Category Archives: living God’s truth

on writing words…

Words.
I don’t have many of them these days, at least not the written kind. If you were here in person, I’d have plenty to say, but as it pertains to my writing them, I’m struggling. I don’t know if the chemo is to blame or the busyness of the season, but safe to say, either one of those might be reason enough to warrant a dry spell as far as my pen is concerned.
I hate that; there’s nothing worse for a writer than to be void of words. Certainly, I have plenty of good thoughts that come my way—inclinations that, in seasons previous, would have easily written into worthy prose. But now, as quickly as they come, they seem to vanish. By the time I arrive at my computer screen, I get confused and messed up all over again… frustrated by this new reality.
So, rather than writing nothing, I thought I’d write about my frustration, thus allowing me a moment or two of connection with you this week. I wish I had something more profound to say, something that would leave you breathless and wanting more of your Jesus. He’s certainly worthy of the chase, and it has always been my endeavor to lead you in the pursuit. And for all the things that I could tell you this morning (that currently have vacated my thought coffers), I will remind you of this one thing that I remember most prominently…
Regardless of how you and I might be feeling in this moment, regardless of life situations and difficulties, no matter the ills and aches of the flesh or the problems that land at the doors of our faith, our God is still faithful to deliver a word of hope and comfort to us via his Word every time we’re faithful to open it up for a read. Unlike my many words, or lack therein, God’s Word is never void of purpose, never lacking in pointedness or punctuation. God’s Word wasn’t written out of frustration or from a drying ink well.
When and where God had thoughts, man had inspiration. His computer screen (a.k.a. parchment or stone tablets) was never empty. Even before man put God’s divinely inspired thoughts to paper, the Word was there from the very beginning. He hovered over the dark and the deep, contemplating the many words to come. Never was he confused or messed up or frustrated by the reality of what was to be written. There was order to his thoughts, his plans, his actions; no chemo brain or busyness to impede the flow of his thought processes. Only a sanctioned progression of thinking until an accumulation of those thoughts became words that spoke light and sky, land and sea, stars and moon, plants and animals, man and woman into creation.
We didn’t arrive here, nor do we hold the things that we hold this day, because God had writer’s block and couldn’t think of anything else about which to speak. No, we are here at his determination, and I am thankful for the daily reminder of that gift—for the various Bibles that line my bookshelf and for the one that lies open within arm’s reach. I don’t have to travel very far in order to fill my heart with perfect truth. All I have to do is to make room for it; take time for it; prefer it over other activity. In doing so, I open up my thoughts toward heaven and allow Jesus to lead me in my pursuit of all things his… all things sacred. And that, my friends, is the one thing I could write you about today that leaves me breathless and wanting for more.
Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, dwelling amongst us for a season; living within us for always.
Truly, is there anything else I could pen that would be more pertinent, more potent for your faith journey? When we stray even a step or two away from that reality with our thinking, then our words (whether written or spoken) become vacant of great purpose, leaving recipients void of anything more lasting than a momentary fill of the temporal. Heaven knows, there’s plenty of that floating around this time of year. Accordingly, we must be all the more intentional about our pursuit of the lasting Truth, about choosing our words carefully (those we read; those we speak; those we write).
I don’t ever want you to leave my blog feeling that you hold less of Jesus than when you arrived. I don’t ever want you to come here looking just for me, alone, without Jesus. I want my words to be about the journey we walk together, Jesus and me. And when they don’t, when words fail me and I am tempted to make it all about me, then I implore my Heavenly Father for a holy hush to take up residence here. Why? Because you don’t need any more filler in your life; you certainly don’t need more of me and my endless blah, blah, blah. What you need is Jesus… the Way, the Truth, the Life. He is your pathway home; I’m only required to serve as one lamppost along the way.
Thus, I will endeavor to keep doing what I’ve been doing for nearly three years now—writing a few words of witness in keeping with my kingdom conferment. Forgive me for the times when they write less; grant me grace for the occasions when they fill you temporarily. My flesh isn’t always the best conduit for faith’s dispersion. Even so, I get to try, and with God’s pulse living inside of me, there are a few occasions when I come close to getting it right. Thus, I offer this simple prayer in accordance with the pulse of my heart…
Even so, Lord Jesus, let the further words of my mouth, the continuing meditations of my heart, be found acceptable in your sight. I want to honor you with my pen in this place. I want to honor the pulse you placed within my heart so long ago. Guard me against inerrant teaching; keep me from penning anything that would deliberately dishonor the call that you’ve placed upon my life to know you more. You’ve entrusted me with much. May I always be found willing to guard that trust with sacred reverence and to dispense it accordingly. You are the Word behind my many words. Let your truth shine forth through me and through my pen. Amen. 
~elaine
PS: My friend, Cindy @ Letters from Mid-life, is a beautiful photographer. Recently, I received some Scripture note cards, displaying her photography. You can get a peek at them by clicking on her etsy link here. I’m giving away two sets (each set contains 5 cards) this week to comments on this post. I love sending cards to others and am always in the market for original work by artists. These would make a great gift for someone’s stocking this year. Please take time to visit her work. Shalom.

winter’s white

Like the advent of new-fallen snow, so arrives the freshness of God’s Word to my soul.

