Monthly Archives: April 2015

Revelations of Life Changing Proportions

life, ,

 

I’m writing outside today.  Only a sweater and the sun is warm and I like it a lot.

I am finally willing to admit

I’m not a natural early riser.  Not a night hawk either.  Where does that leave me?

Sandwiched between early and late I am an in between.

Kind of describes my impression of myself when I was a little one.  Not great at anything and not terrible at too much, except for drawing and sports and cutting with scissors (the whole left handed thing) and…

When my little ones were coming up, I woke without an alarm, for years.  The brain is a remarkable thing. Reminding us and propelling us forward.

I know people, they are my friends, who rise with the first song bird.  I admire their ability, discipline.

Get up,

Get moving,

It’s good for you.

When I lived alone, now that’s a long time ago, I began a journey of discipline and decided, in response to prompting from

the one who made me

that when my eyes opened each morning, whatever time that might be

my first impulse, task, reflex, would be to commit the upcoming hours to

Him.  I would set my mind on things above and let those thoughts be the precursor to whatever the day would hold.  Physically and purposely holding my hands out and opening my fingers.  Oh He doesn’t need me to that.  It is an act of my will for my sake and for His Glory.  A human action to remind of a Heavenly response from a heart of Love.

I did it for years and then fell off for a long while.  Those days when I needed to do it most, I found myself doing the alternative instead.

Wondering, worrying, praying the prayer of uncertainty.

Oh, we’re uncertain alright.  We don’t know His plan and yet

I forgot that I am allowed, encouraged and even commanded to

Approach His Throne with confidence

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Hebrews 4:18

How in the World could I forget a command so amazing?

Well this very morning I woke up, not early but not terribly late.  As my eyes were focusing, an ability that becomes increasingly difficult,  I prayed these words.

Dear Father God

Please

enable 

me to be who you want me to be and do what you want me to do, today.  

Help

me to worship you and to remember above all that you are Holy.  I want my life to be about your Holiness.

Right there, Right then, head still on the pillow,  I realized

I’ve been praying the wrong words.

Just as He showed me a while back (because Nano reminded me)  I don’t need to pray that He will be with me because I am His and He is with me,

I don’t need to pray for Him to help me to recognize His holiness.  He has already done that.

He is Holy and I know it full well.  I don’t require help with that.

I need to DO it,

See Him for who He is

and just as I should not ask for His help to be

Joy filled  because He has already given me joy (and I just need to BE it)

Seeing His Holiness is a choice I need to make.

Man Alive and goodness gracious me ( although papa used to remind me that I shouldn’t say goodness me because there is nothing good about we sinners and only God is truly good)

Combine this revelation with the one God’s Spirit reminded me of just the other day and

I feel like a free woman.

That other one was this.

Let it all go!

No really, open your hands and hold them up to me and just let me have them, 

all.

The people, the worries, the concerns, the troubles, the day to day..

My hands are big and my heart is bigger and I love you.  I have stuff for you to do.  Oh I don’t need you to do it.  I want you to do it because it will give you even more reason to be joy filled.

 If you worry about

these things and people, you will be so filled with all of it that you won’t have the energy to be who I made you to be.  So give it all to me.  These who you love are safe with me.  Your job is to daily, every morning, when my mercies are new, first thing, open your hands and remind me, the one who never forgets, that I have promised to take care of them and those,

people and things.  

All that concerns you, concerns me.  I made you and I know that your heart is burdened.  But come to me and give that heaviness to me and go out,

with Joy.  

Be filled with Joy and rest in my ability and capability to be

Me

I’ll tell  you that these two things, reminders,

were gifts to me, a broken, disciplined, burdened,

God Lover.

I can tell you and am very willing to be reminded

often

that He doesn’t need me, He chooses to bless me with jobs to do

for His glory and if I let Him carry the load that most often sits on my heart, I will carry on and be amazed and blessed.

I will be able to reflect His love, His mercy, His compassion.

There’s another verse I know but not really.

Proverbs 1:33 says

but whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease, without dread or disaster

Lest we be confused, this verse does not mean disaster will not touch us or break our hearts or make lovely into ugly.  We know that’s true.

It doesn’t mean there won’t be crooked and perpendicular pathways.  What it means is that in the the disaster we will dwell secure.  I will listen and He will talk.  What could be perceived easily, as disaster, won’t be

That.

