~Your Will Above All Else....My Purpose Remains...~

“For Your sake we face death all day long.”
Acts 8:36

I have been living this pearl of a Scripture for the past 11 months, one month short of a year. And tonight, I just said goodnight to my grandpa knowing it could be the last time I say good night to him. I have been watching a life slowly ebb away as my parents and I have been taking care of my grandpa until he goes to be with Jesus, and something has occurred to me in the past few days.

When someone dies, their bodies expel all the bacteria that are in them, one way or another. I will spare you the graphic word picture I got from my mom this morning and suffice to say, it’s gross. Right after that process, their bodies die and if they know the LORD, they step into glory just as they step away from this life. That whole word picture got me to thinking about my own life, and if this is the actual reality of life and death, then something similar happens in a person’s heart and mind as they walk closer and closer with Jesus.

I have had my moments these past 11 months, actually the last few years as I’ve helped my mom take care of my grandpa in his home for the past 7 years. I’ve actually been helping out with my grandparents since I was 11, but before then, I was in and out of hospitals with them since I was a baby. This whole life of taking care of them didn’t just happen overnight for me. When I graduated from high school, I didn’t know what to do; college wasn’t all that appealing to me- all that studying (shudder). So, I did what I was already doing, what I was good at. I stayed home and became my mother’s right arm as she took care of her parents. When my grandma died 6 months later, my mom and I took care of my grandpa 3 to 4 days a week. Today, my parents have given up any semblance of a life to take care of my grandpa. My dad, who’d been unemployed for the past year, finally got a job and then quit to stay home and take care of Grandpa. My mom and I have run a myriad of errands, sat with and been the emotional, mental, physical support for both my dad and grandpa. Both my parents have been sick and we’ve all pulled one muscle or another and had the same headache, some of us a little more intense than the other. They have given everything to take care of him, our house is hardly ours anymore. It’s a hospice center, a hospital.

I, on the other hand, have given nothing because I had nothing to lose. This has been my life. When I was 18, I gave up the chance to go out there and “get a life”, and I chose to have no regrets where my grandparents were concerned because I felt this is where God wanted me. When life got hard and jumpin’ ship was a temptation, I knew that if I stopped doing it, I’d give myself permission to bail on anything and everything when it got hard. My greatest desire is to be someone’s wife and someones’ mother. I hear that’s the hardest job a woman will ever do. If there’s anything I don’t want someday, it’s to mess up a treasure from God like a husband and children, a family, because I bailed on my family now instead of learning the art of faithfulness.

Like I said, I’ve had my moments, but I’ve had the greatest LIFE. I have lived in hospitals where sick people are and where people take care of sick people. I have been best friends with people who are 2 generations older than me. I know better how to plan my funeral than my wedding someday because I’ve been to so many funerals (Morbid, I know)!! I know life and the meaning of it. And while I have faced death time and time again at hospitals and funerals, I have never lived death like I am doing right now. It has been a privilege to take care of this precious life, this farm boy from Nebraska, this wild rambunctious rail rider, this WWII veteran, this rodeo and race car star, this man who was hard and stubborn, abusive and mean and who , when he gave his life to Christ, became a changed man; this man who against all odds kept his family together when life told him he couldn’t, this man who has loved alot and loved well and been forgiven much and who in a few hours or a few days will see GLORY. We’ve told him he’s going to see my grandma again soon, and he’s excited for that, but my uncle said yesterday, “He will see Jesus, and he will be so in awe, he won’t even see Mom.”

That’s when something started happening to my heart. You know how I mentioned the process of death? The expelling of bacteria, the dying body, the glory? We will all meet our Maker someday with an awestruck heart. But right now, today, life can be brutal. We all know this. I know this. My family has been thru a lot in the past few years, but I’m going to be selfish here and tell you about me, while I’ve had a great life, these are some of my moments: I have been injured from helping lift Grandpa, to the point where I was doing some ab exercises and I threw a rib out and then separated the muscle from the rib. Talk about painful. As a result, I couldn’t work out for the rest of the Summer. Getting back to a regular workout has been brutal!! I have gotten sick recently and have had to change my diet because the stress has just been so intense at my house. I have been emotionally hit on all sides. I have endured loss of friends and felt abandonment and such intense loneliness and pain. I can’t even begin to put into words everything I’ve felt in the past 11 months. But when 3 people tell me in less than a week to relax, I know something’s up. Suffice to say, I’m in the process of being emptied. My mind and my heart are all preparing for a death, and not just my grandpa’s. But a death of an era. And a death to myself because when this is over, I look at my future, which could begin in a few hours, or days, depending on the LORD’s plan, and I don’t know what to do with my life. I have things I think I like and things that make me happy, but I’ve never had the chance to explore them fully. I don’t know me without my grandparents.

I face death to myself daily as God calls me to be like Him. My grandpa holds onto the rails on his bed sometimes like he’s hanging onto something for dear life. It’s like, “Dying is good, Heaven is close, but to actually give up my life, my breath? I can’t do it yet.” I am just like that sometimes. I know that dying to sin, dying to myself and running after Jesus is the only way to live, but I hold onto my definition of life for dear life because it’s the only way I know. That’s when I know that an emptying must come, a surrendering and then a death.

But as I step from my definition of life to God’s, that’s when I see glory and I am face to face with Him, like Moses was, like Mary was, like John and Peter were. All else fades.

So, my conclusion is this: empty yourself- expel the spiritual bacteria, let go and surrender to the death that seems scary in its enveloping because glory is just ahead, Jesus waits for you and He wants you to remain in His love and finally, really live.

