A Wagon Full of Rocks

I recently read a story of a man whom God asked if he would be willing to carry three packages up the hill to a specific destination. The man briefly thought about it, but then decided that since the packages didn’t weight too much, it would be his honor to serve the Lord in this way. Along the way, he ran into a friend who asked, “Where are you going?” When he responded that he was bringing the packages up the hill for the Lord, his friend replied, “Oh that is so wonderful. I was planning to bring this package myself, but since you are going there anyway, would you mind taking it for me?” “Not at all", replied the man as he added it to his cart. The story goes on to tell that he encountered several more friends, which all added small packages to his cart. Before long, the slight load that he started out with became cumbersome. He worked with all his might, but eventually reached the end of his rope and shouted out, “God, why did you give me so much to take care of? This is too much.” God heard his plight, his frustration and came to his side. As God looked into the cart, he saw package after package piled among His. What are all of these?” asked the Lord. “Oh, this one is John’s package and that one is Sally’s. This one belongs to Nathan and that one belongs…interrupting, God asks, “Why are you carrying everyone else’s packages? I only asked you to carry mine.” With His hands on the man’s shoulders and his eyes looking squarely into his, Christ says, “My yoke is easy and my burden light. I will never ask you to carry more than you can bear.” The story ends there, but I identify with the man who has taken on far more than God has asked of him.

I can hardly help myself! I love to work, I love to clean, I love to help, and I love to be needed….I find happiness, predictability, confidence there. I love making a plan and working it out to perfection---or at least as close to it as I can manage on my own strength. There it is: the rub—on my own strength.  I am pulling my wagon filled with good things---truly all of them are good things, but upon reevaluation, they are not all things that God has asked me to do. Some of these things He has asked other people to do and I have more than willingly stepped in to carry their load. I have unknowingly robbed them of the packages God had in store for them. Their packages, as beautiful and fun as they have been to carry for awhile, have also weighed me down, and taken my attention off the packages God had in mind just for me.  They, in a very real sense, have temporarily tainted my view of my own packages. Attention divided, I have not given Christ my best.  I have been more devoted to duty than to the Creator.

So I sit here today, humbly looking over the countless packages I have in my cart, realizing I have been pulling entirely too much weight, realizing that though all of these packages bring me happiness in and of themselves, the happiness also ends there. It does not fulfill. It does not last. Thinking more deeply about why I have piled more and more packages into my cart, I realize that what I am doing is looking for contentment, for true fulfillment and in the end I come to see that all my “good works” have left me still longing for something more.  It is a sad cycle, clearly spinning out of control.

The cycle stops now because I am in a place where I realize that although all my good works are…good, they are not all for God. I have stamped His name on much of what I do; saying that such and such is for Him, when in actuality I am doing it to gain some measurable accomplishment that I can hang my hat on at the end of each day.  “The Lord does not look at the things a man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”  1 Samuel 16:7 I desperately want the Lord to look at my heart and see my devotion to Him, not all the things I have accomplished.

The happiness and contentment that I long for and have sought after through good works is not always measurable this side of heaven. That is perhaps one of the hardest parts of this equation for me.  It reveals to me that my faith is not firmly rooted in the things unseen, but more on the things seen. The awareness of that crushes my heart, for I have been in denial for quite some time, focusing on the things of earth rather than the things of heaven. I, desperately, like all of us, have been searching for contentment, for peace, and happiness. I have attempted to find it through duty rather than devotion. I have missed my Lord for all the packages I have chosen to carry.

The key to fulfillment, the package that we seek, is found solely in intimacy with Christ. Intimacy can be scary because it is the place where you come as you are—unworthy, broken, sometimes with only an ounce of faith—we are exposed before God. There is a freedom here, however.  There is freedom because it is here that you realize you are loved unconditionally for who you are. You do not have to earn it. This unconditional love is one of the packages in your wagon. Perhaps, like mine, it has been tainted by all the extra packages you have piled on top of it or you have added to it, thinking it’s not enough on its own. Open this gift, breathe in the freedom it offers and let go of some of the extra packages so that you can truly find joy in what the Lord has given to you. This is a process. I struggle to let go of some amazing packages, but they do not belong to me. I desperately want to find my identity and my freedom in Christ, not in what I am doing, no matter how beautiful the package may be on the outside.

