12 Days of Christmas: Day #2 Jesus is SERVANT
During the Christmas season, our homes and communities are adorned with beauty and splendor to celebrate the birth of our Savior. We seek to highlight and reflect the joy that is ours because of Jesus, and this is good. And yet, Scripture reminds us that one of Jesus’ greatest attributes exists in a less assuming way. It reveals itself humbly, as Jesus takes the lowest position as a servant, with a heart and mind resolutely surrendered to the Father’s will, even to the point of death. Indeed, Jesus as servant is at the heart of His greatest gift to us. His servanthood is what purchased our forgiveness and redemption. His…
12 Days of Christmas: Day #1 Jesus is ETERNAL
When we celebrate Christmas, we often focus on Jesus’ arrival on earth as a baby boy. We focus on His becoming man as a sort of a beginning of a timeline towards His ministry and His eventual death, burial, and resurrection. This isn’t overtly wrong, but how often do we pause and consider that Jesus’ timeline isn’t bound simply to His arrival on earth 2,000 years ago to today? How often do we pause at Christmas to consider the fact that Jesus is eternal and how that reality impacts our every day? Jesus existed long before that Christmas night in Bethlehem. In fact, God’s Word tells us “He was foreknown…
Psalm 116: Return to Your Rest My Soul
Psalm 116 journaling. What a timely reminder. The psalmist says he loves the Lord because he cried out to God and He heard him. THIS is what keeps me praying. THIS is what keeps me trusting and believing. THIS is what makes the Christian life different. In good times and in bad, I cry out to the Lord. I thank Him when it’s good and I beseech HIm when it’s bad–KNOWING that either way He will HEAR and He will ACT. My Journible Bible asked (for verse 1), “Why is it so amazing for the Lord to “hear” the psalmist?” My response: Because the psalmist is just a man. It’s…
When Your Life(or Cake) is Falling Apart(or Staying)
Recently, I made a chocolate cake to take to a potluck gathering. This was a cake my husband had long anticipated, as we both craved chocolate cake earlier but thought it silly, as empty nesters, to make an entire cake just for the two of us. I made it before heading to work, with plans to frost it after work, before our gathering. As I frosted the cake, it began to look quite lovely (it’s amazing what a little chocolate fudge frosting can do to two simple round cakes). I set the plate it was resting on aside to place wrap on it for transport, and as I returned to…
Find Your Fire, Fuel Your Fire
It’s not every day you get to build a fire in the church basement. 🙂 This week, I had the opportunity to speak to a local MOPS group about finding their fire (the theme from MOPS International this year, based on Romans 12:11-13 NIrV). As I was preparing for this talk, I kept considering the reality that “finding our fire” (at least the fire that will sustain and remain) shouldn’t be something we do in our own efforts. In fact, the reality is that we cannot truly find our fire until we know how to properly “fuel our fire.” Because of that truth, we considered together the various ways we…
A Key To Trust
Trust. This word has been such a theme in my prayers, such a cry of my heart, of late. Do I trust God’s love for me? Do I trust God’s plan for me? Do I trust His sovereign reign? Do I trust His perfect provision? What am I trusting in? And, as I have been confronted with the reality of my own lack of trust in various spheres of my life, I have sought to walk in greater faith and trust in the only One who is worthy of my faith and my trust. This has been a constant wrestle of my heart and mind, as I seek to surrender…
Keep Mowing the Grass; Do the Work
This summer has been a DRRRRRYYYY one here in Kansas. We seemed to jump straight from a late-ending winter (hello snowy April and oddly wet cool May) to a hot, humid July in the first week of June. The lush green grass we had been so blessed by in spring, was beginning to quickly gasp and pant for something, anything to quench its thirst. By the third week of June, the lawn had seemingly stopped growing–something that doesn’t usually happen until about the third or fourth week of July. And by the last week of June and first week of July, despite our efforts to water, the grass began to…
Normal to Weak
This week has found me feeling weak. If I’m honest, the past couple of weeks have found me feeling weak. No one thing has made me feel this way, but a series of heart-wrenching circumstances in my friend’s lives, weighty decisions in my family’s lives, and various commitments–some more social and fun, and others more sobering and ministry/calling related. (To clarify: ministry and calling related things CAN be social and fun as well–and often are–but the task of sharing God’s Word is a weighty prospect, and in timeframes amidst a whirlwind of ministry needs and great hurts of those I love, it can feel especially weighty and hard. ) And…
Kitchen Table Grace
My kitchen table has become a sacred place for ministry. A sacred place for grace. I didn’t set out to make this the case. In fact, years ago, I often struggled with insecurity at inviting people over…fearing my house was not as clean as others, or my decorating skills somehow lacking, or, perhaps even worse, that my company would prove dismal. I feared rejection in so many ways, and yet I longed to connect with other women, to grow in friendship, and to especially grow in deep heart conversation. I knew I needed to get over my fears (most of all, myself) and begin to simply invite people to come…
The Pursuit
This past year and a half has proved to be full of much growth and much pursuit–pursuit of knowledge, pursuit of relationship, pursuit of knowing and experiencing the character of God more fully–pursuit of holiness. It has not been a pursuit of wealth, or a pursuit of things, not a pursuit of perfection or a pursuit of idealism, but rather a pursuit of wellness in Christ, a pursuit of the things that truly matter. And, as another calendar year prepares to close, and we prepare to turn the page on a fresh new year, I am left reflecting on the incredible difference the path of my pursuits has made. I…
