Category: 1 - Let the Son Shine

It Happened at Wal-Mart 08/05/2010

I’ve never quite been able to reconcile the “me” inside with the version other people see. Sometimes shy, others outgoing, there’s just no telling what impression I might leave. When asked point blank, I finally put a name to the dichotomy—I am a closet extrovert. Oh, I’d love to take you by the hand as we chat and laugh the time away, I’m just too chicken to chance looking like a fool and giving away too much of myself in the process. God is wooing me out of my closet and into the life He’s called me to live—one I’m perfectly content to look a bit foolish living if it makes Him a tiny bit more famous.

Having only just discovered the Lord’s movement to break down the barrier I’d been hiding behind, I wasn’t expecting the prompting He placed on my heart. I certainly wasn’t looking for something so profound, but there it was, and it happened at Wal-Mart!

Head over to the blog at Hope for Women Magazine to read more of this week's column!

My Journey of Healing 07/19/2010

2 Comment(s)

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

A Mean Humble Pie 07/04/2010

4 Comment(s)

I’m learning to pay attention to my instincts.
Vague as they often may be, they're somehow spot on as well.
Like when you walk past your kid's favorite bouncy ball lying in the hallway and think, “Someone's gonna slip on that”. You leave it lying there, and sure as
Simon LeBon, someone ends up slipping--and you kick yourself.

Eventually, you start to see such thoughts as possible opportunities to prevent slip-ups, and so you stop to actually remove the potential hazard.
Or you totally ignore your instincts and if you're not careful, you move from self-doubt to self-sabotage.

If I'm honest, I've been ignoring such feelings in attempt to stuff myself into the "ministry" box I built out of pieces from other people's lives.

"We have different gifts, according to the grace given us.
If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully."
(Romans 12:6-8, NIV)

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"?

The Good Shepherd 04/23/2010

2 Comment(s)

'He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right.
By his wounds you are healed.
Once you were like sheep who wandered away.
But now you have turned to your Shepherd, the Guardian of your souls' (1 Peter 2:24-25, NLT).

The enemy has a nasty way of twisting matters important to us. Before we've even seen him slithering to and fro in our lives, he's made a mess of things.
We've got to stop giving this guy a say.

One such matter of import to me is to live honestly. Saying what I believe and living it out loud without filtering the whens and wheres of it all is more to me than all the Cinnamon-Spice-Dunkin'-Donuts-coffee-filled-Mary-Poppins-mugs in the world. I know, I should have warned you to have a seat before spilling them {coffee} beans. Someone should have warned me, too--that desire knocks me on my bottom more often than not.

In the past, my pursuit of personal authenticity has led to much heartache. Having a half-working definition of a term I loved blindly, keeping it real really hurt. Anyone I encountered got to have all of me in some way or another. If we were talking, we were friends. If friends, good friends. Good friends well on the way to best. Best friends know each other and want only good for one another. Right? Wrong.

The story reads much the same in family and in romantic relationships. If you chose me, I chose you back and we were 100% real with each other. I not only made the mistake of putting all of me out there, I also expected that meant everyone else did the same. Talk about setting myself up for a fall...and another...and another.

It took devastation the likes of which I'd never even imagined to shake me from that thinking.
And I wouldn't change it for anything. God's power is revealed in our powerless moments.

God's power is also revealed when we simply await His arrival after asking Him to show up.

I've had quite an attack this week. Which means that Christ has had quite a place to shine! Harsh words spoken in an argument with my husband started it all. I wish I could say those harsh words were all his, but really my own attitude startled me enough to give satan an opening. How could you tear your husband apart verbally while professing to love the Lord in written form? There's no reconciling that wrong. You're living an online faith and not applying it to real life. Hypocrite. The end.

The following days were like any other...Bible study, devotional time, homeschooling my little ones, zoo trips and such. Still, there was this double life going on inside of me. You're living a lie and no one is fooled. It's so easy to be with God online, no one really knows you there. You don't have a real life faith in works. Where's your fruit?

