Sometimes when my house is quiet my mind thinks it still hears my little dog Ajax mottling around but he has been gone (he died) for several months now. He lived in this house for 14 years and although I know I really do not hear him, it’s like an echo in my mine that keeps playing familiar sounds. Not all familiar sounds are beneficial though, as we were driving home from the beach this week, my mind began to hear the echo of my past, it was not a friendly echo, but one of shame. One I wanted to run from, one I wished had never occurred, one that made me think, how can God love me?

An echo is something that repeats over and over again. I think sometimes we let the echo of our past shatter our progress at moving ahead. We stand looking down the cavern of our past, unable to move away from the echo ricocheting off the walls of our mind and heart. I do not think there is healing in the echo that continues to reverberate in our hearts as it drudges up things of forgotten, the things of the past. The Lord is eager to forgive and mend, bringing calm to our shattered hearts while soothing our minds, quieting the echo that haunts us, that tells we are not good enough, that shames us, that reminds us of past wrongs.

We all have echoes of some sort, no matter our socioeconomic bracket, church background, or education level. We all have echoes that from time to time resound like a boom in our heart attempting to bind us to a past that we have already been forgiven for as it whispers you are not lovable, you are not worthy, see here is the proof. The boom of defeat from the echoes of our past is crushing as it attempts to smolder out any rays of hope. God will not be defeated by the echoes that taunt us, He brings victory.

In Titus 3: ³ At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. ⁴ But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, ⁵ he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, ⁶ whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, ⁷ so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.

How grateful I am that I am not bound, imprisoned to my past. I am not confined to relive all my past mistakes. In fact, I am not a captive at all, I have been set free to observe the beauty of the Lord all around me and moving within me. Although the devil would have me constricted by the echoes of my past, they cannot detain me any longer. Therefore, I take delight in John 8: 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I don’t know what you are going through, or how colorful your past has been but I want to assure you that you are not alone. We all walk the same path to Jesus Christ, while our sins are individual in nature, the route to forgiveness and renewal is the same for all. His love is enough because it is encompassing: covering our past, present, and future. John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. God’s love for us will not be re-routed by our sin, nor will it be stopped by echoes of our past. Why? Because God makes the sweetest melodies from our chaotic, messy, disarrayed lives… melodies of worship, should we allow Him. If you have not invited God into your mess, I encourage you to do so.

Good Day Ladies!

Psalms 18:16 He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters…. How thankful I am that I was not left to drown in my despair.

Feeling failure has become one of the themes in my life. Failure is defined as the opposite of success, the omission of an expected action, or a collapse/ crash. I had a parenting collapse tonight with my nineteen year old son when attempting to point out the “lacking” in his lawn chores. It ended up with voices raised and me eventually using some not so nice language. Parenting fail. Christian fail. Leadership fail. Failure all around on my part which prompted an immediately apology on my behalf to my son. In my previous post I said some days are just hard to smile, today is a day like that and I have no excuse. I have a blissfully blessed life that allows me to do most things my heart desires. I have no right to have days where it’s difficult to smile, there are people starving throughout the world, people without the basic necessities of life and great need in the world. That is what my brain tells me… you don’t have an excuse to be moody, to be grouchy, to have bad days. Still, I find myself in prayer with great need, great longing to be forgiven, to be raised up out of this cantankerous pit, this mess I have made. Oh, the gentle nature of the Lord’s presence, it is what I seek when I enter into prayer as I begin to apologize to Him for my behavior and lack of imperfection.

I am so grateful I live under grace and not the law. I’d never make it under law. NEVER. Funny, yesterday I thought I did a good job, taking my mother in law to appointments, supporting friends and family in extra curriculum activities, stepping out of my comfort zone, soothing little ones through thunderstorms…but today was the exact opposite. It doesn’t change my love for the Lord, it doesn’t change the Lord’s love for me, nor does it change my statue in Lord’s eyes…but it does reveal my great dependence on Him to be effective on a daily basis.

I don’t know how your Saturday has gone but I hope no matter how it’s been you know you can seek resuscitation in the Lord. The only redeeming thing about failure is knowing that resuscitation is not far away when I invite the Lord into my mess. One thing I have learned throughout the years is that I will worship Jesus in the calm and I will worship Him in the storm. I will worship Him on the days I feel successful and I will worship Him on the days I feel failure. The key is worshipping Him no matter how I feel. (even with green eggs and ham- just a little humor because laughter is all around good medicine)

Sometimes I don’t even know how to go to the cross…all I can I do is hang my head and fall on God’s great mercy. In those moments He tenderly picks me up and reminds me of who I am…and how loved I am… I will worship no matter what my emotions say because He is always worthy of my worship regardless of the state I am in.

