Every spring and every fall we dutifully make the rounds to our clocks and digital devices, putting them first forward an hour and then back in an attempt to make the days “longer”.
As if time was in our hands.
The sun rises and sets according to the Creator’s schedule, we can neither speed the world’s turning, nor slow it down. We can only choose whether to be present in the moments He grants us.
Read the rest here: Time Change
Forty years!
Forty years Israel wandered in the desert, unable to claim the promise given them through Moses.
Forty years forbidden to set foot across the Jordan and partake of the bounty that lay on the other side.
Forty years of death as the rebellious ones were laid to rest because of their rebellion.
I bet they got tired of traveling. I bet they were weary of moving on. I bet they wondered (even though they had sure knowledge) just when this would be over.
And all that time, even in the midst of their heartsick longing to go back, have a do-over, make it right and the heavy weight of knowing, knowing, knowing there would be no going back, the LORD was in their midst-a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night-He was there.
I understand completely.
Sundown yesterday began the Feast of Tabernacles for Jews around the world. It’s a seven day period to celebrate God’s faithfulness in the wilderness and to remember that this world is not our home.
I think it is a beautiful tradition and a wonderful way to speak truth to our hearts.
Because it’s easy to forget.
Unless something happens that sharpens the homesick longing that lies latent in all our hearts, it’s easy to get comfortable here. Life seems pretty good-we gather our people and our stuff around us and think, “I could stay here forever.”
But no one stays here forever.
This world is not my home.
It never has been.
And I am tired of traveling. I am tired of moving on. I wonder just when this is going to be over.
But even here, God is in the midst of it.
Emmanuel-God With Us-is near.
Jehovah-Shalom-The LORD My Peace-is speaking peace that passes understanding to my weary spirit.
I was created for a place where love and light reign and sickness and death cannot enter.
I feel it every day.
“I began to try to define the pain I felt. Yes, it was sorrow, but it was something more, something infinitely deeper. I felt it all the time, even when I was happy. It wasn’t just sorrow. It was a longing; a pining for a better place and time … no, not just a better place and time, a perfect place and time; a different reality. It felt like longing for home, but not for a home I had ever been to. I began to see that it was something like homesickness …. Perhaps Christians are the most consistently homesick people in the world because they know this world (as it is) isn’t their true home. Yes, I was home, but I was still homesick.”
~Elyse Fitzpatrick, Home
The Fall Feasts of Israel are a beautiful reminder of Who God is and what Christ has done for us.
Beginning this evening and continuing until sunset tomorrow, Jews around the world are observing Yom Kippur or The Day of Atonement.
According to Scripture (Leviticus 16), The Day of Atonement was commanded by God for Israel to remember the terrible debt of sin and the only acceptable payment–blood.
The high priest would enter the Holy of Holies and apply blood to the horns of the mercy seat, thus covering over for another year the individual and corporate sin of Israel.
According to Jewish tradition, God inscribes each person’s fate for the coming year into a book, the Book of Life, on Rosh Hashanah, and waits until Yom Kippur to “seal” the verdict. During the Days of Awe, a Jew tries to amend his or her behavior and seek forgiveness for wrongs done against God and against other human beings. The evening and day of Yom Kippur are set aside for public and private petitions and confessions of guilt. At the end of Yom Kippur, one hopes that they have been forgiven by God.
Yet year after year, this sacrifice was not enough.
The blood of animals is insufficient to pay the debt owed by men to a perfect and holy God.
But the blood of the Perfect Lamb, Jesus Christ, has completely paid the debt I owe-I no longer cower in the shadow of my sin.
When I chose to apply that blood to my heart by faith, I was made right with the LORD.
As a believer in Jesus the Christ, I have a High Priest that has offered His own blood as the Perfect Sacrifice once for all (Hebrews 9).
I can rest assured that I’m not sealed only for a day, or even a year, but for all eternity!