A picture really, just as clear and crisp and breathtaking as the pristine white that my northern neighbors are experiencing this day. When I hear them speak of winter’s gift, a bit of envy creeps over me. I love seasonal shifts and their accumulations therein. Unfortunately, where I live doesn’t accommodate the four seasons in their fullness, especially winter. We just pretend down here in the south; bump up the thermostat and pull out the sweaters when the temps plummet below sixty degrees, thinking white might come at any moment but never really experiencing its arrival… at least not in the way that we had hoped.

So I was surprised today to receive a first snowfall… to look up and feel the flakes as they gently touched my cheeks and tendered my soul; not literally, but spiritually speaking. No forecaster predicted it; even I was skeptical of its arrival, but it came despite my being ill-prepared. Not from a cloud as some might imagine, but rather from the pen of a friend. Her words stirred my longing for a further look into God’s Word, and the deeper I dug into Scripture and subsequent thought, the greater the accumulation of white around my feet.

Tonight, I’m knee deep into Jesus, and I can’t think of a better way to honor my friend’s work (a.k.a. Leah Adams) than by telling you about the snapshot I’m holding in my heart because of her obedience to write her first Bible study, From the Trash Pile to the Treasure Chest: Creating a Godly Legacy.  

It’s a picture I’ve skimmed over a few times before, but never quite in the detail as I’ve witnessed it in the last twenty-four hours. A portrait from the third chapter of Joshua where the Israelites are crossing the Jordan River in order to take possession of the land promised to them by God. Prior to their marching across on dry land, the priests carried the Ark of the Covenant ahead of them. The ark represented the presence of the living God. It preceded the faith of God’s people, always “going before” them to mark their path and to lead their way. As the ark moved, so did the Israelites. And so it was on this day in biblical history. The ark took the lead; the people followed behind.

But then, the ark stopped… midstream. It stood still as the people passed it by, a fact most of us know and carry as truth. However, there is a lesser known understanding that comes with this truth… one I hadn’t considered before. When the Israelites caught up with the ark and stood parallel to God’s tangible presence, they had a choice to make. To stand still and wait for the ark to lead them forward or to move beyond it without the benefit of its visible leadership. This, my friends, is the fresh-fallen white I hold in my heart tonight. A portrait of faith from a people who walked the Jordan through—not with God at their lead, but with God at their backs. Not a go before God this time around, but rather a come behind God after faith took its first steps toward promised freedom.

Certainly, God pointed them in the right direction. Faith always initiates with God; it ends with him as well, but in the middle of the Jordan—when faith arrives at what Leah calls a “hinge moment”—we have the unbelievable privilege of walking resolutely forward, all the while knowing that behind us are a set of eyes keeping watch to make sure that our backs are covered. To follow in our shadows and to protect us from a rear vantage point.

So often in our faith journeys, we focus on the forward aspect of the road—our “up ahead” and what might be coming. So often our prayers are directed accordingly. But do we ever take the time to consider our “over the shoulders”—the backward actions that accompany our forward steps? I know I certainly haven’t thought about it very much… about all the ways that God is backing me up to ensure my safe landing on the other side. In fact, if I were really honest, it’s those backward shadows that sometimes trip me up the most. I’ve always seen God in the lead, but rarely do I consider his faithfulness from behind.

In the wake of my cancer diagnosis and treatment therein, I’m tempted to keep God at the lead in all things, even though some days I strain to see his discerning movements on my behalf. But as I progress, as I move forward through the Jordan (a river that seems to be perpetually at “flood stage” status), I feel the weightiness of my movement… of what it has cost me, and I sometimes feel left to my own devices to recover from its effects. Almost as if God is out in front, but as it pertains to my behind, I’m all alone. And I know it’s not truth; still and yet, knowing isn’t always enough fuel for my believing.

So God graciously sends me a picture—a fresh-fallen white as pristine and clear as I’ve ever experienced. A seasonal shift for my understanding. A portrait of a faithful Presence who stands mid-stream, not to abandon my forward progression but to buoy my backward angle. To make sure that everything left in the wake of my tentative steps of forward faith are covered by his grace and mercy and watchful care.  