Who Am I Anyway?

Just a brief background: My youngest daughter, Meg, is the pearl of my oyster, literally. She is the essence of what Satan intended for evil, God intended for good. Though she is a product of rape, she is learning that her identity is not about her conception, or surroundings, or how she looks, or even her PDD diagnosis (on the autism spectrum), but rather who she is in Christ. The things she contemplates at 12 years old are some of the very things her 39 year old mother questions. I am humbled by the gift, the treasure of her life and that God chose me to be her mother. Indeed, she is a blessing.

Who Am I Anyway?

Struggling for the majority of her life to find her identity, my twelve year old, African American daughter’s tear stained face bitterly screams out, “Who am I?” Her tears reveal the sting, the hurt, the seeming injustice of her situation in which her heart attempts to mask on a daily basis. Her question; one that perhaps we, as Christians, are all trying to grasp this side of heaven. Her anger; warranted.  As I choose my words carefully, in hopes that they will completely, comprehensively answer her agonizing question and not cause her to spin into another unknown variable of this life, I simply say, “You, my daughter, are the daughter of the King. You were created on purpose and for a purpose. You are not an accident. You are not a mistake. You are precious. You are valuable…” Sobs interrupt my attempt to sooth her and once again I see that she does not believe my words. “I have no value” comes her reply to my questioning eyes. My heart, broken already, silently questions God, Why are you allowing this? Don’t you care about her?”

I hold her five foot two inch body in my arms, running my fingers through her curls, kissing her cheeks a million times over, and hold her close to my heart.  She quiets. Her tears stop. But the question remains and I have no idea how to answer it. Anger starting to take root in my heart, I fire question after question at God, not waiting for an answer, not thinking before speaking, and certainly showing no respect for the God I claim to love and live for. “God, why are you allowing this? Hasn’t she been through enough already? Are you trying to teach her something? Are you trying to teach me something? Is this a punishment? Where is your justice? Where is your grace? Where are you? I hate this; this constant anguish, this burden that stands constantly before me. Where is that yoke of yours? You know, the one you said was easy?  And then I stop.  And I hear ever so clearly, “Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden light”. (Matthew 11:28-30)

“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.” I pause to contemplate what my role is in this command. Yoke, according to The Complete Word Study Dictionary, is “the coupling of any two things together; a beam of balance which unites two scales”.  Think about that for a moment. Christ walking step by step with us, sharing the insurmountable weight on our shoulders. He is with me for the long haul, united, not missing the smallest detail.  “Learn from me”…understand me, know me, my heart, motives, and desires for you, for this world. This phrase denotes “instruction concerning the facts and plan of salvation. In this sense it means to learn with a moral bearing and responsibility; to know more fully.”

United with Him, I learn that His ways are not my ways, His thought are not my thoughts. His idea of rest is not my idea of rest. Rest, in this sense, is not the removing of hardship, rather it is the assurance in His promise—the promise for redemption, the promise that His watchful eye is always on me, the promise that what He began in me, in Meg—in you--He will complete, and the promise that all things work together for the good of those who love and trust Him. The promise that He came to give life and life to the full and the promise, perhaps my most favorite, that He will never leave me nor forsake me. What Satan intends for evil, God intends for good.  When we grasp this, even a little, we can find peace that surpasses all our human understanding and find the faith to believe that our trials can and will have “spiritual productivity and purpose”. It is here that I find rest. Admittedly, I do not believe we will see all our trials’ spiritual purpose this side of heaven, but I do know they are not invalid or without purpose.

Inhaling the precious words Christ so readily answered my cries of anguish for my daughter; I fall to my knees, embarrassed by my lack of faith once again and completely humbled by His care and grace for me and my daughter. It was here, on my kitchen floor, He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, Karyn. My power is made perfect in weakness."   (2 Corinthians 12:9) Sufficient grace. Enough grace. Abundant grace…Covering my face with my hands, I allow myself to sob a prayer of gratitude for His love and devotion to me—this sinful, often prodigal daughter of His.

