Rachel Miller's Blog, page 3

Unfinished Stories

Life doesn’t always go the way we think it will. …Scratch that. …Life RARELY goes the way we think it will. We make plans, but they change, unravel, and sometimes just plain fall apart. Some people bounce back quickly or just go with the flow when this happens, but even the most fluid people eventually reach that point when they don’t know how they got where they are or where they’re supposed to go next.

Those moments can be terribly disheartening.

About a year ago, after years of painstaking work, I dared to send out a book to a group of friends who agreed to provide feedback on the novel. Their insight was amazing. They helped me spot numerous typos, found a few structural and conceptual issues, pointed out that a couple of characters needed more memorable names, and so on. I was very excited. I was sure that in a month’s time I would have the edits finished and be on my way to publishing the book.

And then, life happened.

With almost no warning, my writing time was suddenly gone (as the scarcity of posts to this blog bears witness). The few moments I had to work on the book here and there were usually interrupted, overwhelmed by other needs, or so far apart that I felt I had to start all over just to figure out where I had left off.

Talk about a plan gone wrong!

Week after week, I was editing someone else’s writing to make a little extra income, while my own writing sat in a pile of edits and drafts and notes—untouched. It was discouraging.

Finally, over this past Memorial Day weekend, I had time to make huge progress. I finished most of the changes and then started reading back through the book. But I only made it halfway before the weekend ended. Once again, the manuscript sat—always open and ready on my computer, but stuck on Chapter 22. The process seems to drag.

We all have “unfinished manuscripts” in our lives, whether they be actual books or some other goal or hobby or passion. Some of them we have pursued with every ounce of energy only to have our plans thwarted in some way or by someone. Sometimes it’s not just one manuscript; in fact, if you know many writers, you know that we usually have piles of manuscripts in progress. Even if those “piles” are organized neatly in our computer, they are still there.

Sometimes the unfinished or the failing or even just the faltering dream can weigh down on our spirits. We begin to let them define us. “See,” we say, “I’ve never finished this project or that one.” Or, “Look. Everything I’ve tried to do has failed.” Or, “Nothing every works out, so why should I try?”

That’s when it’s important to remember that what we accomplish is not who we are.

I’m sure you’ve heard people say that before, but we live in a culture that denies it. We expect perfection from ourselves because our culture has set a very high standard of achievement before us, and to “be anyone” we must attain. This isn’t just a trait of our world. It has also crept into our service and worship. We mean well, but sometimes our expectations of service or participation or behavior just aren’t attainable. And the next thing you know, we’ve got everything upside down. We schedule every moment with so much “service” that we forget to take time to simply walk humbly before our God. We work so hard to keep ourselves unspotted from the world that we forget we must sometimes go into the hard places of the world to touch those in need. We overachieve when God simply wants us to be.

Sometimes, we just need a reality check. We need to remember that who we are is not what books we have written, what jobs we have worked, what programs we have developed, what ministry we have carried out, what businesses we have started, what businesses we have lost, how many children we have had, how many marriages we’ve had, how large a house we own, or if we can pay our rent. None of that makes us who we are. Those are a part of us. They have helped to shape us. They are the circumstances that help to form our character. Our world may identify us or classify us by some of them, but they are not what is important. One thing matters:

Who I am before Christ.

When He looks at me, what does He see? A lost sinner? A child that has wandered astray? A repentant heart? A labor-weary servant? A redeemed and precious child?

When He looks at my heart, is it pure? Is it a place where He has full reign? Is it growing to reflect and resemble more of Him and less of me?

One thing is sure—we are loved with a love that will pursue us to the end of the earth. When we fall, He will be there to lift us back up, brush us off, and set us on the right path—or to chasten us if need be. When we feel we have failed in an assignment, He is there to pull us back on track and to remind us that, just like my manuscripts,—our story isn’t done. There is still time to edit. We may not be able to change things in the past, but with God’s help we can do right in the future. One little decision, one little commitment to let God lead and to follow Him no matter what can change the plot lines we thought were already set. And then, the next thing we know, an adventure has begun.

So, to all of you who read my book last spring, thank you again, and please know that your labors weren’t in vain. The book is so much closer, and so much better, because of you.

And to those of you who are feeling like your “pile of manuscripts” will never be complete, rest in the Lord. Let Him guide you to the next step. After all, “Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it…” (Psalm 127:1)

And to those of you whose lives seem to be falling apart, remember that the Author and Finisher of our faith can restore all things. He does not leave us, nor does He change. In fact:

He writes the best stories.

