From the heart of Jaden Lily

The "not knowing", as I call it, makes the road each of us walk adventurous. It also makes it scary, dangerous and out of our control.  It amazes me that God knew this when He gave us our will and freedom to choose- knowing we did not have his omniscience or wisdom.  We can choose all we want....all day long.....what we don't know. awesome.....


 
It lends itself to leaning, huh. It creates a moment of willing submission.  It keeps us heeled at our Savior's feet.  Have you ever watched an dog being walked....?  Look at these pictures:


Are you seeing that fluffy, white thing trying to be the leader. At some point, you want to scream at the fluffball and say, "come on.....there is this leash....and the purpose of this leash is to keep you from going too fast, going over there, getting hurt....etc.  Don't you feel that strangling burning on your neck? ouch. stop. You are not the leader....give up. rest.
This other picture. Sigh......Are you seeing what I am getting at? To walk at the feet of your master. To not have to decide where is safe...to feel the freedom and the slack around your neck.......What a picture of where I am longing to remain always.


My hindsight is excellent.  Maybe yours is as well.  I have been praying for God's shelter and wisdom as we walk into new things as a family. Deaths, Change, Purpose, Serving, Our Family.....I want to look ahead and remember what He has already done.  The point of history is to LEARN.....I want to be wise....to have learned....to look to the future like the wise old man in the porch swing who recalls a similar instance in his past from which he draws.....I want to remember.


As we were riding in the car a few days ago, Jaden says to me:


Mom, I can't believe it is almost August.  I can't believe that we are at this place. I never thought there would be a day that went by that we didn't just cry about losing Branson.  Remember, mom? Remember what it was like after she died.  We would just cry in the car and in our prayers and during the day. Remember that we just felt like it would always be that way? But I remembered that when Papa died I felt that way, too.  But God made us laugh again...even when we thought we never would.  So, I knew He could.  I just wondered if we would be ok, and look.....we are. 


Yes, I know she is exceptional.  I know. I know.  She is also the blessing I found at the end of another road where there was a lot of "not knowing".......  I want to always be in the place where I understand that I can do nothing without Him.....I want to always stay here.


Lord, tether my heart to yours. Bind me so tightly to your heels that I remain dependent on you even when the sun is shining...even when my flesh feels no need.  Let me rest in the freedom of being safe beside you.  Never let my heart forget your goodness, your faithfulness and that you led us though the valley of the shadow......Amen.

What is choking you....

Today I am overwhelmed with the amount of things that come between me and my Jesus....both things that I have put there and things that the enemy would use to distract me ...  These are the things that Jesus battles daily to get to me.  Sometimes, it is easy to misinterpret how our Jesus relates to us.  


Yesterday, God reminded me of His unrelenting pursuit of me. He is not sitting piously on a throne watching me struggle and fight through the enemy to get to Him.....He is constantly pursuing and showing His face to me.  He is battling, He is drawing me near to Him always.  Usually, the things that cause me to feel separated from Him or far from Him are the things I have actually put in my life and distractions that the enemy uses as well.

These are the two trees in my front yard. I love them. One of the main reasons that I loved our house were these two trees covered in English Ivy.  However, after living in the house a few months, I noticed that that beautiful ivy was choking the life out of my beautiful trees.  I knew the ivy had to come down.  On mother's day this year, a hard day for me in remembering Branson, I spent two hours cutting and pulling the ivy away from these giant tree trunks.  




Within a few days, the remaining ivy that was too high was dead.  I had removed its source, rescued the tree.  These trees are outside my front window.  I am constantly reminded of these trees and what they represent for me.  They were being choked to death. They needed to be rescued.  It took sweat and work to remove the parasitic tethers.  God is wanting to do the same for me...to remove the things in my life that hinder my growth...pride, ignorance, apathy, laziness, impatience.....all for my good..all because He loves me.  


He isn't waiting for me to get "better" to love me. Just like I fell in love with the trees when they were covered in ivy, so Jesus fell in love with me when I was covered in sin.  He rescued me...He rescues me..daily. 


This isn't a "what are your sins? fix them!" message. It is a "yeah, me too...and He is still loving me."


