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Dear Sweet Friends,

 I have not left blogging or lost my heart for you.  On the contrary, you are always on my heart.  My scarceness in the blogging world results from overwhelming tasks and honest exhaustion.  Be assured of my thoughts, prayers, and love for you, as I reestablish my home and try to recover.  I pray Philippians 4:19 for all of you, knowing that our Father God sees you and loves you and longs to be your everything in every situation of your lives.  

Your Heart-Partner in Jesus,

Andrea 

With a deep breath, and unabashed thanksgiving, I can proclaim that we have returned to our home.  Yes, after eight months of separation from our own small piece of earth and earthly possessions, Jeff and I have crossed one major hurdle in this current race.  I never expected our extended itineration from personal property.  Yet, God in his sovereignty, knew and chose that we have that separation and return. 

And, as you know, anything God allows, anything He touches, He makes good.  For, "we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28, NKJV).  Years ago, I heard Elisabeth Elliot, with her precious voice of humility, talk about the "good" in that verse.  She said that it is not a particular state of happiness spawned by circumstances.  The good, Elisabeth said in her wise way, is that God, with omniscient, Fatherly vision, does what is for our best.  Our best is that which is for our eternal good, whatever draws us nearer to God's heart, whatever conforms us to the image of Jesus Christ. 

His desire for our good is the condition behind all our personal trials.  God views and weighs the pain, the process, and results:  physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and eternal.    

In light of God's complete vision, He ordains and allows the events of our lives, for He knows what will purge us, renew us, and conform us to the image of Jesus.  Because of God's grace and his Fatherly good, I can work through all the moments of November 8, 2009, the process of the fire, and the outcome, which is yet to be known.   

Speaking truthfully, it has been very difficult to deal with the memories of the fire:  watching my home in flames and my grandchildren scream in panic and cry with fear.  The aftermath of petroleum fumes hovering in our home and attaching to our things continues to linger, and the pain of not knowing the final results of our insurance claim, along with the sting of anger for insurance adjusters and contractors makes me lean the harder on God and His grace.  I stand in His grace and by faith alone as I try to grasp the idea of loss and what ifs, and deal with many other issues that are always attached to trauma and major life events.

Attached to everything are true feelings that are very human.  But there is a divine issue greater than my human comprehension and fleshly experiences.  To find peace in all things earthly, in all things humanly spoken, I must complete my thoughts with two words:  but God.

But, God!

 I have always loved that two-word phrase that grammatically unqualifies as a sentence, but supernaturally qualifies as victory.  But, God made, makes, and is making all things new and all things good.  And just what the good of our experience is will be fully revealed in eternity, though yet even with my darkly glassed vision (1 Corinthians 13:12), some details are already tangible.

As I write, there remains a lot of physicality to our situation.  Don't mistake me.  I am thankful, ever so thankful for all God has done and brought us through.  My thankfulness, however, doesn't change the leftovers we now face.  Much is left to sort through.  If I fix my vision on the leftovers and see only the mess of it all, I will miss the miracle of God's ability to multiply His grace and provision. 

God is the faithful One, and One particular mighty provision lies amongst the chaotic condition of our home.  It is powerful and eternal.  It is exact and undeniable.  The voice of God, with the power of all His names, speaks through current disorder and pain.  Reigning above earthly mystery of things lost, piles of  dishes, clothes, books, papers, pictures, and other residuals is the presence of my Shepherd.  He speaks peace in this confusion.  I therefore do not just see eight months of pain and more months of stress and work, I hear the mind of One most holy, who alone understands and knows me and searches my heart and is working on my will and vision.

Thus far, my Father has chosen to share a few truths that have captivated my heart.  God has faced me down with all of them.  His words are very easy to accept in my mind, but my spirit is weak and battles, though self will not win, for I am locking in on that divine voice of reason.

One truth I will share with you now.   Perhaps it is the most prolific and the sum of all God's teaching sessions. 

