Priorities.

There is a lot on my mind.

There is so much on my heart.

But as I sit at these keys, I’m unable to type what I thought would so easily flow.

So I won’t force it.

I’ll simply share where my heart has landed amidst all my processing tonight.

Three simple lines:

There are some things that matter.

There are some things that don’t matter.

Sometimes death, or the possibility of death, has its way of revealing the difference.

Growing Pains.

When I was about nine I had bad growing pains in my legs.

My legs were growing really fast and my body was having a hard time keeping up with the rate of growth.

For awhile, it seemed like my young body was literally two-thirds legs and one-thirds torso. A little awkward. And painful.

There was nothing I could do to stop the growing. It was a good and necessary development. But it in that season, it just kept growing and growing and growing and then when the pain got overwhelming and I couldn’t escape my body, I’d lay on the cool sheets on top of my white, IKEA bunk-desk bed, and just cry.

That’s sort of how I feel in life right now.

For the past few years of my life, I have been growing and growing and growing. It seems that I haven’t even finished absorbing the first lesson before the second and third and forty-seventh start pushing at my heart.

My eyes never stop observing and my heart never stops feeling. Even when I try to make them stop. I am constantly aware of the lessons life is teaching me. I am constantly processing the experiences surrounding me and involving me.

I love processing. I really enjoy learning lessons. And although it can hurt, I don’t mind that much when my eyes are opened about my flaws and I’m the one that has to change.

But the fact that I haven’t taken a breather from new lessons for lots of years keeps catching up with me. There are times when it's overwhelming.

Sometimes it’s painful, like my leg-growing pains. There are times when I can’t get away from it and it hurts and I just have to cry. How can I reconcile all these new ideas? How can I know what truth is if I was sure something was true and I find out it's not? How can I trust when trust has been broken?

But sometimes, this process is glorious! Everything I am constantly learning is showing me more of who Jesus really is and there are times when I feel it all bubbling up inside me. I can feel my joy and gratefulness growing deeper and deeper inside me.

And just when it seems I couldn’t take more joy, I’ll see something beautiful, like when I'm driving down the freeway and beholding a gorgeous evening sky with puffy pink-and purple-hued clouds and the sun behind it all illuminating the colors and streaming out beyond the edges. Those are the moments when my tears again pour out and spill down past the biggest smile my lips can form.

Maybe this is how life will always be as an adult. It’s been my only experience of adult-life so far. Perhaps I will get more and more used to these constant growing pains.

But I wouldn't rather trade the lessons and the joy and the deep satisfaction when God finally illuminates the answers for anything, despite all the pain involved.


Has God been expanding anything in your heart lately? Do you ever feel overwhelmed with observations and lesson-learning in life?

She's Not Impressed.

With my blue, plastic cup in hand, I walk down the long aisle past all the grey cubicles and head towards the break room.

Outwardly, it looks like I am just thirsty and want some more water. And that is partly true. Inwardly, however, I am processing.

As I walk the long hallway, I am thinking about a recent conversation I had with an old friend and I am trying to figure out why the remembrance of that conversation is sweeping over me with a feeling of total satisfaction and rest.

I open the door to the break room and I smile at the lady eating her salad. I glance over at the group of people making small talk at the far table.

I head across the room to the water cooler and I can feel my inner self getting closer and closer to understanding the source of my satisfaction.

I position my cup under the water nozzle and tip the black-colored lever down. I watch as the water flows into my cup.

As the cup gets to be about halfway full, it comes to me.

Resolution! I finally know why I feel so satisfied in remembering my time with my friend.

It was because….

She wasn’t impressed by me.

What? I was surprised to realize that this was the reason for my satisfaction.

It’s true, I thought. She doesn’t seem impressed by me. She doesn’t think I’m oh-so-holy and she doesn’t want to be just like me. Okay.

But she LIKES me. She likes me for who I am. She enjoyed our time together just as much as I enjoyed it.

I don’t feel the need to try to impress her in the next facebook message I send her. Or in my actions the next time I see her.

I can just be me.

No pressure to please. No expectations to fulfill.

Just mutual enjoyment of one another. Admiration for one another. Receiving from each other.

Walking out of the office and heading towards a break room table outside. Sitting under some beautiful trees and sipping my water.

Relaxed.

Content.

Satisfied.

An hour of work left to go and then the weekend is mine to enjoy.

I’m starting the weekend off tonight by meeting a friend of my husband’s and his wife over dinner.

And now, after my afternoon epiphany, I am much more excited to meet these new friends than I was earlier because now I know I don’t have to go to impress.

I just have to go and enjoy.


So to my friend: Thank You!

Where will Willingness Lead?

God is realigning my heart.

I know it is Him because my human heart does NOT naturally think the thoughts I have been beginning to think in the past few days.

