When the break up breaks your heart

Sweet Friend,  Your heart is breaking from the breaking of a tender relationship in which you had hope and wonder that perhaps you had found the one.   Perhaps you had become connected to the man you had waited for and longed for and wondered about on your knees before a holy God.   You opened your heart up to him and wanted him to meet desires in you and needs that are right and holy.  It is a longing to be known and loved and secure in relationship that God has placed in your heart.  Don't grieve your longing for a husband.  Lay it at the feet of the one who loves you so much that when you were still his enemy he went to a cross for you.

I remember those feelings of my own heart ache and anxiety of when was God going to bring me a husband.  When I was helping to lead a youth group in a local church while I was a college student I used to joke with my students that I was not going to be a youth minister because then I was sure I wouldn't get married until I was 32.   (I married Jeff when I was 32, of course)

I went traipsing around the world, much like you have done, and poured my life out for the lives of teens living in third culture places.  It was amazing and wonderful, and many times, lonely.  Even in the midst of thriving ministry I spent many nights in my bed wrestling with God about my future. I longed for a husband. At one point I thought that I had met him, entered into friendship with him, and proceeded to have him break my heart over and over with an on again, off again pursuit of me.  I finally had to tell this Mr. Wrong who I thought was so right that I couldn't even be his friend on any level.

In the midst of the emotional roller coaster of this man I heard another lover calling me with greater zeal and faithfulness.  I was challenged to read 6 chapters of scripture a day.  I entered into God's word and found that eventhough my heart hurt from rejection, my soul and my spirit were being watered and thriving.  My heart would heal too and before much time passed, and many tears were spilled, God began to more completely take the place in my heart that I was so willing to give away.  My desire for marriage did not leave, it just wasn't controlling me.

Several years later, back in America, I found myself struggling again about when I would be married. I was experiencing stress at the church I was serving and found that the more stress and uncertainty I experienced in ministry the more I just wanted to be married.  I was trying to read God's word one morning and I may as well have been staring at the wall for all I soaked in.  I felt the urge to run.  I put on my running shoes and hit the road on a cold February morning and very clearly heard God assure me that I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength, that this truth is indeed the key to contentment.  I realized my desire for marriage was based in a fear that I was going to fail as a youth minister and I needed a man to rescue me.  Jesus reassured me that in Him I had what I needed and I found a deep contentment.

The next month,  Jeff Webb began to write me poems and the rest is history.

I love you friend.

Father, speak deeply to my friend's heart. Pour your comfort over her and give her your Word to provide a solid place on which to stand.  Father, she needs you.  She needs to know that you hear the cries of her hurting heart and she needs to believe you.  She needs to believe that you are good and everything you do in her life is informed by your goodness and your tenderness and strength toward her.  Heal broken places.  Lead her on paths of truth and righteousness. Give her hope in you today. 

A letter to the Broken Hearted

How many of us memorized Jeremiah 29:11 as youth?  I did!   I think I had it written on my softball glove.  I could read it out in the field and make myself think that God had it in mind to make me a great athlete. I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord (YES), plans to prosper you (YES, catch that fly ball, make that home run), plans for a hope and a future (European Championships here we come!).  It wasn't until I went to College and I experienced my own little exile that I began to grasp the context of the events and the people who inspired that promise.  

For me it happened in my Senior year when I spent my last semester living with my Dad because his house was close to the homeless shelter where I would serve my practicum.  I was living far from my college friends in a place I had never lived and in a situation that was tumultuous. I was lonely and weary.  In suffering God showed me the context of my favourite verse.  

Jeremiah 29 is a letter written to broken hearted people who were forced into exile. It is not a pep talk letter to a happy folk who just need a cheerleader on the side lines telling them that God loves them and keep on keeping on. It is a letter written to people who were at once the kings, princes, craftsmen, and prophets of Judah. They were God's chosen people and among that people they were the cream of the crop. They were the ones with the influence, the prestige, the money.  They had everything they could want, once, until they became captives in a strange land to people who served a pagan God.  They wanted to go home.  They couldn't.  Imagine the heartache of being sent into exile, the brutality of being taken from your home, the only place you ever knew, to make the long desert walk to a foreign land. The humility, the desperation, the brokenness.

