It seems I can’t read to my kids without seeing the love of God poured out on the page. Some portion of the blame lies in the purposeful selecting of works by Christian authors. More remains the purpose of God alone.

Today, for instance, we never saw it coming.

Excitedly, our imaginations darted towards eternity as we read of the sadness that helped to drive Hans Christian Andersen to the words he’d pen in tales the world would both cherish and warp to better fit their desires. Heartache seeped from life to fiction as he wrote from the depths of his pain.

As we read a short listing of Andersen works and discussed the themes of outward adornment not being equal to the beauty within us, we couldn’t help but muse at the possibility that Hans was in fact, Christian as his name.

Without digging further into the notion, we started our ocean floor adventure with The Little Mermaid. A story frozen in my fourth grade mind, lost as the innocence of that time, still cherished without any real understanding of what it all meant. I couldn’t wait to return to remembering as we sat down to read the story as it was written after seeing the more popular distortion of the real thing.

The imagery and juxtaposition of it all just invites one to dream a while, and so we did, stopping once and again to acknowledge the absurdity of one teacher’s would-be dream crushing ridicule. Surely God had allowed hardship in order to yield fruit so sweet as these words were to my very soul as I read them aloud:

“So I shall die,” said the little mermaid, “and as the foam of the sea I shall be driven about never again to hear the music of the waves, or to see the pretty flowers nor the red sun. Is there anything I can do to win an immortal soul?”

“No,” said the old woman, “unless a man were to love you so much that you were more to him than his father or mother; and if all his thoughts and all his love were fixed upon you, and the priest placed his right hand in yours, and he promised to be true to you here and hereafter, then his soul would glide into your body and you would obtain a share in the future happiness of mankind…”

Surely God has only allowed hardship into the life of a little child, of any one of His children, to yield fruit so sweet as Salvation, that we might win an immortal soul by the gifting of His Right Hand.

I've made myself about sick with all the promoting I'm doing lately. Don't get me wrong, I'd never plug something I don't believe in...yeah, I'm including that pendant you all helped me get. Seriously, I never take it off. I think my family is staging an intervention bout it.

Anyway, I need to balance out my {perfectly pointful} self-promos with some unsolicited promoing for others.

Don't pay too much attention to that title, by the way. The people I promote won't necessarily be readers of my stuff, nor will I be sharing blogs you'll find in my reader. I don't even have a reader. Basically, I'm sharing at random, and I really dug getting the Weekly Reader back in elementary school.

Okay, before I further solidify my brand of making up words and being a tad dorky, here's a blog {not post, the entire site} I read this week that really made me think. It makes me think. Every word just inspires and prompts me. Stop by, stay a while, encourage a Brother, and leave with your eyes a little more on Jesus!

Wake Up My Faith, Kevin Adams

ps...the intervention regarding my improper {over}use of {these} went about as well as the one about my ... addiction...

Something magical happens while studying Scripture with my children. Something positively magical.

The text comes to life.
They really get it.
I really get it.
We grow.

Every bit of that is magical. 

Seeing their little faces light up with the understanding that Jesus Christ is Lord...there's just nothing like it on the planet. Getting to witness that first hand is so amazingly life affirming. Learning something new right along with these life-sized pieces of my heart is an honor and an opportunity unlike any other. Growing together in eternal ways as we grow apart in the temporal, there's hope in that. Real and lasting Hope.

Just last week, we were reading in Isaiah and the passage just jumped all over me. We often detour in our Bible time, but the busy mom in me is quieted by the unexpected adventures we'll share. I'm finding that God seldom leaves the message on the page as He places the lessons on our hearts. 

We are meant to share. We're supposed to explore His Word. That search will never be in vain and His Word will not return empty as we shout and live it out!

In Isaiah 11:2, the prophet is sharing some of the coming Messiah's character, as revealed to him by God. The spirit of the LORD shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.  (NRSV)

Wisdom, understanding, and knowledge all in one sentence...was God just itching to use His new thesaurus that day or something?

Our God is many, many things--pointlessly redundant isn't one of them.

Using my trusty e-sword I found these words each point to specific qualities of Christ; subtle as Jesus, and profound like Him, too. The Hebrew wording God chose represented His Son as One who would conduct Himself wisely, understand perfectly the world around, and know--truly know--the Lord.

As "Christians" we're meant to be followers of Christ. Can we follow Him, even here? Absolutely! See that part in the middle there? Those two words, "counsel and might", they say we can.

The Hebrew shows us that Our Savior will not only counsel, He gives purpose, too. How wise of Him to know we'd not long follow advice without a greater reason behind it--a purpose!

