And the Journey continues

"I want to spend my life mending broken people
I want to spend my life removing pain
Lord, let my words heal a heart that hurts..."



The words of that old song have been echoing in my heart today. I have people very close to me dealing with issues of loss and grief, life and death, broken families...all fighting, looking for that one thing that will get them through another day....another night.


In the last three years I have gotten a crash course it what it means to be "broken". I probably would have told you that I knew prior. I would have been wrong. I learned that being broken dashes away the very foundation of your soul. What you "knew" no longer exists. The familiar becomes your enemy...in part because of it's cruel reminders but also because you are now living as a stranger in your hometown. Some faces make look familiar but nothing is the same. You question everything.....and I mean everything. What you thought you knew is what you are now certain you did not. It is amazing that in our Journey we are always looking for familiar signs to guide our way and yet life is made up of moments that you stumble around in the dark trying to find a light switch. Broken is lonely. Broken is tired. Broken is that last moment where you begin to question if you in fact have the strength to fight anymore. You bargain. You re-evaluate. You call out for anything to help. What you need is Hope.



In my next few writings I will take you through some of my specific travels on my Journey. I am not a professional writer. My writings are a raw collection of thoughts and at times I have gone back to edit into a more palatable format....only to realize I lost the essence of me. So, I have decided from here on out to stick with this style. My style. I hope I don't frustrate you too much. wink.



In desperation there is one common thread from the beginning of time. Crisis needs a hero. Distress needs a saviour. People from all walks of life and religious or non religious backgrounds can agree on one thing. They believe in Hope. Now they may not even call it that. Some may look inside themselves.....some may find it in a "higher power" some believe in God while others find their "hope" in the absence of God. So, aside from a small group I stand behind the statement that the human spirit is designed to yearn for Hope. Without it....well without it we are a hopeless, lost, wandering soul....a sad picture of humanity.



In 2010 I begin to write about this concept of Journeying to Hope following the very difficult adoption process of our fifth child. This concept was very real to me and I could see how our Journey evolved into a greater understanding of what it meant to quite literally Journey toward Hope. I may have at that point tied my new found beliefs into a nice little bow and set them on a display shelf and then the last three years happened. Then I learned that the Journey was about a continual quest...one where I would have to be reminded over and over again that my pursuit of Hope would never end. My Journey to Hope would be a daily pursuit where I would forge ahead when I questioned because what I could not question is....where Hope has already brought me this far.



My experiences would now govern my Journey. I could look back at something like the pain of a failed adoption but then as I look in my daughters eyes I could see there was always Hope....because it's namesake was standing in front of me. Why is that one life experience not enough to settle the deal for life?? I can only assume because I am a human and part of our nature is to need to be reminded of the same thing over and over and over again.


SO, back to the beginning. Today I was reminded of the adoption blog I started and this concept and I thought....our Journey continues. So, if my writings bring life and compassion and inspiration to one person....one family....then I need to pick up where I left off. Maybe I will continue to help you. Maybe I will continue to help me. Maybe this will become nothing more than an outlet for a middle aged mom who always dreamed of being a published writer. wink again. And so I begin.



My prayer, my purpose is
to love
to comfort
to inspire
to believe for the hopeless
to fight for the weak
to leave a legacy my children will carry through generations



In writing I think I "hope" to remind myself of the very things I want to inspire in others. After all, I do believe that many times the best way to heal your own heart is to help heal someone else's. <3

Choices

(written 3/01/2012)


The defintion of the word choices is "the right, power, or opportunity to choose".


Everyday we make choices that define who we are.  In big ways like the commitment to honesty and truth and in small ways like what we eat for dinner.  Life is a collection of moments that are born out of the choices we have made.   Maturity and Character remind us that every choice we make affects the people around us.  As the old quote goes...."No man is an island".  It is impossible to compartmentalize our decisions in a way that they will not impact the people we love.  The lie is that we can make decisions about our lives and disregard this impact.

