CASTING SEED

I have been wrestling for awhile, trying to decide what part I play in the "Big Picture". They say when you reach my age, your nest may be empty...but your womb is bursting with new life, creativity that has been on hold for decades, while tending to those you gave life to. There are so many things that I love, like music, worship, writing, teaching, photography, encouraging those in need, creating beautiful things...the list goes on. I find myself spending more time trying to decide what I should be doing than actually doing! I think it's because I want to be busy "being about my Father's business". I want my fingerprints to be found alongside His. I want the investment of my life to be for the biggest bang! Yet, too often I look at the seed in my hand, in my womb, and feel like it is too tiny and insignificant to make a difference. I compare my seed to that of others and theirs seems to have so much more bling! Mine is tiny and...well...appears lifeless!

I realize that all I can give away is what I have been given. I hear You whisper, that You don't require me to produce extravagant seed. You only ask that I sow the seed I have been given and because it originated in You, extravagance will be released. No matter how tiny the seed appears,Your extravagance is inherit within! You alone know the magnitude of the life found in a single seed. If I will but cast it into the wind, You will cause it to flourish!

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SOWING SEED IN WINTER     

Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him. Psalm 126:5-6

It's winter. I must watch my tongue, to not become a murmuring Israelite. I don't like the winter, especially here in Oklahoma. I remember trying to plant spring bulbs my first winter here. It was only November, but no matter how I tried to pierce the soil in my pot, it would not give. It finally occurred to me, the soil must be frozen! I'm from the Houston area and you can plant almost all year long. It took all I had not to march inside and pack my bags to return home. I don't like the hardness of winter. I don't want frozen soil!

Maybe it's because it's a little too close to my own soil, the soil of my heart. The place my life plays out. I find my life, time and time again, not looking anything like I had imagined. I didn't sign up for this one. It's nothing like the brochure I had envisioned as a child. Mountains are beautiful and breathtaking from a distance. It's a whole different story when you stand at the base of one realizing you must overtake it, or be overtaken.

It seems I find my life constantly being confronted with another opportunity to dig up the hard ground and make room for the seed of Love to make His abode. It's not like He tells me in advance, rather I seem to wake up to the deafening sound of machinery as it tills its way into yet, another one of my hard places. This may be a new patch of land, but I've been here before. I've learned the hard way that I can't stop the tilling. He is a Master Gardener. He knows best. What once seemed like a restful place in my world is now being ravaged as dirt and weeds fly into the sky as the sharp blades of metal tear back yet another plot of land, that was once hidden.

I have two choices. I can refuse to become a part of the new planting or I can yield my heart and grab my bag of seed. I didn't ask for this kind of terrain in my life, nevertheless, He has unearthed it. What I have learned, in times past, is that He never leaves the work He began in me, before He has delighted me with the outcome. I am always grateful for the beauty that replaced what was once hard soil. He is faithful and true and I can always trust Him.

Many times it is through tears that I reach for His hand. He is not put off with my pain. He does not turn away from my questioning and reasoning. Rather, He waits for me to start the dialogue, the dialogue where I am totally raw with Him and free to release my emotions. It seems it is at those moments He has always drawn closest.

I have learned that He is to be trusted at all times. His ways with me have proven that over and over. I have learned that the journey is more enjoyable when I determine to plant seed along the way. No matter how rough the terrain, no matter how many tears may temporarily blind my vision, I will cast my seed of hope out upon the ruptured earth. Although I go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, I WILL return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with me!

He is Faithful. He is True.                        

DON'T DIE WITH YOUR MUSIC LEFT INSIDE

I saw a sign a few years ago that read "Don't die with your music left inside." It struck a chord within me (no pun intended). The sad idea that I could live out my days and not release my music has haunted me. At times I feel the music is at torrential proportions within me. I get excited at the possibility of it's release...yet I often feel inept to give it the royal birth it deserves.

I believe music is spirit. It has inherent power to transform the atmosphere where it is released. I believe that Love has sown a song in each of our souls. He desires that sound to be released through the living out of our lives. My song is different than yours, for my personality is different than yours.  The root word for personality can be interpreted as "one who sound travels through". We were created to release a sound. His sound!  Everything Love created was created with the "sound" of His voice. He created us in His likeness and therefore I believe we too create with the sound of our own voices.