“As for you, the anointing you received from Him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as His anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit- just as it has taught you, remain in Him.”

1 John 2:27

My blogpost's title is a line from this song. It's been close to my heart these days and so I thought I'd share it with you guys. If you're friends with me on Facebook, you have seen it as my status a few times.

~Blue Mask, Job, and the Ocean~

As I sit here in my little purple chair, I am wearing a blue facial mask and doing my Bible Study. Thank God we can meet Him wherever we are. I mention this because I’m studying the subject of pride right now. I just took a picture of my blue face with my webcam, which you shall never see. Call it pride. Call it self-preservation. I mentioned that I can meet God looking like this, I don’t really feel like I have to greet you looking like this, unless you can’t see me. As the mask dries and my face tightens, I want to share a treasure I was reminded of just now as I read thru Job 38.

“Who shut up the sea behind the doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’?”
Job 38: 8-11

I love this imagery. I want what the oceans have: freedom within the boundaries of God. There are no other boundaries that speak of freedom the way His do. Just think about it. If you’ve been to the ocean recently, think about what you saw. I was at Myrtle Beach and then in Seattle this past spring. I’d never seen the ocean before. The waves were rolling at Myrtle Beach and they were beautiful. I was in awe.
As I study pride, I realize that there’s a good pride. Did you see that last part of the passage I quoted earlier? “….Here is where your PROUD waves halt?” The ocean waves know where to stop, and if they go beyond what we think they should, we need to remember, God has commanded them where to stop. They’re majestic and they’re beautiful. They’re stately and perfect. They’re perfect because God made them that way. As the oceans play and revel, sing and dance, they point to the Almighty God and shout, “HE CREATED US!!!!” If we would but listen, we’d hear them as they tell the world of His majesty and His splendor.

Pride in and of itself is evil and it’s the main clue satan is working in our lives…when pride pops up. I’m realizing more and more how much pride runs my life. It’s a sobering thought. Pride is what made satan get kicked out of heaven. Pride is my enemy. To become humble is not to hate ourselves, but to turn to the Creator of all things and see how great He is. Hating ourselves is just another form of pride, and once again, the enemy wins.

Humility is where we find God. God gives grace to the humble, He lives with the humble, and He respects those who are humble. (James 4:6, 1 Peter 5:5, Isaiah 57:15, Isaiah 66:2….yes, I cheated, it was in my Bible Study Book, but I knew them all anyway)


“The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.”
Psalm 16:6

The above is one of my favorite passages. God gives good gifts to His children; His word is proof of that. I know I repeat myself, but I crave what the Oceans have as I read Job 38. God promises in Psalm 16:6 that I do have it. I just have to explore the boundaries, just as the ocean does, and rejoice that I am a child of God. It’s like I’m in those boundaries….now what. “Live, beloved,” He whispers. “Enjoy the boundary lines, you’re not missing out on anything when you walk and live with me. You have a delightful inheritance, receive it. Sing, dance, play, and have fun. Marvel at your creation, and praise the Creator.” And it’s in doing this I, too, will point to Him and tell the world, sometimes without saying a word, that He reigns.

Just as the oceans roll past what is acceptable to human knowledge, sometimes God may call us to be socially unacceptable as we run with Him and do what He does. Sometimes the “right thing” isn’t the “God thing”. All I can say is, walk with Him, know Him, and then we’ll know ourselves and what He wants from us. I know I’m always asking, “What am I supposed to do with my life?” and as I take in God’s word as truth and as the answer to my very life, the answer is right in front of me: “Know me, I’ll show you what to do, just know me, experience me.”

“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him. BUT GOD HAS REVEALED IT TO US BY HIS SPIRIT.”
1 Corinthians 2:10

“No one knows the Son the way the Father does, nor the Father the way the Son does. But I’m not keeping it to myself; I’m ready to go over it line by line with anyone willing to listen.” Matthew 11: 27b The Message

Speaking of The Message Bible, I’m going to go wash my face of this blue stuff- which has nothing to do with what I’m writing about except that I’m grateful God looks on the inside as I approach His throne and take in His words, and that He created me inside and out and He knows me, blue face or not- and I want to leave you with the Treasure from that paraphrase:

“And who took charge of the ocean when it gushed forth like baby from the womb? That was me! I wrapped it in soft clouds, and tucked it in safely at night. Then I made a playpen for it, a strong playpen so it couldn’t run loose, and said, “Stay here, this is your place. Your wild tantrums are confined to this place.’”

Job 38:8-11

Wild tantrums…..proud waves….either way, we’re free within the boundaries God sets for us. So let’s play!!!!

Birds of a Feather

“….how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.”
Matthew 23:37

My mom has a thing for bottle feeding creatures, i.e. bunnies, lambs, kittens and birds. Ok, not birds, she feeds them with an eye dropper. This past weekend, my dad brought in two baby birds for her to take care of. One of the birds is very strong-willed and wanting to fly. The other has a tattered wing and isn’t quite so aggressive. It’s been an entertainment, as well as an opportunity to learn something.

My mom has had to pry their tiny beaks open so she could stick the eye dropper in and give them their one drop of food. She keeps talking to them saying, “I know what’s best for you, I wish you trusted me enough to open your mouth, you need more than you’re getting.”

Well, today, for the first time, the weaker baby opened his mouth by himself to accept food, and just now, he’s eating out of her hand. The joy in my mom’s tone is that which I imagine our God has in us when we accept His care of us. When we accept God on His terms, He LOVES providing for us, and wants to bless us even more. That’s when the intimacy of relationship enters into our lives. My mom is relating to the bird now, and feeding him is a pleasure. There’s just something really cool about thinking about going from stiff arming God and feeling the consequences to falling into step with Him and accepting Him as He is and opening our lives up to Him….that’s when we begin to be touched by the hand of God. How special is that?

