Last times...

Karen Kingsbury wrote a poem entitled, "Let Me Hold You Longer", and it brings to the forefront of your mind- the last time you do anything.

The last time you hold your child on your hip.  The last time you change a diaper.  You just never realize the last time you do something.

I've went through that with my kids.  I continue to do that with my kids.  We also have firsts, just like we have lasts.  You can't have last without also having a first.

Is this the last time my Dad and I will be alone in the house together?  That's been ringing through my head a lot.  He's getting married.  I am so happy for him.  I am happy for many of the new firsts he is going to have- and going to experience with Gail.

I do not look to the sorrow but to the joy.

You can't have a last without a first.  Sometimes you have to put yourself aside for the best of another.

Thank You, Jesus for doing that for me.  : )

May 1st

What a way to start the day- a thunderstorm!  Looks like it may be stormy all day : (  I sincerely hope not because we will be travelling all day.  

I'm sitting here at my lovely window- bathroom/study watching the clouds roll by.  The Forrester Sisters are singing, "In the sweet by and by...we shall meet on that beautiful shore".  

I've been preparing for my trip home.  

Nick made a flag out of pallets for my nephew, Ricky and I painted it.
I've been working on a couple of blankets and curtains for my niece Lindsey who is expecting a baby girl a few days before Allison.  

Also gathering wedding supplies for my Dad and Gail's wedding!  

I haven't got Hunter anything for his 21st Birthday!  Maybe I can leave that for Nick and Johnie to do this week since I am going to be so busy.

I'm going  home today.  To Kentucky.  To spend the week with my Dad, to clean his house, to help with wedding preparations.

My sister, Sis, has also been in the hospital this week with bloodclots in her lungs and leg.  So, I'll be checking on her this week too.  

So, we will leave here around 10 this morning.  Nick, Cody and me.  Karen is going to pick up Hunter at Cumberland College and he is going to ride to Knoxville with her.  We will meet at the Cracker Barrell in Knoxville- and I'll go home with Karen.  We plan on stopping to see Sis in Somerset.  

This is my last peaceful moment for at least a week.  I'm sitting here now listening to to Hillsong, Sinking Deep.  Jesus, I breathe in and leaning into Your love.  This is going to be one week so filled with emotions.  Keep me calm in You.  I don't want to believe the subtle lies the enemy, the world or my own flesh may whisper to me- I want to hear You, Truth.  Wrap Yourself around all of me, Lord...and hold me close in You.  

Standing here in your presence
In a grace so relentless
I am won by perfect love
Wrapped within the arms of heaven
In a peace that lasts forever
Sinking deep in mercy's sea

[Chorus:]
I'm wide awake, drawing close, stirred by grace
And all my heart is yours
All fear removed, I breathe you in, I lean into
Your love, oh, your love

[Verse 2:]
When I'm lost you pursue me
Lift my head to see your glory
Lord of all, so beautiful
Here in you I find shelter
Captivated by the splendor
Of your face, my secret place

[Bridge:]
Your love so deep is washing over me
Your face is all I seek, you are my everything
Jesus Christ, You are my one desire
Lord, hear my only cry, to know you all my life

This may be the last week I ever spend with my Dad, just me and him.  I don't know what the future holds.  I know I have prayed for You to bring someone in his life that loves You, and will deeply love him.  I believe You have.  I don't want him to be lonely.  I want him to have a long marriage where he has much joy, peace, happiness and enduring love.  It's funny.   When you have children, you know that marriage is going to change your relationship with your child- for it is Your will for them to leave and cleave.  But here I am, 46 and expecting this of my Dad.  It's seems like his whole life has been- backwards.  : )  I met a woman at Grace Girls a few months ago that was in her 60's and she had NEVER been married- or intimate with a man.  And she was getting married!  She was radiant.  So it doesn't really matter how old you when you get married- to cleave and bond with another is a joyous time.  I pray this will be an easy transition for Dad and Gail.  I fear it may be difficult but You, Jesus, are the Master of making the difficult, easy.  So, I'll just turn all that over to You.

I'm going to miss my family.  Nick, Allison, Ben, Cody and Johnie.  Sebastian and Macey.  My friends.  I know we can call and text- and Nick and the kids will be there Friday but....I miss them already.  

Jesus...Your love is a song You sing over me.  

"I will give you peace"- I receive Your peace, Jesus.  

Set Free!!!!!!

In John 11:25 Jesus tells Martha that HE is THE Resurrection and THE Life. 

We can only live an abundant, free life in Him because HE IS Resurrection and Life. 

He has already overcome ALL things, why do you still live in (fill in the blank)? 

Trust in Him. Abide in Him. Surrender to Him. 

The only other life to live is enslaved to someone or something(s).

Come to Jesus, He set the captive FREE!

( April 29, 2010)

It will always be- simply, Jesus

I've got so much on my mind this morning.  

Why, Lord, did you bring me out of the pit of depression?  Why me?  Why did You choose to heal me?  

As I think about it- it really wasn't depression.  I call it that because I don't really have one word- well, that's not exactly true because there IS one word to describe why I was so emotionally unstable- it is:

Flesh.  Self. 

But that put's ME as the center of the problem.  And I was the center of the problem.  

When I look back now I see that I was oppressed spiritually.  I was emotionally stunted.  Both causing me to say and do things I KNEW wasn't the real me.  

