I'm Ready for 2016

Stunning vacation home Mr R and I were blessed to rent on the Maine Coast
to celebrate our 30 anniversary

Throughout my life I've made a mistake. That error is this: I've all too often thought peace meant getting away from hard or tiring circumstances. You know...taking a holiday, a vacation or at least a good nap.

This past year the Lord has been teaching me otherwise. Peace ~ real peace//lasting peace ~ will only come in accepting my current circumstances and trusting God. I can hear the echo of this sentiment in Jesus' words from the garden, "Not My, but Thy will done." I want to live like Jesus. And, I want to die to self like my Savior did.

So, I'm ready for 2016.
I'm ready to let go.
I'm ready to give up control.
I'm ready to back off.
I'm ready to surrender my expectations.
I'm ready to stop clutching.
I'm ready to stop grasping.
I'm ready to stop holding my breath.
I'm ready to stop insisting on my way.
I'm ready to stop striving for perfection.
I'm ready to stop fighting to lead.
I'm ready to stop panicking.
I'm ready to stop insisting.
I'm read to stop worrying.
I'm ready to stop demanding.

With God's promised help,
I'm ready for 2016.
I'm ready to trust Jesus.
I'm ready to trust Jesus with the outcome.
I'm ready to learn how to forgive.
I'm ready to breathe deeply and slowly.
I'm ready to exercise regularly.
I'm ready to serve others.
I'm ready to get rid of stuff.
I'm ready to be okay with messy and dirty.
I'm ready to spend more time in my Bible.
I'm ready to start blogging again.
I'm ready to pray about writing a book.
I'm ready to plan purposed times of rest.
I'm ready to trust Jesus.
I'm ready to let my kids make mistakes.
I'm ready to fight my anger.
I'm ready to learn how to watercolor.
I'm ready to eat less.
I'm ready to try to get to know my neighbors.
I'm ready to fight anxiety.
I'm ready to work to know God.
I'm ready to give my husband grace.
I'm ready to trust Jesus.
I'm ready to listen to my children.
I'm ready to stop interrupting my husband.
I'm ready to get my camera out more often.
I'm ready to pray more.
I'm ready to fight my fears.
I'm ready to learn to love lavishly.
I'm ready to strengthen my organizational skills.
I'm ready to trust God with how my kids turn out.
I'm ready for 2016.

None of these are New Year's Resolutions. I will fail. I will slip and stumble and slide and fall flat on my face. I'd prefer to think of these as places of grace for myself. When I fall, I'm going to put a hand to the ground and push myself back into a standing position, relying on the Lord's strength to do so. I'm going to keep on trying. I'm going to bathe these dreams in prayer. When I mess up, I'm going to confess any sin to God, set my account right with the people I love and try again. "God is my helper and the uplifter of my life" (Psalm 54:4 ESV) He's my solid rock, not me. I'm ready to stand on Him and throw myself joyfully into the waves that will come in 2016. God is with me and for me. I'm ready. I'm ready for the peace that passes understanding (Philippians 4:7).

Learning to Love by Listening

The longer I that I'm a wife and mama the more I realize that I'm far too skilled at talking. So often I should be listening instead. Rehearsing this verse daily is helping:

"The mind of the intelligent seeks knowledge,
But the mouth of fools feeds on folly." ~Proverbs 15:14 (NASB)

Here's what I've written on the 3X5 index card I return to each day:

Seek to love.

   Seek to understand.

      Listen, rather than talking.

         Listen, rather than interrupting.

            Listen, rather than inserting your opinion.

                 Listen, rather than trying to persuade.

                    Listen, seeking knowledge.

                       Listen...praying.

                          Listen...trusting God with the circumstance.

My Source of Strength

"There is none like you, O Lord; You are great, and great is Your strength in might."

~Jeremiah 10:6

Favorite Quotes: The Reason Behind My Top Priority Each Day

My second in my series of favorite quotes from books I've read is actually a continuation from Jean Stockdale's book Proverbs and Principle for Parenting Practically Perfect Progeny. (Hence a second photo of the same flower.)

I am a lover of God's word. As such, I find the words below both comforting and convicting. Her words remind me why the first thing I do each day is open my Bible.

"God's Word is not a rule book. It is not a list of external religious rituals that we are required to adhere to or memorize. God's Word is a love letter from a Father to His child. It is truth. It is full of promises, principles, and precepts. It contains God's warnings, His wisdom, and even His wit. It is His divine revelation and the riches of His grace. It reveals both humanity's ruin and God's remedy. It is the story of redemption by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is full of hope and heaven. It declares Jesus to be God's only begotten Son and the one and only way to be forgiven and reconciled with God the Father. Who would dare to deal with it casually or carelessly?" (pg. 16)

Favorite Quotes: Is My Bible Falling Apart?