How intimate!!

How powerful!!

How wonderful.

The baby bird, who’s stronger, is the one who still fights the eye dropper. He has yet to experience the intimacy of the hand of his feeder. All he knows is that when she finally pries his mouth open, he enjoys what goes down his throat. But he can’t share in the “relationship” the other bird has with my mom. Maybe before this is over, before she sets them free to fly outside, he will have accepted her….time will tell.

For me, I have to admit, I look with envy at the bird with the tattered wing. I still have a hard time accepting the hand of the Provider. I want what He provides, but to, in essence, eat out of the palm of His hand? I’m like the other bird.

But I want to be the one, who when He reaches out His hand of blessing, I take the blessing AND the hand with gusto.

I want to hear my Creator shout out with joy, “She did it!!”

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you.” declares the LORD.”
Jeremiah 29:11-14a

The Glory of God

"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands....there is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world..."

Psalm 19:1,3-4a

A week ago today, we were hit by a tornado. Our roof is totaled, our flowers and trees are shredded, but our house is still standing, and so are we. We take care of my 89 year old grandpa, and my parents and my one and only thought was, “Get Grandpa to the basement safely.” We did. With God’s help and in His strength and initiative on all our part we got him downstairs where he enjoyed watching the storm from the open door. Then we went out and took pictures and watched the storm. After it passed, we went out and assessed the damage. Outside our kitchen window, we have pots of flowers. Correction; we HAD pots of flowers. Now, we just have pots of stocks.And that made me think…..

Everywhere we looked we could see where the tornado had hit us. The beauty was in the sky, no longer in our flower pots, nor on our trees. This is like a theme for our life, or so it would seem.

The other day, my mom and I were looking at old pictures. Without meaning any disrespect, I looked at images of my mom 16 years ago and said, “What happened?” (I know, I know, totally wrong response and I know my future kids will totally get me back someday.) She even said, “Wow, if that wasn’t me, I’d say, ‘she’s pretty!!’” (See? My reaction was justified.) The picture we were looking at is stunning and it was a candid of her and Preston and me. I got to looking at the surroundings of the picture and I realized what the storms of life this flower had endured. The picture was taken right before one of her favorite people died, her kids were still babies- her youngest was 7 and she had no idea that he’d be deploying to Iraq 2 times 16 years later because of a war caused by terrorists in the Mid-East. Her mom/best friend was still alive, and she had no idea that her husband would lose his job and the country would be in a recession. She’d had storms in her life, but the next decade and a half would be the one where God would really test her.

Back to our flower pots, the stocks were still standing when we got upstairs. Their beautiful petals were in the pots floating around in the rain water. I about cried when I saw them. I mean, I’d just survived a tornado, I should have been joyfully happy, but all I could say was, “Look at our poor little flowers!!”

I felt the same when I saw the picture of my mom. When I felt a touch of fear, I realized that beauty was a god to me, my mom’s beauty, and beauty in general. I still think my mother’s “the prettiest lady in the whole wide world”, to quote Taylor Swift’s song, “Best Day”, but when I look back at what life does to beauty, it scared me. Maybe I faced my mother’s mortality or something. Maybe I realized that I’ll probably look like an old Asian woman someday. Whatever it was, made me see a part of my own humanity I didn’t like.

And then, like a storm clearing, I’ve seen the sun shining on the stocks in the flower pots all week. The stocks, though weathered and badly beaten up, were still standing. And in their standing, I saw a different kind of beauty. A beauty that lasts. I saw God. Life has beaten my family and me up like a tornado whips up the prairie. We are bruised and battered, but by the grace of God, we are standing. Our petals are floating around, but our stocks are strong and being made stronger. Our roots are firm. I look around at my church, my friends and acquaintances around the country and I see the storms of life haven’t left one of us unscathed. And I see the weary look in your eye, or hear it in your tone and feel it as I read your texts. Life is hard. Life hurts. But praise God, you are standing. I see Him when I talk with you and I watch you grapple with life and as you fight to stand. I’m proud of you, but more, I’m proud of Him. You may have lost your petals, your beauty that made you think you “had it”. But beloved, you have an everlasting beauty as the God of heaven and earth enters you and makes you stand. He proclaims your beauty and applauds you as you take one step after another in His direction. You are beautiful.

Guess what, today I saw the first flower since the storm outside the kitchen window. I went outside to examine and take a picture of it because I knew that I was going to show you. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the first flower is purple- the color of royalty. She’s battered and she’s got hail holes in her, but she’s there all the same. She showed up despite what the storm did to her. Want to know something else? She’s FACING THE DIRECTION SHE GOT HIT. She’s not cowering, afraid of the next storm. She’s facing it head on, almost defiantly. The storm didn’t get the best of her, she’s not letting it.

And neither are you. You are standing, even if your petals are gone, or they’re full of bullet-like holes, you’re standing. Your beauty will return. Selfishly, I hope and pray for each of us, it’s in this lifetime. But I do know for sure and for certain, you and I will have beauty bestowed on us by our God beyond this life. Stand firm and take a lesson from a battered flower who hasn’t lost her regal standing:

“In that day the Branch of the LORD will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land will be the pride and glory of the survivors in Israel.”

Isaiah 4:2 “How attractive and beautiful they will be!”