 

Coming Soon:
Barren Fields, Fruitful Gardens – Book 1: Winter’s Prey

 

When the cruel elements of the Montana Territory inflict tragedy on the Bennett family, life is forever changed. Jessica is certain the answer to her pain lies in starting over. Her brother Marc is determined to stay true to what he has always known.

Amidst the constant battle for survival and the conflict in their hearts, both siblings stand at the threshold of surrender to God. What will they choose?

The Glass and The Mountain

Welcome to Children’s Church! No. We’re not going to start by singing Father Abraham. That song gives me a headache. Too much nodding your head and turning around. But, since my lesson on Sunday was postponed, I thought I would share a little with you.

I should probably start with some backstory. We’ve been studying Exodus 20 and the giving of the Ten Commandments. This week we were scheduled to finish up commands 6-10. The verses following the Ten Commandments, however, were the ones most on my heart.

In addition to this, the Sunday School class that I teach has been memorizing 1 Corinthians 13. Sunday we were working on verse 12, “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then I shall know even as also I am known.”

To illustrate this verse we made our own pane of “glass” using page protectors and card stock. As we say the first part of the verse, we hold our “glass” up in front of our faces. The milky, double layers of the page protector present a blurred vision of everything out in front of us, not to mention of our own faces to anyone who might wish to see us. For the next phrase of the verse, we drop the “glass” down and turn to look at our neighbor—face to face. Keep this “glass” in mind.

 

Before God gave the Ten Commandments, the relationship between Him and Moses was very evident. God was up on the mountain, speaking with the sound of a trumpet, causing the mountain to quake, setting it to smoke and flames, and essentially putting His glory on display for His chosen people. The sound of the trumpet got louder and louder—until Moses spoke.

 

While the people stood in the background shaking in their boots, Moses dared to approach God, but not because he was proud or brash. On the contrary, Moses was a very meek man. Moses could approach God in all of His thunderings and lightings and earthquakes and smoke and flames, not because He was foolish or had no respect or fear for God, but because He KNEW God. He knew that His God would not change. He knew God’s character well-enough to know that even in this full display of power and glory God could be trusted to be ever the same as He always had been. And when Moses had the courage to speak to God, God answered. He answered him, not with the sound of trumpets, but with a voice.

 

Fast-forward to the end of the Ten Commandments. The people have heard what God has to say. He has laid out His law. What is their response? They crawl behind Moses and shrivel up. They stand as far back from the mountain as they can, and, instead of affirming their desire to obey God, they say, “Please, Moses, don’t let Him talk to us again.”

 

Think about that for a moment. They literally said, “Moses, speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die.”

 

Moses’ fatherly ways seem to come out in his answer. He didn’t scold. He sought to comfort them, when he said, “Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.”

 

In response, the people, like a child cowering behind its mother’s skirts, continued to stand afar off. Moses, on the other hand, drew closer. In fact, the Bible says that he “drew near the thick darkness where God was.”

 

God is a God of light, but that day on the mountain the clouds and the smoke and overwhelming awe of His power, holiness, judgment, and glory cast a deep shadow that only one man was willing to approach—the man who knew God.

 

As I think about these verses in Exodus and the verse in 1 Corinthians, I realize that there is a sad similarity between the two Scriptures as well as a similarity between us and the children of Israel. 1 Corinthians 13 says that we see through a glass darkly. We have a great deal revealed to us through the Scriptures, through nature, and through God’s working in our lives, but our knowledge is not perfect. We still have that “glass” between us and God.

 

In Israel’s case, they were standing at the foot of a mountain upon which God Himself had descended. And yet, rather than hear Him speak, rather than look upon Him—they chose the glass. Just like the children in my Sunday School class lifting their homemade panes of glass over their faces, the Israelites chose to put something up between them and God. Yes, they would still get His message, but it wouldn’t come directly from Him. It would go through a third party. Why? Because they were afraid.

 

It is easy for us to do the same. We want to know what God has to say, but something holds us back from pursuing His face. We set a glass, or perhaps a host of window panes, up between Him and us. Those glasses are often good things: pastors, teachers, mentors, authors, even bloggers.

 

Why do we do this? Maybe, like the Israelites, we’re afraid. Afraid He will make us do something we don’t want to do if we interact directly with Him. Afraid He will convict us of our pet sin. Afraid He will show us sins and failures we didn’t know we had in our lives. Afraid He will kill us (or some part of us) in some way.

