Month: January 2014

In Job

After 10 days of wading through his “pushing it” moments, his “right on target moments” and his friends’ “poor theology” moments in Job, it was such a breath of fresh air to read God’s response this morning. There was no need to decipher or question and try to figure out the real message behind the Words. It was a clear-cut humbling as God explained only a fraction of his Omniscience and Omnipotence. Whenever you need a pride kicker, fellow Older brothers of the Prodigal son (I’m speaking to myself here too), jump into chapter 38 and 39 of Job. It’s just not possible to leave those chapters feeling mighty.

Yet what a great God that even in our righteous indignation moments, He stoops down to correct us because we have the privilege of being His kids.

The Privilege.

He doesn’t need us.

He wants us.

“Slightly off’ in so many moments, ‘a little too prideful’ in so many moments, sinful and ‘battling out this flesh and Spirit” us.

What a privilege to be His.

– Thanks for the reminder in Job.

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Lil Baby 4

So here’s our little secret that we’ve waited to share until we graced out of the first trimester. This is healthy, happy and squirmy Lil Baby 4 who is due to join our company mid-July 2014. We’re excited and thankful for this new delight and look forward to sharing baby’s kicks and movements together until we get to meet him or her on the outside. I am currently in my first week of my second trimester and am thankful for the hope and privilege of soon parenting another precious one.

P.S. Now you know one of the reasons behind my quiet blogging lately. I’ve been SLEEEEEEEEPING. This whole participating in building a human is exhausting work! 😉

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For those of you who know me personally and have noticed the “Christmas weight” I was putting on (man how my body was starting to give it away), I appreciate you allowing us the privacy of telling you when the time was best. We have chosen this privacy since Matt, being an assistant pastor, tends to put us more in the spotlight than others. Miscarriage is always a possibility, but some parts of pregnancy hold a higher chance of miscarriage than others. So we have made it our goal to wait out the largest miscarriage window (12+ weeks) in order not only to allow for grieving, should it need to occur, to begin as a private affair, but also since we don’t want to make the decision for your family on whether or not you need to discuss miscarriage with your children. See, if we shared early on in the pregnancy and happened to miscarry, it’d force you to have to explain miscarriage to your own little ones who may not be ready or mature enough to understand that reality yet. So thank you again for making the excuses to your kids, for those that needed to, and diverting the questions to allow us the privacy and the respect of your own household in sharing our joyous news at the best time. This time around, due to when the boys left our home, we chose to wait a bit longer than usual to have our second dr. appt. Therefore, my baby bump was growing and more and more difficult to mask. Thank you again for working with us in awaiting the announcement. Funny how 2 weeks of difference can start to give it all away after you’ve been pregnancy 4 times already. 😉

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For those of you curious at what the breakdown of  our family will be come this new one’s arrival: Rachael will be 5.5 years old, Abi will have weeks prior celebrated her 4th birthday and our dear Hannah will be 2 months shy of 2 years old when we hope to get the privilege of meeting our newest family member.

Thanks in advance for your joyful prayers.

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Pure and Undefiled

“Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” James 1:27

 

I love this verse and I hate this verse.

This verse nails me to the floor every time.

My husband did a great, God inspired, job of preaching a sermon on this verse many months ago (maybe even a year ago now). It was one of those sermons I haven’t been able to shake from my head. One of those sermons that revisit me periodically to poke… and push… and chisel away at me, that I would look more like Christ.

I love this verse so much… and my flesh hates it so.

Widows, orphans. I want to make those the cute little people in Hallmark worlds, so far removed from us. Annie, the classic redheaded example of an orphan. And then pictures begin flashing through my head.

See, this verse uses these terms in their specific contexts of literal widows and orphans, but it also applies beyond the fatherless and the spouseless. It refers to the “least of these”. The filthy. The “left for dead”. The abandoned by society and the world. The hated. The devastated by culture and community. The utter and completely undesirable.

And it’s meditating on this verse that draws the pictures of those hostages in the brothels, and their captors. Those walking the shores half-naked after a tsunami. Those faces I have seen of children and families trapped in poverty all around the world. Those rendered useless because they are too disabled to hold a job. Those penned as mentally unstable, and therefore are wandering the streets.

And my flesh cries out, “I don’t want to go there!”

“I don’t want to sit down in the filth and the pain and the destruction! I don’t want to walk a mile with that burden I’m called to help carry.”

But then the Spirit within me reminds me of my own filth. My own utter desolation and destruction without Christ and even my own ugliness when I operate in my flesh while IN Christ.

The filthy rags of the orphan and the widow still smell putrid.  The hurts are still real. And deep. And there are still so many unanswerable questions. And sitting beside the girl on the brothel floor may not remove her from the brothel. But is Christ still Beautiful in a brothel?

“PURE and UNDEFILED religion”

Oh there are certainly times I wish God didn’t define work with widows and orphans as “pure and undefiled religion” and yet He has opened my eyes. He has given me His heart. Even though I so don’t deserve it.

See, religion is and can be pure and undefiled when I am not in it. When it’s not about me. When it’s all about Christ.

See, my flesh doesn’t want to “visit”, which in its context is not talking about a one-time affair but instead is referring to a “living with” or “traveling with” affair – a “walking alongside” and “carrying their burden” kind of visit. Yeah, my flesh doesn’t want to visit… so I have to leave it at the door to accomplish this command.

I am forced to shed my desires, my wants, my reservations, my discomforts and instead put fully on the robe of Christ. Maybe, just maybe that’s what Christ was referring to when He said “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you…” (John 15:7). Maybe that’s what it means to let His Words abide in me. Let Him abide in us…

Oh that He would even stoop down and find me desirable – not in any way needed for His mission – but desirable to be a vessel of His unconditional love.

“Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” (James 1:27)

It nails me every time.

 

 

“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” Galatians 2:20

 

 

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Celebration at it’s Finest

After each and every accomplishment when writing letters that my dear three year old, Abi, makes in homeschooling (for example, writing each individual letter B on a sheet of 12 B’s) she lets out a deep, gutted yell, “BOOM BABY!” and high fives me.

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– Good to celebrate your accomplishments.

– So much personality for such a little body.

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