Clear the Stage

This song has really been edifying to my heart lately:

Sang by Jamie Leigh

Words by Jimmy Needham

Clear the stage and set the sound and lights ablaze
If that's the measure you must take to crush the idols.
Jerk the pews & all the decorations, too
Until the congregations few, then have revival.
Tell your friends that this is where the party ends
Until you're broken for your sins, you can't be social.
Then seek the Lord & wait for what He has in store
And know that great is your reward so just be hopeful.

[Chorus]
'Cause you can sing all you want to
Yes, you can sing all you want to
You can sing all you want to
And still get it wrong; cause worship is more than a song.

Take a break from all the plans that you have made
And sit at home alone and wait for God to whisper.
Beg Him please to open up His mouth and speak
And pray for real upon your knees until they blister.
Shine the light on every corner of your life
Until the pride and lust and lies are in the open.
Then read the Word and put to test the things you've heard Until your heart and soul are stirred and rocked and broken.

'Cause you can sing all you want to
Yes, you can sing all you want to
You can sing all you want to
And still get it wrong; worship is more than a song

[Bridge]
We must not worship something that's not even worth it.
Clear the stage, make some space for the One who deserves it.
Anything I put before my God is an idol.

Anything I want with all my heart is an idol.
Anything I can't stop thinking of, is an idol.
Anything that I give all my love, is an idol.

'Cause you can sing all you want to
Yes, you can sing all you want to
You can sing all you want to
And still get it wrong; worship is more than a song

Running Ahead

I found this on Pinterest and it hit me like a ton of bricks! 

I picture myself like a child holding Christ's hand walking along a path. Then I drop His hand and run ahead of Him down the path. It curves this way and that and there are many splits off of the main path we had been on. I run ahead, losing sight of Christ behind me. Sometimes I pick a side trail and wander even farther from my Jesus. 

What makes me run ahead? Many things. Anxiousness, impatience, pride, fear, worry, stubborness, false wisdom, displaced zeal, an independent spirit, rebellion, and ultimately, unbelief. 

Then suddenly I find myself alone, lost, and exhausted. Sometimes wounded. Sometimes paralized in fright. Sometimes dealing with devastating consequences. In desperation and despair, I cry out. And faithful Jesus comes.

In mercy, He calms me. Heals me. Holds me. Strengthens me. Pours out grace on the sharp consequences. He takes my hand and lovingly walks me back to His path. As we walk, He speaks to me compassionately and yet sternly, "Don't run ahead of Me. I know what is ahead of us. I know the best way to get to where I am taking you. Enjoy the journey with Me. Don't run ahead of me, child."

I am so thankful the Lord is longsuffering and merciful. As I look back on my life, this sin of running ahead of Him has been a constant struggle for me. 

"Don't run ahead of Me." The head knowledge of this keeps getting knocked out of my hand. The last year or so the Lord has been working in my life to make this truth a part of me. To ingrain it deep within my soul. 

As the Lord has been doing His restorative work on my heart, I hear Him whisper lovingly, "Don't run ahead of Me, child." I find myself frequently turning to Him making sure I have hold of His hand and am safely by His side. 

Yes, the relationship is the treasure on this journey, not the destination. And again, I rest in Him.

Under the Knife

We often use that phrase when we are talking about someone having surgery. That is how I feel. The calm at the beginning of February rolled into grief waves. Then March brought growing pains, humbling trials, and faith projects. April started off with the joy of Christ's resurrection and the solemness of self-examination. 

Countless times I have stated "The LORD sees, He knows, and He cares." I have repeatedly shared how personal the LORD is. And HE continues to put His fingerprints on my life. 

Recently The Almighty has been doing spiritual heart surgery on me. Open heart surgery. His all-consuming fire exposing sin and smiting my heart. The fear of the LORD is a very real thing, not just a holy reverance for Who HE is. And all sin is serious business. His working is too personal to share & too sacred to put into mere words. But I want you to know, dear reader, the LORD delights in a repentant child that hopes in HIS mercy. 

I will say this, my heart feels raw. Like I just got out of ICU. There is an inner peace. A freedom from a weight. But I also feel vulnerable. The enemy attacks subtly. He then attacks boldly. I turn to God's Word using it as a shield to guard my mind as well as a weapon to make the enemy flee.  

But I don't feel victorious at all. Just weary and weak, in survival mode. And as always my Everlasting Father is faithful. He draws me close. He upholds me. He gives me rest. He is working at restoring my soul.

Sometime I hope to blog about a couple truths He shared with me. But it has taken me days just to share all this. For now, the focus is on resting in Him. 

