Something to Cling To

Comfort. That's what my soul is crying out for.

The cold, wet weather outside feels like it's crept into my heart. My soul needs warmth the way my body craves a soft blanket and a steaming bowl of soup. It's easy to comfort my physical body, but much harder to find peace for my restless, worrying soul.

So much in this life is out of my control. Experience has proved it time and time again. Things happen to me, to people I love, and I feel helpless. No matter how hard I try, I can't stop sickness from infecting friends or keep a loved one's heart from breaking. I can't keep storms from hitting. I can't fix every mistake or force someone to make the right choices.

Maybe it's because we're in the middle of Lent. Maybe my heart is more fragile than normal. But lately, life is tearing me down. When I pray, the words don't come, just desperate tears. My neat little prayer list sits useless as I get on my face before God, unable to put my needs into coherent words.

I long for something physical to hold when life threatens to overwhelm me, like a little girl clinging to her teddy bear. I reach desperately for my Father, longing for Him to hold me with physical arms. Countless times I've prayed, "If I could just see You, face to face, even for a few seconds..."

I know He's there, but I wish I could see Him with physical eyes. But I hear Him, whispering to me that it will all be okay, that He has this, that He will never let me go. So I cling to those promises and follow Him through the darkness of this life.

Right now, I cling to my Bible, to the words from my Father, as I long for Him. It's the physical thing that pulls me closer to Him. But one day, I won't need those words anymore, because I'll cling to Him. I'll reach out and touch Him. One day, I can finally worship Him face to face. One day, He'll reach out His hands, wipe away a lifetime of tears, and put all the shattered pieces of my heart back together. I'll be whole and complete in Him. That hope is the comfort my weary soul needs.  It's what I cling to.

Renew Isn't an Easy Word

Renew. I was so excited when God laid this word on my heart for 2016. Last year's word, refine, was so hard. But renew? Sure, I could do that. Renew is a comfortable word, right?

I was so wrong.

Renewal is hard. It's leaving me on my face, begging for grace and mercy and strength. Being made new means dying first. It's painful and scary.

Being renewed is going to take slow, focused time - time with God to renew me spiritually, time working out to renew my body, time resting to renew my exhausted body and mind. I think slow and focus would be perfect complimentary words for the year.

God is calling me to slow down. Not to take things off my plate - this isn't about busyness. This is about intention, about taking time in the midst of chaos to focus on what really matters. It's about finding peace in the middle of the storm and hearing the voice of God in the midst of the noise.

That means daily time with God, taking my spare time back to read or pray or study Scriptures (instead of playing Candy Crush Soda Saga or checking Facebook), and finding routines, patterns, and practices that bring my focus back to God.

A few days ago, I read the perfect words in Jesus Calling: "Through the intimancy of our relationship, you are being transformed from the inside out." That's true renewal - changed from the inside out, giving God control of every aspect of who I am.

As I look ahead this week to my Lent Bible study, I feel like the last few weeks have been preparing me for this time. Lent is about remembering the cross and the price Christ paid to set us free. It's a time of reflection. It's a time to remember that we have to die to truly live - we must die to ourselves to find life in Christ.

Renew isn't an easy word, but it's my prayer this year: Jesus, help me die to myself so I can made new in You.

OneWord 2016: Renew

ELast year, I wrestled with God over my word for 2015. Late in 2014, I heard God whispering a word to me - refine. Not the word I wanted to hear. Refine is a scary word, one that brings thoughts of Job losing everything or David running for his life. There's no safety in that word. Instead of choosing it, I ran away, choosing dwell as my word for the year. Even as I did, God whispered to me, "It will be a year of refinement, whether you name it that or not."

He was right.

Last January started a long, hard year full of changes and challenges. It was definitely a year of refinement. As is often the case, I learned lessons through those hard times that I wouldn't have learned any other way. While I never want to repeat them, I can look back and see why I needed them.

Most of all God showed me last year that He is faithful. He's with us through the fires of refinement, and He really can create something beautiful from the ashes of loss and change. God changed my word last year, and through that, He changed my life.

As December drew to a close, I'd almost decided not to choose a word for 2016. Nothing felt right. Just when I was about to give up, God dropped a word into my heart: renew.

It's exactly what I need. God took me through the fires of refinement. Now He's making me new. This year, my prayer is that God will renew my heart, my mind, my body, and my soul. This year will be a journey of becoming new.