Zechariah 9:17

~Wanted, Judas and Friends!!!!~

“Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to Him those He wanted, and they came to Him. He appointed twelve- designating them apostles- that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons. These are the twelve He appointed: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); James son of Zebedee and his brother John (to them He gave the name Boanerges,which means Sons of Thunder); Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James, son of Alphaeus, Thaddeus, Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Him.”
Mark 3:13-19

I have been drawn to this passage for weeks and not just because we’ve been doing a life study kind of based on this passage at my church. I decided to really study it this week, which for me means reading it over and over, then looking at the other gospels to compare and letting all of it soak into me.

I’ve been focusing on the gifts these men received: The gift of being with Him, the authority to preach, and the authority to drive out demons. In Matthew 10 it says, He also gave them the authority to heal every disease and sickness. I’m in awe of these things. I believe these are possible and available to anyone who follows Jesus the way these men did.

I don’t know about you, but I rarely read all the names in the Bible. Call me sacrilegious, but I think it’s boring. Forgive me, LORD, for thinking anything’s boring about Your word. He gave these names on purpose. I have been overwhelmed to the point of tears this week as I’ve been studying because I read something I’ve never even understood before. Let me take you back with me as I show you what I read, and maybe you’ve already read this and have gotten it. If you have, please rejoice with me as we read of the incredible person of Jesus Christ. Forgive me as I zig-zag over the passage, but this is how I get things.

“Jesus…called to Him those He wanted….Simon….James….his brother John....Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James….Thaddeus, Simon…and JUDAS ISCARIOT, WHO BETRAYED HIM.”

He gave those gifts and the same authority He gave everyone else to Judas. He knew Judas was going to be key in His death on a cross. And He gave him the same power He gave everyone else. Why?

“Jesus …called to Him those He wanted…” - words of life. Precious words. He wanted Judas to be His friend, His companion, His APOSTLE. And even though Judas betrayed Him, isn’t Christ still glorified thru the person of Judas? His work was accomplished; He made the goal with Judas. Judas may have been an “apostle gone bad”, but you can’t talk about Judas without talking about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

This is big to me.

As I realize that Jesus wanted the person who He knew would later betray Him, I look back over the list of names and I see who else Jesus wanted: Simon Peter, the one who knew without uncertainty that he wouldn’t deny Jesus…just before he denied his friend; James and John who fought for self-importance; even the future Doubting Thomas was someone Jesus WANTED.

We don’t often think of Jesus having emotion, not like this. We know He wept when Lazarus died, we know He cried over the city of Jerusalem. But to think that Jesus called people He wanted is something so amazing. What’s also amazing is that THEY CAME. Simon Peter came. James and John came. Thomas doubted Jesus was alive later on, but he still CAME!! And Judas. Bless his heart, he came. He betrayed Jesus for money in the end, but there was a point in his life where Jesus said, “Come” and he went. Not only did he follow Jesus as His disciple, His apostle, but as His friend. Jesus wanted him. With all his faults, Judas was loved and he was WANTED.

I’m very close to tears as I realize the enormity of this. I desperately want to be wanted like this. The story of Judas gives me great hope. The story of the disciples gives me unspeakable joy. Because the 12 of them combined makes up the human race. Do we not fight for self-importance? Do we not say vehemently that “we will” or “we will not” and then we don’t, or we do? Do we not doubt Him, like ALL the time? And maybe we’re not as obvious as Judas, but betrayal comes in many forms. I stand ashamed that I’m all this and more.

This week I’ve been caught off guard by the love of Jesus. I believe the whole Bible is for each of us, what Jesus said there, He says to me personally, as well as you personally, as we read it. It’s my very own love letter from a Holy God. I am called because I am WANTED. I am loved and I have been given authority by God. It’s scary to think that the gifts He gave them are extended to me. That’s the real reason I’ve been pondering this scripture. And in studying that, I have been given a treasure in the middle of the scary. And maybe it’s the key to it not being so scary.

I asked a question on Facebook this week, “If Jesus said to you, “Come”, would you go?” The response, in essence, was, “How can I not?” Oh, beloved, you do have a choice. Following Him requires your whole life, your whole being. No breaks, no vacations, no restroom breaks. I don’t know where my study of this passage is going to lead me. But I do know thing:

I am wanted. And beloved, so are you.

If you ever doubt this, remember Jesus wanted the men who betrayed Him, denied Him and doubted Him to be His friends. You and I have done this and more.

We are in good company.

We are wanted.

“I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead I have called you friends, for everything that I have learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit- fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.”
John 15:15-16

I Can't Do It Alone

So, last night I watched the new Clint Eastwood movie, “Invictus” with Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon with my family. I had spent the day shopping with my mom and my aunt and almost literally shopped till I dropped. Between getting a new Jessica Simpson purse and finding the perfect jacket on clearance to spruce up my winter wardrobe, I also got a little too much sun as I laughed and talked with two of my favorite people in the whole world. But it was worth it, we had the best conditions for a shopping trip: sun, fun, great deals (haha, that NEVER happens for me), and just great fellowship.

So you can understand why I fell asleep during the very last rugby match in the movie. Sports is so not my thing, but I love sports movies. However, watching the actual games in movies gets abit old. I woke up during the last skirmish or whatever it’s called and then was wide awake as I watched how battles are won.

In this scene, these men linked arms and pushed against the enemy as hard as they could and it’s almost like their strength was supernatural as together they took one step and then another and gained ground.

In the battle called “LIFE”, we’re told to go it alone. We're seen as weak if we reach out to others for strength. Well, in the last scene from “Invictus”, one man trying to stand against the other rugby team would have not only looked weak, it would have been deadly. Whether it's a team playing against another team for the prize, or a plattoon battling against a foreign enemy, or a group of friends who stand together thru thick and thin, we need eachother. When the whole team stood and pushed together, progress was made. Who are your team mates? Who can you trust to link arms with and push against the enemy’s flow of doubt and depression and temptation?