Because Jesus is the eternal and sufficient propitiation for my sins, I need not fear death.
It is sin which gives death its power, and it is the Law which gives sin its strength. All thanks to God, then, who gives us the victory over these things through our Lord Jesus Christ!
I Corinthians 15:55-57 PHILLIPS
We do not have to bring a sacrifice to the altar and hope that our sins are forgiven. The Law holds no power over us who believe-Jesus fulfilled its every obligation.
But it is a good thing to take a day to reflect on the cost and the gift
Too often we grasp the gift and forget its cost.
Today, remember what the LORD has done for you. Remember the burden He lifted by His sacrifice. Remember His claim on your life–the life He purchased with His blood.
Remember.
If you are withholding grace and forgiveness–remember, and repent–give to others what God has graciously given to you.
If you are walking outside the will of God for your life–remember and repent-fall back in step behind the Lord Jesus and let Him guide you.
If you are dabbling in sin–remember and repent-turn from your wickedness and back to holiness.
Remember and be thankful.
“Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.”
~Psalm 32:1
I am not a fan of church signs.
Most of the time they try to be cute and reduce eternal truth to a few words that often leave room for [mis]interpretaion.
But I saw one today that I DID like: “Dig the well before you are thirsty”.
It takes time to dig a well.
And it’s hard work.
You can’t wake up one morning, decide to dig and expect results in a couple of hours. If you want a reliable source of water to quench your thirst you have to plan ahead.
It’s been my habit for about 25 years to wake early in the morning, read my Bible and journal. I started this practice when my children were young and boisterous and our active household meant once they were awake I’d have no time for quiet meditation.
But after reading Scripture for so long, I’d noticed the stories had become too familiar. I would read through some of them with a “yeah, yeah-heard that before” attitude.
So I committed to SLOW DOWN and force my heart to look carefully and listen closely to what the Spirit was speaking from the page.
I decided I would read just a single chapter each day and copy out a verse or two that stood out into my journal along with notes and comments. I found as I went along that it was harder and harder to choose only a couple of verses, so I began to copy whole chapters.
Of course I missed a day or two here and there so it took about three and a half years.
Just a few months before Dominic left us, I finished my slow journey through the Bible. I had copied out most of it by hand in six journals. I had underlined and circled and annotated the pages, making it my own.
I was digging my well.
I had no clue that I would be desperately thirsty in such a short time.
The morning I received the awful news-my heart shattered, my world spinning, my life undone-words of Truth bubbled to the surface unbidden.
Living Water sprang forth from the deep well of promise that was dug before I knew I needed it.
When I began my slow walk through Scripture, I didn’t know what the future held.
But my Shepherd-Who knows the end from the beginning-was leading me.
When my hands trembled too much to open the pages of my Bible and my eyes were too full of tears to see the print, the words stored up in the well of my heart spilled out to soothe my soul.
I continue to draw from this deep well and drink the Living Water.
It is a source of life and hope and sustaining strength until that day when a well will no longer be needed-when faith will be sight and I possess what has been promised.
Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him; they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them; and they will reign forever and ever.
And he said to me, “These words are faithful and true”; and the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent His angel to show to His bond-servants the things which must soon take place.
“And behold, I am coming quickly. Blessed is he who [e]heeds the words of the prophecy of this book.”
Revelation 22:1-7 NASB
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again.
~children’s rhyme
Shattered beyond repair-that certainly describes my broken heart in the first days, weeks and months after Dominic’s leaving.
I felt like Humpty Dumpty.
The pieces were too small to find, much less glue back together in anything resembling wholeness.
And the essence of the “old me”-the person that existed before loss-was spilled onto the ground, leaking strength and life and joy into the dry earth.
Humpty Dumpty had no hope-the king’s men and horses were powerless to breathe life into the lifeless bits and pieces that were left.
But I don’t have to depend on the king’s men or the king’s horses.
I have access to the King Himself.
