Blessing: Advent Dec. 5

"I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others."  -Genesis 12: 2

God tells Abram to leave all that is familiar, family, friends, land.  And right after this command/request/whatever you want to call it, God says, "I will bless you."

I don't know about you, but if God was asking me to pick up and move everything I own, everything I've ever known, I would have a few questions.  Like, "when are You going to bless me, God?  When I get to where I'm going?  On the way?  Before I die?  And where exactly am I supposed to go?  If I don't go to the right place, will You still bless me?"

Notice those questions all involve me.  What happens to me?  (It's called selfishness)  Not focusing on the second part of God's statement at all.  "You will be a blessing to others."

The blessing comes in, but it isn't supposed to just stay with us.  It needs to go out, be poured out for others.  I struggle with this.  It is so much easier for me to get than to give.  I know it, I recognize it, and yet it is so hard to unclench my fists around those blessings.  To let spill what I have received and been nourished with so that others can receive and be refreshed too.

Like the rich young man in Mark 10: 17-31.  I wonder what unimaginable blessing awaited him on the other side of letting go of all his possessions?  I'm not saying that everyone needs to give up all their possessions, it can be other things standing in the way.

For me it's control.  What would it look like if I gave up control of all these things that I grasp in my hands?  My dreams, my desires, my worship, my fear in relationships.  As long as I hold on to them in my closed hands, I cannot receive, with wide open hands, the much greater blessings that God has for me.

I love love love the quote from D. L. Moody that Ann writes for us in her book:

"Faith is the gift of God.  So is the air, but you have to breathe it;  so is bread, but you have to eat it;  so is water, but you have to drink it" (p.41, The Greatest Gift)

Broken Hearts: Advent Dec. 4

"But Noah found favor with the Lord."  -Genesis 6:8

Honestly, I'm not sure where my head is today.  I read the chapter for today (from The Greatest Gift by Ann Voskamp) this evening, and normally I like to do this sort of thing in the morning.  But I had to work late last night/early this morning, unexpectedly, so then I slept from 5am-12pm.  It seems to take me quite a while to recover after a night like that.  So my mind feels a little groggy right now.

So as I read this small chapter, my mind was not very clear.  I don't know that I understood much from it.  So I may not have a lot to write.  I will make an attempt.

The first thing that struck me, that always strikes me, when I read the story of Noah and the flood (in New Living Translation, at least) is what it says in Genesis 6: 6.

"The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil.  So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth.  It broke his heart."  -Genesis 6: 5-6

 It broke His heart.  

I can just see the breaking.  The beings that He created, who chose to believe a whispered lie, choose to turn their back on a holy and loving God.  Despising where they have come from, who they have come from.  Choosing to indulge their selfish desires.

His heart breaks.  "The Flood was the flood of God's grief" (p.31).

"Every flood of trouble remakes the topography of our souls --making us better or bitter.  Every trouble is a flood, and we can either rise up or sink down" (p.32)

And His heart broke literally, on the cross.  And continues to break with every hurt and tear and cry.

"Yet Jerusalem says, 'The Lord has deserted us;

the Lord has forgotten us.'

'Never! Can a mother forget her nursing child?

Can she feel no love for the child she has borne?

But even if that were possible,

I would not forget you! 

See, I have written your name on the palms of my hands.

Always in my mind is a picture of Jerusalem’s walls in ruins'." 

    -Isaiah 49: 14-16

He sees all our hurts, all that breaks our hearts.  And it breaks His heart too.  We are never forgotten by God.  We are not alone.  All we need to do is look at the palms of Jesus' hands.  There, in the scars, there in the broken heart, our names are written.

Seeking: Advent Dec. 3

"When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the Lord God among the trees."  -Genesis 3:8

I have never thought about it before.  One of the first questions asked in the OT is "Where are you?" (Genesis 3:9)  God searching for the man and his wife.  Hiding in shame for what they had done.  Hiding in shame of their flesh.

This shame has spiraled all the way down to you and me.  Always hungering for more.  Thinking God is holding back on us.  Thinking we can do it better, but failing and feeling that shame.

Matthew 2:2- “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star as it rose, and we have come to worship him.”

Wise men, searching for Jesus ask the first question recorded in the NT, "where is He?"  They were wise.  They were searching out the only One who can truly fulfill that need, fill the hungry places.

I love this line from today's chapter in The Greatest Gift:

"We lost ourselves at one tree.  And only find ourselves at another" (p.22).

How heart-piercing is that!?!

