Mixed Messages

Wow. Really hearing Satan's voice lately. You know, in those ugly lies he tells us, those voices that can really get us down and tear us apart. I'm starting to see how someone could just give up and give in and believe what they hear. I'm fighting an uphill battle. I know it is the voice of the Father of Lies, and I know why he's saying what he's saying. But some days, it's really hard not to just believe him and give up.

Ryan and I have always believed that marriage mentoring and counseling are powerful and necessary things and should be an important aspect of living the Christian life together with brothers and sisters in Christ. The longer we are married, the more important we believe it is to enter into a mentoring relationship from the beginning of a marriage. Ryan has a degree in marriage and family studies and has served as a trained lay-counselor before. We served as marriage mentors to engaged couples at our last church home. So when we were recently tapped to enter into the marriage ministry at our current church, we shouldn't have been surprised. But the devil hates to see marriages strong and thriving and being unified in Christ. I think marriages are one of his top targets when it comes to what he'd most like to destroy. The destruction of a marriage brings so much hurt and pain and isolation into so many people's lives. So as this opportunity has come up, so have his attacks increased.

Maybe this is sensitive stuff. Maybe I shouldn't put it out there. But maybe the only way for me to hear the Truth louder than the lies is to bring the darkness into the light. So forgive me if you are offended by my honesty. My sister and her husband recently went through a divorce. You don't need to know any more than that. But just as I saw the devil at work as he tore apart the marriage, I now see how he is using it against me. "How can you help anyone? You are a failure!!! You couldn't save your own sister from the pain and destruction. You failed them, you let them down, you didn't do enough!" The convictions of failure are so loud. And then they attack again from the other side. "Are you kidding? Your marriage is not exactly worthy of replication." And then he proceeds to list all the ways I've failed Ryan and the children, all the ways we struggle with balancing home, family, and business. I'm a failure from every side.

I know this is the work of the devil. I know they are his lies designed to shut me down and shut me up. But I also know the Truth. The Truth is bigger and greater than the lies, but in this world, the lies can be louder. We must fight back, or be assured it is a losing battle. There are things I can and should do better in my own marriage, and with my children. Did I do everything I should have in my sister's situation? The one thing I am sure of is that I made mistakes. But I also know that the marriage was not mine to save or to destroy. I tried to help, but I am not responsible for what happened.

Get behind me, Satan. I will not believe your lies. I am loved by the Creator of the Universe who has a plan and a purpose for my life, a plan for the successes and the failures, a plan to prosper me and not to harm me, a plan to use my life for His glory.

Loving My Enemy

We all know what the Bible says about loving our enemies. And we can all agree that can be a challenge. But I have to say that in my life I've been pretty blessed to have very few people I would place in this category. However, a person has more recently come into my life who I suddenly realized fits quite well into this category. And I was challenged about this in a very real way.

I was praying hard the other night, in a rare alone moment, for a specific person in my life who I care about very deeply. Suddenly, God placed this other person who I do not care for on my heart and nudged me. What about this other person? This person needs love, too. This person needs prayer, too. But God, I just want this other person to GO AWAY! Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Pout. I don' wanna'. But then I surrendered to the Spirit's leading and began to pray for this person. I don't need to share what I prayed about because that's specific to this person who needs to remain anonymous.

I'm not sharing this because I want you to think well of me. I'm sharing this because it was a very real, very cool experience. I was serious before, when I said I never felt like I had real enemies. And I never felt the struggle of needing to love these non-existent enemies. And a struggle this is. I can't say I showed love to this person yet. But I did pray, and I think I did so with sincerity. Because as I thought and prayed, I realized that what God wants in this situation is really better than what I desire. So I pray that His will be done, in every aspect of the situation, in every aspect of my enemy's life and in our relationship. There are several possible outcomes to this, and several different ways in which God could be glorified. There's probably one God would like most of all, if I could guess, and honestly, it's my least favorite. But I think if God can make that option work out, then this person wouldn't really be my enemy anymore and God really would be glorified.

I'll just keep praying, even for my enemy, and God... the ball's in your court. To you be the glory!

