This song,..I listen to it over and over again. The words, they penetrate my heart. It speaks of the depths of His Love, this unfathomable love.
I hear Him say:
My Love is over, its underneath, its inside, its in between,
The times you doubt Me, when you cant feel, the times that you question is this for real, the times that you're broken, the times that you mend, the times you hate me and the times that you bend.
My Love is over, its underneath, its inside, its in between,
These times when you're healing, when your heart breaks, the times you're feeling like you've fallen from grace, the times you're hurting, the times that you heal, the times you go hungry and are tempted to steal. In times of confusion and chaos and pain, Im there in your sorrow underneath the weight of your shame. I'm there through your heartache, I'm there in the storm.
My Love I will keep you through My power alone.
I don't care where you've fallen or where you have been
I'll never forsake you, My Love never ends
It never ends.
Friday, August 17, 2012
Sunday, July 1, 2012
there
it's who you are. everything about you embodies this genuine love. So many people desire to give love, think they will be able to sacrifice completely but selfishness creeps in, robbing time leaving some alone, empty, searching for it, seeking love. And then there is you. Since I can remember I have known that I was. I lived securely, wrapped in it....love. I was cherished. I saw you, every day, the way you lay your life down for me...for others. Every night you fall into bed, weary from well doing.
When there is a need....before a request can form on my lips, there you are...giving, doing. humble, yet strong you are there....present. How I desperately want to be like you yet feel the thoughts sneak in sometimes...more times then I want. For me it is easy to think of myself, I have to make a conscious effort to push back those selfish needs. but then there is you. It is although you were not made that way. I have never seen you think of yourself. Never heard you complain. never even a grumble. your heart only knows how to serve. knows only how to think of others. how pure and gracious you are.
When there are moments of happiness, there you are mirroring my smile, present, sharing in the bliss.
I remember a time when my life seemed to be crumbling down around me. The fear crippling, the pain so strong I felt sick. It was all I could do but collapse on my bed, trying to catch my breath. There you were. I didn't have to ask you not to leave...because I already knew you would stay. Your loving, presence, there with me, right by me. You reached over, took my hand in yours and held tight, and i knew you'd be there, there supporting me through this because thats what you do...my constant, loving Dad...there.
When I had two tiny brand new lives...both needing so much love, needing to be held, cared for, nurtured, and I only had two arms, there you were, every night, straight from work. With open arms. ready to hold, help, lay one little heart beat against yours. Filling them up with what they needed, sacrifice...love.
Now with my boys a few years older, I see it. The way they look at you. It is in their eyes. Deep adoration. Every day how they run to you, uncontainable happiness that you are home. It is because you invest in them. You give them yourself. Your attention, your time... even what little you have. Working from before the sun comes up, driving countless miles, you must be exhausted but no-one would ever know. You do so much, every single day. And then you arrive home and don't ask for a moment to yourself. Instead, you wrap your arms around them. Those strong, but gentle, patient serving arms around my boys and pour love into their little hearts. Just like you do to me, to us, to all.
sweet Papa, you are precious. the depths of my love are endless. thank you
When there is a need....before a request can form on my lips, there you are...giving, doing. humble, yet strong you are there....present. How I desperately want to be like you yet feel the thoughts sneak in sometimes...more times then I want. For me it is easy to think of myself, I have to make a conscious effort to push back those selfish needs. but then there is you. It is although you were not made that way. I have never seen you think of yourself. Never heard you complain. never even a grumble. your heart only knows how to serve. knows only how to think of others. how pure and gracious you are.
When there are moments of happiness, there you are mirroring my smile, present, sharing in the bliss.
I remember a time when my life seemed to be crumbling down around me. The fear crippling, the pain so strong I felt sick. It was all I could do but collapse on my bed, trying to catch my breath. There you were. I didn't have to ask you not to leave...because I already knew you would stay. Your loving, presence, there with me, right by me. You reached over, took my hand in yours and held tight, and i knew you'd be there, there supporting me through this because thats what you do...my constant, loving Dad...there.
