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Blessed is the (Wo)Man Who Trusts in the Lord

After I hit publish on my last post, All. Is. Grace. I worked ahead to schedule the next two posts.  I like to tell myself that working ahead will help me avoid feeling the pressure of a deadline, albeit self-imposed, but the truth is once I schedule a post I still revisit it and edit it repeatedly before it “automatically” posts.  I need to ask the Lord to show me if this is actually helpful or if I am once again allowing my flesh to take center stage.

Regardless, in the midst of processing the last post (yes, once I hit publish, it’s not over for me, I continue to meditate, pray, think) and scheduling the next two posts, the Lord divinely interrupted my plan and gave me the following verses, Jeremiah 17:5-8 (NASB):

5 Thus says the Lord,
“Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind
And makes flesh his strength,
And whose heart turns away from the Lord.
6 “For he will be like a bush in the desert
And will not see when prosperity comes,
But will live in stony wastes in the wilderness,
A land of salt without inhabitant.
7 “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord
And whose trust is the Lord.
8 “For he will be like a tree planted by the water,
That extends its roots by a stream
And will not fear when the heat comes;
But its leaves will be green,
And it will not be anxious in a year of drought
Nor cease to yield fruit. (Emphasis mine)

My heart was so encouraged by these words, and I pray your’s will be too.  The truth is as I have lived these long years out of my flesh instead of by the Spirit of God, my heart did turn away from Him.  I have been that short, stubby bush in the desert.  I’ve been dry and brown, never growing tall and strong.  I didn’t recognize prosperity when it came, in fact I ran from it.  I’ve camped in the stony, waste places of the wilderness, in a land of salt, dehydrated and utterly alone.

BUT God has pursued me and NEVER relented in His unfailing love for me.  In this season He has given me eyes to see and ears to hear.  He has chosen to reveal the truth of my mere existence, and lavished me with His grace.  He has unveiled the truth that through the blood of Jesus Christ I am loved, I am accepted, I am valuable to Him, and I am secure in Him simply because He says so.  You can hear this your whole life (and I have), but until it is shed abroad in your heart, you receive it, and you believe it, they are just words.

As I turn this corner led by the Spirit, away from my flesh, away from the lies, and towards Him, He has given me the promise above (v.7 – 8) that as I trust Him (not my flesh, not my strength) I am blessed.  I will no longer be that lonely, short, dry, stubby bush.  I will be a well watered tree, taller reaching heavenward.  I will have roots that keep me firmly planted and connected to the streams of life.  The heat is going to come, but the fear that has plagued me, tormented me, will no longer have power over me.  My leaves will be green, healthy and beautiful.  There will be no more of the anxiety that has consumed my life for fear that there wasn’t enough or worse that I wasn’t enough.  I will bear eternal fruit, that gives life and sustenance, simply by trusting in Him.  Resting in His love. Abiding in Him.

Thank You Father for sending Your Son so that we may all have life and have it more abundantly, a life way beyond necessity, an extravagant life, in Christ Jesus.

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All. Is. Grace.

For many months now as the Lord has been unraveling me before Him, I have had many painful and beautiful moments. Many times in a particularly tough revelation of just how broken I am God gives me a glimpse of His purpose in all of this and where He is headed with me. He has a plan and I trust Him. I may not like it, but I trust Him. It may hurt, but I want His best for me.

Each and every day, moment by moment I choose to depend on Him and trust Him for the results He desires. There is no formula. I have to resist the urge to manufacture a plan and instead just rest (love that word) in Him knowing that He has got this. Knowing that this is a process, likely until I go Home and am forever in His presence.

But…the hardest thing is recognizing some of the fruit, fruit of death from all those years of living out of my flesh.