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Continuing on what seems to be a theme lately, as I meditate on what it means to be a woman, to be a wife, to be a mother... Beauty is such an issue with us as women. Society sends us a crazy message. But we must be reminded that man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. And the beauty that is found in the heart far surpasses the beauty found on the outside, both in magnitude and in duration. Youth is fleeting, but character usually grows in its strength and beauty. I am fearfully and wonderfully made, both inside and out. I am created in the image of the Creator. Mercy Me's "Beautiful" hits on the struggle of feeling worthless in the eyes of this world and needing the reminder that God sees things differently.

The days will come when you don't have the strength
When all you hear is you're not worth anything
Wondering if you ever could be loved
And if they truly saw your heart they'd see too much

You're beautiful
You're beautiful
You are made so much more than all of this
You're beautiful
You're beautiful
You are treasured, You are sacred, You are His
You're beautiful

I'm praying that you have the heart to find
Cause you are more than what is hurting you tonight
For all the lies you've held inside so long
And they are nothing in the shadow of the cross

You're beautiful
You're beautiful
You are made so much more than all of this
You're beautiful
You're beautiful
You are treasured, You are sacred, You are His
You're beautiful

Before you ever took a breath
Long before the world began
Of all the wonders He possessed
There was one more precious
Of all the earth and skies above
You're the one He madly loves
Enough to die

You're beautiful
You're beautiful
In His eyes

You're beautiful
You were meant for so much more than all of this
You're beautiful
You are treasured, You are sacred, You are His
You're beautiful.

Come As You Are

I spent much of my life feeling like a disappointment. Even when I felt I had done everything right, I still often felt it wasn't enough. Many times it felt like it would never be enough. And even in my weakness and frustration, there was a lesson. We never are enough, on our own. It is only by Grace that we are saved. It is only through Christ that we are worthy. He takes us where we are, no matter how far away that is. When we turn, He runs to us with open arms, and takes us into the world's greatest hug, just as we are. So the song for this posting is "Come As You Are" by Pocket Full of Rocks. I wish I could have heard these words as a teenager.

He's not mad at you
And He's not disappointed.
His grace is greater still
Than all of your wrong choices.

He is full of mercy
And he is ever kind.
Hear his invitation
His arms are open wide.

You can come as you are with your broken pieces
And all your shameful scars.
The pain you hold in your heart,
Bring it all to Jesus,
You can come as you are.

Louder than the voice
That whispers you're unworthy
Hear the sound of love
That tells a different story.

Shattering your darkness
And pushing through the lies
How tenderly He calls you
His arms are open wide.

You can come as you are with your broken pieces
And all your shameful scars.
The pain you hold in your heart,
Bring it all to Jesus,
You can come as you are.

Healing is Not My Decision

I have been thinking a lot about healing in recent months. Not so much physical healing, but emotional and spiritual healing. The healing that we all must experience when we realize who we are without Christ and allow Him entry into all aspects of our lives, the healing that only He can bring. I'm pretty sure that this is never an easy journey for anyone, but it's definitely harder for some than for others. It's also really difficult to watch people you care about struggle to find their own healing. It's a journey each of us must make, no one can make it for us, no one else can control it. For those of us who like to control, that's frustrating. As a very wise woman (my mom) told me, healing is not our decision, nor is someone else's journey to their own personal healing. We don't get to make the choice of if or when or how. That is in God's hands alone.

So, of course, for me, there's a song. For me, there's always a song. I've heard this song so much on the radio, but last night a new part of the words hit me, and I was compelled to look up the lyrics rather than assuming I knew what they were. They are good. The song is "Healing Begins" by Tenth Avenue North.

So you thought you had to keep this up,
All the work that you do,
So we think that you're good
And you can't believe it's not enough,
All the walls you built up
Are just glass on the outside.

So let 'em fall down.
There's freedom waiting in the sound
When you let your walls fall to the ground
We're here now.

This is where the healing begins,
This is where the healing starts,
When you come to where you're broken within,
The light meets the dark.

Afraid to let your secrets out,
Everything that you hide
Can come crashing through the door now,
But too scared to face all your fear
So you hide, but you find
That the shame won't disappear.