I have a team, an army if you will; hell hath no fury like women with linked arms, shields drawn and swords wielded. And the men who stand in the gap for me……there is no one like them. God bless the men and women who have gathered around me and who have beaten back the enemy with me. You are my heroes.

“Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you my Father in Heaven. For where two or three come together in my name there am I with them.”
Matthew 18:20

The Eye of the Storm

Have you ever been trapped by a storm? More specifically, have you ever been trapped from your house because of a storm? Yesterday afternoon, my mom and I were stopped by, we think @ least, 2 tornadoes. I've never quite felt like I did yesterday. Kinda panicked because all I wanted was to go home and hide in my basement with my family and my most precious items, journals, Bible, jewelry, my new dresses. I'm sure I could have found more things to add to my list of "most precious items", like my laptop. After being trapped in town for a half hour, we tried to go home and then we had to turn around and stop at the closest shelter, but we still felt like we were very vulnerable. There were alot of people doing the same thing, just pulling over until the storm was manageable to drive through. I have been in my own personal storm these past few weeks (or should I say, I’ve been the CAUSE of my own personal storm?) I’ve been going through the rooms of my heart hoarding and hiding my treasures, much like I do when I’m at home and there’s a tornado. In Genesis, when Jacob left his father-in-law, his wife went and stole her father’s gods and then later sat on them so he wouldn’t find them. I don’t know the significance of the whole story, but I do know that she had his idols in her tent underneath her. The storm brewing in my heart and mind was causing such a ruckus in me that in a sense, I was hiding my idols underneath me so they wouldn’t be seen and so I could keep them. Our pastor preached a sermon last Sunday about heaven and he mentioned what won’t be in heaven, one thing being marriage.

ZING!!!

Yep, that was one of my idols. Wanna know how I knew for sure? God always makes sure we get the point and then REALLY get the point, doesn’t He? One of the last points of the sermon paraphrased was this, “What’s so important to you that you’re missing Jesus and heaven for?”

Gulp!!!

Heaven sounds incredibly awesome and it sounds really wonderful, except for one teensy, tiny little thing: no marriage (I know for some, this is like a “Yahooo”- type of thing). I’ve known this for awhile, but I’ve never really dealt with how I felt about that missing from heaven. Can we say, “Idol exposed!!!”?

While waiting out the storm next to the old grange-type building, something in me gave. When there's a storm and I’m home, all I think about are my “treasures” and what I want to keep- don’t judge me and say I’m materialistic, I like my stuff!! Being out there, literally being at the mercy of God, hoping the tree leaves and branches were the only thing that were flying out there, I realized there wasn’t a thing I could do about the storm. I can’t save my stuff at home or hold my dog. All I could do was be in awe of the beauty of it all…OUT THERE.

I was reminded of a storm my family drove through in Texas and Oklahoma a few years ago with our Chihuahua, KD. She was freaking out at the lightening that was hitting right around us and the loud thunder and she couldn’t calm down. Finally, when my dad stopped to check things out, my mom took KD out of the car and put her on the ground outside. It immobilized her and made her calm down. She put her in the back with me and KD just got as close to me as possible and started kissing my face. Her fear was still really real, but she knew who she could trust. It was a lesson to us all about how God is with us, He makes us face the storms in our life; He even leads us to them so that we’ll have to learn our dependence can only be on Him.

How ironic that the end of my heart’s storm came in the middle of a tornado.

How odd that God would calm me down while I was in a rocking car. It’s supernatural.

How ironic because I had just told my mom the day before, “It seems unnatural to give up my dreams!” Her paraphrased reply was, “Then you’re at a crossroads.”

How ironic that my heart took one step and then another while I was immobilized waiting out a storm.

How ironic indeed….

"God made my life complete when I placed all the pieces before Him...Every day I review the ways He works, I try not to miss a trick. I feel put back together, and I'm watching my step. God rewrote the text of my life when I opened the book of my heart to His eyes." 2 Samuel 22:21, 23-25 The Message

Man Looks At the Outward Appearance.....

I love colors. I love stark lines and polka dots. I love anything that is girly and pretty and fun. This site is so me now I can't believe it. When I first started this blog, I wanted it to be welcoming and colorful. Mostly women will be looking at this site and I wanted to present them, er you, with flowers. I know men will also be joining us on this journey, so I didn't want to overwhelm you, er them, with my girly-girlness. I want EVERYONE to read this and I want anyone's imput.

I want to take the time now and explain what the colors mean to me:

The pink and black-polka-dot-ribbon look is just totally me. I was playing around with different looks all day and when I saw this one, I giggled and clapped my hands in sheer delight. My mom, who was watching me and giving her input from time to time, said, "If you have this response, this is the one you need to go with." I prayed all day that God would help me figure out which look to go with that was viewer friendly and that was totally me, something that would bless us all. He totally answered!!

The purple titles and blog description are specific because WE ARE ROYALTY!!! If we have claimed God as King of our lives, we are royalty. I wanted it to stand out, I want it to shout it out: YOU, MY FRIEND, ARE ROYALTY.

My mom helped me pick out the maroon-ish color because it blends really well with all the other colors. Scripture will always be in bright red because it's God's word and it needs to be treated with the utmost of respect, color is a really good way to do that, in my opinion.

So, while I wanted to avoid the whole "girly" look so that women and men would feel comfortable and be comfortable reading my blog, I decided that being me was what was most important.

