Christianity

Simply Grace

/ simplynikkicat / 3 Comments

“Perhaps the greatest charity comes when we are kind to each other, when we don’t judge or categorize someone else, when we simply give each other the benefit of the doubt or remain quiet…”

Human nature…it gets me every time. I read it in the headlines, see it on the television, and who am I kidding…I struggle with it. This idea of grace, it is so foreign to us. It doesn’t come naturally. We are conditioned to think and feel a certain way about people based upon a whole lot of things that matter not. We allow appearance, status, accomplishment, or lack of all the above to formulate what we think or how we feel about one another. Even if there is depth to a person character, passion within their heart, grace flowing from their soul we sometimes miss it because we struggle so deeply with our own inability to understand the full selflessness of grace.

So many of us are so desperate to be heard that often times words flow from our mouths before the full weight of our words can be considered. I cringe as I type…how often have I said an insensitive word, vented my anger before thinking a situation fully through, been rash to judge based on the superficial? How different the world would be if we were truly the change we wished to see, if we offered the same of kind of love that was lavished on us when we were so undeserving of it. What is so radical about Jesus Christ is this small, unassuming five letter word…G R A C E. Who knew five letters could carry so much weight…could be the catalyst to change the world. Yet so many of us who claim to love Jesus struggle with showing the very thing He lavished so freely upon us. Grace often alludes us even as we desire to grow closer to the Savior who is the very embodiment of it.

“Charity is accepting someone’s differences, weaknesses, and shortcomings; having patience with someone who has let us down; or resisting impulse to become offended when someone doesn’t handle something the way we might have hoped…”

As turn I on the evening news I cannot help but be discouraged. In fact I often find myself avoiding the television rather than engaging in the current events of the world. It is difficult to keep your head above the all consuming cultural wave that claims we have the right to demand things our way. Race riots rage, crime flourishes, relationships fracture…as the human condition slips further away from what we were created for…to be worshipers of God. We have been caught up in the vortex of self and if you do not serve me or my desires you are disposable…not worth my time. The image of God has become so distorted that for many it’s hard to remember that this whole thing called life is not about us at all but all about Him. Even in the realm of knowing Him we still stomp our feet when things don’t go our way…we debate to prove we are right…we shout truth only to find that where there is no grace there will be no one listening.

“Charity is refusing to take advantage of another’s weakness and being willing to forgive someone who has hurt us…”

When will forgive each other of the unpardonable sin of being different? Now that is not fuzzy theology…it’s actually not theology at all. You see, we humans struggle with our differences all the while God shakes His head in disbelief. Our differences are all the beautiful elements that make up His collective masterpiece and yet we miss it over and over again. Instead of picking one another up we delight in each others shortcomings or weaknesses…it makes us feel better about ourselves. Or even worse we exploit the least of these instead of taking care of them. We harbor bitterness and anger…refusing to offer forgiveness. Why oh why do we hold ourselves in the bondage that Christ died to set us free from? Why oh why do we not emulate our Savior? As His blood heals the wounds of our sin why do we struggle to extend the grace He so richly showed us?

“Charity is expecting the best of each other.” ~ Elder Marvin J. Ashton

I write this blog not to condemn others for I am also guilty of not extending grace. For letting my wants, desires, opinions, and preconceived notions override and cloud my vision. No, I write this blog to remind us all that we were meant for so much more…God desires so much for us and from us.

I have a friend that I often tease, I tell her that she needs to teach a grace class and I can be her first student. She exemplifies the simple, beautiful grace that our Savior Jesus Christ demonstrated. It’s in the softness of a gentle touch, the encouragement of a kind word, a new perspective offered when disappointments and anger arise, it’s the sweet symphony of acknowledging a wound or a hurt yet understanding that with every set back and trial comes a great opportunity for growth. It is in the knowing that life is messy and hard for everybody and sometimes we need to step aside of ourselves to recognize the season of life someone else is in. Grace is understanding that it’s not all about me, it looks at the big picture. Grace is what will resonate with someone long after a moment is over.

“The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” ~ 1 Samuel 16:7

What is so radical about grace is that it is so counter-cultural. It defies everything we have been taught to be true. That life operates on some sort of merit scale, the more you do the more you earn. The beauty of grace is God exclaiming His love for His people regardless of their brokeness, regardless of what they can or cannot do, regardless of their social status, wealth, or accomplishments, regardless if the world finds them appealing or not. God’s grace is demonstrated so powerfully in that he loved us enough to save us, through the death and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ, from the sin that separates us from Him. God loves us all and He has uniquely created us for a purpose in His kingdom…His desire is to transform lives. Those who live in the dark do not even realize this and those living in the light often allow their focus to become blurred from what matters most to God. Be the change we wish to see in the world…if Christ followers lived a life of radical grace, grace like Jesus demonstrated, how the world might change, how they might stop to pay attention. Grace is indescribable until you receive it…then it doesn’t need to be described at all. It was never meant to be an essay or a short-story…it was always meant to be a lifestyle.

“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” ~ Romans 12:2

Tonight I had a gut check. I desired grace to be demonstrated in others when I struggled to extend it myself. As I sat down to type I recognized that grace is something many of us struggle with. I was prompted by a holy discontent burning within me…a discontent with myself. Grace and love have been lavished on me through my Savior, Jesus Christ how can I not in turn pour that very grace out unto others? He is the hope of the world and He chooses to use me and every other Christ follower to be His light…to illuminate a darkened world. What an honor and privilege that is. There is NOTHING greater that I can do in this life than be the light of Jesus Christ. How can I do that? I will be the change I wish to see in the world by living a life of radical grace. I will show kindness and consideration. I will give the benefit of the doubt and not rush to judgment. I will show compassion and understanding. I will remember what matters most to God should matter most to me and that is the heart of a person. I will recognize that God does not make mistakes. He creates us all uniquely to bring something fresh and vibrant to the tapestry of life. We all matter, we are all important, and Christ died so that we all may live. That my friends is what grace is all about.

 

Undone

/ simplynikkicat / 2 Comments

“And they lived happily ever after…”

I don’t know anyone who wishes for a life of difficulty or uncertainty.  In fact, I can confidently say that most of us sign up for the fairy tale at a very young age.  You know…knights in shining armor rescuing damsels in distress and they live happily ever after in a 2 story Cape Cod with a white picket fence in a Mayberry like town. Sounds about right doesn’t it?  It’s interesting because there are two very distinct definitions for fairy tale and it is very obvious which one we all prefer…

fairy tale (noun) 1)  story in which improbable events lead to a happy ending 2) a made-up story usually designed to mislead.

I have to be honest, that second definition never even crossed my mind, yet as I read it I realized that this truly is the correct definition.  Do fairy tales not mislead us?  Do they not make us believe that the lowly servant girl can marry a prince, that true loves kiss will erase all difficulties and when the dragon is slain all will live happily ever after.

“Authenticity ministers far more than put-togetherness.  And vulnerability builds a far stronger bond than perfection.” ~ Michele Cushatt

An unexpected life…who cannot relate to that…are we all not living one?  If we all think back to our childhood aspirations, I bet few of our lives actually turned out they way we dreamed they would.  Well maybe I shouldn’t speak for you, but last time I checked I didn’t end up with a law degree from Georgetown, I never entered the Washington political scene, and I am not running for president in 2016…LOL…nope my fairy tale did not come true…not even close.  In fact, when I think about the dreams of my youth I wonder if God would have been able to speak into my life louder than my own ambitions.  Thankfully, I’ll never have to know.  At 18 the reality of an unexpected life put me on a very different road…one that lead me directly into God’s plan.  Of course, I took the scenic route and I was derailed a time or two but God used this time of unexpectedness to speak His truth into me.  I would love to say that as I gave my life to Christ my “happily ever after” came to be, but the reality is that the most difficult parts of my life came after I became a Christ follower.  A child diagnosed with autism and losing a child to SIDS is where the reality of my life shattered any childhood fairy tales that lingered in my dreams.  It was in these valleys that I had to make peace with an unexpected life.  My words fail me as I try to articulate the ferocity in which the pendulum of emotion swings when you walk the darkest roads of life.  I have often wondered if there would ever be a way that I could fully communicate what it feels like to be empty, when nothing makes sense and you cling to God with what little strength you have left.  You wrestle with fear and doubt…you cannot help your mind from wandering to all the things that should have been…the very things that would have made your life normal and good, the fairy tale the child in you dreamed it would be.  In the end, I think the one thing we all long for more than anything is the simple knowledge that we are not alone.  That in a world that loves to put on the facade of perfection, there are people who struggle…just like we do.