So let it fall down.
There's freedom waiting in the sound
When you let your walls fall to the ground.
We're here now.

This is where the healing begins,
This is where the healing starts
When you come to where you're broken within
The light meets the dark.

Sparks will fly as grace collides
With the dark inside of us
So please don't fight This coming light.
Let this blood come cover us,
His blood can cover us.

This is where the healing begins,
This is where the healing starts,
When you come to where you're broken within,
The light meets the dark.

We all have things we want to hide, tucked away from the rest of the world. We work so hard to keep them hidden that they take us captive. We become obsessed with what others might think if they only knew... But when we release all that baggage to the Ultimate Healer, He doesn't just take it away. He sets us free and buries our garbage at the bottom of the ocean, and covers us in His blood.

We are called to take His light into the darkest places of this world. But it starts within each one of us. The light meets the dark. And overtakes it. And sets us free to shine.

Fearfully & Wonderfully Made

A few weeks ago, on one of the momma pages I'm a fan of on Facebook, the question was raised about how pregnancy and motherhood had influenced your view of your body. I didn't have to think about this long to realize the answer, and yet I hadn't much thought about it before. And I think I was a little bit surprised by my response.

I have never been a big fan of my body. My specific list of issues I had with my body is unimportant, since we all have such a list, and the details are not important. But when I read this question, I realized I didn't much think about the parts of my body I wished I could change anymore.

In addition to putting my body through pregnancy three times, I breastfed all three of my children -- Ryleigh for a year, Ashtyn went a little more than 13 months, and Jaden, at just under 5 months old, is exclusively breastfed. I can't say I love what this has done to my breasts. Large breasts getting much larger, and then when it's over... eh. With all three children, I lost all but ten pounds of my pregnancy weight fairly quickly. The last ten pounds hung on until I stopped nursing.

What is the point of all this? The point is my answer to the initial question. I could bemoan those ten pounds and the larger and later floppier breasts and the extra padding in my thighs. Pregnancy and motherhood do all kinds of crazy things to your body. Some women's feet increase in size during pregnancy. When I heard this while pregnant with my first, I started praying "God, please. I don't care what other side effects you send my way, but please, please don't let my feet get any bigger." I was already a size 10. Guess what? God has a sense of humor. I now wear a size 11 shoe. :)

Despite all this, I am in awe of my body. I remember, during my first pregnancy, when I had the time to think about every little thing that was happening, when I was constantly checking those websites that tell you how big your baby is that particular week, etc. (We called Ryleigh "Lenny" for a while because she was the size of a lentil bean one week.) Psalm 139 took on a whole new meaning, as I was so keenly aware of God's work within my womb as He knit my precious child together over those 41 weeks.

A woman's body changes during pregnancy to perfectly nurture and protect that precious unborn life as best it can. Your baby gets the best of whatever you put into your body. I was simply in awe that my body could sustain another life. And then when I began to feel her move within me... Wow! And then I began to nurse my newborn baby. As an aside, let me just say that, especially with my girls, nursing was no walk in the park for quite some time. But again I was wowed by my body, as it was able to produce the only nourishment my children needed for the first year of their lives, as the milk that was produced within me changed to meet their varying physical needs as they grew during that year. What a masterpiece God has created in the human body!

So, while I may not be particularly happy about certain aspects of my body, pregnancy and motherhood have taught me to appreciate the body God has given me. I know that He knit me together in my mother's womb and prepared my body to then sustain the life of my children. The extra pounds, the cellulite that has been added to my thighs, the larger and saggier breasts, and all the rest... I am proud of them, because those are my marks of motherhood. Some people call them their battle scars. I am able to accept my body for the miraculous way God may it and the way He created me to be a mother. Wow.

His Grace Is Enough

Just a warning, there's a lot going on in this brain, so if there's a sudden flurry of blog entries this week, don't be alarmed. I'm sure it won't continue.

One of the things I've been thinking about these past few days is worth. My worth. What am I worth? Should it depend on who you ask? My answer has changed a lot over the course of my lifetime. So perhaps we'll go back to the beginning...