God

is always close.  And even the crooked and disastrous things, He can make into something good.  We call that

Redemption.

Profound, is the truth that even though everybody looking at the disaster will think it is, because I am dwelling secure in Him, to me it isn’t.

I will dwell secure.

God will use it to make me more like Jesus, which is His purpose.

Me, more like Jesus, for God’s Glory.

Well Hallelujah and

Thank You Jesus!

Story Time!

A lot of years ago a little girl, a preacher’s girl, she was three years old, sat on her mama’s knee in the basement of the little church where her papa was preacher.  Evening service was done.  Worship time was starting.  Fellowship for those who knew the one who

made them

and fellowship for those who maybe did not know that creator.  All were welcome.  The little girl knew about God, in a way that was quite unusual for someone her age.  God had filled up the hearts of her mama and papa so full of

Him

that He flowed out all over the people they knew and even some they didn’t.  The three children who were their little ones, had no doubt about who they needed, to be their master and no doubt about that master’s love for them.

The little group of people on the old wooden chairs began to sing

“For God so loved the World that He gave His Only Son, who died on Calvary from sin to set me free.  Some day He’s coming back, what Glory That Will Be, How wonderful His Love For ME.”

It was then, at that very moment, that Jesus touched her heart and she knew

God loved HER.  She wanted to be part of HIS family.  The tears ran down that little ones face and she cried and nobody knew why.  She couldn’t even say the words but she saw God’s tenderness and

on that night, as the little girl sat on her mama’s knee, God came close.  It was a remarkable moment in a life that unfolded with twists and turns and happy and sad and rebellion and unkindness and worship and peace and pain and worry and disobedience and mistakes and regret and laughter and

all the while a thankfulness that

That one Who Made Her, loved her and welcomed her then, now, always.

He

is

For

Everyone.

There is a young man who preaches at our church.  He is senior pastor but there is nothing senior about him.  He has much to learn and is doing that as God does the teaching.  God’s specialty is using us for good while we are learning.  Good thing, since we keep learning and never get to the knowing everything stage, ever.  God speaks wise words through this young man and a few weeks ago he said something close to this

There is nobody that God created that He doesn’t love.  Well that means there is not a single person on the planet who God doesn’t love since He made us all.

John 12:32

And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

Great news

For us ALL.

Speechless!

Black Patent Shoes

life, , , ,

It was Easter

Just this past weekend

Reason to celebrate in a big way and I still buy chocolate bunnies and this year some gourmet cookies as well.  Years ago, it seems so long

our children, just like most on this continent, went to bed on Easter Sunday Eve in anticipation of what would surely be a tasty Next Morning.  These same children,

these days

are not prone to indulge in sweet treats.  Oh sure, every once in a while, but sugar doesn’t hold the same attraction as it did

then.

Sometimes the meal is over and everyone is on their way when I realize the bunnies and eggs are still where they were when the festivities began.  Granted, we don’t do the traditional

hide and seek

but most often, the table centerpiece consists of the Easter delicacies.

In younger days I remember rolling my eyes when people would make a statement about

“when I was young” or

“When I was your age”.

Ah yes, children in all of their childish wisdom.

I am of course now of a different mind and here we go with

I remember when...

Easter was a big big deal in the House house.  I can assure you it had nothing to do with chocolate although we did get a couple of eggs or bunnies or some form of Easter treat.

Easter was big because of what

it was, is and evermore will be.  Because of it’s significance.

It’s about dying and rising from the dead.  It’s about Love.

We celebrate because of the WHY

The Reason.

At Christmas we talk about the

Reason for the Season.  We don’t so much use that phrase for Easter and yet of course

everything that happens is always about

The Reason.

WHY

Well, at our house, because of who our parents were, celebrating anything was always about the heart of the matter.  Not much was done flippantly or hap hazard like.  Life mattered, matters.

The Reason we are here and live hope filled is crucial to our daily activities, schedule, purpose.

We laughed as much as the next family.  We enjoyed life

to the full

but there was always that underlying sense of

I Live For a Reason and this life is not just for me to use as I choose.

The days I am given are of eternal value.

Well, when a girl is 6 or 8 or 10 or even 12, eternity is not often uppermost in her mind.  For me, there was never a doubt as to the

validity, importance, gift of eternity but right there at the heart of my mind

was the thought of

black patent shoes.

