Color-coordinated adornments

 

I'm packed up and ready to go!  So excited to be heading to the Allume Conference in South Carolina this week.  Truly Truly!  Here's a very shallow confession: While I am thrilled about receiving all the spiritual and practical encouragement I need as a writer, I am equal parts excited about laying out some pretty outfits and color coordinated jewelry.  I even got my toe nails done in a dreamy coral hue then planned my weekend wardrobe around a palate of colors to compliment my toes.  From earrings to  shoes to my pretty notebooks all with pops of coral, packed away for three fanciful days of learning, worshipping, and making new friends.

Making new friends.

And it dawned on me this morning, as I dipped my pretty toes into the second chapter of James, if I'm all color-corordinated, strolling through the posh lobby at the Hyatt in downtown Greensville, I might miss out on the mismatched miracles all around me.  Like friendship treasure standing right in front of me in line for a chai latte that first morning, but her grey yoga pants didn't coordinate with my look, and so I never see her.  Completely miss out on the beauty she is and the beauty she shares.

My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism.  Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in.  If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, ‘Here’s a good seat for you,’ but say to the poor man, ‘You stand there’ or ‘Sit on the floor by my feet,’  have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

James 2:1-4

I wasn't more than 12 when I held those pretty children at VBS.  It was my first time helping at our church's summer camp and I was singing and doing crafts for a whole week with kinder-kids.  There we were in a circle on the ground.  The same scratchy carpet itching at my legs, in the same room I worshiped in on Sunday mornings.  This was the Jr. High room.  Repurposed for the kindergarteners that week.  But the point is that it was a place I knew, where much of my own learning in the Word took place, and now I sat with all these little people singing scripture and clapping hands.

We weren't two songs deep into our fun that first day when the most darling blond with big blue eye like Cindy-Woo Who, crawled across the itchy floor and up into my lap.  A verse or two later two more pretty things found their way to each side of me.  I was now flanked by precious girls with hair braids neatly in place.  Two of the three had mothers who fringed the sleeves on their camp tee-shirts, adorning each string with colorful plastic beads.  Every movement sang a beautiful melody.

Though bookended by beauty, God in His goodness allowed the world's scales to drop from my eyes, and I saw the other children around our circle, equally prescious, but not color-coordinated or magazine groomed.  And I thought of the confidence those "pretty kids" had, to make their way to my side and into my lap, like they knew they belonged.  And ironically, I don't.  Never have.  Not naturally.  Which may be why I have to plan weeks in advance if one weekend's wardrobe is going to pop.

Because I'm still the kindergartener in the oversized tee shirt hanging like a tent over my baby fat, with a short hair-cut blending me into the pack of boys.  I'd never dare cross the scratchy brown floor to crawl into a counselor's lap and sing like I belonged.  Which may be why I found my belonging so entirely in the lap of Jesus when I was young, and I've remained planted there ever since.

But no one will know that core truth about who I am and where I find my seat, and my worth, and my identity, if I walk out into life so utterly focused on my color coordinated appearance.

Your adornment must not be merely external-- braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses;  but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God.

1 Peter 3:3-4

Merely

Oh, no doubt, it's great fun to be a girl, a lady, a woman, but let's purpose today to prefer the beauty hidden deep inside of ourselves and one another.  In our neighborhoods, our workplaces, our mid-week worship services, and while picking up the children from school this afternoon...

Let your jewelry make a sweet melody as you walk through this life, because it's fun... but let's not find our worth there, our seat there.  Instead, let's find our greatest pleasure in crawling humbly across the scratchy floor of life and finding our home in the all inclusive, loving lap of Jesus.

Empty Bibles - #endbiblepoverty

My home schooled kid is wrapping up math in the other room then it's lunchtime, after that he'll handwrite One Verse in his empty Bible.  

Of all our Bibles, this one is my favorite.

"Over one billion people are still Bibleless around the globe.

The Good News is...  God became man. Jesus was the first translation. Through God’s Word, all people can intimately know Him and His gracious gifts of freedom, mercy and hope. God is at work today. With an urgency no one could manufacture, He is recovering, restoring and redeeming His people. We are grateful He’s invited us to join Him."

The Seed Company

I love the picture of Jesus being the first translation of the Good News; The hands and feet of God's redeeming plan.

Translation:  Emmanuel.

But the transcripted, transcribed, transcendent love continues today, beyond 1st world boarders, into regions where written logos have never been scripted on parchment.  And God invites us to join Him in the rescuing adventure.

The Seed Company is the fundraising arm of Wycliff Bible Translation, and they've made a way for laypeople just like you and me, to respond to this Great Commission charge.  And my children love being part of it too!

In fact, my kids heard about the Bibleless people groups at church, from their Sunday school teacher, Mrs. Bell, before I knew much at all.  Each week she read a chapter out of the book, From Akebu to Zapotec: A Book of Bibleless Peoples.  Before I knew what was happening, my middle boy started praying, "God please give the Akebu people your Bible so they can know how much you love them."  Knee deep in speech impediments, I had no idea what he was talking about with God.  Then Mrs. Bell told me everything these little five year olds had been learning about, and I started learning too.  Next, she told me about The Seed Company, and the boys and I started planning our first bake sale to raise money for Bible Translation.  For every $35 we raised, the people at The Seed Company sent us updates with the actual scripture references our money funded the translation of.

