Eyes to see

We are gutting and remodeling our latest, 3^rd, fixer upper. Yesterday I found myself pulling tons of nails out of used studs so that we can reuse them. I got to thinking how God does that to and for us. He takes our hurts, our wounds, our sins, our weaknesses and transforms them and uses them and heals them. He restores what the locusts have eaten (Joel 2:25-32). He makes beauty from ashes, turns our mourning into joy plants us by streams of water as a display of His splendor (Is 61:3).

There were some boards that had tiny nails in them, they were easy and relatively painless to extract and finish. I have had some quick and relatively painless lessons to learn over the years. God revealed something ugly in me and gave me the grace/wisdom/knowledge/obedience to turn from them and He brought healing. Then there were some boards that had tiny nails, giant nails, and giant crooked nails in them, these required some beating and finesse to extract and be done. Can anyone relate? I have had some larger issues and deeply ingrained patterns that God had to really finesse me to let go of. He would prod, I would buck, He would poke I might listen, then I would acquiesce and He would grow and strengthen more into His image. Then there was one board that I wasn’t sure that I could use in my analogy, it had all of these nails in them, but as I extracted one deeply seated nail a crack ran the length of the board and I thought this board is now useless. Do you ever feel like that? I know there have been times when I have been so beat down by the world, hurt, abused, betrayed, bullied, angry, vengeful, downright broken and useless. But, God. He is a good, good Father. Adonai! He takes us broken and hurting and pours the Balm of Gilead into every dark and deep crevice and gives us a voice to proclaim the freedom and strength and joy that we have found onto all we meet. He is so faithful to meet us wherever we are and to take whatever we offer Him and make it greater.

 

2 Corinthians 3:16-18 (HCSB) but whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.

Isaiah 61:3-4 to comfort all who mourn,

to provide for those who mourn in Zion;
to give them a crown of beauty instead of ashes,
festive oil instead of mourning,
and splendid clothes instead of despair.
And they will be called righteous trees,
planted by the Lord
to glorify Him.

They will rebuild the ancient ruins;
they will restore the former devastations;
they will renew the ruined cities,
the devastations of many generations.

Men love honor

J and I don't really go out on dates. We don't have family close by and he feels very strongly that the kids are our responsibility and doesn't really want to leave them with a sitter. And since he feels so strongly about it, I don't really have to think about it and have an opinion, cuz well it's not going to trump him on this matter...so yesterday when J and E came in with big ole grins on their faces and looking like they had something up their sleeves I reacted with sarcasm when I should have reacted with glee. J had already planned with E (who is officially old enough to stay home alone) for him to be responsible and take sweet care of his sister so that J could take me on a date. He came in with E on his heels and asked if he could take me on a date, a surprise date. Feeling the playfulness of their moods I said: date? what's that? Well, I watched as my man totally deflated. He didn't even hang out and verbally spar with me, he just left the scene.

When you work with your spouse you can get into a routine and just because you are always together, does not mean that you are always feeling together. We used to be good at turning opportunities into dates: random walks on the beach during lunch, quiet moments stolen here or there, stopping for lunch when we get off early...but these last few months have been high stress, so there haven't been many moments.

I went to him and offered him a sincere apology for my sarcasm and lack of respect and told him I would love to go on a surprise date with him. Y'all he planned the whole day: a cup of tea and a walk and deep conversation on a park bench, a stop at the beach to see what it looked like today (glorious), lunch and a chick-flick. He picked all the places and the movie, the only decision I had to make was what to order for lunch. It was a beautiful day to spend the day together, communicating deeply and hoping for the future.

Ephesians 5:33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Husbands that are well respected love their wives well and jump through hoops to make them smile and to make her load easier. It can be hard to rewire your brain to offer up respect, but our men, yes that includes our sons, need respect like they need air. It will totally reinvent your relationship. It takes some getting used to, the intentionally speaking respectful and honoring, but it is worth the shock factor when a foreign sentence comes out of your mouth.

