Rekindled

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Journal entry: 11/19/2018
As I write this, a small flame from a little clay oil lamp on my
desk undulates in rhythm with the slight currents of air. If I
squint, it throws a golden beam at my heart.
Every morning when I rise, I light it and watch its flame dance
and sit with God. A while back, the flame grew smaller and smaller
then silently extinguished leaving a thin wisp of smoke that
quickly dissipated. I hadn’t been paying attention to the level
of oil and had neglected its filling.
I am the clay container filled with the sacred oil of the presence
of Jehovah. There is a small flame in my heart that is a piece of
His holy fire. It dances in rhythm with the breath of His Spirit.
My soul needs continual filling and refilling every day to keep
the flame burning and radiating its light and warmth. My neglect
will quench and extinguish the flame of His Spirit.


The fire of God’s presence is always in me and with me, but I’m not always present with Him. Sometimes I slip into relying less on Him and more on me to deal with life’s difficulties and demands. I can go a day then another and another neglecting a fresh filling of His Spirit. In time, my flame grows smaller and smaller then silently extinguishes leaving a thin trail of smoke. My insides grow cold and dark, and I grope for a way out of the emptiness.
Over the past 15+ years, I have had numerous conversations with women at various retreats and events who were overwhelmed by life, losing their grip on hope and simply going through the motions. Woven into their stories was a thread of longing for rekindling.  We were made to experience the reality of the living Christ in our sorrows, struggles, dryness, and exhaustion. And so we long for it. But life tramples hope, shreds our hearts, drains our joy and leaves us spent, frayed and empty clinging to the broken pieces. I have lived seasons in all of these places.
We are containers by divine design, made to be filled with God Himself. We were meant to be aflame with all the fullness of His life, and receive grace upon grace in every situation and every struggle. Sometimes I let circumstances distract and drain me, but as soon as I look to Him in humble submission and faith, the flow of His life and power is unleashed again and He astounds me with grace upon grace upon more grace and still more grace.
Lord, I am humbled by your unrelenting grace even when, and especially when, I get lost in the struggle and neglect You. My heart burns to know You more and to be inflamed by Your presence. I am Yours, Lord. I need You in every moment of every day. Throw a golden beam of Your fire into my heart, and fill me with all of Your fullness.
 

Bottle of Tears

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Two weeks after my last blog, God lifted my mom from the confinement of a deteriorated painful body and took her home to paradise. So, I’m walking through the grieving process and redefining myself without her and all that went with caring and advocating for her. My grief is an odd mixture of relief and joy and a painful vacancy. I know many of you have walked through the same emotions.
Loss takes many forms – the death of someone very close to us, the death of a relationship, betrayals, the loss of ourselves to circumstances and mistakes, the loss of health, financial loss, years lost to unhealed brokenness, loss of spiritual vitality to the devouring demands of life, or the loss of innocence.
I’ve walked through grief a number of times over the course of my life, but there was a season that was especially devastating and life-altering. In the darkness of that valley, Jesus sat with me and grieved with me as a Wounded Healer. It was His tender compassion that knitted the shattered pieces of my life into a new thing. A vision of the compassion of the Living God is absolutely transforming.
In all their suffering he also suffered, and he personally rescued them. In his love and mercy he redeemed them. He lifted them up and carried them through all the years. Isaiah 63:9 NLT
The Lord is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him. For he knows how weak we are; he remembers we are only dust.                   Psalm 103:13-14 NLT
You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.                                                                      Psalm 56:8 NLT
So compassionate is God toward us that He is deeply moved by our sorrows and feels them with us. He pens them in His book with scarlet ink issuing from His great heart. His tender compassions toward us never fail, never grow thin or exhausted. They are fresh and new at the first light of each day.
So attentive is He to us that He sits with us in our grief and so close that He collects every tear in His bottle of remembrance. Our tears are precious to Him – not one falls to the ground to be forgotten. They are bottled with the tears of Jesus and sealed among His treasures.
Sometimes our tears spill from shame and repentance. These tears open heaven and literally transform us into the image of Christ.
One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to have dinner with him, so Jesus went to his home and sat down to eat. When a certain immoral woman from that city heard he was eating there, she brought a beautiful alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume. Then she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping. Her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them.                Luke 7:36-38 NLT
The immoral woman was on the floor behind Jesus in her guilt and shame, unable to meet His eyes. She held His feet and wept, then wiped them with her long hair, dripped perfume on them and more and more tears. It wasn’t the expensive perfume, but tears spilling onto His feet that filled His senses and stirred His heart.
I imagine she left with new tears brimming in her eyes – tears of worship and deep joy. Among all the fragrances of worship, it’s the sacrifice of praise from a heart ravished by His compassion that rises as the sweetest.
 
 
 

Heart Throb

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The throb of the heart of God is that we would know and experience Him more fully, more intimately, more powerfully in our redeemed humanity. And that we would know the limitless dimensions of His passion for us.
To that end He came.
To that end He died.
To that end He calls us each day as we rise to be flooded and overwhelmed with all the abundant fullness of His life and love.
My heart throbs to know and experience Him more fully, more intimately, more powerfully in my redeemed humanity. And to be overwhelmed by His unshakeable, unspeakable, tender love for me.
To that end I rise each day.
To that end I lay down my life, let go of my idols, and give Him my heart.
To that end I walk and live in Him so that He can walk and live unfettered in me.
 
