Category Archives: Healing

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Live Like You Were Dying

Wendy

If you knew that you were going to be gone this time tomorrow … what would you do? If you knew a loved one was going to be gone this time tomorrow what would you do? Erwin used to tell of relationships that were gone before he could resolve them… and reminded people that they may never have a chance to get a relationship right… and to make sure when you left a person… you were straight … that anything was possible.

This question haunts me every time I hear it.

What would I do if I found out tomorrow that I had only a few days left to life? Last year my answer would have — and did the few times I revealed it — scared my friends out of their minds. Last year I would have surrendered happily and eagerly to death. I longed for it, prayed for it, begged God for it every night.

But every morning I woke up.

Unanswered prayers…..

Now that life is beginning to come back into my spirit, I again find myself facing this question. Louis’ death, Wendy’s pondering, Tim McGraw’s song all reverberate in my soul. What does it mean to "live like you were dyin’"? For the man Tim McGraw sings about it was bull riding, sky diving, spending hours fishing with his dad. But it was also being the husband that he hadn’t been as well as becoming the friend that a friend would love to have. It was loving deeper, speaking sweeter and giving forgiveness he’d been holding back.

Would my list be as comprehensive and well-rounded? Or would it be filled with only trivial, selfish desires? It’s hard to know until you’re actually there.

My daily reading in "Failing Forward" dealt with the 10 reasons why people fail. #10 on the list was "No Goals." Maxwell says,

Joe L. Griffith believes "A goal is nothing more than a dream with a time limit." Many people don’t have goals because they haven’t allowed themselves to dream. As a result, they don’t possess a desire.

It’s been a long time since I was able to dream, really dream, about the future. The events of the last couple of years drove my heart into hiding. It refuses to go to dreamland anymore. I’m trying my best to coax it out of the cave it’s cowering in, but so far it hasn’t ventured out from under shelter.

I don’t know how to dream anymore. Not big dreams, like the grand ones I used to have. The best I’ve been able to muster is my "Get Healthy" resolution/goal for this year.

Will the ability to dream come back? Will I ever be able to dream big dreams with God again? Without dreams, I don’t know how to answer Wendy’s question. I only know that I want to. For the first time in over a year, I want to Live like I was dying….

Like tomorrow was a gift
And you’ve got to eternity to think of what
you did with it
What did you do with it?
What did I do with it?

I went skydiving, I went rocky mountain climbing
I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fumanchu
And I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter
And I gave forgiveness I’d been denying
…One day I hope you get the chance
To live like you were dying

"Live Like You Were Dying" written by Tim Nichols and Craig Wiseman; from the Tim McGraw album by the same name

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Obstacles or Opportunities?

While sitting at the airport in Charlotte this morning I checked my work voicemail and found out they are cutting my hours again. It’s official now, I’m only a part-timer. 20 hours tops. Yikes!

I struggled most of the morning with a growing self-pity over the frustrating lack of employment opportunities I’ve found in Nashville. My bills already outweigh my income. And now, losing another 10-12 hours a week, that gap becomes even bigger. But if I leave this temp agency, I lose my medical benefits. What do I do???

Having a nasty cold didn’t help my disposition. Or my thought processes.

Over and over I cried out to God to help me, to keep me from sinking in a financial quicksand…. but that was all I could think to pray: "Jesus help me!" Once I was airborne, I popped in Rita Springer’s cd, blocked out the rest of the world and focused my mind completely on God. At last I was able to think more clearly.

As I talked with God about this developing situation, I remembered the things I’d been reading and learning from Failing Forward. Things like seeing obstacles and problems as opportunities rather than chains and walls is what separates people who get stuck from people who fail forward. As all these various thoughts settled into the front of my memory, I felt a calm and peace begin to settle over me. And a determination to plow through this season so I can see what’s on the other side.

In the hours since arriving back in Nashville that feeling has faded. Perhaps its this cotton-head I have in place of a brain and the painful bright red thing that’s replaced my nose, that’s stolen my peace. I’m tired and light-headed. All I want is to sleep for a week and wake up to a new year and a new job. Perhaps even a new life.

Yet even as I type I know I already have that. Every day is a new life for me. I know in my heart I don’t feel as down and dark about the future as I currently sound. It really is the cold talking more than me when I spew that stuff…

And at the same time I am fighting a battle for my mind. I’ve been a person who’s seen obstacles as often as I’ve seen opportunities. Especially in the workplace. Makes me wonder at times if I’ve  consistently pursued the wrong vocation…

There are times when I find failure and problems and obstacles exhilarating. When I’m mixing sound, or editing some text, or writing text, or when I get a sudden inspiration and want to know or understand something deeper,  obstacles, failures and problems are challenges I take on with passion and intensity. I love solving those kinds of problems! I’ll take those on even at 6am — no minor miracle for a night owl like me.

