6 months ago

I received a text from my friend Melissa tonight. 

It was a picture of a gravestone. 

With a photo on it.

A photo that I took of a beautiful, blond 2 year. 

The photo was from a session I did last fall, right before Christmas of their 2 girls. 

The session was a session I had done for free.  Not a giveaway.  Just a gift.  Not announced.  Not talked about on my facebook page or my blog. 

I say that to say this, friends.

It's so easy to get caught up in the hype of the photography world.  Profit.  Business.  Value and devalue.   Promotion.  Good stuff done for attention.  Personality driven.  Heck, it's just the world we live in. Give to get. Focus on the getting.  So on the anniversary of my little friend's passing over I want to take a minute to encourage all of us to give without expecting anything in return.  You never know when God will take your talent or time given and use it to help or to change another person's life. 

Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full—pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.

Luke 6:38 NLT

 

Touching Godliness

We are reading this book together in small group, and as God so often does to illustrate a point, he's given me a situation in real life that is testing this very subject of submission.

There are 2 things that I am learning from the book study and from the case study :)   It is a little like looking in a mirror sometimes.  So scary.

1.  God is teaching my what loving the body is in a shepherding role.  In a servant leadership way.  Which is weird on a lot of levels because I don't even necessarily want to be a leader, but somehow ended up here.  And yet in not wanting it do feel a responsibility in it.  We looked at Ezequiel 34 many years ago in our small group, and it has never left me.  In the idea of being an influencer of people.  And so I think this is God stretching me to love better.  To learn how to correct well.  Which, I just haven't done in my life all that well, actually.  I have corrected strongly many times in my family and it was right correction, but didn't have positive results because I did it without communicating love.  This is just the time that God has chosen to break that and change me.  And now it's like a light bulb, I can look back and see mistakes I've made. 

So in submitting to correction from my leaders in how to do it well, and seeing the result of change in my heart, I know that it's the beginning of a thing, not the end of it.  I'm going to need you guys to remind me of it from time to time.  Walls down and so forth. :)

2.  For the protection of the Body and of a friend God is telling me to lean into it even though I do want to throw my keys and be done.  It's just easier to be done with people when they act like fools, then to walk with them and urge them to Christ.  Urging them takes time and emotional energy.  So that's the other thing that God is saying in this.  That submission to God is leading well, and supporting my leaders  and the BRCC team in whatever outcome this has.  In praying for everyone, in continuing to reach out to my friend,  and in offering my input and support whenever it's asked for. 

So.  I'm going to stop whining about it.  And try to see this whole thing from an attitude of gratitude.  That I get to learn.  That I get to love someone who needs it.  That the Body works together in harmony under Christ. 

Who I Am

I was doing the homework for the Sonship study tonight and one of the assignments was to write out how you think God sees you.  This is what I wrote:

He views me as His beloved.
He delights in me.
He sees me as His forever.
I'm His family.
I'm His friend.
I am clean and right before Him.
He sings songs over me.
I'm known by Him before Creation and before my birth.
He has all kinds of good projects He wants to do with me.
He sees me as part of the Body of Christ.  As part of Himself in a way I don't really understand.


I just needed to take a minute and breathe through that.  I live in a completely opposite reality of disappointment in my failures most days.

The grace and the love of God are so incredible.  Indescribable.  I am so loved and I don't even grasp the beginning of it.  

Leaning

It's dirty down here, Lord.

When I complain and I hear you say, child your strength indeed is small.

In communion,

In every mundane second of the day,

In my exhaustion when it becomes apparent - again - that

At the end of my strength I should never have used my strength at all.

I forget so easily.

See your glory for a minute

And then

bury my face in mud, because mud is everywhere and it's too much effort to lift my head.

Lift it for me.  Betroth me.  Allure me.  Dust me off. 

Jesus Christ all I want is you.  Let me lean on you, Lord.

Let me lean into you.  I've heard your arms don't get tired.

I've heard that they are everlasting.

Can I have a shoulder, Lord?  I need to lean.  

I will betroth you to me forever;
    I will betroth you in righteousness and justice,
    in love and compassion.
Hosea 2:19

Sorry I've been gone for a minute...

I am in a righteously good mood today.  Mostly because tomorrow starts vacation.  In Miami.

Also because I feel like I'm at the end of what was a really hard season for a month or 2.  Conflict everywhere.  People say this too shall pass, and it's true.  And good to remember, but while you are waiting for it to pass you have to keep standing.  The verses in Eph about the armor of God are good and they talk about standing, and after you have done everything to stand.  Just stand.  Because sometimes that's all you have strength to do. 

But the storm is passed over, and sunshine is peeking through.  I have a spray tan.  And a new knickname, courtesy of Melissa.  KiKi.  Let's not use it. 

Hope all of you are having a good week and that God is blessing you in it! <3 nbsp="" p="">