Just One Thread

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I’ve been watching through The Chosen. Unlike most TV shows, it is not something I can binge in a few days. Every single episode gets me teary, and sometimes I find myself gulping in air and trying not to sob. There’s just something about seeing these stories that I know so well, and have read a hundred times, play out on screen. I know this is not completely from the Bible. It does not replace my devotional time. It is man’s depiction of what could have been happening – but wow, it just makes it come alive for me.

Yesterday I got to the episode where Jesus heals the woman that had been bleeding for 12 years. The thing I love about how these stories play out in this show is that we get a glimpse into what life might have been like for each character in the “before Jesus.” This woman had spent 12 years going to doctors, trying many things. She had spent all her money, was unmarried, and considered unclean. I don’t know if we can really comprehend what that meant for her in our context today. She had no way of caring for herself, no community – even cast off by her family, and was not allowed to go to the temple. Her life was already hard enough being born a woman at that time, but this made her the lowest of low.

In desperation she seeks out Jesus. We know from the story in Luke and Matthew that she touched the fringe of his clothes and immediately her bleeding stopped. What we don’t think about is how hard it would have been for her to get that close to him. In the show she says, “Just one thread…just the fringe…just his garment.” She pushes her way through the crowd – a crowd that she makes ceremonially unclean by allowing her body to come into contact with theirs – and barely touches his garment. Instantly she is healed. Jesus stops in the middle of it all and says, “Who touched me?”

She must have been terrified to admit what she had done. Her desperation had driven her to touch Jesus at any cost – when she was not supposed to be touching anyone. She knew there was nothing else that was going to heal her. You can almost hear her thoughts of, “What have I done?” We know that Jesus responds to her in love and praises her faith. When we see this in Luke and Matthew, we are reading the story after the whole thing has happened. We start the story knowing she will be healed and praised for her faith. But she didn’t. She’s in it real time.

She started it with a history of being taken advantage of, of having hope dashed on every level, in loneliness and abandonment, and with the ever present label of unlovable. She had reached a point where she would risk anything and everything to touch “just one thread,” knowing the severe punishment if it all went wrong.

Just one thread.

I have access to Jesus every day, every hour, every moment. Not just one thread, but all of him. Ephesians 3:12 tells us we have boldness and access to Jesus with confidence by faith in him. In John 14 Jesus tells us he will not leave us as orphans, he sends the Holy Spirit, who lives in us and gives us access to God at all times. In Matthew 28 he says, “I am with you always.” At at any point I can call on the name of Jesus, commune with him, hear him, know him. I can ask for healing, for peace, for joy, for strength. He comes alongside and never leaves.

Yet I live my life, often, as though I am that woman before she knows about Jesus. Lonely, feeling hopeless, like I must rely on myself because no one else will help. This is not true in any way in my life – I am surrounded with family and friends who love me. But sometimes the enemy worms his way in and I start to believe those lies.

Sometimes there are things that no one here on earth could actually help with or change – things that need the miraculous. Those are the times when my faith gives me the ability to ask my Father face to face. I do not need to lower my gaze – he will raise my head and look me in the eye, with no shame, and remind me of who he is. I am not limited to forcing my way to him and risking it all to touch just one thread. I have the invitation to climb into his lap and ask for exactly what I need, and I can do it all without fear of rejection, punishment, condemnation, or reproach. I am his, He sees me.

Sometimes I need to reach that stage of desperation, where there is no one or nothing else I can rely on, to come back to the place where I really belong – at the foot of Jesus, reaching up in awe to touch him, knowing he is the only real hope. I am thankful for a Father who knows what I need in each moment to bring me back to him so that I can live in abundance and joy in what he has for me.

When He Speaks

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What does it mean to hear from God? I feel like this is a question I have had a lot recently as I talk with people about fixing our eyes on him and allowing him to lead the everyday parts of of lives and not just the “big” things. I was thinking about this as I drank my coffee on the porch this morning, because as I was praying through a particular situation this sudden peace came over me, and I knew not only had he heard, but he spoke hope to me in it.

Normally my brain is a whirlwind of ADHD chaos. It’s filled with thoughts, ideas, and plans – and backup plans, and backup plans for my backup plans. It’s filled with a million musings of what sounds like fun and who I want to experience that with and how we can make it work. It’s rumbling with the uncertainty of how to repair a broken relationship and why it even got to that point in the first place. It’s thinking through the schedules of not just me, but my family and all the people I work with and who I need to check in with, complete a task for, and lift in prayer. It’s filled with the realization that for some people I am too much and for others I am not enough and it never seems to be that I am just the right amount. It’s questioning my every thought and motive.