And this helps me understand God a little more. Helps me see his covenantal love from another angle. Helps me formulate a better perspective regarding the behind that inevitably follows my forward. Helps me know that he’s got me covered from every angle and that no matter the consequential results of my stepping through the Jordan, the waters will remain stacked on my behalf until I’ve made it through to the other side. Only then will God release those waters to cover up and cleanse every last remnant of my left behind that isn’t in keeping with his perfect conclusion.

It’s a portrait worth holding onto in this season, friends, and as I made my way outside this afternoon for a walk, there came a moment when I looked back over my shoulder, literally. I could almost see God there… faithfully gazing in my direction, waving me on and nodding his approval. And even though the temperature read fifty degrees and the skies were cloudless, I could have sworn I felt a snowflake on my face… wet and pristine, with a heart accumulation beyond measure.

A winter’s gift of white. I’ll make sure and carry this picture with me in the coming week, believing that my up ahead will arrive with a guarantee of God’s come behind.

Thank you, Leah, for leading me to deep waters and for obeying God’s prompt to pen this study. He is using it mightily in my heart, and I feel so privileged to be walking my winter season with your thoughts at the lead and with God’s Word at my side. Keep to it, mighty woman of faith. May the Lord bless you, keep you, and watch over you as you walk forward to the Promised Land. I join you, alongside all of my readers, on the road. Until next time…  

Peace for the journey,

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from where I’m sitting today {chemo #3}…

from where I’m sitting today {chemo #3}…

 {the Market House… will make sense if you watch the video}
Twenty-four points of sacred intersection between my heart and theirs—those twenty-four precious souls that God chose to weave into my morning and lunch hour. I probably missed someone in my counting, but it doesn’t much matter the number. What matters is that each one of those lives graciously allowed me a moment of their day to make a personal investment into their hearts. It is privilege I don’t take lightly… a gift given to me by them and by God as an opportunity to love and to simply say,
I notice you; you matter.
There is no pain I currently hold that negates the responsibility of such moments. Rather, God is using the pain as a catalyst to touch lives that I would have never had open access to in my previous life… my life as I lived it only ten weeks ago. I don’t want that life back. Instead, I want to hold the fullness of what I now know, now believe—
That cancer will not be my undoing; rather, cancer will be the threshold of my emerging. Something greater—God’s greater—will become of me because of the path I’m now treading. Perhaps not something in the tangible, seen aspects of daily living, but in the quiet, secret places of sacred consecration.  
I want a pure soul…  a cleanness before God I’ve never known. I want perspective and wisdom that can only come from the Father and that, sometimes, can only be birthed through suffering. I want to get to the end of treatment and not harbor any regrets for the time I now manage. I want to live my “now” rightly and honor the pulse of Christ’s heart as laid out in Matthew 28:18-20. None of us gets a pass on this one, friends. Regardless of what we’re “holding” today, no matter if it hurts us immensely and provokes our faith in the deepest kind of way, we must receive our calling from God as the most precious gift from his heart. We must treasure it, own it, believe it, live it.
Go. Make disciples. Baptizing every point of sacred intersection along the way with the truth, love, and witness of all heaven. There is no finer gift that we can offer to those fellow sojourners on the path of grace we trod. They may not understand that they’re on the path of grace, but when their steps coincide with ours, then grace abounds. It’s in me and in you; it’s ours to give. Dispense it liberally, rejoicing as you go.
I notice you; you matter.  
A word rightly and fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver (Proverbs 25:11a). So speak as you are given occasion, knowing that in those few brief moments of sacred pause, you step as God intends, you shine forth as gold, and all of heaven choruses its applause in honor of your understanding.
Keep to it, friends. As always…
Peace for the journey,

PS: For a copy of Sassy Granny’s recipe, click here…

a moment with the Gardener…

“Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden;” {Genesis 2:8}

“This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” {John 15:8}

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law…. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.” {Galatians 5:22-23, 25}
Enjoy some time with the Gardener today; may his good seed find a generous and willing soil within your heart. Shalom!

a greater thing…

 
I’ve been stuck recently. Hung up on and hunkered down in a thought or two regarding a particular spoken word from Jesus. A promise. One that doesn’t compute with my internal, spiritual compass. One that has always confused me, challenged me, asked me to consider just exactly what he meant by his saying it. Perhaps it’s brought you reason for pause in your personal, exploration with God.
 
“I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father.” 
{John 14:12-13}
 
Doing what Jesus did. Even greater things. Almost seems treacherous typing it, much less laying claim to it as part of my personal identity. Surely he didn’t mean it as it sounds. Surely he isn’t saying what it seems as if he is saying. That I, that you, sinners saved solely by the grace of the cross, could walk in his similar shoes, dispensing a similar grace on similar occasions with similar results.
 
