Dying to Live

    I feel like I sometimes over complicate the heart of the Gospel. I try and find fancy ways to explain it or give "Christianese" answers with words I sometimes don't completely grasp the meaning of. While journaling I started focusing on 2 Corinthians 5:14-21.      For the love of Christ control us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that those who live would no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose on their behalf. Therefore from now on we recognize no one by the flesh; even though we have known Christ by the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not cou...

   “ Sometimes life feels so fragmented that I cannot connect feelings to situations. I sure am grateful to know who holds all the pieces and that He will put them together in a way that will one day make sense again. Not my way, but yours oh God.” April 28, 2017   This status showed up in my Facebook memories today and it took me back to probably one of the hardest times we ever went through. We lost my sister in law suddenly that November before. There was a custody battle for my niece. My mother in law was declining in her fight with cancer and my dad was declining at that moment with an unknown sickness. I was taking care of my dad (who thankfully only lived downstairs), homeschooling a 9 year old, taking care of a 2 year old and working part time. All the while trying to provide emotional support to my mom who was helping my brother with his girls.  Jay was working 50+ hours and usually heading to see his mom after work. If my mom was home to stay with my Da...

   So Monday was a super rough day mentally. I woke up feeling bogged down as I stared another week of social-distancing at home in the face. Our situation currently includes homeschooling a super TWEEN 12 year old, who is partially doing on line learning through his part-time private school. A husband who is working from home via our double living room, answering customer calls; while I wrestle with our very active and over-emotional, button-pushing 5 year old who thinks he runs the world, in to submission. Mix  that with 2 dogs, a cat, a master escape artist hamster and a bird who likes to vocally combust when he feels like he's left out. Did I mention this all takes place within about a 1,000 sq ft apartment? If coffee becomes as scarce as toilet paper.. I AM DOOMED! I have noticed I'm not the only one who hit a wall this week. A lot of us are spent in one way or another during this time of upheaval. I don't pretend to be any different in my struggles of frustrat...

  I know I joke a lot but I can feel the genuine fear and anxiety that's running rampant in this time of uncertainty. A huge worry right now seems to stem from the thought of running out of necessities and I get it. I have been in the spot of not knowing how we will feed our family before. It's a scary and uncomfortable place to be. But those are the realest places that God meets us. Those are the times we see His faithfulness shine the brightest. I am not dismissing the validity of the concerns and feelings during these times. But I strongly feel like someone needs this word right now.   When we look at Philippians 4, we see Paul encouraging the church during times of uncertainty. They are some wonderfully, useful instructions.      Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace...

    Last week our family experienced the pain of loss when we found out our baby had no heartbeat and stopped developing at 9 weeks. It has been harder than I thought it would be. Physically and emotionally. One of the harder things was having to tell our boys that the baby wouldn't be coming. When we told them we had "lost the baby" our four year old looked shocked as if we had simply misplaced our child. We quickly explained to him that the baby was in heaven. He cried, his older brother cried. We all cried together. What came next? The talk of hope and a simple sweet prayer from our youngest "Dear God, please send us another baby." Though that moment was hard, his prayer was so sweet. It keeps playing through my mind but not for reasons you would think. It keeps reminding me how much His love truly changes everything.   His love changed everything when He traded His throne for a manger. His love changed everything when He gave up His crown of righteousness ...

He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less. John 3:30 NLT   I usually know when God is prompting me to step out of my comfort zone. I get restless. I feel a need to close the world out so I can just be still and listen. He grows my hunger and thirst for His word and His presence, and there's a feeling of excitement mixed with fear of failing. A lot of the times I just feel completely inadequate to play out the task He has set before me. Whether it's my lack of skills, or I don't look the part or so many other people are better equipped than me, or the 1,000 other excuses I could think up and allow myself to believe. There is always something that completely intimidates me.    But God keeps brining me back to John 3:30. I must decrease so that He may increase. I must declare His promises and His truths. This truth is I am equipped through Christ. It doesn't matter how I "feel", He knows exactly who I am. If He has called me, it'...

  A few weeks ago my friend (who is also our worship pastor) asked me to write a short paragraph about promises God revealed to me during a season of pain. I feel like God is asking me to blog about it more in detail. I'll begin with the paragraph I wrote:    Last year was a painful season in my life but from it came so much growth. One of the moments that stands out to me most happened one night while I was outside shoveling snow. I felt like God wasn't answering me because nothing seemed to be getting easier. In fact, things kept getting worse. I angrily just started pouring out to God all the questions of why and telling Him how much I hated this season I was in. I did this until nothing but tears were left to pour out. I stood in the quiet of that winter night and looked over at the tree in our yard. Every single branch was iced over and the glow from street light made it look like crystal. It was so beautiful. I heard God speak the words "my ways are no...

    In the loudness of life's trials, His voice still speaks. It's our job to make the effort to listen for it. It comes to us in the exact moment He intends. This week He spoke to me while I was sitting watching my kids play. All around me was noise from children playing, and the heavy traffic during this part of the day. But somehow that still, small voice rang louder than anything else. He spoke my heart a passage from Psalm 24.      Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.- Psalm 24:7     It really baffled me because for one, it was said as it's written in the King James Version and I have never owned this version of a bible, and two I didn't understand the Lord's intent on speaking this to me. So this week I continued to pray and meditate upon this passage and obviously read it in context. It really took my a few days to fully grasp why He spoke this to me, but it's becoming ...