My heart has been revisiting the concept of willingness to literally go where God sends me. Whether He is sending me across the room to apologize to my husband, or whether He is sending me to Uganda to hold 3 little children in my lap, I want to be willing to go.

I really do not know where God will take me in my life. Honestly.

I am not writing this post with any clue or hint of where I might be going in order to follow God’s will. (And to my family who reads this blog…NO. This is not my indirect way of telling you I am moving to Africa. :-)

Part of the reason that my heart closes off to being willing to “give up my life” to follow Jesus is that I want to LIVE! I want to live, and thrive, and flourish! If I give God a willing heart, what if He makes me sacrifice all that I hold dear?

My husband said something so powerful to me the other night. He said, “The reason it is hard is because we were created to thrive. We were created to live! But we aren’t home yet…real life hasn’t even begun.”

Jesus said, “He who seeks to gain his life, will lose it. But he who loses his life, will find it.”

What if I was willing to give all my desires, my dreams, and my securities for God to rearrange as He desired? What if my life looks nothing like I originally intended it to look?

Guess what?!

I have ETERNITY to live!

Think about it.

Eternity in Perfection.

No sin, no pain, no separation from love.

Think about this ratio: Giving up six months of your life here on earth in order to live 75 years of doing exactly what you want to do. Wouldn't 75 years be well worth the six months of sacrifice?

Now think of 90 years compared to 1 million years. Compare 90 years to 1 billion years. To a trillion. To FOREVER..............

I know. My mind can’t wrap around it either.

Do you believe this???

Do you believe that you will live forever in the perfect presence of your Savior?

Are you living like you believe it?

Or are you living like this life is all you’ve got?

I am asking myself the same questions.

But I know Jesus has more for us. I know He has more for me.

I’ll be honest. I’m a little scared to start heading down the road of opening my heart to complete willingness.

But even more than scared, I’m excited.

Why?

His Love, the entire essence of who He is, is too entrancing for me to ignore.


Next time you are in church and the song "I Surrender All" starts to play, ask your heart if you really mean the words you are allowing your voice to sing. I will do the same. I promise.

"All to Jesus, I surrender. All to Him, I freely give. I will ever love and trust Him. In His presence daily live. I surrender all. I surrender all. All to thee my blessed Savior, I surrender all."

When the Truth Hurts.

Are you willing to listen when someone tells you some ugly truth about youself?

I’m not talking about just sitting there and taking it when someone is simply discouraging you, or guilt-tripping you, with a lack of truth.

What I mean is, are you willing to listen when someone has been honestly hurt by you? Are you willing to receive when someone lovingly, maybe quite firmly, points out something negative about your character?

Do your ears shut off when something negative is said about you? Does your heart harden when someone shows you a flaw about yourself?

You know that they are revealing something about you that is rooted in truth.

You know what they are saying is true.

You know you were wrong.


What is your response?

Anger and defense?

Haughtiness and cold silence?

An instant attack on the other person's sins?

Or could it be.....Humility? Perhaps a soft opening of your heart and a willingness to hear how you may have hurt or wronged others? An admittance of the truth of your faults?

This is not an easy one for me. But I have experienced it recently, so it is fresh on my heart.

A few days ago, my husband and I had a difficult conversation. I came prepared to share what was on my heart but the conversation took a turn I hadn’t expected. And it was a necessary turn.

My husband, gently, but firmly, talked to me of a character flaw he has noticed in me. And it's a biggie. And from all the information he knows of me and all that he has been able to observe in our relationship, he logically deducted where this character trait could lead. He talked about how it could affect me as an individual and how it could affect our marriage. He shared this with me in love.

I didn’t like his observations. Or his deductions.

I hated it because what he was saying was true.

And as I was listening, I KNEW it was true.

Ouch. MAJOR ouch.

It hurts to have your eyes opened about yourself. But it is better to know your sin so that you can allow the Lord to heal and change you rather than just getting angry and creating a harder heart within yourself.

I didn’t admit to my husband that night that he was right. I didn’t tell him that I had listened and I was really thinking about his words. I took more of the “haughtiness and cold silence” approach (another character flaw of mine) that evening.

The next day, however, I was able to call him and tell him I was thinking about what he had said. Willingness. Step one.

I started letting my mind admit to myself that he was right. Admittance. Step two. I honestly thought about the examples he gave and I saw a pattern emerging right before the very eyes of my mind. Gosh, he was RIGHT!

Step 3. Confession. I confessed to him that he was right.

But it CAN’T STOP there! What are we going to do about things that are brought to our attention? Do we just sit and think, “Wow, that’s not good. That’s really not good. Bummer.” Or.....do we take steps to heal and to change?

I am now merging into Step 4. Repentance and Healing. This will take the longest because healing takes time and hard work.

This event in my life just happened. Hot off the press. So I'm definitely no expert. I'm just hoping that my heart stays soft. I'm also hoping that it gets a lot softer.