“Character is not born of stillness.  It requires the hammer blows of affliction” ~ Charles R. Swindoll

Have you ever met someone and instantly felt comfortable in their presence?  The kind of person that exudes a certain special something and you want to soak it all in.  This past July I walked up to a  hotel suite door like a nervous girl on her first day of high school.  I was at the She Speaks Conference and I was about to enter into my speaking peer critique group.  Would the other ladies like me…would my speaking coach like me?  Uggghhhh…what if she hated my speaking and told me I misunderstood God’s calling on my life?!?!  Yes, these truly are the doubts that fill your head when you attend a conference with 600 other ladies who are gifted and called by God to a ministry of writing and speaking.  My stomach was nauseous as I wondered what in the world I was doing there.  Then it happened…I opened the door and on the other side was a group of some of the sweetest and most talented ladies I have ever met.  In just a few short minutes that hotel room became a safe zone…it was a place where 12 strangers were bonded for life by the God who brought us together.  An environment of encouragement and grace enveloped our group as those qualities exuded from our speaking coach, Michele Cushatt.  From the moment she began to speak to us she soothed our nerves with her honesty and transparency.  She reminded us that nothing we did or did not do in our group negated God’s call on our life…He had called us, of that she was certain.  As her confidence poured into all of us our nerves began to melt away.  In those moments God brought a mentor into my life…a mentor whose beautiful spirit and grace reminded me that one of the  greatest blessings God gives us is this family we all belong to, the Body of Christ.

“Peace isn’t a byproduct of control, the payout of a happy conclusion.  Peace is the infiltrating, life-giving presence of a very real God.” ~ Michele Cushatt

In real life very few people get to ride off into the sunset and bask in the glow of their happy ending.  In real life things get messy and hard…real hard.  However, it is how we navigate…or better yet, how we allow God to navigate us through the tough stuff that matters most.  You see Scripture tells us in Philippians 4: 6-7 “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”  But what happens in the rawness of your world crashing in around you?  What happens when the devastating twists and turns of life try to rob you of the presence and the peace of the God who loves you?  How do you make peace with an unexpected life?

You might not have realized this but this blog post is all about my beloved mentor, Michele Cushatt’s new book, Undone: A Story of Making Peace with an Unexpected Life. I have honestly never written a book critique and I am not really sure I know how.  But when I was given the opportunity to be on the launch team for Michele’s book I jumped on it.  Besides being a mentor, Michele is up there with some of the best communicators I have ever witnessed, there is a reason why she is on the Women of Faith tour, just sayin’.  With such ease and grace I witnessed her weave stories around the beautiful truths she desired to convey. I knew that anyone who had been so gifted with words would write a fabulous book and I was not disappointed.  You will find no spoilers in my brief summary of Undone for I do not want to rob you of unwrapping this book like the gift that it is.  This blog is merely a tease…it is the build up to the real gift, Undone.  I chose to write this blog as I did because I wanted you all to know who Michele is to me, I’ve never had the honor of personally knowing an author before.  I wanted to give you just enough so that you would know what an amazing gift God has for you on the pages of this exquisite memoir written by a precious sister in Christ who has made a tremendous impact on my life.

I had the opportunity to write a little blurb on the Undone website and that is what I will share with you…

“The unexpected life is something we all have in common, however it is how we choose to walk the journey that makes the story uniquely our own.  Michele Cushatt’s “Undone” is a refreshingly transparent memoir that tackles some of the biggest obstacles that one can encounter on life’s path; pain, heartbreak, divorce, blended families, betrayal, forgiveness, and cancer.  A master story-teller, Michelle easily draws her readers in with her honesty and sense of humor.  But it is the vulnerability in which she shares her deepest struggles and the grace that flows through her words that reminds us we never struggle alone.  It is in the raw truth that we truly see how God’s story intersects with our own story, if we would just open our scared, bewildered, and broken hearts to Him.  One cannot read this book and not walk away blessed by the beautiful soul that is Michele Cushatt.  Her hand print highlights to us that God is good…all the time He is good!”

Undone will be released this coming Tuesday, March 10th and I HIGHLY recommend it.  It give it two thumbs WAY up…honestly I wish I had more thumbs cause two doesn’t seem like enough.  Head over to Amazon to pre-order your copy today…buy one for a friend while you’re at it, it’s that good.  What is most captivating about Michele’s story is that we can find ourselves in it.  Even if the circumstances of our struggles are different the reality is that we are all trying to make peace with an unexpected life on some level.  And peace is something that God desires for us, in abundance.  Whether you are walking through a valley or not, the wisdom and transparency of Michele’s story will touch your soul in a very special way and you do not want to miss it!

For more info go to http://undonebook.com/

 

 

Hopeful Expectation

/ simplynikkicat / 3 Comments

catharsis, noun:  the act or process of releasing a strong emotion especially by expressing it in an art form.” ~ Merriam Webster Dictionary

What does a writer do when they have not been prompted to write?  The desire to do that which one loves is overwhelming yet the muse they rely on for their words has not spoken.  I never really considered myself a writer.  I am not trained at all in the written word, at least not in a formal way.  But over the last few years I have developed such a passion for it.  When I sit at my computer I get lost in the beauty of the experience.  It is both cathartic and creative.  There is a secret place in me that has always wished I was more creative.  I have such an appreciation for the arts yet I have always felt as if I was on the outside looking in.  Not really talented in any medium of art…and that is not being modest, it’s brutal honesty…I have often felt like my appreciation of the arts has been a longing to be a part of something creative.  When God birthed in me this desire to write I was both elated and terrified.  I am not a writer.  A communicator, yes.  A writer, no.  But He was giving me this opportunity to dabble in something creative and that excited me.  When I began my blog in July I never could have imagined how much joy, how much release, and how much intimacy with God writing this blog would give me.  As a one who has written in prayer journals for years, you would think this revelation would not be a shocker but of course, it was.  I often think God must sit back in the throne room of heaven and get a great chuckle out of me.  I tend to be slow at catching on sometimes.  I imagine Him giving a dramatic, “DUH!” with a shake of the head…cause in my mind God is Italian so His gestures must be off the charts.  He probably talks with His hands too.

What makes my writing so unique is that I never just write to write.  In fact, I can’t.  Don’t believe me?  Well I tried it tonight.  I sat at my computer with the full intention of writing about a Group I am currently teaching on Wilfredo De Jesus’ book In The Gap.  I got through the first paragraph and I paused.  What I had written felt empty.  I had the best of intentions but as I reread my words I knew God had stopped me.  Why?  Because He never prompted me to write on this topic.  In that moment He reminded me that my writing has always been about what He lays on my heart.  To share snapshots of my life and my journey, through the events and episodes that He uses to shape me.  The circumstances and struggles of life that He desires for me to share.  Whether funny or serious, my writing at its very core is never about me but always about God.  He is the One who gives me the passion to write and therefore when I try to step ahead or around Him to write…it simply does not work, the words do not come.

Tonight I had such an overwhelming desire to write.  Since going back to work a month ago I have had little time to think about my writing.  The adjustment of schedules and the transition into a new role took precedent over pretty much everything.  Yesterday, I was sitting in my office and I was gripped by fear.  Not an “I’m afraid” fear but rather it was a dread fear.  In a moment this horrific thought crossed my mind…”What if I never write again?”  It was a fleeting thought at a random moment, and it left my mind as fast as it entered it. But my heart sunk at the very suggestion that I may never write again.  Truth be told, tonight I sat at my computer so that I could prove to myself that my fear was unwarranted…I would indeed write again.  Yet, as I sat here, completely unprompted by God, my words were flat.  They didn’t flow forth the way they usually do.  They lacked everything that made them even worth sharing…they lacked God.  Hitting delete never felt so good!!!  Don’t we all feel that way sometimes?  We have all made decisions that we know full well we never consulted God on.  We impose our will on Him and then expect Him to bless it as if it was all His idea in the first place.  Wouldn’t it be nice if we were just a delete button away from a “do over”  when we put our desires before God’s will.  Alas, we do not have that luxury.  However, we do have the beautiful gift of knowing that our God goes before us.  He has prepared in advance all that He has for us.  Where we are going…He’s already there.  Instead of trying to beat God to the destination maybe we should just treasure the gift of knowing He is paving the way.  When we are on the road paved by God delete buttons are not necessary.  When we trust God, He even uses our mess ups for His purpose and His glory…this blog post is proof of that.

This morning during our staff prayer time God laid two words on my heart…”hopeful expectation”  I didn’t know what they meant and I honestly did not have the time to ponder it either.  Those two words, jotted down in my prayer journal, were followed by the line “I have hopeful expectation.  Father, I don’t just hope you will move…I know you will!”  It’s amazing how something you write down at 9:30 in the morning comes back to speak to you at 10:30 at night.  Hopeful expectation..I am full of hope because of who God proves Himself to be over and over gain in my life and in the lives of those around me.  His hand print is everywhere.  Sometimes my vision gets a little blurry and I need to get refocused, but that’s my issue.  God never changes and my hope is firmly rooted in my Creator, Almighty God, the One who reigns over heaven and earth, He who is the same today as He was yesterday as He will be tomorrow.  My hope rests securely in all that God is and one thing I know for sure…God is a mover.  He never slumbers and He never sleeps.  His watchful eye is always upon us…His presence is always among us…His Spirit is longing to ignite a bold movement, a movement of His children; bringing the truth and the grace and the love of Jesus Christ to those who so desperately need His touch and His redemption.  I bask in hopeful expectation not so that I can write again, no this hopeful expectation is my “I’m ready” stance.  Ready for a great movement of God. Ready to be used when God calls upon me.  Hopeful expectation…the anticipation stirs in my heart as I am engulfed with the excitement of being in the middle of something so much bigger than I can even imagine.  Is there any greater place to be than in the center of God’s plan…in the middle of His movement?  I can tell you this, there is no place I would rather be.

