FEAR THAT GRIPS FOR LIFE

For this thorn Lord, I give You praise! Each time it cuts me I am left better than before. More of the old putrid wound is removed and new life takes its place. I am becoming new, for the continual tsunami of pain has driven me under the shadow of Your wing. For there, under Your feathers is the only place I find refuge. My soul clings to you. Your right hand upholds me. Always...it upholds me! If it weren't for the voice of the accuser and condemnation telling me who I'm not, I would never have been desperate enough to run to You to have found who I am. What the enemy has devised for my destruction, You have used to build me up. It has caused me to seek higher ground. I have built my house on solid rock instead of sand.

In the relentless effort to cast off the weight and heaviness of the choking accusations, I have found a crown of righteousness lying under its shadows. I use to grovel at the idol sitting on the throne of my heart, begging for approval and value from a statue of stone. But now, I lay before Your throne prostrate, wishing I had more adoration to lay at Your feet. I come not begging or in a posture to receive, but one aware that I owe you my everything. Upside down is Your Kingdom, for when I come with only giving as my intent, I leave with more than my heart can hold. In my praise, I receive, for it is impossible to ever out give You.

If I were the summation of what all I own, or the roles I play, and it were to burn up in a moments time, You have made it known to me that my beauty would not be found in the ashes heaped. For all the times I have begged for this cup to pass from me, only Love's best has allowed it to remain. For you have patiently proven through my tears and strain that the thing I most feared in life has no power over me when I am in You.

I have looked into the hard cold eyes of that taunting fear, wave after wave after wave, and having done all to stand, I stand. I have looked long and hard at the worst case scenario of what my life would be if I were consumed by the fear that I fear most, and to my surprise I see myself hand in hand with Love walking out to freedom on the other side, adored, whole and strong.

So as I wince with pain and bleeding flesh from yet another jab from this thorn in my side, I thank You for loving me enough to allow my world to come apart at the seams. For it is there where I find You holding it safely in Your arms. You are Faithful and True and with singing lips my mouth will praise You. For what satan has planned for my harm, You have worked for my good. For rather than my destruction, You have shown me my value to You. It was beyond my recognition, above and beyond anything I would have ever dared to believe or hope for.

In the midst of dying in the very real trenches of hell on earth...I have found paradise! The thorn designed to destroy me through relentless pain has become the tool of heaven to bring me glorious gain. I will praise You in this storm, for the force of the violent winds, the tempest that bears down hard against flesh, has ripped me open wide, and to my unbelievable surprise, I find I am cherished, I am safe, and nothing is left wanting!

  THE VALUE OF LITTLE TIME                                                                                     

There are some Kingdom truths that I have been slow in coming to. Not because I choose to be slow, there are just so many of my truths I have to recognize aren't the real truth and cast those to the wayside, so that "Kingdom's truth" can settle down on the inside of me. Progress in the Kingdom is not so much the learning, but the constant effort to "unlearn" the lies we have operated out of for so long. I grieve because of my slowness to move towards the light.

Recently, Love was teaching me a new truth. As the weight of it began to unfold on me I remember feeling such shame that I had not seen it before. How slow I was in coming. But, as only Love can do, He reminded me that there is no shame or condemnation allowed in His presence. He does not see time as we do.

He is calling me to banish my ideas of how I am to orchestrate my life and take hold of Kingdom's ideas. He desires to use me in new ways, yet they are not new to Him, for He is eternal. As I chose to step out of condemnation and into His light I told Him that I don't have much left to offer. The grief of not having seen His desire and provision for me to operate in this new way, in the past 53 years, broke my heart. I've wasted so much time. How could I have been so dull? I promised Him that in this area I would give Him whatever days I have left on this earth. I would consent to be used however He sees fit and I was sorry for being so slow coming to this truth.

Maybe you have found yourself at this junction before. The feeling of wishing you had offered Him more and much sooner. The regret of having lost so much time having lived outside of Kingdom's truth. Shame of being so slow to draw near. He reminds us that even though we have been slow in coming and we have possibly even lived more days than we have left to live, in His Kingdom, time is not how value is measured.

Love reminds us in the twentieth chapter of Matthew how a landowner needed workers for his vineyard. Those he hired early in the morning he promised to pay them a denarius for a full days wages. As the day progressed  he went out four other times, hiring more workers. The last time being about five in the afternoon. He asked them "Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?" They replied, "Because no one has hired us." He said to them, "You also go and work in my vineyard."

When it was time to pay the workers, they were all given a denarius, the same amount that was promised to those who had labored all day. Those who had worked since early morning were angered. The landowner asked them, "Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous? So the last will be first, and the first will be last."
Kingdom's ways are not our way. In the Kingdom, everyone is given grace! Even those of us who have squandered too much time on things not eternal.

