What If You Wouldn't Be Afraid?

This morning I listened to a podcast on Anabaptist Perspectives in which John Ghanim shares his story of leaving his life as a Muslim in Yemen and becoming an all-out Jesus follower. You can listen to it here if you wish: https://open.spotify.com/episode

What is fascinating to me, is how this podcast was shared with me at this certain time. You see, I have already been thinking about fear over the last few week. To the point that, a week or so ago, I posted a sticky note on my prayer wall with the words "Break the Bondage of Fear" inscribed on it. 

Of course, when we pray prayers like that, God begins to answer. And answer He has; in multiple tiny ways. I won't forget the time that I held back from witnessing to a clearly unsaved man because I thought the person beside me should have the chance to lead out. When I got home, God clearly reprimanded me and said, "Never again do you wait for someone else to make a move. You must be willing to go first." So I died to the notion of trying to please others before my Saviour. 

And as He keeps working, I am beginning to wonder...

What if we would begin to measure our lives by His Word instead if others' opinions? What if we would dare share our thoughts and ideas for the furtherance of God's kingdom, without fearing criticism? What if we would embrace other people's new ideas with openness and humility, rather than shutting them down in fear of where the new path might lead? What if we would use the talents God has given us for His glory, instead of fearing failure and humiliation? What if we loved people so much that we would set aside any fear of persecution in order to bring them to Jesus Christ? What if we would be so convinced of God's calling on our lives, that other people's misunderstandings wouldn't hinder us? What if we would love Jesus so wholeheartedly that we would surrender our entire lives and any self-preservation to Him? 

I wonder what would happen in our lives... I wonder what would happen in our churches... I wonder what would happen to this world...

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Fly High!

We all have people in our lives who get to us at times, circumstances that are difficult, or frustrating bloopers. Each and every time, we have a choice: Fall or rise, optimist or pessimist, hope or discouragement, truth or lies. 

I was reminded of this as I spoke with a friend recently. What do we do when people see differently than we do and criticize us? What do we do, when there are hopeless situations that we can't change? What about the problems that look like they'll never budge? What do we do?

I've thought about this numerous times over the last week as I lay on the couch, and I've run to the Bible for answers when my hands came up empty. Jesus made it very clear to me that humility and love are key. There is absolutely no space for self on the road to glory. 

And oh, the absolute joy that comes when we pick the high road. Let me explain. If God has authorized you to walk a certain path and someone else criticizes you out of jealousy or misunderstanding, simply fix Your eyes on Jesus and keep walking. Let the rest fall. He has a destination in mind for you. If you're in the middle of pain or discouragement, do the same. God has it all figured out and you can trust Him. Keep walking with your gaze forward.

Too often, we let small things get us down: someone's opinion, a smashed plate, gossip, someone's late arrival, or our own shortcomings. Really and truly, these are tiny details in the grand picture of life. Don't let them steal your purpose or focus. You must rise on the wings of faith. Rise in prayer and praise. Rise by trusting your Creator and Saviour. He will come through and you will be able to fly above all the difficulties that Satan would love to trip you with. Fly high my friend. Your destination is heaven. 

The Art of Receiving

It's been a week. I've been humbled and grateful by turn. What else is there to do but lift your hands to the sky when the rain comes in torrents, but differently than you expected. 

Tuesday night, the wife of one of the board members said they were there. Putting in a chair lift so that it would be easier for me to go up and down the stairs each day and avoid some pain and crutch-hopping. Inwardly I cringed, and then sat there with my emotions empty, completely unsure how to feel. I felt hollow; the very last strands of independence had somehow escaped my hands and melted into thin air. I was grateful; really, I was. Actually, deeply, profoundly grateful for such caring and compassionate people in my life. But, I had no idea how to receive it well. 

I asked God to teach me and this verse came to my mind, "By love serve one another..." It didn't take me more than a few seconds to realize that in order to serve, there must be someone on the receiving end. So, I determined that it must be my turn to be the receiver. I turned my gaze upward, and asked for help to be a gracious one. 

It is hard though. Our insides (at least in the case of some of us hard-headed independent ones) kick at the very thought of being cared for or given to. We like to be in charge, in control, and serving others. God knew I needed a reset and so He let my knee hurt for awhile. I knew all along that He was teaching me some lessons, but I certainly didn't realize how deeply they would cut, or how much of my identity they would completely revolutionize. So, I sit here receiving, again and again, day after day. 