“He pours out His grace abundantly along with faith and love that are in Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 1:14). He pours out more than enough grace to keep us covered, enough faith for us to trust Him, and enough love to never let us go!

We will face trials of all kinds in this life. The Christian life is not an easy one. Admittedly, I forget that at times, like yesterday when I angrily questioned God, when I accused Him of not caring. My faith is frail at times. I must intentionally put on the armor of faith; protect my heart and what I love so dearly from the poisonous doubts the world repeatedly fires at us. I do not want a spirit of timidity, but one of courage. I do not want to be cowardly in my faith, but courageous, zealous even!

My daughter looks at her predominately Caucasian area and family and wonders, “Is this where I belong? Though her perspective is outwardly focused, looking immediately at her skin color in relation to those around her, we, too, wonder, “Is this where I belong?” Most assuredly it is. For she—we--were created for such a time as this. So I pull Meg to my lap and whisper, “It is not about what you do or how you look, it is about who you say you are; who you choose to live for. When you make that choice, all the rest will fall into place. Who will you live for, Meg?” Her dark solemn eyes look deep into mine as she replies, “God, who else?” I bite my quivering lower lip, attempting to stifle the tears welling deep from within. What I am still attempting to learn at 39, she is just beginning to question at 12. This life is a long, bumpy road. It is my hope to be an example to her, to always be honest, to allow her to see me question and even doubt God, but then also allow her to see that God does answer, that God does have a purpose and a plan for those who love Him.  

Yellow Roses

One year ago today as the warm sunshine poured through the large windows of room 335, I laid next to my Daddy in his hospital bed kissing his cheeks, his hands, his forehead… a million times over, embracing a precious memory with each kiss, saying good bye, I’m sorry, and thank you with each remembered story. Though my mind has been swept over with these memories as of late, I do not write this morning from a place of sorrow so much as I write from a place of gratitude. Just a few thoughts and memories...

I kissed and nuzzled his cheeks a million times that day, feeling as though I couldn’t stop, not wanting that kiss to be the last one I ever gave him. His cheeks were rough despite hospice’s attempt to shave him. I found it endearing however, as my mind wandered to the days when I would sit on the bathroom counter and watch him shave when he’d come in the house from a long day of milking or working in his yard. I always loved watching this ritual. Still, to this day I can see him shaving two or three strokes then rinsing the blade in a sink of warm, sudsy water. I can still hear the tap, tap of the blade against the side of the sink and smell the distinct fragrance of his shaving cream. He sure got mad when I’d steal it to shave my legs as a teenager. I can still hear his voice as he’d yell from the bottom of the stairs, “Karyn Lee…bring it down here”. He didn’t even have to clarify what “it” was. We both knew.

His shaving cream wasn’t the only thing I would “steal” from him. To this day, nearly 20 years living outside my parent’s home, I have a reputation for stealing Dad’s flannel shirts. It didn’t matter if they were the “good flannel shirts” or ones he wore for milking or yard work. I just adored them and everyone knew it. Often, I would hear my name being called from the bottom of the stairs but it had a different ring to it. He wasn’t mad, like he was with the shaving cream. It was more like “I’m flattered, but honey, you gotta stop doing this”. Once he called me, a year or so after I had moved out and gotten married to ask if I had stolen his new flannel shirt! I didn’t…honestly… but still to this day, I cannot live down the fact that I would take his shirts and make them my own. In fact, my youngest niece calls me, “Aunt Flannel”, which makes me laugh because I only wear flannel shirts when I garden. I guess I still want to be just like my dad. I don’t have any of his shirts now and that crushes me. There was just something about his shirts that no one else, not even my dear husband's shirts have. I guess I felt safe wrapped up in his over sized shirts, close to him somehow. Sure wish I had stolen just one more.

I held one of his hands almost the whole day, kissed every finger, traced the lines, and winced at his countless scars. I love those big, rough, and calloused hands. I always have. They spoke volumes about the kind of man he was, as his hands were strong, able, learning, giving, sacrificial, loving hands. I still recall what it felt like to hold his hands, to have him give that little extra squeeze right before he’d let go. His hands engulfed my hand and I loved it. I always felt like his little girl when I held his hand…even when I was all grown up and had children of my own. I miss holding his hands, praying with him, and working alongside him. He taught me everything with those hands.