When I had two tiny brand new lives...both needing so much love, needing to be held, cared for, nurtured, and I only had two arms, there you were, every night, straight from work. With open arms. ready to hold, help, lay one little heart beat against yours. Filling them up with what they needed, sacrifice...love.
Now with my boys a few years older, I see it. The way they look at you. It is in their eyes. Deep adoration. Every day how they run to you, uncontainable happiness that you are home. It is because you invest in them. You give them yourself. Your attention, your time... even what little you have. Working from before the sun comes up, driving countless miles, you must be exhausted but no-one would ever know. You do so much, every single day. And then you arrive home and don't ask for a moment to yourself. Instead, you wrap your arms around them. Those strong, but gentle, patient serving arms around my boys and pour love into their little hearts. Just like you do to me, to us, to all.
Friday, June 8, 2012
rushing
I hear them, heavy footsteps on their way to my room. Still dark, you all have beat the sun again..awake and ready to start the day. Three of you walk in..one by one and crawl up into my bed. How I want to welcome your exuberance with joy. I wish I was alert and happy to be up, starting the day. How many times I fail. letting my unmet desires to sleep win, and me there...less then enthusiastic. From that moment on I feel it. This inner push. desperate to get from one chore to the next. trying to meet one need to the next. going from one destination to the next. always rushing. a continual feeling of being behind. anxious knots.
We sit together at the table., hungry tummies ready to eat. I look at their faces. sweet and young. I pray it goes slower. just enough for me to remember. I want to fully soak up this moment. I want to be present here, grateful..in this moment of time. Why cant my mind stop flittering back and forth between now and the tasks ahead of me. I want to push back the demands pressing in on me and come home to the present. That is where I will find Him waiting for me. My constant Companion, He meets me there.
So I close my eyes, just for a moment. I pray.
"worship more then work, knees more then hands."
Because hurry keeps my heart earthbound. Because when I rush I forget who I am and whose I am. Because rushing allows sweet moments to slip past without notice. Instead, I focus my attention on my Maker, He who chooses to make His humble home in my heart. It is there that I know Him most intimately, where He can speak to me in holy whispers.
No matter the road, the needs, the rush of the day....I always know the outcome when I fix my eyes on Him, peace, unexplainable perfect peace. Together will navigate through the demands of the day.Together we will stand in the mess and chaos, surrounded by noise, delighting in the giggles.
Together we live it. all of it.
thank you Lord.
We sit together at the table., hungry tummies ready to eat. I look at their faces. sweet and young. I pray it goes slower. just enough for me to remember. I want to fully soak up this moment. I want to be present here, grateful..in this moment of time. Why cant my mind stop flittering back and forth between now and the tasks ahead of me. I want to push back the demands pressing in on me and come home to the present. That is where I will find Him waiting for me. My constant Companion, He meets me there.
So I close my eyes, just for a moment. I pray.
"worship more then work, knees more then hands."
Because hurry keeps my heart earthbound. Because when I rush I forget who I am and whose I am. Because rushing allows sweet moments to slip past without notice. Instead, I focus my attention on my Maker, He who chooses to make His humble home in my heart. It is there that I know Him most intimately, where He can speak to me in holy whispers.
No matter the road, the needs, the rush of the day....I always know the outcome when I fix my eyes on Him, peace, unexplainable perfect peace. Together will navigate through the demands of the day.Together we will stand in the mess and chaos, surrounded by noise, delighting in the giggles.
Together we live it. all of it.
thank you Lord.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Friday, May 11, 2012
celebrate in the mess
Isn't it beautiful how you can read someone's words...a stranger, someone you have never met, and yet word after word you feel connected to them. drawn and connected to their experiences because their experiences are yours. as I read her words, it happened. Tears filled my eyes. My soul knew hers. This is for you sweet mommas.
Dear Mother,
This morning seems like all the others. My little house creaks in the season change, warm under covers and cool outside. I pour my coffee, step over dinosaurs, toss a bruised apple. It is time for the quiet, the morning time before my four boys wake. I close my eyes, a nod at prayer.
"I'm not even sure you hear me. Are you there?"