“For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.” Romans 7:5

While I busily built my little kingdom of the flesh, I was raising three beautiful, unsuspecting daughters. Three precious gifts from God. Entrusted into my care, into my stewardship. They have been front row, center for all of my shenanigans – performing for acceptance; building relationships based on other people needing me; pretending I didn’t have any needs; trying hard to be perfect; following all the rules, and then making up more rules for good measure; being at church every time the doors were open trying to make myself good enough for God; sometimes just over packing my schedule so that I was too busy to sit and listen to the Father because I was afraid of what He would say to me.

All along the way I was planting seeds in their little hearts that started to take root. I watered them with my expectations. I fertilized them with the lie that I had to “do” in order to “be”. I modeled how to do it all exactly right and if I didn’t do it right it wasn’t good enough for God. I desperately want my repentance to take me back to their beginning. To rewind the film of their lives and edit out me and splice in God and His grace. I want to undo all of my doings that will impact generations to come.

As all of this is swirling around in my heart and I grieve over the death fruit not only in my life but in my relationships, I feel overwhelmed. I feel heavy. I feel responsible. Responsible is a familiar place for me. A crippling place. It puts me back at the center of things.

Lying awake in the middle of the night thinking hard on this ugliness, I hear it whispered in my spirit, “All is grace.” Over and over again, “All is grace.” I am learning to trust God to heal me, but what about my girls? Aren’t I responsible for cleaning up the mother messes I made? And I hear, “All is grace.”

The thing about repentance is that once I do it, once I confess and turn from sin, the responsibility shifts to its rightful Owner. Now in His infinite grace and endless love for my girls, I get the opportunity to see Him “work all things together for their good.” To watch them find their way in Him and walk out their own journey to healing and wholeness. The same way all of my mess drove me to Him, all of their mess (including the fruit of my flesh) will lead them to Him. As they journey with Him, as He untangles the lies for them they will fully unravel grace for themselves. All. Is. Grace.

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A Little Jeremiah for Your Friday

As our class continues its study of the book of Jeremiah I keep reminding myself of the historical context of the book. By the way, our class did just discuss chapters 5 and 6, but yes I am STILL fascinated with chapter 1. Back to the first couple of verses of that chapter:

“The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, 2 to whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign.”

So who is this King Josiah? How do we find out? Why is it important for us to know? If you have a Bible with cross-references it should point you to 2 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 34 (if not, I just did). If you read both of these chapters you find that Josiah was the great-grandson of King Hezekiah (good king) and grandson of King Manasseh (really BAD king). Manasseh led Judah, the Southern Kingdom, into great wickedness, idolatry to be specific. Josiah became king when he was only eight years old and he was a righteous king. He purged the land of all of the altars that had been set up to worship idols. He also rid the land of the religious leaders who led the people in idolatry.

When he was 26 years old, after he had purged the land, he decided to have repairs made to the house of the Lord. Apparently it had fallen into disrepair while God’s people were busy worshiping false gods (it was hard to multitask even back then). One of the things I find so profound is what happened while the repairs to the HOUSE OF GOD (emphasis mine) were being made, 2 Chronicles 34:14-15a:

14 “When they were bringing out the money which had been brought into the house of the Lord, Hilkiah the priest found the book of the law of the Lord given by Moses. 15 Hilkiah responded and said to Shaphan the scribe, ‘I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord.’”

My mind goes several different directions everytime I read this, like: 1) If they found it, was it lost? Apparently so – the Word of God was LOST!; 2) Isn’t the house of the Lord where the book of the Law should be? So how was it lost?; and 3) They seem surprised! The priest of the Lord seems surprised to find the book of the law. Weren’t they in charge of it???

While I can look at those verses and easily get critical of people in a different place and a different time, I have to ask myself, what about the people of God in this place and in this time? Where is the word of God? Are we hanging onto it loosely, about to let go, about to lose its truth? Or are we gripping it like it’s our only hope? Can the word of God be found in the house of God today? Is it even important to us? Do we want to hear what God has to say to us?

