oh, to be found in the garden

"I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses...

And the voice I hear falling on my ear
The Son of God discloses.

And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.
He speaks, and the sound of His voice,
Is so sweet the birds hush their singing,
And the melody that He gave to me
Within my heart is ringing."

My dad sang this song at my Grannie's funeral back in January after a brief battle with cancer. I remember, she passed  in the wee hours of that Friday morning. Saturday was pretty much a blur. We held a memorial service for her that Sunday evening. Earlier that day before the memorial service my dad asked me to help him by typing out his speech that he would deliver at the service. I know he probably only asked me because he knew I could type quickly, but I took it very personally. I felt so humbled that he asked me to do it. Even though it was to be read out loud and be made public later that night - because it hadn't yet been delivered, in a way, it was still in the rough draft stages. It was still personal to him. I was amazed at his delivery of the gospel. He shared the Love of the Lord the way that Grannie had lived it.

Meanwhile, the peace with which he gave this plan of salvation (no easy task considering he had just laid his mother to rest) was simply sweet. He sang a sweet hymn that she had asked him to sing - the same one he sang as a boy at his own grandmother's funeral. I remember the way he sang that song with such sweet surrender to the Holy Spirit. He sang with such a heart of praise. Just the manner that he composed himself taught me so much about life.

The words of the song just echoed over and over again,

"...and He walks with me, and He talks with me, and He tells me I am His own..."

I just felt such a peace of mind knowing that Grannie at that moment was forever bound to her Savior. She was hearing face to face that she is His forever Love. She had met Him in the garden to walk hand in hand. Oh what peace!

Death affects us all a little different. There in itself lies the most unnatural thing that has ever occurred to us as humans - the great separation - it is truly what it feels like. It is a mock example of what separation from the Lord is - true spiritual death. Only the gift of the Lord's salvation can make this proverbial heart whole. And so it is with physical death. Only having the free gift of salvation by grace through faith can place us in the security of knowing we will see that loved one again.

No body wants to talk about this so much when that passed on loved one maybe didn't have a relationship with the Lord. This is the dilemma. If they were indeed loved one's - are we loving them truly by letting them go without sharing the love of the Lord? May we never let an opportunity go by that we don't share God's gift of salvation - whether it be to a loved one or a total stranger.

So, as you may be reading this, please know that you too, can meet Him in the garden one day. You don't ever have to experience this great separation. Likewise, if you have already surrendered yourself to The Redeemer, you are now called to be a minister of reconciliation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God. And the wages for sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amazingly, God showed His love for us in this: while we were sinners, Christ died for us. And whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life. (Romans 3:23, Romans 6:23, Romans 5:8, John 3:16)

let the sun set

i can feel it. a pressure. a fear. a sinking pit-like feeling. alone. blue. i'm trying to find a word for it. but it's just simply this. it's untitled. but it's here. something so burdensom. something so heavy. i'm running. i'm still. i'm breathing. i'm crying. i'm quiet. i'm listening. i hear it. i'm ashamed of it. i'm stuck. i'm holding a death grip on it. bondage. it's holding a death grip on me. stained. hostaged. despair. i can't see the words that are here to comfort me past the tears that are welling. i can't hear what you are saying through the muffled air of doubt. but there is a muted moment that i can't hold on to. i'm desperate.

and then something grasps me. it's a melody. it's your glory. your presence. it's your love. it's your freedom, your name. your forgiveness, your justice. your power, your providence. holiness. affirmation. miracles. atonement. fullfilled promise. i hear your presence calling me to lay it down. give it to me, you say. you say words to my heart that my thoughts cannot know. you say: do not be ashamed. i love you. you are forgiven daughter. you are forgiven. you are forgiven. you are forgiven. give me the lies, the secrets, the sins, the dispair. you piece the broken chips of my heart back together. your name alone rescues my soul. images fill my mind of my regrets. you replace it with a picture of a sunset. you set the sun over all my guilt, shame and life in death. You raise me up with your holy name. it's hard to remember this, but you don't seem to mind reminding me as often as it takes. you will wake me up each morning with your word. you will cover my lies with your truth. you will cover my failures with your success. my death with your life. my name with yours. my scars with your image. my dispair with your hope. my stains with your blood. my wrong with your right. my imperfection with your spotless perfection. my depravity with your sovereignity. my loss with your wholeness. my old with your renewal.

i hear you say: daughter, let it go. be reconciled to me and release your past. forget about being tempted for a fate unknown. i'm here to give you my love. i'm here to free you from a cage. like a bird, who was once caged...you are now free.

