly dependent love.

 

As a believer and as a wife that is hard. It’s hard loving a man so unvulnerable, a man with so many walls.

 

It must be done, with Christ love, over and over and with a gentle word…

 

And there in lies my problem. Thank goodness I can be wholly dependent on my God for grace and mercy and love as I try my best, to rededicate my life to Him and to him.

 

And to see the day the walls come down.

• J

Old Godly Way

Ask for the old, Godly, way and walk in it. Travel its path and you will find rest for your souls. Jeremiah 6:16

I’m still looking for a verse for this year (yes, I’m running out of time). I’m also reading through Jeremiah right now. I’m not sure why, so far it’s somewhat dull despite the hellfire warnings on repeat.

But this little gem of a verse stood out. Screamed directly to my spirit, embodying all I’m yearning for. Rest. Soul rest.

 

I do know I wanted something different this year. A little less processed, less compared, more content life.

Truthfully I want smaller bills and a bigger garden. I want a mouth overflowing with praise, not complaints. Truthfully, I’m not sure I’ve reached any of those goals.

So I’m thinking about this verse, “the Godly way”

Do I even know what that looks like in my frazzled uncomfortable body?

Is it as simple as contentment and gratitude? Simply being present in the now, while striving for a better “next?”

Is it possible to do, to be both?

God is love. Faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13

Maybe the godly way is simply choosing love. Not choosing joy, not choosing contentment, not choosing the sprinkled donut. Choosing love.

And when this year, this moment gets too overwhelming, when I can’t see the love choice through the exhaustion and over the screaming fits…I will promise myself to slow down. To sit down and repeat, to beg for…

the old, Godly way, and walk in it…and there I will find rest for my soul.

• J

Let’s Celebrate!!

Celebrate good times, come on!

…and bad, and easy,and hard – because God is to be glorified  in everything.

This is what God has been commanding my heart so far in 2017.  Celebrate!  And there is so much to celebrate.

God is good always.  Our salvation is secure.  My hope and joy should rest in Him.  Life ebbs and flows, but He is constant!  He never changes,never leaves.  So, there is always reason to celebrate.

“Jesus came not only to give believers life that lasts forever, He intends for us to experience this eternal quality of life right now.” (my BFS notes from this week)

That is not to say He promises an easy life full of only rainbows and sunshine, but that there is always reason to celebrate Him.  Joy always comes in the morning.

That is what celebrate has come to mean to me so far this year – worshiping God in joy over specific things, events, or people.  I often started a day thanking God for blessings, which resulted in a grateful and humble heart.  As I’ve been celebrating things with God in the morning over the last two weeks, I am still grateful, but I am overwhelmed with joy.

Some early celebrations this year:

• I celebrate the sunshine.
• I celebrate softly falling fat snowflakes.
• I celebrate Scooby Doo with littles that can only be watched in TiTi’s bedroom.
• I celebrate a family who cries with and delights in one another.
• I celebrate a body designed be broken and cut open, and, heal again.
• I celebrate recognized competency leading to responsibility (okay I had to talk myself into celebrating that one).
• I celebrate that the depths of despair grow empathy and stronger searches for light.

• I celebrate a God that knows me, loves me, and wants me.
• I celebrate new beginnings.
• I celebrate that my identity is rooted in God.
• I celebrate that this is not my home.
• I celebrate His air that fills my lungs.

And so, with each breath in, I will marvel at His majesty.

And with each exhale, I will celebrate his bountiful blessings.

• S

Christmas is Over

Christmas was hard for me this year. We decorated and trimmed, not one, but three trees. We drank plenty of hot chocolate and ate candy and sang the songs more than ever before.

 

And it all felt like it sounds: secular and beautiful and surface. And I often felt like a character going through motions.

 

I didn’t have the warm and cozies despite the oodles of family and good things. I felt so off I even started an advent devotional- which sounds lovely but was truly an act of desperation, to find and cling to the Christmas of old.

 

We had a Jesus Birthday cake, but my December felt desperate for Christ.

 

My home needs to be saturated, not in Christmas decorations, but Christ.

 

Christmas is over but it didn’t end, it was just the beginning. January 1^st was the new year, but Christmas is the new life.

 

And the only way to feel Christmas when 12 months roll along is to live in the depths of Christ the next 11.

 

So here’s to a new year, a new beginning Christened in a secular glow with a holy reality

 

Christ was born, Christ has risen, and Christ lives in me. In this very drafty old home, Christ abides.

 

So it’s about time I start seeing Him everywhere.

– J