But turn me toward problems with finances, or finding a job, or basic administrative duties and I’m suddenly paralyzed with fear, doubt and dark thoughts.

In Failing Forward, John Maxwell tells stories of various people who failed numerous times before finally realizing their dreams. In one he talks about John James Audubon, the man the Audubon Society was named for. He diligently pursued business venture after venture, all of which failed, convinced his vocation was there, and hunting and art were just hobbies. It wasn’t until his family was destitute and needed the food his hunting could provide and the money his art brought it that he finally found success.

I’ve often wondered…. how do you know when the obstacles you encounter are signposts screaming that you’re going the wrong way, and when they are mountains you need to climb to get where you want to go? How do I know the difference between problems caused because I’m on the "wrong bus," as it were, on the wrong path, and problems that are "just the price I pay to achieve my goals" (as Maxwell defines failure)?

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Failing Forward

I started reading this book today. It’s by John Maxwell.

I’ve only gotten through chapter two so far, but man is it good! And challenging.

I’ve always struggled with a fear of failure, and taking risks. As long as I can remember I’ve felt I needed to be "perfect" at something. If I couldn’t, I wouldn’t even try it. It took me many years to get to a point where I’d risk looking like a fool, or worse, a failure, by stepping into things I didn’t think I could do.

For the most part, as I look back over the eight years or so since I started taking those steps, I see failure after failure. But I also see a difference in how I responded to those failures. It doesn’t keep me down as long as it used to. And it doesn’t scare me as much either.

I still have a few things in my life, however, that I look at as personal/ministry failures. India and Cyprus. I struggle with my own opinion of my time as co-team leader in India. And I have a love/hate relationship with my memories. I wouldn’t exchange the experience with a different one for all the money in the world. Yet at the same time, it was a deeply frustrating and unsatisfying one. The thing that frustrates me the most even now is that I cannot identify what exactly would have made it satisfying.

And Cyprus. I still cannot escape the deep sense that I failed because I didn’t return to the field. No amount of logic or reasoning or Scripture or God’s voice or… anything has yet to erase that sense. I just don’t know what to do with it all, how to view it.

Am I a failure? I don’t believe that question can be answered until I’m nearing the end of my days…. or perhaps until after I’m dead, for my story isn’t completely written yet. But, I must confess, there are days when I fear I am a failure. There are days when my mistakes and mis-steps pile so high that it’s hard to see past them and into my strengths. There are days when I feel I’m spending all my time in things that are not my strengths. It’s hard to not feel like a failure in that atmosphere.

That’s what I experienced that year in Cyprus. I felt so often I was not working in my strengths, and I despaired that I ever would be allowed to do so. In fairness, I cannot say that is the truth. For I don’t know if I would have been, nor do I truly know if I wasn’t working within my strengths. I have lost sight of "objective truth" (if such a thing exists) in that time period of my life. Its all a jumble of emotions and thoughts, struggles and spiritual warfare.

John Maxwell defines success in this way:

Knowing your purpose in life
Growing to reach your potential
Sowing seeds that benefit others

I wish I knew my purpose in life. I’ve read "Purpose Driven Life" and know all the churchy answers to this, about glorifying God and being a witness for Jesus to the world. But… it just seems to me, knowing God as I do, that I am not a random piece of Christ-tissue, here to just be one in a thousand. Perhaps that’s arrogant, but… dang, the more I think about it, the more convinced I become that I have a specific purpose, just as every cell in my body does. Sure every cell is here to keep me alive and well. But each one does it in a unique way. Even those with the same design have a specific purpose — whether that be to carry oxygen from my lungs to my heart, or to protect my soft parts by being a harder outer "shell"… every cell has a distinct, specific purpose. I’m convinced I do too. I just wish, with all my heart, I knew what it was (is)!

I’ve heard Erwin say on many occasions that for someone to say you have potential when you’re in your 20s is a compliment, but when they say it when you’re in your 40s, it’s an insult. As I read tonight, I came to the conclusion he’s wrong.

People in their 40s and 50s, even 70s and 80s, need to know there is still something in them that can be refined, seeds that still have yet to be sown and parts of them that still can grow.