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I live on verses from heaven. God gives me one each morning as I wake up; my daily manna. When I lie there writhing in pain, I replay songs of worship over and over and remember the mercy of my Creator who carries me with His peace and strength. As I watch my friend do my laundry and clean my room, I am sad she must do it but glad that she does. I receive lunches from mothers and thank them for chicken, rice, and beans. Perhaps the hidden gift in this is that I get to eat Russian Mennonite food. 

On mornings when things just don't go, my kind and gracious father stands at the kitchen counter trying to figure out how to fold a flimsy wrap with extra chicken and mayo on it (his necessary manly additions), or building a sandwich so big I can barely fit it into the box. I sit there on the same counter watching him and eating my easy-to-make peanut butter bread for the second or third morning in a row. I feel a little too much like the helpless 11 year old girl he carried in his arms when her boot got stuck in the creek. 

I let my students carry my purple chair in and out. They carefully set it up and take it back in. They move their toes to make room for my wheel chair, and wait patiently as my crutches tap their way to class. My song book, bible, and pitch pipe travel upstairs for devotions in their well-tanned hands. The older boys carefully set my keyboard up, and water the plants too high for the little ones to reach. They make sure the game starts while I am still slowly travelling to the playground. On pain days, they gently push my unreliable wheelchair over the bumpy ground while I hunch up in in it tiny and ant-like. I rely on them each day when I think it should be the other way around. 

As I go to church on Sunday, someone holds the door for me. I used to like holding the door for others, but I guess what goes around, comes around. People ask how I'm doing. How weird is that? I used to make sure everyone else was ok. I tell them to the best of my knowledge, unsure of how to make it accurate without asking for a pity party. They carry on and I leave knowing I'm loved. 

I visit the NAPA parts store for my father on a Saturday and feel like a fragile princess among a tribe of brawny males. As I enter the store, every single man behind the counter is at the immediate assistance of this poor disabled woman on her crutches. Doors are opened. The welding canister lifted. Tailgates shut. You name it. All for little me. I feel well cared for and humbled. 

So I am learning to receive. One act of kindness at a time. Each, a drop of rain falling upon the ground of my heart. Each grain of mercy a reminder of God's love and His people. 🤗 

Extravagant Love

I picture Him standing there with the weight of a rugged cross pressing into His torn, ragged flesh. The excruciating pain fills His mind with a haze and all He can do is turn heavenward. Pain does that sometimes; reminds us of what's important and where our help comes from. 

But there is something in His eyes that halts us. The mocking passerby won't see it. The terrified children might miss it. The soldiers pounding nails and throwing lots for his clothes gloss over it. Only the one looking closely, perhaps his closest disciples, will see it. His eyes hold a heavenly light. A light that points to something so endearing and so enduring that it causes our breath to gasp and our bodies to still. "There is a purpose here," we say. Something so vast and infinite that we cannot wrap our minds around it, much less grasp it with our hands. 

His eyes hold the light of love. True, piercing, redeeming love. It is the kind that stops a sinner in his tracks, the kind that holds a panicked child still in strong arms, the kind that makes a haughty spirit bow down in surrender, the kind that lifts the hopeless to his feet, and the kind that breaks through mountains of defeat and humanly-manufactured walls of defense. It cuts to the heart of the most carefully guarded and softens the most violent anger. 

I know no other force on earth that can work so intricately and so strongly as this. It has caused me to sit back and marvel. Why for me? Why for you?

I asked God one time, why He did all that? I'm not sure that I'll ever completely understand the entire answer but one thing I came away with is that I ought to share it. 

And I see it. God's true people are full of this love. They forgive when others press charges. They love when others walk away. They give second chances when the first is blown. They keep investing when the results are grim. They walk into the lives of those who are down and out. Why? Because they were loved first. Because they KNOW the absolute life-changing, life-giving result of love and they want others to have it. 

You are loved. More than you can ever grasp, more than your biggest failures or smallest secrets, more than your defects and flaws; you are loved IN SPITE of them all. In fact, Your redemption was paid for while you were still in the middle of it all. Accept it. Believe it. It is finished. ❤️

The Lady Who Bakes Cakes

I saw her status again. She had baked another one... for Brenda this time. A carefully decorated guitar with detailed fondant features and a beautifully glazed surface. Could I make a cake like that? Perhaps... with a lot of practise. I do enjoy art myself. However, I have not been called to be a cake decorator nor to spend much time in the kitchen. My sister, who grew up beside me making luscious cinnamon rolls at the age of 11 and working as a manager at a Mennonite restaurant by the age of 18, knows full well that I don't have the inclinations or giftings for such a role. But I love that some of my friends do. 