SonShines, I was ready to run for the hills in shame. I wasn't just believing these lies, I was agreeing with them and denying God's providence and sovereignty. I'd counteract these attacks by acknowledging them as such. Nothing changed. I'd fight them off with words of affirmation. Nothing changed. Finally, I just had to get real with my God.

Finally. Shouldn't that be our first stop? I'm such a sheep sometimes...wandering off and waiting for God to find me instead of being still and knowing that my Shepherd is never out of sight if I'd just look around for Him. Thankfully, I'm like a sheep in other ways, and once I prayed for God to show up and handle this attack for me, I saw Him move. And I will follow where He leads, like a good sheep belonging to The Good Shepherd.

Just when I had been ready to buy into the devil's accusations, God presented me with opportunities to allow His movement in, on, and through some real life relationships. By using me this week in ways He's been using me all along, our faithful Father showed me that the more I put myself out into the world, the more He will set me apart from it.
He'd love to do the same for you.

I Didn't Get the Memo 01/28/2010

2 Comment(s)

Sometimes, it really is all in the details.

I knew going into this whole obedience thing, that one day God would ask me to share more than the already less than comfy surface testimony He is working out in my life. One day was supposed to be blurry. So far in the future that I couldn't even see it clearly. Turns out one day is today. Today is one day, possible of many, that I would be asked to share the details.

God equips us for every good work. That's a fact. Nowhere in that promise does He say that we'll be prepared or even alerted. Good thing, because had I known what He had planned, I might have stayed home and hidden from the opportunity to do good. All difficult situations are opportunities to do good, but having a heads up brings with it the possibility of running away. Thankfully, I didn't get the memo that today was going to hold an opportunity I would have undoubtedly passed up. A cup I would have prayed God to let pass, instead of overflow.

Sitting at a table made to seat seven women in my moms' group, I felt like a complete reject among the empty chairs. Stepping into this role of table hostess in a ministry I love dearly wasn't a comfortable act of obedience as it was, but when only two ladies sat with me, I felt like I was the reason people stayed away. Even when you're beating yourself up, thinking of yourself too much is thinking too much of yourself. I know that. I just forget that I know that. Content in my pity party, balloons and all, I wondered what it was about me that kept them away.

It wasn't about me. Big shocker there. No, it was God that arranged the seating today. He just didn't need to let me know that until I could handle it with praise.

As I drove home, reflecting on one awesome speaker and one awesome time of discussion, the Lord revealed part of His plan and part of His awesomeness in Sovereignty. Each of the ladies at my table were predestined to sit together, to share together, to be encouraged together. All three of us.

Three seemed like such a small number at first glance. Now I am amazed at how our God worked in, on, and through THREE women at one tiny table, this morning! We each needed to hear that God is in control. In our own ways, we needed that covering of Truth. We also needed the details that lie underneath. Sharing first, the overall way that Christ has been at work, then getting deeper into the ways we need to stop our own ideas of what needs to be worked on, things felt really fruitful and wonderful. The intimate setting allowed for digging into matters and for opening up those hidden parts that want to be ignored in us. It also made way for a very personal exchange after the group had dismissed.

Today, I shared some details. Details that once held me prisoner and now are part of the beautiful way in which the Lord saw fit to set me free. I'm humbled that they helped another sister in Christ. She was visibly encouraged in a way that encouraged me, but our Father didn't stop there! Her details were offered up as a means of growing me and filling me and refueling me in one of the areas of life I struggle with most right now. I left with a new gratitude and appreciation for the circumstance I'm so quick to feel defeated by. Hope pumped through each bit of me and I would have missed that had we not shared with one another.

God didn't send us the memo that today was in fact that one day we'd been secretly hoping might never come and instead He sent us a good and perfect gift in the details of our less than perfect lives!

a few of my posts

Categorized Chaos