Dear Ami: Recently I have been reading through Jeremiah. Chapter after chapter talk about the judgment coming to Israel. Then, it turns, and chapter after chapter predict the destruction of the nations around Israel. Why does it matter to hear about that when they aren’t God’s people. Signed, Curious {Come read my reply!}
What started as a common illness with the doctor’s admonition to rest for a few weeks has become a two-year battle against a fatigue that has tethered me to my home and drained me of energy. Yet in God's great redemptive power, He’s let my heart grow and learn, even while my physical body has been battered and weakened. Come read three of the things the Lord has taught me through ongoing illness and fatigue.
What is this Christmas going to look like? Will my people be able to get together? If you are a Believer in Jesus Christ, you know your joy is found only in Jesus. That beautiful truth doesn’t exactly stop the aching loneliness of being alone and bereft of your beloved traditions. We need more than the words of this sentiment. We need a way to access the felt truth behind the sentiment.
This year has kicked me in the teeth. It has ripped my heart out and stolen my breath away. It’s been hard to see the light of day. But, like a Divine appointment, a book with wisdom for the broken came into my life this year and has given me a tool that has helped to keep my head above water.
What is unique about the towns of Santa Barbara, California and Solvang, California? Both are beautiful towns, singular in their style, but neither one started out that way. These two gems in central California were transformed into what they are today by surprising circumstances. Come read what transformed them and why the same things can also transform your life!
One cozy Fall day, I was snuggled in, watching “Persuasion,” a Jane Austen novel set to film. I was struck by a line in the movie that a young woman says to a young man. It goes something like this, “I’d rather be tossed in a ditch by the man I love than to go steadily along without him.” (Caveat: “tossed in a ditch,” was not referring to abuse, but rather living a thrillingly adventurous life alongside her husband.) It made me think of my own adventures with God.
Each of us has a nearly gravitational pull, urging us toward what can make us whole. And yet, we seek out less fulfilling sources that tantalize us with empty pledges of wholeness. But why would a loving Father create us with a hole in our hearts that causes such longings that we seek to fill it with painful things? How can this be considered loving?
I don’t know about you, but sometimes I genuinely feel like I’m failing, like I’d be better off if I just bowed out. The tears flow for me some days. I question if the Lord has changed His mind about His promises or if I heard Him amiss. But as I watched one season of "The Great British Baking Show" for the second time, the Lord spoke something profound to my heart.
As a recent situation in my life drove me to my knees – in pain and in prayer – I poured myself into prayer beyond the norm. I decreed and declared and renounced and repented. All of those things were good. However, I began to realize that a tweak, a reprogramming, of my brain desperately needed to happen when it came to how I did spiritual warfare.
Here I am, once again, mulling over a current pain until I’ve injured my heart. I may lay it at the Lord’s feet momentarily, but within the blink of an eye, there it is, its full weight in my hands as I preen the beast with a fine-toothed comb. What makes it continually come back to mind and heart? I’ve found two major barriers that keep my mind wandering back to handling the beast of pain.
Birth is so natural to us, clearly our expectation. But death? Death is different. Death is unnatural. We stand in the face of death with mouths agape, wondering what and why and how. No matter how expected, no matter how sweet the home-going, death’s finality and foreignness shakes us. Why? We can tell our intellect that death is as natural as birth, but why does it still grieve and bewilder?
Trying to hear our Heavenly Father often comes with real effort and practice to press in to feel that whisper stirring in our hearts. At other times, life seems to be collapsing at our feet or an immediate decision is required, but it seems we’ve suddenly lost our connection to the still small voice that guides us so gently. Why?
What Was So Wrong About the Israelites' Complaints? We know that the common explanation is that He had done so many miracles for them along the way, they should have been more grateful and trusting. There is some merit in this theory, but I believe it only tells part of the story.
A couple years ago the Hubs bought me a telescope. Calibrating the “finderscope” that came with it, we had to make sure that what was a close distance away was perfectly in focus. Only then could we look into the depths of space. Very interesting and profound. Read the blog to hear how the Lord showed me the knowable things in life that made the unknown things clearer.
As is true for all of us, there was a war being waged over my childhood heart and mind: Whose words would I allow to shape and mold me in my formative years and even in my adulthood? I believed the words of others. I accepted the labels others plastered onto my identity. In the process, I betrayed myself, my true self.
Last year was an intense year of wandering in and out of brain fog for me. It’s better this year, as the Lord begins to heal and restore all that last year stole. But the lost feeling reminds me of another time I predictably feel a fog roll in: on the battlefield. I’m not speaking of a tangible battlefield, but the battlefield of my heart and mind when the enemy hurls his flaming arrows and the fog of war has me reeling.
Admittedly, there are dry areas in the Bible. But I’ve always figured, if God wrote a book with limited space, everything in it must be for my benefit. Having recently read through one of “those” sections, the Lord graciously showed me part of His purpose in these more challenging passages.
All of us go through them; none of us enjoy them. Trials. We’re told to count them a joy (James 1:2). But we are also told that God, though He does not send them, will use them. He will turn them for our good (Romans 8:28). During my most recent trial, as I prayed and journaled with the Lord one morning, I made a list. I called it my, “Things I want to gain out of this trial” list.