But more than that, as I stare 40 in the face, I realize that, if I believe Erwin, then I condemn myself, as a failure, and to a life of mediocrity. There are still mountains to climb. Just because most people climb them in their 20s doesn’t mean that I can’t do it in my 40s. Just because I didn’t do it in my 30s doesn’t mean that I’ve missed my window of opportunity. Yes, the climb will be harder. I’m older and my body doesn’t respond as well to challenge, nor does it bounce back as quickly from fatigue and injury. It may take me longer, I will have to work harder. But I can still do it.

I’ve heard that the people who live the longest all have one thing in common: they never quit learning. They were always trying, learning, doing something new. I don’t want to live long. Right now I’m fighting an on-going fear of growing old. I don’t want to be alive when I’m 70 or 80, or, God forbid, even older. No, I’ve seen what age does to a body. No thank you. I’d like to die young please. But if I must grow old, and live well into those undesired ages… well then, I want to know there are still mountains I can climb. Okay, so those young’uns call it a "hill", but dang, it feels like a mountain to my legs!!

I like John Maxwell’s definition of success. But it’s a hard one for me to apply to my life, since it seems to me that all three go together and everything hinges on the first: "knowing your purpose in life."

I’m going to bed now, and perhaps my dreams will help me sort through all this and give me a little clarity…

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Peace and Love

There are some days I’m in love with my life.

Today is one of those days.

I live in Nashville. I live in freakin’ Nashville, ya’ll!! How cool is that! I love this town! I love the weather outside. It feels like Christmas, like the way I want Christmas to feel. It’s my favorite kind of weather, ever… very overcast and cold, and been lightly raining on and off all day. The Christmas lights shine warmer and sweeter in this kind of atmosphere.

But most of what’s caused me to fall in love with my life — or remember how much there is to love — is a sense of finally getting to a place of normalcy… a place where I’m coming to grips with who I am right now, what I want and that I’m finally ready to start loving and taking care of me.

I’ve been hanging out at home all day. It’s nice not to have to be somewhere. Just kicking back in my comfort clothes and watching a marathon of "America’s Next Top Model". I know, you probably think this is all just a bunch of "reality" tv tripe. But actually, I’m really learning lots about myself as I watch these episodes back-to-back. I’m learning a lot about how my own insecurities about myself have affected my life and the things I’ve tried to accomplish. I’m also see how I’ve sabotaged myself at times through either those insecurities or through my own nasty habit of avoidance and passive tendencies.

I’ve also realized how much of a ham I am. 🙂 I’ve been posing with the models, from my little perch here on the couch. People often comment that I’m very photogenic and I’ve realized much more as I’ve watched how little of that has to do with my looks and how much of it has to do with my determination to allow my personality and that "sparkle" I have inside come out through my face, and especially my eyes. I have a tendency to sort of "pose" my insides on my face every time I see a camera — something Tyra Banks comments is very important for models to do, btw! I don’t know what it is I do… it’s not something I think of as much as it is an attitude I pull from within and "pop" onto my face. It’s just a small thing, but it’s part of who I am. Part of me that I like. And that’s an important step forward for me, as I rediscover myself and work to regain a peace about me.

I had an ultra-fine day yesterday, which adds to my peace and love today. I finally saw Jamie again after nearly three months. I’d seen him briefly in late October. But I hadn’t spent significant time with him in ages, There are just some people who make life totally worth all the agony. Jamie is one of those people. Something in his spirit, his soul, his personality — or all three — creates an incredibly warm atmosphere where ever he is. Not just warm, but "real". Jamie doesn’t play games, or wear masks. He is real, authentic. He absolutely knows who he is and he is completely at peace with that. Not that he doesn’t work at "becoming", he does. But he’s also very comfortable and happy in his own skin.

Maybe that’s why I love being around him, why I feel so much healthier, emotionally and spiritually, after being around him. One of the things I’ve been learning the last few months is how important it is for me to be at home and happy in my own skin, to be at peace with who I am right now. When I’m around Jamie, his peace just naturally rubs of on me. And life is just better.

I want to be like that. I want to be comfortable in my own skin. I want to be happy and at peace with myself right where I am, even while I’m working to better myself. And I think I’m finally on my way. This last couple of weeks I’ve been even more introspective than normal. I’ve been chewing on a lot of things, things about myself and my life that I’ve hated for a long time… my weight, for example, or where I find myself career-wise. Something has happened in the last few days. I’m not sure what exactly it is — though I’d like to figure it out because I’d like to repeat it — but I’m finding myself more at peace with who I am. I think part of it is just being real about who I am. Not just the weight issue. That, I think, is only one small piece of the whole picture.