That mighty truth is new eternal perspective.  Whatever my eyes see or my mind conceives is being framed with words that can comfort and heal, shatter and cleanse, or shake and refocus.

A chair is a chair.  It has a purpose.  It provides a place for one to sit.  If it is a beautiful piece, then I am thankful for its aesthetic gift, but its form and presence are a very simple part of my life and have nothing to do with my joy or quality of living.  Only God can give me joy.

And I may choose to receive joy in my life through things or through God.  If I receive joy through things, my life is based on what is only earthly valuable.  That choice makes for shaky faith and contentment that is very timid.

If I choose, however, to receive joy from my walk with God, my life is based on what is heavenly valuable.  What is heavenly valuable will never depreciate.  It will remain forever.  I therefore have no fear of loss, and my faith has firm foundation. 

Eternal perspective:  seeing through eyes that look for eternal purpose in all things, in all situations, in all trials, in all relationships, in all joys, in all of life.  It is a framing of grace only God can give, and I am finding it a process, not a photostatic change.

Thank you, Father God, for your patience.  It is your longsuffering that pilots us to our knees.  It is your grace that guides us so faithfully to eternal vision, for You know without it our conformity to Your Son is limited by our fleshly dreams. 

I love you, friends! 

DAYBREAK

"We live by faith, not by sight."

2 Corinthians 5:7, NIV

Provincial:  adj.  Of or relating to a province; limited in perspective. 

The hardwoods in my home are being refinished.  My choice of stain color is called provincial.  It is a medium shade and the sample looks so right when placed by the fresh, neutral walls and white trim.  Imagining the contrast of the walls and floors and focusing on the look, feel, and smell of new is now turning impatience to anticipation.  I hope provincial and all preceding choices will bring out the best in our home.

When all the work in our home is complete, our little 1941 cottage will be quite a different kind of comfort than it was before the fire, which was last November.  You may read about it here.

What was once a quaint, crowded, space full of vintage finds will be a cheery home of light and life.  Soft colors of beige, cream, yellow, ivory, and white now grace the walls.  Happy hues are a turn from the bright gold, rose, and deep taupe we had before.  I chose light colors because my heart cried for anything that would lighten our life and lend oxygen for a new beginning. 

The shock of the sudden, involuntary transition the fire caused for Jeff and me still bears on our souls as the final, remaining reparations come to a close and we look toward returning home.  In the midst of it all, we are and have been in awe of God's faithful handiwork and peaceful presence.  God is amazing in his detailed weaving of our life threads.  What began seven months ago as shock is growing into surrender.  Seven months of struggle becomes weary.  Seven months of stress-survival tells truth.  Seven months of waiting sizes up a lifetime of seeing.  Seven months of seized self moves once thought needs to the only desired compartment of the soul. 

In biblical terms, scholars often say that seven is God's number of completion.  "By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work" (Genesis 2:2, NIV).  "And the words of the LORD are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times" (Psalm 12:6, NIV).  Seven, in God's terms, can represent perfection.  The complete work of Adonai, God, who is flawless authority.

By any measure, as a Christian, I am not flawless.  If I told you I felt like refined silver, I would be lying.  In truth, I will not be perfected until my journey on this fallen sod we share is over.  I can rest in that fact, however, knowing God will continue his work of grace in every place he leads.  He has planned this earthly journey for me, and he owns its map and my provision.

During this short, seven-month season of my journey, God has provided moments of solitude.  Time is a gift.  And time alone, when tied in small sprigs, is like delicate baby's breath.  Fragile, elegant, and gracious.

These small sprigs of solitude were only the outer wrapping of God's gift.  The real blessedness of this seven-month season has been an awareness of God's presence and his peace that passes understanding. 

As we draw closer to closure of shock and aftershocks, God's mark on this unstable season becomes clearer and clearer.  His holy hand has left its imprint on the whole landscape.  And seeing his seal in the picture reminds me of my limited and God's unlimited.  The two are incomparable.  I, Andrea, very human, frail, full of questions, and short on vision versus God Almighty, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, complete in love and vision, infallible Savior.