I am not separated by a veil from the Mercy Seat.
I can come boldly before the Throne of Grace and pile my broken life on the Altar of Hope.
Now that we know what we have—Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God—let’s not let it slip through our fingers. We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.
Hebrews 4:16 MSG
The One Who made me can remake me.
He IS remaking me.
I have no illusions that the cracks won’t show.
But I am trusting that my new fragility will make me both more grace-filled and more grace dependent.
It’s funny-or maybe not-that God will weave a theme through a day or week or month.
He will put the same word in front of me in multiple places, speak it through different people, sometimes even (literally) plaster it across a billboard.
This morning it is grace.
Abundant, sufficient, enduring grace.
A precious friend is approaching her son’s first birthday in heaven. She writes about it here . In her post she says, “At one time I believed in the Doctrines of Grace…now I am certain. Because in my own strength, my own thoughts, my own power, I would have walked away.”
Yes! That’s it! In my own strength I would have walked away. The pain and sorrow and isolation and horror of burying my child would have driven me from the Presence of Christ.
But His grace keeps me near.
Another mama lamented that she did not know how she would survive missing her son. She’s fresh in her grief-not yet a year has passed since she said “good-bye”.
Oh, how I remember those early months! How it was a genuine struggle to simply get out of bed and face a new day knowing it was another 24 hours without the earthly companionship of my son.
I thought about how I was able to keep going and wrote this reply:
“I am so very sorry you are feeling overwhelmed and hopeless right now. After the sharp stab of loss, I think helplessness is the most frightening thing I have felt in this journey.
When I am overcome with the sense that I will never make it, that I can’t go on, that I am not going to be able to put one foot in front of the other for even one more hour, much less one more day-I cry out to Jesus and tell Him that.
I have never gotten an audible answer, or a miraculous phone call or a perfect note in the mail-BUT I think in the moment of absolute surrender, the moment when I know with certainty that I can not do this without His supernatural grace, mercy and strength, HE gives it to me.
Nothing changes.
I’m not whisked away to an island where things are better or different-my son is still gone-my heart still hurts, my mind cries out that I want him back.
But I receive the grace I need for that moment and I do take the next step.
After being the kind of person that always had a plan, a list, an idea of next week, next month-I’m now a person who lives right now.
That’s the only way I can make it.
Enough grace for right now.
Praying that the Lord overwhelms you with His love, grace and mercy and fills your heart with His hope when yours is gone.”
Immediately this verse of “Amazing Grace” came to mind:
And then Ephesians 2:
But even though we were dead in our sins God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for us, gave us life together with Christ—it is, remember, by grace and not by achievement that you are saved—and has lifted us right out of the old life to take our place with him in Christ in the Heavens. Thus he shows for all time the tremendous generosity of the grace and kindness he has expressed towards us in Christ Jesus. It was nothing you could or did achieve—it was God’s gift to you. No one can pride himself upon earning the love of God. The fact is that what we are we owe to the hand of God upon us. We are born afresh in Christ, and born to do those good deeds which God planned for us to do.
Ephesians 2:4-10 Phillips
It’s grace-start to finish.
So when I struggle to find my way, fear that I will lose it forever, question that a WAY even exists-
God in His
abundant,
sufficient,
and enduring grace,
draws my heart back to Himself.
One of the ongoing challenges in my grief journey is fighting back fear.
Fear of what COULD happen, now that I know by experience what it feels like when it does.
So I try to remind myself on a regular basis that my life and the lives of those I love have never been in my own hands:
I’m not brave by nature.
If I have a choice, I will run every time. But there are just some things worth fighting for.
My family is one of them.
I will not let the enemy have them.
I will not allow despair to overtake us, fear to bind us, hopelessness to sap our strength.
I will not let death win.
And though he stalks me like a hungry lion, knocks persistently demanding attention, follows me as close as my own shadow-I will not let the evil one overtake me or find a home in my heart.
I refuse despair.
