Stasi Eldredge's Blog, page 2

You're Not Alone

“Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.”  (Song of Solomon 8:6)

Love is not as strong as death.  Jesus Christ has proven that love is STRONGER than death.  His life overcame the grave.  He is the victorious risen Lord.  Life has triumphed.  Love has won.

And the enemy is furious about it.  Vengeful.  Hate filled.  The enemy of your soul is a jealous entity.  And since he cannot harm the King of Heaven, he targets those most precious to Him.  You.  The enemy targets you.

A friend of mine is struggling with suicidal thoughts.  They are cruel, taunting and seem to have a life all their own; a life of proclaiming death.  He is battling them fiercely, and wisely, not battling them by himself.  He has sought counsel, prayer and the linked arms of allies to fight the diabolical one who longs to destroy him.  Looking at this man and the power and glory of his life, you would never dream that this is a battle he would be fighting.  You would wonder, “Why in the world?”.  Yet, he is not alone in fighting this kind of assault.  Suicide is currently the second leading cause of death for men in the world.  And certainly women are targeted as well.

The devil is cruel, unrelenting, savage and rules a kingdom of death.

1 Peter 5:8 says, “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”

Devour as in shred, maul, destroy. In the wild, a lion will stalk its prey up to two weeks before attacking.  It is studying its habits – looking for weaknesses, searching out vulnerabilities so it will know when best to strike.

Do you ever feel that you are being hunted?  Kicked when you are down?

Me too.

God urges us to stand firm.  He promises that if we resist the devil, he will flee from us.  Meaning that if we will hold our ground – holding up the truth against his lies – that we are loved, that we are chosen, that we are children of God, that we are set apart with a holy calling, that we are not alone, that we are needed and valuable and strong – he will flee.

“Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” James 4:7

Friends, submit to God.  Worship Him.  Exalt Him.  Align yourself with Jesus.  Proclaim Him your Savior and your Lord.  Invoke His presence.  Dive into Union with Him.  Agree with the Truth of who He says you are.  Pray. Seek out the more.  Hold on.  And know that…

He is holding on to you.

He crafted you intentionally.  With a purpose in mind.  First as His beloved – to know Him, experience Him, enjoy Him.  Then…in a unique blend between the two of you, to bring His kingdom to bear on a hurting world in your sphere of influence with your specific gifting.  You are here – now – because you are needed.  You are powerful.  You are the incarnation of the Living God.  You bring the Kingdom of God wherever you go.  You are loved and pursued and wanted and seen and delighted in by the One who knows you best and loves you most and wants to win all of you to Himself.  To heal you.  To restore you.  To bless you.  To live life with you.

And you are hated.  By one who would like to steal, kill and destroy your life because he knows who you are and what you can accomplish in Christ.  If you’re feeling hunted, you’re not wrong.  If you’re feeling vulnerable to negative thoughts when you are hurting or overwhelmed, you’re not alone.  There is not something wrong with you.  You are being targeted because there is something RIGHT with you.

STAND FIRM.  HOLD FAST.  HANG ON.  BREATHE.

Invite Jesus into this very space and this very moment and receive His life and His love more deeply into your soul and then

TRUST HIM.

And ASK FOR HELP.

When we are at our lowest, it is extremely hard to reach out and speak the truth that we are sinking; to say out loud that we need help.  Sometimes just voicing our pain will relieve a part of it.  We are not meant to walk through life without allies.  We will not last long on this journey if we continue in a solitary fashion for too long.  Yes, we need “alone” times.  But we need the company of others to draw strength from when we need it and to offer it to others when we can.

If you are struggling, speak out.  Call a friend.  Call a trusted pastor, counselor, a hotline, someone.

YOU ARE WORTH FIGHTING FOR.

Jesus thinks so.  So do I.

Superior

People like the better things.  I admit, some things are better than others.  There are donuts and then there are donuts.  There are shoes and then there are shoes.  Some items are made out of higher quality ingredients.  They tend to be better.