Could there ever be anything more beautiful or exquisite than black patent shoes? Especially if there was every likelihood they would be, forever, just outside the realm of possibility.  To be seen through the store window, but never on my feet.

Shiny, perfect, beautiful.

When I was young

extra dollars were something I read about in Trixie Belden or Donna Parker Books.  Pollyanna was my favourite heroine.

Every September I got a new pair of canvas running shoes and a pair of sensible black leather shoes for school.

Every spring and just before Easter, we made the 50 mile drive to the nearest city where there was a shoe store and I got a new pair of Sunday shoes that would be worn, hopefully, for the first time on Easter Sunday.  The town we lived in had roads without pavement.  It was situated in a province where the winters were long and the summers short.  The spring season was often illusive and more often,

late in arriving.  I remember praying for days, with my eyes on

the new shoes sitting on the floor neatly side by side, just so, waiting for that glorious day when I could put them on and actually wear them

that God would Please melt the snow and make the sun to shine and dry up the muddy roads and Please, Please make it possible to don the new shoes.  Prior to the prayer about the weather conditions,

maybe early March,

I would pray,

kneeling beside my bed of course, because that was the posture God was most likely to be pleased with and so perhaps be more willing to answer int the affirmative when I asked

most fervently that maybe this year the new Easter shoes could be

black patent.

I realized He was the only one who could speak to the hearts of my parents and express His desire that I, disobedient and saucy as I was, should be granted my greatest wish (well, greatest next to that of being provided with a horse to ride after school and on Saturdays). What could be the harm in asking?

It seemed that the manufacturers of children’s shoes had no thought to the desires of children who had feet the length, width and depth of a 6 inch ruler.  My father was always adamant that we wear good quality shoes because as a child he had not.  He had the feet to prove the importance of good shoes and he wanted his children to be spared the discomfort resulting from unsuitable footwear.  As a result, we wore

very sensible shoes.

I still remember the year, I was ten, that somehow, by some miracle, the nice man at the shoe store had, in his back room where they kept the boxes of shoes, a beautiful pair of black patent that made me feel like

Cinderella.

He brought the box out, removed the shoes and gently placed them on my feet.  They fit and I am quite sure the angels were rejoicing in heaven at my answered prayer.

Glory be!  That day, I rode home in the back seat with that box filled with the black patent shoes and it sat on my lap  with the lid off and my hands ran over the shininess of those beauties and the whole way I thanked God for answering my prayer,  after all these years. Finally I had what my heart desired and that heart overflowed with thankfulness.

My mother sewed all of our clothes.

We had no money but we were dressed beautifully.  My mom had a way of finding fabric for a few pennies and sewing it up into loveliness.  THAT Easter, I had a new suit, yes jacket and skirt and black patent shoes to go with it.  I was careful to at least attempt humility, but pride was a tough opponent.  That Easter I sang especially loudly

Up From The Grave He Arose.  I knew it was true and even if my feet had been clad in sensible black shoes instead of those beautiful patent ones, the truth of The Reason for Easter, caused me, a lass of ten, to praise God for the sacrifice given for us

All.

This year I thought of the black patent shoes when, on Sunday morning I donned my black boots to wear to church.  Too cold, damp with a dusting of snow, to wear shoes, black patent or otherwise.  This year the weather is not reflective of the new life we thank God for

Still I’m glad Easter is in Spring Time.  The hope of new life comes at a time when we celebrate the giving of life. The sacrifice of life.  Not any life.

THE life.

Jesus is THE way, THE Truth and THE life.

I saw crocuses coming up in my garden this morning.  They know there is hope.  The God who created them, lets them know when the time is right to poke their heads up.  Spring is my favourite.

I’m thinking about

The Reason For The Season.  I’m sure research would turn up the reason for the bunnies and candy and hiding stuff and finding it.  The grownup little ones of ours who leave the chocolate on the table

still appreciate the celebrating.  Whether it be Christmas or Easter, black patent or boots, new clothes or old, we have, I hope, passed on to them the importance of

celebrating the WHY

We teach our precious ones about The Reason for The Season because it is good for them to know it.  God doesn’t need us to remember.  He wants us to do it because He loves us and He knows it is good for us to remember.  It’s good for us to pass the remembrance from generation to generation.

The Reason, The Why

is

But God shows His love for us  in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us

(Rom. 5:8)

Hallelujah what a Saviour!