As I get ready to hit publish I recognize that this may be one of those blog posts that is simply my journal entry in an open forum.  If the lesson is only for me, I am okay with that.  Sometimes this is exactly what I need for God to walk me through certain thoughts, emotions, or attitudes.  There is so much freedom when we take off all the baggage and just walk in honesty with our Savior.

Timing is Everything

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“Storms make trees take deeper roots.” ~ Dolly Parton

I am a writer, it is what I do.  No, I’m not an author…simply a writer.  My thoughts are best communicated when words flow from my mind to my hand, from the pen to the page.  Maybe this is the reason I have kept prayer journals for years.  I struggle to quiet my mind when I pray, yet when I write my prayers they effervesce out of me.  I wonder if this is how composers, song writers, authors, and other truly gifted artists feel as they come alive in their craft.  I am no Mozart, I don’t belong with the likes of Lennon and McCartney, and Shakespeare, Austen, and Hemingway would cringe if they thought I was even suggesting to be in their league.  LOL…I am amateur at best with my feeble attempt to write yet when I sit down to journal my heart to God or to answer His prompt to blog…that is when I find words…words He has crafted in me to share and words I return to Him is praise, worship, acknowledgment, anguish, despair, confession, and intercession.

Seven years ago…

There were no words, they died with my broken heart.  All that remained were the muted cries of anguish that screamed from the depths of my soul but the pain was too great for them to manifest into an audible sound.  I didn’t worry about whether I would ever find the words to journal again, I was more focused on trying to make sense out of the heartache that weighed down on my chest like a freight train.  As I sat in my living room the night my daughter died, rocking my body back and forth in a futile attempt to soothe the unsoothable ache, the thought that nothing would ever be okay again consumed me.  I cried out God to fix what seemed broken beyond repair…our hearts.

“Those who leave everything in God’s hand will eventually see God’s hand in everything” ~ Unknown

One week after my daughter passed away my dear friend and grief counselor gave me a prayer journal.  The words of my heart flowed to the pages of that book like the haunting and aching melody of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.  There is such beauty in the rawness of the human experience…crying out to the only One who can heal a heart that broken.  Of course at the time I didn’t see beauty, I felt the pain.  But in those moments the gift of communicating my deepest hurts, desires, fears, and hopes to God through the written word returned to me and the healing process had begun.  As I scour those journal entries now I am transported back to a time when God’s presence in my life was so strong…He was everywhere…I felt Him with me, physically.  His people showered love down upon us so lavishly that as I reflect I am awed by how much God took care of us.  His hand print was everywhere.  In my desperate prayers I begged Him to help us survive.  He did more than help us survive…He transformed our family through His love so that we could thrive.

“I AM ABLE to do far beyond all that you ask or imagine…Do not be discouraged by the fact that many of your prayers are yet unanswered.  Time is a trainer, teaching you to wait upon Me, to trust Me in the dark.  The more extreme your circumstances, the more likely you are to see My power and glory at work in the situation…Keep your eyes and your mind wide open to all that I am doing in your life.” ~ Jesus Calling, Sarah Young

Tomorrow will be seven years since losing our precious Francesca.  As I sit here tonight I am in awe of just how far God has taken our family since that fateful afternoon in 2008.  I asked for survival and He gave me beauty like I’ve never experienced amidst the ashes.  I asked for healing and He gave me peace and purpose.  I asked for my daughter to be a miracle and every day I live, every breath I take I do so knowing that I walk in the miracle of my precious girl’s life.  It is through Francesca that God was able to mold me into all that He created me to be.  She was a miracle…my miracle…she helped me fall hopelessly in love with my God, to fully surrender my life to Him…every part of my life.

Timing is everything.  Seven years ago I sat in the middle of the destruction of my imploded life.  Tonight I sit here in awe of my God and how His plan and His purpose far exceeds anything we could ever imagine.  Seven years ago I wondered day-to-day how I would get out of bed…This morning I got out of bed to start a new chapter in God’s plan for my life.  In the rhapsody of this paradox I could feel the words coming alive inside me waiting for the right moment of release.  The awe I felt reflecting on the road I had traveled…the road that God has carried me down.  Three years after Francesca died I felt God place a call on my life.  He guided me back to school because He desired to use me in ministry.  I had no idea what it would all look like and I really didn’t care…I had learned to just trust that still, soft voice.  It was the voice that had brought me comfort, healing, hope and peace.  I trusted Him to guide every aspect of my future so on to school I went.  I graduated over a year ago and have been in a holding pattern since the day I put my last period on a research paper.  God had told me to wait…the time wasn’t right…so I waited.  Believe me, waiting for a Type A, Doer is not an easy thing to do.  But I trusted God’s purpose AND His timing (even if I thought He was kinda slow at times).  Today of all days the wait came to end and I began my journey into full-time ministry.  Some will say the timing of this is pure coincidence.  I don’t believe in coincidence…I don’t believe in chance.  I believe that my God is always at work in the details.  Beautifully crafting the timing of certain events for His purpose…even if it’s merely to remind us that His hand print is everywhere.  To illustrate that He does make all things new.  To demonstrate how He turns the pain, that evil would like to use to destroy us, into the catalyst for His plan and purpose for our lives.

Tonight I go to sleep with words of celebration as vibrant as any heavenly scene Michelangelo could have ever created in my head.  In a  dream I am one of the great artists creating a masterpiece of praise.  Praising the love and grace our Creator God showers upon us, a love that is faithful and limitless.  And I  Celebrate the beautiful life of my precious Francesca, the one who pointed my life straight into the will of God.  Seven years ago I would have said this blog entry was impossible…tonight I say “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” ~ Philippians 4:13

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

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Everybody in the house has scattered…

Light sabers have been shut down while my boys have drifted off into their own little places to enjoy the latest toy or gadget that has their attention, all while Daddy has a little cat nap to rest up for the next round of Christmas that will rapidly arrive this afternoon.  I sit in the quiet aftermath of it all…torn paper and scattered tissue…the sure sign that it was an eventful morning in our house.  In my few moments of relaxed silence I find my mind drifting.  I cannot help but think about how on this day of celebration…when our attention is splintered in a million different directions…that there is one central point of focus…Jesus Christ.

Strip away all the hustle, all the bustle, all the excess, and at the heart of Christmas is this amazing story of love.  Might this thought be repetitive of my last posting?  Possibly, but so worth repeating.  In the wandering of my mind God keeps calling me back to a simple truth, this season of gayety and festivity for many is also a season of sorrow and heartache for many more.  This thought has followed me through this Christmas season…it reminds me how fragile we really are.  The widows weep, a parent’s heart breaks, a child longs for the touch of a mother who is no longer here to soothe the ache.  The disparity of disease touches the heart of a family, unemployment makes the season a glaring reminder of all that has gone wrong, abuse and brokenness ravage the victims in its path.  The unrest of the world leaves us weary and burdened.  Those who long for justice and those who seek to protect us from harm are at odds, we seem to be a nation divided on rights, freedom, morals, justice, and politics.  We ache and long for hope…

“So do not fear, for I am with you, do not be dismayed, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” ~ Isaiah 41:10

Circumstances…they are ever-changing but God NEVER changes.  He is the same today as He was yesterday and He will be tomorrow.  Regardless of where we find ourselves this Christmas day or how much the world seems to spinning out of control the one thing that remains…on this day love came down.  The story of God collides in the heavenly explosion with the human experience in stable in Bethlehem over 2000 years ago.  Fully God, fully human Jesus Christ lays as a baby in a manager to demonstrate to the world how much God, the Father, loves us.  His mission is actually quite simple…He is here to die.  To make right the wrong of sin so that we can be reconciled with the Father who loves us so deeply, so irreversibly that He will do anything to save us…including sacrificing His Son.  In the birth of Jesus Christ God cries to His people….”Do not be afraid, I am with you.”  Through His Son, His peace which surpasses all understanding helps us to rise above the worries and the troubles of this life so that we can rest in the hope that springs eternal.

“Whom Shall I Fear?  I know Who goes before me.  I know Who stands behind.  The God of angel armies is always by my side.  The One who reigns forever, He is a friend of my mine.  The God of angel of armies is always by my side.’ ~ Chris Tomlin

The beauty of the Christmas gift is not a perfect life.  No, the beauty of the Jesus Christ is love.  Through Him God demonstrates love and in Him we have witnessed perfect love.  His grace and love flows unto us and as we accept this precious gift of love it should pour out of us unto others.  Grace and love…those are the truest Christmas gifts one will ever receive.  They are gifts that should reside in us always and will remain through eternity.