We need to do some serious book sorting in this house. As I prepare to move books from one location to another, I've decided to record some of my favorite quotes. Right now, wonderful words that have wielded introspection over the years are locked between the front and back pages of the book in which they reside. I know it will do me good to see them again. The header to this blog states that it is my electronic journal. In the past, I stored favorite quotes in traditional journals. It's time to record these wise words here.

This first quote is one of my all time favorites, and it came from an unexpected source: a workbook called Proverbs and Principles for Parenting Practically Perfect Progeny: Timeless Truths from Proverbs for Training Tots to Teens by Jean Stockdale:

"For nearly 24 years I have been a serious Bible student. Early in my Christian experience I discovered that God's Word is His precious love letter to His church corporately and to His children personally. It is to be reverenced and cherished as the holy breath of God. It is to be studied, memorized, read, re-read, meditated on, and consumed with relish. Bibles are to be examined, studied, perused, scanned, wept over, underlined, marked up, outlined, dog-eared, worn out, and regularly replaced. If your Bible is falling apart, the chances are very good that your life is not.

"God's Word is not to be yet another leather accessory for your Sunday wardrobe. It is your sustenance, the foundation for your life, the anchor of your soul, and the song of your heart." (pg. 15)

No More Sword Practice!

"There is one who speaks rashly like the thrusts of a sword,
But the tongue of the wise brings healing."
Proverbs 12:18 (NASB)

This is a verse that I have been rehearsing daily for about a year. I put it on a 3x5 card for review each day because deep in my soul I recognize a tendency to use words "like the thrusts of a sword." I yearn instead to have a tongue that brings healing.

As I've slowly memorized the verse (that's what the intentional daily rehearsing does for me), I've also meditated on the thoughts called out and pulled out a couple of resources for better understanding.

Some months ago, I looked up the word rashly in Webster's 1828 Dictionary: "Rashly--without due deliberation."

Ouch! I was convicted immediately by the now obvious understanding that I was to T.H.I.N.K. before speaking. Hmm...an all-too novel concept for me.

More recently I checked out what John Kitchen has to say about the verse in his insightful commentary, Proverbs,

"Here is the idea of one who unlocks the door of their lips and lets flow whatever the moment may evoke. There is no thought, no weighing of one's words, only reaction. When we speak like this, we wound, even kill relationships...Like a mad man flailing away with a sword in a crowd of innocent people, so the person who does not measure his words wounds many."

Even deeper OUCH! How many times have wounded those I love the most? After all I'm most likely to speak without thinking within the confines of my own home. When I react to circumstances and open my mouth without due deliberation, it is my beloved husband and treasured children who are likely to the victim's of my tongue's shrapnel.

My only hope? God's willingness to help.

Thus my new practice is to PRAY when I reach the card with Proverbs 12:18 on it in my rehearsal stack each morning during my time alone with God:

O, Lord, please keep me from speaking rashly today. I cannot do this without You. I am so wont to hurt others with my words. Please help me to think before I speak. Please help me to be like Jesus and only speak words which come from You (John 6:63, 8:28). Please mold me into a person whose tongue brings healing. I am completely dependent on You, Lord. Please help me!

Twice a Day, Every Day

Sunrise as seen from Castine, Maine, on the Atlantic coast, 21 August 2013

Thoughts from my time in the Bible this morning:

"They who dwell in the ends of the earth stand in awe of your signs;
 You make the dawn and the sunset shot for joy."
Psalm 65:8

Twice a day, every day, God gives us a sign that He is -- each morning's sunrise followed by evening's sunset. Our days are bookended by a reminder of the wonder that there is a God. Even the farthest reaches of the earth are privy to this message of a mighty God--maker of heaven and earth. Oh may I stand in awe--not just of the signs--but of the Signmaker, the Creator. He is God. He is. Praise Him!

A Mark of Wisdom

"The wisdom of the sensible is to understand his way" 

  (Proverbs 14:8a NASB)

Bible commentator John Kitchen writes, "Such a one can look at his conduct (his way) and his motives and accurately identify them for what they are... The proverbs repeatedly hail the one who can objectively evaluate himself and trim his actions accordingly." Proverbs, pgs. 305,306

This ability to sense when I'm headed in the wrong direction with my words or actions is a yearning of my heart as a result of having sinned against others--thus defiling God's glory--more times than I'd care to recount.

This half-a-Proverb can so easily be turned into a prayer: Lord, please grant me the wisdom to understand my way. Take away the blinders of pride and self righteousness that lead me far from You. Help me to do an immediate U-turn of repentance as soon as my eyes are opened by Your grace to the fact that I'm on a path which will result in me hurting others and failing to glorify You."

This short gem also makes a perfect prayer for my children: Lord, I pray that You will weave into each of my children and their spouses the prudence to understand their way. Our culture is daily pounding them with messages that make behaviors like anger, rebellion and unforgiveness not only okay but even expected. Self-focus, the very opposite of Your way, is touted before them as a virtual virtue. O Great God, give my children sin-sensitive souls.