There are many parts of me, of my personality, that I’ve either run from, denied or been embarrassed about. I’ve seen them as unfeminine, or unChrist-like. As I’ve been doing more digging into myself and being honest with myself, I’m realizing that my view of these things has been skewed either by others’ opinions and/or my perceptions of others’ opinions.

I’ve always admired and wondered how people live their lives without concern for how others perceive them or what others say to them about them. For so many years I’ve allowed what other people say, and my perception of what they mean by what they say, to impact my opinion of myself. I’ve lived this way as long as I can remember.

I know this blows the mind of some people who know me. Nina, for example, told me a few months back that her experience with me was always one that left her with the strong belief that I didn’t care what others think about me, that their opinions don’t affect me. But the truth is, their words and opinions have a power over me that frightens me.

So I adopted an attitude very early in life, as a way to protect myself. But people’s opinions of me matter far more than is healthy I think.

God’s  opinion of me is the only opinion that’s important. That’s the Truth. But putting that truth into practice and making it a reality in my life will take time. I’m now re-evaluating many things I’ve come to believe about me based on old opinions of others. I’m learning to "judge" myself based on what God says about me. I have to "reprogram" my mind. And, FINALLY,  I’m feeling up to the challenge.

Today has been good. I’m falling in love with myself and rediscovering all there is to love about my life. I’ve had a great day, relaxing, enjoyable and rejuvenating. Today it’s been good to be me. Thanks, God!

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Nothing

New post from me (finally) in Cup of Chai.

I need to go to bed, but thought I’d add a quick note in here too… I have several posts started, but I can’t seem to finish them at the moment. I’ve had a tremendous amount of brain-lint I guess. I’ve been all fuzzy in the head today.

I’m incredibly restless these days. My body is even showing it. I can’t keep my legs from bouncing — one is always going, even when I’m typing. Unless, of course, my laptop is on my lap, as it is now. But my legs and body are just mimicking, I think, what my spirit is feeling. I don’t know what’s going on, exactly. But it’s really starting to get on my nerves.

I went for a drive after work. Thought that would help clear my head, and I’d get to see some cool Christmas lights while I was at it.

Nashville-ites are disappointing me. They don’t decorate up their property for the holidays nearly as much as I thought they would.

I kept asking God, "what’s wrong with me?" At first He didn’t answer. Maybe He knew I wasn’t yet really listening. Finally, He spoke up.

"Nothing." He said. "There is absolutely nothing wrong with you. You are perfect in every way."

Okay, now I’m all for warm-fuzzies, but this is just plain over-the-top, don’cha think? I mean, really. There is no way on God’s green earth that I’m "perfect in every way".

But God was resolute. He would say nothing more on the subject. But He would proudly repeat Himself three times over. Finally I quit asking Him.

I’m still very restless, even though I’m now also very exhausted, a little frustrated and a tad concerned about my own sanity. I still can’t keep my legs from bouncing. I still feel like I have lint for brains….

Does God really see me as "perfect in every way"?

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‘Tis The Season

Sorry for my silence over the weekend. I haven’t felt much like writing.

There are many thoughts swimming in my head, many conversations God and I have engaged in over the last few days. I just don’t know how to condense them down into posts… and I’m still grappling with many of the issues anyway.

One such issue is growing bigger as the days near December 25th. Last year was the hardest Christmas I ever had; the first without mom and dad.

I thought it would be easier this year. But I’m already struggling and Christmas is still 20 days away. I finally decorated up the apartment. It just felt to "sterile" not to have Christmas lights, garlands and a small Christmas tree. But it hasn’t gotten me into the "Christmas Spirit". I went for a drive yesterday and just enjoyed the beauty of decorated homes and the crisp cold of a Nashville winter night. Even during my drive my sadness deepened.

This season — Thanksgiving thru New Years’ — used to be my favorite time of year, with just the perfect blend of cold weather, warm feelings, holiday magic and incredible scents. I hope someday it will be my favorite again. Right now, it’s the time of year I feel mom and dad’s deaths most profoundly. They gained the greatest gift — finally they are Home for Christmas. But their, and heaven’s, gain is my loss.

