Journey
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Leave Fine Behind; Letting Go of the Fine Facade
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gently and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Matthew 11:28-29 ESV I’m fine. We’re fine. Everything’s fine. Only we’re not. Not only our default answer to the dreaded inquiry but secretly the response we are hoping to receive when asking a fellow human how they are, how their family is, and how their life is progressing. A global lot of fines walking and breathing through a world that’s gone amuck. We maintain our fineness even when the…
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Expect the Unexpected; When God Doesn’t Fit in Your Box
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8-9 ESV It is a tidy thing to put God in a box, limit his grace, his mercy and his love not just for us, but also for others, by our own understanding. We pray tiny whisper prayers, with specific outcomes in mind, and find ourselves fumbling in the land of disappointment because our prayers have not been answered. Again. Well, what if they have been answered but our thoughts…
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Heartache and Hope; Opening the Box of Remembrance, A Single Momma’s Perspective
We sit on the carpeted floor, surrounded by boxes holding treasures manifested as paintings, drawings made with markers, papers penciled with misspelled letters, stories, and construction paper cards cut out and pasted for holidays. Each creation is marked by a child’s name and a date. We count backwards to bridge the year, with the teacher, an age, and a pre-divorce, post-divorce designation. The dog interrupts, wanting to plant herself in the middle, asserting her belief that floor time signals play time. I remember my own childhood, sorting through similar treasures, printed photographs, wanting to remember and touch the tangible evidence of my own existence. It’s like this with my girl.…
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The Scarred Savior; Permanent Marks of the Lamb
The other disciples told him, “We have seen the LORD.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the mark of the nails, and place my hand into His side, I will never believe.” John 20:25 There are multiple entries on pages of tattered journals where I describe what I believe my heart to look like, scarred and twisted, marked deep by hateful words and actions, ugly. This image haunted me for a long time as I wondered if a heart like that could be loved, could possibly be softened enough to love others. Walls hide hearts like that, built to keep others out, to keep others…
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More Like Falling in Love
Give me rules, I will break them. Show me lines, I will cross them. I need more than truth to believe. I need a truth that lives, moves and breathes to sweep me off my feet. It’s gotta be more like falling in love than something to believe in. Jason Gray- More Like Falling in Love If you have followed this blogging journey for a bit, we’ve stepped, climbed, run, shoveled, hoped, prayed, wondered, and even wandered. But we haven’t yet fallen. Someday, we’re gonna have to fall or we’ve missed the entire point of the journey. How exactly do you fall in love with Jesus? The God man who…
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When we Cannot Trace His Hand, Trust His Heart
After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Take your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” Genesis 22:1-2 Let’s take a walk with Abraham. He has the legs and the spine of an elderly man, and moves cautiously up the mountain. His son Isaac is with him, carrying the wood for the offering upon his young back. This son, Abraham and Sarah’s delight, a gift of youth given in the last years of…
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Settling into the Rhythm of Waiting
From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for Him. Isaiah 64:4 ESV Sheltered between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, the Bay of Fundy boasts the world’s highest tides. Every six or so hours, the land is blanketed by over one hundred million tons of seawater and then exposed again as the water recedes. Like a tub of water in constant motion orchestrated by the sun and the moon, the tide pulls in and then retreats, exposing creatures and causing boats to sit tilted on the sandy bottom. Stand in the Bay…
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Engaging in a Prickly World
“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” John 16:33 ESV It seems the world is a bit prickly lately. Perhaps this is my observation and it only applies to southwest Michigan, but for some reason, I’m thinking it’s endemic. Plenty of confounding reasons for humans to be wound a little tighter than days past, so many in fact, I am not even going to list them. You can find them for yourself by typing the letters “Daily News” into your favorite search engine. It is possible to avoid…
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When Your World has Shifted; Is Restoration Possible?
I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, and the great army, which I sent among you. You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. Joel 2:25-26 Like a student waiting out a tornado warning in the dark hallway of a school building, there are times when it is safer to pull in tight, cover your head with your own hands, and be still while the ties that bind your world snap one at a time. Life is not very tidy. And quite…
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Highlands and Heartache; Confidence in the LORD
I will praise You on the mountain And I will praise You when the mountain is in my way You're the summit where my feet are So I will praise You in the valleys all the same No less God within the shadows No less faithful when the night leads me astray 'Cause You're the heaven where my heart is In the highlands and the heartache all the same Highlands (Song of Ascent) - Hillsong I will praise You on the mountain, and I will praise You when the mountain is in my way. Whether it be in actuality or spiritually, in altitude or in life, at the summit there…