Acquainted with Grief

Isaiah 53:3-5

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

These are some well-know verses of scripture. But it wasn't until I became acquainted with Grief personally that they took on a new meaning. As you read my blogs, I sometimes personify Grief. It visits, pounces, hides, walks, knocks, and such. It gives me great comfort to know Christ knows this same Grief. He knows how heavy it is and the sorrow it brings. Ah, being understood is a great comfort in itself. To know a friend gets it is such a precious treasure. To have that Friend shoulder the load is an overwhelming blessing. 

My pastor recently shared the following three points in his sermon. They are power truths if we internalize them and make them a part of who we are.

Let God bear your sorrow.

The key word in this statement is LET. It requires releasing, allowing, being willing. There are times in my past when I have held on to my sorrow, refusing to be comforted. And it was like squeezing broken glass in my hand. Very damaging. The Lord already bear our grief and sorrow. Release it to Him. He is the Great Comforter. He will heal. Now I know some people don't want healing. I know it sounds crazy, but sometimes we take our pain on as our identity. Or we have nothing else of that person to hang on to, so we hang on to the pain. Sometimes we feel guilty. Guilty for failing the person somehow or guilty for being alive. We must remember we are not God. When we think we have the right to punish ourselves, for something He has already forgiven us for, we are thinking we know better than God Almighy and that is dangerous territory.

Let God be in control of your life.

This can be hard because sometimes when we trusted God, we got wounded. He means it for good, but it can make us scared to trust Him. But if we have trusted Him for salvation and eternal life, we can trust Him with this life too. When we surrender, when we let go, He can do things we could never imagine. This reminds me of a story of a little girl that had a necklace of fake pearls. As she matured, her daddy bought her a real pearl necklace. He then asked his daughter for her pearl necklace. It was her prized possession. Sadly, she clung to them. Each day her daddy asked her and each day she clung to her fake pearl necklace. Finally one day with tears running down her face, she gave her prized pearl necklace to her daddy who she loved very much. She was surprised and elated when through her tears she saw him bring out of his pocket the beautiful real pearl necklace. This is exactly how it is with God.

Find satisfaction in God

"God is always working in our lives to reconcile us to truth," my preacher said.To reconcile truth means to accept it and have peace about it. Not doing so leads to bitterness. Bitterness as in not forgiving or not accepting it, to not be okay with it. We must remember we were bought with a price. We are not our own. Once we are saved, we have been born again in to God's family. We belong to Him. He is to be the center of our universe, including what satisfies us. And when we finally let Him satisfy us, we find He is enough.

Grief Touches Grief

Grief touches grief. I have said this often through the years. For example, when a child grieves a pet, the sorrow brings up other sorrows like friends that moved or a grandparent who passed away.

I am not immune. I started off this month in an eerie calm with smiles. But grief touches grief. Reaching out to a new widow. A tragic school shooting. Another widow takes her own life. A teenager dies after a long battle with cancer. The anniversary of a friend’s infant’s homegoing.

The world seem abounding in death right now. My soul aches and familiar rivers flow down my cheeks. Grief swirls around me, but it is not my own. It is for others.

I grieve for a new widow, just three weeks on this journey. I pray for her as horrible images can haunt the griefstricken. They flash vividly before her each time she closes her eyes for longer than a blink. Decisions of huge proportion are having to be made and she must keep standing. She must make decisions in a fog of denial. All she wants is to wake up from this nightmare. Her children look to her for strength and she feels empty. She stands as a shell of a woman who used to be a wife. She is repulsed by this new role thrust upon her: widow.

I grieve for kids in school who lived through a nightmare and wonder if they will ever feel safe again. I grieve for families whose teenagers never came home. I think of brave heroes who ran to their deaths defending others and the survivors who feel guilty for breathing.

I grieve for a widow’s family who in just four months lost both parents. I grieve for her cuz I know how overwhelming the pain can be. I understand how a widow can lose all hope of healing. The enemy of her soul whispers lie after lie, deceiving her that death is the only escape.  My mind plays back countless sleepless nights filled with love bleeding out my eyes and grief wails escaping my throat. Of being terrified of the future. Of the sharp pain each morning when a new day came without my Jim. How can someone hurt so much inside and yet still be alive, I wondered. It hurt to just breathe. I never thought of suicide. But I do remember thinking I was going to die from the pain.

I grieve for parents having to watch their child fight against all odds even as cancer consumed her body. Who stood in awe of God’s power and grace on their daughter who touched the lives of hundreds, perhaps thousands. Now they face an empty bedroom and have a hole the size of a canyon in their family.