I long to spend just one more Christmas with them. To hear mom’s laughter ring throughout the house. To smell her pies baking, taste her candies — she made the best Peanut Brittle, Fudge, Ginger Snaps and "Scotchies’ the world has ever known! — and listen to her play Christmas Carols on the piano… To hear dad read the Christmas story one more time, see him in that silly Santa hat handing out the presents… just to get one more hug and kiss from them, or lay in bed and hear them through the wall talking and laughing with each other at the end of the day…

Emotions sweep over me and threaten to overwhelm me. I cling to God’s promises to always be with me, that the water will not sweep me away nor will the flames I walk through set me ablaze.

This is a time of year portrayed in movies, commercials and church pageants as being "the most wonderful and happiest time of the year," as the song goes. But I wonder: how happy is it for most people, really.

How many others are there like me, who are just putting one foot in front of the other and praying to any god they know that they will make it through the season without a total emotional breakdown? How many turn down our invitations to our Christmas pageants because they just can’t bear to see another "It’s A Wonderful Life" like presentation about how all’s well and at peace with the world because Jesus was born? How many are haunted by memories of Christmas’s past, of Christmas wishes never realized, of holidays marked more by fear, abuse, angry words, or loss than by happiness, joy and good gifts?

Where is the Christmas place for them? Where is the place where Christmas isn’t all smiles and candy canes? Where can we experience a Christmas full of depth and meaning for a lost and broken world?

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Past, Present & Future

God’s gifts and God’s call are under full warranty — never canceled, never rescinded. — Romans 11:29

This morning at Nina’s church I felt familiar pangs of longing. But this time was different from the last year. This time there was hope in my spirit.

I never realized how much I longed to be a missionary until I gave it up to spend a season at home seeking healing and wholeness. In the months after my resignation, I wept and mourned bitterly over what I had lost. It felt as if a significant piece of me had died. And with it, my hope in the future.

The door is open for me to go back at any time. And I’ve purposely structured my current work and life with the church plant in Nashville so that I keep that possibility alive.

I feel very strongly that I am exactly where I am supposed to be right now. And with my struggle with depression and current walk through grief, not to mention the pain of my first full year overseas, it has been hard for me to think far enough into the future to see myself going again overseas.

Yet… I cannot deny the pull on my heart. I cannot deny how my heart breaks for the world every day. I cannot deny how I seem to daily spot out of a crowd the various nationalities and cultures I see represented. I cannot deny how excited I feel, how my pulse races and my very spirit is inflamed when I think about building bridges between cultures, helping followers of Christ understand various worldviews and spot the God-moments in them, encouraging and developing in others an appreciation, even a passion, for learning about other cultures, interacting with them and building lasting relationships with people of other cultures and religions!

When I look at a map, I don’t see lines and countries. I see people. People of various ethnic groups and religions, with struggles and victories, convictions and fears, beliefs and needs. When I look at a map I think of the food the people eat, the weather they endure, the clothes they wear and the lives they lead. I wonder if they fear the same things I do, if they struggle with the same issues, if they long for the same things… I am in love with all the people I have met in my life, from Japan to Ethiopia, from India to Cyprus. Amazing people. Resilient, robust, beautiful, inquisitive, questioning, apathetic… they came in every size, shape and possibility. I remember each fondly, for who they are and what they taught me about life.

I don’t envy my friends overseas. I have lived that life and I know the sacrifices they make every day so that others may know Jesus the way we do. I admit, I love being able to drive on the right side of the road, read all the signs around me, communicate fluently with everyone I meet as I go about my daily routines (even if the accent throws me off many times). I love having an American style apartment with all its amenities, like consistent electricity, heat and a/c, hot water, shower heads and a western toilet. 🙂

Yet… Thanksgiving night, driving home from Toby’s sister’s home, my mind went unbidden to MLC (a learning center for Overseas Workers in Virginia), and I wondered how they had celebrated Thanksgiving. If they were giving the new crop of Workers a true taste of what celebrating Thanksgiving in a foreign country is really like. I spent Thanksgiving 2002 in Ethiopia. I saw first-hand how much we as Americans have to be thankful for. At the same time, I missed my family terribly. I was thankful, yet my heart was heavy. That’s part of the holiday experience for a missionary.

All weekend I have wrestled off and on with a sense of longing. One that I’ve never been able to fully identify. One I thought I’d categorized as a desire to be a missionary, to be “on mission” with God.

Perhaps that is what the longing is. But I don’t think it’s all it is. I just don’t know right now…

This morning’s message from Nina’s pastor, Jeff, continued to stir that longing, bringing the pangs so strong they continue to resonate in my soul. This overseas “thing” just will not let go of me.