One of his absolute loves was working in his yard. He had an amazing gift that dazzled people who would pass by. Though, like a true gardener, we never call it “work”, for it is something that feeds the soul in a way that nothing else does. I had the privilege to have my hands in his yard this week, to pull his weeds, to prune his Rhodies, edge his flowerbeds... The most difficult thing for me to touch were his roses…yellow, vibrant roses…these were his pride and joy. I saved them for last. And wept as I breathed deeply the sweetest scent…a scent I didn’t realize I associate with my dad no matter where I smell it. On my knees already, I buried my nose into the spent pedals I’d just pruned and allowed the Lord to wash over me, to touch me with his tender grace once again. His mercy touched my brokenness and I knew I was safe and loved completely even without the touch of my dad’s hand or being wrapped in an oversized flannel. My Heavenly Father swooped down and held this broken heart of mine and reminded me of words I had read just that morning, “However serious we believe Good Friday is, we are confident that Easter Sunday lies ahead of us.” Meaning, that no matter what disappointments, frustrations, hurts, injustices, or loss come our way because of our faith, our hope in Christ, we believe Easter Sunday—the day of Jesus’ resurrection—and the fulfilling of His promise-- is right around the corner. Christ did not promise an easy, painless life. He did promise however, that Heaven would conquer them in the end (Easter Sunday). Death will be overturned and the fragrance of yellow roses will fill the air, I am just sure of that!


My Dad’s heart desire was to meet Jesus…he spoke often of this desire and believed as my favorite author, Brennan Manning, does that “Death is not the ultimate, but rather the final breakthrough into the waiting, outstretched arms of the Father.” He could not wait to see Jesus face to face. I often picture my dad on his knees before the emerald throne singing, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty” with tears of great joy streaming down his cheeks and with a heart that swells with such love, such gratitude. I miss him terribly but know Easter Sunday will come for me too and I will one day run through heaven’s gates. I will embrace my Lord, my God first, but then I am hugging my Daddy! Until that day, I am hugging him in my heart.

Love Isn't Love Until You Give it Away

“Our love for human beings, Jesus told us, will be the sacrament, the visible sign that He’s among us. This is how the world will recognize Him. And the world doesn’t see Him, because they don’t see our love”. I read these words of Brennan Manning earlier this week and as I have reflected over what it means to love, to show love, to live rooted in love… I have come to believe that love manifests itself through compassion. I honestly cannot picture love without picturing one who is compassionate…one who is empathetic not just in word but in deed. Love is an action word. However, it’s not just being nice, it’s not just doing what is expected or required. Love is not about being convicted to do the right thing. Love is moral certainly, but moreover, there is an element of mercy, an overwhelming sense of peace that transcends all understanding as we walk beside the hurting, the hated, the feeble and the frail.


Love swells from a heart that has experienced the tenderness of Jesus in our lives, one who can picture a battered, unidentifiable body hanging from a cross in our place, one who can identify with the prodigal son who humbly, shamefully returns to his father and is not only engulfed in the arms of his father, but forgiven. It also radiates from one who claims to have no testimony because the Lord has spared them of abuse in its multiple forms, and by God’s grace, their faith hasn’t waned as they witness such heartache and turmoil that seems to abound from every crevice. To inhale the sweet fragrance of such tender love, to experience such forgiveness, such grace…my heart swells with love and exhales a love that is not my own but a love that supersedes my own thoughts and judgments. A kind of love that sees others through the eyes and heart of Jesus…a love that oozes such mercy, such compassion that one cannot help but to be love in action. My words seem feeble and yet my heart beats harder, beats with conviction, with purpose, while my fingers fail to find the words adequate to express such…such love, a love I have not only experienced… changing me from the inside out, but is the very breath that gives me life.