I grieve for my friend who will never hold her son again until heaven. She never got to hear him call her mommy or teach him to read. She lives too far away for me to hug. And friends there never knew her son. I held her little bit of heaven and 5 years later I still think of holding him. His eyes were so wise and held secrets only the Lord knows. I pray she has friends who understand that grief has no timetable and will listen with compassion.

Yes, grief touches grief. And it swirls around me. Memories resurrect and are sifted through. Grief stomps into my kitchen like he is trying to get snow off his boots. My soul frantically throws up walls trying to box in the pain. Experience, though, has taught me what damage this does within. Healing will only come when they crumble.

To try to chisel away at it, I read an article about widows and suicide. I read another widow’s story and finally the dam breaks. Tears come as I weep and grieve for others. My head still feels like it is in a swirling, blinding blizzard, so I escape to my room and journal. I write and write till the tears stop and the ache melts. The Comforter comes.

And Grief goes stomping outside again, but it may return tomorrow. And on my cheeks are dry riverbeds of salt. Little crystals touching one another like the grief in my soul.

Love Hard

“The amount of love a widow has to offer is remarkable! When she has truly fallen for someone, she is going to love hard and love fast because she has already felt how wonderful it is and that it has the possibility to be lost again. She will not be seen wasting her time on a person who won’t bring her immense happiness during her time left on earth. Her time is valuable. Her love is valuable. She knows ... there is still a 50% chance they will be the one to leave this earth before her. Even knowing that, even knowing she may have to relive her worst nightmare all over again, she continues to take risks in the name of love. What a beautiful, powerful kind of love”

E. Bishop is of course talking about romantic love. But I believe love is a choice that applies to all relationships. It can be hard to love anyone after the excruciating pain of losing someone. But I identify with what she is saying. Once I choose to let down my walls and love, then I love hard. I love my Jesus hard. I love my friends and family hard. That isn't to say that in loving hard I don't panic once in awhile & pull back. In fact, it is a guarantee.

I remember meeting another young widow just a couple years after Jim was gone. We became friends. Then she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Given 6 months. I was terrified! A part of me wanted to run away.  But I chose to love her anyway. There were a couple times I panicked & pulled away. But in the end I loved hard. Time was short. In the next two months, we became very close. She reminded me to live and I helped her face death. I stayed near her bedside softly singing as the end drew near. Shortly after I left to go to my boys, she went to be with the Lord. That was seven years ago.

Yesterday I was contacted by a friend about a new widow. Husband was 35. Died suddenly on Feb 6th. She has 3 children. Lives in Midwest. Husband was good Christian man whose dad is a pastor. Visitation Friday. Funeral on Saturday. Eerily familiar situation. So I sent off some quick words of comfort and have been praying much with understanding.

Life is short, dear readers. Tomorrow is no guarantee.


Love hard.

Undisturbed Snow

There is something sacred about undisturbed snow. It sparkles so beautiful and is full of possibilities, like a blank sheet of paper in my journal. Yesterday I looked out at the cemetery at the undisturbed snow. It made it look so holy, so consecrated, so peaceful.

For just a second the enemy tried to whisper guilt. I shook him off. I have been a widow for 12 years. I know that undisturbed snow at my husband's grave is no reflection of my love for him or the amazing marriage we had. This year I felt drawn to the roadside memorial.



I disturbed the snow there, though since then more has fallen. I didn't shed any tears when I cleared off the garden stone and cross that sits stolidly in the ditch. A reminder of a tragic night. Many lives changed forever. A memorial for a good man whose name I want remembered.

No tears came. That's okay. It is no reflection on the depth of my love. Just an outward sign of the Lord's amazing healing within. I kneeled in the snow and thanked Jim, and the Lord, for the amazing gifts he gave me. My three sons and his family. And the Lord's amazing faithfulness to us.



A friend text me this today: "Your Grace and incredible Faith is such an inspiration to me and a million others!!! Thank you for letting and keeping your light shining."



My reply sums up my widowhood: "Thanks girl! Great grace given for a great loss. Faith just from clinging to Jesus through the pain. Never would have sign up for this journey. Don't wish it on anyone. Yet the Lord in His wisdom allowed it for my good & His glory. May all you look at me see Him."



The undisturbed snow sparkles like glitter. It twinkles in the light like my Jim's eyes did when he laughed. The snow lays like a fleece blanket of comfort over the final resting place of a beloved man. It is peaceful. Sacred. Holy. Full of possibilities. In the future and in heaven.