Jaden's Bible Verse for camp today is this:
Romans 8:28...For we all know that in EVERYTHING, God works for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose.


He called me and I love Him......He is working for my GOOD...

Unclenching

This picture of Alice falling down the rabbit hole has always disturbed me...... Perhaps, because it is the first hint that we have that nothing in Wonderland will ever make sense.  Perhaps it is because most Disney characters when I were growing up were blondes..... But really, what bothers me the most, is that Alice is simply floating, watching, observing and almost a spectator in her own fall.


Why is this disturbing? On one level, because she is out of control.  Nothing about the fall is in her power- she must simply endure it until she hits bottom.  But, deeper still, it is her lack of flailing that concerns me...she doesn't grab at anything, pray, brace herself or anything...she just falls.




 
So many times in my life I have just fallen. I have allowed myself to give up...to play a victim...to blame others....to blame God.  I have held on with a clenched fist.  Here is my hand......wound tight around the plans that I have for myself.  Clenched against any fear that I have....repeating the mantras that I have made for myself:
If I believe enough....
I can make it.......
God helps those that........
It is up to me to...........
Don't tell me I can't.....
If God loved me, He would.......
Why should I have to............
He will come through if I ..........
I must have not done enough..........
Why do other people.............


At some juncture or another I have said all of these things to myself. I have listened as the enemy has whispered these lies to me, and I have allowed them to sink in.....At some point, I have said them to myself, repeated them to others....even said them to God.  


I cling to hope in my own strength, in my own "wishes", in my own power.......it is almost comical that I would cling to these things.....Almost.....But, more often, it is devastating.. It is disastrous...
Each finger that clenches around my plans, my wants, my needs, my insecurities is one less finger holding the hand of my Father....I just wanna be in His arms.....what am I waiting for......






I have forgotten that I am not a spectator to my own life.  

I am a daughter of a King that wants the best for me.  He wants to take what is meant for evil and turn it to good. He makes all things new. He holds me with His righteous right hand. He leads me besides still waters.  He is near to the broken hearted. He restores my soul.  He prepares a mansion for me.  He that knew no sin, became sin, dying on a cross for me.  He wept.  He sees all things, created all things, restores all things.  He is seated at the right hand of the Father. 












Is this a Savior who is not capable of holding my life, my dreams, my hopes, my needs?  Is He not worthy of me opening my hand to Him...unclenching my fists....bringing my white-knuckled fingers and laying them in the palm of His nail-scarred hand?
 It comes down to one question...And if the answer is "Yes" then, the next move is mine.........
Does He love me?  
yes. Yes He does.

A gap to stand in.

Branson would have been 5 months old today.  She would already have a personality....likes and dislikes....preferences.  

Lately, I have not really been able to picture her as a baby. I have never really been able to "see" her in the stages she would have been. She remains the perfect, sweet baby that I held.  I picture her in the arms of my Daddy in heaven, resting under his chin....or nestled in a baby quilt in the arms of my Grannie.  I have no theology to back up my "baby image" of her...she may very well have the perfect body of an adult.....it is just the way she is in my mind at this moment....my heaven is full- a place I long to be. 

While on this earth, however, I am enjoying the blessings He is bringing daily- His mercies are new...every hour, I am finding.  

I have recently been asking Him some simple questions.....

Am I meant to mother another baby?

Will Branson's life be shadowed by time, by life, by business?

When will it not sting my heart to hear her name?

When will I know that I have let her go in a healthy way? 

Am I healed?

Are we ok?

Like I said, easy questions.  I stumble over digging for God's purposes and allowing some of the unseen to remain His mystery.  I am learning daily that it is not a "quiet time" that I am needing, but a day-long walk with my Jesus.  I miss Him....want to be near Him...find myself shh-ing the kids some times just to get lost for a minute in a song......funny, they are beginning to understand it...and sometimes they even get lost in it with me.

If someone would have told me that this is where I would be 5 months after her birth and death, I would have called them a liar. I may have even hit them.  I could not have predicted the joy that has been a part of these months, the road marked with His presence.....I feel like I am at a gap in the road. A place where it is rather obvious that I am supposed to sit and rest....a fork in the road where I should take neither....merely wait.....so I will. I will stand in the gap- a trust.