 

Maybe we don’t know how to approach Him. Maybe we’ve never learned how to pray or how to study His Word. That’s a problem easily solved.

 

Maybe we’re simply lazy. We say we’re too busy, but really we’d rather be fed than feed ourselves. We’d rather let someone else put in the effort of seeking God’s face and then just have them give us a synopsis. We want an instant-oatmeal relationship with God rather than a breakfast-from-scratch experience. We might fight for our Eggo, but we won’t make our own waffles.

 

There is nothing wrong with sitting under good teachers. In fact, we should—often! But no matter how good the message, no matter how solid the teaching—it’s still secondhand. So what is the consequence of secondhand conversations with God? It is a darkening of that glass, a distancing of ourselves from the mountain. It is forfeiture of the joy Moses possessed—knowing God.

 

Saturday night, my family gathered at my sister’s house and had a nice fire out on their newly constructed patio. As I sat there with a glass of water in my hands, enjoying the last few minutes of the evening, I noticed something about the glass, the water, the light, and the fire. By itself, the glass of water barely reflected any light. But when I held the glass up to the fire, it took on the glow of the fire, in fact, it magnified the effect of the light.

 

We have been given the Word of God and the Holy Spirit—that glass and that water—when we dare to draw close to the fire of God’s glory, when we dare to seek His face, they will ensure that He is magnified. He will prove us to see whether we will fear Him and obey him, but by His mercies we will not be consumed. We will not know as we are known until that day when we see Him face to face. But we will come to know, as Moses did, that our awesome, amazing, astonishing God can be trusted to be ever the same, to do powerful things, to work in line with His character, and to draw nigh to us when we lay ourselves aside and dare to draw nigh to Him.

So, my friend, tonight I challenge you: Stop setting murky window panes between you and God, draw near to the mountain, hold up the Word, let the Spirit work, and let God be magnified in, through, and to you.

 

ABOUT RACHEL MILLER

I am the author of three books, including The King’s Daughter: A Story of Redemption. You can check them all out here. I also run a Christian editing and writing service. I hope you’ll stop by and let me know how I can help you.

King’s Daughter: A Story of Redemption

Lessons From A Tic Tac Box

A couple of weeks ago while eating breakfast, my mom and I wandered through a vast maze of topics and somehow ended up on a gift that was given to me by a Sunday School student a couple years ago. The gift came packaged neatly in a Tic Tac box. Inside the clear container were several stones, gathered painstakingly as this child’s family visited a sapphire mine. The stones were not sapphires, but to a five year old they were. Not only did the box contain stones from a sapphire mine but it also contained—four pennies.

I still have that gift. Not because of its enormous financial value. Not because it was so beautiful. But because it was put together with love and given in sincerity, the kind of sincerity that is rare these days.

As Mom and I were talking about this gift, my mind drifted a little. I thought of the “art wall” in my bedroom. It has shrunk in recent days because my nieces and nephews have gotten a little older and aren’t handing me brilliant pieces of artwork every quarter hour when they come for a visit. At one point, however, an entire wall and the back of both my bedroom doors were completely covered with priceless art. Do you want to know a secret? I didn’t trash their art when I took it down. I put it in a folder and filed it away.

Why? Well, I can tell you it’s not because I hope to make a fortune off of it some day. It’s not because I’m a hoarder. It’s not because I think I’ll need new wallpaper down the line either. It’s because those gifts were given to me by children who put their all into them. Children who were seeking to express their love through those gifts.

As I thought of all those precious gifts, I thought of our Heavenly Father—our King. I’ve never pictured myself as a child handing God an out-of-the-lines, crayon-doused, coloring book picture with a look of hope and expectation on my face, but I think sometimes that’s just what I do. I think we all do. And I think sometimes when we hand it to Him, we know exactly how it looks, and we’re afraid it isn’t good enough.

A few months ago, I was on a business call, waiting for a young mother to find and provide some information. This young woman had three toddlers and was expecting their fourth child any day. She was in the midst of moving. Her husband had been out of town. I could hear children crying in the background. In the midst of the understandable chaos surrounding her, she said, “I’m sorry. I am totally failing right. I’m failing.”

Her words broke my heart. She wasn’t failing. She was doing an amazing job—but she was expecting perfection.

That moment has haunted me for months because I realize so many of us expect perfection, and we allow one little moment to define us as much, much less than what we are aiming for. This pattern only leads to discouragement, to a sense of worthlessness, and to a misconception of Who God is and how He relates to us.