  I really don't know where to begin other than the absolute truth; Trials are hard but God is good!  This season has made every worship song I've ever known come alive. The more we pour out, the more we are filled. In every season, I have a reason to worship. I surrender all. You give and take away, yet I still choose to say blessed be Your name. Great are You Lord. He is my hope and stay. You are my deliverer. Never once did we ever walk alone. It is well with my soul. The context of these songs that I have sung over and over again, are so raw and real in this season. This season has been pure desert-walking. I would maybe even go so far as to call it our own personal Exodus. We are still walking in the desert, but you know the beautiful thing about desert walking? He is here.   The funny thing about these desert places is the growth you find here. We have battles coming at us from multiple angles. It seems like everywhere we look there are giants surrounding us. Bu...

  Each time he said, "My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness." - 2 Corinthians 12:9   This past month has been a very trying time in our family. On top of grieving it feels like there has been a slew of battles rising against us, like thorns in our flesh as Paul describes. There are times when I go to pray and feel like I have no more to pour out. I feel like I'm worn out of words and emotions. Have you ever felt like that? Like your heart still needs to cry out but you're just so tired all you can muster is His name? You read the words and go through the motions, but there's nothing left to say? That's the place where I am. I feel like I have prayed the same prayers everyday for the past 32 days, and today I am exhausted. Not physically or mentally, but spiritually and emotionally. It doesn't mean I have lost the desire to spend time with Him, I just have nothing left to say. It's uncomfortable. Like those times you try and strike ...

The LORD is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.- Psalm 34:18   I have tried to write a blog for the past two weeks but the words seem to elude me. I am still struggling with taming my thoughts in to something intelligible.Without spelling out every detail, November 11th my brother lost his best friend and wife, my 3 young nieces (12, 8 and 8 months) lost their mother and our entire family lost a very precious and beautiful person. My sister-in-law was the only sister I ever knew and she meant a lot to me. She was someone I trusted with my kids. She was someone who I could talk to and joke with. She was a fun person to be around. She was healthy. She was only 31 years old. In the matter of an hour, she was gone from this earth.    I have lost loved ones in my life before. But never have I felt quite this way. I never felt grief in the form of a physical hurt. The first night she was gone, I rocked my youngest niece to sleep and pain j...

   So there has been an awful lot of negativity regarding the new Pokemon Go craze. Obviously, there have been those using horrible judgement in abandoning common sense while using this app. But how many people foolishly text or check FB while walking around or driving? How many of you have your face stuffed in your phones to tell the FB world how much you dislike seeing peoples faces stuffed in their phones? **crickets**    Ok on to my real point for this post. Many people are calling this thing "stupid" or "a waste of time", some even going to extreme lengths as to calling it "evil"? (Are you serious? I mean, I love Jesus too.. But really?) Let me share this tid bit of information with you while you have a seat. Yes, you standing on your soap box.. Just sit down for a minute.   Throughout my entire life's observations one thing has remained true, fitting in is not easy. It's even less easy when your interests don't line up with those of y...

    Though the picture above doesn't fully capture the magnificent site we experienced last week, but serves it's purpose for illustration. When I saw this I was just stunned because minutes before we needed candles to see inside the house. (We had also lost power.) It had been grey and snowing for the better part of the day then suddenly, everything stopped and the sun managed to break through the clouds at sunset. The only thing the sun was shining on around us were the tops of the snow covered trees and it lit up the whole neighborhood. It was indescribable.    The next day I still couldn't get the images out of my mind. I started to think about the times in life when we're in the middle of one of life's storms and how our first reaction is waiting for someone or something to rescue us. For me, I pray. I believe that when I call upon the name of my God, that He will come rescue me and He has proven that every single time. There are times the storm is short...

   Did you ever sit in church and there's one line in the entire sermon that just hits you and leaves you pondering it for the rest of the day? That was this morning for me. I can't quote it word for word because my attention span is amazing, but the gist of it was, "IF we could describe God, He wouldn't be much bigger than we are." (para-phrased from P. David Fisher at NBCF) When I heard this thought, it just made me want to spike a football hard to the ground and do some crazy child like dance! (Because after all,  that's how we celebrate overwhelming victory in America.) It filled me with all the "feels". (In case you younger and much cooler people are reading.)         It stuck with me throughout the day because it just made so much sense. If God wasn't bigger than us, we could somehow formulate His very existence. We could put measure on His love and His mercy. We could explain every "why" or "how". We wouldn't nee...

Surely God is my help;     the Lord is the one who sustains me.- Psalm 54:3   This is week our baby boy turns one! I remember looking back over Kai's first year with such joy and peace. It's hard to do this with Theo. I don't think I realized just how hard until we began planning his birthday party. It makes me feel guilty. His birth is something I'm so grateful for, but wish I could forget at the same time. I'm not one who reacts to things as they're happening, emotionally. I shut down and just get through them. So lately I find myself reliving the smells, the sounds and the anxieties of his first week of life. I have never been someone to dwell on anything, I take things in stride and focus on the positive and move on. But I'll admit, this one is hard. It's the feeling of this time of year, the weather and atmosphere. Anytime I've thought back to his first days of life, I have only focused on the day he came home. The days before that are a blur...