 

What if every obstacle in life, every intense season of pain and confusion, has been nothing more than a methodical plan of the enemy to keep my voice silent, or even worse...negative? What if every set back and every time my heart suffered rupture, was like an evil game of chess, played by the hand of darkness to keep my song muffled? What if the devils schemes are sent like perfectly drawn arrows to destroy the heavenly tune I carry?

 

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2:11 that when we have been hurt and offended we must choose forgiveness "in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes." He schemes using pain to steal our focus...to steal our praise, to steal our song.

 

What if we beat him at his own game and begin to birth the song we were intricately designed to sing? What if the true meaning of life  is giving birth to the music that swells up within us and releasing it back into the heavenlies? It would be like heaven invading earth! What if heaven has already invaded earth, and it's bottled up inside of me, bottled up inside of you...and it's just waiting to be released?

 

Resurrection day is always a beautiful day of reflection for me. Jesus came and lived His life to the full and then He offered it up as the sweetest melody ever released. Resurrection was the moment of earths greatest crescendo! It was at that moment that Heaven truly invaded earth! The veil that separated us from Love was ripped from top to bottom as Love's ballad of invitation floated down to all those below who were made in His image. Every time you and I celebrate this truth, every time we praise His name, we release a heavenly sound that declares to the enemy that he has been defeated and that Love has won! Let us not die with Love's music left inside!

 

Shout for joy, you heavens; rejoice, you earth; burst into song, you mountains! For the LORD comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones. (Isa. 49:13)

 

 

Photo credit: Jessica Nadine Photography

 

 

You know me. You know me well. Who else sees me the way You do? Who can love me like You?
No one else moves towards me the way that only You can. You are my Prince...my Beloved.

You put the words in the heart of a girl who lives on the other side of the continent. Then you hum to her the tune that the words should be set to. She writes and plays and records the music that somehow makes it into my home, into my sanctuary. As the song list unfurls around me, You remind me of the moments we have shared together. Not just one song, but several bring back memories and conversations with You. I realize that it is no accident that the album truly seems like it was written for me...for us.

She may have penned the words, but You had already breathed them into me. As they move towards me in melody I see them played out in my minds eye. I know You are reminding me of what seemed at the time, to be independent moments, now laced together, to once again prove to me how close You are. As only You can, You are assuring me that I am safe with You...we are safe with You.

Only You knew, that the songs would land in my heart before You would give me another dream. The dream encouraging me "to bring You hope". It wasn't a surprise to You that the dream would arrive only days before hard news.

Hard news is never easy! It's never my default to walk through hard times with "hope". I'm known to fumble around in the darkness...as if that is all there is.

You see me, and You know me. You comfort those in their affliction. You wrote ballads and dreams, both of which You sent to me, to remind me, so that I could remind others, that "We truly have hope!" We truly are safe!

The journey is much harder than I would like...but each time my default begins to wear me thin. I remind myself to "bring You hope so that You have something to work with!" Then I press play one more time on the CD player as the music begins to slip into my soul and I find myself once again dancing in Your presence.

I am left speechless at how You love us. You go before us. You go with us. You hem us in from behind...we have hope in You and Your heart. We are safe!

OPENING DOORS OF REVELATION

 

Maybe it's not New Year Resolutions that we need, as much as New Year Revelation. I'm turning 54 and I've never made a New Years Resolution. The idea of resolutions is one of changing my behavior...I've learned that my behavior never changes long term until my heart has. It comes with no real power...just self-determination. I may not know a lot, but one of the things I do know is "self-determination" ends with "termination". Trust me, I know that by experience, not just by phonetics.  I never have liked to start something I couldn't finish well. So again this year I will reach for revelation.

Revelation is not dependent on my determination. It is always dependent on His...and that is the only thing in the universe that never changes. Yet, it is the Grace which accompanies revelation that changes everything. Every January first it remains the same. Revelation comes with the power inherit within it to propel me in it's direction. As Light reveals what darkness has hidden from my understanding, I am drawn, I am wooed to walk into it's light. It is the opposite of self-determination for it is a divine invitation. When I say yes to this divine invitation, Grace empowers me to walk in the newness of Love's revelation. Only with Grace am I able to do what I couldn't do before. It is not a whipping-up of the will, but a surrendering of the same. It is not self-determination but a Grace-determination. It is a laboring to enter His rest and not one of self works. (Heb. 4:10)

I have fallen more than I have entered...not because Grace doesn't work, but because I move back into self works, but the invitation is new every morning...I don't have to wait until next year to try again...today and everyday is looking bright. My prayer is that we may all seek Light's invitation to open the door into His revelation and be welcomed by the arms of Grace!