Often there’s shame mixed in because of the “should haves” and “could haves” along with some arrogance because of the “Well, I would haves.” There’s grief and laughter and confusion and joy, but most of the time it is all so intermingled that if I tried to type it out it would look like the first draft of this jumbled blog that I quickly tapped out on my phone with fat fingers that had so many typos I couldn’t translate some of it.

But then there’s those moments.

The times where suddenly everything is still and quiet inside, and I know he has entered and heard. There’s clarity, peace. It seems obvious and a weight lifts that makes me know, yeah – this is him. The one who says his yoke is easy and his burden is light. The one who came to seek and save the lost and loved us while we were still his enemies. The one in whose image we are created and and in whose image we are being sanctified and transformed to be more like each day. Jesus has spoken. The Spirit is here.

That’s how I know it’s him – when he calms the storm that is a constant in my heart and mind and reveals himself to me through the peace that passes all understanding. Sometimes the stillness is a brief moment, and the clarity seems fleeting. Other times I rest in the gift of a season of knowing and being confident in that knowledge. But even in the biggest turmoil and the most broken times I can live in the truth that God, whose word formed all of creation, speaks to me in personal, intimate ways filled with power and hope.

Amen! How do you hear him?

A Prayer to Remind Us

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Your mercies are new every morning, Lord. 
Today I come, worshiping you.
The creator, the One who has no beginning and no end,
Who made me and knows my inmost thoughts,
Who equips me for the calling you give me each day,
Who holds my tears and heals my wounds,
Who sings over me with love-
May I hear that song today. 
With a joyful heart I worship you.

I come to you confessing that my heart is deceitful above all things
I often want to take on your role in the lives of those I love. 
I want to fix the problem, solve it.
Cause the situation to cease to exist.
Carry the whole burden and relieve them from the hard story.
I want to be their Savior.
But that is not my part.
I am NOT God – Amen and amen
And as you give me your strength to walk with them, I am aware of your goodness,
Your redemptive acts in the middle of the valley,
Your strength being more than sufficient in my weakness,
Your hand turning the ashes into beauty – beauty that is eternal, holy, and full.
Not temporary.
Not man made.

I come to you with a humble heart, reminded that I can give no more than I am willing to receive.
So, on my knees in a posture of humility and profound gratefulness I accept 
Your love.
Your gifts of the Spirit.
Your love song over me that renews and refills my soul.
Your love that never ceases.
Your invitation to climb up into your lap and rest.
Your hope that is the cornerstone of my faith.

I come with a thankful heart that I am not alone on this path. That I sojourn with friends, with colleagues, with family. 
With you. You go before and behind. You are not caught up in the dimensional restrictions that I am. You are with me and there is nowhere I can go to escape you. 

I come to You with all I am – 
The ugly, messy, and broken pieces
As well as the beautiful, redeemed, and victorious parts.
Knowing your story for me is good. Joyfully accepting your plan in all areas.
Believing you are who you say you are.
And that is more than enough. 

Stillness

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There’s been a call to my soul recently from the Father that has had my heart longing in ways I cannot remember doing before. It’s a call to stillness – both in body and soul. It’s more than something he is asking my to do. Asking sounds like an assignment or a favor. It feels like there is a checklist that I should complete to help someone or to earn praise.

Rather this call is something more akin to an invitation. He is calling me, inviting me into something more – and it is a holy moment, a gift, a sacred glimpse at the ancient and the beautiful – the true Life.

It’s how my ADHD mind that can’t complete a sentence without another thought interrupting learns to hear the whisper of the Father and feel his breath on my face as he sings over me. It’s how my heart, that is hungering and thirsting for so much more than this world has to offer can finally be satisfied.

It’s not a task – it’s an invitation, a pursuance, a proposal to something deeper, more intimate and more real than I’ve ever know.

I find myself both giddy with excitement and wary of disappointment at the same time. It’s a tension of wanting to do everything I can do – striving and learning and praying harder and pushing in, and still knowing that I need to simply sit and be still. No talking, no reading, to background music. Just sitting together – me and my beloved Jesus. It’s the tension of knowing that he might not speak, but he still wants me to be there, present, with him, and that is enough.

But is it really? Can I trust this overture, this ridiculous idea that the God of the universe, the one who created absolutely everything, really wants to meet with me in this day, this hour, this minute? That all of it is purposeful and intentional and very important to him – both now and as he took it all on at the cross?

In her book The Liturgy of the Ordinary Tish Harrison Warren says, “The Psalmist declares, ‘ This is the day that the Lord has made.’ This one. We wake not to a vague or general mercy from a far-off God. God, in delight and wisdom, has made, named, and blessed this average day. What I in my weakness see as another monotonous day in a string of days, God has given as a singular gift. When Jesus died for his people, he knew my name in the particularity of this day.”