“And now these three remain:  faith, hope, and love.  But the greatest of these is love.”  ~ 1 Corinthians 13:13

As we celebrate today I cannot help but be mindful of those who will struggle this Christmas.  I remember our first Christmas after the diagnosis…I remember the first Christmas after losing our daughter.  There is a gaping whole in your heart and you ache in the paradox of emotions that the season brings.  Like a pendulum your emotions swing back and forth.  But it was in the quiet moments that I let the gift of Christmas soothe my aching soul.  The gift of God’s love coming down showed me beauty…regardless of my circumstances His love never changes.  He is always by my side.  He goes before for me, He stands behind me, and sometimes He even has to carry me but He is always there.  This precious gift born on Christmas morning…do you know how much His presence can radically transform your life?  When we walk in His love the burden of this aching world is soothed by the One who will reign over it forever.

“Long lay the world in sin and error pining til He appeared and the soul felt its worth.  A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices.” ~ O  Holy Night

My Christmas wish is that the love and grace of Jesus Christ will reign over our world.  Not the Jesus you think you know from sound bites, not the Jesus that religion told you about…the TRUE Jesus…Christ the new-born king.  The One who came in love to shower the grace of God unto all men.  The One who came to ease our burdens, calm our fears, soothe our aching hearts.  The One whom salvation is found and the hope of eternity rests in.  How we rejoice when we know that the troubles of this life are temporary and that God can and will use all circumstances for good and His glory.  How our world might change if we all loved the way the baby in the manager that we celebrate today did.  Today He holds the weak, the lonely, the burdened, and the heartbroken close to Him and He cries to us, His people, to be His light and His love to a world that so desperately needs Him.  My Christmas wish is that we would all honor the day that God’s love came down to earth by being the people who God has created us to be…by being the people who the Holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ, empowers us to be.  My Christmas wish is that all those who are burdened and troubled will find rest and healing in the One that loves us so much that He sent His One and only Son to reconcile us to Him.  For He is love and His great love for us is demonstrated through His Son, Jesus Christ.  May the weary world rejoice today knowing that the love of God is still active, still present, all-consuming, and never-ceasing.  There is no greater gift than that.

Merry Christmas!

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

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“Christmas isn’t a season.  It’s a feeling.” ~ Edna Ferber

To be a child again at Christmas time.  To stare in awe and wonder through the childlike eyes of innocence.  When Christmas was magical and all other concerns melted away in the excited anticipation.  Christmas was a sensory experience like no other…it had a scent, freshly baked sugar cookies ready to be decorated and the fresh-cut pine of the tree; it was visual, lights dancing along city streets and in picture windows as they illuminated the world with the joy of Christmas; it had a sound, caroller’s bringing good cheer through the melody of music and the silver bells ringing reminding us all that Christmas was a time of giving as well as receiving.  Every year the magic would return and the pattern would repeat.

It’s been a very longtime since I felt like a child at Christmas.  Like many of you, as I got older Christmas became a hectic endeavor to get the best gifts for the people I loved the most, to attend all the events that I had been invited to, to get out my Christmas cards on time, to bake cookies that were actually edible, etc.  Rush!  Rush!! RUSH!!!  That is how most adults spend Christmas…rushing around like chickens with our heads cut off.  Our calendar, long since maxing out capacity of what any sane person might attempt to do, is screaming…”IS IT NEW YEARS YET?!?!”  We go through the motions and many of us do an outstanding job of looking like we are taking it all in.  We laugh and revel in the merriment of the season yet we really don’t slow down long enough to truly enjoy it, to really remember what it is all about.

“The small Babe of Bethlehem, the dismissed Son of God, the stripped and beaten Messiah hanging exposed on the Tree – He begs us to spend the attention of Advent on the little, the last, the lonely, the lost.” ~ Ann Voskamp, “The Greatest Gift”

Advent.  Like a neon sign flashing on the map of life, it blinks “You are here” and we find ourselves in the midst of the season of waiting.  I cannot help but wonder in this time of rush how many of us really stop and take in the awe and wonder of Christmas?  To really stop and let the Christmas story marinate on our hearts and allow it to soak in and permeate the story of our own lives.  Advent is the season of waiting…waiting with eager anticipation for the coming of the Messiah, the promised Son of God.  His first advent, the moment that God left heaven to dwell among humanity so that His love for His people could be fully revealed and realized through His Son Jesus Christ, this is the season we find ourselves in.  Although wars rage on, racial divisions and tensions are brewing, disease has paralyzed portions of the world, poverty stills exists, and there a more slaves in the world today than any other point in human history…the Advent season always shouts the resounding message that our God loves us and is coming to rescue us. He came the first time as the babe in the manger to conquer death and He is coming again, the Almighty King, to establish His kingdom here on earth.  In the hectic pace of what man has created Christmas to be we gloss over the details of the true Christmas story.  As children we see Christmas as magical but as adults we should see it as miraculous.  The miracle of Christmas is love.  God’s great love for all of humanity was demonstrated through His coming to earth in the flesh.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.  Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.  In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it…The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.  He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him…The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.  We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” ~ John 1:1-4, 9,10, 14

Wrapped up beautifully in the opening chapter of John’s gospel we find the miracle of Christmas.  Contrary to popular belief the story of Christmas does not begin in Bethlehem just a little over 2000 years ago.  No, to find the real beginning you will have to journey all the way back to the beginning, to the book of Genesis, to the Garden of Eden.  The story of creation unfolds as the full creativity of Almighty God is unleashed on His canvas, the planet Earth.  Like Michelangelo, DiVinci, Monet, Rodin, Picasso, and Warhol all wrapped into one, with His words He sculpted and crafted all of creation in vibrant color, with unique shapes and sizes, populated with creatures so complex and diverse, all set to landscape of lush vegetation with pristine bodies of water.   He created paradise, a visual representation of His glory and it was good.  But He wasn’t quite finished.  On sixth day God reached the climax of His creative process.  In His own image, by His own hand, and with His own breath humanity came alive.  God’s beloved creation, people, were created special because He desired to live in relationship with us.  He shared parts of himself with humanity that He did not share with any other part of what He created.  In His image we are created, by His hand we are created, and then He breathes the breath of life into us…why?  Because we are special…we were created for greater things.  It’s important to note that in Genesis 1:26 God says “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness…”  The “us” and the “our” are so important there…do not miss it.  God was not alone when He created the world, Jesus was with Him…“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”

Now we all know that it doesn’t take Adam and Eve very long to disobey God.  In fact by chapter three in the book of Genesis it all goes south.  Sin enters the world and all of creation is now fractured. Sin unleashes pain, suffering, destruction, and ultimately death unto all of creation.  Our planet moans and rages because of sin.  Humanity suffers because of the consequences of sin.  And the world cries out “WHY?”  Why, did you let it happen God?  If you are almighty God why didn’t you stop it?  Because in His infinite wisdom, a wisdom we cannot fully comprehend, God created us with freedom…the freedom to choose.  He wants our love and devotion because we choose to give it to Him not because He commands it of us.  With that freedom of choice we can choose to obey Him or disobey Him.  Adam and Eve had been given only one rule, do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  They broke the one rule…sin enters the world…and our relationship with God is altered and creation is fractured.  We now have a sin nature and Almighty God cannot be in the presence of sin.  “When sin effectively ended our time with God in the garden, God could have effectively ended all time in the world.” Ann Voskamp.  To the utter devastation of the Father, humanity fell into sin and in that moment He could have extinguished the world.  But true to the character of God, His grace flowed down and the plan to rescue us begins.  The plan to bring God’s beloved creation, humanity, back to Him unfolds as the pages of the Old Testament unfold into the pages into the New and as the biblical story unfolds into our story as God’s people in the present age.

The miracle of the Christmas story is God’s great love for us.  It is a love that is lavished on us through pain and suffering…not our pain and suffering but the pain and suffering our sin causes God.  The choice God made in the garden the day sin entered the world was that loving us was worth any cost.  The cost for God was the disappointment He feels when we are disobedient; the heartbreak He feels every time one of His beloved rejects Him; the let down He has when we do not make Him a priority in our day; the holy discontent of watching His people suffer injustice, cruelty, disaster, and illness; the heartache He feels as His people long and mourn for those they have lost to death; the pain a relational God feels when all around the world He sees hurting and broken relationships, abused children, and broken marriages.  In loving us God chose pain.  The ultimate anguish of that choice was being separated from His Son, Jesus Christ, as He hung on the cross and bore the sins of all humanity.  How much does God love you?  What is the miracle of Christmas?  It is simply grace. Wrapped in a beautiful package named Jesus Christ and He comes with the banner of God’s great love for us.  This gift of grace…God didn’t have to give it, we do not deserve it, we are not entitled to it, and we cannot earn it.  God freely gives it to us because He has a love for all of humanity that far exceeds any love we will ever know or even be able to comprehend.  God created us for better things and His Son makes the way for us to live in the life God has planned and prepared for us.