A modern day exile is found in the leper colony.  These women have leprosy.  I visited their home in India. It was the most hopeful place I experienced in my trip.  They were fully alive because they had hope in Jesus.  Their leprosy did not take away their lives, for many of them their leprosy led them to find real life in Christ. 

Day after day the false prophets of Judah would tell them that the captivity would only be a couple of years. It would all be over soon. God would restore them, and would defeat Babylon.  But day after day they sat there, broken, staring at walls, depressed.

I can relate to staring at walls. I can relate to being so broken and hurting that all I can muster is the strength to stare. The strength to turn on the television to think about any thing else than what has broken my heart. I can feel traces of the pain of utter disappointment in God.  I felt the pain of exile as a college student. I have felt it many times since. 

Jeremiah sends his letter to the exiles and his words to them sound nothing at all like pity.  He tells them:

⁴ “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: ⁵ Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. ⁶ Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. ⁷ But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

These are the children of the lepers in the leper colony.  We stood on a rooftop and sang songs of praise.  There was joy because even in hard times, God is good.

God has sent you into exile.  Live there!  Be all there.  Live your life for the glory of God in the midst of your pain and longing.  Don't give up on life.  Be fully alive.  Your circumstances may be hard but your God is good.  Live.  Invest.  Get up and contribute.  Let the God of the Universe show His glory through all your broken places.  Trust that God is present with you in your exile and know that He has come that you might have life, and have it abundantly.

I bought several table clothes and a purse made by the leper colony residence.  

 From the exiles in Babylon to the lepers in the colony I visited in India we see the same calling to live abundantly.  God is enough. Life is in Him.  Live fully.  Be grateful for life.

The Journey

Last week I was getting Zack ready to go to Sci Quest for the second time in  3 days.  My boy loves science. When he first walked into sci quest he stood in front of the giant marble run for 15 minutes.  He was mesmerized.  He was figuring it all out.  How the blue balls go through the twists and turns, the red balls move through their maze.  "Look Mom, see how that one jumps, how does it go through the twist part?'

So many questions for an almost 5 year old boy who was cut from the same cloth as his engineering daddy.  So the morning I was helping him get dressed to return to his childhood utopia I told him why we do it... Why we buy him Lego's and marble run and take him to sci quest and the Space and Rocket center... Why we let him build squirrel traps with Daddy's left over wood and we spend time nurturing his creativity. 

It is because God has told us in his word to train up our child in the way he should go.  My Pastor David Thew once taught me and Jeff that passage meant to train him according to his bent. So I knelt in front of my son and lovingly affirmed to him Mommy and Daddy's conviction to nurture his strengths.  Smiles and hugs and off we went.

 

While I was at Sci Quest I got a message that touched a nerve. I learned a friend was given a gift and I wondered why some folks end up with so many blessings and I seem to be missing out in that specific area.  The area being a bigger family.  Why does God add children to some families and not to mine? I have been totally content with our small family so I didn't understand why I was having a problem.  I was talking to God about it in my head and I had this great sense that God was saying to me "Judy, I am raising you up according to your bent".  Wow! God is raising me up in a way that is intentional to who I am, even at 41!  

We are so often tempted to look at the blessings of others and wonder if God has forgotten us.  We wonder why does God give that person the great job and I'm unemployed.  Why more children to the family that already has 4 and I just have 1.  Why do they get to go to Disney again... Blah blah blah... You know what your struggle is and the answer is always the same.  God is raising you up according to your bent.  Don't compare yourself to others.  God knows what He is doing.  He has you in mind. He knows what is best for you.  Just as we nurture Zack according to his passions and calling so God does with us... Only much better.

Friend,  join me today in saying to God "I trust you with my life and heart.  I trust that you are raising me up according to the way that I should go.  That path looks different from my brother, but it is good and it is uniquely mine and I gladly walk it with you.  Give me the grace to walk it with you!"