So as I wake up and rub my eyes and groan about getting out of bed (I am NOT a morning person), even before the coffee, I am trying to learn the practice of taking a few moments to simply allow my Father to sit with me, to rub my back as I slowly start to move, to listen to his song over me, to see his smile and adoration of me that he gets to spend another day with his child fulfilling his good and perfect plan in and through me. I will be still and remember that my belovedness, my position of being his daughter and being adored by him, comes not from my own strivings, but from the work of Jesus on the cross and who He is. And that is more than enough.

A Prayer for My Fellow Sojourners in Ministry

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Oh God who sustains as we cast our cares,

Meet us today.

As we love our families,

Serve our people,

See our communities,

and labor for you,

Meet us in our weariness.

You say, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Yet we are also commanded to love one another and bear each other’s burdens.

How, Lord?

How do we do this with others when we, ourselves, are so tired, so weak?

How can we carry more, when we have no more space, no more time, no more energy,

nothing left to give, no margin to be found?

We do this in faith that you are who you say you are, regardless of our feelings or circumstances.

God with us, Emmanuel, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, our Rock and Redeemer, our

Provider, our Comfort, our King.

You hem us in, behind and before.

You, the God who created the universe, are invested in us, involved with us, care about us.

You know us.

You ask us to trust.

So we hand you our burdens and take on your yoke.

You give rest for our souls,

Peace in our chaos,

Comfort in our sorrows,

and healing in our woundedness.

You do so lavishly, in compassion and love for us,

Your children.

But not for us to hold tightly, scared to lose it.

Rather, so we can be a vessel of hope,

of peace,

of joy,

of love

To both your children and those who are still orphaned and alone.

We come, currently filled with self and feeling empty of anything life-giving,

Surrendering ourselves to you to be abundantly filled by your Spirit,

Overflowing,

Life-giving.

Knowing we are heard,

Seen,

Loved,

Redeemed,

Filled,

Yours.

And that is more than enough.

Not the Captain

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Each morning I read from a book called, “Every Moment Holy.” It’s a collection of liturgies, and there is one particular one I like to read in the mornings to ground me and remind me of who I am and who HE is. The first two lines read, “I am not the captain of my own destiny, not even of this day, and so I renounce anew all claim to my own life and desires. I am only yours, O Lord.”

As I read that out loud this morning I had to stop. I read it again, but felt the pang of conviction in my heart. As I tried to move on and read the next few lines, I realized that I couldn’t do that until I sat in this for a moment or two. Yesterday had had some drama in a few different areas, and I spent a big part of the day stewing in that. I had been anxious over things I could not control but wanted to. I took on the responsibility of things that I had no real ability to do anything about rather than handing the wheel back over to the Captain who had made the stars to navigate and guide me. It had sucked the joy out of my day and made me feel like my head and heart were in a million places all the while feeling a myriad of emotions – most of which were negative. I was ready to allow the ship to go down as I gripped the wheel, white knuckled and insistent that I could figure it out.

As the Spirit gently helped me see (again) how often I want to be in control, I felt the grip that had on me start to tighten. The enemy does not want me to surrender to the One who has already defeated him, and my flesh insists that I can do all things in my own strength. But I rebuked those lies and spent some time confessing and repenting of my desire to be Lord of my own life and steal God’s glory.

Often I can see this quickly in my own life and circumstances. I have learned to trust God more with those things as I have seen his fingerprints on my life over and over again. But this particular situation had to do with one of my kids. I often want to swoop in and save them, fix the situation, take away the circumstances, make everything “right.” But when I do that, I am attempting to take away the chance for them to turn to God and see his work in their own lives, thus deepening their relationship with him and their faith in him. While I believe my place as a parent is to help them navigate it, the best (and only real way) to do that is to point them back to the one who loves them even more than I do. I try to be the Lord and ruler (and hero!) too often rather than breathe deeply, pray with them, and then pray continuously for them to surrender to HIS plan and allow HIS redemption to being good to their lives and glory to him.

So today I confessed and repented, doing so in the knowledge that the he loves me now, he loved me in the middle of it all, and he will never love me any less. I renounce anew all claim to my own life (and anyone else’s) and step into the day in the freedom and peace that comes from sitting in relationship with and under the reign of the one true King. No condemnation, just peace and joy because I am his.