“We have become so accustomed to the idea of divine love and of God’s coming at Christmas that we no longer feel the shiver of fear that God’s coming should arouse in us.  We are indifferent to the message, taking only the pleasant and agreeable out of it and forgetting the serious aspect, that the God of the world draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to us.” ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “The Coming of Jesus in Our Midst”

My journey through Advent this year has been one of great reflection.  I never want to become so comfortable with the divine, all-consuming love of God that I become complacent.  Christmas should always be a time of awe and wonder.  The fact that God so loved the world that He sent His one and only Son to reconcile us to Him should always leave us with eager expectation of what He wants to do next.  The true beauty of Christmas is that God’s story is not finished…it is ongoing and it continues through His people.  Jesus Christ came as the blessing of grace, love, salvation, and hope.  These are gifts that transcend this life…they are not gifts of the material nature but rather of the eternal nature.

It truly is the most wonderful time of the year.  The miracle of Christmas, if we only slow down enough to let it pierce our hearts and penetrate our lives, is that we have been rescued.  Rescued by a God who loves us in spite of our shortcomings, our flaws, our pasts, and our weaknesses.  Rescued by a God who so loved the world that He chose to suffer so that His beloved creation could come home to Him.  It is at this time of year, when the Giver of life becomes the Gift of life, that we the people of God also have the opportunity to be a gift.  To be the gift of Jesus to the lonely, the hurting, the suffering, and the ones who do not know that their heavenly Father has a limitless and eternal love for them.  Jesus was the light in our darkened world, let His light shine brightly in you.  Slow down and revel in the glory of the season.  Like a child sit back in awe and wonder…eagerly anticipating all that the Father will do this Christmas.

Follow The Yellow Brick Road

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“Surround yourself with the dreamers and the doers, the believers and the thinkers, but most of all, surround yourself with those who see greatness within you, even when you don’t see it yourself.” ~ Edmund Lee

Childhood memories…they rush into my mind and wash over me like the warmth of the sun on an early summer’s day.  They bring me back to a simpler time when life wasn’t so demanding, so complicated, so hard.  Was there anything better than crawling into bed and finding freshly washed sheets that were dried outside on the clothes line?  They smelled…well…cleaner.  They felt…well…crisper, cooler.  It was a sensory experience overload of the best kind.  How I used to love the first sunny spring day of the year.  That always meant windows open, fresh air, and spring cleaning.  Nobody could spring clean like my mom.  To this day a whiff of Pine Sol can take me right back to that little house I grew up in on cleaning day.

Memories…they can transport you right back to another place and time even for the briefest of moments.  That very thing happened to me today and in the shower of all places.  Actually, I do some of my best thinking in the shower, probably because it’s the only place that I shut up long enough for God to really speak into me.  Today I was having a moment because I have been missing my blog.  It’s been almost a month since I have written and I was longing for the release I get when I share the thoughts God has laid upon my heart.  However, I never write a blog entry unless God’s prompts me to.  I’m not really a writer so it is His inspiration that I need to string words together in the form of a story or a life lesson.  It is His message and His words that I desire to convey never my own.  Today as I quieted my mind to think, to reflect, to be silent so that God could speak a memory flashed through my mind.  Instantly I was a little girl again awaiting the one time of year when a rainbow would come onto the TV screen and the musical score would begin.  It was one of my favorite days of the year…it was the yearly showing of The Wizard of Oz.

It may seem very odd to you that God would bring me back to The Wizard of Oz during this moment of reflection and prayer but to me it was as if He had revealed the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle that we had been working on together.  Weeks have gone by and I have felt everything in my life has surrounded around a journey…my journey, the journey of others…a journey to understand who we are and what we were created for.

Isn’t it funny that the beginning of The Wizard of Oz starts in black and white.  I feel like my life before I knew Jesus was in black and white.  It was drab and it was dreary, even moments of happiness seemed to be lacking something.  In the dull of the black and white I searched for the very longing of my soul…my identity.  Who was I?  There was this tug of war over who I would become.  Would I allow the world to define my identity or would I choose to recognize that the God of the universe created me with His own hands and in His very image?  Knitting me together in my mother’s womb He ordained every one of my days and prepared His plan for my life before I ever even entered this world.  The soul that is far from God aches deeply because it longs for the One who is the Creator of all things.  The soul that lives separated from God lives in black and white…even where there is happiness there is a longing for what is missing.

As a little girl I would sit glued to my television waiting for my favorite moment of the whole movie…the moment that Dorothy’s house lands in Munchkinland.  Black and white fades away and we open the door to glorious Technicolor.  The drab and dreary is replaced by the lush landscapes that are vibrant with life and color.  Our faith journey is very similar.  When we walk in this world we are colorless, black and white.  The very life we were created for is slowly sucked out of us by a world that is dying.  However, the minute our soul reconnects with God, the instant the Spirit is reunited with the soul it created, black and white diminishes and our eyes see in color for the very first time.  The colors of righteousness, grace, forgiveness, and love shimmer with the brilliance of the most perfect diamond.  The sight is overwhelmingly beautiful and if we are wise we will pause for a moment to take it all in.

Wouldn’t it be nice to put a “The End” and a period to complete the story right here?  Not so fast!  We, like Dorothy, still have a journey ahead of us.  That is the unique truth of living out our faith…it is a journey home.  A journey suggests that we must keep moving forward, we must keep our eyes open for the encounters we will have and the lessons we will learn along the way.   Many people begin their relationship with Christ and then decide to insert the period…they are done. Jesus has saved them from their sin, their soul is reunited with the Spirit and now they are done.  Oh no…that is not the case at all.  The moment you open the door to Jesus Christ and Technicolor floods in…that is the moment that your life truly begins.  The old has died and now you are a new creation in Jesus Christ.  It is the beginning of stepping into the life that God has planned for you and has been preparing you for.

No matter how beautiful the Technicolor is we all still struggle to let go of the black and white.  We want to…desperately…but the black and white has been so much a part of our lives that it becomes difficult to let go the false identity it gave us.  Many of us struggle to let the labels the world placed on us fall away as we step into who God says that we are.  Don’t believe me?  Just look at the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and The Lion.  Each of these individuals lived in the luster of Technicolor but were held in bondage to black and white thoughts.

The Scarecrow had a huge inferiority complex. Why?  Because he lacked a brain and the world says that anyone who is uneducated, according to worldly standards, is lacking or less than.  How often do we let that very same thought hold us back? We let of lack of knowledge or education and past mistakes disqualify us from what God has prepared for us to do.  We allow hurtful words spoken into us keep us in the black and white…we believe the lie of the worldly standard.  We decide for God that we do not have the intelligence to be a viable member of His kingdom so like the Scarecrow we stand still and do nothing.  When Dorothy stumbles upon him he can’t even scare crows anymore.  How often does Satan leave us alone because we have let the lies of world paralyze us to the point that we are doing nothing?  The enemy need not fear the one doing nothing.  There is reason why they call this the battlefield of the mind.  The mind is where the enemy likes to whisper the lies that will hold us captive.  But Dorothy encounters the Scarecrow and she sees his value, his worth, and his potential.  She speaks life into him and helps to free him from the bondage that holds him idle.  Is that not exactly what God’s word does for us?  Paul writes in Romans 12: 2-3 ” And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”  When we live in full Technicolor we live in full freedom.  Freedom from the former us…freedom to be who God created us to be…freedom to be who God says that we are.

The Tin Man represents any one of us who has ever suffered the pain of a broken heart.  Left alone and abandoned by the woodsman the Tin Man rusts away, the pain of lacking a heart is slowly killing the spirit inside of him.  He feels unworthy, unloved, and unlovable.  So many of us hunker down with the wounds of our past that we walk around as patches of black and white admist the vibrancy of Technicolor.  Like the Tin Man’s oil can was out of his reach to soothe the ache of his stiff body, often times we place God’s truth out of our reach.  The wall of hurt builds a fortress around our heart so that the oil can of God’s word cannot soothe our aching soul.  We allow the heartache to define us rather than rest in the promises of God.  Psalm 34: 17-19 states “The righteous cry, and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.  The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.  Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.”  Ahhhh…do hear the freedom song?  God doesn’t want our identity to be “brokenhearted”, “abandoned”, “unlovable”, or “unwanted.”  Those are labels of the world.  God says we are His children (John 1:12-13), we are complete (Colossians 2:9-10), we are free from condemnation ( Romans 8:1-2), we are God’s workmanship (Ephesians 2:10), nothing can separate us from His love (Romans 8:35-39), and we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us (Philippians 4:11-13.)  Let the oil of God’s word heal your soul and anoint your life to do the things God has created you for.  When you do you walk in the fullness of your salvation…your freedom in Christ illuminates from the inside out and the world will see the beautiful color of God’s presence in your life.  The Tin Man just needed someone to remind him that he was worthy of love.  Dorothy and the Scarecrow spoke those life-giving words into him and off the trio went.