We live in an OCD world. Everyone wants everything to be perfect NOW! But that isn’t life. Life is messy. Life is dirty dishes in the sink because you had to choose between washing dishes and buying groceries in the 30 minutes you had between two of your three jobs. Life is hoping the hanger you just reshaped is long enough to retrieve the shirt your 3 year old just flushed down your neighbor’s toilet. Life is being called names for doing your job. Life is dropping your phone in the dishwater. It’s broken relationships, broken promises, and even broken hearts.

We often look at our service to God and say, “It’s all out of the lines. Why would He ever want this? I’ve made such a mess of things.” We don’t want to be defined by our brokenness, so when we see it, it tends to glare like a bright neon sign: FAILURE!

But that is a lie.

It is a lie based upon a lie. What we have done for Christ may not look the way we had hoped it would look. It may not look like what someone else did, but God is not about appearances. In fact, Jesus had some choice words for men who did things because of the way it made them look. He called them hypocrites. He also said that they had received their reward. But the man who knelt humbly, the woman who prayed so fervently that those around her thought she was drunk—those are the hearts, the gifts, that God accepted. The sacrifices of God are a broken and a contrite heart: gifts, which He will not despise.

The lie upon which these lies are built is a simple one, but dangerous. It is the thought that I must be perfect to please Him. It is true that God is holy, that He is just, that He is without sin, and that sin is what separates us from His presence—that’s why He sent Jesus. It has never been the Christian’s job to perfect themselves. It has been the job of the Christian to give themselves wholly to God to do the perfecting through the sacrifice of Christ and the sanctifying of the Spirit.

That morning at the breakfast table, I realized that when I stand at the throne of an evening and lift up my day to my Father, my gift may appear to be a simple Tic Tac box with a few stones and four pennies, but in God’s hands it is much more than that. It is cherished because it was carried out with sincerity and love for my Redeemer. It is treasured because this is the gift of His own child. He receives it with as much love as any father receives the gift of his child. But unlike earthly fathers, God is able to fix the rough edges, to improve the places where I still struggle, to forgive where I have sinned, to lift up where I have fallen, to strengthen where I have been weak. He is able to take that small, insignificant gift and use it to change a life—or even the world at large.

————–

King’s Daughter: A Story of Redemption

ABOUT RACHEL MILLER

I am the author of three books, including The King’s Daughter: A Story of Redemption. You can check them all out here.

 

The Gift Beneath the Wrapping

Yesterday morning as the children in our church and I were all walking out of the auditorium to go to Junior Church, our pastor stopped us and asked the children an interesting question.

“Do you like surprises—gifts—to be wrapped and done up all fancy, or would you rather just have them handed to you?” he said.

The children were a little surprised at first, and, to be honest, I was wondering if they would now be expecting a surprise when we got to class. I held my breath, waiting to see how this would all unfold. Eventually, most of the children said they would like to have their surprises wrapped up because it’s fun to unwrap the gift.

Pastor seemed satisfied with their answer, and I was relieved when he said, “I don’t think there are any surprises downstairs. I was just curious to see if kids still feel the same way I did as a kid.”

With that said, we all went downstairs and had our lesson, giving the conversation no further thought…until last night.

After Sunday night’s Christmas program, Pastor preached on seven gifts. As he began his message, he talked about wrapping gifts and how, in just a matter of moments, the hours spent on wrapping would be in a heap under the tree. This caught my attention because I love wrapping presents in a way that makes them special for each person. I love putting that little extra touch on it that makes it just perfect. But, as pastor said, the paper all gets ripped away because what we’re really interested in is the gift, not the wrapping.

That got me to thinking. Often in life, we’re handed gifts that come in packages that just really aren’t that appealing. Instead of the wrapping of success, joy, peace, comfort, and love we find ourselves being handed a gift wrapped in failure, loss, persecution, hate, or sorrow. No one wants a package like that. We did not expect or plan those things for our lives, but suddenly there they are. In that moment we have a choice. We can choose to stare at the wrapping and despise what has been handed to us, or we can tear back the paper and look inside to find the gift.

As I look back on 2015, I see some amazingly beautiful gifts, but I also see some very ugly packages. If I were walking through a store choosing packages to place under my tree, I would choose none of those ugly ones. They are wrapped in hurt, tied together with accusation, and ornamented with bows of betrayal, rejection, and failure. But if I walked by them, I would be missing gifts of grace, mercy, comfort, strength, and even hope.