I am Here

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When one of my children was younger he struggled a lot with anxiety and fear. He comes by it naturally. Both Shawn and I have struggled with these things. It has come out differently in each of us – Shawn tends to shut down and internalize while I talk myself into a frenzy and speak the lies out loud. Neither way is helpful if you continue to sit in them and allow them to shape you and the way you react. When I realized this child was on the verge of a full blown panic attack I knew I had to get him back to reality as soon as possible. I physically grabbed his face, put it right in front of my own, and said, “Look at me, son. I am here. I am right in front of you. I love you. Nothing will ever change that. You are my child.” I kept speaking these truths to him and slowly he started to breath at a more normal rate. As I held him in my arms I continued to pray over him. This didn’t stop the fear from creeping in again later, but in the moment there was peace. He looked at me. I looked at him. Truth was spoken and the power of that changed both of us.

I’ve spent years (decades) in counseling all over the world. Some of it was not so great, but the counselors that I connected with changed me from the inside out. They knew the words to say and the questions to ask to help me see truth. I am all for counseling. But now as I am older I see that it doesn’t help just to know the roots of my issues, or even to pull them out, but I need to replant in this soil that has sat empty. I need seeds of truth to sprout so I can be a person who not only survives in this world, but thrives in the love of my Father.

I need God to grab my face and point me to him.

Isaiah 43:1 says, “But now this is what the Lord says – he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel, “Fear not, for I have redeemed you, I’ve called you by name, you are mine.”

God will always love me. I am his. No matter what happens or how I feel, nothing changes this truth. I am sealed with the Spirit, redeemed and covered under the blood of the lamb. When hard, or even unthinkable, circumstances come my way, I can stand firm in this truth that is stronger than and brighter than any fear, circumstance, or trauma I face. Even when I don’t feel it in the moment, this truth is still truth. Thankfully my faith is not defined my me but by the one whom my faith is in.

When I feel like I am being swallowed up, consumed by the things of this world me and brokenness is all I see, I can look back to this truth and know that God – the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, unchanging from everlasting to everlasting, the Papa who calls me to crawl up in his lap and will cover me in the shadow of his wings, the warrior who defeated death once and for all already – that God love me, Heather. He knows my name, the number of hairs on my head. He knew me before I was formed in my mother’s womb and already had my days planned out. My name is written in his book of life.

When everything around is out of control and I am dizzy and nauseous with uncertainty and fear, I can find this truth and focus on it alone. I can picture the Father grabbing my face and saying, “Focus, breathe. I love you, daughter, Heather. You are my beloved. Be still and know I am God. I am singing a love song over you that more beautiful and healing and whole than you can ever even imagine. I am fighting your battles. I am weeping with you. I am here. I am here. I am here.”

Feasting

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Jesus answered, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes form the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4

As I do my devotions this morning, I am waiting on the coffee to brew and the smell makes me want bacon and eggs. I’m hungry! My stomach is growling, and I am looking forward to a hearty breakfast to start my day.

About six months ago I found myself making a deal with God that if he woke me up in the early morning without an alarm, I would get up and spend time with him. I hate alarms – they make me so grumpy, and I spend much of the night waking up and checking the clock, afraid that I am missing whatever I am supposed to be up for. I understand it’s a bit childish to make a deal with God, but I figured, I AM his child, so he would be ok with that.

And he has.

More often than not I find myself naturally waking up a couple hours earlier than most of my family and remembering, “the deal.” Sometimes I am a little grumpy about it still, doing it only out of obligation. But usually – more and more as I continue this pattern- I find myself waking up and anticipating this time with my Father before the day becomes busy and hurried. I pour my coffee, sit on my porch, and listen to the birds worshipping or the rain soothing, and I feast on the words of God.

Food has always been my addiction. Of course we all need food. But I have struggled over the years with the binging (and at times purging) of it to try to console, to celebrate, to mourn, to rejoice, to relieve burdens…you name it. Food was my go-to.

One day I realized, after pouring my heart out to God, that maybe I could use this impulse. God can redeem anything. As I find myself experiencing one of these impulses, I try to remind myself (and ask the Spirit to make me aware) that I might want to binge on the Word first. It satisfies me in a more complete and whole way than gorging on chocolate and eating a bag of chips. And because I believe God transforms our minds and hearts, occasionally I enjoy the chocolate after the feast of the Word. I think God likes desserts! 😉

Can I encourage you to figure out the rhythms that work for you to be filled with the life-giving word of our Father, who loves you and desires to make you healthy and whole? You won’t be sorry.

The Kingdom of Light

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“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12)

Have you ever been in pitch-black darkness? The kind where light pollution does not exist and you literally cannot see your hand directly in front of your face? South Sudan was like that at night. Rural, no electricity for anyone except and occasional generator. We had solar, but when you walked far enough away from our houses, the dim light coming from them did nothing to dispel the deep darkness of the night. I had never experienced anything like that previous, and I have not again.