Finally, we meet the Cowardly Lion.  Ahhhhhh…fear!!!!!  The poor Lion was so fearful that he was scared of his own tail.  How many of us suffer from this affliction?  Fear of the unknown, fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of bad things happening, and list of fears go on and on.  One of the enemy’s favorite tactics is fear.  Someone who is afraid will not only be idle but they will also cower, they will shrink back in order to ensure that nothing bad happens.  This is not how God created us nor is this living in the freedom of our salvation.  Isaiah 61 tells us that Jesus came to bind up the brokenhearted and to set the captives free…to release us from darkness.  He did not go through the agony of death by crucifixion so that we may remain bound up by fear.  NO…he did it to set us FREE!!!!!!!  Free to be who He created and called us to be.  All of us can relate to the Cowardly Lion on some level…fear of being vulnerable, fear of not being accepted, fear of not being liked or loved.  But God that is not who God created us to be.  2 Timothy 1:7 says “For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline.”  If God is for me whom or what than shall I fear?  NOTHING.  “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving present your requests to God.” ~ Philippians 4:6  If left to own devices we will wither away in our fear.  What we need is a Dorothy, Scarecrow, and Tin Man to walk along side of us to remind us the truths of who God created us to be so we can get on the road and be an active participant in the journey.

Often times I feel like I am on the yellow brick road.  The journey from opening the door to Technicolor to the beautifully majestic Emerald City is full of adventure, travel companions, interesting encounters, meaningful relationships, highs, lows, and an enemy who wants to make me miserable because I have something that he cannot have.  One might be thinking the finale of this God thought about The Wizard of Oz places God as the Great and Powerful Oz but the answer would be no.  I am actually the Great and Powerful Oz.  LOL…yes, you read that right.  Let me explain before you start getting the wrong idea.  You see Oz was nothing but an ordinary man.  He wasn’t a wizard, he had no power, and he had no real ability on his own to help the four people who stood before him…he didn’t even have a biscuit for Toto.  All he really did was point out what each of them already possessed.  By their actions the Scarecrow had shown his intelligence, the Tin Man had demonstrated how deeply he loved, and the Lion stood courageous (well sort of) before the wicked witch.  That which they had been longing for had been theirs all along.  Even Dorothy found out that within her was always the ability to get home.  Oz wasn’t a wizard, he was merely a messenger.  He spoke the truth of who they were when they could not see it in themselves.

Life is a journey that starts in the dullness of black and white.  It was always meant to be more than that but the brokeness of sin has shifted us into a colorless existence. We are born color blind.   However, the moment we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, He restores and heals us.  The most beautiful gift that God gives us is His lens in which to view the world around us.  When we put on God’s eyes we see the vibrancy of color, we see potential, we see opportunity.  God is love and when we wear His eyes we love all those that we see.  We have an overwhelming desire to reach out to the lost and to the hurting, to bring hope to those who have given up.  To touch the lives around us with the love of the Savior who rescued us from the black and white to bring us into a life of full color.  Not unlike our childhood friends from The Wizard of Oz, we too can walk in the beauty of God’s colorful majesty and still be  held captive to thoughts and feelings of the colorless world we left.  My job with this blog was simply to remind you that as a Christ follower the Spirit of the living God dwells inside of you.  God has created you for a purpose…to bring the brilliant colors of righteousness, grace, forgiveness, and love to the world around you.  God did not create you and Jesus did not die so that you would be held in bondage to worldly labels.  He created you because you are His beloved and He has a hope and a future for you.  Through you He desires to share His love with those who so desperately need it.  Who are you?  You are the child of the One True God!  What is your purpose?  To worship the Father, to make the name of Jesus known, and to reach out to a lost and hurting world with the same love that the Father lavishes on you.  God has created you to do great works in the name of His Son.  Sometimes we merely need a messenger in our day to point out what is already there inside of us.

 

One Hundred Percent of a Life: Part Three

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My Help Comes From the Lord

“I will lift my eyes to the mountains; From where shall my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. He will not allow your foot to slip; He who keeps you will not slumber.” ~ Psalm 121:1-3

January 14, 2008
Today has been one week since Francesca’s passing. In some ways it seems like I am very much still in a dream. I cannot believe this happened to my daughter, my family, ME!!! But it has. Every day I am amazed about the stories of people wanting desperately to know about the Lord because of Francesca. God has definitely touched people in very powerful ways. I have never in my life known so much love as I have felt in this week…
It is hard for me not to try to jump ahead and think about the future and how this devastating loss will reshape our family. But the truth is I really don’t know what each day will bring me. Everyday new challenges arise, new emotions arise. Some days it’s guilt, some regret, some unbelief, some anxiety, always there is a sad undertone…
The cemetery is difficult! The cold weather, the newness of the grave! My heart breaks that my baby is lying there. But I know she is not there. It’s just a bit overwhelming that I am at the cemetery to visit my daughter’s grave…
In reflection I feel as God has prepared me for this…

It is interesting to transport back to the moments and days after losing Francesca.  I cannot remember what I did last week but I can remember people, smells, facial expressions, thoughts, and words from those days.  They are forever etched in my brain.  They sit there to always remind me that on that day my circumstances changed but God did not.  In fact, Francesca’s death will forever be the single event that revealed God to me in ways that I never thought imaginable.  His presence was so constant and overwhelming that at moments I could almost feel His breath in the room breathing life into me.  I was a mother in the throes of utter despair and He held me close…yes, I could physically feel Him.  As crazy as it sounds, I sometimes long for His presence the way I felt it in the year after Francesca’s death.  It was so real, so tangible, so completely indescribable.  But what changed?  How could I have had His presence and lost it?  Well, I didn’t lose it, God is ever-present.  Once again my circumstances changed, God did not.  In those first few days, weeks, and months after Francesca’s death nothing made sense.  Life as we knew it was shattered and all that was left were the ashes of what we wanted our lives to be.  In those days all we had was God.  We had no strength, no joy, no understanding but we did have God.  He was all that we could cling to.  The reason we felt God so strongly in that season of our lives was because absolutely nothing distracted us from Him.  He was our sole source of strength.  Prayer was our life support and God’s people were His doctor’s ministering to us.  Wrapping us in the love of the Savior as we licked our fresh wounds from the battlefield called life.

Interestingly toward the end of my pregnancy I had been praying Psalm 139 and that prayer continued after Francesca was born.  At the time I was praying for direction for my life.  Little did I know that Psalm 139 would soon become my greatest source of comfort.

“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.  My frame was not hidden from you when I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.  All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” ~ Psalm 139: 14-16

In the days after Francesca’s death and even to this day Psalm 139 reminds me that God did not create Francesca to break our hearts.  He created her fearfully and wonderfully.  He had a plan and a purpose for her.  It was not His plan to harm her.  It was His plan to use her in a bold and mighty way for His kingdom and He did.  When people die young it is our natural reaction to say things like “they were taken too soon” or “they still had so much life to live.”  A few days after Francesca passed away a sweet lady, that I do not know, sent me the most precious note. In the note she cited Psalm 139 and wrote “your precious daughter lived 100% of her life.”  That truth enveloped me and has yet to let go. Francesca lived 100% of her life.  God ordained her days before one of them came to be.  She was not here one second longer or one second shorter than what was allotted her.  God had a plan and purpose for her and she completed it in just 78 days.  All around I see the evidence of those 78 days, for God used her to radically change life as we knew it.  In those early moments I couldn’t see the beauty in the change.  Now I see it in abundance.

A Homecoming Celebration

In the darkest moments after Francesca’s death God would often use music as a way soothe my aching soul.  He would allow His love and His truth to flow over me through the perfectly crafted words that spoke to the valley where I was living.  During the planning of Francesca’s funeral Matt and I both clearly knew what we wanted…we wanted her life celebrated.  We wanted to celebrate all that God created her to be and we wanted to glorify the One who had given us this beautiful miracle, even if only for the briefest of moments.  I remember telling our good friend and worship pastor, Jon, that I wanted him to sing In Christ Alone like he was signing it on Easter morning.  He did exactly as we wished.  Her service was a beautiful tribute to her precious little life and to the Author and Creator of life.  Nothing made sense but God had not failed us or abandoned us, we knew that and we wanted everyone else to know that too.  In all of his wisdom, Jon, had come to us with a song that he wanted us to hear, a song that he thought would be perfect to set as the background to the video we would show at the beginning of the service. The song was With Hope by Steven Curtis Chapman.  To this day in our home that is “Francesca’s song.”  As soon as the opening chords begin to play my boys will come from any room in the house to listen, often times hoping that the video of their little sister is playing.  To remember that in a mere 78 days God forever changed our lives through a little piece of heaven that He shared with us all.  That piece of heaven of was Francesca.  Matt, Sammy, Santino, and I all now wait…for our hope rests securely in knowing that one day we will see her precious face again when we are reunited in heaven.  It is amazing how your perspective on heaven changes when you have someone there waiting for you…

With Hope

“Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD their God.” ~Psalm 146:5

I often wonder how Mary felt in those moments and days after Jesus died.  Through the anguish and tears could she see how God had prepared her heart for the moment of loss?  Did she trust that even when nothing made sense her God had not changed?  He was still good, just, merciful, full of grace, faithful, and loving.  Her circumstances had changed and her world had been rocked but out of the ashes God makes all things new.  In the sadness could she see what a blessed gift she had been given to be the mother of the Son of God?  To all of those questions I believe the answer is yes.  Mary did know anguish and pain but she also knew the love of her heavenly Father.  She knew that out of the depths of despair He could turn the darkness and ugliness of life into the most beautiful gift mankind has ever known, salvation, through His Son Jesus Christ.