Father, may Your Word be of the utmost importance to Your people. We are living in times not unlike Jeremiah – idolatry and rebellion are rampant. I pray that we would cling to truth, Your Word, and let it transform our lives. Give us ears to hear and hearts to understand and receive what You desire to speak to us. Help us to be a people after Your own heart who will do all Your will (Acts 13:22).

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Very, Very Tired

There are a few phrases in my life that I repeat often, probably more than a few. One of them is, “I am tired.” Another one is, “I’d rather poke sticks in my eyes, than ______ (fill in the blank). And yet another one, “Quit sittin’ there like a bump on a pickle, get up and _______ (fill in the blank)!” My girls, who love to embarrass their Mama, tell me that at my funeral they are going to stand in front of the whole world and just run down the list of their favorite Mama sayings. These are at the top of the list.

The one however that has recently come to be a thorn in my side is, “I am tired.” Unfortunately I hear myself say this ALL. THE. TIME. I realize that I’ve been saying it for years. I’ve been saying it since I was a teenager and I remember feeling it as a child. Why have I been so tired most of my life??? Before I answer that question I have to share with you that as the Lord has had me on this grace journey He’s used several instrumental books and teachings. One of them has been Emily Freeman’s book, “Grace for the Good Girl.” Honestly, I can’t say enough about this book. She so articulated most of my life it’s like she’s lived right with me since birth. I am so grateful to God that He gave her the words to reveal truth to me.

Back to me and being tired. As part of discovering who I am because of the grace of God, many things have become apparent. One of the overwhelming themes of my life has been a hyper-developed sense of responsibility. Not only for myself, but for everyone and everything in my life. I have allowed myself to be deceived into believing that if I didn’t do it (whatever it is, just fill in the blank) no one would and it wouldn’t get done. Or worse, someone else might try to do it and not get it right! This way of thinking has dominated every single area of life, from being a daughter, a wife, a mother, a friend, a church member, a citizen of this country…you get the idea.

When I make myself responsible for everything from presidential elections (“if I had just volunteered at the campaign headquarters, he would have won”) to the salvation of my entire city (“if only I prayed more we would have revival in Charlotte”) and even someone else’s life (“if I had just been home to answer the phone, she might not have died”), it’s EXHAUSTING. It’s draining. If I get down to the blunt truth of it, IT IS IDOLATRY and it is wrong. It makes everything about me. Now there’s a sobering thought. God, the One I’ve been working so hard to impress, has some pretty hard things to say about idolatry. In short, He hates it.

When the universe spins around what I do or don’t do I put myself in the position of God. Only God can be God. Only He created the universe and only He holds it all together. Only He can be anyone’s Savior (OUCH!). My mortal flesh can’t measure up to all of that and was never intended to. Presidential elections, the salvation of my city and the lives of others are much bigger issues than I was intended to manage.

I was intended to glorify God by allowing Jesus to live through me. I was intended to trust and REST in Him. REST…that illusive four letter word. It is even peaceful to type that word, R-E-S-T. It is a concept that has escaped me most of my life. It actually makes me uncomfortable because I’ve equated rest with slothfulness. But God intended it from the beginning, didn’t He?

Genesis 2:3 – “Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.”

He knows our frail frame. He knows what we were created for and what we weren’t. He created us with limitations. He wanted us to rest in Him. To depend on Him. To come to Him for EVERYTHING. To need Him. When I put Myself in His role it keeps others from seeing Him. From resting in Him, from depending on Him. And it has made this “good girl” very, very tired.

Father, thank You for the grace to rest in You in all things at all times.

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And You Really Thought You Knew Me

One evening last summer I had dinner with my best friend of 20+ years.  I love saying I have a friendship that’s lasted that long.  I love that every time we talk on the phone or see each other we can just start a conversation without having to give a lot of context.  We just know each other and our families extremely well.  However…

Over the few months before that dinner with her that God had been so gently revealing His truth about grace to me and exposing the lies of the enemy that I had chosen to believe instead of receiving His grace, I was very guarded about what I shared…with anyone.  Normally when I have some sort of huge revelation or sense something from the Lord I talk incessantly about it to anyone who will listen.  This was different though.  The more God showed me about myself during those months, the more exposed and naked I felt and the less I shared with people.  I assure you, avoiding naked is a top priority for this girl!  So I was very reluctant to discuss it with anyone, even my closest friend.