Question(s): "What would you say if God called out to you now, 'Where are you'?"  "What does it mean to you that God seeks you out and finds you when you are far from Him?"
    -I think my most frequent answer would be, "I don't know!"  I feel like I get confused way too often, turned around over the smallest, stupidest things.  I'm not enough like the wise men, seeking out the One until I've found Him.

   -It's kind of disappointing, you know?  That I have to be searched out because I wander and get turned around.  Don't get me wrong, it's a very wonderful thing that God actually pursues us.  But honestly, I find it frustrating that I'm not good enough, that I get lost, that I'm not perfect, that I fall down so many times and have to be picked up by grace.  And then that thought process leads me further away from Him.  Showing off my imperfection and my humanness.  Showing me that I need to be found even more, that I need the grace and I need that second tree even more than I can imagine.

Ravished With Love: Advent 2

"So God created human beings in his own image.  In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." -Genesis 1: 27

Christmas begins at the beginning.  Where God created us.  Where He became our breath of life.  He formed our human bodies out of the stuff of earth and He breathed us into being.  Where He gave us hearts and hands, emotions and brains.

Why would He create us?  Why would He form us with His own hands and breathe into us His very breath?  And in His own image!?  It shows a deep tenderness.  Love for who He created us to be.  It's quite amazing really.

"Ravished with wonder." (from a quote by John Calvin)  To be honest, I had to look up the word "ravished."  Like I "know" what it means, but what does it really mean?

Dictionary.com tells me that it means:

1. to fill with strong emotion, especially joy.

2. to seize and carry off by force.

Synonyms: enrapture, transport, enthrall, delight, captivate.

Filled with wonder.  Carried away with wonder.  Gripped with wonder.  Captivated, enthralled, delighted with the wonder of how I was created, Who created me, and who I was created to be.  Filled with awe at the creation around me, the creativity around me and in me.

Question: "What does it mean to you that you were made out of the overflow of God's love?"

It means that God must have an infinite amount of love.  For the amount of times that I mess up, He already knew the number of those times, but He has enough love to forgive me and shower me with grace every time.  More than enough.  His love will not run dry.  It is constantly overflowing.  He still shows me the beauty in the sunset or sunrise, that is Love.  He still hears the needy cries of my heart, that is Love.  He still gives me words to write or sing, that is Love.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."  -John 3: 16

That is Love.

So this advent season, may we be ravished with the wonder of God's love for us!

The Greatest Gift: December 1

I had a feeling I would be back in December.  Just a simple suggestion from a loved one, "you should do a devotional for Christmas."  What do I know?  What wisdom and insight can I give anyone?  There is so much that I don't know, that I am unsure of.

I was hoping to get this book (The Greatest Gift by Ann Voskamp) for Christmas, but by then it would be "too late" to read.  It is an advent book that you are supposed to start on December 1, and goes up until December 25.  Yesterday, I was lamenting the fact that I would probably have to wait until next year to read this book at the appropriate time.  Just an hour after this, I was surprised to find this book in my hands, my own copy!  God, You were definitely at work in this!

I can't make any promises of how spectacular this may be.  It very well may fall flat.  Or I may have to stop short again, but I am hoping to write about what I learn each day from reading this book, what God shows me.  And of course just like my 31 day series in October, I am getting a late start.

I think I will share the Scripture from each day and any thoughts I may have had from the reading or good quotes, and then try to answer the questions posed.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot—
    yes, a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root.
2 And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
    the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and might,
    the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
In that day the heir to David’s throne
    will be a banner of salvation to all the world.
The nations will rally to him,
    and the land where he lives will be a glorious place."  -Isaiah 11: 1-2, 10

Advent means coming.  The Advent of Jesus' birth, the coming of Jesus.  It was so long awaited.  Prophesied by many prophets in the Old Testament times.  Why was there so much time in between the prophesies and the coming?

Waiting.  It seems to be a common theme recently.  And when that happens, I should pay attention, because it usually means God is trying to point something out to me.

I didn't understand the extent of this joyful waiting thing when I started the 31 days of writing on my blog in October.  I still don't understand it, really.  I think I am in a perpetual state of waiting.  But what does it mean?

What am I waiting for this time?  After the impossible has become reality.  After the longed for thing is held in my hands.  What am I waiting for now?  I still feel it, will I always be waiting for something?

One of the questions from the book:

"What are you waiting for, yearning for this season?"

I almost laughed or maybe dropped the book when I saw this question.  I've been asking myself this question recently.  What am I waiting for?  My answer has, so far, always been "I don't know."  But if I think about the question in terms of this advent season, then I may have an answer.