Those are the verses my kids write down on the empty pages of their Bibles.

While I know you have your favorite Bibles, just like we do, I encourage you to head on over to The Seed Company to help fill empty Bibles of the world.  Help translate God's Word into an unwritten tongue.  Click here to find your continent, your community, your people, then download information about that region and their unique needs.  The globe starts to spin and our hearts begin to beat for those who haven't yet heard the Good News of God's Great Love. Then watch little hands grasp pencils and pens as they do their best to write each verse clearly and carefully.

I am blown away that these little hearts already have more than enough of God's Word to lead them to Salvation.

Believe in The Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. - Acts 16:31

For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16

Just two verses to know and believe and be saved.

Yet we have countless translations lining our shelves, while others have never heard the name of Jesus.

I think of the Christian books I read and the bible studies I purchase, spending upwards of $35 a month.  Overfed calfs, while a billion are staving for a taste of saving truth; sweet as honey.  I'm not speaking shame, but preaching truth.  The Ethiopian heard and believed and was baptized.  Saved by faith through the reading and the hearing and the explaining.  I have enough heard, and read, and explained, to last me this lifetime and carry me safely into the next.  I want to stop hoarding knowledge and start extending it generously.  Yes, I want it for the unsaved walking upside down on the other side of the world.

And the Seed Company makes it so easy.  Even if you are unable to give right now,  click here to find a nation to pray over.  There are so many specific needs listed that you can lift up as a family.  Because empty Bibles need filling, empty hearts need filling, empty ears need filling, empty lands need filling.

#endbiblepoverty - One Verse at a time.

For those of you stopping by for the first time, "Welcome to my Living Room."  It's nice to have new friends from The Nester's 31 Day Challenge, and Essential Thing Devotions.  For more of my Favorite Things, visit me here.

When Children Pray

It was another late night at the Emergency Room.  He broke out in hives something awful, and they were spreading fast, moving their way up to his face, so they told us to come in and we did.  Drug reaction, they said.  But because there's a serious infection in his little body they needed to make sure strong meds were doing their job.  So they perscribed an antibiotic that would be given as a shot.  It looked like a horse shot, so big they split it in two.  One in the muscle of each thigh and he begged and pleaded, No, when he saw it coming.  But the nurses advanced, and I wanted to cry, till he yells, "Mama, PRAY!"  Then everything stopped.  

We bowed our heads and held tight to one another, which felt like holding on to Jesus.  And we reminded our Savior how much He loves Brody and asked Him to be close and make this go fast, and use these shots to heal Brody's body quickly.  Then we said Amen.

Amen.

So be it, and it was done.  Though he couldn't walk afterward, his muscles swollen from the injection.  So I carried him to the car at midnight, then drove him home and laid him down in bed.  I stroked his hair and sleep came fast, and the words, "Mama, Pray!"  pierced my heart with sorrow and joy.

This is the boy who yells it when he has the stomach flu, between wretches.  Barf... "Mama. Pray!"... Barf. And when we walked a beach in Hawaii and came upon a cave, and the other two ran fast for the gaping mouth that drank sea water, again he stopped and said it privately, "Mama, Pray."

Of course I would do just about anything to protect this child from pain and fear, and you would do it all for your kids too... but trials are the anointed fires where faith is refined.  Where we learn to holler, Pray!  And we learn to pray like a conversation in the pain, at every turn when fear and misery come fast.  And then when relief floods, Mama's there like the one leper who ran back to Jesus and said Thank You.

Thank You!

And he's learning that too. The pleas for help and the sprints back to a Savior's side when the pain subsides.

I love prayer.  And I love the One who I lift them too.  And I love each blessed, anointed trial that teaches my children to love it too.

Why I blog

When we're driving down the road and an old beater covered in bumper stickers pulls in front of us, my husband always says, "I bet no one listened to that man when he was in Jr. High."  Then he looks at me, like it's a conversation starter.  Truth is, he said the same thing last month on another road trip, so I just nod.   But I'm laughing now as I type it out, because I do think it's an interesting perspective.  

And I think lots of people blog for the same reason - this intense need to be part of the conversation.  So they invite themselves to the party and stick bumperstickers to their cocktail dresses.  "Listen to me, I've got something original to say!"

Now here I sit, past bedtime, typing out my opinions on things no one asked me about... and I have to say it's slightly awkward.  Like throwing oneself out into the ether in a sticker-covered dress.

Beep Beep.  Look at me!

And the weirdest part of all is that I'd rather stay quiet and keep my thoughts to myself, but they sort of bubble up and out like a natural geyser, with the earth's pressure pushing it so.  Goodness, I hope what shoots heavenward is at least water and not hot air.  More than water, Living Water, that's what I really want.  Water flowing up and out and getting readers soaked through with the Living Water that Jesus promised would truly satisfy.  Yeah, that's my ultimate hope.  That's why I blog. Why I drive my old blue Datsun, the one with the sunroof stuck open, covered in Jesus Stickers, silver fish and crosses.  Because I'm passionate about this water flowing in and through me.