Earlier this year, one of those packages left me feeling worthless. I felt that my whole life had been brought to ruins because of one devastating moment. As I drove down the road a day or two later, tears slipped down my cheeks, and I poured out my heart to the Lord. In those moments, that still small voice whispered into my pain, “You are still my daughter.”

Think of that! What a precious thought! Still His. Not worthless. Not rejected. Not forsaken. —LOVED!

Without the pain of loss, rejection, and false accusation, I would not have experienced God’s amazing love to the extent that I saw it along the road that day. Without the hurt of betrayal, I would not have discovered new depths of the peace of acceptance in the Beloved.

We easily forget that beneath the ugly wrapping is a pearl of great price. We forget that the greatest gift ever given was wrapped in a crown of thorns. So let me challenge you, before the year is out, take the time to look back, find the ugly packages, tear the wrapping aside, and find the gift within.

Remember that you are still the King’s daughter (or son). He has purchased you, adopted you, and given you a second birth. You are His three times over, and He will not let you go. He will run after you as no father ever pursued his child because God loves you more than any earthly parent has ever loved. He knows how to give us good gifts, so, go on—find the gift beneath the wrapping.

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King’s Daughter: A Story of Redemption

ABOUT RACHEL MILLER

I am the author of three books, including The King’s Daughter: A Story of Redemption. You can check them all out here. I also run a Christian editing and writing service. I hope you’ll stop by and let me know how I can help you.

Looking For Stories

I am (very slowly) working on an outline for a follow-up book to the King’s Daughter. It isn’t the one I originally planned as a follow-up, but I believe it will touch on some very important needs and difficulties, which all of us face. As part of my research (and maybe even part of the book), I am looking for stories that show how God taught specific lessons in an individual’s life. Below is a list of the topics. I am also looking for stories for another project dealing with chivalry, courage, and the relevant life. If God has taught you lessons in any of these areas, I would love to hear your story. Please, type it up (doesn’t have to be long, detailed, or perfect) and send it to “rmiller  at gracewritingservice dot com” I’m looking forward to reading about what God has done in your life!

 ———————

King’s Daughter Topics:


Value vs. Worthlessness
Acceptance vs. Rejection
Carried vs. Forsaken
Joy vs. Emptiness
Peace, Restoration, and Gratitude vs. Anger, Resentment, and Frustration
Hope vs. Hopelessness
Purpose vs. Pointless Living
Companionship (with God) vs. Loneliness
Comfort/Healing vs. Pain
Security, Patience, Peace, vs. Insecurity
Confidence in God vs. Self-doubt

———————–

Project 2:

1. Stories of how someone behaved courageously or chivalrously on behalf of someone else.
2. Stories of how someone benefited from the courageous or chivalrous actions of another.

Looking forward to hearing from you! (rmiller at gracewritingservice dot com)

Beta Readers Needed

Big Lake, aka Big Dry, Molt, MT

So, I’ve let the cat out of the bag…My first fiction book is almost done! Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be making the final changes and looking for a few people to read it and provide feedback before moving on to the next step. There aren’t any qualifications for reading it, but there are a few things that I would like each reader to be watching for so they can answer a short (anonymous) questionnaire at the end.

Below is a short description of the book and a list of the question topics that will be on the questionnaire:

Barren Fields, Fruitful Gardens – Book 1 – Winter’s Prey

Description

When the cruel elements of the Montana Territory inflict tragedy on the Twin Pines community, life for the Bennett family is forever changed. Jessica is certain the answer to her pain lies in starting over. Her brother Marc is determined to stay true to what he has always known. Marc commits to show Jess God’s love no matter the cost; but when a courageous choice leads to disaster, he fears he has driven her further away. A crushing secret forces both to examine their lives: Will they choose to walk in God’s love and faithfulness, or to walk on in their own strength?

Winter’s Prey is the story of a pioneering family’s struggle not only to survive life on the frontier but also to maintain faith in the midst of tragedy. It is a story of love, surrender, and hope.

Approximately 285 (8.5 x 11) pages

Questionnaire Topics

1. First Impressions

2. Plot/Structure Development

3. Concept Development

4. Overall Readability

5. Character Development, Dialog

Don’t worry, the questions are easy, and you only have to answer the ones you are comfortable answering. If you’d like to be included in this fun, exciting project, just let me know via Facebook or at rmiller at gracewritingservice dot com as soon as possible, and I will send you the files as soon as they are ready. :) I will be limiting the number of readers, so don’t miss your chance!