symphony by chris taylor

I'm in the mood for a breakdown
A slowing down of all the things in my mind
That keep on trying to figure out how to pin you down

In desperate need of a shakedown
A blowing down of all the ways that I try
To talk you into a corner until you look like me

But when I finally see what you see
There's a symphony
I hear a symphony

Words cannot define
What it means to be in your symphony
In your symphony

A long awaited let down
A burning through that's calling me back to you
With a beautiful melody of all you love

It's welling deep inside of me,
It's springing out, the song that I'm meant to sing
So teach me the harmony to all you love

Hearts in unison
I'm drawn into your love
Hearts in unison
I understand your love

on my mind in this moment of worship

i am mourning over the cross. a kind that leaves me exhausted with love and remorse and gratitude. i am overcomed with a sense that all i can do is adore You for this gift you have given me. You are such a brave LORD to do this for me. but you don't need me to tell You that. You are the LORD that saved me. You rescued me, You climbed up on that cross and stood in the line of fire. You literally took on the form of us, little small humankind. You did it for us, for the glory of God - for us to see His glory. You didn't just tell us that you loved us and that you would stand in between us and God's rightful judgment over sin, no, you became the bridge that seperated. You courageously became sin as you died. Your death covered sin and your resurrection conquered sin and your life sustains us in the freedom of Life.

let us fix our eyes upon You, Savior, the Author and Perfector of faith.
there is none like You. i adore You, You ransomed me forever.

we live in a world where freedom isn't free. a culture where we must earn our right for justice. they say we are born into a status of regular and we must attain the right to persist and succeed. BUT You O LORD deny this world the right to hold over our heads the unending consequence of death. You O LORD raise our head and tell us that we are Yours and we are free.

You are a Wonderful Savior and my heart is sealed with Your name. You are my heart's desire and treasure for the rest of time. it feels good to know You and be known by You. thank You for choosing not to remember my past and forgiving who i can't be. thank You for the joy and the victory being the proof of my hand in Yours as You lead me through this dry and weary land. there will come a day when my hand being in Your hand will be the proof of Your unending love for me. may my life always bring you joy and praise.

knees to the earth - by watermark

Wonderful Savior
My heart belongs to Thee
I will remember always
The blood You shed for me
Wonderful Savior
My heart will know Your worth
So I will embrace You always
As I walk this earth

Be blessed, be loved, be lifted high
Be treasured here, be glorified
I owe my life to You oh Lord
Here I am

Beautiful Jesus
How may I bless Your heart?
Knees to the earth
I bow down to everything You are
Beautiful Jesus
You are my only worth
So I will embrace You always
As I walk this earth

diamond in the rough

Recently I changed the title of my blog. I knew my previous title was not quite as fitting, but each time I tried to decide on a new one - I went blank. Until it just sort of came to me.

I have 2 specific bible verses that are particularly important to me. Ephesians 5:8 is more or less my "life verse." I guess you could say that it just sort of speaks to me every time I read it. It points a heavenly finger in my direction and beckons me to redirect my focus. "You were once children of the darkness. Now, you are children of the Light. So live as children of the light."

But really and truly, being a lady after God's own heart (sometimes a stumbling one at that), the Proverbs 31 woman has always been an important theme in my life. It took me a while to realize 2 things. This virtuous woman was recorded as an idea of a son's mother. This would make her the "mother-in-law." Secondly, hand in hand an equally important notion, this woman is not real. I repeat, this actual woman never has and (in her entirety) never will. This is a woman who God wanted us to envision as ourselves. Displayed with all His might. An example to what we can model our very life after. Thus, being from God, an impossible feat until we are perfected in His Glory. Unfortunately this can leave us feeling overwhelmed with the relentless responsibility of being "perfect." That is exactly what the bondage of this world wants us to feel. Flawed, incompetent, lazy, unworthy, unloved, unfit...the list goes dreadfully on and on. BUT GOD! The LORD our father wants us to know that we are his treasure. We were lost and condemned - we were all these awful things listed before, but God came and cleaned us and gave a purpose...and ALL FOR HIS GLORY! All of this that we can aspire to be, all of these mighty attributes of Proverbs 31 are all worthy to be sought after for His name's sake. Wow. Not for us, not for our husbands, or children, friends, neighbors, girlfriends, coworkers...no one but for the LORD Almighty.

