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I’ve really struggled with writing this post.  When Jenny asked if I’d be willing to write a guest blog one day while she was in Africa, I jumped with both feet into the middle of the Pacific Ocean.  I just love (relearning to love) writing.

But I’ve struggled with what to write.  Jenny selected the topic of newness and I figured sure I can do that.  But over the last week as I’ve thought and prayed about what to write about my mind has been blank.  I don’t seem to have a definite newness story.  I didn’t have an affair and can now rejoice & celebrate reconciliation with my husband, who proposed to me after we divorced our previous marriage.  I haven’t traveled extensively and seeming each new day a new place, a new adventure.  My husband didn’t have an affair and leave me.  Trusting God as I relearn this newness of single life.

Continue reading here…

A few weeks ago Shawn and I started watching a fantastic DVD series called Planet Earth.  It contains amazing photography and video footage of…well…earth.  Though the science behind it is of course evolution when talking about how long the earth had been around, but I have been completely humbled by the awesomeness of our creator.

As with most nature documentaries the “circle of life” was brought up and enter from backstage African Hunting Dogs hunting Impalas.  The Dogs stayed hidden, spying their prey, inching closer and closer till the most opportune time to strike.  They attacked the unsuspecting prey which of course ran for dear life.

Photo Credit

Photo Credit

The narrator explains that the African Hunting Dogs are the most efficient hunters in Africa, working as a team seeking to destroy.  Each dog breaking off simply to surround the hunted.

In the video the Impala’s only saving grace was jumping into a lake treading water while the African Hunting Dogs waited and then left to go sup on an Impala whose fortune was not so good.

As I watched this I could help but think of my own life.  I’m just sitting here minding my own business when out of no where I’m attacked.  And I’m running.

But where am I running.

What am I looking to, to be my saving grace?  Friends?  My husband?  A glass of wine?

I have noticed over the last couple weeks that when I ran to God, ran to His Word my attitude, my unbridled tongue got better.  The moment I stopped engulfing myself in the wisdom of the Bible and the teachings reminding me that my tongue is like the fires of Hell my attitude started going bad again.

I’m learning where to run.  To continuously allow myself to be engulfed by the Word of God.

I’ve been sleeping weird lately.  I’ve battled issues with insomnia for years and when I do sleep I toss and turn all night.  I rarely get restful sleep.  The past few nights I’ve been sleeping lightly and having weird dreams I can’t remember.

As I was lying in bed last night I just prayed that God would allow me to get some sleep, restful sleep.

He didn’t allow that to happen.

Sometimes when God says no to a prayer request it’s easy to get and understand why God probably said no.  In others like asking for sleep I just don’t get it.

My prayers last night just didn’t consist of me and my sleep.  God brought a continuous flow of people to mind to pray for as I awaited the bliss of dreamland.

Alece – Alece is just going through a lot of crap.  Her Thrive Africa center in South Africa was hit by a tornado.  She’s dealing with the chance of having to let her SA Nationals go that work at Thrive due to lack of funding.  All on top of the personal stuff she’s trying to deal with.

Jenny – Jenny’s come to be a great friend over Twitter & blogging the last month or so.  She and her husband John are leaving for Burundi in a couple weeks.

Anne – Anne is a world traveler extraordinaire and speaking guru.  Since January she’s been to Haiti, Moldova, and Russia serving and ministering and learning.  During her trip to Moldova & Russia she got sick.  Quite sick.  A sick that sent her home early on a jet plane.  Getting home to find out she had a Mono virus.  She has spent the last couple weeks resting at home with her husband & kitties and yesterday boarded a plane to speak at Catalyst West Coast.  This woman is like the Energizer Bunny.

Kelli – Kelli got a new job yesterday.  Which is exciting.  She has two precious (and sometimes precocious) children.  Last year they moved from Michigan to Southern California {can you say culture shock??}.

Crystal – I’ve only started following Crystal on Twitter fairly recently.  She’s seven years sober from a porn addiction.  This week she started tackling another addiction – food.  God just really laid on my heart that she would seek Him and find her sustenance in Him rather than food.

Just because for some reason God didn’t allow my body to get the sleep I would have liked doesn’t mean He didn’t hear my pray or that for the women above.  He hears and answer’s accordingly.  I refuse to lose hope just because I didn’t get an answer to prayer I would have liked.

For the last few weeks I’ve been digging in repeatedly to James.  God is teaching me a lot and I’m trying to be a willing, flexible student.  Getting rid of sin and doing that 180 from where my heart started at isn’t always easy.  One thing I noticed on my last read through James was the repeated word steadfast.  It has also repeatedly come up in the chapters I’ve been reading in Pslams.

The dictionary defines steadfast:

As much as I enjoy the freedom to go on Facebook and Twitter again there was a blessed solitude in not.  Quietness.  Peace.

I feel the need to ease back into them.  Not to immerse myself in the hustle and bustle of people I know and those I don’t.  It’s daunting.  Seeing all those unread tweets and updates.

The truth is I really don’t want to go back there.

To the place I was before, where I allowed these (in reality) stupid things to become ultimate in my life.  I cared more about what others were saying than what Jesus had to tell me.  Jesus doesn’t tweet, I have to go to the Bible to get His “updates”.

So, I’m fearful I’ll go back there.  To her.  I’m afraid at times to even open them up because I really don’t want to get sucked back in.