Surely not. Such a gift feels too weighty. Too much sacred privilege given to human flesh. Too much trust. Too much kindness. Too much royalty. Too much inheritance.  Too much glory for any one person to handle with any measure of Godly humility. Too big of a theology for a pint-sized brain like mine and an even weaker flesh to absorb in this moment.
 
I am in a diminished state. My thoughts aren’t always what I want them to be. Medications and course of treatment force my limits. My thinking is sometimes scattered, and I labor to have it make sense. Accordingly, when it comes to the weightiness of the Word of God and all its intricacies—the mystery and marvel of words that breathe as fresh breath from his lips today even as they were spoken in yesterday—I don’t always get it right. I’m no scholar; no theologian deeply steeped in study and adorned with degrees from the most prestigious religious institutions.
 
 
  Yes, my daddy is a preacher and served as a professor of preaching at one of the finest seminaries in the country. I spent years running its hallways and sitting under some of the richest preaching and teaching offered to formative young minds. As a youth, I was mentored by one of the most deeply committed, well-known youth leaders in the country who made it his solid commitment to make sure that the pulse of my heart would eventually catch up with my over-grown head. Indeed, I was offered the best when it came to my spiritual shaping. But even with all of that tutelage back then and with all of what I’ve come to know since that season…
 
I still get stuck sometimes. And I wonder about God and his promises to me and what he means for me to do with such knowledge. How do I take what he says, apply it to my heart, and then live it out most courageously before his watchful gaze in hopes that I do him some justice… bring him some glory? What could I do in this season of my life that would even come close to matching the sentiment of his heart as spoken in John 14? How can I, sick as I am, stand where I am, as a representative of the I AM and do even greater things?
 
It doesn’t compute, but then again, neither does grace. And just the other morning while others (perhaps even you) were catching sleep granted humans via the natural cycle of life, I was clutching my cross, and I had a thought regarding my “greater thing.” It arrived in the form of few words from God’s Word. Silently, they crept in without notice, transferring me from the dark of my bedroom to the dark of a sea. A night some 2000 years ago, steeped in chaos, waves, and despair. A fourth watch where disciples, not unlike me, took to the waters in hopes of reaching the other side without incident. A night when fear roared its opposition in the face of truth and when faith was shaken to its core. A night when those who were closest to the Master needed the witness of his eternal hold.
 
A night scare that required a night God and the witness of a night Word that would carry them through to the morning’s light:
“Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” {Matthew 14:27}    
 
And with those eight words, I become less stuck in my previous ruminations. For with Christ’s mandate in that moment—an event in history separated from his promise in John 14—I begin in my understanding of what Christ might mean by my “greater thing.” That I, feeble in flesh yet strong in Spirit, might be a someone who could make that night walk on behalf of the fearful. That God in his infinite mercy and willing cooperation might so endow me with the gift of his Spirit so that I could cross waves and cut through currents to become a hand’s extension. Heaven’s extension. A sacred bridge linking the dying, fear-filled soul to the living, faithful God.
 
That I, a single pilgrim on this journey of faith, might know the power of an interceding Jesus. And that because of his Holy Spirit, I might be filled to overflow with Him so that I would be able to withstand the fear of the night’s storm in order to walk in peaceful pause to extend the courage of Christ to others.  
 
That, my friends, is a greater thing… a greater work. To be one extension amidst millions of other faith-filled extensions who are well-supplied and well-equipped to dispense the King’s courage. Not because of anything we have done, but rather because of everything he chose to do. He chose to make me and you a part of his rich inheritance. We stand alongside him as co-heirs to an undeserved kingdom. On paper and in our minds, such grace will never compute. We’ll never be able to make sense of the “greater things” he has in mind for us to do. But every now and again, when we really take hold of all of what that might mean for us, we catch a glimpse of perfect understanding.
And we find our place… our sacred responsibility and our reason for moving forward with our faith in this world.
 
We are here for God’s greater thing. I don’t know what that will look like for you in the week ahead, but I do know where the fearful live in my little corner of the world. They cloister together less than a mile from my front door, in chairs hooked up to the deathblows and life-giving vein named chemotherapy. Many are stuck in the fourth watch. Many have yet to know that God is the Master of their fourth watch. That his courage and his hands are available to them, and that just maybe, those hands might come to them through a weakened vessel named Faith Elaine. Hands wrinkled by years. Hands drying by drugs. Hands weathered by understanding.
Hands extended in love. Hands speaking the truth in love…
“Take courage; It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
Words rightly and humbly spoken by a daughter of the King. A greater thing, indeed. What a marvelous, treasured gift with which to be entrusted. Live your greater thing like you mean it, friends, and never underestimate your worthiness in the kingdom of God. He has called us, each one, to a greater understanding of the greater gift we’ve been allowed. Use it all, do it all, love them all with his greater end in mind. As always…
Peace for the journey,
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