Overflowing

For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. 

Matthew 12:34b

Filled is the best way to describe how I felt.  We spent a weekend repenting and praying after attending a marriage conference.  Then, our Sunday message was about thanksgiving and gratitude, a posture which I always try to hold tight, but entitlement creeps in and robs.  Full to the brim with excitement and awe at the God who created all, yet He cared enough about my marriage to send someone to help make it even better.  I stood amazed that the same God who conquered death would take time to free me from apathy and help me to see everything as a glorious gift from Him.  Full. 

We spent time with family after church and then ventured into our local McDonald's to enjoy some ice cream.  We took our daughter to the playground and sat near the window.  Shortly after we settled, we saw two familiar faces.  Weeks ago we saw an elderly couple; their sweetness was not easily forgettable.  He, feeble himself, helped his wife out of the passenger side of the car.  Then hand in hand he escorted her to her table as he went and ordered for her.  After their coffee, he gently walked her back to the passenger side of the car and then they drove off.  I remember seeing them and looking at my husband, thankful that I have someone who would love me like that in our older years.  I remember discussing how it touched my heart to see his compassion and love for his wife.  Yet here they were again, a reminder of the deep love that sustains time and illness- a love that endures.  At our marriage conference we discussed the importance of friendship above all things in a marriage.  As he walked her across the parking lot I whispered to my husband,

"He is a really good friend to her," and smiled.  He agreed.  Full.

After she took her seat she began to knock on the window to get my attention. "Honey, I think she wants you for something," Nick said.  I looked back to see her piercing eyes and hand on the glass.  Nick opened the door and asked if he could help her but she never lost focus on me and completely ignored him.  I went inside and asked if I could help her with anything.  "I've been waiting on you," she said as she patted her seat, inviting me to sit.  Something in that invitation immediately told me that I was standing on Holy Ground.  "I'm listening Lord, to whatever you want to tell me in this situation," I said to myself.  In shock for a moment, I sat down.  This was a complete stranger, and I was a bit confused.  "Where have you been," she asked.  I stammered for an answer that would somehow fit her asking, as I realized this sweet lady suffered from dementia.  I fumbled with some more Q&A until our conversation took a turn. 

Her gaze left my eyes and turned to the floor, "I just was afraid that you didn't like me."  Didn't like her.  These words fell hard. 

"Please don't worry about that." I said softly.  "I like you very much."  "You are a sweet girl, and I love you," she said.  I placed my arm around her and said, "Aww, I love you too," and hugged her.  Her head fell to my shoulder with her soft white hair on my cheek.  By this time her husband had returned with a worried look that said he would explain her behavior.  "I'm sure by now you realized she has dementia?"  "Yes sir," I nodded.  "I see you have a friend," he said to her.  "She's a sweet girl," the elderly lady replied.  "I think you are a sweet girl," I said to her.  "My husband and I saw you two a few weeks ago and even talked about how sweet the two of you were."  "Daddy is the sweet one," she said as she looked at her husband and touched his hand.

"He loves me a lot-more than I deserve." 

By this time I went from full to overflowing.  I said a sweet goodbye and walked out to rejoin my family at the playground WRECKED.  Tears streaming down my face as I left this alter on which I had just experienced God. 

Experienced God...who experiences God at McDonald's? 

I could not speak, but yet I couldn't be quiet.  How many messages from God did I just get? About love, about undeserved love, about someone needing to be liked...endless topics all overflowing.  Lord, this is just so much to take in I thought.  I don't even know where to begin.  Immediately I thought of this verse, "For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks." 

This sweet elderly woman communicated two things with me:
I want to be liked; I want to be loved. 

Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.  While dementia served as a way for her to speak from her heart without inhibition, I wonder how many of us without dementia have the same thoughts and feeling hidden in our heart?  How many of us long for affirmation that we are liked and we are loved, but in fear we never communicate that need? 

Overflowing.

"Your love for one another will prove to the world
that you are my disciples." 

John 13:35

Let it overflow to someone who needs to be liked and loved today.

He Chose to Dance

I feel short of breath, anxious, butterflies stirred up like a tornado inside.  It is Gethsemane.  I have to say something.  I have to get it all out, but the question lurks in my mind: Will he receive it or dismiss it? Will he hear me and see me?  It is a hard conversation that I must have with the one I vowed my love to.  A conversation full of hurt and disappointment, and I am afraid of how he will take it.  My feelings and my heart are all on the line.

Learning to dance with someone is not easy.  You are unsure of how they are going to move, and at times it feels awkward, even vulnerable.  That is the way marriage feels.  There are moments of awkwardness and vulnerabilty as you learn to move together. 

Vulnerable.  The latin is vulnera which means to wound. To be vulnerable means to be able to be wounded or vulnerbilis.  Isn't that what you are doing when you open up to your spouse and lay your heart out to them?  You essentially say, "Here I am, the good and bad.  Here is my thoughts and feelings. Here is my heart."  And with that, they have the choice to wound or love.  They have the choice to embrace or reject.  But you made yourself available to be wounded. You made yourself vulnerable. 

In our culture and society, vulnerability is often considered a weakness, flaw even.  But as disciples of Christ, our hearts desire is to become more and more like Him, vulnerbilis, able to be wounded. 