The Dreadful Place

I just finished Genesis 28:10-22 in my Walking in His Promises Devotional Journal, which happens to be the story of Jacob and his dream at Beth-el. I’ve sort of digested it over the course of the last week, and have been amazed at the beauty of the simple truths found in the answers to the questions in the devotional. It occurred to me for the first time that, even though it was Jacob���s own fault that he had to run and even though he was on a mission to find a wife, Jacob was leaving everything, including his dying father and all the blessings he’d managed to scheme away from his brother. He was headed into a world about which he knew nothing. And that’s where God met him���in that land of uncertainty.

God���s promise to Jacob (vs. 15) was not based on anything Jacob had done. In fact, Jacob had been a bit of a rascal, swindling his brother out of both his birthright and his blessing. God���s promise was based on the promises He had made to Abraham and Isaac. His promise was based on His grace, mercy, justice, and love. God chose to be faithful to Jacob because He is always faithful to keep His promises.

The significance of who God declared Himself to be also struck me. In verse thirteen He says, ���I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac������ Instantly, I remembered the verses I had covered with my Sunday School class just two days prior. When talking to the Sadducees about the resurrection, Jesus said, ���…have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.��� (Matthew 22:31-32)

Jacob probably felt like life was coming to an end, at least life as he knew it. He was leaving everything behind. He may have felt that his hopes and dreams were dying. But God is the God of the resurrection. He can restore that which has not just been lost, but what seems to have died.

God also revealed Himself to be the ever-present God, who finishes what He has started: ���And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.��� (vs. 15) God does what is necessary to bring about His promises and purposes. It may require a long detour (and sometimes that detour is of our own making), but He will finish the work He has begun in us. (Philippians 1:6)

When Jacob awoke from the dream (probably sweating and trembling) he shuddered, ���Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not���How dreadful is this place!��� These two phrases all but knocked me out of my chair. In a sense, this is no new revelation. I know that God is in every situation, every circumstance, that comes up in our lives���but this week it hit home. God is in all our situations���even when we���re running from murderous brothers and sleeping on the ground with a rock for a pillow���even when we don���t know He���s there.

Sometimes life throws us situations, which seem dreadful���in our sense of the word. They are overwhelming. They introduce us to a whole new understanding of injustice. They reveal the pain of betrayal, or teach us the anguish of loss. But this is not what Jacob was talking about. When Jacob said that place was dreadful, He meant it was a place to be revered. It was dreadful, not because of the pain of leaving his family, not because of the sorrow of never seeing his father alive again, not because of the unknown future that lay out in front of him���but because God was there.

Maybe you are passing through a similar situation. Maybe you have been grappling with where you are supposed to be, who you are supposed to be, or even how to transition from a life of purpose to a life of simply collecting a paycheck. Maybe you are facing loss, the anniversary of a loss, heartbreak, betrayal, abandonment, or failures that seem to overwhelm you as the waves upon the shore. Remember, God is faithful to His promises and His purposes. He is present in this place and situation. He will finish what He has started.

Maybe your heart feels as though it has been ripped in two and spilled out. Maybe your dreams, your passions and your purposes seem not to have simply died but to have been murdered. Remember, God is the God of the resurrection. He can restore what has been lost���bring it back to life���perhaps making it far better than it was before.

When we are in the dreadful place it is tempting to run, but that is because we are looking only at the pain. There is much pain in the world today: in Nepal, in Baltimore, in other places where lives have been ruined seemingly forever. Perhaps, even in your home. Don���t run. This is a place to be revered. Staying isn���t easy. It means patient waiting. It means prayer. It means resting when we feel the urge to fight. It hurts. But this is a place of promise. So stay���because this is where God is.

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A Burden Not For You

As I drove home one evening a few years ago, I was praying. My prayer went something like this, ���Lord, I know You have given me the ability to write. I want that writing to count for you. I want it to honor you. Please, do whatever it takes to use it for your glory.���

Three days later���

My hard drive crashed.

I don���t mean a little crash. I mean the kind of crash we all dread. I cannot begin to tell you the heart- and gut-wrenching feeling when I realized that computer was not going to restart. When I learned that because I had tried to restart it there was less chance the data would be retrievable, my heart sank even deeper. In addition to hundreds of pictures, that hard drive contained Bible studies, books (my own and others���), outlines, and ministry DVD files. In short, it contained LIFE.