It is a Matter of Life and Death

I have walked long hot walks on walls built to keep others out, to keep those inside safe and secured. I've been amazed at man's ability to place brick upon brick and mortar just right to keep standing after centuries of rain and wind, after sword and fire, after men with ladders and angry hearts have tried to usurp her defences.  I grew up in a city where a castle overlooked the valley and in ominous beauty stood year after year, with high walls and blown out towers, proof that it once was glorious, proof that it did not always stand the test of time or the test of the cannons. 

I think of Israel and Nehemiah surveying the broken walls of his beloved city, I think of him weeping when he hears the news that her defences are down, the people are not safe.  What does it mean to build a wall around your home? What does it mean to be the person who stands in the gap of a broken down wall and holds a spear in one hand and the trowel in the other?  What does it look like to say to God that you are willing to be the warrior and to rebuild broken walls?  What are the stakes if we leave the walls unfinished?  What if that little Dutch boy had just walked on past the leak in the damn?  Would the water have come rushing into an unsuspecting weary town? 

Friends, you who have borne children and laid them crying on the bed to change their dirty diaper, only to cuddle them clean and happy in warm waiting arms.  You dear friend, who have stood before God and all of heaven with the man of your dreams and proclaimed covenant of marriage and unending love and devotion.  You who wept in prayer making promises to God that you would raise children to know him, to love him...  You are the warrior your children need to stand watch over your family. You are the one called to bend the knee and bow the head and pray to the God of the heavens to build those walls of protection around your home, around your children...

Oh God, lead them not into temptation, but deliver them from evil.  Oh God, let your will be done in their lives as it is done in heaven.  Lord, protect them from the flaming arrows of the evil because

Ephesians 6:12 says

New International Version (NIV)

¹² For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Parents, Father, Mother, remember when you lock your doors at night and you makes sure windows are secured and stove is turned off, remember that your fight is in the heavenly realm.  Remember that the real battle is for hearts and souls. The real battle is for your marriage, it is for your children.  We protect them in the physical, protect them in the spiritual.   Build the walls of protection around your children, it is a matter of life and death.

When Moses stood on the plains of Moab with the promised land close and hearts were eager,  he preached...  He gave a sermon like no other of how they were to make it, how they were to stand against all of the struggle and fight they were about to encounter.  How do you take a promised land already inhabited? How to do you claim an inheritance that seems so out of reach.  The answer is the very core of all of life.


 Deuteronomy 6:4
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.^{[a] 5} Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Remember God.  All. The. Time.  When you walk, talk about him, when you wake up let Him fill your thoughts.  Let God talk be the commonplace.  If you want your children to come into their spiritual inheritance you need to let the gospel be your everyday conversation.  If you want to build walls around their hearts of spiritual protection let the wall itself be the gospel.  Let the Gospel be the filter of everything they hear and so in the filtering miracle of gospel truth they will be able to spot a lie a mile away, and they won't believe it, they won't fall into that temptation because they know it came from the pit of hell.  Speak the Gospel to your children.  Speak the Gospel to yourself, and to your spouse.  Let your words be seasoned with grace.  Fill your home with truth so that a lie or temptation from the enemy only looks hideous and unattractive.  

Friends, build the walls of worship, of gospel truth.  It is a matter of life and death.  Your children will face temptation, give them the foundation to stand against it.  Survey the walls and ask God to show you places where they may be a crack in the brick and ask for grace to seal it.  An example:  I became a food network junky filling the evening with the sound of Guy Fieri and his eating out exploits.  Was it evil?  Not really, but it became a crack in our wall.  While Guy was filling the sound void we were not listening to God or seeking him as a family.  I turned off the tv almost entirely last August.  Our nights now consist of the beautiful sweet picture of Zack holding his children's Bible in his lap while Jeff reads the stories to him out of his Big Boy Bible.  How much better is that?  We were missing a chance to build a wall of gospel protection around Zack. 