"But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed."  In Latin this verse from Isaiah 53:5 translates into "ipse autem vulneratus est propter iniquitates nostras adtritus est propter scelera nostra disciplina pacis nostrae super eum et livore eius sanati sumus."  Able to be wounded, which He was.  Rejected, which He was and still is.

 

 Are you able?  Am I able?  Only through Christ....

 

Why is it so hard to be vulernable, to be open and available to be wounded, to bare our naked souls and leave our hearts available for rejection?  Lord let this cup pass from me.  I feel short of breath, anxious, butterflies stirred up like a tornado inside.  It is Gethsemane, and I am about to lay myself on this cross.  Will he drive the nails, or will he not? I just don't know.  But I do know that I am becoming more like Christ each time I am vulnerbilis. Whether it be with a spouse, friend, or in ministry, vulnera is Christlike.

 

He chose to dance rather than drive the nails.  Relief.  Safe.  Love as Christ loves the church...I am thankful to have one who strives to do this daily.  Lord help me to always see his vulnerbilis, so that I will choose to dance instead of driving the nails. 

He Sees Me

"I have called you by your name; you are Mine. 

You have been honored and I have loved you."

Isaiah 43:1,4 NKJV

This weekend we had the joy of attending a close relative's wedding.  It was a beautiful ceremony.  Everyone was enthralled with the beauty of the bride, for she was truly breathtaking.  As everyone discussed what they liked best about the wedding, one thing stood out to me...that look.  As we all stood to watch the bride come down the aisle, I happened to look back at the groom.  His eyes were fixated on her. As she approached the alter he never looked away, not even for a minute.  As her father placed her hand into the groom's, he did not look down at her hand in his, instead his gaze never left her eyes.  Throughout the entire ceremony he looked as if he were looking into the depths of who she was.  It was as if he looked beyond the beautiful dress, beyond the flowers and veil, and just saw her. 

Isn't it amazing how we can see Christ in everything if we only take the time to look?  As I pondered that look, I began to think about how Christ sees me. Oh how often I want to dress myself in good works, a veil of charity and a bouquet of sacrifice.  "Am I beautiful now," I ask, as I reach the alter.  He fixates His eyes on me.  He peers into me, deeper than even I know.  He never once looks at my dress or adornments, but instead He sees me.  Just me. 

How is it that He cannot seem to take His eyes off of me?  How is it that He finds just me, beautiful and valuable?  How is it that just me, is enough?  How is it that as imperfect as I am, He is enthralled with me?  In a world that screams you need to be more, you are not enough, you have to have this in order to be worthy, how can it be that The Creator of all things, The Holy One, The Perfect One, is so completely enamoured with me, just me? 

My guess is that it has nothing to do with us, but instead everything to do with The One who sees us.  We can't earn it, create it, deserve it, or buy it.  It just is, and it is love-amazing love.  A song says it so well, "Amazing love, how can it be? That you my King would die for me?"  He sees me.  He loves me.  He is enthralled with me.  His eyes are fixated on my heart and on me. 

Oh that we could receive that fully.  To not shy away as He looks into our depths.  To fully take in, that He sees ME...and that He loves it anyway.  Oh how He loves us.  Not because we are in a beautiful dress with beautiful flowers.  Not because we are special or that we deserve it.   But because He is.

A Holy Invitation to the One Thing

"There is only one thing worth being concerned about.

Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her.” 

Luke 10:42 NLT

I find myself often wondering why do Christians have struggles.  Why do we have heartache and deep longings that have gone unmet?  Why do we stress and worry? Why Lord, do you permit these things? And while I still do not have the perfect answer to fit every story I do know this:

Every obstacle in life, every adverse circumstance, every trial, every troubled relationship,

every unmet longing is an opportunity, no rather an invitation
to press beyond the veil until you find yourself at our Savior's feet. 

It is an invitation to commune with Peace as He sits on His throne.  It is an invitation to dine with the Bread of Life.  It is an opportunity to press in beyond the crowds, as the woman with the issue of blood did, to push past the distractions, to reach toward our healer.  If she never would have had the issue, if she had never felt utter desperation, she also would never have experienced Life beyond the circumstances, beyond the veil, and into the Holy of Holies. 

Oh how often we miss this invitation to feast on The One who sustains.  We choose stress, worry, grow tired and weary.  We replay arguments in our minds.  We retreat and self medicate.  We grow angry and bitter.  We parade through life with wounded hearts, yet we wear a fake smile all the while hoping that no one sees the arrows of discontentment, loneliness, sorrow, and defeat that have pierced our heart.  We hope that no one sees the heaviness and stress in our eyes.  We gripe.  We complain.  And all the while our invitation, unopened, waits for us.  It reads ""Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."  Our worry, our complaints, our busyness ring a loud response~ "No thank you, I have too much work and cannot come and sit," "No thank you, I would much rather eat this bitter fruit than to dine on The Bread."  Then we curse the adverse circumstance; we curse the invitation. 

Like Paul, of this I am the chief of sinners, but today, through God's grace I choose to thank instead of curse.  I thank Him for this cross that I carry.  It is a doorway into His sanctuary.  It is an invitation to come to the banquet and dine with The One who loves me unconditionally.  Our crosses are heavy. Our crosses are hard to carry. The nails hurt.  But today my response will be, "Yes, I will come.  Thank you for this invitation to the One Thing."  He beckons me to come, to fall on my knees at His feet, as we sit beyond the veil.