I am longing to not feel rushed this Christmas season.  Which is so difficult, because I always feel rushed.  I feel rushed trying to leave the house for any planned or unplanned activity.  I feel rushed trying to come up with and make (because that's how it's going to be this year) Christmas gift for family and friends, because every year it comes to the week before Christmas and I don't have any ideas, time, or money to be able to give a gift that I think someone will really like.  I feel rushed even thinking about putting up Christmas decorations.  I mean December is only so long, so I only have a limited time to have these decorations up (although, I don't because our tree stayed up year round because I just didn't care to take it down).  And Christmas music is only played for about 30 days out of the year (or longer these days).  And then there is Thanksgiving, and I'm still trying to drag that holiday out a little longer because I don't want to skip over it like it seems the world is trying to do.

Just writing that last paragraph makes me feel stressed out and tired.  And I really do not want to feel that way this year.  I don't want to buy into madness or commercialism, that my Christmas has to look a certain way to be Christmas.

I am waiting for hope and joy.  Those feelings I get at night with the tree lights sparkling and not a care in the world to bother me.  But I am yearning for those feelings to last through the year, not just one night, or one month.

That is my hope for reading The Greatest Gift.  I want to be able to slow down and breathe in this season.  I want to really focus in on what really matters, what is, what I have, what I've been given.

What I Learned In November

Linking up to share some things I learned in November.  This month went super fast!!

1.  I love learning to use my "new" dslr camera.  I've had a little more time these past 2 months to play around with it and take pictures outside.  I love to take photos!  A lot of my subjects are animals, not many of people.

2.  God is faithful to supply for our needs... and sometimes I don't know that something was a need until it was fulfilled.

3.  It is refreshing for me to just write in my journal.  I can really be myself and I don't have to worry about saying the right things or saying things in the right way.

4.  I need to keep pouring myself out, but I also need to learn how to refuel from God, in a timely manner.

5.  It is easier for me to open up around strangers, to be brave around people I don't know and who don't know me, than it is for me to be open and vulnerable with people I am around frequently.

6.  When other women are real and vulnerable and open, it makes me want to be the same.

7.  New things, even when they are longed for, expected, they make me very nervous.  If it is something that I have never experienced, I feel pretty terrified about it.

8.  I am easily overwhelmed by noise and activity and I need quiet and space to relax after a lot of chaos.  But I can't live entirely in silence and solitude.  I long for deep, relational interactions.

9.  Being a farmer means that 9 times out of 10, when you are trying to get somewhere you are running late.  No matter how early you may get up, and plan ahead, something unexpected on the farm seems to pop up when we try to leave the house.  And everywhere we go, my hair is usually wet because I just showered 10 minutes before we ran out the door.  Frowny face.

What I Learned In October

I'm just going to post this and not wait for any link-up.  I think learning is important, and even if I write nothing else on my blog for a while, I will continue to record the things that I learn every month and post them (hopefully, I will be back to writing on here soon though!).

1.  You can pound the color out of leaves!  Thank you Pinterest!  It didn't turn out that well.  I found out that you want "fresh" leaves, ones that haven't been on the ground for a while.

2.  It is a hard thing to write every day, but I can do it.  I just need to take paper and pen everywhere I go so I can write down my thoughts when inspiration comes.  I have words to write, I just sometimes forget those words before they ever hit paper.

3.  I can absolutely work ahead and write more than one post at a time!  In school, I was a procrastinator, but for this challenge I stayed ahead of myself for most of the time.

4.  Every time I type the word "soul,"  it comes out as "sould."

5.  I wiggle my toes (if I don't have shoes on) while praying before a meal, but only if we're holding hands.  I think it's because my hands shake sometimes (or I think my fingers twitch), so I think if I am moving another body part they don't shake as much.  I don't know if that's true or not though.  But I finally noticed that I was doing it.  Weird!

6.  My puppy likes to eat tomatoes and apples.

7.  I never realized how unpeaceful David's life was.  He spent the first part of his life running from King Saul.  Then he became king, but only ruled one part of the kingdom for 7 years before the other part of the kingdom accepted him as their king after their leader had died.  Then he fought a whole bunch of wars.  And then he was on the run from one of his own sons for a while.  It is no wonder he wrote so many of the psalms.  Things like that seem to come out of uncertainty and times of absolute need to rely on God (which should be all the time).

8.  I get so excited about things sometimes that I can think more about the gift than about the Giver.

9.  If a horse has a white face, the owners will sometimes dye black around the horses eyes, like eye liner.  If they don't, the horse is more susceptible to get cancer in the skin around their eyes.  Veterinarians know the most interesting things!