Often I would find myself walking back from the church office to our compound in the dark on just a tiny dirt path that had been hacked away by the man we hired to keep the “nature” of the compound under control. I knew there were snakes – lots of them and many of those poisonous. There we also scorpions and safari ants – both super small, yet excruciating if you stepped on them. Some of the other, bigger wildlife around were not things I wanted to see in daylight, let alone meet in the dark.

While I was usually on high alert, and I would use my phone or a head lamp for light, my view in front of and around me was limited. I would always feel a sense of relief as I stepped into the small beam of light coming from one of our windows.

We put up solar powered lights all around the house – hanging from the roof like little twinkling stars beckoning us home into safety. From a distance you could see them barely twinkling, but as you moved closer they looked like magic in the darkness. They were the talk of the town when we first put them up! Many people loved them and asked us to give them some!

I was walking in darkness- pitch black, inky, all-enfolding. Real dangers were all around. Sometimes I feel that way here – in the middle of the city or at camp – everywhere we go has dark spilling in and overtaking, it seems. Sometimes as I look at my kids and my loved ones I feel as though we might be in danger of being swallowed up in it, with no way out; all hope gone.

When I feel this way, I have one of two choices. I can allow the circumstances around me and the emotions they bring up to define who I think God is. I admit that this is often my initial response. It causes me to sink deeper into my anxiety and stay in bondage for much longer. Or I can believe his word. “Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light for my path.” (Psalm 119:105) If I choose this way, then I am turning it back around and allowing God’s very word to define who he is. Then truth starts to settle in, dispel the dark and the lies, and peace takes root. The circumstances may not have changed, but I am seeing the light in the middle of the darkness.

Sometimes that light is a little bit like the twinkling fairy lights in the distance of a dark landscape littered with danger. I keep walking forward knowing that I am heading in the right direction. Other times it is a bit like I’ve been sitting in a pitch-black room and a spotlight is suddenly turned on directly in my face. I am startled, blinded by the sudden brightness, but slowly my eyes adjust and I can see the reality around me. Nothing is hidden, and I am safe and there isn’t a speck of darkness anywhere.

“In him was the life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:4-5) I am so thankful I serve God, who is the ruler of the Kingdom of Light.

Posture of Gratefulness

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Recently as I have been praying for people, I have found myself in a posture of gratefulness. As I bring the tragedies and traumas before the throne, I ask God to let each person see at least a glimpse of the redemption and beauty that He sees at the end of it. You might say, “Yeah, that’s easy, Heather. It’s not your pain.” And there is truth to that, I understand. However, the understanding that this point in time, this moment of tragedy, is not the whole story comes from my own walking through the hard things.

And that’s really the truth of abiding in Jesus, right? There is no greater paradox than this life that we chose to live. One where the admission of depravity leads to sanctification; the surrender of self leads to the fullness of living in who you were really created to be; where death leads to eternal life. There is a fine line between grief and joy, between despair and hope. You really can’t have one without the other. How could I understand grace and mercy if I wasn’t first in a place where I was accused and condemned for my crimes?

It’s the biggest reason I am not afraid to call people to repentance – not because we are stuck in our sin and horrible people, but because I know when we repent we open the door to deeper relationships, to healing, and to peace as opposed to the destruction that comes from our refusal to do so. However, to repent means we have asked Him to truly reveal what is there; It means allowing him to put a new spirit within us and removing from us our hearts of stone. ( Ezekiel 36:26.)

Sometimes I hesitate when I pray. I see the broken darkness all around us, and I think “How long, Oh Lord?” But as I pour my heart out to him he gives the space for the grief, he allows for my words, and he weeps with me. At the same time, he is not a God who is closed into time – he goes ahead of us and prepares. He sees the way all of these things are being made holy.

Could I ever have true joy without the brokenness ? Could I really live in absolute peace without having battled anxiety? I would have known pockets of these things – a small taste of goodness, just a shadow of what could be. But like the woman who anointed the feet of Jesus because she truly understood the forgiveness she received, I realize that my own steadfastness, joy, and peace come not in spite of circumstances, but because of them. And so they become like a banquet rather than a small taste; like the whole picture rather than a tiny shadow. We settle for so much less than what He wants for us because we are so sure of our own needs.

God’s ways are not mine. He knows what it takes my stubborn heart to come to the point of willingly dying to self. As I seek him out and continually ask him to reveal my own heart and then make it like his, I can see his fingerprints all over my story. I wouldn’t want it any other way.