I want my life to be a reflection of Christ’s love, His hope, and His tender grace to others. I have often prayed that I would see others the way He sees them…this has brought me to my knees countless times. It has caused my heart to beat wildly out of empathy for others. It has spurred me to love beyond the spoken, well-intended words. And not just for the likable, the hurting, or the disabled, but for the ruthless, self-centered, users, and manipulators. I am still a work in progress as honestly some people are easier to love than others. Yet Christ commands us to love our enemy (Matthew 5:44)… Can I really love my enemy? Can I have compassion for my enemy? Can I root for my enemy? I don’t believe it is possible if my heart is not beating in sync with Christ’s. The greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind. The second greatest commandment is to love our neighbors as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-39). How are we doing? Are we loving them with all we have within us? Are we, as Christians, loving differently than others? How is our version of love different? Can others see it? Love needs to move beyond the same old rhetoric that the world has heard over and over again, that the world has lost hope in because our words do not match our actions. Our actions rooted in love need to offer hope to others.


“We are surrounded by people who are hungry and thirsty and naked in their souls, and they come to us hungry for understanding, thirsty for affirmation, naked with loneliness, and wanting to be covered with the mantle of our genuine tenderness” (Brennan Manning) and so often we do not see beyond the surface…their needs, their hurts…because our focus is narrow or maybe we have come to believe it is someone else’s problem or perhaps we ourselves feel inadequate or…that we are too busy. We need to come to the place where we welcome God’s interruptions…to love beyond words, beyond church walls. To love practically, fully, without obligation but out of desire to communicate hope and acceptance. What a gift we have the ability to give.

Whispered I Love Yous

That day, the day my dream of becoming a mother came true, was indescribable as the heavens seemed to open and the sweet sound of angels’ singing filled the room where I held her precious 8 pound, 4 ounce body in my arms for the first time. As I spent the next several hours starring into my daughter’s dark eyes, my heart filled with a kind of love I had never known before. I nuzzled my cheek against hers and whispered a million I love yous and things that I would one day want to do with and for her. My heart was full as I relished in my most precious gift, a gift I adored even before I saw her face, a gift I treasured and longed to protect long before I knew her. This is the kind of love that grows, though I didn’t know that all those years ago. It matures with time and the whispered I love yous become the foundation to what looks anything but love to my daughter who is now nearly sixteen. In addition to the tender nuzzles of love, this love also speaks truth into our lives that is often hard to hear. I don’t like this part of my role as a mom. It is hard and honestly breaks my heart.

Being the mother of a teenage daughter has brought with it more challenges than I ever anticipated. This week has been one of those weeks, where I feel we take one step forward only to turn around and take two steps back. Four days in a row I had to have a heart to heart talk with my daughter, showing her the selfishness and pride that seemed to abound from her once humbled and joyful heart, and ask her to look more closely at the condition of her heart. Each night, her tear streaked face showed me she was sorry. Her words, slow and shaky, told me she was earnest in her repentance. However, on night four of dealing with the same behavior and finding myself sitting face to face with this same tear streaked, remorseful face, I found myself not believing her words. I was at my breaking point and I said, “Don’t say you’re sorry, if you don’t mean it. Don’t say you are sorry unless you plan to change the way you go about this situation. Repentance, Abigail, is turning your back on the way you were going and going the exact opposite direction. Are you ready to do that?” No words, no expression could be found in her eyes. I stood and left the room without another word, fearful that I would say something more that would crush her spirit rather than her attitude.

Sleeping on the situation, I woke this morning realizing I very much resemble my own daughter’s attitude in my own walk with the Lord. At times I am selfish, I am prideful, and my thoughts and motives not always pure. When I realize how far off course I have gotten, I fall to my knees, sob a prayer of repentance, and before too long find myself praying the same prayer of repentance…again and again. Confronted by the mirrored image of my daughter’s heart condition, my mind wandered to the words I read earlier in the week of my favorite author, Brennan Manning, “Every change in the quality of a person’s life must grow out of a change in his or her vision of reality”.