Unraveled

Last month, San Antonio left me unraveled. Not the city itself, not the trip, but a combination of things. I sat in our hotel's library one night, thankful for something familiar, missing my family. The day was full of convention exhibits and continuing education classes required for my dental hygiene license. At night, though, my heart ached because someone I respected fell hard, shattering the image of the person I thought I knew. Just one more rock tossed at my soul in this year of refinement and hard grace.

This whole year has left me reeling. The girl who hates change has faced constant shifts: job changes, writing groups dissolving, my youngest struggling with health issues, plans changing. 

The urge to curl into a fetal position and hide has been strong. Despite our 90 degree Texas summer, I crave leggings  and fuzzy socks and my favorite hoodie sweatshirt that's two sizes too big. What I'm really craving is comfort. Safety. Security. An end to the unraveling before everything I know and love changes. 

But sometimes everything unravels in the best possible way.

God has a way of preparing things before us, laying a foundation for what we need long before we even know we'll need it. Looking back, I can see Him working when I read Cold Tangerines by Shauna Niequist as I started the new year. It deals in large part with Shauna's job loss and how she wrestled with it - and I read it days before my boss announced his retirement, which meant my own job loss. God spoke to me on those hard days, telling me exactly how He was going to work things out. I wish I could tell you I boldly trusted Him, but I didn't. I was a weepy, emotional mess. True to God's promises, I found another job that started as soon as my old job ended. But if it was a test of my faith, I failed miserably.

The changes didn't stop there. It's been a year of refinement, a year of learning to cling to God. James 1:2-3 have taken on a personal meaning to me: "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance." Testing is hard. Refinement is not a process I get excited about. "Joy" is not the word that comes to mind when I'm going through trials. It's painful. But verse 12 tells us that God makes the pain worthwhile: "Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which The Lord has promised to those who love Him."

That's our true joy in the middle of the pain: knowing that God is in control. We don't have to panic, because it's not our job to work it out. God will take care of it. He has a way of taking our disasters and turning them into fresh starts. When life unravels, He weaves a new, more beautiful pattern.

This year has been hard, but it has also defined me. The changes have forced me to focus on what matters most and refined what I believe, what I cling to. My time with God has become slower, forcing me deeper into every word and nuance of His Word. The year has left me on my knees begging for more grace. It's drawing me closer to God. 

Life has left me unraveled...but God is weaving the pieces into something new. 

OneWord 2015: Dwell

I can't focus like I used to. My attention span seems to have grown shorter as I've gotten older. My husband complains that it's hard to watch a movie with me. I doze off, or I get up to put a load of laundry in, or I try to multitask and lose track of the storyline, missing important details because my mind is somewhere else. My train of thought is running in so many different directions that it's hard to focus one thing at a time.

Missing out on a movie can be annoying, but other things can't be missed. There are some things that need more than our fleeting attention. Faith. Family. The truly important things in life.

Life is fleeting. We never know when it will slip through our fingers, the time and the chances for all we planned and hoped and dreamed of, gone forever. In the past few years, I've lost some high school classmates, all in their 30's, all with young families left behind to grieve. People who although I'd lost touch with, I'd known since childhood. Suddenly gone. It changes your perspective.

Life is too sacred to rush through.

I want to dwell. I want to be settled, to reside with my family. I want to keep my attention directed toward them, not getting sidetracked by things that don't really matter. I want to watch movies with my boys as we pass around big bowls of popcorn. I want to play Monopoly around the kitchen table. I want to bake cookies and make dinner and hand down family recipes. I want to read together, laugh more, explore and discover together. I want to be present, not just in body, but in heart and mind. Life requires focus, living in the here and now, really being present in every moment. To live any other way is to miss it.

I want to dwell with God, to really know Him. I don't want God to be just something I check off my to-do list. The only way to fully live is to live in Him, and that requires time. Like Mary, I want to sit at His feet and soak in His presence. There are so many things I want to change about myself, so much I want to refine, and the only way to do that is to live fully and completely in Christ.

I've been memorizing Psalm 27 with Do Not Depart, and I love this verse: 

Psalm 27:4

One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek:

That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,

To behold the beauty of the Lord

And to meditate in His temple.

That sums it up. "That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life..." Because nothing else really matters. When my life comes to an end, my faith and my family are the only things that will matter. They are the two things that should have my greatest attention. This year, I want to dwell on the things that matter most.

Inscribed: One Year Later (OneWord 2014)

On New Year's Day, I wrote this in my journal:

I'd read the verse before, but this time, everything changed. The words came to life and jumped off the page at me:

Isaiah 49:15-16

“Can a woman forget her nursing child
And have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.
"Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands;
Your walls are continually before Me.