   


    WHERE ARE YOU ?


Since I was a child I have always found relief in putting my feelings on paper. When they seem too jumbled to make any sense of them, paper has always brought about order and in a strange way a sense of peace. It is a way of calling them to the surface and finding the truth that is not always so easy to see when they are submerged in the form of random thoughts only. It is the gift of a pen which brings order out of my souls groaning's. It is in the expressing of those groans that the soul finds it breath.

The blank page requires a question to be answered. It is the same question that Love asked in the garden. Fear had found its way into the soul of both Adam and his bride. They hid from the very One that adored them. In their confusion they turned away from Truth, but Truth never turned away from them. His question to them was "Where are you?" Of course He knew exactly where they were. The question was posed to give them the clarity that would come in their answer. It was designed to get them to see that they had moved out from under the protection of Truth and into the throws of the enemy. "We were naked." they answered. He again pushes the point, by asking them "Who told you that?"

From our vantage point we can see how foolish they were to have listened to the serpent and to have hidden from Love. How many times have I done the very same thing? I have come to realize anytime I feel overwhelmed emotionally it is because I have believed a lie...why else would I ever wander away from Loves presence and peace? I would never do it unless I was deceived! The word tells us that He is the Prince of Peace, therefore when we fix our eyes on His, peace becomes ours. If peace is lacking, it means something else has stolen our focus. That something else, is far more inferior than we were ever created to live in.

How about you? Do you need pen and paper to help you pinpoint where you are? If you find that you have wandered away from Peace, you might ask yourself  "who have I been listening to?" In the clarity that comes with your answer you will be able to see how to navigate your way back into the arms of Peace. And in His arms is the very place you were created to be.

The Lord delights in those who fear Him,

 who put their hope in His unfailing love.  Ps. 147:11

Darkness covers the earth. Threats from both near and far come with the fear of Ebola or ISIS. Don't turn on the 6 o'clock news unless you want to deplete your adrenaline. Dark times are all around. At times, the bad news doesn't come to you through your television but from a loved one on the other end of the phone. It's those times you wish you could just reach out and turn the dreadful thing off...but you can't. The report is not coming to you from a well groomed reporter but from one who holds your heartstrings. There are words coming at you but all you can hear is a roar like Niagara Falls. A roar that is deafening. A sound that threatens to turn your world upside down. You struggle to listen as images of fear overwhelm your senses. It's all crashing in on you and you struggle to breathe as you wrestle with the idea of how to grab hold of everything dear to you and squeeze it tightly to your chest.

It's been that kind of month, for both my family and friends. By choice I never turn on the 6 o'clock news, I choose rather, to turn to the Good News. That way when the bad news comes my way I find a steady foundation under my feet rather than one of sinking sand. It doesn't mean I might not lose my footing for a moment. It just means the Rock upon which I stand is big enough to keep me from falling. I will stumble, but He will catch me if I begin to fall.

Only nights before the phone calls began I had a dream. It was a God dream. It's not something I can describe to you. It's only something I know. In the dream there were numerous people standing around giving negative reports about a man who stood in the midst of the people. I'm not sure what situation the man found himself in, all I know is everyone was talking about how bad it was. About that time I heard the Lords voice speaking to me. All He said was, "Bring me some hope. I need something to work with."  I awoke to the knowing that something was coming where He was leading me to bring Him hope in the situation. Only days later the phone calls began.

I can't tell you how encouraging the dream has been for me and for those whom I love. To know that the One who holds our world, even when it seems to be falling apart, loves us enough to speak to us in the quietness of a sleepy night, giving us weapons for an upcoming battle. He is the lover of my soul. He is not a bible figure. He is not simply a man of history. He is not "the man upstairs" and  He is not the trophy of religion. He is my closest friend. He is the breath in my lungs. He is the song that sings over me again and again. And though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil, for He is with us. We are walking through the dark valley. We are not setting up camp there. We are bringing with us all of the hope we can carry. In the midst of our tears and hearts that feel strained we bring hope to the One who has given it to us. We do not put our hope in our circumstances or even in our desires. We put our hope in Him. We trust in His unfailing love. Our prize is not in a painless life, nor a path of ease, but in Him. In Him, we can never be disappointed.

This HOPE we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil... (Heb. 6:19)