I'll leave you with the real and lasting promise made in that word "might". It won't soon be leaving me.
Our Father breathed a word that basically says that Jesus will force the victory--a victory that will last into eternity! We aren't left to our own devices, our own works, our own worth any longer. Jesus is advising us and providing us the victory over circumstance, over sin, and ultimately over death!

What does this mean to you today?

When I agreed to write a follow-up to the testimony I shared for Mandy’s series Journey of Healing, I wasn’t sure there was a Glorifying update to my story.  My life fell apart, I got mad and asked God where He had been during it all, He led me to Isaiah 54:7-10 in answer to my loaded question, and He’s been picking up the pieces since.  The. End. 

I knew God had been working to heal me and grow me into the woman He had designed me to be, and I knew that process wouldn’t be complete this side of eternity.  So I agreed to tell more of my story and I prayed the Lord would show me just what I should share.

I had left off with an open ending of sorts, because that’s just what our life with the Lord is like.  Sometimes we’re so busy living the season we’re in that we can’t see a good reason to visit the one we just left.  Often times, there’s too much pain in the past, or too much time gone by.  Returning can’t mean reliving, there’s just no Life in that.  What makes going back again worthwhile is seeing God reveal more of His love for you.  More of His sovereignty and His might.  More of His faithfulness and His providence.

The prior testimony painted a powerful picture of God’s amazing healing, one I stare at some days and just praise God I’m on my knees, broken before Him and not just broken like I had been before Him.

What connects that story to this new creation I am in Christ? 


Head over to Brokenness into Beauty for more of my journey of healing

My husband, Jay, and I had planned the cutest little wedding two teenagers with a baby could afford—one paid for with money borrowed from his grandmother. The dress was bought, the invitations sent. We were all set to wed outdoors on a beautiful spring day…until we weren’t. If my husband were here, he’d start going on and on about how he’d been ready to marry me from the day we met and he’d even rat me out as being the one with all the doubts, but he’s not here, so we’ll just skip right over that bit.

Sure, I’d been holding out for some swell mix of John Cusack and Jake Ryan to show up and profess his love for me over cake and under a boom box. Still, we were not ready to be married. We weren’t even ready to be parents, but that’s not something you can just run away from, and honestly, you wouldn’t want to if you could. From that first positive pregnancy test on, my future husband had been asking me to marry him, and I’d been semi-sorta-kinda-almost-respectfully declining.

Two weeks before the big day, I came back to my senses, or maybe I freaked out a bit. Yeah, that’s right, I canceled the wedding 14 full days in advance.

All of my efforts to become whatever it was I thought a Christian blogger evolved into left me burned out and drained of the joy that once had me sharing the wonders of God’s Word.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved every endeavor I’ve been on, I just lost focus.  I couldn’t see that my family was only getting a half-there version of me.  I missed the fact that my ministry starts at home, and more importantly, at the Throne.  I forgot that I have nothing of real value to say without it coming from the Lord.  I was swept away by my own ideas and feelings and it was a rush that left many half-done things in its wake.  

God has been training me {queen of obliviousness} in paying attention, discerning, and acting on Spirit-given feelings--a life long learning process, no doubt.  Recently, this has yielded a deeper desire to stay in line with my God-given passions for Scripture and for helping others to know they can understand the Bible and enjoy the many benefits of taking our Father at His Word and inviting Him into our daily lives. 
It would seem the Lord equips us to offer the very things we most desire.

Here I was chasing my tail and letting the dizziness guide me through one rabbit hole after another as I tried in vain to logic my way out of an issue of spirit.  Instead of asking myself what I could walk away from, I needed to be asking my Father how I could walk closer to Him.  I needed a lot of things.  Guess what.  They all started with humbling myself by confessing that I took my eyes off Jesus and placed them on the world.  I had to once again come to grips with the reality that being good enough is not going to happen this side of eternity.  In order to have real joy in life--real success, real friendships, real value--we've got to get real with God.  He digs that junk. 

It’s so funny how sometimes we don’t have to cut anything major, just the fat we’ve injected in hopes of being more “well-rounded”.  Cutting the fat allows for getting straight to the meat of life!  During my time away from blogging, one thing has become clear enough to see through the muck of writer’s block and to-do lists that were scrambling around my so-called mind.  God wants me where He’s got me, and then some.  It has never been about doing more.  Or better.  Or less.  God wants me--and you--right as we are this minute.  He'll let us know when it's time for the "and then some" part.  Oh, you know I'm gonna have to elaborate in a post all its own. Until then, here's some food for thought...oh, and our boy Jesus, He makes a mean humble pie...if you feel so inclined.    

Join the conversation ::  Have you left instincts unexamined or ignored a gut feeling? 
                                                 What helps you decide which instincts to act upon and which to leave alone?
                                                 Do you feel pressured, by yourself or others, to be more "well-rounded"?