In the middle of the storms of life we often forget that God is also a Father, not only the Father of creation but the Father of Jesus Christ.  That it was His Son that hung on a tree so that His other children could come home to Him.  Is it any wonder that God provides abundantly for those who are weak and hurting?  He understands anguish more than we could ever know.  The sin that separates us from Him has been causing Him anguish since the Fall.  He is anguished when his people suffer, He is anguished when His people doubt His goodness, He is anguished when His people reject His Son, He weeps with those who weep and He mourns with those who mourn.  He wants us to know that pain and sorrow was never His intention for our lives but He can and will use hurt for good if we would only open our eyes and our hands to His plan.  When we do, the hope that dies in the moments of utter despair is resurrected and reborn with a new vigor, because this hope is built on the evidence of God’s faithfulness.  This hope is not rooted in the things of this world.  This world is dying, it will not last.  Hope is eternal not material. Therefore, our only source of hope comes solely from the eternal One, God himself.  The culmination of that hope is Jesus Christ our Savior. God’s plan has always been eternal and regardless of the trials we walk that plan does not change.  The pains of this life will fade to nothing when we walk the golden streets of heaven, for there is where our hope is fully realized.

I know without a shadow of a doubt that I can write these words today because of God’s faithfulness.  These words flow from my brain to the keyboard because my hope is anchored in the truths of God.  I can confidently know that I will see my little girl again because Jesus told us that in His Father’s house there are many rooms and He has gone to prepare a place for all who believe in Him.  I know that the blood of Jesus Christ has paved a way for me and all believers to be eternally united with God in heaven.  At the end of my life, when 100% of my ordained days have been lived, I want to know that in every experience and in every situation I lived to glorify God.  It’s amazing but that is what my precious Francesca taught me in just a mere 78 days.  Every life that glorifies God will leave a legacy that will impact generations…eternally.

 

In Loving Memory

of

Francesca Isabella Catherincchia

October 23, 2007 ~ January 7, 2008

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One Hundred Percent of a Life: Part Two

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A Moment Can Change Everything

For a moment all the world was right
How could I have known that you’d ever say goodbye?
And now I’m glad I didn’t know
The way it all would end, the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance
I could have missed the pain, but I’d have had to miss the dance

~ The Dance (Garth Brooks)

If we would have only know what that January day was about to usher in what would we have done differently?  If I had known, I would have boldly prayed for the day not to come, the very opposite of Joshua’s sun stand still prayer.  There is a Reba McEntire song called If I Had Only Known.  In that song her emotion strained voice sings out the words that echoed my heart…”I would pray a miracle would stop the dawn.”  But I didn’t know.  Instead I muddled through that blah morning nursing my severe headache with sleep.  I was sleeping away precious moments that I wish I would have savored.  Moments where I could have been memorizing every precious detail I lay sleeping instead.  How could I have known that in just a few hours the illness coursing through my body and the headache pounding in my brain would be the least of my concerns?

It was about 3:15 in the afternoon.  Our household was running right on time even with mommy down for the count.  Santino was downstairs doing therapy with his aide, Katie, and Matt was off to pick Sammy up from full day kindergarten.  The only thing that was somewhat off was Francesca.  It had been three hours and she was still napping.  Now, as a mother of three children I know to appreciate when a baby decides to take a long nap. However, I had an overwhelming feeling that I needed to check on her.  Three hours was great but it was longer than she had ever napped before.  The moment I opened the door I knew something was wrong.  The images of those first few moments are ones that I desperately prayed for God to erase from my memory, which in His infinite love He has.  All I remember is grabbing her in my arms and screaming for Katie.

Everything from that moment on has become a blur, a flash of memories.  A frantic 911 call, Katie performing CPR, me on my knees screaming for a miracle, Matt completely unaware of what was happening as he picked Sammy up from school.  My whole world flipped upside down.  I was moving in both fast forward and slow motion at the same time.  I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience…like I was watching some poor mother as her world came crashing down.  The pieces of her world shattered like glass on a marble floor.  How could something so broken ever be put back together again.  I knew what was happening but I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that it was happening to me.  No!!! This was not supposed to happen.  Police, EMT, Firefighters were everywhere.  Sirens screaming, lights flashing, every aspect of Law and Order present.  In a moment of clarity I screamed to Katie to call Matt.  I have never been as thankful for cell phones as I was in that moment.  I didn’t want him to be caught off guard and I didn’t want Sammy to be scared…I needed her to warn him.  Then I walked outside.  A lone police officer stood there, camera in hand, photographing our house.  Hysteria set in.  Every crime and police show I had ever watched came rushing back to me. I sobbed as he stood there.  I yelled at him, “Why are you taking pictures?  You are taking pictures because she is dead aren’t you?”  That poor officer tried his best to calm and reassure me that this was just routine procedure but I knew better.

My memory of the ride to the hospital is fuzzy at best.  A domino effect of moments occurred in the haze of the chaos.  Matt pulled up to the house, Katie instantly grabbed both Sammy and Santino and off to my parents they went.  I don’t even recall speaking to Matt.  These details are lost to me.  Why?  Where did they go?  I cannot remember who left first, the ambulance or Matt. I cannot recollect why I wasn’t in the car with my husband; did he assume I was going with the ambulance?  In the frenzy of the moment these become the memories that elude you later.  I do have a vivid memory of tail lights; the tail lights of Matt’s silver Jeep Commander as he rushed to the hospital.  He actually made it there before the ambulance.  I later learned that his frantic drive included him driving into oncoming traffic to get to the hospital faster.

I never did get in the ambulance that day.  As I stood on the curb with my world crumbling around me the EMT driver must have sensed my control slipping.  In that moment of utter desperation I will never forget his harsh words barking at me as if I had any control over myself.  “You better calm down.”  Those four words sliced through me sharper than any knife ever could.  This man did not want to deal with a hysterical mother; he had made that abundantly clear.  In that exchange I allowed this man to rob me of being with my daughter on the final ride of her life. By the grace of God one of my dearest friends ended up at my house that fateful afternoon.  Safely tucked in her car, together we drove a path that no parent should ever have to travel.  This would signify the beginning of this same dear friend walking Matt and I down the devastatingly broken road that lay ahead of us.

In the corridor of the hospital I was finally held in the comforting arms of my husband.  I needed him to cover me physically with his body so that I could still feel the life pulsating within us.  Everything around me felt like death but he was my source of life.  He was my protector and I needed his body to shield me from the physical and emotional blow that we were about to take.  Together we both stood there like lost children, scared and bewildered.  Would we get our miracle?  Or would our world implode on what had started as a seemingly uneventful day.

In a small side room at Mt. Clemens General Hospital the emergency rooms doctors confirmed what I had already known; our precious girl had been called home to Jesus. SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) had become our grim reality.  My mind raced…SIDS was something that doctors warned us about but in my mind I falsely believed we were untouchable…it would never happen to us.  I even remember having a conversation on the topic of SIDS once where I cavalierly made the statement, “If it’s God will it will happen, I can’t worry about it.”  What did that even mean?  How could this hell ever be God’s will?  My head was spinning and I just wanted to shut it all down.  As I sat there, the numbness of shock settling in, I heard this sound that can only be likened to an animal that has been mortally wounded.  However, this was no animal…it was husband.  He wasn’t home when I found her, he hadn’t seen her so he sat there waiting…full of hope…full expectation that all would be fine.  The cries I heard coming out of my husband were the audible sounds of hope dying.  That moment broke my husband.  All of his hopes and dreams extinguished in the blink of an eye.  He was broken in a way that in the days to come I wondered if I would ever see glimpses of who he had once been ever again.