I was also processing all of this on the down low because I was not sure what TO DO  with all this truth about myself staring me in the face.  I’m not comfortable being the one in the room who hasn’t figured it out.  I like being Solution Girl, not Needy-Broken-Doesn’t-Have-It-Together-Girl.  My needy brokenness has really overwhelmed me in a lot of ways.

Back to our dinner…so I decided that night to take some first steps and begin uncorking the bottle for my BFF on what had been going on in my life.  I had even sent her a rough draft of some things I’d been writing before dinner so she could get a peek at what had been going on inside my head.  We talked, we laughed, she listened a lot.  As we were walking to our cars we hugged and she laughed and said, “I really had no idea this had been going on with you all of these years.  I just thought you were wonderful and your stomach problems were genetic.”

 Now this is THE girl friend in my life who I would say knows me better than anyone else and loves me no matter what.  In that moment it hit me what a tremendous deception I had managed to perpetrate on her, and honestly on everyone else in my life, for over 20 years.  I had managed to completely hide my true self from her.  I got into my car totally stunned.

When you live your life trying to hide who you really are, you keep people you love the most at arms-length.  Until recently it had never occurred to me that in order to be close to someone you have to be willing to be vulnerable before them.  Exposed.  Naked.  Honest.  It never once crossed my mind that it is not only ok to have problems, but in order to have close relationships you have to share them with others (believe me, I am just as shocked as you that I have been this slow most of my life).

The same thing is true with our relationship with God.  His invitation is to come as we are.  He doesn’t want only the pretty, smart, well-put-together parts.  He wants our mess.  He wants our sin.  He wants all the ugly we want to pretend is not there.  Why?  Why does He want EVERYTHING?  It’s the same thing He’s wanted all along…He wants relationship with us.

How about you?  Do you find yourself holding back in important relationships?  How well are you willing to be known?  Does being known frighten you?  Do you make it easy for others to share their brokenness with you?

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Expectations

It took a lot for me to not post this right after my last piece on Jeremiah, but I did promise I would try to write about my overflow of Jeremiah thoughts on Fridays AFTER our Bible study class meets on Thursdays.  I am, however, actually writing this immediately after the last Jeremiah post because I can’t quite move on in my mind and I am still trying to unpack the wealth of treasure God placed in that first AMAZING chapter.

Going back to the first three verses from last week, God reveals some very important personal information about Jeremiah:  he was “the son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin.”  In that sentence God tells us that Jeremiah was a priest, which means he was a Levite, the only tribe set apart by God to serve as priests.  By telling us that Jeremiah was “of the priests of Anathoth” (a city set apart for the sons of Aaron, see Joshua 21), it is also very possible that Jeremiah was an Aaronite. Aaronites were a very specific group of priests who made all the offerings to the Lord. They also took turns serving as High Priest in the Temple. Other Levites could not serve in these ways.

What has captivated my thoughts is this, Jeremiah grew up expecting to serve in the priesthood just like his father.  He expected it and his family expected it.  If he was indeed an Aaronite He probably spent time studying and learning how to be a priest and how to appropriately offer all the sacrifices God required (just read the book of Leviticus).  His future was defined in many ways simply by the fact that he was born into a certain family.  According to God’s own law Jeremiah’s occupation was predetermined for him.

But then, when he was still a youth, “the word of the Lord came” to him and his life was changed forever.  He was set apart and called to speak for God Himself as a prophet not just to his own people, but to the nations (and to us if you will).  When we explore all 52 chapters of Jeremiah, we find that he carried out his new career plan faithfully.  Faithful – that word doesn’t seem adequate to describe a man who endured death threats, beatings, imprisonment and near starvation so that God’s wayward people would hear the truth of His love – there must be a much bigger word to describe a man like that.