I know that I have family and friends who aren't interested, probably the same ones that wouldn't choose to invite me to their intimate parties... but I've decided that's alright with me.  It's going to have to be, because the natural push to communicate God's radical nearness in my everyday life is stronger than my need to please them.

There are, however, times I leave my car in the garage because it's exhausting.  Not the writing or the speaking or the driving or the flowing, but the sharing on a soul level, how desperate I am for Jesus each day.  I'd love to be the woman who writes posts like simple equations:  "Three things you can do to have the life you've always wanted!"  But I don't believe in formulas.  I haven't found one yet that covers every disease but Christ.  Every hurt but Christ.  Every need but Christ.  So when I do write, the bumpersticker summary is simply "Jesus."

Beep Beep.  Look at Him.

Look at Him.  Look at Him.  I hope I'm wearing Him well.  Not cutting you off, in my clunky car covered in His name.  But I hope I'm a lovely reflection of Christ as I invite myself into your Living Room.  Offering up the overflowing, outpouring of Living Water I just can't seem to stop.

I've got nothing to bring,  nothing to share

But faith in the One who's present as air,

So I lift up my pen, and take up the dare;

Each morning, noon and night, like a prayer.

If you have nothing to bring but Jesus, you have enough.  Though despised and rejected, you have enough.  Because people are thirsty and desperate for the only thing that can ever truly satisfy.

Beep Beep.  Look at Him.

I see you

 

She saw me standing there,

I know she did because she took this picture.  

It's a documented fact now,

how I'd been seen

when I was feeling invisible.  

But that's my old-self,

believing old lies

about how I don't belong.  

What a load of sulfer breath!  

Satan's minions sneaking in all stealth, 

telling us we're broken down,

cast aside, and lonely.  

And the child in me believes it's true.  

All the while someone's standing there,

watching and seeing,

and counting me beautiful

through the lens of their camera.

On this day, that someone was my sweet friend, Tammy.

But every day I remind myself...

Someone's standing there, watching and seeing,

Counting us all beautiful through the lens of His camera.

You see where I'm going with this, don't you?

For even Hagar in her lonely plight, there in the desert with Ishmael, even Hagar experienced the One who watched her closely, so she named him El Roi -The God who sees.

She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her:

"You are the God who sees me," (Genesis 16:13)

And the rest of scripture supports our renewed confidence that He watches us, sees us, knows us.

From heaven the LORD looks down and sees all mankind  (Psalm 33:13)

The Lord sees everything you do. Wherever you go, he is watching. (Proverbs 5:21)

Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. (Hebrews 4:13)

I've said it before, that God's vantage point is love.

But here's a miracle at work:

The more I believe this truth to my core,

the more my lens on the world

and on myself

and on others...

opens up to a wide-angle.

The more I believe in my own loved reality,

know myself seen,

know myself safe,

know myself beloved,

know myself cherished...

The more I can authentically know and cherish

those all around me in life affirming ways.

Like the young mom sitting on the floor at Barnes and Noble with a small notepad in her lap.  Her scribbled shopping list on one side of the page and a list of things she's thankful for on the back.  All this as her young children play at the Thomas The Train table.  He's wearing suspenders, sporting a faux hawk; she's a few inches shorter in a tutu.  It's then they come running and hollering for a book.  So she tucks her notes away for later.

And as they crawl into her lap with a stack of Curious George, she looks up and sees me there.  And I see her back... and tell her so.

"You're doing a wonderful job."

Before leaving I stop at the cafe for an egg white and turkey bacon sandwich, because I missed breakfast herding my children out the door on time.  And at a table across the way I see an old woman in a blue sweater, eating a donut.  I see her there, and I tell her so.

"That color blue makes your eyes shine like saphires."

She smiles and breaths in deep, brushing pink sprinkles from her lap.  She just keeps smiling and takes in a second breath, like I'd given her oxygen when she'd been running out.  And we do... run out.  And need to be seen and affirmed and known in the everyday moments of life.  Because we can get lost.  And we do.  And sometimes I just want to rescue those who are on their way under.

Tammy wrote me a note that summed it all up.  How she sees me serving in the quiet corners of life.  And she tucked that note into a small care package and sent it from Dallas, Texas to San Diego, California.  With the most beautiful mug, delicate measuring spoons (much too pretty to actually use), a gift card for dinner out, and other "I know you" odds and ends that all shouted "You're seen."

So today I'm paying the "I see you" message forward, in this care-packaged post.

Because I do, Jenny

And I do, Kacy,

You too, sweet Jacqui

And yes, you too, Kelli

And you, Sherri

And I see you, Mary

And Shannon, of course,

And  you, Aunt Michelle

And you too, Heather

I see you.

But most importantly, let's commit together to find our true soul's identity in the eyes of one.  

The One.  El Roi.  Because the God of the universe can't take his eyes off of you today!  

And now it's your turn to pay it forward.

Go ahead and share this on your facebook page, tweet it, or pin...

making sure to tag the friends, mothers, and sisters who need to know

you see them too.

What a radical thought.  To be seen.