I had been preparing to start out on the road to share my ministry with as many churches as possible, hoping to gain some support both in co-laborers and finances. With no computer, I had no presentation and no display materials. So, the money I had saved for the trip was instead set aside to try to fix the computer. My plans were set aside with it.

All this time, I was trying to figure out how this fit into anything in life. How did it fit into growing the ministry? How did it fit into finding the support the ministry needed? How did it fit into my writing bringing glory to God? None of it made sense.

The time to leave on the trip came and went while my hard drive sat in a lab somewhere in Georgia. Finally, one afternoon, I received a call from a very friendly man.

���Miss Miller,��� he said in a southern drawl, ���I am so sorry to tell you this. We tried everything, but we just couldn���t get anything off of your hard drive. I saw from your paperwork that this is a ministry computer. We were going to give a discount, but we just couldn���t get anything off of it. Of course, the deposit is non-refundable, but you owe us nothing else. I���m very sorry.���

I told him I understood. I thanked him, but my heart was broken and my stomach was churning. So much lost. So many hours of work���months and years worth of work! Lost.

As I once again began to pull together pictures and text to recreate my presentation and display materials, I still wondered about the purpose in all of this. Was God displeased with me, with my writing, with my presentation? Had I gone about something in the wrong way? Why such a huge delay in everything?

One day during my quiet time, I came across Ephesians 3:13,

 

���Wherefore I desire that ye faint not at my tribulation for you, which is your glory.���

 

Paul���s tribulation wasn���t something he was undergoing for his own sake. He didn���t even identify it as suffering for the sake of Christ or of the Gospel, which he did in other places. No, this time his suffering was for the sake of the Ephesians.

As I read that, it occurred to me for the first time that maybe, just maybe, my trial had nothing to do with me at all. Maybe God had allowed this in my life for the sake of someone else. Maybe I was being too nearsighted.

The next verse says, ���For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.��� I realized that I could do nothing else. I had asked God to use my writing, to use the ministry, to use me. Somehow, this fit the plan, even if the loss was the only part of the good and the glory that I experienced. The right choice for me was to bow the knee and trust that God would bring glory to Himself through it.

Two months later, I got on a plane bound for Kenya. The trip I had originally planned to visit churches had not happened. The writing on that hard drive, much of it, was lost. Most of it has never been rewritten. But God used the funds that had been set aside when the computer crashed to buy the tickets for a trip I had hardly dared to dream could happen. In the month that followed, we saw God do amazing things. God had a blessing He wanted to impart on the missionaries there as well as on the orphans, women, students, and churches with whom they were working. The loss of all that writing was required on my part, so that they (and I) might receive the blessing. Furthermore, just over a year after I returned, my first book The King���s Daughter: A Story of Redemption was published, due in great part to that trip to Kenya.

The burdens we bear and the losses we incur are not always for our sake, nor for our chastisement. I was reminded of this again this week. Circumstances, which I did not understand, overwhelmed me. A bit like when my computer crashed, except now there are so many more of those confusing situations.

At a critical moment, my mom handed me a print out of an email, which a friend had sent to her. I had received the same email, but hadn���t had a chance to read it yet. The email told the story of a woman who had gone rock climbing for the first time. In the process, she lost a contact lens. She searched for it, but could not find it. She was disappointed that when she reached the top she could not see the view clearly. As she and her friends hiked back down the mountain, they heard another climber yell to his buddies, ���Hey, did anyone lose a contact?��� The contact had been found���carried on the back of an ant!

The young woman���s father was a cartoonist. He heard the story and later drew a cartoon of an ant carrying a contact lens. The caption on the picture read,

 

���Lord, I do not know why you want me to carry this thing. I can���t eat it, and it���s awfully heavy. But, if this is what you want me to do, I���ll carry it for You.���

 

That little ant had a heavy load to bear, but he wasn���t bearing it for his own sake. He was bearing it for the sake of the woman who needed the lens. Likewise, sometimes God gives us burdens to bear that aren���t for our own sake. Yes, we can always learn from any situation, any trial, any burden; but the overall need may not always be our own. Whatever burden weighs us down, may be for someone else, someone who needs what we are bearing.

Consider Paul���s prayer in Ephesians 3:14-21. None of it was for himself. Instead he endured tribulations so that the Ephesians might:

Be strengthened with might in their inner man by God���s Spirit,
Have Christ dwelling in their hearts by faith,
Be rooted and grounded in love,
Be able to comprehend and experientially know the breadth, length, depth and height of the love of Christ,
Be filled with all the fullness of God.