He walks in sucking his thumb, and he was supposed to quit that 3 years ago, and I cradle him in my mind, tell him again, rub his back, and swipe his hair to the side. My mother heart thumps and I swallow back the lump in my throat, how I won't hold him again, tiny suckling in my lap, how God is here, in my mother love, encouraging my child toward maturity.
Three hungry ones now prod each other on the couch and I squint toward the pile of laundry, don't want to see it.
The day moves on so quickly, hours blurring by. The baby mouths it through the monitor; I hear him, "MaMaMa. MaMaMa," and so the race begins. I run upstairs...
I hurdle so much. Everything a mess.
And I whisper truth as I go, "God hears me too"
At the crib my tiny one who seems so slow to grow, he stands and waits, reaches. The sun hits his face as I walk, and his smile blinds me like a mirror would
.
We're a flash in the pan, all of us are, but once we are a mother, we never stop reflecting God, mother love, the way we got to them when they call, the way we pass it down.
If I really look I can see them shine.
I tell you about it so you can remember to watch, how God presses into our lives with these children, shows us faith in our capacity to love.
Down in the kitchen, the boys rip open bags of cereal-not across the top, but in a crooked slash down the side-and they don't wait on my to pour the milk. Often it spills and often I cry.
I dont always celebrate in the mess like I wish I would
But there are days when I can step back and see the glory, God pressing in so closely that I flinch like a reprimand is coming, but then a kiss lands instead.
His robe fills my house.
He loved you first, mother. Don't forget what a child you are.
God is in it all, the narrative of your childhood and how he weaves you still, even as your own babies are knit in your womb.
Sometimes there is so much mess in this journey that we can't see straight, but even in the blur, even in the doubt, there is Glory!
He hears you.
Glory, indeed.
-Amber
Dear Mother,
This morning seems like all the others. My little house creaks in the season change, warm under covers and cool outside. I pour my coffee, step over dinosaurs, toss a bruised apple. It is time for the quiet, the morning time before my four boys wake. I close my eyes, a nod at prayer.
"I'm not even sure you hear me. Are you there?"
He walks in sucking his thumb, and he was supposed to quit that 3 years ago, and I cradle him in my mind, tell him again, rub his back, and swipe his hair to the side. My mother heart thumps and I swallow back the lump in my throat, how I won't hold him again, tiny suckling in my lap, how God is here, in my mother love, encouraging my child toward maturity.
Three hungry ones now prod each other on the couch and I squint toward the pile of laundry, don't want to see it.
The day moves on so quickly, hours blurring by. The baby mouths it through the monitor; I hear him, "MaMaMa. MaMaMa," and so the race begins. I run upstairs...
I hurdle so much. Everything a mess.
And I whisper truth as I go, "God hears me too"
At the crib my tiny one who seems so slow to grow, he stands and waits, reaches. The sun hits his face as I walk, and his smile blinds me like a mirror would
.
We're a flash in the pan, all of us are, but once we are a mother, we never stop reflecting God, mother love, the way we got to them when they call, the way we pass it down.
If I really look I can see them shine.
I tell you about it so you can remember to watch, how God presses into our lives with these children, shows us faith in our capacity to love.
Down in the kitchen, the boys rip open bags of cereal-not across the top, but in a crooked slash down the side-and they don't wait on my to pour the milk. Often it spills and often I cry.
I dont always celebrate in the mess like I wish I would
But there are days when I can step back and see the glory, God pressing in so closely that I flinch like a reprimand is coming, but then a kiss lands instead.
His robe fills my house.
He loved you first, mother. Don't forget what a child you are.
God is in it all, the narrative of your childhood and how he weaves you still, even as your own babies are knit in your womb.
Sometimes there is so much mess in this journey that we can't see straight, but even in the blur, even in the doubt, there is Glory!
He hears you.
Glory, indeed.
-Amber
Friday, February 17, 2012
Sharing
Sharing
I desire to be real.
to rid my life of the masks I wear
I desire to stop hiding behind false perceptions....
I desire to stop hiding behind false perceptions....
I want to be honest with others and allow myself to be exposed....even vulnerable
I want to resist the need to project some kind of perfection
This is how I want to live....