I don't know if it started sooner, but I know for sure that at age 13, I was very insecure about who I was and what my value was. Actually I know it started a few years prior. It started at that middle school/pre-teen age when you start competing for things, whether it's top grades or roles in school plays. The age when you start believing that certain teachers might have favorites. When I started finding out I wasn't always good enough. Now, in life, this is somewhat unavoidable. We won't always have the highest grade on everything, or be the star of every show, or the MVP of the team (yeah, I know, I was never that), or get the job, or whatever. But there is definitely a more healthy attitude about these competitions than I had. What was probably a normal level of pre-teen struggles with this became much more complicated when we moved to a new, much larger school the summer I turned 13. This issue of knowing early on where true value lies is an area I strive to do right by my children in. We'll see how that turns out.

Lifelong insecurity is no fun. I moved from wondering what my value was to at some points, "knowing' it was non-existent. My self-esteem was frequently quite low during my teens. Dating did not help me at all.

But I don't want to spend this entry telling you about my history of low self-esteem. I want to tell you where I am now. My 30s seem to have brought me to a new place in how I see myself. Maybe it's life experience. But I think it's more of where I am on my spiritual journey. I've heard it said that you can't appreciate the mountaintop experiences if you've lived on the mountaintops your whole life. We need the valleys. So I appreciate where God has brought me, from where He's brought me.

What am I worth? There is only one answer that matters. The truth is, I'm not worthy of anything. On my own. But I am a child of God, the King of Kings. Alone I am worth nothing. I am a failure, a sinner, a disappointment. I've blown it, repeatedly, with my husband, my children, my parents, my siblings, my friends, total strangers. But I am washed in the blood of Christ. The only answer that matters is what I am worth to God. I matter to Him. A lot. The only one who is worthy is the Lamb. But when God looks at me, He sees me through the blood of His Son. I am worth the ultimate sacrifice on the Cross. Because of the Cross, my sins are on the bottom of the ocean, they are as far away as the east is from the west. Because of the Cross, God sees me as worthy through the One who is most worthy. I'm not worthy of much on my own. But with Christ, I am worthy of all the riches of Heaven.

This has nothing to do with what I do. It has everything to do with Grace. Amazing Grace. I love the Chris Tomlin version of this song, with the added verse, "My chains are gone. I've been set free. My God, my Savior has ransomed me!" Somewhere in the last few years, I have developed a new confidence. A confidence in my eternal destiny. I know, with all certainty, that I am worth the blood of the Son to the Father. I know where I will spend eternity. I don't know if I'll ever look in the mirror and think I'm much to look at. I doubt the world, beyond my little circle of influence, will ever know who I am. But I know I have great value to the only One who matters.

Do you understand how much you're worth? How much you're loved? There's only one opinion that matters.

Jesus sought me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God; 
He, to rescue me from danger, interposed his precious blood. 

O to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be! 
Let thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee. 
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love; 
Here's my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above. 

The Mirror of Motherhood

It's time to start blogging again. In a slightly different direction. I am becoming increasingly aware of the importance of transparent living, for a variety of reasons. So it is here that I will attempt to be transparent. That doesn't mean I'm going to detail every disagreement Ryan and I have (admission 1 in being transparent: our marriage is not perfect) or every temper tantrum one of my children throws. But I do have struggles, I definitely do not have it all together, and maybe, just maybe, some of that is worth sharing. I also want to share the victories and the joys. I need to document the journey.

Which brings me back to where the heart of this blog is: my journey. God has me on one incredible journey, and I am doing my best to keep to His path and not the one I might choose for myself. I am finding motherhood to be the mirror by which God shows me that which He wants to change in me. We look in the mirror each morning or before we leave the house or whenever, and we see things we want to change -- hair out of place, dark circles that need some makeup, something stuck between our teeth. God is showing me that my children and being a mother is His mirror for my life. Through them, He is showing me the things He wants to change. Unfortunately, God's changes aren't always as simple or as painless as a hairbrush or a piece of dental floss. But they are far more important. And so I record my journey from who I am toward the woman God wants me to be.