I'd like EXTRA Tomatoes and EXTRA Cucumbers, Please.

"Looking up through her lashes she settled her gaze upon a horizon promising hills and mountains and valleys silhouetted by a creatively splashed, evening sky.  Opening wide her arms she cried, "Ah!  My friends!" and continued forward, skipping securely on the heights." 

What does the Lord have for me?

Man, I've been asking this question for years, and the answer usually comes with the seasons.  AND ... its always changing.  It seems like God has a LOT for me.

Its been a very difficult season, certainly.  Its funny to me because people who see, hug me in a massive, enveloping embrace and look at me with shining eyes and whisper, "God is doing a deep work in your life, girl.  Oh He is...." and then, with a burst of delightful, joyous chuckling, I'm hugged again.

Its wonderful!  Except for one thing:  I don't feel it or see it at all.  Its nice that everyone ELSE can, but as for me?  My life is just one big compression of pressure and stress.
A few months ago I was fighting the Lord about why I was feeling this way, but TODAY... I'm like very flexible clay.  I just... whatever.
Whatever He wants - whats the point in fighting back?  Its better just to give in, and embrace the change.

Embrace the journey.

...Calculated Chaos in the Midst of ... Peace?

My life has taken a few undetected turns since I last wrote...
But strangely enough, I'm not too alarmed.  There's so much going on with my family ... dare I share that I believe God may be restoring us?

My brother and my sister (my sister being gone and not around for a year and a half, my brother being gone for about 5ish/6ish months) are finding themselves back at home more and more often, and our family is receiving them with loving arms.  Last Friday, along a brave young man's request to pursue me, my family... my Family was all together for the first time in a year and a half.  My grandparents included... EVERYONE around the table.  ... Something happened in my heart that night.  It felt like home for the first time in a LONG time.

Blessed are the poor is spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of God.

I marvel at how the Lord uses the most distinct, broken situations and, within His calculated life-equations, we are very particularly drawn to Him in our desperate state of dire need of Him.

Such is the place I find myself this week.

Slammed.


I feel slammed. Slammed like a blow to the stomach. I feel like I got the wind knocked out of me, and I can honestly say that many members of my family feel the same way.

Does this ever end?


YES.

One day.


Not today.


Today - the Light and the Love of men came and let Himself shine is some areas that none of us even knew existed. It has revealed rebellion, and MUCH devastation.

Interesting, how we never quite realize what we're asking of Him when we ask for Him to reveal His glory in our lives, isn't it?

I've been praying for a while now, that the Lord would help our family.

He IS.

But its not only humbling, its heart-breaking.

I don't think I've ever quite experienced this 'outside' love that I'm beginning to have for my family.

I don't view them the way I used to anymore.
When I look at them, I look at them like my brothers and sisters in the Lord - mother and father included. Of course there's a certain respect you must have... but I will say, there is no one who has been through as much with each other as a family.

There's the most opportunity for betrayal and wounding, but there is also the same amount of opportunity for loving, grace and mercy and build up amongst believers.

I see this potential both ways in my family.
I also see that God's heart breaks for them as well.

It breaks for me.

It breaks for you.

Why?

Because He is full of compassion.

Yet, He is full of judgment. That allows us to make our decisions and then face the consequences of them.

We? We also, then, need to be full of compassion. Judging what is of God and what is not.

Combining grace with truth, dealing with all things through wisdom and discernment.

Am I the master of this?
Absolutely not.
But it starts with awareness and also, understanding.

I don't have any conclusions to this thought process. And to be honest? I know its okay. I guess I'm dealing with a maraud of emotions, and I dare say I find myself struggling with situations that I cannot help except trust that God has a plan.

I will leave you with something that has entirely encouraged me all week.

Faith - faith is built and grown based off of a knowledge of who God is. The more you know God, the more you trust Him, the greater your faith is.

So then, God's whole plan of faith has everything to do with the idea that you would know Him. And He desires that we would know Him.

Blows me away, really. So all this time, I get lost in the equation itself that I forget that the main reason I'm doing it at all is that I'm supposed to get something out of it.

I get lost in figuring out how to live my life in a way that is righteous that I forget that - the ONLY thing He wants from me is to KNOW Him. To LOVE Him and that, DUH, EVERYTHING will line up as I pursue that One Thing.

So Paul - is better understood when He says that He takes great joy in trials and tribulations - because He KNOWS God and trusts Him in everything, even the unpleasant surprises and happenings.

THIS situation with my family? Absolutely no exception, whatsoever.


The End.