Now, more specific than any verse in Proverbs 31, I especially love and have themed my blog after Proverbs 31:30. "Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised." WOW, this statement alone refutes every single lie that we as women tend to believe.

Charm is deceptive: oh how draining is it to constantly try to be charming. An outdated notion to some, but regardless a revolving cycle that most women are aching for. When we go out of our way to please and entertain and impress those around us we can be left with an unfulfilled depleted heart and mind. We will always come up short. This is why charm is deceptive...it is at the peak of our failed attempt to satisfy our own unattainable standards - we have done nothing but fooled ourselves. We are great pretenders, us women. This is a stronghold we must break out of. Only when we abide in Him and He in us can we be competent to behold any task at hand worth eternal value (John 15)

Beauty is fleeting. It does not make one tiny spec of eternal difference if we have what the world qualifies as pretty. You wouldn't know this based on how much of the church responds to physical beauty. Any kind of visual attributes: the way we dress, decorate our sanctuaries, buy our cars etc. WE are a visually stimulated people. How I beg for God to take away from my eyes the delight in worldly beauty and replace it with a heavenly one that sees the world Jesus does. Why do you think there are so many books in the Christian bookstores about laying down our self-conscious nature. I can think of several current songs that play on the local christian radio station about finding inner beauty in the fact that God has created us to be exactly what he meant for us to be. Why do you think that the Christian entertainment world is pushing this theme? Could it be because that we are in desperate need of scriptural truth pointing us in the direction of who we are in the sight of the LORD - a renewed creature who is covered by the precious blood of Jesus. We have been washed and cleaned from the inside out. WE are beautiful in God's eyes. What a savior! But the world is CONSTANTLY pushing into this lie telling us that we don't measure up. That we must do whatever it takes to drink from the proverbial cup of everlasting youth. Cut and trim that, implant this, color that, lose this, add this, wear that, eat this, don't eat that...blah blah blah. Who decides what is right and true for us? Tell me, Who commands your destiny? Say, Who is preparing a home for us? Who is it that has a plan for us? Who is it that even the rocks will cry out to? Who is the Famous One? When will we come to the conclusion that there is One who has the throne in our life to lead us, guide us and direct us. No other is LORD of our life. Not even us, by our own standard. Let us shut out the notions that this world sets for us to follow. Woe is me when I fall victim to the malice that this world presents to me in the form of so-called beauty. It isn't beauty, what they say...it is bondage. And we are to live free from it every day.

The woman who fears the LORD is to be praised: well, when we put aside all that the world tries to cloud our judgment with - we start to see the big picture. To fear the LORD in all we do and to step out of the way and allow Him to be Ruler of our hearts, we will see a dramatic shift in the condition of our hearts. We have a joy and a hope that we never knew possible. We have a grace here. We have an amazing grace story that can change the world we live in. WE can show the beauty of Jesus, rather than the neverlast petty self-righteous standards of this world.

Oh the beauty in stepping aside from all attempts for charm and so called beauty. Let's just praise HIM and we will see true delight realized in our very life...

From The Inside Out - Hillsong United
A thousand times I've failed
Still your mercy remains
And should I stumble again
Still I'm caught in your grace

Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame

My heart and my soul, I give You control
Consume me from the inside out Lord
Let justice and praise, become my embrace
To love You from the inside out

Your will above all else, my purpose remains
The art of losing myself in bringing you praise

Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame

My heart, my soul, Lord I give you control
Consume me from the inside out Lord
Let justice and praise become my embrace
To love You from the inside out

Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame
And the cry of my heart is to bring You praise
From the inside out, O my soul cries out

My Soul cries out to You
My Soul cries out to You
to You, to You

My heart, my soul, Lord I give you control
Consume me from the inside out Lord
Let justice and praise become my embrace
To love You from the inside out

Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame
And the cry of my heart is to bring You praise
From the inside out, O my soul cries out

Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame
And the cry of my heart is to bring You praise
From the inside out, O my soul cries out
From the inside out, O my soul cries out
From the inside out, O my soul cries out.

testimony

so last night i was very blessed to listen to one of my very dear friends give her testimony.

let me tell you a little about this friendship. we went to highschool together. the guys we dated, and ended up marrying have been best friends since they were little children. BUT we never even had the smallest conversation until the day she got a job at snider's pharmacy with me! we immediately became very close friends, enjoying every opportunity to trade long stories and ideas along with our own personal accounts of what the LORD was doing in our life. we realized that we had such similar personalities - it seemed crazy that we had never really known each other.

