Stretched so that they might bear fruit...

I was at a great informational meeting, (about organic family farming in our area), with my sweet mom-in-love this week when I heard that concept.....

Stretched so that they might bear fruit.

It hit me like a verbal frying pan when I heard the farmer that was speaking say it. There was much deeper meaning that the Lord was speaking to me than shaping young apple trees into a particular position.

As the farmer spoke about the process of stretching the young trees into specific shapes so that they might bear a better harvest of fruit in the future, the Lord began to allow images of the last many years into my mind.

Painful images, sad images, hard images, and current trying images as well. He spoke to me about the process of 'stretching' that is going on in my life. That has been going on since before I even knew Him. He, as the perfect Farmer, has been stretching and pruning and positioning, even re-planting, for years. All because He knows the good fruit he has intended for my life, and for the lives of those around me.

The stretching is so that they might bear fruit.

Then I began to envision the process of the stretching as described by the farmer. The potential braces, wires, tools, and most important of all.... the hands that would be skillfully and purposefully moving and bending the branches.

The Hands.

I thought of the Lord's hands. Nail scarred hands. Hands that have touched the leper, the prostitute, the blind, the hopeless. His Hands.

The Hands of Jesus.

His hands hold the World. His hands knit me together in my mother's womb. The same hands that reach out to the broken, weak, and weary. THOSE hands are shaping me into the exact person that I need to be to bear the fruit that He has had planned since before time.

All the tension.

All the breakage.

All the stretching, and wounding, and healing.....

It's all stretching me into a shape.

Into His Shape.

So that I might bear fruit.

I got my Washington State Driver's License today.....

I am such a girl.

I don't often admit that, but it is so true.

I looked at my Driver's License photo today and the first thought through my head was, "WOW. I sure have aged a lot in the last 2 years...."

It bothered me for a bit. Well, more than a bit.... but then I began to give my feelings and thoughts over to the Lord about it.....

.... and He began to show me all the beautiful ways that He has 'aged' me in the last few years.

He has matured my trust in His faithfulness.

He has grown my love for his Word.

He has caused my desire to obey Him to increase by leaps and bounds.

He has expanded my view of who He is to me, and who He is to my children.

He has broken and mended my heart in more ways than I can describe.

He has carried me when my strength was gone, restored me, and underlined the fact that He does not despise weakness.

There is so much more that He has done, and WAY more that He is doing......

Thank you Department of Licensing!

Apparently I need the reminder!

:)

Looking back...

Looking back is hard.

There is pain in the foreground. Lots of it. But not looking at all isn't the right thing either. Amidst the rubble of the past are treasures. Things and people seemingly lost, just waiting to be remembered and found.

It's all about the right perspective and focus.

I have to have Christ-tinted lenses to enable me to see things accurately.

Once in place, I begin to recognize that the work of making all things new has begun.

Thankful. So thankful that He is faithful and completes what He has started.

And what He begins is always Good.

Create in Me A Clean Heart...

Or at least one that beats normally.

My son Gabe has been having heart issues for years. Probably 4 years. But no one knew it until his symptoms were severe and required medical attention immediately.

There's much more to his story, but I want to think about the first part. The part about how something was very wrong for years but no one suspected until it became excruciatingly uncomfortable.

How many times in my life have I ignored or excused away the 'symptoms' of something much deeper. Serious spiritual 'heart' issues.

Judgment

Compromise

Pride

Fear

The list could go on and on.

Uncomfortable has a way of forcing me to cry out to the Great Physician for help. He knows better than anyone how desperately I need healing. How I need sin to be ablated in my heart of hearts.

Oh Lord, thank you for being so faithful and patient to show me those areas that I might have an opportunity to release them to Your Hand.

Truly Lord, only You can Create In Me A Clean Heart.

The Dream

I am not living my dream,

My dream has changed
As has my vision.

Perhaps I was unable to see
Before.

My dream is that I would

Have no enemies

Be a fast listener
And slow talker

Let my regrets go
To bed once and for all

Love without restraint

Restrain my flesh more

Trust the Lord
With what is His already
Anyway.

No
I'm not living my dream,
However
I do have one that's worth living now.

Follow

I've been thinking a lot about sincerity and realness in my walk with Jesus since our women's retreat last weekend. The speaker, Leslie Nease, was very sincere and even more real in her speaking to us. The second I saw her face online before the retreat I felt a kinship to her. I didn't know her whole story, just that her blog was titled REAL LIFE, and the way that she writes is transparent. Maybe it was something in her smile, her eyes.... or maybe not. It was Jesus. I needed to hear what she had to say, and let me tell you that the Enemy did everything he could to stop me from hearing it.

Money, transportation, gear, kids, my extremely unfaithful friend Fear, you name it and he threw it my way. Thank the Lord for my husband. He gently but firmly said that I needed to be there. That the Lord wanted me there and he knew it, that he wouldn't stand for me cowing down to the Enemy yet one more time to be led into that wretched hole the Lord has been trying so patiently to drag me from.

So I went.

I was a part of the worship team, which gave me some sense of a feeling of commitment to go, and yet the reasons that I had for being hesitant were real. But not as real as the message that was in store for me when I got there.

I asked Jesus into my heart when I was 10 or 11 years old. (I'm pretty sure it was 10... but that was a while ago.) My Grandma had passed away when I was 8 and a half, she was my best friend, and the world was officially off it's axis after that. My time at Camp Yamhill for those few summers, and the time I spent with the youth at Metro Church of Christ really watered little seeds that had been planted when I was a young child. But life, and sin, and trauma, and abuse, and and and..... provided fertile ground for me to become fearful, hopeless, angry, and lost for a lot of years after that day in the Yamhill River where I was baptized.

