Sometimes I wish I was a princess...

It's funny - I've always had a wild, surging longing inside me that becomes palpable when I read certain authors or stories. It's a longing to be noble, heroic, magical; a longing to outwit evil men and to rescue the small ones who cannot help themselves.


Mom read John Eldredge's "Wild at Heart" to us years ago, and it resonated deeply with my brothers and with me. I've felt this restlessness for something more all my life. And this morning, Oswald Chambers talks about it, too.


"If we are going to live as disciples of Jesus, we have to remember that all noble things are difficult. The Christian life is gloriously difficult, but the difficulty of it does not make us faint and cave in, it rouses us up to overcome...
"Thank God He does give us difficult things to do! His salvation is a glad thing, but it is also a heroic, holy thing. It tests us for all we are worth. Jesus is bringing many "sons" unto glory, and God will not shield us from the requirements of a son. God's grace turns out men and women with a strong family likeness to Jesus Christ, not milk sops. It takes a tremendous amount of discipline to live the noble life of a disciple of Jesus in actual things. It is always necessary to make an effort to be noble." (My Utmost for His Highest, July 7)


I'm always amazed beyond words when God becomes more to me through difficult circumstances. I should work on that - He says all throughout the Bible that (essentially) He is with us in the fire, He is living and active, and we have no reason to fear. But I always fear. And that is the root of my downfall.


A recent instance: Dave and I are moving to an apartment, and we were worried about the timing of giving notice in our current situation and signing a lease for the new one. As we went to look at the apartment, I prayed, "Lord, You have smoothed our paths, providing exactly what we need as we need it every time. I ask that You continue in Your faithfulness and make our next step clear." And the girl at the apartment offered to hold it for us so that we got the apartment without overlapping timelines or having to move in one week!


But I wonder: If I kept that mindset, that my God provides and my God is always ready to blow our tiny minds, wouldn't I live a grander, more noble and adventurous life? Wouldn't there be more taking on the enemy and more rescuing the helpless?

From whom every family derives its name.

Dave and I were married 2 weeks ago in a beautiful ceremony performed by our counselor. Hayne read Ephesians 3 to us, and it turns out that several well-wishers penned it in their cards, too. I hadn't read it in the context of a marriage before, but now - as a wife - I believe I'll come back to it over and over:


"For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man,so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted andgrounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
"Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think,according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen."

In my absence...

I'm getting married in 4 days.


And the lessons I've learned over the past six months with Dave (much less the past three weeks) are invaluable and too many to recount.


Most recently, we learned to say we're sorry, and to say it fast. We were each trying to help the other and ended up missing the kindness each intended. 


So pardon me if I disappear for a while. I'll be back. I promise!


"Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose." -Apostle Paul

Where are the still waters? I need them!

I've fallen into that trap again - the one where I start to feel comfortable and in control of my life. Where I let my desperate need for God fall to the side, become less desperate. Where I get frustrated easily and nothing seems to go the way I want it to.


And then factor in an upcoming marriage. We're not even married yet, and I'm learning so much. Dave is my spiritual thermometer. When my heart is not right with my Father, the relationship Dave and I are building gets prickly, and there are tears and angry words and disharmony.


This morning, I was reading Oswald (surprise!) who simply asked, "Why do we doubt God? He has proven Himself. We have no room to fear." And then I was lead to James 3: 
"Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.
"But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness."


Looking on at my life, you wouldn't see these characteristics, you wouldn't feel the quiet assurance these verses emanate. Inside my heart there is a clear awareness of this lack of peace, and my heart literally quails at the thought. I am desperate for confidence in my Father that sings, "All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of thing will be well." It's there. I've seen the effects of trusting God with everything. It's just in hiding, weakened by my selfish desires and sinful nature.


Father, draw me into Your heart. Renew my thirst, my desperation, for You.

Excel still more.

A few Sundays ago, in a really powerful sermon on 1 Thessalonians 4:1-7, Frank mentioned Paul's urgent command to "Excel still more."


With so many aspects of my life changing - an approaching marriage, a challenging job, friends who do not believe but listen - I've re-charged myself with reading Scripture every morning and with shoring up my own understanding of my beliefs. I'll get a good chance at that with Dave training for Campus Crusade; their basics of belief program is solid, and I'm excited to work through that after him.


But today has been circuitous and odd. We had a terrific thunderstorm this morning that spawned a tornado or two, and as I type, we're waiting on the next bout of weather - it's supposed to be worse. Until this morning, I've never been in a place where I've lost touch with my loved ones and am powerless to help them, much less know if they're safe. And when we finally got in touch again and I tried to work again, my heart wouldn't settle. So I pulled up the Veritas band on iTunes (something Dave sent me after a men's retreat a month ago).


One of the songs leads with a written excerpt that caught at my heart. So I'm researching the Heidelberg Catechism now and can hardly believe the beauty of what I'm finding. It's certainly a piece I want to spend some time soaking up. For today, get a feel for the lovely wording:

What is thy only comfort in life and death?