The question that is rolling around in my mind is, how do I respond when God’s plan doesn’t match my expectations?  Do I faithfully walk in the way He puts before me?  Or do I sulk and take myself out of the game because I don’t like the new play God’s calling?  Am I willing to lay down my own expectations, even when they seem to be godly, to be part of what God is doing or do I make it all about me?

I don’t know about you, but in a lot of ways my life looks nothing like I expected.  Honestly it’s been a lot more difficult than anything I imagined, but would I change any of it?  Absolutely not!  It’s all brought me to this place, at this time with the people I couldn’t imagine living without.  And it’s all brought me to my knees in surrender to the One who sees it all.

Is there something God’s calling you to that doesn’t match your expectations? How will you respond?

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Invited In

Last year about this time I had the privilege of spending the weekend with five of the most amazing women I know in a beautiful cabin in the mountains of NC. We spent the weekend shopping, eating (there are some fabulous cooks in this group, you should really be jealous) and laughing, at everything! To keep the weekend interesting our hostess asked each of us to bring an activity to do together. Great idea!

One of our group, my precious friend Pam, is a wonderful artist and on Saturday afternoon she invited us to walk in her shoes and taught us how to water color.

My first reaction was, “Oh no!” I have never been successful at making things with my hands (in fact, even my handwriting is horrible) and the truth is I don’t really enjoy it. I am also not a big fan of trying new things in front of others, especially if there is ANY possibility I won’t be good at it – embarrassment is one of my worst nightmares. But I put on my big girl panties, realized it wasn’t about me, took a deep breath and started laughing at myself before anyone else could. I committed to the process and gave it a really good try.

Admittedly my finished product was no surprise to me, it was pretty bad. I was, however, shocked at how many artists there were in the group. Several of the pictures were really good, and I mean frame-it-and-hang-it-on-the-wall good. Mine is hiding out in the bottom of my sock drawer.

After it was all said and done, I loved that experience. It gave me a window into who Pam is that I had never seen before. We’ve been friends for about 18 years and in all that time I had only seen the beautiful, finished product of her work. But that Saturday afternoon I felt invited into a very special part of her life. I had the opportunity to see her create art.

It was much messier than I imagined. Sometimes it looked like way too much water was on the paper, sometimes the colors weren’t quite right, but then she would work her brush and move some of the paint around, then she would add more color. At several points she had to stop and just let what was already on the paper dry before adding anything else. She so enjoyed the process of creating and teaching that I couldn’t help but enjoy it too.

Watching her create added so much more value to the end product. She wasn’t just trying to finish a task and check it off her to do list. She fully engaged in the process and invested herself in it. She wasn’t watching the clock, she wasn’t worried about following “10 Great Steps to Successful Water Coloring” or “How to Paint the Perfect Picture.” Her goal wasn’t even necessarily to just paint a pretty picture, it was to create something that expressed her. In fact, that’s what she said to us when she pulled out her supplies, “Come on girls! We’re going to create something. It’s what we were born to do!” I have to say, I think I agree.

Lord, work through me to create a life that brings glory to You. Help me to let my guard down and invite people in. Free me from living such a highly edited life that people only know about me and not the real me. I want to be truly known. Help me to share my messy life with others, not just the finished products. Perfection is way too elusive and extremely lonely.

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The Deceitfulness of Fine

I am learning to be honest (primarily with myself) about my emotions. I’ve actually been in denial most of my adult life that I even have emotions! Somewhere in my southern, Steel Magnolias upbringing I bought into the lie that we (Bible-believing, genteel, southern women) aren’t really supposed to express our true feelings. If we did it might hurt someone’s feelings or worse make someone look bad. This may actually be a chemically induced problem by all the lipstick and Aqua Net I grew up with, but that’s a whole other issue. The result is that when I am asked how I am doing most of the time my answer is, “Fine.”