After all,

"God is spirit, and His worshipers must worship in spirit and in TRUTH." John 4:24

My prayer for you as you read thru this and as you look at my new and improved site, that you will see how freeing it is to be ourselves. If something causes you to giggle and clap your hands in utter delight, go with it. Ok, I know not everyone reacts the same way I do, but however you respond when God shows you that your little details are from Him, I pray you are able to reach out and bask in His love for you and see how personally He really does love you.

Man may look at the outward appearance, but remember this:

"The LORD looks at the heart"......Bring yours in truth, love.



*1 Samuel 16:7

Gems in the Desert

About 2 1/2 years ago, I became free. From the time I was conceived right up until then, I’d been in spiritual and emotional bondage. In my mind’s eye, using my imagination, I can picture this person in chains. I’ll be honest, for a long time, I was comfortable in those chains of guilt and fear. I got so used to them that I forgot they were even there. But, as is so His habit, God made me stumble on all the roadblocks that kept me from living a life of freedom and I’d cry out to be set free.

I was happy, healthy, normal child and then a pretty abnormal teen as I was still happy and healthy. However, there were always those trigger points that would just make me so aware of how unfree I really was in my heart and mind. When the ladies at my church started doing the “Breaking Free” study by Beth Moore, I couldn’t go, but I bought the study anyway. What took them 10 weeks to complete took me a year and a half as one layer after another of chains was painfully removed from the wrists of my heart. (Do hearts have wrists? I don’t know, but let’s pretend that they do, ok?) Between the study, sermons, and life, God opened up my heart. And then a miracle happened: I was free, confessing sins of old and realizing that being a product of rape affected my very psyche from the time I was born and shaking off old lies that kept me “securely” in those chains.

Since then, I’ve been learning how to live as a free woman. And this morning is when it hit me, THIS IS MY DESERT!!!! Ok, so that might not be so earth-shattering to you, but it is to me. I’ve read the passages in the Bible that have talked about the desert like,

“The LORD will guide you always; He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.” Isaiah 58:11

Or

“In a desert land, He found him, in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him; He guarded him as the apple of His eye, like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions. The LORD alone led him; no foreign god was among them.” Deuteronomy 32:10-12

There’s even a verse in Hosea,

“Therefore I am going to allure her, I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her….” Hosea 2:14- I’ve gotta break right here and just say, “I LOVE THIS PASSAGE!!!!” If you have a Bible nearby, please read the rest of the passage, it’s awesome!!!

When God freed the Israelites from the Egyptians, He then led them into the desert. And it would seem like whenever He frees anyone, the desert is His place of healing and restoration. Maybe because a desert is the least likely place to find healing and restoration; to learn how to depend on Him, maybe we have to be stripped of everything else but Him. One of the things I love about the passage in Hosea is that in vs 17, He says He’ll remove the names of baals from her lips.

And that brings me back to my realization this morning, some would call it an epiphany. This is where I am: I am free, I am a woman who’s been delivered by God from things I never thought I’d be free of, as well as things I never knew I needed to be freed from. But He has indeed allured me to the desert. But sometimes those “desert” times are just that: hot and dry and just miserable. Like the Israelites in Exodus, part of me has wanted to go back, I remember one time in prayer, God revealed one such chain and I literally grabbed my wrist and begged Him to leave that on there. I didn’t want to deal with it. But I knew I was already freed from it, it was now my choice to begin to let God heal or stay in bondage when the lock to the chain was wide open. Believe it or not, at the time, it was a really hard choice.

I’ve pondered all these passages about the desert and how God provides and cares for His people and seen it as impossible for me. I believed it for them, but not for myself. Until today. Today, God has shown me that my desert has been blessed with His mighty hand. I’m living those passages of Scripture I’ve been pondering. While God has blessed me, He’s also disciplining me, similar to how He disciplined the first freed captives in the desert (Exodus). He’s training my heart to hear His voice, He’s training my feet to walk His path, and He’s training my mind to embrace His plans when all I can see is the hot, dry desert. He’s training me to be usable. And He’s revealing the idols I’ve worshiped and little by little, removing their influence on my life, i.e. “removing the names of baals” from my lips. He’s teaching me to love Him with an undivided heart. And He’s teaching me to believe Him.

When I look at the desert, all I see sometimes is the barren ground- the unanswered prayers, the unmet desires of me and my family and friends, the way life always seems to fall apart all at once. And sometimes it’s quiet. Too quiet. It’s deafening, it’s so quiet. I’m forever being tempted to doubt God, doubt His provision, His personal promises to me thru His word and thru hearing His voice….awhile back. The golden calf isn’t that farfetched when I drop my legalistic veil and realize I would have at least been tempted to give up my gold, too. What am I saying? I give up my gold all the time in pursuit of idols, too!! I stand with the disciples when they asked Jesus in amazement, “Then who can be saved?”

Jesus’ reply is literally timeless as He’s proved it over and over again,
“With man, this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26

My point? Thank You, Jesus, and hallelujah!!! And thank You for this desert!! If there’s anything I want, it’s an undivided heart for God.