Rather than allowing shame to paralyze us, why don't we offer Him, the little we have left? Love has a way of making our little into something that will amaze us.  Why don't we bring Him our five loaves and two fish and allow Love to multiply it and feed the masses. What we possess is exactly what He needs. It's actually the only thing He ask of us. It's never to late to give away the little we have and watch Love do a miracle!

                                     WIDE OPEN SPACES

I'm not a risk taker by nature. In the past I would avoid failure on any level. Since as long as I can remember there was an unpleasant voice in my head that would tell me "don't even try it...you'll just fail". So, I always played it smooth. I would always tell others that I didn't enjoy playing that game, just to avoid the embarrassment. I didn't know if I enjoyed the game or not, because I had never played the game. But safer seemed better than enjoyment might have and a heck of a lot better than humiliation. I think that voice in my head must have started when I was in the bassinet. I don't remember ever being without it, at least not until Love rescued me.

Since that time I have found myself, little by little, exposing my fear of failure to His light. Each time I do, that voice gets a little quieter. I like that! To be honest, even writing this blog is a great risk to me. I have wrestled between doing what I feel Love has asked me to do and fear that I have nothing of value to say, which being interpreted would be FAILURE!  There, I put it down on paper (well a screen actually), but somehow I feel a relief just having said it. So while I am at it, I will apologize in advance for poor grammar and sentence structures too! I really don't know if what I am trying to convey to you as the reader is truly able, with all my flaws, to penetrate off of this screen and into your heart, but that is my desire. But even more importantly than that, I believe it is His desire. Therefore, I am willing to take the risk.

I recently took a great risk! I took a chance of trying something that was totally out of my comfort zone. I knew if it worked, I would really enjoy the outcome. Well, it didn't. Pretty much a failure! To be honest, I'm glad I tried it. Because in the failures I have to go back to square one and find out what truth really is. Truth is my value is not defined the way the world teaches. It is not defined by the number on my bathroom scales, or how cohesive my boards look on Pinterest. Being accepted by my peers or even those I love doesn't define my value. Even I don't define my value! Our value is determined by The One who created us and how valuable we are to Him. He settled that on the cross over two thousand years ago!

That unpleasant voice that had tracked me from the bassinet caused me to create very, very tight boundaries in my life. Until Love came, my way was very dark and narrow. I missed out on all kinds of things that would most assuredly, have brought me joy and possibly others as well. When Love came He dug up those fence post and has set them out further than my eyes can see. The field between here and there has both hills and valleys, but both are strewn with the most inviting array of wildflowers. Colors that I had never seen on the dark narrow path. Love's boundaries are not designed to limit us or diminish our lives. His boundaries invite us to see just how far we can go!

LOVE HAS COME FULL CIRCLE

All of history has been an extravagant invitation...Love's invitation. It is and has always been "His-story". There is not a soul that has ever lived, that could truly deny His wooing. It is everywhere, in every land, every culture, every heartbeat. It comes in all forms of life, a radiant sunset, the touch of a newborn baby, the place where music takes you, when you breathe it in deeply. Life, no matter how bitter, has it's sweet.

I find it hard to believe that He would invite us to partake of Him in all His glory. But, that is exactly what He has done since the beginning of time. Actually, He even created time, just for us. He has pursued His created ones with passion...and patience.

He does not extend Loves invitation for Himself, but for us. He needs nothing. Really...what could we possibly give Him that doesn't already belong to Him? He offers us Love's invitation because He IS Love. It's not something He feels. It's not something He displays. It is who He is. He. is. Love. Because He is Love, He can't help Himself...He wants to share Himself with you...with me. Think about it, there is nothing more valuable than He is, and He offers it to us without restraint. We can have as much of Him as we want.

I think most of us believe that we were created to live "our lives". You know, find happiness and accomplish what we can and somewhere along the way we realize that God should be a part of that life. So, we try real hard to sprinkle spiritual things and activities in the mix. It's as if we are given a life to live and if your one of the lucky ones, you find God, and you add Him to your more than busy schedule. We are grateful that loving Him and serving Him gives us more peace and joy than we had before.

What if our paradigm is all wrong? What if we were created for Him and not the other way around. What if we weren't given a life for ourselves? What if He purposed to give us breath on planet earth so He could love us and use the overflow of that love to spill over into the lives of others? I always believed that His love for me was the fullest expression of love. Because there is still a lot of me, that got stuck at a two year old level, that thinks the world revolves around me. I don't want to be rude, but you might check yourself and see if when you think about your world...who is at the center?