we quickly deemed ourselves as the "work wives."

then suddenly she decided that the time had come for her to leave this job that had wonderfully brought us together. she was leaving me. sadness.

we have done a pretty great jobs of maintaining our WWFL mantra (work wives for life!) we text and call and facebook as often as we can. i really knew in my heart that even though i would not have her on the daily basis that i had become accustomed to - we would always be great friends. God doesn't put people like that in your life when you need it the most for no reason.

back to the blogic (blog topic)...

she is involved in a wonderful summer college ministry at one of the local churches. she has been working with other local friends/believers/Christ activists on really getting this area on the move for spreading God's Grace and Mercy to EVERYONE. this girl's heart is on fire. and i love it!

she texted me last night to share her anxiety about her upcoming testimony she was to give to her group. i had faith that God would embellish her mouth with wise words of His Power and Love and ability to be our MIGHTY GOD.

i wouldn't have missed this for the world. she is more important to me than she might have realized and i wanted to share this moment with her and the other folks there.

half-way through her spiel tear started streaming and she lost her composure. (this is an awesome way of showing how overwhelming God's LOVE makes us feel). the next words out of her mouth were, "this year i left my job..." then her eyes diverted to me and i suddenly new where this was headed. she then proceeded to almost intimately thank me for being such an instrument in her life. encouraging and pushing her to own her own faith. i was moved beyond words.

when had this supposed relationship evolved. i knew our friendship was based on Christ - something that i am most grateful for. but i never realized just how impactful my life had been on hers.

all i can say is - wow. what a wonderful thing for Jesus Christ to be exalted through a couple of simple girls relationship. i'm so thankful. i'm thankful for the lesson of a testimony. they're powerful and necessary. wonder if your life makes such an impact on another's life testimony. is there anything you would do differently. to HIM be the Glory and Honor.

Growing Up Some More

i have come to the realization lately that i am too dependant on my husband. i count on him to fix something in the house if it breaks, lift heavy items for me, fix my car, open tight lids on jars, remove hot and heavy items from the oven, allow me to be the passenger in the car, buy me things, make money to pay bills, pump my gas, take me out to eat, be my date when i want to see a movie, listen to me complain, tell me funny jokes to make me smile, watch tv with and just be my best friend and partner in life.

i now know that there are some people that do not have this person in their life to fill most of these above voids. single people mainly. i have developed a new respect for these brave and mighty souls. it is a lot of work to be alone.

my husband works/schools all day just about every day. while we do have some precious time together, i am noticing the majority of the time that we do not spend together. i am realizing that i spend most of my time by myself. and now, i find myself growing in this time - more than ever in my life.

i am learning things about myself and making decisions for myself and finding new ways to accomplish hard tasks all by myself.

i am choosing what i will and will not do with my time. i am forming new opinions about what i do and do not like.

i sound like a newly graduated highschool student that is just now getting out in the real world. if i think about it, that is sort of where i am in life right now. i have spent my life, up until now, spending each moment of every day with someone. i married almost immediately after graduating highschool and lived at home in between that time frame.

i miss my husband very much every day that he is at work or school or rotations. but i am beginning to value this time as an important aspect of us each developing ourselves a little more independant of one another. i really hope and pray that this leads to a stronger relationship. one that causes me to really value my husband and not just think of him as convenient. i never know when/if it might be God's will to take him.

i think this time has more than anything caused me to do some serious growing up in my faith. i have spent countless nights awake with my LORD. finding amazing things in His scripture that i might have missed at that exact moment had i been lying in my bed asleep next to my husband. i have learned the value of my prayer life. the time that i spend in utter adoration of my King. spending time praying for my husband and about our relationship.

yes, this time will be hard. but it will be good. it will allow me some time to grow. and growing may sometimes be painful...but it is necessary.

Simple Communication Will Suffice

This is a post dedicated to all of the folks out there that like to define words to emphasize their meaning. to all of the people who like to give alternate translations of a word to better convey what they mean. to those that have mastered the art of balancing their study bible, notebook, greek bible, hebrew bible, their esl bibles and someohow - just somehow - their train of thought all in one lap. to all of folks that repeat a word and use a different pitch each time. to those that repeat a word emphasizing a different syllable each time. for those that have to use an amazing personal experience or some incredible once in a lifetime story to make their profound thought simple to the simple listener/reader.

Just speak people. Jesus used parables to weed out the scholars and law abiders from the true followers. We use clear and thought provoking words that stand on their own. They make sense and they prove a point.