What is my role in it? There was a time when I believed I was a “Mobilizer”. Then I thought I was a “Goer”. But I’ve done gone and come back… now what am I??

As Jeff preached and I contemplated, God whispered, “My gifts and My call are irrevocable…. they still apply to your life… you’re still a part of what I’m doing in the world… And, there’s time yet…”

Hope.

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Road Trip Weekend

I’m off to South Carolina tomorrow morning! Yay!! 6-day weekend… cool. 🙂 Except I don’t get paid… not so cool.

I’m so looking forward to the drive tomorrow. The mountains of Tennessee/Carolinas are so amazing!

But I’m most looking forward to the time with Nina… and Toby and Stephen.

I may or may not have time to post while there… I don’t know yet. Nina and I always manage to fill our days up solid. And it sounds like she’s got a lot planned already. I do have one plan for Nina, though. She commented on my blog recently (check it out) and now she’s got a blogspot account. Oh, yeah, baby! You know I gotta get her hooked up with it! Hey, I got Wendy and Larry here… why not my sister! Besides, she owes me a obsession or two. She’s the one who got me deep into Creative Memories. So deep I’m considering becoming a Creative Memories consultant. Crazy…

Well, I need to finish packing and get ready to go.

I pray you have an incredible Thanksgiving. And a fun-filled weekend, packed with the stuff memories are made of.


Nina and Lu – Big sis & little sis…

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It IS About You, It IS About Me

“It’s not about you.”

It’s the latest mantra of western Christians. I suppose it could be credited it to the well-meaning, well-spoken words of Rick Warren in his book, “Purpose Driven Life”. However, I think we in the Body of Christ have come to misuse and abuse this saying. It’s become a stick we beat people with instead of an encouragement to build people up, and help them refocus their lives on God’s purpose for them.

I heard it again tonight. Well meant, I’m sure. But completely misused and, in part, abusive. It felt like a complete slap in the face. As if all that God had been revealing to me, all that God has been doing in my heart and soul over the last two years is a lie. That I am being selfish and self-centered to even want God to care about me or about my “trials”.

The Truth I’ve come to find in God’s Word, and in my own experience with Him over the last couple of years, is that it IS about me. It really IS. About. ME.

God is so very in love with me. With me of all people! His life, His existence, His focus is all about showing me just how truly, madly, deeply He loves me, how He strongly He longs to have an intimate divinely sweet relationship with me, how He wants nothing more than to pour out into me all the love and grace and mercy and gentleness and kindness and joy and so much more that He has… to pour all that He is and has into me every second of the day, how He has so many mysteries and secrets and passions He is desperate to share with me. From the moment I wake up to the moment I wake the following morning and round again, I am on His mind. I am the focus of His attention. I am the apple of His eye.

Think of that! WE are on His mind, the Creator of the Universe thinks of nothing but US every second of every minute of every day of every month of every year forever.

Why do you think Jesus suffered the brutal death He did? For me. To give me Life.

Yes, yes, I know… He didn’t come just for me… or did He?

What is it we Christians always say to those we are leading to Christ? “Even if you were the only person on earth, Jesus would still have died for you.”

Why is it okay to say that to others and not to believe it ourselves? If I were the only person on earth Jesus would still have died for me. THAT’S how much He loves me.

I think we don’t really believe that line we feed our potential “converts”. We believe it for, and about, them at that moment. But not for and about ourselves. And once a person commits their lives to Christ, we do a bait-and-switch and tell them “its not about you, it’s about them.” As if now that God has us, He no longer cares about our wants, needs, hurts, desires, longings.

So wrong. So very wrong.

Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son… Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone. — Eph 1:4-6, 11-12 (The Message)

“Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! — Jesus (Matt 7:9-11)

I am my beloved’s, and his desire is for me. — Song of Songs 7:10

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Rest

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I always thank God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. For in him you have been enriched in every way–in all your speaking and in all your knowledge – because our testimony about Christ was confirmed in you. Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful. — 1 Corinthians 1:3-9

Still in my pjs… just spending time with the Lord, listening to Rita Springer and worshipping along with her. It’s nice to have Fridays off. To have the apartment to myself. To rest and just enjoy God’s presence in this place. To take time out from the worries and struggles and darkness of my life and just be at peace.

Peace.
In Christ I have all I need. I lack no spiritual gift. And He will keep me strong to the end. He is faithful.

Amen. And Amen.