A few years ago, I had the gall to ask my mother if she ever felt like adopting me and my brother was God’s second best. After a night of agonizing grief on her part, she woke me up the next morning (yes, I know, the irony of me sleeping that night is hysterical) by sitting on my bed and giving me her pearl/diamond ring, saying with tears in her eyes, “You are a pearl of great price and a diamond in the rough.” Then she reminded me of the story Jesus told in Matthew 13:45-46, “He went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”, as well as the story of how pearls are made: with a lot of agitation between the clam and the grain of sand. And then she told me the story of how diamonds are made: in utter darkness and with much pressure. We were just in Seattle visiting relatives and I was reminded of this when we came across earrings that were made w/ volcanic rock from Mt. St. Helens.
I know many of the people reading this are in your own era of “desert-ness”. My prayer for you is that you will become increasingly aware of God’s provision and His blessing in this dry, barren time in your life. You’re not alone, if anything, you’re more the object of God’s affection and attention right now than any other time, if that’s even possible because there’s not a time when we’re not the object of His love!!! Don’t be afraid of the desert, love. Embrace the God who led you here to train you so that when this time is over, yours will be an undivided heart that no enemy, no force can take from you the treasures you acquired in your desert. Because trust me, there is much treasure to be found, starting at the feet of the Master, Jesus Christ.
If you’re anything like me, I’ll bet you’re hoping your desert time doesn’t take 40 yrs, but however long it takes, I’ll bet you and I come out shining like precious and rare gems. That is His promise, after all.


“Because of your great compassion you did not abandon them in the desert….You gave your good Spirit to instruct them….they lacked nothing, their clothes did not wear out nor did their feet become swollen.” Nehemiah 9:19a, 20a, 21b

Woman In Mirror Is Stronger Than She Appears

When I was first learning to read, I loved reading wherever I was. The very first word I recognized in the real world was “Stop”. The very first sentence was on the rear view mirror, “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.” All these years later, that sentence is reverberating in my head. And now the rear view mirror I’m talking about is not the one attached to the car.

I was sitting around the kitchen table with my family one night and the conversation turned to the past, most specifically my unusual childhood. From the time I was 4 until I was about 14, my family raised our own chickens and turkeys for Sunday dinners, and Thanksgiving and Christmas. What that means is that we raised them from baby chicks in the Spring and then come late Summer, early Fall, we’d butcher them ourselves. It sounds gruesome now, but some of my earliest and happiest memories are of those years. When I was 4 or 5, I remember singing to the naked (freshly plucked) chickens and praying for them to get teeth so they could eat real food. The fact that they were headless slipped my tiny mind as I asked every question under the sun. This is where I learned everything about “guts ‘n’ stuff”. I laughed so hard I cried as my mom and grandma got so silly gutting those birds. It may not have been the most conventional classroom, but this is where my biology class took place. Everything I learned out of a textbook came back full force as I recalled “butchering days”.

Looking back, this is also a portrait of part of who I am. Remove the germ phobia, the perfect makeup and hairstyles, the manicured nails and the picture-perfect way I try to conduct myself at all times and I’m the little 4 yr old covered in blood and feathers and drenched from rinsing the chickens out in the tubs. That was my job: rinsing, after my mom finished gutting. Sun burnt with messy hair, I was a happy and healthy child. I don’t believe my calling in life is to work for a butcher, but I know that whatever it was that made me clutch the freshly slaughtered chickens to my chest like they were my babies is still in me.

I believe that it was strength, the gift to live within the moment and not let the grossness of it all even faze me, it wasn’t gross at all, it was life and I loved it. What made me this wild child? And how can I get her back? Her, with all her freedom, her radiance and her fearlessness? I realized as we chattered on and on about the “good ol’ days”, that I’m stronger than I realized as I looked at my pampered life of today. I have the luxury of talking myself into being freaked out about germs and other gross stuff. I realize that I’m a self-made woman and that’s not all that flattering, if I do say so myself.

My niece will be 7 weeks old this week and recently, her mommy told me that she loves her “tummy time”. My sister-in-law told me that Tamara gets up on her elbows and pulls herself up a little. In listening to the cute little anecdotes, I’m remembering something else of my childhood, something that speaks of the strength I’m talking about now. I was born with club feet and contracted polio at 2 months. The club feet were a sign of a terribly stressful life survived inside the womb. I believe based on the little history we have about my birth parents that I was a hair’s breath away from death the whole time. When I was 2 days old, I was put in an orphanage and that’s where I was sick w/ polio. I was moved from that one to another orphanage where I caught another strain of polio. God protected my life and 4 months later, I was delivered into the hands of my parents and I’ve been here ever since. For eleven years of my life, I lived unashamed of my disability. I was even proud that I was different. I wore shorts that showed off my skinny polio-stricken legs, and if people noticed, I didn’t care. Then, all of a sudden, I “grew up”, started wearing long skirts and more jeans and hid my legs for the sake of “modesty”. What started out being a noble reason became a shield behind which to hide. I’m now 25 and I’ve begun doing battle on my mindset toward my disability and my still skinny polio-stricken legs. I’m tired of hiding behind any shield other than the one that Jesus Christ holds out to me: The shield of faith.

My point isn’t me, or my disability. I give that to you as an example of the strength God gives babies. I believe that God has given babies the strength to live and thrive. We’d never live to adulthood if as babies we weren’t as strong as we are. I also believe based on my own life, the less dependent we become on someone else taking care of us, that unless we choose to depend upon God’s strength, we begin to lose that strength He equipped us with. Call it a loss in muscle tone. We are flabby when it comes to being strong in the LORD unless we’ve been working out. But, as it is with our bodies, when we start working out and keeping at it, we gain results. The results I want to see in myself and other unattached woman are a gain in dignity and a loss in “singleness” depression. Because trust me when I say, we’ve lost our dignity as women unattached. If we can’t see it, the male race can, and it ain’t pretty.

Our womanly value does not rest on gaining a man or having children. If so, we’d be seeing happier and more secure wives and mothers than we do. Our own mothers would be more restful and less cranky if their value solely rested on having obtained the status “motherhood”. And divorce would be on the decline instead of the rise. My example of how going from singlehood to being married and becoming a mother does not define you as a woman comes from a lady I’ve seen around town who’s got to be the crankiest mother I’ve ever seen. Her children, nor her, are to be envied as she yells at them and slaps the tops of their heads. Clearly, motherhood hasn’t defined her as a woman, or if it has, it’s not a pleasant definition.