Yet, I wrestle. . .

trying to find answers, to grasp rest, to see light on a dark path, to know how, to explain pain, to envision the finished work of grace and bear the rebuilding of our lives.

My own struggling has caused me to search the book of Genesis with wonder about Jacob and how he felt as he sent his family and all his possessions across the Jabbok River, while he stayed the night alone in darkness and wrestled with God until daybreak.   

"So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.  When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man" (Genesis 32: 24-25).

Jacob, the man who always took the initiative, who always made a way for himself, who always felt strong, who always created solutions, was, in his lonely, empty place of struggle, made helpless by God.  God dislocated Jacob's hip joint, which was the very strength of Jacob's ability to wrestle.  Jacob was then forced to face his human futility.  As he limped away, however, he was not dismayed.  Why?  He was blessed and had a new name for his new life that awaited him when he returned to his homeland.  Jacob had been  touched by God.  Eternally challenged and eternally changed. 

"Then the man said, 'Let me go, for it is daybreak.'  But Jacob replied, 'I will not let you go unless you bless me.'  The man asked him, 'What is your name?'  'Jacob,' he answered.  Then the man said, 'Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome' (Genesis 32:26-28, NIV).    

"You have struggled with God and with men and have overcome."

"You have struggled" and you "have overcome."

"Yes!" God says to all who wrestle til daybreak for blessing, "You have overcome." 

Struggling means I am human.  Wrestling means I intend to conquer.  Wrestling til daybreak means fighting for a forever-changed moment.  It is holding on for a dawn of hope.  It is hanging in there for an appearance of light, and it is denying fatigue and accepting brokenness.  Wrestling til soft light is seen at a distant space means I have, in that night, overcome self.  Overcoming self means Jesus reigns greater in me now than he did in a time past.

I have a very long path of daybreaks behind me, and a very long path of perfecting processes ahead of me.   I will leave these seven months changed and a little more surrendered.  I hope to leave the provincial vision of my pre-fire life and reach to embrace new vision as we return to our home.

As future testing seasons approach, I, hopefully, will not see them with dim, limited, provincial vision.  I pray to see them with God's unlimited vision.  Yes, my eyes can see what he visions when I submit absolutely to God's creative voice and will.

I am merely human and within my own power, so limited.   We, who all originated from dusty earth, who depend on God Almighty to hold our world together, who trust his word for the air we breathe, can share the vision of our Creator!  Through Christ, we can have faith-vision, and faith-vision is what overcomes the world.   "For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world - our faith" (1John 5:4, NASB). 

Friend, we may have no answers.  No details.  No professional title.  No human help.  Little worldly stuff.  

But, . . .  we can have the eyes of Jesus. 

His seeing is not provincial.  His perspective is complete.  His focus is flawless.  His eyes are pure. 

Just lean back in his arms and rest your weary head and allow Christ's victory to strengthen you and be your strength.  You will soon find faith vision, and all sight will be new.

Praying you this day,

FAILED LETTERS

Like crumbled crackers, broken words are scattered into thousands of dusty pieces.  Only God can take their dry, brittle, breaking moments and reshape them for His glory.  With His handling, fatally spoken words and broken promises will no longer be death letters.      

A hot pink brush I bought at the beauty supply store was wrapped in plastic, printed with promising words.  They were clear:  the brush would soften skin.  "May even use on hands and elbows."  I bought the barlike scrubber, took it home, unwrapped it, and placed it by my bathroom sink.

I wanted softer hands, so before walking away, I could not resist an immediate trial.  I soaped up with silky expectations and began to scrub. 

"Owww!"  I gasped, startled.  The very touch of its harsh nature against my sensitive knuckles hurt!  I tried again, with a much gentler touch.  No way!  Its sandpaper texture was hopelessly painful.  My hands were quickly reddened even by light scrubbing. 