That I with body and soul,
both in life and death,
am not my own,
but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ;
who, with his precious blood,
has fully satisfied for all my sins,
and delivered me from all the power of the devil;
and so preserves me 
that without the will of my heavenly Father,
not a hair can fall from my head;
yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation,
and therefore, by his Holy Spirit,
He also assures me of eternal life,
and makes me sincerely willing and ready,
henceforth, to live unto him.

How many things are necessary for thee to know,
that thou, enjoying this comfort,
mayest live and die happily?

Three; 
the first, how great my sins and miseries are; 
the second, how I may be delivered from all my sins and miseries;
the third, how I shall express my gratitude to God for such
deliverance.

"...and in three days I will raise it up."

Today is Good Friday. I've been thinking about Jesus' death and resurrection a lot already this week and what it means for us. There are so many things to notice about the events of that week - both immediate and eternal, and I hardly know where to start. So forgive me if this feels pieced together; it is.


In John 2, when Jesus says He will destroy the temple - the singular meeting place of God and man in the Jewish religion - He's talking about Himself. He literally destroyed the need for a physical place to commune with God, and instead He built a direct connection to the holy Father, satisfying the Father's demand for atonement. His body - also a temple of sorts - was destroyed and rebuilt. The temple's necessity was voided.


I attended my first Campus Crusade meeting this week with Dave and heard a powerful message on a real God who gives real life. Most of what Darrell said caught my attention, but one passing observation has haunted me. He pointed out that throughout His life on earth, Jesus spoke of God as "the Father" and "My Father." But when He was on the cross - in that moment that the sins of the entire world fell on Him, and the holy Father-God turned His back on the ugliness of His son - Jesus cried out, calling, "My God, my God! Why have You forsaken me?" In that moment that their perfect unity was broken by our sin, Jesus couldn't call God His Father - like us, He was reduced to calling, in humility and fear, on the righteous God of the universe.


Darrell also pointed out that for the three days that Jesus was dead, He experienced every weakness, anguish, struggle, and pain that humanity has ever known. Not as punishment - because He never sinned and therefore merited no punishment - but so that He could know intimately the things we go through: "For we do not have a great high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin."


There was a second reason for Jesus to understand our weaknesses: with that knowledge, we have no fear. "Perfect love casts out fear." Hebrews says, "Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need."


Another observation of Darrell's was the meaning of the word "resurrection"- he said it holds the connotation of "return to life, never to die again." In my limited access to study tools, I can't confirm the original Greek subtleties, but the idea makes sense. Lazarus was revived (he died again later, at the end of his natural life), but Jesus died once and was resurrected. He will not die again. And when we have lived out our natural lives, and died, we too will be resurrected to live forever with Him.


I've been working through this, trying to absorb it. I'm not sure I'll ever fully understand, this side of heaven. But I look forward to grasping it all, standing face-to-face with Him, holding His hand, and knowing.

You turned me into somebody loved.

I'm a little bit pathetic this morning. And I hate it.


Read Oswald and 1 Corinthians 1, but there's no heart behind it. I've been trying to lay my heart out before my Father (in my mind it looks like Mom's pie dough rolled out on the counter). It just feels thin, bland, and sticky. There's very little color to it. No one would want it in that condition.


And then 1 Corinthians reminds me that God didn't choose the noble, the wise, the graceful, the attractive, the perfect, or the do-gooders to bear His love note to the rest of the world. He didn't pick the ones with 4.0s, the ones who never have an angry thought, the ones who have never broken a rule (or even a nail). They wouldn't have been good messengers, and God knew it.


Instead, He chose me, and He chose you. He chose the meek, the mild, the humble, the tearful, the ashamed, the foolish, the rebellious, the silly. He chose the ones who can't follow the rules to save their lives, the ones that mess up and can't seem to learn from it, the ones that are tired to death of trying to be good and just sit down in the mud and give up.


He did it so we can't brag on ourselves. I'm not a perfectly baked apple pie. I'm icky, sticky, salty, crumbly dough on a countertop that won't roll out and won't let go of the pin and refuses to slide into the pan. I never do the right thing twice, and I rarely do the same thing twice.


But you know what's cool? It's ok that I'm messy. God takes me just like this, and then He uses me! That  second part blows my mind: even as akimbo and tousled as I am, He sometimes lets other people see His glory through me. Talk about humbling. No one knows how insignificant I am more than I do - and yet my Father knows me inside out, and He lets me help Him.




Dad,
Thank You for a morning to reflect on how much You love us, and how desperate You are for a relationship with us - You take us even as dirty as we are! Thank You for making us Your little children, for picking us up when we fall down, for kissing our wounds and making them better, for seeing further than we can, and for dreaming bigger dreams than we even dare. Help us to love You! Amen.