So what about you?  I beg you, ask God where you need to rebuild broken walls.  Ask Him where you can bring your family to spend time around His word.  He will show you.

We just kept walking on those amazing walls.

Enter In

I heard Jesus say to me "Enter In".  It was a simple little phrase that has captured my mind for the past few days. What happens in the entering in? What is it to enter in? I considered how a child is conceived;  sperm enters into the egg and creates a new life.  Miracle upon miracle, that a uniquely beautiful human being would be created from this act of entering in.  So it is with our lives in Christ. When we enter into Jesus we bear the fruit of life in Christ. 

To the broken and the lonely,
hear Jesus say "Enter In"

To the one who has diligently toiled only to find hands empty and hearth gone cold,
Hear Jesus say "Enter In"

To the one who has wept till eyes and nose were red and soggy,
Hear Jesus say "Enter In"

It is in the entering in that the miracle of Joy is fulfilled. It is in the entering that the aroma of Christ fills the senses, delights the heart, refreshes the soul. 

Enter in...

Come to Jesus all of you who are weary and heavy laden.
Come find Rest!

There is a rest for your striving soul in the entering in...
There is peace in the presence of God.

Go for a walk in the coolness of the day and with arms outstretched invite Jesus to Enter In!  Give God a moment of your undivided attention.  Even if it means that the vacuum is playing your background music offer up a song of praise to God.  Say to Him that you welcome Him. Say to Him that you need Him, long for Him, love Him.  It is in the entering in today that you will find life abundantly.

Today, remember that this life in Jesus is fashioned in intimacy with the very King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  We are His bride, daughter, sister, brother.. these are words to describe deep connection... and so it is with Christ.

When the Church is full, but hearts are empty

I read an article about a Mega Church that downsized because half of their membership were just sitting in the pew and not really contributing to the body.  After thinking it was a real church for weeks I just found out that it is all a joke.  Ha, but why did it stay in my mind all this time? Maybe because I think the church does need a wake up call.   The article talked about how the leadership went through the list of folks and out of the 8,000 folks who came on Sundays only about half of those gave any of their time, talents, or finances to the ministry of the church.  They enjoyed the free childcare, the gathering of nice people, the great music, and charismatic speaker but they never actually engaged their own lives and hearts.  The folks at Lark news were on to something.

As a Mom I think of it in these terms:  If Zack were to sit before a healthy meal that I spent time cooking for him and he rejected all the food that was good for his body, but ate a large piece of cake, I would not be happy. I wouldn't feel proud of my son for finishing his piece of cake. I wouldn't be posting on pinterest how to get your son to eat cake and feeling like I was the best Mom ever because chocolate is consumed with such zeal in my house.  So it goes with the church, church leaders get so proud of the size of their worship center and the bottoms that fill the pews that they have no idea that their people are getting fat on cake and are not growing at all in their intimacy with Jesus.

I am honestly heart broken over the lack of real depth in the church.  Jesus is calling us to true intimacy with Himself.  He calls us his friends, His BRIDE!  He says "Come to me!"  He beckons us to "Life abundantly", and yet so many of the people he dearly loves have no idea that there is even such a thing as intimacy with Jesus. They think that being a Christian means to ascribe to a set of values, attend church, and be nice. 

Jesus wants more for his bride. He wants His bride to enjoy Him and to know Him. He wants his bride to hear his voice and have joy in His presence. He wants His bride to walk intimately with Him on every day of the week.  What husband would be content to see his bride for 2 hours on a Sunday morning?  A husband marries his bride because he wants to live with her, to know her, to walk with her when life is hard and when life is in full swing of celebration.  Dear sister, see Jesus as your pursuing groom today. See Him as the one who was standing at the end of the aisle with his face radiant with joy because you were decked in white and joining with him in covenant.  I am not being sacrilegious here!  These are God's metaphors.  God really loves you.  He wants your heart.  He wants your hands and your feet.  He knows that as you walk with him, you abide in Him, your life will bear much fruit.  Apart from him, you are nothing but a pew sitter using up free childcare.  In Him... abiding in Him... your life will bear the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, goodness.... oh friend, don't settle for life in the pew.  Walk down the aisle to a life of true intimacy with Jesus.