Investing

My daughter is reaching an age where we are starting to talk about spiritual things and dive into Truths. And I am very excited! Yesterday we stopped at the beach after work to enjoy the first rays of sunshine in a few weeks. It turned into a lovely afternoon of soaking up some vitamin D. She made fast friends with some girls and was on her way to laughter and play. Amidst her new friends and hardy play, she kept hollering back to me and asking if I saw her. I have noticed a pattern of her constant need of approval and attention. She loves gymnastics and doing all kinds of cartwheels and roundoffs and she has a new fascination with all things handstand. But again, she wants to know that I see every single one of them. And she can pull off about 3 handstands a minute. That turns out to be a lot. We have had conversations about gymnastics being a serious sport and that she must absolutely love the sport and all that it entails more than being watched or she won’t succeed. Because to be good at gymnastics requires an immense amount of training.

So, this morning as I was praying for her, I was asking the Lord that she would know Him intimately, that she would know that He is the Lover of her soul, that He delights in all of her and that He sees everything she does, that she would not seek to please people but to please Him. A little later after she had finished her devotions and was recapping them for me, she said: I should know that God is with me all the time. She had read about Rahab and the walls of Jericho. And then she personalized it by saying that when she has bad dreams (as she had last night) she doesn’t have to be afraid. And of course, I affirmed that and then broke down 1 John 4:4 He who is in you (God) is greater than he (Satan) that is in the world. And in her childlike inquisitiveness she beautifully asked: So, there are 8 billion gods? And I in my adult logic didn’t really understand and so I must have had quite a look on my face because she said: there’s 8 billion people. And I had an aha moment. Then we spoke about God being One God, in 3 persons and how it’s the same Holy Spirit that dwells in each of our temples.

I so enjoy these moments of teaching Truths in every day setting. It is a serious call to raise our children in the ways of the Lord. Some days I get in my own way and other days I feel victorious. Today I count as a win!

The Perfect Storm

Solomon says in the Bible that there is nothing new under the sun (Ecc 1:9). The enemy has no new tricks, he is not all-knowing, he is simply crafty and he waits for moments, seasons and opportunities of vulnerability. Recently, I was vulnerable to just such an attack. I don’t want to be just a writer of when the times are good, but I also want to be real and relevant.

I wrote the last blog, drawing a very definite line in the sand about us having a house before the end of the year. Our journey of faith, the culmination of this season of adventure for us. On the heels of that high came a definite low. I am not an overly emotional girl, I don’t often sit down and just cry or feel such overwhelming sorrow that my energy is all but sapped. I am more of a ‘take the bull by the horns’ kind of girl. If the Bible says it then I will face it with my head held high and a smile on my face, even if I’m shaking in my boots. That’s who I am.

So, I wrote the blog, then was given an opportunity/nudge to pray over some men that I walked away from. I then annihilated my comfort walls and went back, in obedience and prayed over them, so now I’m feeling good about myself. I stepped out with the blog and with live humans. The next day was Monday and it donned with heavy skies and a forecast of 2 weeks of rain, which meant no work for 2 weeks. Then our truck started acting funny, so to the shop it went. Our dog went to the Vet for a regular check-up, leaves with a diagnosis of heart worms and it will cost: more than is currently in the bank. Our heater wasn’t working, and it was cold and wet. Then my son asks me if we will always have a job that’s so easily affected by the weather. My folks were sending lots of pictures of the new cabin they are building, they were excited not bragging, but due to all my woes it hit me like a ton of bricks that day. All these things built up and I ended up in bed, weeping, feeling utterly defeated. Laying there with no energy to get up, and no real energy to pray, I just kept thanking the Lord for bottling and counting all my tears and for loving me and for having a plan out of this despair.

This pit was hard to climb out of. I was sensitive and overwhelmed. It took a few days to be able to fully process it all and to see God in it. He has been so gracious to me. To remind me that He wants to be my All in all.  Turns out our truck transmission had a 50k mile warranty and we were at 47k miles, so it was fully covered and restored. Work resumed. We figured out how to get our puppy taken care of. God is faithful especially when we are weak. And He was not at all surprised that the current was bringing in the perfect storm to bring me to my knees and cry out, Father I need You!