It's difficult most times tough. Im scared of what others may think. I wish I didn't care but I do. I'm fearful of being judged, because I had this dream, this picture of how I saw myself...my life...and now it is completely different...
I hear her voice crack, she starts to cry, my long time friend. She says how it hurt her, knowing for awhile, that I was struggling, knowing that life wasn't the way I perceived it to be but I wouldn't share. She asks why...why I wasn't honest with her, why I didn't invite her into any of it. That vulnerability then, I couldn't do it. I didn't have the strength then. Sharing made it real and forced me to face the pain..face all that was crumbling around me. Instead, I needed others to see what I wanted them to see....to believe in the picture I created, not the the truth of what I was living. Because I needed them to believe in us. If others believed then I could fight for it all another day.
I hear her voice crack, she starts to cry, my long time friend. She says how it hurt her, knowing for awhile, that I was struggling, knowing that life wasn't the way I perceived it to be but I wouldn't share. She asks why...why I wasn't honest with her, why I didn't invite her into any of it. That vulnerability then, I couldn't do it. I didn't have the strength then. Sharing made it real and forced me to face the pain..face all that was crumbling around me. Instead, I needed others to see what I wanted them to see....to believe in the picture I created, not the the truth of what I was living. Because I needed them to believe in us. If others believed then I could fight for it all another day.
I was guarded with my life, protective of my reality. I was scared to reveal the dreams that laid waste.
I was afraid to bring to light the the flaws and reveal my brokeness
I asked myself what does my testimony offer. What can come from sharing my trails, admitting how we've failed....and then God began to show me...began the answer.
Because holding it all in was destroying me. Because the anguish felt like decay in my spirit...God gave me that nudge, He whispered...."it's ok, tell them" and so I did. I started to open up, I began to expose the facade that I had carefully constructed and my words where met with warm embrace. Family and friends listened, their tears joined mine, they shared similar trials. They encouraged, they prayed, they helped hold me up. My parents where there in the boat with me, the boat that was being tossed and beaten by the waves of life. They listened, and loved, and embraced me through each day. My parents opened their doors to a safe and peaceful life...where I could heal from the pain of lose. Family and friends poured love into my brokenness. They didn't pity me but rather listened with gentle hearts. They prayed strength and peace for my days....and then right there, in my vulnerability it began:
the process of healing.
Because you cant start to mend that which you don't admit is broken.
There I stood, my wounds exposed, my failures laid out for all to see, and then.....a glimpse of beauty. Sometimes He brings us to our end...because that is where He begins
I know that God has given me this life, this testimony with a prupose. A reason.
I hear Him...He says, you are not alone and this is not the end of your story
Because holding it all in was destroying me. Because the anguish felt like decay in my spirit...God gave me that nudge, He whispered...."it's ok, tell them" and so I did. I started to open up, I began to expose the facade that I had carefully constructed and my words where met with warm embrace. Family and friends listened, their tears joined mine, they shared similar trials. They encouraged, they prayed, they helped hold me up. My parents where there in the boat with me, the boat that was being tossed and beaten by the waves of life. They listened, and loved, and embraced me through each day. My parents opened their doors to a safe and peaceful life...where I could heal from the pain of lose. Family and friends poured love into my brokenness. They didn't pity me but rather listened with gentle hearts. They prayed strength and peace for my days....and then right there, in my vulnerability it began:
the process of healing.
Because you cant start to mend that which you don't admit is broken.
There I stood, my wounds exposed, my failures laid out for all to see, and then.....a glimpse of beauty. Sometimes He brings us to our end...because that is where He begins
I know that God has given me this life, this testimony with a prupose. A reason.
I hear Him...He says, you are not alone and this is not the end of your story
So I choose to share.
To allow myself to be viewed, seen
Really seen
This is me..
This is me..
Dear Lord,
Help me to live out the light of who I am because of the work You are doing in me. I lift up my empty hands of faith to You. Please make something beautiful out of my meager efforts. I am so grateful You shine through strong in my weakness. I will except that this is where You intend me to be, right now...thank you for taking my hand, leading me and holding me through it all. I will joyfully follow You always!
