SHE LIVES!

Have you ever done something that hurt you and you vowed never to do it again?  Or has anything ever happened to you that created an aversion to something?  When I was a little girl I was playing in our car parked in the driveway and I was very drawn to the cigarette lighter.  You remember the ones in the car that you pushed in and when it popped out you could remove it and light your cigarette with the hot red coils.  Are cars even made with those anymore?  I know they were 10 years ago because I’m driving a car right now that has one.  I saw it tonight for the first time and had a really strange reaction.  ****DANGER DO NOT TOUCH”.  You see, back when I was playing in my parents car I pulled out that lighter and burned my finger on it!  I didn’t tell anyone, I don’t even know if  my parents know to this day that happened.  But I can tell you that it changed the way I reacted to those lighters, even to this day.  I can also say I’ve always been a little wary of charger outlets in cars as well.  I remember my children plugging things in and out of those on road trips and feeling fear for them, that they might get burned.  Isn’t that funny how one event can mark how we treat every other event that might be similar, as if we can never escape that one bad moment! 

 

My mom asked me to write on my blog again.  I thought surely it hasn’t been that long…3 months….ok, so its been a while.  I’m not sure why she asked me to write exactly. Except for the fact that my parents have been traveling since early September and I think she may miss her children and grandchildren a little.  As I began to think about her encouragement to write, I recalled her request came after a moment that we shared talking about how it takes time to get used to new patterns, when we’ve all been used to old ones.  HMMMM….she was referring to a newness in my life that God has brought about that is starkly different from that which I have experienced in the past.  I told her that I never cease to be amazed at the goodness of God and how different life is for me now days.  Never have I experienced such freedom in all areas of my life.  She heard life in my voice and agreed that we all need to get used to this new thing God is doing. 

 

I didn’t know how to write this blog and avoid the dirt or the death of things or the failure that breezed through my life over the last year.  How could I bring Glory to God and His righteousness by sharing the disasters that have taken place?  How can I share my heart in a way that will build people up in their faith walk, if my story isn’t so pretty?  What will everyone think, what hope will they have if they know I’ve lost it all?  Where will they put their faith if they see that my faith didn’t save me from divorce, from bankruptcy, from business peril and from broken hearts?  How will people hear my story and believe that I’m a daughter of the Most High King considered royalty?

AND THEN…the King whispered…

“How will they know that I AM resurrection if there is  no death? 

You live, my child, because I brought you life!  You are free because I freed you!

You are rich because you have MY inheritance!

You are made whole because you were first broken! 

Without the pieces, I would have nothing to mold.  Your weakness IS MY GLORY!”

And so, now you know, in a sense I died.  Everything that one could put their hope in on this Earth was lost and laid in the tomb.  But my faith remained and shortly, according to God’s goodness and faithfulness, resurrection came.  With new life, comes new ways of relating, new ways of living, new ways of understanding.  At each turn, I have to remind myself that the darkness of the tomb has not followed me, God has made ALL things new and I proclaim, “SHE LIVES”.