For me- "oppressed spiritually" was that before I was I believer I didn't know ANY other way to "release" the boiling cauldron of unfiltered, misunderstood, rampant, wild emotions inside of me.  These emotions had a root cause but I didn't know it!  I just thought they WERE me.  That I was to try hard to NOT be that way.  And the truth is, that was me, before Jesus.  It was the only way I knew to be.  Angry, short-tempered, impatient, yelling, crying, blaming, manipulating, looking for a way out, trying to feel "good" emotions in a bad way, trying to control everyone and everything in my home so that something would feel "right".  I hated life because I hated me.  

After Jesus- nobody explained to me that I was a new creation.  2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away; behold, the new has come into being."

Wow!  I had heard it but it was never explained to me.  Nobody really sat down and opened the Scriptures and showed me ALL that was in them about what Jesus did for me, to me and will do through me because of the cross, His death, His resurrection, His ascension, His sitting at the right hand of the Father, His sending the Holy Spirit- the Spirit of Truth-our Counselor and Comforter- and through the Holy Spirit, He-Christ, Himself- indwells, abides, within me.  I have EVERYTHING I need for life and godliness.  

I was dead and I needed life.  

I was filled with unrestrained chaos and I needed peace.

I was depressed and I needed joy.

I was unfulfilled and I needed love.

I was angry and I needed healing.

I was hard, hurt, scared, uncontrollable, beaten and chained.  

I needed kindness, touch, security, gentleness, my wounds cleansed with the oil of joy and wine of new life and I needed to be set free.  

Free from the past, free from those who hurt me, free from those I hurt, free from the present, free from worry, free from control, free from anger, free from the chaos, free from others, free from unrestrained emotions, free from all slavery and bondage, free from MY SELF.  

I needed healing, wholeness, life, joy, peace, kindness, gentleness, love, faithfulness, guidance, patience, and self- control.  

I wanted to walk in victory, all the days of my life no matter what craziness was going on around me- I didn't want to be dragged in the pit that my soul had lived in for so long.  

Only Jesus healed this broken one.  He healed me so that I would walk in victory.  This is moment by moment as I abide in Him.  He didn't want me dependent on anything but Him.  So He is taking away all my coping mechanisms.  He became the most real thing in my life.  He's daily changing my mind, will and emotions- exchanging the lies for the truth and transforming my inner man to live from the Truth.  

I'm free.  

Why me?  So many others continue to live in bondage.  It hurts my heart.  My answer is simple- simply Jesus.  I needed, really truly needed, all of Jesus.  Not just His saving but His keeping.  I need Him- with every breath, every beat of my heart, every thought in my mind, with everything that I am.  I need Him.  I cannot live with You, Jesus.  You are the source of all I need.  You.  Only You. 

Jesus, You are my Home.  

37 years ago today-

The Thorn

The Thorn
by Martha Snell Nicholson

I stood a mendicant (beggar) of God before His royal throne
And begged him for one priceless gift, which I could call my own.
I took the gift from out His hand, but as I would depart
I cried, “But Lord this is a thorn and it has pierced my heart.
This is a strange, a hurtful gift, which Thou hast given me.”
He said, “My child, I give good gifts and gave My best to thee.”
I took it home and though at first the cruel thorn hurt sore,
As long years passed I learned at last to love it more and more.
I learned He never gives a thorn without this added grace,
He takes the thorn to pin aside the veil which hides His face.

The Kindness of God

Repentance: a change of mind, change in the inner man.

3341 metánoia – literally, "a change of mind" ("after-thought"); repentance

A lot is said about the word repentance.  My original understanding of repentance mean't that you had to "really mean that you were turning away from sin"  and that involved a lot of crying, a lot of pleading God to forgive you and a lot of promising God you would never sin again.

Now, my understanding of repentance has changed.  I guess you could say I have been enlightened by the Holy Spirit, after all He is our Counselor and Teacher.

I've mentioned many times that I love the definitions of words.  Michael Wells says, "We stand or fall by our definitions." I have found this to be true.  

Repentance simply and profoundly means- a change of mind.  Not, a turning away but a change of mind.  What I found once desirable is no longer- desirable.  Why?  Because it was from me and not God.  I want His desires for me, not mine.  Something clicked in my mind, changed.  

Repentance is not something that can happen once but many many times.  I can change my mind and agree with God and be in harmony with Him.  This, my friends, is intimacy with Him.  

Godly sorrow, is when our inner man- our spirit (dead to God) has been exposed to the sinlessness and incorruption of God.  We become aware of  His holiness and purity.  We see ourself as we are, apart from God.  Not just filled with sin, but SIN.  Sin is our very nature.  Not just our acts but the core of who we are.  He reveals to us that we are born in sin, born a sinner, apart from Him.  There's nothing, not one thing, we can do be unsinful, to be unholy, to be impure.  We are.  Godly sorrow is the pain and grief- of sin.  It's a heavy, heart-aching grief.  What sin has done to us, in us and through us to others.  The results of sin and what it has further produced.  

That's where the sinless Savior, and the pure, holy, undefiled  blood of the only One that could save us from sin and sins- comes in.

Blood.  Death.  But risen from the dead to overcome sin, death, the world, temptation, the flesh.  To fill us with new life.  New inner man- the sinful inner man crucified, dead and buried.  A new man- spirit- alive with Life, Christ Himself.  Risen to new life!  

When we believe in Who Jesus is- "change of mind"- repentance we receive a "change in the inner man"- also repentance.  

2 Corinthians 7:10

For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There's no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death.

What leads me to a change of mind and change of inner man, repentance?  

Romans 2:4Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? 

The kindness of God!  Not the condemnation.  Not the pounding of a pulpit.  Not a scare tactic.  But the dear, beloved kindness of God!  His kindness leads me to change my mind, which leads to His changing my inner man and giving me Himself so that I can live this life- no longer apart from Him but from Him.