Through all of the chaos of this day the one thing I remember with crystal clarity is how much God’s hand been upon us.  He carefully orchestrated the details so that He could carry us through this horrific day.  Details like the fact that Sammy had just started full day kindergarten that week ensuring he was not in the house when everything happened.  The fact that Katie was there to get both of my boys out of the situation, the fact that Matt just happened to be home that day and not traveling out-of-state, the fact that my good friend was literally 30 seconds from my house and drove me to the hospital after the ambulance driver yelled at me to remain calm…as if such a thing was possible.  I am not saying God took Francesca home on this day because of these details I am saying He used these details to reveal that His protective hand had been upon us.  His presence was all around.  As I walked out of the doorway that lead to the triage room where we would say goodbye to our sweet girl I saw a sea of people.  Family, pastors, and friends lined the hallway of the emergency room.  It was like nothing I had ever seen before.  Face after face represented God saying “I’m here, you will not walk this journey alone.”  There must have been close to 50 people at the hospital that day.  Looking back I am in awe at how many people God brought around us in a moment’s notice.  They were there to pray, to minister to not only us but to our family as well, phone calls were made, protocol was explained, and details were arranged.  Matt and I had to do nothing but let them lavish their love on us like salve to an open wound.  Right there in the hospital God had begun the healing process, even when healing seemed so far beyond our reach.  One of my most vivid memories of that day was leaving the hospital.  I had turned around and I caught of glimpse of all of our loved ones who gathered to be with us.  There they stood watching us go, with so much love, so much concern, at such loss for what the right thing to do or say was but knowing that God wanted them there to be His hands and feet.  I can see that image as if it happened yesterday.  In the middle stood our friend Jeff, who was a doctor at the hospital, in his blue surgical scrubs.  Because of his attire he stood out among the crowd of many.  The blue of those scrubs will forever remind me of the day God used His people to save my family from crumbling to nothingness.

 

To Be Continued…

One Hundred Percent of a Life: Part One

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IMG_6480.JPGOne Hundred Percent of a Life

It was the day the world went wrong
I screamed til my voice was gone
And watched through the tears as everything
came crashing down
Slowly panic turns to pain
As we awake to what remains
and sift through the ashes that are left
behind ~ Steven Curtis Chapman (Beauty Will Rise)

Every day of a life matters. Every day of a life counts. In the book of Ecclesiastes Solomon tells us that there is an appointed time for every event that occurs under heaven. Our days are numbered and should never be taken for granted. In the blink of an eye everything we know our lives to be can change. Those are the days when we wake up one person and go to sleep a stranger to even ourselves. The person we were the day before is gone and all that is left is the wounded canvas to build who we will become.

“There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven. A time to give birth and a time to die…” ~ Ecclesiastes 3:1-2

I often think about how Mary must have felt on the day of the crucifixion. Watching her son, our Savior Jesus Christ, condemned to death by His own people, brutally beaten at the hands of Roman soldiers, mocked, and ultimately killed. How, with her mothers broken heart did she fall asleep that night? Longing for the child she would never hold again but knowing that His death was the blessing the world had been waiting for. Does that blessing soften the blow of loss? Was she able to reconcile her own heartache with the knowledge that God’s plan had been fulfilled? Or in that moment did she allow herself a few minutes to let the soul crushing heartbreak consume her as she processed that the child she birthed into the world, her son, was gone? I wonder in those moments of solitude if Mary secretly wished God had chosen someone else to be the mother of His Son. When the road gets hard and the pain is all-consuming don’t we all wish, even if only for a moment, that this was someone else’s journey and not our own.

It is so easy to gloss over biblical stories and dehumanize them because the details of raw emotion are not shared. I think this happens quite often in context to Mary and Jesus’ death. Because Scripture doesn’t focus on her feelings we tend not to either. However, a scene in the movie The Passion of the Christ completely changed my perspective on Mary in those moments. The scene is Jesus carrying the cross to Golgotha. Mary is trying desperately to see him and through a corridor she spies him as he falls to the ground and they make eye contact. The movie flips to Mary’s perspective and she has a flashback to toddler Jesus falling and needing his mother’s comfort. In that moment, like most mother’s, she kisses her son’s boo boo away. The movie then returns to the present and Mary weeps for the son that she can no longer help or comfort. What a different picture that paints for our imaginations. Mary, faithful and obedient servant of God, was indeed human and watching her son slowly walk to his death was a very real and painful valley for her to walk through. How enlightening it would be to know what fears and doubts she wrestled with in that moment…the very emotions that allow us glimpses into her humanness. The very emotions that make her just like you and me.

Francesca

January 07, 2008, was an unseasonably warm day in suburban Detroit. Sixty-four degrees is never what one expects to wake up to on a winter morning in Michigan. The day was unusual indeed, almost as if the weather was a sign that on this day nothing would be as it should be. In fact not much in our house that morning was normal. Monday is travel day for my husband. As a regional manager for a large cheese manufacturer, Monday mornings usually consist of an early alarm ringing so he can make his flight to head off to whatever destination the week has in store for him. This morning was different though, no flight to catch and no trip scheduled for the week meant our routine changed. On this weird Monday morning I actually had help getting the boys off to school and I could get our baby girl fed and changed at my own pace. Well, really at her pace cause let’s be honest a 2 ½ month old dictates the pace not the other way around. However, on this particular morning I was slacking a bit. While unseasonably warm weather in winter sounds great in theory, in reality it brought with it a misty rain, fog, and sinus headaches. You know the kind of weather that ultimately winds you up in the doctor’s office waiting for the confirmation that a sinus infection has settled in and the Z-pak would start immediately. It was starting out as a blah day, how I wish it would have stayed that way…

Francesca Isabella Catherincchia came into our lives on October 23, 2007. I will never forget it. American Idol on the television as my mom and I cleared the dinner dishes. My husband was at the church rehearsing for our upcoming Christmas production. As dinner ended I felt lower back pain and cramping but didn’t think anything of it. This wasn’t my first rodeo and having had false labor before I wasn’t getting too excited. I let my husband leave, never for one second thinking that this was the day. I was still two weeks away from my due date and while I had never had a late baby I was never lucky enough to go two weeks early. But it soon became VERY clear that this was it. How perfect, my mom was already at my house; babysitter for the boys, check, husband on his way home to get me, check, prayer warriors in place (my husband was at the church…duh), double check. This was it…we were having our baby!

All babies are special but Francesca was extra special because she was a dream come true and an answer to prayer. After our son, Santino’s, autism diagnosis I had all but given up the idea of having another baby. However, about 9 months after his diagnosis God had placed an unbelievable desire in my heart for another baby. Intense prayer ensued which included me crying out all of my fears of having another child. Studies had shown that families with one child with autism were more likely to have other children on the spectrum. What if that happened? Santino’s therapy schedule was rigorous and already adding stress to our family. Would another baby take us over the edge? Eighty-seven percent of parents with a child with autism end up divorcing. What if we didn’t make it? Autism was still so new to us what if we couldn’t handle a new baby too? I was scared to death and I needed God to understand that I had to trust His decision in the matter because I was all over the board. I vividly remember ending that prayer with these words “God if our family can handle another child please give me the desires of my heart, if we cannot please do not let it happen.” Five months later I was pregnant. God had given His answer and our precious girl was on the way. Interestingly enough, it was this very pregnancy that opened up the door for Santino to receive an in home therapy aide provided by the state of Michigan. The state has a program called the Children’s Waiver which is distributed to children with autism based on the number they score in an intake questionnaire. The more stressors you have on your household the more points you get. In the summer of 2006 we applied and Santino did not have enough points to qualify. However, when the time came to reapply in the summer of 2007 my husband had just lost his job and I was smack dab in the middle of my pregnancy…our stressors were off the charts and Santino qualified. Now, you tell me God doesn’t work in the details.

Throughout my pregnancy our oldest son Sammy would pray “Please God don’t let my baby have autism.” I think in his little 6-year-old mind he saw this baby as a do over. He was struggling with his brother’s autism so this new baby was his opportunity to have a brother or sister that would “talk to him” as he used to say. That was his prayer every single day, at home and at school. He would pray for his baby. Somewhere along the way the baby I was carrying had become his and the excitement would sparkle in his eyes when he would tell me all that they would do together. Yes, this baby was our family’s dream come true.

The moment the doctor said “it’s a girl” my heart soared. Two boys at home and now the little girl in my arms completed the perfect family I had always envisioned for Matt and myself. Sure autism had derailed us for a moment but in the wee early hours of that October morning we had victory…everything was right in the new world we created after our setback. I remember giving birth to my boys and seeing the tears roll down my husband’s cheeks at the precious lives God had given us. But when Francesca was born it was completely different. For the first time in 11 years another girl had captured my husband heart and it will forever remain one of the most beautiful moments I have ever witnessed. Francesca was born a daddy’s girl. Matt had always been a hands-on dad with the boys but with his girl he was absolutely smitten. Often allowing me to sleep, he would do night-time feedings just to have her all to himself. He had big dreams for his Bella girl, as he called her. Isabella being her middle name it seemed that his nick name was only natural. Actually his reference was always drawn from the fact that “bella” in Italian is beautiful and Francesca was his beautiful girl. She signified all that was right and good in our world.

To Be Continued…