I do not know what is ahead....I am afraid something else will happen...that a tragedy may strike and that I will not be able to make it....of course I do....but I thought that before...and He carried me...all the way.  Did He limit His love and care for me? Would He not do it again.....? I mean, He did bear immense pain and torture and DIE for me- a woman who shunned Him, betrayed Him, ignored Him........

so much love

He loves me enough to tell me the truth: that there will be hard times and that He will carry me through them.


I leave you with some pictures from our camping trip. 
It was so very hot, yet my kids are so very cool:)

yes, that is a pistol on his hip.

Joy comes in the morning.....

There's a light in the distance
A new day is coming; it's on the way. 
So lift your eyes up to the morning
Spread your wings and fly away.


Joy comes in the morning
It's only a day away.


The final chapter has not been written.
The closing act has not been played.




-Vince Gibson






Psalm 30:5 Weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning....


Just a reminder of a promise He made to you..to me....to all of us....Cling to it.
Thanks, Vince, Ray and Michael for filling my head with it this morning.......

Not a mistake....

It isn't just a coincidence that I haven't blogged...it is simply a picture of my position in this moment...this season. I find myself standing in a moment...Like one....long.....gasp.

We are trusting that God's timing is perfect.

We are believing that He is the One that fulfills our hearts...that nothing else, no one else.....will be able to truly complete our hearts....

We are hoping that the road we are walking is paved with peaceful and clear highlights of the things He has accomplished in us and through us.

We are waiting with expectancy to look back on the journey and see the wonders of what He has done even when our eyes were downcast.......

We are praying for patience and understanding.


It isn't a coincidence that God has brought us to this moment....For there are no such things as coincidences...merely blinding spots from the light of heaven as we walk the road with Him....I hold His hand both when I am blinded by His light, and when my way is clear....for He is good.

Wake Up........

Nothing will take the focus off of yourself like a week away at camp.


Every moment, every waking second is filled with thoughts of what I can do, where I need to be....who needs me?  Amazing.  Incredible.  Heaven.


My week in paradise concluded with more than one encounter with Jesus.  I watched as some of my dearest friends heard from Him, talked with Him, surrendered to Him.... I watched some of them bite their lips to hold back tears, only to have the Holy Spirit wash over them and cause the tears to flow...release, be healed.  Amen, is all I can say.


It is funny how God can set you up- provide perfect conditions for an opportunity to rock your world.  I was amazed at the amount of time God spent on me...overtaken by the reminder of how much He loves me: enough to actually spend time with me.  


Recounting the events of the week feels a little like unpacking a dream from the night before. I will have to wait for it to come back in pieces.  All I can say is that I am head over heels in love with some teenagers.  I wasn't looking for a long term commitment, but little did I know where God was headed.....


He woke me up.  When you get sleepy, remind yourself what life looks like through the eyes of a teenager that just encountered the Holy Spirit....who just found out that he is not alone, that he has hope, that God loves him, that he is forgiven, wanted, blessed, chosen, gifted.......remember.  It will wake you up.

teenage girls.....

i am about to spend a week in paradise....it isn't the weather, the mountains or the food.  It is in the midst of 16 beautiful high school girls....


Some I know and some I do not.  I am beyond pumped to meet them where they are and draw them to the Father.....


Pray for us this week...


For HONESTY


For REVELATION


For RELATIONSHIP


For RESTORATION




oh, and maybe some rest thrown in there somewhere......

A year ago.....

A year ago this week, I was prayed over. I was held close and loved on.  I was told by a friend, who knew very little of my personal life,  that she saw "lots of life" in me.  That night, Branson was conceived.  


A prophesy.  A gift from the Lord.  A small window into the future as He guides my steps. A hint at the waterfall at the end of the hike....that smooth trickle of water heard through the trees but not seen.  


The words were "lots of life"......


"I lean not on my own understanding.  My life is in the hands of the Maker of Heaven."-UP


For now: I will focus on the "life" He has surrounded me with already.  I will soak them up unapologetically.