I went through the Genie in the Lamp god stage, and the life preserver god stage, and the 'wow I can't seem to get it right no matter how hard I try so I'll just keep God over there and I'll be over here giving myself a colossal beating so He won't have to' stage, then the ever so popular 'I am going to take the wheel now thanks for getting me this far I can do just fine now' stage, which promptly landed me into a spiritual, emotional, and physical (as far as my health is concerned) brick wall.

Leslie spoke about this, she called it The Try Cycle. Ya know, Try, Try harder, Try Hardest, Give up...... and under the heading of Give Up would be a myriad of horrendous decisions, or buying massive stock in the Enemies lies until a phone call, a visit, or the Lord Himself would pull me up and give me hope to try again.

What I realized at the retreat is that I was trying so hard all those years to be acceptable, to be worthy, to be lovable, and to do all kinds of good stuff hoping to achieve those things.

I had it backward.

During our quiet time we were instructed to go and spend some time with the Lord, no real hard parameters on what to do exactly, just to be with Him. So, I grabbed my journal and headed to my room. I opened it up and asked the Lord to speak to me, and here is what He said:

I have loved you with an everlasting Love.

My thoughts toward you are precious.

I am renewing and reviving you.

I will never let you go.

You are completely covered and forgiven.

And then;

From HERE on:

I am the Truth

I am the Way

I am the Life

But then He had me go back through and slash the word 'the' in the last 3 lines and replace
them like this:

I am YOUR Truth

I am YOUR Way

I am YOUR Life ~ Jesus


I had never thought of those words in that way. Always so general, now He was telling me that after all the affirmation He had just spoken to me, He is all the things that I am searching for. I left that quiet time totally humbled and very ready to hear anything further that the Lord wanted to speak to me during that retreat time.

At one point Leslie used a large blood red piece of cloth to cover up some items that represented her old life. I don't think I'll ever forget that visual. The things were totally not visible by ANYONE anymore. Covered completely. I have struggled with that for so long, feeling marked, labeled, condemned, and in that one moment the Lord used that visual to show me how completely in Him I am.

I had been striving all those years for something that already was. I am totally worthy, loved, and accepted in Jesus! It was already a done deal. Nothing I can do or say or be can make it anymore so than it is right now! I have shied away from the hand of the Lord, from the voice of my Father for so long because I didn't truly believe in my position. I was so ashamed of my sin, so afraid of his punishment for my rebellion, that I ran along the edges trying to build up enough good-ness that He might accept me.

He already does!

He doesn't even see my sin anymore, I am in Him, and in Him I am protected and valuable and secure.

No wonder the Enemy didn't want me there.

I must be honest and say that ever since I got home he has been doing his darndest to distract me, to continue to pummel my body, fire darts of doubt and lies into my mind..... BUT I have the Truth. I am in Him and He is in me, and He told me that He will never let me go.

I may feel the wind as the Enemy storms about, or the heat as his temper flares, but I am on solid ground, and I know who I am and WHO I belong to.......

and I BELIEVE it.

Finally. :)

Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.....

"What a fellowship
What a joy divine
Leaning on the Everlasting Arms!
What a blessedness
What a peace is mine
Leaning on the Everlasting Arms!"~ Elisha Hoffman 1887

Truly, is there anywhere else in this world where peace and joy can be found other than in the Arms of the Everlasting God?

This song has been running through my head tonight and it caused me to reflect on all the other things that I have 'leaned' on in my life. It is safe to say that the list is long, and actually humbling to recount. I have tried finding strength just about everywhere else on the planet before I came to the life-changing realization that true strength that stands when all else is falling is found in Jesus alone.

"On Christ the solid Rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand.
All other ground IS sinking sand." ~Edward Mote 1834

Obviously, people have been getting this for long before me. Thank the Lord that they composed such testimonial hymns to relate to us that would come later.

Hymns have always been a comfort food musically to me. I grew up with my spunky Grandma Freda singing and humming them around her little house in Portland, OR. Her 'Camp Song' books were left to me after she went home to Jesus, and I spent many hours reading them and thinking about their meaning as a young adult.

"I heard an old, old story,
How a Savior came from glory,
How He gave His life on Calvary
To save a wretch like me;
I heard about His groaning,
Of His precious blood's atoning,
Then I repented of my sins
And won the victory." ~ Eugene Monroe Bartlett 1939

Such rich, deep, truth embedded in every one. To truly understand what Christ did for me leads me straight to the foot of that old bloody cross, and to a decision as to what I'm going to do about it.

"Amazing Grace
How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost
But now I'm found
Was blind
But now I see."~ John Newton 1760-70

And what a wretch I was! And how lost.... I can't get through that verse without choking back tears of gratitude for the Grace that has saved me, given me sight, and led me home.
My salvation experience wasn't an easy one, no human led me in a prayer, no alter was around to hear a pastor's voice calling. In sharp contrast, however, was the roar of the ocean, the pounding of my own heartbeat, and the clarion call of the Saviour of my soul.

"At the cross, at the cross,
Where I first saw the light,
And the burden of my heart rolled away.
It was there by faith
I received my sight
And now I am happy all the day."~ Isaac Watts 1707

To finally grab hold of the truth that I have a Redeemer that truly wants to shoulder the burdens of this life has brought a rest to my spirit and peace to my mind that is near indescribable. The Enemy would love nothing better than to convince me that it is I that should be able to carry it all, and then back up to my emotional driveway with a truckload of guilt when I can't. Thank you Lord that your yoke is easy and your burden is light.

It's always about His strength, and about Him perfecting it in my weakness.

Thank you Jesus for the gift of music, for the depth of the Hymns, and for your Truth most of all.

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