One of my most favorite things to do is to hang out with veterans of marriage and childrearing. On occasion one such victim, I mean veteran, could be a man, but most of the time it's women. I don’t intentionally hang out with them to gain their insight, I just always have hung out with them and I have gained so much from them. One such woman being my mother. If there’s anyone I can learn from, it’s her. She’s the picture of a praying, believing, fighting, loving wife and mother. Her relationship with God is one I envy. She’s fallen on her face many a time before her God and had fights she wondered if she’d recover and instead, seen His love and grace. I’ve watched her believe God and in my disbelief cried out, “I want that!!” I’ve watched her grieve to the point of physical pain and sickness over what God has taken from her and seen Him give back tenfold. I’ve seen God’s hand of blessing on her and been filled with holy jealousy. And in the last month or so, I’ve watched her become at rest with God and His plan for her life, no matter the cost. Nothing rocks her anymore. She still has her days of pain sometimes, but they’re becoming fewer. But her life is different now, her whole outlook is, “God will take care of me, whatever comes up, He will guide me and show me. I just have to trust Him.” She’s now the epitome of the Proverbs 31 woman who laughs at the days to come. I find that annoying when I read it, but when I look at my beautiful mother, all I can say is, “I see it, I want it, LORD, I want that!!!”

In hanging out with my mom and having coffee with friends who are the aforementioned veterans, I’ve learned that different men can have the same affect on different women, the veterans of marriage and child rearing have all said the same thing about their husbands. Men who couldn’t be more different, do the same things that drive their wives nuts. Women who couldn’t be more different say the same things about their husbands and their children.

If there is anything I’d like single women to understand today it’s that THERE’S MORE TO LIFE THAN JUST WAITING FOR MISTER RIGHT. Not that that’s not important, it is; but there’s a life to be lived out there and not just so we appear busy to the men we’re ignoring so they’ll notice us. We, as a whole, have been living as if it’s the all encompassing thing when in reality, NOW is when God wants to use us and HERE is where He is calling us to give our all in whatever we do for Him. “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew 6:34

I want to close with one of my favorite movie lines from the end of one of my favorite movies, “Secondhand Lions”:

“Those men, from Great- Grandfather’s stories, they really lived?” Oil sheik’s great-grandson
“Yeah, they really lived,” marvels an amazed Walter.

Let the same be said of you and me.

By Way of Introduction (albeit an odd one,I know)...- for the ladies, though guys are welcome

There’s a new phenomenon taking place in my heart and I know that it’s God’s work inside me because I would never have these thoughts or inclinations on my own. The truth is, I’m tired of being single, of wishin’ and hopin’ for the right guy to come along. When I’m not watching other people getting hooked up and married and having babies, I’m watching women around me watch those people and then I transfer their depression to my own mind. When I step back and evaluate myself, I see that I’m not ready to get married and have a family of my own yet. The stark reality is equivalent to a cold shower as I realize that a relationship means being responsible to and for another human being (and male, at that) besides myself. Then come the dimension of babies, who turn into toddlers, who turn into children, who turn into teenagers, who turn into, hopefully, responsible adults.

Whew!! I think I aged 20 years while writing the last two sentences, talk about your life flashing before your very eyes!! But if I’m not ready to be married yet and I’m tired of being single, what’s life in between those two thoughts?

Well, there’s the idea of being in love with someone and then the whole future flashing before my eyes won’t be scary or overwhelming, it will just simply be right. But I’m not in love, nor is anyone beating down my door showering me with flowers and love poetry (and if there was, it’d probably be someone I didn’t even like). So there has to be something else, something that takes the place of pity parties with girlfriends and the “You’re so much prettier than she is” sessions. Girlfriends are good for a lot of things, but pity parties are over rated. We tend to drag each other down when we’re trying to build the other up with flattery and sympathy. It takes us a year (or more) to get over “the one that got away”, when in reality, if we just wiped the snot off our noses and freshened our makeup, we’d see there’s a life out there to be lived.

Well, clean that mascara off your cheek, dear heart, because I have been given a gift by the Most High God that is the answer to, “what about life in between?” It doesn’t take a man, or any other human being besides you to receive this gift. I know this because I’m in process of receiving this gift myself at this very moment. It’s too big to keep to myself, I must share it. I don’t even know if I’ve fully grasped its magnitude because I keep falling on my face in what I call “Freak Out Moments”. But let’s be good girlfriends to each other and become each other’s strength as we individually hold our hands out to the Giver of all good gifts and let Him fill us to over flowing capacity with His gifts. I promise you, He won’t disappoint, He will come through for you and me, and He will show you things you’ve never dreamed of. Open your heart, love, and let Him in.

Remember in Mary Poppins how they all jumped into the painting? Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to jump from this dreary life called “Singleness” and into a life that’s filled with wonder and adventure. So, what do you say? Are you ready to blow your nose one last time and wash your face? Put some new makeup on, you never know when you’re going to pass by a mirror, you don’t want to see traces of your old pity parties. You want to see a woman who’s on her way to meet Someone. You want to see a woman who’s ready for anything, you want to see a woman who’s ready to fall in love along the way. I don’t know if your end of the journey includes a man or not, but I do know Someone who thinks you’re desirable and who wants you just the way you are. And we’re on our way to meet Him. Are you ready now? One, two, three…….now, beloved, jump!!!