What an amazing purpose! What a gift he desired to give!

Sorrow, loss, sacrifice, difficulty, poverty, illness, persecution, rejection, and misunderstandings���none of these are pleasant. But what if your endurance of these things will bring about the above gifts in the life of your child, your church, your coworker, your spouse, or your friend? What if your burden has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them?

���Great!��� you might say. ���That gives my trial meaning, but it is still so heavy!���

To this the Lord says, ���Come ���

 

“Come unto me, all ye who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

 

Perhaps, God has given you a burden not for you���A burden, which must be borne for the sake of those around you. Let Him bear you up and carry the load. All that remains for you then is to be faithful.

Getting Up Off The Floor

Crushed. That would best describe it.

Never in my life have I felt so repeatedly beaten down as I have over the last nearly nine months. Crushed. That would best describe it.

Time…

after time…

after time.

Some days it comes in the forms of little disappointments that have huge ripple effects. Some days it comes in the form of massive assaults, be they accusations, betrayals, failures, loneliness, or barriers to communication.

Today it was a project into which I have poured huge amounts of time. Everything seemed to be going so well, and then���bang. It all came to a screeching halt. Not because of anything I did (as far as I know), but because of something someone else did. Had it been just that one thing, it might have made less of an impact. But the day had pretty much already derailed before I even finished my breakfast. It���s amazing what one text or one email or one phone call���or one of each���can do to a day.

I���ve never been a quitter. In fact, I���ve usually been the one to say, ���Hey, stop giving up, we can do this������and then go out and get a technical foul because I tried too hard. I���ve never been one to run away from problems. Although, there was that one time when I was tempted to get in the car and drive as far as could���but that���s the thing, I didn���t do it.

For the first time in a long time, this week has brought that temptation. Never seriously, just that little thought, ���If I was the kind of person who runs from difficulties, this would be a good time to start running.��� Not because things are so much more difficult than they were a few months ago, but because one moment, one day, one month, have all melded into a blur of long weary moments, days and months. Just when things seem to start falling into place, something happens and they tumble out all over the floor again. Just when you think your heart is starting to heal, it bubbles up and you���re crying yourself to sleep again.

And then there are the questions, questions that probably will have no answers between now and eternity. Other questions I dare not even ask because the asking genders unwarranted rebukes, sniffling offenses, patronizing smirks, and accusations of faith undone. They are not questions of faith. They are not questions that challenge the sovereignty of God. They are simple questions, like ���What?��� and ���How?��� and ���When?���. They are questions of direction and of a heart seeking to understand.

When I was working with the children in Russia, my least favorite words were, Ya nye magoo (I can���t.) Something about their pronunciation in Russian makes the whine behind them so much more evident than their English counterparts. But, have no doubt, it���s there in both languages. When someone would come to me with those words, I almost always gave them the same answer,

���You���re right. You can���t. But God can.���

Today, as I���m scraping myself off the proverbial floor, I must remind myself of that once more. I can���t, but God can. I can���t fix everything that has fallen apart over the last nine months. I can���t be everything that I want to be for everyone. I can���t do everything that needs to be done���But God can. With God nothing shall be impossible. The things HE wants me to do, He will give the grace to complete. Some days, I���m not even sure I know what those things are; so I will seek Him and let Him lead and trust that at the end of the day I will have done what He wanted to be done.

So, if you���re on the floor with me, let Jesus pick you up. Let Him hold you in His arms. Let Him whisper His words of comfort,

���I���m here.���

 

Plans to Quit

forbidthemnot:

If you follow both of my blogs, you may have already seen this. But, I felt it was important to put the information in both places.

Originally posted on Forbidthemnot's Blog:

When I was a very small girl, Dad and I went on a carnival ride. They called it the Octopus. Maybe you’ve heard about it and its ridiculous tentacles. I was terrified throughout the ride, but the end is most indelibly impressed in my memory. I remember lying on my back as the ride came to a stop. We were at the top, so very, very high up. Gravity pulled us earthward. My small, sweaty hands slid on the metal safety bar. I could feel my back slipping across the fiberglass seat.

“I’m going to fall!” I screamed.

“No, you’re not.” Dad said in his most matter-of-fact voice. “You’re fine.”

“But I’m going to fall!”

“No. You’re strapped in, you won’t fall.”

I felt myself slip a little further. “I’m falling!”

If I hadn’t needed the air to scream, I would have been too afraid to breathe. Why didn’t he…

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