I wondered if I had picked up the wrong package.  No, I absolutely remembered the writing on the wrapper.   

The words were a broken promise, and all I could do was feel regret.  I could not change the nature of the scrubber's gritty, pink sand.  It was what it was.  Disappointed, I placed the pumice in a container with my pedicure brushes. 

Disappointment is the natural product of broken promises.  The broken words on the wrapper of the pink pumice only cost me a little pain and $1.10.  It was a simple, frivilous experience.  But other broken words, sincere-seeming, heart-spoken letters of promise, cost so much more.  Their pain is real and deep; they are complex and drastic.

We have all known the deep pain of failed letters.  We have all experienced life's climatic changes of broken words.  Words undone.  The unravelling of language delcared with assurance.  Such seasons cast clouds over our souls.  They wound to our spirit's core.  Our hearts are cut by their vanity and meaningless shards. Their faithless nature rocks our world and our faith in those who spoke them, and it can threaten our faith in God. 

As a pastor's wife, I have seen many suffer with the sting from promises failed.  Words spoken were first apples of gold.  Their eventual intangibility turned them rotten and bitter.  The spouse who promised to never cheat again; the repentant father who drank again; the children who said they would never do drugs again; the mother who promised she wouldn't leave anymore; the parents who pledged prayer with their children but were always too busy; the boss who said he would understand missed days but never did; the insurance company who said they would pay medical costs but blamed someone for not reading a clause; the family who in great disbelief realized the hopeless words of a doctor who had said everything would be OK; the teenager who married to honor her parents and later dealt with deep betrayal of her new husband.  And, you can think of so many you know who are victims of words unfitly spoken.

Words unfitly spoken are the opposite of those Solomon spoke, when in Proverbs he said words fitly spoken are like "apples of gold in pictures of silver" (Proverbs 25:11).  Appropriate words are beauty.  As perfect and ripe as the most lucious apples in the most exquistie setting is the language of love.  Fit words are appealing, and their appeal is appetizing.  Their taste is sweet.  Their gift, comforting and nourishing.

Yet, "unfit" words are unhealthy, unappetizing, inappropriate, and incompetent.  They, contrary to golden apple in pictures of silver, are rotten fruit in a moldy basket.  They are voices of vice, meant for destruction.  Sour.  Bitter.  Unedible.  Indigestible.  Such is a picture of broken promises, or malicious daggers.     

Perhaps you have encountered the dagger of unfit words.  Someone you held in esteem told you something that created a chasm in your relationship, or someone misled you, either intentionally or not intentionally, which brought a sea of grief to your life. 

I have encountered unfit words.  Plainly, it is pain at its worst.  It bruises the soul and scars the heart.  It creates bondage and breeds rejection.  YET, touched with God's healing balm, the worst wounding words become beauty.  Like a sweet butterfly, they join enjoy transformation from a stale, embryonic state to winged life.  The ugly, vile, vain language no longer holds captive but is captured by the Creator and remade into God's glory.

Transformation is possible, friend!  It is God's gift for all His wounded warriors.  In many points of dark crises of my soul, God has spoken light into my nightmares.  Illuminated with Jesus' love, I have had to cling to shimmers of hope until Christ casts His cross in my waters and healed me.  Each time, it was a marvellous miracle in my life!  It still is.  I am comforted so much to know God hears every spoken word and wayward thought.  I can, with promise, share the joy of God's grace that is only found in a healing Jesus.  And, I will forever praise Him for His pure words that were and are a curing, comforting balm.

If you have received unfit words, please now receive the following unbreakable promises.  Set their purity and holiness and perfect fit above your painful memories.

• The "words of the LORD are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times" (Psalm 12:6).
• "All your words are true; all your righteous laws are eternal" (Psalm 119:160).
• "The eyes of the LORD keep watch over knowledge, but he frustrates the words of the unfaithful" (Proverbs 22:12).
• "So is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it" (Isaiah 55:11).
• "'My Spirit, who is on you, and my words that I have put in your mouth will not depart from your mouth, or from the mouths of your children, or from the mouths of their descendants from this time on and forever,' says the LORD" (Isaiah 59:21). 
• "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away" (Matthew 24:35).
• "If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you" (John 15:7).