I don’t feel like I’m supposed to leave Facebook and/or Twitter.  I appreciate being able to connect/reconnect with friends via both.  To glean 140 (or less) characters of wisdom.  To know instantly that someone needs prayer and be able to lift them up at that moment.  I really just don’t want to go back there.

So I’m going at this slowly.  I hope to not be on as much as I used to be.  I plan also to take fasts from both in the future.  Just to make sure my heart is still aligned with where it SHOULD be.  If you don’t see me don’t worry.  DM or email me.  Check in on me.  Keep me accountable.

Hi all.  A short (kinda long) video just sharing about the last month and a half.  I hope you all had a wonderful Easter celebrating Jesus and the salvation His death provided us.

I filmed this last night after we got home from church. After I was done I remembered other things I’d written out in my head days ago that flitted away and didn’t make it in to the video.  Even now after remembering them they are gone.

My heart is always torn when I think about the sacrifice Christ made on the cross.  If I’m going to be honest it can be difficult at times to accept that He loves me and wanted fellowship & reconciliation with me so much that He endured a shameful, excruciating death.  The nails and thorns and bones and rocks and leather that pierced His unmarred, blemish free flesh was done for the sanctification and redemption of you and I.

On that dark, gruesome day of Passover as the blood of sheep and goats was spilled over the altar in the temple, Genesis 3:15 was fulfilled.  Victory was tasted as the angels danced for joy in Heaven.

This was a bulletin Shawn did for Easter a few years ago.  It is one of my all time favorite things he’s designed.  Hope your Easter is not only fun and blessed, but also filled with introspect of Christ’s sacrifice for you.

I also recommend reading/checking out this post by Alece over at Grit and Glory.

Yesterday was the first day in four months that I wore a normal shoe without arch supports in my left shoe or an orthodic boot.

I’ve learned a few things about walking in the last few months.

Sometimes, it takes patience.
Sometimes, it’s painful.
Sometimes, you need a little help.

Sometimes, taking a step is scary.

In the past week and pretty much the last few months I keep turning over and over in my head not walking in fear.  Conversations with Shawn, blog posts other people have posted.  It keeps coming back like a little bouncy ball.

I’m learning that I’m not as acceptable to change as I thought I was.  Maybe it’s the skeptic that has grown in me since marrying a pessimist.  I obviously don’t want to walk in fear.  We are commanded not to fear.

Fear is not only immobilizing but can be convoluted also.  What we chalk up to “waiting on God” in many cases is fear.  Fear to take a step into the unknown.  Fear of leaving our comfort zone.

When we walk in fear we do not walk in joy or faith.  We are relying on ourselves and our ability to discern a situation.  We cannot grow when we walk in fear.

So what are our next steps?

To walk justly and in mercy.  To trust my steps to be ordained by Him.  Placing my cares, fears, worries, troubles, late night wonderments at His feet.

Learning to not walk in fear is part of our sanctification.  That road is is not always easy, but it must be walked.

I’ve worn glasses since I was in the first or second grade.  Big, thick glasses.  Lenses that faded from dark to light depending on if I was in the sun.  Lenses with tri-color tinting cause in 1983 that was as cool as the perm my dad had.  The summer I turned 10 I had to start wearing contacts.  Hard ones.  I vividly remember taking them out for swim lessons at the city pool and then putting them back in.  The little pink zip pouch I kept my case and solution in.

I’m blind (literally legally).

I’m reminded of this every morning.  I wear a watch to bed so in the first light of morning I can squint at it to see the time.  I’m reminded every time I get lent, dust, eye goobers under my contacts.  I’m reminded of this every time I have to get an inch away from something to see it without my glasses or contacts.

My sister-in-law, Brie, works for a lasik center and is always nagging me that I should get lasik.  I’ve considered, seriously at times.  But a couple things always keep me from doing so.  One of those is fear.  My eyesight is already bad, if something goes wrong I’m seriously screwed.  Oh and even if your eyeball is “asleep” your brain still knows what’s going on.

I have another more important reason for not doing it.  More important to me.  I just believe it is something I’m not supposed to do.  I’ve not been able to see as long as I can remember.  I can’t recall any moment in my life where I could see without the aid of glasses or contacts – well maybe that day in Kindergarten where a classmate stole my milk money.

There will be a day I will see though!!

…and that is why I refuse.  One day I will blink, I will open my eyes first thing in the morning, I will open my eyes from prayer and the first thing I see without the use of outside sources will be the face of my Savior.  I will have healing.  I’m excited for that day.

——

There are somethings though, I refuse to be blind to anymore.  The hurting.  Those in poverty.  The outcast.  They say ignorance is bliss, but I don’t want to be blissful when it comes to the things that break God’s heart.  I want to be broken with eyes wide open.

I want to cry.

I want to see.

I don’t want to be ignorant.

And as a friend reminded me just now, I don’t want to forget.

If I proclaim the greatness of God it is hard to elevate myself.  If I speak of the works and majesty of God it is hard to speak of myself.

I will give to the Lord the thanks due to his righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High. – Psalm 7:17

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? – Psalm 8: 3 & 4

Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the Lord, You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you. – Psalm 16:1 & 2

I love you, O Lord, my strength. – Psalm 18:1

O Lord, I love the habitation of your house and the place where your glory dwells. – Psalm 26:8

Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness. – Psalm 29:1 & 2

Blessed be the Lord, for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me when I was in a besieged city. – Psalm 31:21

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. – Psalm 103:1-5

(All passages ESV)