F-I-N-E…a potentially deceitful four letter word. On the surface those four letters seem quite innocuous. When used appropriately they convey the correct message. According to “Webster’s 1828 Dictionary” (available free online and in my opinion the gold standard of dictionaries), fine (adjective) is defined as follows:

1. Small; thin; slender; minute; of very small diameter; as a fine thread; fine silk; a fine hair. We say also, fine sand, fine particles.
2. Subtle; thin; tenuous; as, fine spirits evaporate; a finer medium opposed to a grosser.
3. Thin; keep; smoothly sharp; as the fine edge of a razor.
4. Made of fine threads; not coarse; as fine linen or cambric.
5. Clear; pure; free from feculence or foreign matter; as fine gold or silver; wine is not good till fine.
6. Refined.

When I limit the state of my well-being to simply “fine” then I take away the full dimension of who I am. I reduce my life to small, thin, slender and minute. I give it the appearance of being clear and pure and free from foreign matter and refined.

To be honest about how I am would be to admit that there is a LOT of “foreign matter” (I think that is a polite way of saying dirt) in my life and I am not refined. It would mean that I am not perfect and in dire need of help! In fact, I am often common or worse, vulgar and rough around the edges, even though I try cover it up with lipstick and hair color.

What’s wrong with admitting we have dirt? What’s wrong with being common, rough around the edges? Absolutely nothing! Those are the things that make us human. They give dimension to our lives. They make our lives less, “small”, less “thin”, less “tenuous.” They also demonstrate our need for Christ.

When I pretend I have it all together I am telling the world and God that I can take care of myself and I don’t really need a Savior.

To admit that I have dirt in my life, that I am not always (in fact most of the time) fine invites people to see who I really am. It opens the door to relationship. Who wants to be friends with someone who always has it together, or at least appears to (because we all know they are faking, right)? Grace says it is ok to be honest. Grace says I am loved and accepted even when I am not fine. Grace invites me to freedom from the confining prison of fine.

And the next time I ask how you are, I am expecting more than fine. Wear all the lipstick you want, but answer me truthfully.

How do you respond when people ask how you are? Is there anything that keeps you from being honest? What do you expect to hear from others when you ask how they are? How do you invite others to be real with you?

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A New Man in My Life

Our Bible study class has just begun a four month journey through the book of Jeremiah.  I love the beginning of a study.  To me it is like the beginning of a new relationship.  You spend time with the person, you get to know their personality, and at some point you start to feel like you understand them.  After doing inductive Bible studies for over four years (we use Precept Ministries materials) I know that by the time this study ends I will be so attached to Jeremiah that it will feel like moving away from my best friend.  I love the daily, systematic time in God’s Word. I would probably go so far as to say that I crave it.

Because of the time it takes to study and prepare for class each week it is very likely some of my thoughts about Jeremiah (the book and the man) will leak out here in this space.  Since our class meets on Thursdays I will try to hold back my Jeremiah overflow until Fridays, but I can’t really promise anything.

I do consider the overarching theme of this blog to be about grace.  The truth about grace, how it affects me, and how it then impacts those around me.  So my partner in crime teaching partner and I have been discussing grace in the book of Jeremiah.  If you haven’t read the book, let me summarize:

“I love you.  You’ve been disobedient.  Repent or destruction is coming.”

I don’t want to minimize the importance of studying all 52 chapters of this book (I am in fact the LAST person who would minimize the importance of Bible study), but if you could boil it down this is God’s message to His people.  So why did He take 52 chapters to say it?

Consider the opening verses of Jeremiah 1:

“The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, 2 to whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. 3 It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the exile of Jerusalem in the fifth month.”