Dear friend, God is faithful, loving, merciful, and healing.  He loves you with zeal and passion.  He covers you with that love because you are His child.  His very own.  And He watches over you and yours.

Take heart this very day and give all broken words to Him.  Jesus will speak to every letter the enemy has lodged in your soul.  He will reach into that secret place of your spirit and pick up all broken promises.   He will handle them.  Reshape them.  Breathe on them.  Give them new purpose.

With His handling, fatally spoken words and broken promises will no longer be death letters.  They will be language of life and living.  What once caused refluxive bitterness will become promise and peace.

God heals. . . . He's reaching now toward your worst word wounds.   

Glorifying His Transforming Power,





List your own scripture that edifies God's word in your life.  Meditate on its reassuring truth and be prepared to use it during temptations and discouraging times. 


All scripture is from the NIV.
Definitions from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/

LIFE WITHOUT BORDERS

"In the rush and noise of life, as you have intervals, step home within yourselves and be still. Wait upon God, and feel His good presence; this will carry you evenly through your day's business."

- William Penn

 We all live in the land of ordinary.  Our days begin the same.  Our sun arises, and we awake.  Our morning routine begins.  Our thoughts churn with the needs waiting for our hands, feet, and lips of clay.

The needs around us, waiting for the imprint of our lives, press us to our own need, often sending us to our knees, bringing us to the reality of our human hearts and will.  We know we are flesh.  Imperfect.  Flawed.  Limited.  Sometimes broken.

And in brokenness and limitation, we turn to the cross, and lift our minds to its reality:  grace, redemption, peace, restoration, healing, joy, life, possibility.  For all humanity, the cross works with its power.  For us, the truth of that power invades our mortal souls and kills excuse to cling to our limited flesh.

Our flesh can be His glory.  Our weakness can be His strength.  Our strongholds can be His deliverance.

Our unknowing can know God's omniscience.  Our pride can know Christ's humility.  Our need can know His grace.

Our limited can be God's unlimited!

Christ never lived in the ordinary.  Yes, He was a man as well as the Son of God.  Yes, he walked, talked, breathed, lived, suffered, and died as a human being.  But, Jesus never viewed His life as ordinary. 

He could not.  He would not.  For His life was not His own.  It belonged to His Father, and Jesus only lived to please Him.

What He did, everything Christ did, He did not do for Himself.  Jesus magnifed God the Father in all.

And, His desire for us is the same.  If "anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward" (Matthew 10:42, NIV).  Even a drink of water is not mundane to Jesus.  He looks at our hearts while we do the great and small. 

My friend Sonja, from http://www.bitsandpieces-sonja.blogspot.com/, sent me a beautiful biography about her father, Armin Gesswein, who was a mighty prayer warrior and man of God.  In that book, Everything by Prayer, the author, Fred Hartley, speaks of the way we often disconnect the mundane of our lives from the spiritual.  He tells that everything we do is spiritual when we are living as a servant.  Even cleaning up your child's vomit is serving God when you love Him with your whole heart.

Be encouraged.  In the great and small of your life, God is beside you.  With you.  In you.

Look for God's limitless in your ordinary.  Expect His power in your walk with Him.  Search for His hand in all you do.  Listen for Jesus, even when you are changing a diaper, digging up weeds, wiping a dish, or waiting for one so dear. 

Live your life without borders.  Live your life with His heart.  Live your life in God's unlimited!

Thank you for you patience in my limited posting!  I am diligently working on a slight change of scenery on my blog, per direction of the Holy Spirit.  Change begets change, and the life of the fire we had back in November has begun death of the ordinary in my heart.  With all things new, I so want to be a channel God can use.  Thanks again, and much love to all.