Choices are a direct result of what is in our heart.   If our heart belongs to Jesus and abides in truth and honesty than the result of that will be honorable choices.  Even Jesus didn't want a dictator relationship with us.  He wanted our relationship to love Him to be a choice that we make in our own heart.  That is why He gave us free will.  He desired a real relationship, a real commitment that did not come out of a divided heart. The downside to free will is that so often we exercise ours to make choices that our outside of the confines of His guidance.  Rules and Regulations are designed to protect us.  We teach our children not to play in roads....not because it wouldn't be fun to toss a ball  in the street but because  we know there is a danger that could befall them that they would be oblivious to as they played. Bad choices can make us oblivious to our own surroundings.

The more we learn about God and His Word the more we understand why He gave us guidelines to follow. He loves us and He wants to protect us....even from our own sin nature.  The selfishness that exists inside all of us makes us all susceptible to making poor choices. I have watched people I love destroy their lives right in front of my eyes because they felt they had "the right" to make awful choices.  In the end, they did.  They had the "right" but they will also bear the scars of those choices and so will those they claim to love.  The inability to see the future has destroyed many a life.  This is so sad and completely unnecessary because if we would trust God and read His handbook for our life than we could see how He gives us insight into the destructive future of bad choices. What feels good in the moment is so often the most damaging to our soul.

Often we use " Forgiveness" as a justification for our actions. "I am only human" or "I have needs" helps to blind us to our impaction circle (the people who become part of our collateral damage).  We all need forgiveness.  Forgiveness is an amazing gift.  However, I have seen the abuse of grace and forgiveness over and over.  Just as I have seen the reality of choices be disregarded.  See you can be forgiven and still have to live with horrific aftermath.  Forgiveness does not magically erase consequences!  Don't be fooled! The day we become a parent we are making a choice.....a choice to always shelter love and protect this person we are responsible for.  We are no longer able to think just of ourselves but every single choice we make we have to consider the well being of our child.  The same with a marriage...we stand at an altar and make a vow before God and our family and promise to forever consider the feelings and well being of that individual with the same concern as if they were our flesh and blood. Children, sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers, family and friends, co-workers...everyone in our circle is affected by our choices and decisions. How ever fair or unfair this may seem it is real life!  My life has a domino effect on those around me.  We teach our children most by our example. Honesty teaches Honesty.  Truth teaches Truth.  Character teaches Character.

So, when making those hard choices....the ones done in private...call to mind the faces and the hearts you love most dearly.  Call to mind the legacy you want to live.  Call to mind the kind of person you want your children to become and then.  Then.  Make choices that reflect the mark you want to leave on those people...the mark you want to leave on this earth.  Who you want to be that one day you stand before your Maker and give an account for all of it.   <3

Our choices effest the people around us

Happy Love Day

For me Valentines Day is a celebration of everyday memories that make up my Life....


Asking Jesus in my heart
My high school sweetheart
Love's first kiss
Picking out the dress
A mothers touch
Singing around a piano
Sisters secrets
My brother's laugh
Saturday pancakes
Family movie nights
Wooden spoon microphones
Quiet walks on the beach
Laying in the grass looking at the clouds
Baby's first kicks
Setting up the crib
Chocolate in bed
Holding hands
Broken hearts healed by love
Dinner with friends
Beet salad
Family time on the water
Disney World
Christmas magic
Watching my kids worship
Second chances
Third chances
Ice cold coke with a friend
Bakery runs
Tossing a ball
Coloring
Reading books before bed
Goodnight prayers

.......to many moments to share......a lifetime still won't be enough......Happy Love Day to all those in my heart! ♥

Hope does not disappoint

 

  "And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us."  Romans 5:3-11

Suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character and character produces Hope....wow, what a rich verse! Hope is as essential to the Christian life as Faith and Love but many time gets less focus.  The Bible says in 1Peter 3:15   ^"But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear".  The dictionary meaning of Hope is "the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best".