That promise is more than I can wrap my mind around. I am inscribed on His hands. When Jesus looks at those nail scars, He sees me. He sees my broken past, my failures and fears, my sins - but they don't matter anymore, because I am inscribed.

I am inscribed on His hands, and that changes everything.

A year later, I still can't wrap my mind around that promise.

When we read through the Bible, we see over and over again that God had a plan to inscribe us. From the first sin (Genesis 3:15), He already knew the cost to save us. And it didn't end on the cross. He promises that He is always with us. (Matthew 28:20). We inscribed. Not written, so that we can be washed away, but inscribed. Engraved. Forever His.

In the beginning, I though this journey through "inscribed" would be about God's love for me. In part, it has been. But in more ways, it's been about my love for Him, how His love changes and refines me. He has worked with me through hard things things this year. Through Lent, and the study that opened wounds from decades past. Through hard truths, struggles and trials. I still have so far to go, but there is grace. Always grace.

This verse is now burned into my heart. Into my life. I am inscribed by the God of the universe. The One who breaths life, who hung each star, who painted the sunrise - He loves me so much that He inscribed me on His hands. He engraved me there. He will never leave me. I may fail Him, yet when I turn back to ask forgiveness, He stands waiting with open arms.

I am inscribed on His hands, and that changes everything.

Inscribed

"I am inscribed on His hands, and that changes everything."

One month ago, I started the new year off with my OneWord Resolution: inscribed. I dove into learning about the God who loves me enough to inscribe me on His hands (Isaiah 49:16). I expected an impact. I was ready for big things. I wasn't ready for this.

Leave it God to turn this whole thing upside down.

I'm reading through the Bible this year, so on January 1, I started out in Genesis, and there it was, in the very beginning. It didn't take long for God's perfect creation to fail miserably. Sin entered the world, and mankind was destined to carry the scars for all generations to come. Then I came to this:

Genesis 3:15 (NASB)  
And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel."

From the beginning, from the very first sin, God knew what it would take to save us. We were already inscribed, because Jesus was willing to pay the price for us. In His eyes, we were worth saving.

Jump ahead with me, to week four of my Bible reading. This time I was in Matthew, reading about Jesus' crucifixion. He suffered. He gave His life willingly - for me. For all of us. He could have stopped it all, but He didn't. That day, as He hung on that cross, He inscribed me on His hands. The veil in the temple - the physical barricade that separated people from God's presence - was torn in two when He died.

When Jesus died, our separation from God died, too. 

He didn't just write my name on His hands, where it could be erased, wiped away, and forgotten. He engraved my name on His hands - He inscribed it - He carved it into His hands. He will never forget me.

He gave me everything. I can never repay the debt He forgave. How dare I think this whole thing is about me?

I thought this journey, this focus on "inscribed," would be about His love for me. It is, in part. But in more ways, it's about my love for Him, and how His love changes me. It leaves me speechless. Overwhelmed. Humbled.

I am inscribed, and that changes everything.

OneWord 2014: Inscribed

I'd read the verse several times before, but this time, everything changed. The words came to life and jumped off the page at me.

Isaiah 49:15-16
15) "Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.
16) "Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; Your walls are continually before Me.

That promise is more than I can wrap my mind around. I am inscribed on His hands. When Jesus looks at those nail scars, He sees me. He sees my broken past, my failures and fears, my sins - but they don't matter anymore, because I am inscribed.

I am inscribed on His hands, and that changes everything.

I want to live my life knowing that I am fully and completely His. I want to make decisions that are grounded in His Word. This year, I want to learn what it really means to be inscribed.

The Year of Being Reckless

It sounded like a crazy resolution, even to me. It was only my second year to do the One Word project, and while other people chose great concepts like "enough" or "gratitude" or "grace," I felt God leading me to something different, something radical. My one word resolution was "reckless." It was a choice that raised a few eyebrows. Where did "reckless" fit into my faith?

Two things inspired it: Jeremy Camp's song by the same name, and Francis Chan's book Crazy Love. I realized that I've spent most of my life playing it safe - to paraphrase Francis Chan, I've spent my life hugging the balance beam, trying to love God and be safe. (See the video at the end of this post for his balance beam analogy.) But "safe" doesn't do great things for God - reckless does. I decided that in 2013, it was time to start living with reckless faith.

I was terrified. I'm a very quiet person by nature. It takes me a while to open up to people. I'm introverted. I'm cautious. I want to make smart, safe decisions. Suddenly God was telling me to do the opposite - take chances, risk failure, put my heart out there and risk it all. So I stepped out on shaky legs of faith and took the first leap.