What He has been showing me lately, is my life wasn't created so He could be the afterthought and invited into the mix. My life was created FOR Him. Actually, I was the afterthought added to His mix. Lucky for me! (Lucky for you!) We spend our life trying to find ourselves and find our purpose. We waste a lot of time because every time we try to figure it out, we start with ourselves as the starting point. It's only when we start with Him as the point of origin, that we finally arrive to the place where we find out who we really are, and what our purpose really is.

I was not created so I could be loved by God. It was His love that created me. I was created in His love, so I could experience that love and be an expression of it to others. For love isn't complete if I am the center of my universe. Love is only complete when I give away what I have been freely given. Then, and only then has Love made it's complete circle. When I choose to let you be the center of my universe, instead of myself, then and only then do I truly experience the purpose for which I was created. When I choose to die to myself for your sake, for His sake, that is when I really live. That is truly the prize! You know it yourself. Think back to a time when you sacrificed to truly help someone else, someone who was more needy than you. When you walked away from that encounter don't you remember feeling like you were the blessed one, like you gained even more than they did? That's because Love made it's full circle, and He used you to complete that circle. 

That's Love's invitation. This is what we were created for. This is our purpose for being given breath. He has pursued every son and daughter, throughout every generation, to allow them to experience the gift of being a vital part of completing Love's circle. We are given the privilege to experience who He is when we give Love away. There is no greater gift than the gift to experience who He is! He was willing to die on the cross, so we might live, not only to experience Love, but to give Love away.

GLASS HALF EMPTY   

So really, is the glass half full or half empty? The answer to such a simple question varies. When one answers, it generally reveals how one sees the world...their world. I came into the world as a pessimist. I saw the emptiness of the glass. I saw what was missing. As I matured, I would respond to my optimistic friends that I was not a "pessimist but a realist". Either way, my eyes and my heart could only focus on the reality of the emptiness of the glass...the hopelessness of  not enough.

In my twentieth year I found the Lover of my soul. Actually, He found me. I learned to take my half empty glass to Him often. I would hold it up, front and center, and explain to Him how it was not enough. How I was not enough. How my circumstances were not enough. Eventually, the glass grew larger, because now I had a husband who was showing signs of  being not enough. Then we had our three precious daughters and I became gripped with the fear, paralyzed actually, that I simply was the half empty glass, and I was obviously not enough to be in charge of shaping those priceless treasures.  It was exhausting. The glass seemed heavier each time I carried it to Him.

I cried out to Him to change the focus of my eyes...to change the focus of my heart. Life with those pink precious bundles became busier than I ever imagined. No matter how busy I became, no matter how exhausted I was for not getting a single night of undisturbed sleep for five long years...it was vital that I met Him each day, and fed upon His words. He was my substance...He was manna for my soul. He was enough!

I don't know how many months or years had passed by, in the blur of my more than busy life, when I realized one day that the glass was half full! Half full!!! I saw it with my own eyes!  It was one of those embarrassing moments, when you know that all of heaven has been waiting for your response to His miracle to you, and you hadn't even noticed. Somewhere in the whirl of  life,  He had answered my heart cry and had made me new. Where He simply, as if without effort, cut out that place inside of me, that place of hopelessness, that place that I thought "was me" and He mysteriously left a part of Himself. That place of putrid stench, He replaced with His fragrance of hope.

I can't begin to tell you how much life changed for me with that new view- a glass half full. I had hope for the first time, without having to wrestle for it. Just waking in the early morning light of it was breathtaking. How did He do it? I wish I could tell you. But, all I can tell you, is that I know that I know He did. He delights in giving good gifts to His children! For I was once blind, blind to the hope we have in Him, but now I see! I really see!

Texas Heartbeat

I got to spend a day last week with my hero. You've possibly never even heard her name. You won't find her on Facebook or Twitter. She's usually tucked away somewhere off the beaten path. Last week you would have found her weaving in and out of the Texas Bluebonnet Trails laughing, as I shared the adventures of my life with her. I love her laugh...it brings something inside of me very alive. Actually, being in her presence stirs me like no other. We have shared the same heartbeat for fifty four years. I treasure every minute with her.

She has always been strong, yet, if you asked her she would say she steers toward weak. She has always given more than she has ever taken. She has served others and preferred them over herself. She holds her tongue even when she is sure that she may know best. She is quiet and unassuming. She is loyal, even when it really hurts. She finds joy in the simple things. She is faithful and true. She gave up everything to give it to me. I owe her more than a lifetime can pay. We live over 500 miles apart...yet I feel her right here with me. She is amazing. She is my hero. She is my Mama.

God has been more than gracious to me. He has given me so much delight. When He gave me my Mama, He gave of His richest treasures! Texas Bluebonnets will forever hold a new precious memory for me.