 

Healing Garden

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Last week was difficult. As Americans we celebrated our independence, but, as a fragile human, I was deeply reminded of my utter dependence on Christ and of His absolute control of the details of my life. That’s a good thing.
On Monday, my mom was transported to ER and admitted to the hospital. This has been an annual or biannual event for the past few years. However, this time they discovered other problems and on Thursday she was put on hospice care. Shocking. Lots to absorb and process. But God’s orchestration and His gentle blessing has become so evident. He really does direct our paths and each step along the way.
When life is humming along at the usual speed and the journey is smooth, I sometimes forget He is near…very near. I actually think I’m in control, and actually try to be. Somewhere inside of my fallen humanity I think that because I’m not paying attention to Him, He’s not paying attention to me. How ostrich-like. How ridiculous. How sad that I would think so little of Him.
That surprising Thursday, I found my way to the Healing Garden and sat and turned my thoughts toward my loving Lord. As I pondered Him and listened to Him, He spoke into my heart and I penciled this in a little pocket journal:

July 5, 2018
Good Samaritan Hospital, Corvallis
Healing Garden
Live life with Me.
Let me live My life in you.
Free My Spirit by trusting Me.
Yield to My Sovereignty.
Stay connected.
Stay close.
Show up and spend private time with Me.
Walk with Me as with a comfortable friend.
You long for this deep in your bones
Because I long for it more deeply than you can fathom.

 
 

Hallelu Jah!

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I recently listened to the song, Hallelujah, by Casting Crowns and was struck by the artistic weaving of hallelujah into the unfolding story of God from creation, to redemption, and His second coming. The word literally means, Praise you Jehovah (Hallelu Jah).
Hallelujah was in the first ray of light exploding the darkness and in the first heartbeat of humanity. It was the song the morning stars sang together, and the shout of angels.
From a vantage point 2000 years removed, I can’t comprehend a depth of mental anguish that sweats blood or the horrific brutality of the scourging and crucifixion of Jesus. But a quiet hallelujah issued from the drops of redeeming blood and wells up in my heart ravished by such unfathomable love. Praise you Jehovah.
Hallelujah echoed off the walls of the empty tomb and in the trembling hand of Thomas touching the scars of the risen Christ. It burned in the hearts of two men on the road to Emmaus and spills from the redeemed.
One day the trumpet will sound and every eye of the living and the dead, even those who pierced him, will see him.  He will come riding on the clouds shining more brilliant than the sun.  All the people over all the earth from Alaska to South Africa will see him and will fall on their faces. On that day, the feet of Jesus Christ will stand again on the Mount of Olives, and the mount will split it in two from east to west. Heaven will roar in mighty peals of hallelujah thunder for our Lord God Omnipotent reigns! Hallelu Jah!

Praise the Lord. (Hallelu Yah)

Praise God in his sanctuary;

Praise him in his mighty heavens.

Praise him for his acts of power;

Praise him for his surpassing greatness.

Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,

Praise him with the harp and lyre,

Praise him with timbrel and dancing,

Praise him with the strings and pipe,

Praise him with the clash of cymbals,

Praise him with resounding cymbals.

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord. (Hallelu Yah)

Psalm 150

 
Take 5 minutes and 19 seconds to enter the hallelujah. Click Skip Ad, turn up the volume, feel the rhythm and flow of the story, and get caught up in HALLELU JAH:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fORhnYILTSo
 
 

Billy

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Joseph Stowell[i] tells a story about a conversation he had with Billy Graham who was eighty at the time. He and his wife were seated next to Dr. Graham, at a dinner for the staff and board of Billy’s organization. As the meal was finishing he leaned over and asked Billy the question he had hoped to ask all evening and described it this way:
“Wondering what he would say about his highest joys in life, I asked, ‘Of all your experiences in ministry, what have you enjoyed most?’ Then (thinking I might help him out a little), I quickly added, ‘Was it your time spent with presidents and heads of state? Or was it…’ Before I could finish my next sentence, Billy swept his hand across the tablecloth, as if to push my suggestions onto the floor. ‘None of that,’ he said. ‘By far the greatest joy of my life has been my fellowship with Jesus. Hearing Him speak to me, having Him guide me, sensing His presence with me and His power through me. This has been the highest pleasure of my life!’
It was spontaneous, unscripted, and clearly unrehearsed. There wasn’t even a pause. With a life full of stellar experiences and worldwide fame behind him, it was simply Jesus who was on his mind and on his heart. His lifelong experience with Jesus had made its mark, and Billy was satisfied.”
I grieve for our loss of a great man of God. An era has ended, but the same Spirit that filled and empowered Billy Graham, fills and empowers me and everyone who has received Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Thus begins the sweet adventure into the depths of knowing Him more fully, more intimately, and sensing His presence day after day, year after year. It is simply Jesus becoming more real in me and through me.
Imagine all the people in heaven who are greeting Billy right now, and imagine his joy when he looked into the eyes of Jesus. I know there was instant recognition and a continuation of the conversation he was having with Him before he breathed his last, picking up where he left off. Well done, good and faithful servant.
 
[i] Stowell, J. (2002). Simply Jesus. Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, Inc.