I say I want a humble heart but am I willing to walk with humble actions? I can't have one without the other.

What about you? How do you react when someone tells you something you need, but don't want, to hear?

Redemption.

About a year ago, one of my absolute favorite bloggers, Sarah Markley, publicly shared on her blog the story of how her marriage was completely broken and then completely restored.

Her honesty and willingness to share such personal details and emotions has not only blessed me but also so many other readers who are refreshed by her openness and find hope in her healing.

Today, she posted a video clip that CBN did of the story of her marriage.

It is SO worth 7 minutes of your time.

Click on the link below and be amazed at the glorious ability for God to bring restoration to two surrendered and broken hearts.

Video Clip

Forgiveness is like Killing a Spider DEAD.

One morning about a month ago, at approximately 5:19 in the morning, I sat down with my freshly poured cup of coffee ready to start my morning devotions before getting dressed for my day at work.

I set my coffee on the side table, cross my legs on the couch, put a pillow in my lap, put my Bible on the pillow, and pick up my coffee.

Ready.

Then I see it. A big, brown, thick legged spider sitting on the wall above the window directly across from me.

Awesome.

I HATE spiders. My husband and I live on a hill with a good amount of nature around us and these horrid things seem to find every which way to crawl into our house. One would think that I would have gotten used to the appearances of this scary, little creatures since I moved into this house but it has really only increased my fear of them. And my utter detest.

So I watch the creature. I keep one eye on it, keeping track of its location, as I sip my coffee. I need to fuel my body and turn up my energy if I’m gonna kill this thing.

Then it starts moving. My eyes follow.

It starts crawling on the ceiling and stops right above my coffee table.

Perfect.

I grab lots of tissue paper, stand on the coffee table at the perfect angle to not be directly under the spider but enough to let my hand have the perfect amount of leverage to kill it dead on.

I brace myself. I count to three under my breath. Then I shoot up my hand as hard as I can, squish the paper against the ceiling with all my might, and then jump away as fast as possible.

It was a sure shot.

I tip-toe over to the paper. I gently turn it over so I can see the dead spider.

Only, the dead spider wasn’t there. Or anywhere.

There was no sign of a spider, dead OR alive, anywhere.

Great.

So, somewhere in my living room, this thing is still creeping about.

“Oh well,” I thought. “Live and let live.” (basically, I was too tired to try again, and I really wanted some devotional time before work. Plus…I still needed to drink the rest of my coffee.)

So, after getting back into position (pillow on my lap, Bible on my pillow),
I started to read my Bible and sip my coffee. I was nice and calm.

WHEN. ALL. OF. A. SUDDEN….

The Spider appeared OUT OF NO WHERE on the arm of the couch right next to me, less than 12 inches from my hand!!

I stand up, almost screaming, my Bible falls from my lap, and my coffee spills over my hand and the couch blanket.

I was NOT gonna let it get away this time. I couldn’t handle the fear of knowing it was around and could, at any moment, appear and scare me half-to-death again!

I cornered it. And killed it. With a remote control.

End of the spider.

----------

Now onto forgiveness. And how it is like killing that spider.

When I was at the Beth Moore conference over a month ago, one of the (many) things that she said which struck me to my core was this,

“You cannot forgive just enough until some of the pressure is released and you can simply manage or endure. You must forgive ALL the way and go through the whole process of forgiveness so that you don’t have to keep dealing with that same issue popping up again and again in your heart.”

Do you sorta see how that was like the spider?

Ok, I will explain.


~I saw the spider on the wall.
~This is like becoming aware of an issue I needed to forgive.

~I watched the spider on the wall. I couldn’t rest until I killed it and knew that it wouldn’t hurt me.
~This is similar to how it feels when you are stewing in unforgiveness but you haven’t taken the steps to actually move forward and forgive.

~I got up to kill the spider. The spider got away, but at least I couldn’t see it anymore.
~This is like making those first moves towards forgiveness. And those first acts of the forgiveness process can really release the pressure. But just like the spider that got away, the issue is still there.

~The spider came back. The scare was worse the second time.
Because the spider wasn’t completely killed the first time, it was able to come back and do more emotional damage.
~That is how it is when we just go down the process of forgiveness “enough” instead of all the way. That issue, or issues, will keep coming back and will keep tearing at your heart until you roll up your sleeves to do ALL of the hard work and walk down the end of the forgiveness road.

----------

I am struggling with forgiveness. As in, struggling, present tense.

I am struggling with forgiving certain people. Certain life circumstances. And sometimes, myself.

And I am finding myself in different stages of the forgiveness process in each item that I need to forgive.

I’ve been thinking about this concept for a while now (spider included). But I wrote this today because I need to stop just thinking and start making some progress towards actual forgiveness.

Because that is where the healing comes.


What about YOU?