This morning I wrote Proverbs 14:8a on an index card and added it to the stack I try to review daily. I've found this practice which I took up in early March has been a tremendous springboard not just for knowing more scripture but also for energizing my prayer life. Now this new index card will now help me to remember to ask the Lord to mold me into a person who understands her ways.

When I'm at My Worst...

I memorized Jesus' words in Matthew 11:28-30 a couple of months ago:

"Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Having my this passage impressed on my heart has given me the chance to mediate on it repeatedly. The Lord has provided many precious insights. This week, however, I had a thought that staggered me.

When I'm "weary and heavy-laden", I am at my worst. If you find me worn and feeling pressured, you'll find a woman who is most likely cranky, self-centered, vulnerable to self-pity, whiny, and bordering on hopelessness. I'm just plain disagreeable. It's ugly!

And yet, it is precisely at these moments ~ when I'm wallowing in sin as I struggle with my circumstances ~ that Jesus invites me to come close!  Jesus is emphatic about His desire to usher me into intimacy with Him when I've sunk to my lowest. I tend to try to avoid people when they're exhausted and overwhelmed. After all, a person like that is most likely going to be needy. But, ~ this is what flabbergasted me ~ that's exactly when our Savior beckons...when we're at our weakest and at the same time...well...kinda repugnant. Isn't that amazing? Isn't Jesus' "Come..." sweeter than ever with that realization? Doesn't the tenderness of the invitation leave you ready to lay your head on His chest as the apostle John did?

I recently ran across the wall hanging I'm holding in the photo. I had planned to hang it on our main floor, but so far it hasn't left our bedroom. Seeing the words first thing in the morning and several times each day has served to remind me of Jesus' insistent-yet-overwhelmingly-compassionate, "Come to Me...". Seeking Him is my only real hope when I'm weary and heavy-laden. When I'm at my worst, He still says, "Come...!"

No More Excuses

Even if I only read one book in the entire Bible, one thing would become clear. Proverbs leaves no doubt that those who belong to God are to have self-control over their feelings, their thoughts, their actions, their words, their eating, their drinking, their use of time and their use of money.

Jesus was the ultimate demonstration of this self-control. I will fail in my efforts to imitate Him and demonstrate self-control unless I am "actively dependent upon God at each instant and in each endeavor," (John Kitchen, Proverbs, pg. 237).

How can I be dependent on Someone I don't know well? I can't be. This moment-by-moment dependence on God demands an intimate knowledge of God. The only way I can hope to achieve this level of intimacy is by becoming a person of the Word. His thoughts must become my thoughts. His ways must become my ways (See Isaiah 55:8,9). This means investing time and energy in reading and rereading and rereading and rereading His word. I must stop making excuses and memorize His word, and this must be life-change memorization, not the kind of cramming that prepares a person for a quiz. This will take hard work. There's just now way around it. This will also require cutting something out of my life, probably spending as much time at my computer.

I've spent my life telling people I wish I had more self-control. It's time to stop wishing. It's time to consistently invest myself in knowing God so well that I can be actively dependent upon Him--moment-by-moment--no matter what life throws at me. It's time to control Self, instead of letting Self control me. It's time to demonstrate enough self-control to hungrily seek God through His word, today and tomorrow and the next day and the next... It's time. No more excuses.

(Many of these thoughts have crystallized after listening to Jim Berg's message: Eagles and Turkeys. Many of the terms are his.)

I Get Stuck Each Time

"Now all the tax collectors and the sinners were coming near Him to listen to Him. Both the Pharisees and the scribes began to grumble, saying, 'This man receives sinners and eats with them.'" (Luke 15:1,2 NASB)

I love these two verses that set the scene for the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the prodigal son  in Luke 15. In fact, each time I reach this chapter in my Bible reading, I get stuck on these two verses and find it hard to move on. Here's why:

• I'm blown-away by God's goodness to me. I'm a sinner. Just like the men that the Pharisees and scribes were grumbling about, I'm a sinner. I'm a sinner. I'm a S.I.N.N.E.R! And yet the whole of God's word tells me that Jesus is willing to receive me, just as he was willing to receive the tax collectors and notorious sinners in the verse above. That just takes my breath away; the King of Kings and Lord of Lords has a place of fellowship for me. (See John 14:21, 23)
• As I let it soak in that Jesus is willing to receive me, I then find I want to be like the tax collectors and the sinners mentioned in Luke 15:1. I realize that a desire to be like a tax collector sounds a bit odd. But look at the men's longings. They're elbowing each other for a place near Jesus. They want to listen to Him. I want the desire to come to Jesus and listen to Him to be hallmarks of my life. In fact, I want my yearning to come to Jesus and listen to Jesus to burn a bit more brightly each day in my heart.
• In order for the tax collectors and sinners to want to come and listen to Jesus, there just had to be something irresistible about being near the Son of God--that is if you were humble. The religious establishment represented in Luke 15:2 missed the wonder of Jesus due to pride. They saw themselves as good and "those other guys" as bad. Jesus saw each man's heart.
• Jesus very demeanor, let alone His message of forgiveness of sin, must have been so winsome, so compelling, so loving that those who were used to being repulsed by society laid down their defensiveness to come...and listen. I want to know this Jesus. What a King!