You see, cakes, cinnamon rolls, and buffets have blessed many people on many an occasion. I am utterly grateful that God uses different people in various ways to run this world and establish His kingdom. I do believe that any small thing such as making cookies, doing the laundry, cementing a walkway, or framing a house (ok, that one's not small) are perfectly holy things when done to the glory of our Creator. 

Please have a great weekend and keep doing dishes, running excavators, mowing lawns, hunting deer, sweeping floors, milking cows, cleaning bedrooms, fixing tires, teaching Sunday School, scrubbing grass stains, doing schoolwork, and making breakfast with Your eyes on the One who called You. 

Oh yes, and I should probably order the yearbooks. 🤔

He Won't Give Up

Psalm 62:1-2 "For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and thy salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth. And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all the kings thy glory: and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name."

And here we sit, wounded, broken people. This morning I am going to talk to my students about bubbles. They don't know it yet, but they will at 9:10 a.m. when the singing is over. I am going to draw a large bubble on the blackboard with a person inside. We will add thoughts and feelings to that person's bubble and it will represent their inner world. You see we all have one. A world where there is pain and hard things and also joy and happiness. I want my students to remember that about everyone around them. We really should all have a "handle with care" sticker on us. Especially the toughest and strongest among us. They especially need people to love a little harder and listen a little more carefully. When it comes down to it, we all need a lot of loving, caring, healing, mending and delivering.

Many people come into our lives. Some are safe and loving while some are hurtful. Some stay awhile and some merely dance in and back out. Each serve a purpose I do believe. But what if there were more of the healing kind? The ones that love when it's the hardest and stay when it would be easier to walk out? What if they would hold on in prayer when they see your lamp is dim and praise you when they see you need some encouragement? The world has enough darkness of it's own without those of us who are Christians adding more. Yet we are all imperfect. We all make mistakes and we all hurt others. 

And we must fall back on the only One who doesn't. He will find you, when you are at the end of your rope. He will rescue you when no one else can. He will heal your heart when you think it's past deliverance. He will love you when you are unlovable. And He will make you new and call you by a new name.

Lift your head, morning is coming, there's more to the story. He's not finished yet. ❤️

"And they shall call them, The holy people, The redeemed of the Lord: and thou shalt be called, Sought out, A city not forsaken." Isaiah 62:12

Pink With a Purpose

I love the colour pink. In fact, if I wish to have a cheery day, a pink outfit will do wonders. I believe there are more souls traversing this earth that have certain colours that fit them specifically. A colour that appears in their wardrobe, on their cars, in their drawings, in their washcloths, and on their bedroom walls. 

Mine has limits. I simply refuse to drive a pink car with tacky flowers on its side, wear hot pink socks, don a blossoming pink jacket, or use a glitzy pink backpack. There is more to life than pink. 

As I think about favourite colours and how they colour our life, I also think about the topic of moderation. Too much of a good thing is too much! 

We all know that eating only sugar-laden, crispy, chocolate bars for an entire day would lead to a bad end. On the other hand, eating only nutritious, beautiful, round green peas would also lead to a bad end. Somewhere there must be moderation. 

I am still young (according to some people's standards) and old according to others. 😏 However, I have lived long enough to see a few patterns in this thing called life and the people that inherit it. 

We as humans tend to richochette to extremes. For example: "My mother was tight-fisted, I'm going to enjoy life. This person delves off into a new life and pretty soon there is a collection of expensive items accumulated in their house, show-casing their lavish life-style and quickly descending bank balance. Or someone may say, "I'm sick of people being apathetic around me, I want to make a difference." Off he or she goes to try a grand venture without any foresight or forethought and quickly ends in disaster. 

A friend of mine once commented that he believes we need to stop this extreme sway of one generation going far left and then the other one reacting and going far right. I have thought about this some and come to the conclusion, actually conviction, that the only way to stop this is if we become absolutely convinced that the Word is truth. I know this is an old and obvious statement, but if we would become more concerned with following the actual than correcting other people or doing a better job than our parents, I believe we would see a phenomenal shift in today's generation. Instead of confusion, there would be clarity. Instead of rebellion there would be wise questioning. Instead of uncertainty, there would be vision. We would become grounded and solid in truth instead of reactionary volcanoes!

Nobody can choose what they are handed, but everybody has a choice in how they will receive and work with it.

‭‭Colossians 1:9-12 ESV

[9] And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, [10] so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; [11] being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; [12] giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.