Here is the article that got my mind going even if it is just a silly made up story:  http://www.larknews.com/archives/574

Because Our Friendships Should Go Deep

How many church events do we have to go to realize that in too many ways those gatherings are no different than a Super Bowl party? The conversation, the activity, the way people relate to each other is not a reflection of Christian community, it is just folks hanging out.  Sure, we all know we are Christians and we love Jesus, but we rarely talk about the impact the Gospel has had on our lives.  We talk about dirty diapers (not my preferred topic). We talk about movies and football teams.  We talk about vacations.   This is what we do.  We spend the precious time we have together talking about stuff.  We don't go deep, but why?

Jenn and Linda encourage me in the Gospel almost daily as we raise our children together. Paula told me I need to get off my bottom and write a blog.  God has used them to bring joy, peace, and blessing to me. I love this picture of our baby bumps (Linda's was so big he popped out).

I think there are lots of reasons

• Gospel conversations are tough because they feel vulnerable. It is just easier to keep people on the outskirts. If I deeply engage it will reveal my heart, the beautiful Christ redeemed heart and the ugly sin struggling heart. I have both and they live in tension, I only want folks to see the pretty side. 
• We don't want to be offensive.  I grew up with the adage to not talk about religion or politics.   Jesus is always my favourite subject of conversation but how do you talk about him without bringing offence?  
• We don't want to be that person who is a Bible thumper (do they still use that term? Yes, I am 40)
• We don't spend time in God's word and so it is not really on the tip of our minds in the first place.

 I believe that Jesus wants us to have friendships within the body of Christ that reflect the depth of intimacy that He has with the Father.  It is time to give it a try, to let go of our fear of being known and being challenged out of complacency and to trust God with our hearts. It is time to trust the church.

It is time to jump into Gospel Friendships

This summer I spent quite a bit of time with Zack at the pool. Everyday on the way he would tell me he doesn't want to roll over, and I would make him.  He is not swimming if he can't breathe and the only way to breathe is to take your face out of the water. He is 4, the best way to get his face out of the water is to roll on his back. I would make him practice his technique for 10 minutes every day.  After a while I noticed that he was doing it on his own. He would be in his own little world of swimming and I would see him gracefully roll over to breathe. He was scared to do it, but with practice and consistency he learned that it was a great way to breathe.


I think we should look at this business of gospel friendships in the same way Zack got accustomed to doing something he feared. We took 10 minutes and set it apart and said it was for practice.  We need to take time with our sisters in Christ and set  it apart and call it holy.  Summit Crossing leadership is beginning a new strategy within our Missional Communities that they are calling DNA groups. It is a small (2-4) group of folks who will meet in a time that is holy, to have gospel conversation.  It will be a safe place in which to practice sharing the deeper, tougher issues, and to celebrate the great blessing of the Gospel.  I need a DNA group because in setting the small community apart as Holy Unto the Lord, I have the freedom to share and to listen in a Holy Spirit led conversation.   Perhaps with practice, we will find that even in friendships outside of DNA group we are having gospel conversations.  It reminds me of Deuteronomy 6:

⁵ Love God, your God, with your whole heart: love him with all that’s in you, love him with all you’ve got!

^6-9 Write these commandments that I’ve given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder; inscribe them on the doorposts of your homes and on your city gates.

We need to rehearse the Gospel. We need to remind each other of the work God is doing.  I know that the more I share what God is doing the more the truth of His work sinks deeper into my heart. I begin to believe that He is good when I recite His goodness.  I begin to remember His faithfulness when I share with others what He is doing. I also find greater freedom from struggles when I let them out of the dark places and bring them into the light. It is a win, win.  In sharing both struggle and joy I find myself in a deeper intimacy with God and His bride.  Friends, let's take this challenge and take time with a small group of trusted friends. Make that time holy.  Set it apart for God.