Entry Ten

I will give praise to my God for he is always with me.                                                                                My God is always for me and working the best in me.

This is the prayer from my heart today. There is a promise my heart heard a year and a half ago. How much I banked on the fulfillment, even processed its fulfillment. 

But God...

Today, promise yet unfulfilled and for reason I may never understand, a picture of reality right now has been given and I feel the charge to let go. 

So I lay down the promise and trust that God is working and, though I may not understand the process, the faithfulness of God is unwavering and good and trustworthy and worthy of my praise. 

No matter what happens, my God is not contained and the fulfillment will come as God ordains in God's time AND in God's way. My God is able and I can rest in that truth every day of all the rest of the days of my life. No matter what ever happens with the promise I heard, the steadfast love of God is real.

Entry Nine

I had a dream last night where I started teaching biblical truths off of a recipe. I don't remember all of it but two things I remember...

1. I asked if anyone had ever seen an ingredient on a recipe (the one in the recipe was onions) that you are not sure you want to put in the recipe? From your point of view, the ingredient is not your favorite so it is optional. Application: How often does this happen in life? We see the next ingredient on our life "recipe" and we try and leave that one out. God might have a plan for it, but its not our favorite. Can't really change anything that much, right? But what if its absence changes more than we know. What if it changes the whole flavor of this moment in our lives?

2. Half way through teaching the lesson the recipe changed from a bunt cake recipe to a soup recipe - hence the onions. Not even close. Gotta love dreams. And yet....Application: Do you ever feel like the whole recipe you were living by got changed? This is not to say that what you are cooking for has changed. This is to say the task handed to you is now different, not expected, maybe not even wanted. How do you cook when the recipe you hold is not one you want? Do you still give all you have and make it the best dish ever or do you really leave what you don't want out. Or  worse yet, do you set it down and refuse to make the new recipe because you wanted to make the bunt cake, you signed up to make the bunt cake, but this?!?

Dreams are funny. I dream a lot and most are random, but this one stayed with me.

I do wood burning and the project I am working on has the hymn words "Morning by morning new mercies I see...Great is Your faithfulness, Lord unto me." There is a verse on the bottom in small type that reads from Exodus when God led the people by the way of the wilderness (instead of leading them straight into the promised land).

I could say more but this one just needs to simmer I think. There are a lot of extra places one could go with it all but let's keep it simple. What am I doing with the recipe God has placed in my hands for this moment, day, month, or season of my life?

Entry Eight

Today I have felt the pull to run and draw closer, to remain and to seek more. I study and something inside comes to life.  I look around and something draws to a greater desire - all the while feeling a bit afraid, unsure. 

I have already mentioned how I start seedlings. Well, one of the things I struggle with is thinning seedlings. I look at the little seedling that has pushed up from the planted seed beneath the soil. I sense the energy the little leaves have gone through to push from the seed core, up through the soil to find the light. 

"They can all just grow together."

But I know this is wrong. For the plants to thrive they cannot just all grow up right next to each other. In the beginning, there may appear no problem, but once bigger the plants will never grow as big so crowded. They need to be thinned.

"But what if I pull a color I would love?" (some seeds come in color mixture packs) "What if the plant I leave dies later?" "What if nothing needs to change and all will work out in the end?"

Excuses. I know what needs to be done. And I know that, when the deed is done, the plants that remain will grow stronger, bigger, to their full potential.

A good thinning is never easy in gardening or life. Sometimes in life we even like the extra - gives us a plan B, greater appearance of purpose, a place to hide, an excuse at times dare I say.

There is that word again - excuse. 

God, may the plan destined for my life not fall short due to my excuses. Thin as you must. Grant me the courage to trust beyond what I see today. And open my hands, so the roots of what must be pulled do not hurt what is around in the process.

Entry Seven

"Do you want to be made well?"

The question rested before my eyes. The words echoed in the mind. The promise trembled something deep in my heart.

Do I want to be made well?

The response seemed so obvious.

Yes, I want to be well.

But do I? Do I want to leave behind what I have allowed myself to be defined by, used as a crutch, at times hidden behind to lock away, and instead be made well? Do I want to let go and trust to live in this state of healed?

Deep down I know the answer is yes. I do want to be healed.

Yet as the beggar who was asked these words thousands of years of ago by the Savior of the world, the healing will require of change of lifestyle. A person can no longer beg as a cripple once they can walk. For that man before Jesus all those years ago, that was all he had known. But a healed person must live different, find a new way, and in the same world where they were once not healed. Healing does not necessarily change location but, when broken becomes whole, occupation within the world of residence must change. 

This was yesterday.

24 hours later today, I awake to find myself ready to enter a new day with an old self. I go to put on all the hurt and pain and enter my day once more not healed but embracing all my old brokenness. 

The question rings in my mind - "Do you want to be made well?"

A sigh falls from my chest. I set the old garments aside.

Yes, I want to be made well. God, heal me and help me learn to live healed...even where I once lived a beggar in my brokenness.

Entry Six

The heart cannot be asked to process a situation if the situation has not arisen...even if not yet. 

How I have asked my heart to feel before life has brought about the time to feel. How I have asked myself to embrace long before the need to let go.

Faith is not being perfectly prepared for any moment. Faith is trusting the One who will be there and provide for you when called.

Even when I feel the Spirit lead toward something, may I remember not to run ahead. 

I am to live in the presence of where God has me today. For I will not pass this way again.

Entry Five

Some seeds take longer to break up out of the soil for the first time. Even when every other pot of the same kind of plant has already made haste, there can be one starter pot that appears to remain only a dormant clump of dirt. 

Nothing growing. Nothing changing. The sight can make an impatient person want to plant more seeds to reap results. Yet what is needed is not necessarily more seeds, but more time. 

Time with the warmth of the sun upon the soil. Time to work from within the confines of the seed's hard cap. Time to not make the planter's time table but the One who made the seed to grow in the first place.

There are things in life that feel like watching a seed sprout. I have them in my life right now. And as I wait, I hear this voice deep down that encourages me to trust, do not doubt, do not give up. For what takes place below the surface may not be for your eyes today, but what you wait for is coming. 

The seedling will come forth. 

The leaves will form.

The stem will grow up strong. 

The bloom will take your breath away.

Some seeds take longer to break up out of the soil. But from what I have learned in gardening, they are worth the wait.

Entry Four

Have you ever felt a knowing in your spirit? A sense that what you were doing held partner to a bigger picture – a picture that was not the full reality of the moment but was coming?

Some dreams fall dormant when left untouched for long enough. They slip into the background. The song they sing softens to a whisper.

Then a moment happens. A knowing takes place. The Spirit inside calls that this is a piece of life’s story.

This happened Wednesday morning. I walked down the hallway in the lower level of the church I attend and my attention captured. A remembrance echoed as a smile crossed my face. I kept on to the path of the day, but bars of the old song in my memory took to a louder beat.