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It’s Just a Dream; When God Plants a Seed
“So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God.” Genesis 45:8 I feel spring in my bones, not just warmer air and longer days, the birds noisy in the morning. I feel restlessness stirring in my heart, I want it to hurry up already. I run it out, begging the terrain to pound against the soles of my shoes. I am not running because it feels good. It does not. I feel the impact against my joints as I run, I will feel it later. It is the rhythm I am after, the rhythm of breathing and of the pavement hitting my feet. I engage in the…
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Digging Out; Where Does Your Help Come From?
I lift up my eyes to the hills – where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. Psalm 121:1-2 The boy’s day starts long before his sister or I consider waking. Winter brings challenges to our West Michigan home, primarily in the form of a relatively long driveway built on an incline. There is a slight curve in the middle, identifying those who belong to this driveway and those who do not. Experience is required to navigate both an entrance to and an exit from the home that sits atop the hill, experience or a four-wheel drive vehicle. The boy’s…
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He Loves Me, I Loved Him Not
And Jesus, looking at him, loved him. Mark 10:21 And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. (Mark 10:21-22) I want to know the rest of the story. What becomes of this young man who so earnestly ran and knelt before Jesus, referring to Him as the “Good Teacher” and asking how he could earn eternal life (Mark 10:17). Will he lose what he desires to gain what…
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For Glory and Beauty; The Unlimited Goodness of God
You shall make them for glory and beauty. Exodus 28:40 Snowflakes are falling in West Michigan. Walking through cold January air I find myself captivated by their fleeting beauty. One in particular catches my eye, landing on my mittened hand. I study the intricate detail and wonder how many there must be stacked upon the ground and floating in the space around me, touching cold against my face. So much beautiful encapsulated in such a tiny package. As I walk, the lyrics of Gungor’s “Beautiful Things” roll through my mind. You make beautiful things, you make beautiful things out of the dust. You make beautiful things, you make beautiful things…
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Choosing Something from a Landscape Cluttered with Nothings
Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways. Psalm 119:37 I find myself living in the midst of superfluous options, like one who sits and eats from a box of chocolates. Chocolates that come packaged in a flat white cardboard box, lined in neat rows. A box once opened reveals a homogenous landscape of too sweet, too many. I am in the middle, surrounded by flimsy brown papers, reminiscent of a Shel Silverstein line drawing (complete with a slightly cynical but true rhyme) with my pigtails askew, cheeks and tummy puffy, holding a partial box of carrageenan filled chocolatey choices. Partaking fully in…
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Stumbling into a New Year; Watching in Faith
“You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go?” John 6:67-68 I have traveled to destinations where what I see when I look is more of the same. Places where the horizon promises very little but more steps, often on already tired feet. As this new year opens, in all of its grey January glory, the forecast heralds monotony, and places I am not sure I want to be. Yet, here I am. I could bounce in with hopeful promises of new things and grand victories leading to shiny cities. But my countenance is more reflective…
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Hopemonger; Living with Unhindered Belief in the Promises of God
Blessed is she who has believed that what the LORD has said to her will be accomplished! Luke 1:45 In a world of fake news and manipulated messaging, what if there is something true? What if the number one best selling book of all time is the written record of absolute truth? What if the story recorded in Luke Chapters 1 and 2 is the beginning chapter of a serious nonfiction book, an autobiography of a universal force wrapped in skin and born from the womb of a woman, destined from words spoken in Genesis 3:15. What if that universal force has a voice that speaks nothing into something as…
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The One who Longs to Abide with Us
“In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to Myself, that where I am you may be also.” John 14:2-3 Just come home. I have said these words to both of my children, ahead of time. Ahead of when circumstantial consequences may present them an alternative scenario that at the time may appear to be an easier option. Just come home. It would be easy for them to choose otherwise. They have the option…
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Secrets of the Desert Place
There I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. Hosea 2:14 Have you found yourself in a place where you never thought you would be, doing things you never thought you would do, searching for something you never thought you would lose? Aching with the empty of it, knowing there is something more? Welcome to the desert place, a place where there are more questions than answers, a place where the out is discovered only by going through. We know from the story of Hagar in Genesis chapters 16 and 21 that God sees us in our desert places.…
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Hope for the Holidays; the Single Momma Way
God sets the lonely in families. Psalm 68:6 This is my ninth turn at the holiday season being a single momma. If this is your first or even your second turn, it gets better, I promise. I am not able to tell you how long it will take before it is better, it just will be, someday. My first year, I spent Thanksgiving at my parent’s house, not even without my kids, crying in a corner in an upstairs bedroom. Alone, not because they were trying to stay away from me, but because alone was how I could manage. Fast forward to Christmas of the same year (celebrated after Christmas)…