This night of loss will be longer than I can bear in my own strength, but I am convinced the Lord will restore my joy.
I am committed to cling to Christ even through my eyes are worn out with tears.
I fight fear.
There is no guarantee that my cup of suffering is full. It may yet hold more sorrow, but I will not worry about what tomorrow may bring.
God is there
I won’t give in to hopelessness.
I hold onto hope because hope is a Person. He is faithful and He is able. What I have given to His hands is safe and secure.
And though death is awful-it is not the end of the story.
When trapped between the Egyptians and the Red Sea, the nation of Israel was understandably frightened.
There WAS no escape-turn back and be slaughtered or move forward and drown.
They despaired of help and begged God to save them.
…Moses told the people, “Don’t be afraid. Just stand where you are and watch, and you will see the wonderful way the Lord will rescue you today. The Egyptians you are looking at—you will never see them again.
Exodus 14;13
They could never have imagined the miraculous answer to their desperate plea for rescue.
I realize that the answer to my cry for help is not going to be restoration of my son in this life. I know that I will have to wait for redemption of my pain.
But I am convinced that what the world regards as a final chapter is only the beginning of the story.
I serve the same God Who parted the Red Sea.
He is still on the throne.
He is not sleeping and He is not silent.
I can stand my ground between today and eternity confident that He is at work in all things.
He is an ever present Help in time of trouble.
I will not be moved.
I don’t get to choose.
I don’t get to plan the way life is going to be.
Oh, I bring out the calendar and mark down the days: birthdays, holidays, special events and obligations.
But then one dark morning a knock stops the clock and makes the world spin faster all at once.
I’m suspended and plunged under in the same breath.
Frozen. Broken. Horrified.
How did this happen?
How is this my life?
My head and heart explode in pain.
Months pass. The days march on.
I still don’t get to choose what sunrise brings.
But looking back I’m grateful that when my circle was whole we chose love.
That when the days were unfolding we chose faith.
That even as the night closed in and the days grew dark we continued to cling to the one Hope that proves true.
I’m thankful that my heart was full of praise songs and Scripture and that when I couldn’t lift my hand to turn the pages of my Bible the Spirit used them to whisper courage to my soul.
This Valley is deep and the sun is often hidden by the towering mountains on either side.
I have learned two things:
I can’t determine how life unfolds,
but I can decide where to place my hope.
“I admit how broken I am in body and spirit,
but God is my strength,
and He will be mine forever.”
Psalm 73:26 VOICE
After [Jehoshaphat] had advised the people, he appointed people to sing to the LORD and praise him for the beauty of his holiness. As they went in front of the troops, they sang, “Thank the LORD because his mercy endures forever!”
2 Chronicles 20:21 GWT
I love worship music.
My heart is transported from here to there in a single note.
In a moment, I am before the Throne, inside the Holy of Holies, crying out for more, more, more of Jesus.
Worship makes me vulnerable to the Spirit’s deep work in my heart-I hear truth, I see beyond the pain and I feel God’s love.
But it also makes me a target for the enemy of my soul.
Yesterday I plugged in Pandora to my stereo and was lifted higher, higher until… in a breath I was brought low.
Leaning over to raise the volume of a favorite song I came eye-to-eye with my missing son.
The photo we chose for his memorial folder is hanging with his siblings’ on my living room wall.
And I was transported from here to there in a heartbeat-
from almost two and a half years past that awful day to the moment I first breathed in the truth that he was gone.
I covered my eyes with both hands and refused the whispers of darkness.
The tears fell and my heart hurt, but I hissed back, “He’s not dead. He’s just not here!”
And I cranked the Truth up higher and dared the devil to come back.
I raised my hands and chose to worship the One Who is loving my son until I get there, Who loves me even in my brokenness and Who will redeem this pain and restore what the enemy has stolen.
I took out my sword and declared “He is a Good, Good Father.”
thelifeididntchoose 