In Your precious Name
Amen
"God makes beauty from the ashes"
"God makes beauty from the ashes"
Friday, January 27, 2012
with joy and blessings
Im alone with my thoughts, the flood gates open and the pain and sorrow rushes in, drowning me.
The anguish from being stripped down..fresh and real
Remembering how it all was taken away... a business, a home, vehicles, and then a part of me...gone.
Once two lives joined together, a marriage and a family...torn apart.
I feel the heart ache, my suffering causes me to weep as I drive, feeling lost in my brokenness
I feel consumed with shame, I'm hurt, left with these deep wounds...fearful of the future because now it is plagued with the unknown.
I feel the months and years of the life I knew tumbling down...crashing to the ground.
I'm left to wonder in the trenches, rubble in the place of what once was, a life broken, dreams dead, questions looming
I'm left to wonder in the trenches, rubble in the place of what once was, a life broken, dreams dead, questions looming
Traumas can often mask God's presence and feelings can lie.
My feelings lie to me, I believe them...I'm convinced by them. So much so that I cant even swallow down any grace and I turn myself back from the land of the free. My soul cries out.
My feelings lie to me, I believe them...I'm convinced by them. So much so that I cant even swallow down any grace and I turn myself back from the land of the free. My soul cries out.
I recall what a dear friend once said, "maybe falling isnt about failure but about deepening faith, strengthening character, opportunities where we can show our trust in God."
Is it possible to hear Him through the pain, asking me to take His hand and follow Him even now, when the path seems so shaky and heavy with burden. But then, that is faith. In the trenches... this is where my faith is tested. How easy it is to trust in the good times...when life seems to flow, when I am happy and content. but as soon as the waters start to rise and I find myself in the center of the storm, as soon as the ground starts to grumble under my feet...how quickly I start to question, start to doubt... start to lose faith.
I know that only God can break this lie that consumes me and heal me with the Truth..His Truth. I know the miracle of hope that lives in His words, the freedom found in His promises. So I feed on it. Not on my emotions that lie, not on the judgement of the world, not on my doubts but on the truth of His words.
Holding on, I try to resist the urge to run from the challenges and trials that I'm facing, but rather embrace them. Here I stand... eager..... hoping to see the blessings that God has hidden in these difficulties, hoping to grow.
Is it possible to hear Him through the pain, asking me to take His hand and follow Him even now, when the path seems so shaky and heavy with burden. But then, that is faith. In the trenches... this is where my faith is tested. How easy it is to trust in the good times...when life seems to flow, when I am happy and content. but as soon as the waters start to rise and I find myself in the center of the storm, as soon as the ground starts to grumble under my feet...how quickly I start to question, start to doubt... start to lose faith.
I know that only God can break this lie that consumes me and heal me with the Truth..His Truth. I know the miracle of hope that lives in His words, the freedom found in His promises. So I feed on it. Not on my emotions that lie, not on the judgement of the world, not on my doubts but on the truth of His words.
I begin to feel it. Grace. It starts to cover me. The shame begins to wash off me. It picks me up and gives me the strength to stand, right where I am, in the midst of all the mess,
I dont want to use energy regretting the way things are, instead I choose to live fully....exactly where I am...right here
No matter how crazy and broken my world is....
I will let joy live loud in my soul. Joy in Jesus when everything else goes wrong.
I choose to trust...believe God for great things. Believe Him to bring new life out of this dark season.
I will be grateful for the work that He is doing in me.
I pray that my weakness and woundedness can be openings through which the light of God's Glory shines forth.
Instead of begging to be taken out of this storm..I pray I can persevere..for on the other end, I know, is richness. Richness of life. Richness of faith.
I pray that my weakness and woundedness can be openings through which the light of God's Glory shines forth.
Instead of begging to be taken out of this storm..I pray I can persevere..for on the other end, I know, is richness. Richness of life. Richness of faith.
This new season looms and I don't know what is next, but Jesus doesn't need me to be ready for this season because He is ready. He just needs me to be clinging to Him...and so I do.
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