Reality is more than merely looking at our current place, position, or situation and believing this is our lot in life, whether we like it or not. Reality is the foundation of who we are, what we believe, and guides us along life’s journey into the arms of Christ…The Christ whose very nature screams out love and forgiveness. “What we think about God is the most important thing about us”. Is He part of our reality? Our answer defines our view of life. If He is indeed the foundation of our reality, our vision changes, we change. We see the world through eyes of one who has been forgiven and know with all that we are… despite our selfishness, pride, impure thoughts, and motives that God’s love continues to carry us, that “He will never leave us or forsake us” (Hebrews 13:5). Without a doubt, the essence of our faith lies in trusting the unfathomable love of God.

So I say to my daughter, do you know that you are utterly loved? Do you know that you were bought with a price? Do you know that your name is branded on the palm of His hands? That He knew you before you were born? That He knows the number of hairs on your head? That you cannot hide from Him, even in the darkest of nights? You are always on His mind and forever in His heart. He loves you with an everlasting love, an unconditional love. He is always on your side, always rooting for you. When the world is against you, He is for you. Attempting to paint a picture of the reality I hold so, so close to my own heart, I lower my head, allow the tears to fall and whisper, “Beloved, He wants your heart. Are you ready to give it to Him? Not just on Sunday mornings, not just in the mix of your Christian friends…but to really relinquish it all to Him?” “Yes”, is her quivered reply. And though I know there will be many, many times in her life as well as in mine that we will have to repent, I know that Abba’s (Daddy, Father God) nature is tender and He will always forgive us.

Starring out my big picture window, repenting once again of my own wrong doings and basking in the sweet tenderness that Christ is for me, I notice a soft breeze whispering through the trees as they gently sway and I swear I hear, “I love you, Beloved”. The whispered I love yous come in a variety of ways, some are so tender, like that of nuzzling a newborn babe and others come through trials, but the point is that they come. What you believe about Christ will impact your view of reality and whether you will embrace the whispered I love yous in its various forms.

“The more a man realizes that he has received a gift that he can never repay…the tenor of his life becomes one of humble, joyful thanksgiving. He simply rejoices in the gifts” and his life sings out, “Give thanks to the Lord for He is good, His kindness endures forever”. (Psalm 107:1)

To my Beloved Abigail…I was given an extravagant blessing when the Lord allowed me to be your mom…a gift I treasure every single day. I love you. I adore you…I excessive love you!

Weakness: Not Such a Bad Word.

As I was driving home the other day I turned on the radio to hear a song that repeated, “You're enough, you're enough, you're enough for me, Lord”. When the song ended, I switched off the radio and spoke into the open air, “Lord, are you really enough for me?” I know the answer in my heart but honestly my actions don’t reflect that knowledge. I wrestle with allowing Him to be enough for me. I keep Him at arm’s length sometimes out of fear, out of selfishness… out of my own self sufficiency. And if I am being honest, I have changed the question to be, “Lord am I enough for you?” Into the same open air, I weep deeply for I know that I have missed the mark. I know I have made my life more about what I can do and give to Him than what He has given and continues to give and do for me. Far too often I live from the place of self-sufficiency, more than I live from the place of gratitude.

I see my weaknesses and convince myself that I am not enough for the Lord. I know it does not work like that-- that Christ loves me unconditionally, without merit, and in my weaknesses --perhaps because of my weaknesses and my utmost need for Him. Still, I struggle with feeling I have to earn it or prove myself worthy on some level of His love. That is the world speaking however, not Christ. I find myself constantly assigning human ways, human thoughts, and having human expectations to the Lord. He tells us that “His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8). This wrestling, this inner heart ache, and desire to be defined as a gal that loves the Lord with her whole mind, body, and soul, I have spent time this week reflecting what it looks like to live a life rooted in faith and grace in a world that pressures anything but.

I don’t want to resemble the Pharisees who were virtuous, moral, and lived a life to the letter of the law but were inauthentic. Christ does not want my perfection, my good deeds. He wants my heart. In my weaknesses I am more open to Him and His grace. I want to risk showing my weakness, share my feelings, hurts, and joys with others like that of a child…unabashed, unashamed, and with a joyous heart that knows no bounds. “It was for liberty that Christ freed us”. (Galatians 5:1) I pray with all my heart that I will relish in that liberty and not live from a life of policies and rules, and other’s expectations but from the very heart of God, complete in my weakness so that His glory would be evident in my words and actions.