True to my goals, 2013 has been a year of crazy leaps of faith. It's been a year of leaving fear behind - or sometimes facing my fears head-on and moving forward in spite of them. It's also been one of the most exciting years of my entire life.

Here are a few highlights from my year of being reckless:

1. Entering (and winning) my first fiction contest, judged by one of my favorite authors, Steven James

2. Graduating from college

3. Learning to boogie board (sort of) - Boogie Boards and Big Dreams
4. Leaving my insurance office job without another permanent job to go to
5. Starting my dental hygiene career
6. Querying a magazine for the first time
7. Submitting my first short story to a magazine - it was accepted! You can read it in the February 2014 issue of Splickety Love magazine
8. Finally openly sharing my dream of writing - and calling myself a writer - Dreamer and Hello I'm a Writer

It wasn't always an easy year. I'll be the first to admit, I'm a coward. I fought fear and stress so many times. I battled panic attacks. I must have asked God a thousand times, "Are You sure about this?" He always whispered reassurance and nudged me to keep going, and He never left my side.

I've definitely spent a lot of time outside my comfort zone this year. I've changed and grown. The biggest lesson I've learned: God is faithful. If He calls you to do something, He will walk beside you and give you strength to accomplish it. He will celebrate with you when you finish it. When you step out in faith, He will open doors you never dreamed of and help you do things you never imagined.

My year of being reckless changed my life. It changed who I am. In 2014, I'll continue moving ahead with my crazy, reckless dreams, trusting God to lead me into amazing adventures.

(I couldn't get the balance beam video to embed, but you can follow this link to watch it on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA_uwWPE6lQ)

Dreaming Big for the New Year

Although it's not getting off to quite the start I expected, I'm so excited about the new year!  I love the fresh start and the clean slate of a new year.  I'm preparing to start a new Bible study (with the new Hello Mornings challenge starting later this month).  I'm writing the first words in my new journal for the year.  I'm looking forward to launching a new career after I graduate in May.  (Just four more months...not that anyone's counting the days.)

Over the last year, as I drew closer to God, He spoke to me about dreams.  He planted big dreams - God-sized dreams - in my heart, and He reawakened dreams that I had long ago let die.  As I've prayed for direction and conformation, He has sent it.  Although these dreams sometimes leaving me shaking in my boots, I know I'm headed in the right direction, and I'm excited about working toward those goals this year.

Last year, I set my first one word resolution for the year - finish.  This year, I did it again.  My word for 2013:

On Monday, I'll share on Must Love God about why I chose "reckless" as my resolution for the year.  It's fits perfectly with the dreams God has planted in my heart, though.

However, as I mentioned, this year hasn't started quite like I expected.  On Sunday night, my husband's precious 86 year old grandmother went home to be with Jesus.  As soon the funeral ends, I have to make a long drive to Dallas for a three-day review for the Dental Hygiene National Boards.  Its going to be a long week for all of us, and your prayers would be appreciated.

2012: The Year of Finishing Fully

I've been thinking and praying the past few days about my plans and goals for 2012.  I thought about different Bible study plans and methods.  I thought about books of the Bible I'd like to focus on.  The one phrase that God keeps bringing to my mind is "finish fully."  My "one word" of 2012, my one goal, is FINISH.

I'm one of those people who does great when it's time to start a project, but not so great when it's time to finish it.  I have several unfinished Bible studies in my notebook or on my phone on YouVersion.  I have scriptures I'm working on memorizing but have fallen behind on.  I have a journal I haven't touched in weeks.  And I know that God wants my new phrase for this year to be "finish fully."

Finish - even though I'm behind.  Finish - even if the deadline is past and the rest of the group is already done.  Finish - even when I don't feel like it.  Finish - even when I think it's pointless.  Just finish.

My husband and I are doing a Bible reading plan together - the M'Cheyne plan - where you read through the Old Testament once and the New Testament and Psalms twice in a year.  I will finish it.  I started memorizing Romans 8 with Hiding His Word, and although I'm behind, I will finish it.  I started an inductive study of Ephesians...I don't even know when I started it, its been so long...but this year, I will finish it.  Even if those are the only things I get done in 2012, I will finish fully.

Isn't that really the ultimate goal - to finish fully?  When I close my eyes and finish this life, when I open my eyes into my new life, my real life, I want to hear my Savior say, "Well done.  You finished your race - welcome home."