Psalms 108:  I am determined, O God!
I will sing and praise you with my whole heart….

Good Evening Ladies…

PS. no matter the state you find yourself in, worship the Lord, and He will bring revival, recovery, restoration… no failure is able to hinder the Lord’s love for you!

When I go out in public and I have to deal with large crowds or stupid people, I begin to ask the Lord to give me a love for humanity (just keeping it real). Today I had to go buy school supplies for my daughters, off we go down that rabbit hole and boy did we fall; four stores later and I landed back at home. Yes, today was a Monday for sure! Drop the dog off for surgery, grocery shopping, a quick workout (sanity people sanity), haircut, and the children’s errands that lasted three hours. Whew it was enough to do me in for a good week, IT WAS A MONDAY…

Seriously though I was standing in a crowd everywhere (I won’t even get into how long the line was at the uniform store) and intellectually I know God expects me to behave well but emotionally I am Elaine (from Seinfeld) in the episode when she got stuck on the subway car… yeah… that’s me the imperfect Christian.

I know if I want the world around me to be a better place change has to begin with me, change equals transformation (so I painstakingly am learning to operate in grace, I’d quote another movie scene to reference my inner self but I will spare you). I hear this voice inside me say “if we want to change the world around us, we first must change what is going on inside us.” And to be honest, I know as a Pastor I need to walk the talk. I can’t stand pastors that are above their own sermons.  Atmospheric change- when we step in the room the atmosphere should change for the better; that can apply to both Christians and non-Christians. But as a believer I feel we are empowered to do that by walking in grace. It’s hard to have grace when all you want to do is exchange the shirt in the package because the store screwed up your order and you are in a line for literally 20 minutes! I tell you it’s hard to walk in the power to change the atmosphere when all you want to do is punch people in the face and yet we are still called to do it… insert grumbling…

Transformation begins with our expectation. For me it’s about going with the expectation that the Lord has a plan (even if He is testing my grace skills in a checkout line for 20 minutes, or crowds at every store I walk into, His methods are not always orthodox, I fully believe God has a sense of humor). Transformation comes through our expectation of God to move on our behalf.

We change things through faith, grace, and love. (Again, these are tough issues for me, not so much the faith part but the grace and love because let’s face it people are tough creations to cohabitate with.) God is not the God of violence but of deep sympathy and empathy and imparts those qualities to us.

If you want change, you have to be the change- even in the grocery store line… Good Nite Ladies!

As I was driving to church this morning worshipping in my own little world; I became acutely aware that I really need Jesus to soften me, quite often actually. I don’t know about you but I have some pretty rough edges and I need a good sanding of the corners. The truth of the matter is I need a little softening in my life because I can be a bit harsh walking outside of grace. I don’t believe in “selling” Jesus, I don’t believe God needs me to “sell” anything for Him. I can only tell you what He has done for me in my life. In fact, I don’t believe in religion but relationship with the Lord, truth is I couldn’t sell anything to save my life… Because my brain is very much the dog on UP – you know the one “squirrel.” These paragraphs are just my random thoughts… My friend Sarah once told me her husband classified her as a “distracted driver” and I thought what in the world? I use the term frequently to describe my thought process now, I am a distracted “thinker.”

My late night read 2 Samuel 7 God says that He has been content to dwell and travel in a tent for many a year. This speaks volumes about the type of character God actually embodies. He is not a religious, too persnickety, type of God. How could He be traveling around in a tent for centuries? I don’t know about you but I always find comfort in these nuggets of insight. Why? Because there is a lot of incorrect stuff floating around out there that depicts God as something He is not. People mistake His holiness for snobbery but God is anything but a snob. He is trench worker, in the gutters with people trying to rescue them, there is no time for snobbery. Unfortunately, this perception of God keeps a lot of people away from Him and out of church.

But think about it for a minute here is the creator of the universe and He is content to dwell and travel in a tent and not for just one night but for centuries, incredible! I don’t know about you but that is the God I want to serve and be part of! Food for thought. Nite…