I believe the grace of God and the reason it took 52 chapters are hidden right there in those first three verses (the one’s we usually gloss over quickly because we don’t recognize or can’t pronounce the names) and all you need are a couple of cross-references (Hint: 2 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 34-36) and probably a timeline to decode it.  If you translate the reigns of the three kings mentioned in the first three verses to dates in history what you find is that Jeremiah’s prophetic ministry lasted over 50 years.

The 52 chapters of Jeremiah were over a very LONG period of time.  It is God’s grace that He repeated His call to repentance over and over and over again, in many different ways.  His desire was that Israel return to Him, not that they would be taken captive.  There is also grace in the life of Jeremiah.  In many ways he laid down most of his life for a message that no one wanted to hear and openly rejected.

Today God’s message is the same, repent and return to me.  His desire is that none should perish.  Isn’t this essentially the call to follow Christ?  One question for us to consider is, “Am I willing to obey God and be a Jeremiah for the sake of others?”

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Living the Dream

The Bible tells us not to despise the day of humble beginnings.  I know this is going to sound a little dramatic (and probably slightly ridiculous since I’ve only been blogging for a few short weeks), but writing is a life long dream of mine and even though for the most part it’s primarily me and my four closest friends hanging out here in this space, I am so loving every second of it.

When I was a little girl I was a huge Nancy Drew fan.  My grandparents would give me and my sister $2 each week as an allowance, but Nancy Drew books cost $2.95 each.  So I could only buy a new one every other week. Incidentally, I used the leftover $1.05 less tax to buy 10 cent pieces of fudge in the cafeteria at school every day.  Even back then, chocolate and books were my favorite things!

I remember the excitement of going to the bookstore with my mom, also a lover of books, and spending what seemed like hours picking out the best one to read next. Remember the Intimate Bookshop? Loved that place! Because I could only get one book every other week I actually read them VERY slowly.  I savored every word.  I hated finishing one and not being able to go on to the next one immediately.  The wait was excruciating.  I would lie in bed at night and think about how eventually Nancy and Ned might get married.  Then they could drive around together in her blue convertible, her titian red hair blowing in the wind.

At some point I actually began dreaming about how I would write a Nancy Drew novel.  I spent hours trying to come up with the perfect mystery, the right amount of danger, the logical explanation for seemingly other worldly phenomena, and of course the appropriate cast of supporting characters.  I even wrote letters (that never reached the mail) to Carolyn Keene to ask permission to continue the series on her behalf in the event of her death or inability to continue her reign as Mystery Writing Queen.  Since we didn’t have internet back then I had no idea Carolyn Keene was a pseudonym used by numerous contract authors to write the series anonymously. I was disappointed greatly by that piece of information. 

All that to say, a dream was birthed in my heart and at different times over the years it has surfaced in different forms.  Never though, did I see a day where I could write and hit Publish and immediately send my written offerings to the world.  This writing journey is definitely not what I envisioned as a young girl, but the truth is, it is so much better!

For me every time I write something it is a bit like fighting the natural urge to run and hide from danger and instead running headlong into it.  There is risk involved, but there is huge reward here too.  I unreservedly say that nothing in my life has been as exhilerating as seeing a dream beginning to come to fruition – no matter how small that fruition might be.  The only appropriate thing to say is, “Thank You heavenly Father for loving me so much, for delighting in me and for bringing me to this season in my life.”

The world has enough Nancy Drew and Carolyn Keene, it needs more of us.  It needs more image bearers of Christ uniquely reflecting Him to the world. 

So how about you?  What dreams are you holding onto in your heart?  Have they materialized the way you expected?  Are you willing for them to look different than what you imagined?  If you are living your dream, how does that make you feel?  If your dream hasn’t materialized yet, is there a place you could start, right now? Are you hiding from danger or are you willing to run headlong into it?

This post inspired by The Nester’s http://www.thenester.com/2013/01/i-played-with-barbies-when-i-was-15.html and Bilbo Baggins in “The Hobbit.” I am profoundly grateful to you both.