So you can see why I get stuck on these two verses. I see not just "tax collectors and sinners" but me. And...I see a Saviour who saves based on His goodness, not my on effort to clean up my life. So, I want to come near to Jesus and I want to listen to Him. Thankfully, Jesus welcomes sinners to His table, including me.

No Crushing Allowed!

My first grandchild, Brielle, at 3 days

We all recognize the fragility of a newborn. So tiny. So helpless. So dependent. What's easy to miss, however, is that as our bodies grow there continues to be a fragility to each person's soul. And because of the delicacy of the soul, our words have the power to hurt. Thankfully, the Lord has also given us the ability to use our words to heal.

Proverbs 15:4 (NASB) reads:
A soothing tongue is a tree of life,
But perversion in it crushes the spirit.

Bible commentator John Kitchen has this to say, "What potential lies within our words! We are endowed by our Creator with the capacity to bring either genuine, substantive help to those around us or to inflict incalculable lasting harm upon them  -- all of that by simply opening our mouths!" Proverbs, pg. 327

When I think about crushing the spirit, the picture that comes to mind is one of those monster trucks rolling over and flattening an entire line of cars in it's way as though the autombiles were nothing. I don't want my words to do that to anyone. Ironically, those easiest for me to hurt with my words are my own children. Whether its my tone or the very words themselves, I must remember the power my words have for good or grief and speak to my kiddos in a soothing way that protects their fragile souls. I'm commanded by God to build them up and encourage them, instead of tearing them down or belittling them. No crushing allowed!

Pulling Out the Sword to Battle Pain

On June 26 I will be seeing a gyn/oncologist at Mayo Clinic. Most likely she will decide that surgery is the best option to bring an end to, or at least reduce, significant chronic pain that has grown in severity and frequency over the past two years or so. The pain is the result of a mass of scar tissue that has knit my female organs to one another and glued them to other organs and to some of the bones in my lower abdomen. If Dr. Bakkum does chose to address my case surgically, the operation will take place the following day, June 27.

We praise God that Mayo has accepted my case. We also thank the Giver of All Good Gifts that I'm being seen so soon following the exploratory surgery I had here in Sioux City a little over two weeks ago. We continue to feel called by the Lord to adopt the four siblings we met at our children's orphanage in late 2010. We pray fervently that long term the treatment at Mayo will be used by the Lord to allow me to parent more actively and fully than I've been able to do for some time.

I hope to write more about this journey the Lord has me on, but right now I sense a pressing need to spend time impressing some of God's word, "the sword of the Spirit" (Ephesians 6:17), on my soul so deeply that the truths live and breath inside me no matter what fear rises in me before the surgery, how strong the post-surgery pain is or how weak I feel for some time after the procedure. One of the verses I'm rehearsing is in the "postcard" above.

Clinging to Him,
Denise

He Listens...Always and Forever

"I love the Lord because He hears my voice and my supplications.

He has inclined His ear to me,

Therefore, I shall call upon Him as long as I live."

Psalm 116:1,2 NASB

Watering and Fertilizing My Faith

As we begin the adoption process yet again, I've been rereading biographies of George Mueller, a man whose faith, devotion to prayer and love of God's Word have deeply impacted me. Mueller's long life covered nearly all of the 1800s. During that time he saw to the care of more than 10,000 orphans in Bristol, England, all without asking for a penny. He took each need to the Lord alone. And His prayer-hearing God met every need. Every single need.

Like George Mueller, we, too, have experienced the Lord's never-ceasing help. In our case, He has shown Himself faithful in all the many ways we have needed Him in order to adopt and then parent older orphans from Russia. With each of our three adoptions of trios of kiddos, He has consistently healed the hearts, minds, and bodies of these formerly broken and hurting children. Even though we have repeatedly experienced His faithfulness, I still find it helpful to be reminded through the stories of Mueller's experiences just how safe it is to count on the Lord for all we need. God is more than able to navigate us through this remarkably complex process, leading us to the blessed outcome of adding four siblings to our family.

The verse above was one of Mueller's favorites.

My Help

A Firm Foundation

My Hope

Not How the World Thinks

I don't know about you, but I frequently need the reminder this verse offers.

The world will disappoint.

People will let me down.

But God never betrays. His very nearness is my good.

My Strength