Weakness is a negative word but it doesn’t have to be. Weakness can be a gift when we recognize all that it brings to our lives and allows us to bring to our relationships. It is the area we are perhaps more ourselves than any place else. It is a place where pride is at bay and our humbleness and need are brought to the forefront of our lives. It causes us to “relate to the people we serve,” it allows us to feel with them the “human condition, the human struggle and darkness and anguish that call out for salvation”. Further, weakness relates us profoundly to God because it provides the arena in which His power can move and reveal itself. When I consider my actions, I realize that I often am communicating to God that I don’t need Him. How this grieves my heart to write these words…to bring light to my inner struggle.

Perhaps you have heard the term “dying to self”. It sounds sacrificial, doesn’t it? It sounds intimidating. It sounds unpleasant, honestly. What it means essentially is that Christ explicitly becomes the center of our lives, not us, not our good ideas, not our good efforts…Christ and Christ alone. When I ask the question, “Lord am I enough for you?”, I am dangerously close to serving myself, making my relationship with Christ more about me, than I am about Him. I am still learning what this looks like practically in this life but I know without a doubt it begins with being rooted in the faith conviction that I am loved, beyond my comprehension, by God as am, not as I should be.


“I will all the more gladly glory in my weakness, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then I am content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecution and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong”. 2 Cor. 12:9-10

Part of the Problem...is Me

Am I “…daring enough to be different, humble enough to make mistakes, wild enough to be burnt in the fire of love, real enough to make others see how unreal they are”? These words, written by Brennan Manning, have lingered in my mind for several days and this morning as my Pastor asked the congregation what Christians are best known for, “hypocrisy” unanimously filled the air. Though this came as no surprise, it caused a deep weeping in my soul. For I am fully aware that I am not daring enough to be all that different...I proclaim to be a Christian. I often say Christ is my everything, my life, my all. My desire is to know Him more intimately than I do, to adopt His very nature as my own, and to be His hands, feet and, heart to those around me. But to sit there this morning, absorbing the world’s definition of Christian…I find myself realizing I am part of the problem. I resemble the world more than Christ. This is a constant struggle for me and I find that I am constantly fighting to find some happy medium. The thing is, I know I cannot live a life that pleases man AND Christ simultaneously. This is where my hypocrisy lies and perhaps does for many Christians.

I heard someone once ask, ‘if Christians really believe they are “saved”, why don’t they look like it’. And though I have not given this question much thought in several years, it comes rushing back to me today and I find myself asking the same question…truly, if we, as Christians, believe we are saved, have been given the gift, the absolute treasure of Salvation, unconditional love from our Heavenly Father, why don’t our actions match? Faith is more about what we do than about what we think but somewhere along the line, we have made our faith something we keep to ourselves. I attended a memorial service this afternoon and as I sat there my mind kept wondering, what will people remember and treasure most about me? What will my legacy be? Will it simple be that I was a nice girl who smiled on Monday mornings and loved her coffee, books, family, and career? Gosh, as nice as that is, I hope that will be just the beginning…I desire to defined…defined by my faith. Think about that. What would the Christian person look like who was defined by their faith? Does your life look like the picture in your mind? Mine sure doesn’t. But I know the Lord who began a good work in me will carry it on to completion (Philippians 1:6). What that tells me is that though my salvation is complete, my sanctification is not. Thank goodness!

As a Christian, I have a personal responsibility for what I do. I believe in Christ not because I have to but because He has revealed Himself to me in countless ways that are unmistakably Him. I hope not out of ignorance, but because I am confident in my Lord and in His sovereignty. I love not because it is commanded, but because nothing else in all the world brings me more joy. I live expectantly, for I long to see the Lord at work around me. I live intentionally, with purpose, and an eagerness to serve the Lord in all that I do, say, and think. I desperately want my actions to match my words. I desire to put away the ways of the world, be that person that others at my own memorial service will say, “That was one gal who LOVED the Lord with all her mind, body, and soul. Lord, I give you my heart, take it, mold it, and use it for your glory. Let your Word burn in my heart. Let there be no division or compromise in my life, but complete devotion to you and you alone.