 
As Christians we are very familiar with the book of Job.  He was a man of God that lost everything...his possessions, his family, and even his own health.  You may also remember that Satan had to ask God what He could do to Job and God told Him he could do anything but take his life. Everything that touched him had to go through the hand of God and through it all Job kept the Faith.  This is amazing story of faith and perseverance through adversity.  It showcases the intensity of the relationship that Job had with God.  It is one of those stories that preachers like to preach and we like to hear to increase our faith all the while with the unspoken thought...Lord, don't ever ask me to be Job!  As amazing of a man of God as he may have been none of us would ever want to walk Job's journey.

I have known a lot of people in my life.  Being in ministry and traveling to various areas of the country I have come in contact with many life stories.  As I survey the lives I have come to know there are  a handful of people that stick out ....people who for one reason or another seem to have been hit with more than their share of tragedy and hardship.  Multiple events that are mind boggling to the onlooker and it is hard to not ask the question.....why do some people just have more adversity to deal with than others?  We have all asked ourselves why do bad things happen to good people? 

I am not a real big fan of the cliche'...."everything happens for a reason".  I know many Christians hold fast to this and leave nothing to chance.  I, however, do believe  that sometimes things just happen.  Cause and effect.  Sometimes we are "in the right place at the right time" and sometimes we were "just in the wrong place at the wrong time". So, who really is in control?  What determines that and how do we know which is which??  Why are so many unwanted babies aborted and some Christian couples pray their whole lives to have a baby and can not conceive?  Why would God take a mother from her children?  Why would a child die from cancer?  So many questions....I certainly could not begin to answer all of these questions on my little blog and from the limitations of my human mind. 



I can only answer that God is sovereign.  He asks some people to walk hard roads.  Some people end up with stories of mountaintops and some live much of their life in the valleys.  It is not a popular Sunday school lesson....but sometimes he requires more out of some people than others. I have a very close friend and I have walked with her through the death of a very close loved one.  I was a bystander to the ever evolving stages of her grief and I have learned so much about Hope from death.  Literal or otherwise.  I remember buying her a string of pearls and God talking to me about how he was going to turn her into a Pearl.  Pearls, as many of you know, are only formed after years and years of irritation and distress... only then does something so beautiful emerge.  This is my friend.  This can be seen again and again in the lives of people I have known who have walked the harder roads.  Their trust is deeper and their focus is stronger.  They have run out of options and they do not operate in the same time framework we do.  Many of them know all to well how fragile life is.

  A  few years back as I was having two tumors removed from my body my perspective on family and mortality was forever changed.  After these sort of life changing events happen you can never go back to things as the way they were. I know this statement may be unpleasant but adversity and pain can be a gift.  A gift!  Through suffering God builds character.  He strips away the meaningless  and develops depth and value inside a life.  Our relationship with him is deeper. In a past blog I talked about how I have learned in the last few years that there can be no healing without brokenness.  No forgiveness without betrayal.  No joy without sorrow.  No Hope without first knowing Hopelessness.  We can know definitions and concepts but to have this stuff grab at the fabric of who we are we have to walk the Journey.  I have been following the blog of a local woman who lost her baby six months ago and on her page it says...Hope does not disappoint.   I remember thinking if she can proclaim that anyone can.  After all He is our Hope...He is the Truth.


Hope will never leave us hanging out to dry.  Hope is always worth it!  Hope may not always assure us the outcome we want. So, through the road of suffering we have to remember the inner work that He is doing.  Inside of us, whether we can feel it or not Hope is birthed in the middle of our suffering if we trust and believe.  The Hope that He will never leave us.  The Hope that we have through trusting Him and knowing that this earthly life is only an eye-blink in time compared to eternity with Him.  Hope in knowing that someday our story can be there to help someone else....lives can be changed forever.  When we stop Hoping we die.  Hope keeps us getting up every morning and believing in our Christian faith.  Hope helps us pick up broken pieces and began again.  Hope helps us dream again after failure. Hope sees beyond earthly eyes. Hope is the only option to living a happy, peace filled life!



So, although none of us want to be Job and I'm sure if we could interview him now he would tell us those were not the best years of his life.  The steps of a righteous man are ordered by God and He has promised to walk through everything with us.  There is a strength He gives us that we will only realize when we are forced to see it.  He is our Hope and Hope does not disappoint!  <3






   " Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise."  Hebrews 10:23