You may even call them superior.

But what about people?

I recently had a conversation with a really good man who is a solid believer.  In the conversation, however, he felt the need to mention that Adam was created by God prior to Eve about six times. 

Yes, he was right.  This is true.  Adam was created first and then God said, “It isn’t good for man to be alone.”  Something was needed.  Someone was needed.  Woman was needed.  Eve.  The Helper Completer.  The one who made all of creation named GOOD.  The one who Adam would need in order to save his life.  The one man would need in order to have their lives saved.  Remember, the mandate to have a fierce mastery over the earth was given in Genesis to both Adam and Eve together.  It’s going to take both of them. 

In order for the Kingdom of God to advance as it is meant to advance, it’s going to take all of the church working together.  Not half of it.  The feminine half is needed.

Yes and Amen.  What I sensed after my conversation with this man, who I really enjoyed by the way, was that underneath his particular stressing that man was created first was the belief that men are therefore superior to women.

Superior to women. 

And hasn’t that been strewn into religions and cultures from time immemorial?  IT ISN’T TRUE.

(Boy, does the rampant nature of that thought make me mad.  Yes, it’s okay to be mad at unrighteousness.)

Women have been told that they are inferior to men throughout history, and this message remains woven throughout our culture in both blatant and subtle ways.  It’s not a message from our Jesus – who elevated women powerfully and continues to do so – it is a message from the pit of Hell designed to keep women from offering their powerful and passionate hearts and lives as they are created to do.

Women readers, mercy to you right now.  Is there a place you would like to be offering that you have yet had the courage to do?  Is there something you are passionate about that you have yet begun to step into?  Do you know that you are designed to play an irreplaceable role in the world you inhabit in order to bring Jesus?  The Kingdom of God needs you.  Offering your unique gifting is superior to hiding it out of fear or intimidation.  Coming alive to the reality that you are the Beloved of Christ – a channel of his very being – is superior to not knowing his love and presence in your life as he so desires.

Awake, awake, O Zion,

clothe yourself with strength.

Put on your garments of splendor, 

O Jerusalem, the holy city. ...

Shake off your dust; rise up,

sit enthroned, O Jerusalem.

Free yourself from the chains on your neck, 

O captive Daughter of Zion.  Isaiah 52

Realizing that there are subtle ways both men and women diminish the roles that women play, are meant to play, and instead choosing to encourage them is superior to thoughtlessly agreeing with the enemy and somehow thinking women are inferior to men.

I am blessed to live in the company of good men and women who recognize the essential role that women play in every dimension of life.  The hidden places and the seen places.  The behind the scene places and the up-front places.  The places that go mostly unnoticed and the places that are applauded.  It all matters, friends.  And God sees it all and champions your heart.

Let’s champion one another’s as well.  That is the superior way.

Lessons From a Fat Life

If you are a judgmental person, then please stop reading immediately.  This is not for you.  If you are reading so that you can feel better about your “Self” – your own less large failures – by comparing them to mine, then you can let this pass as well.  But if you are in need of mercy, compassion – maybe even some understanding – then greetings to you.  Read on.

The thing is, we all have struggles.  We all live with areas where we are failing, and we all know what it is like to have places where we are not yet walking in the fullness of the victory Jesus has won for us.  Our struggles may look different from one another on the outside, but if we were able to peer within the angst of a person’s soul awake in the middle of the night, tossing and turning with grief and self-blame, we would recognize the similarities.

I have my share of struggles.  I have more than my share of victories.  I am well acquainted with failure and I am bathed in measureless grace.  Yet, the grip food has had on me remains the defining battle of my adult life.  I get free.  I think I’m done.  It comes back.  It has caused me tidal waves of embarrassment and swept me away in shame.  It has led me to dig deep in order to stand against the screaming accusation that as I am failing here – in such a key area – I am disqualified as a lover of God, a teacher of his goodness, a woman meant to draw others to his heart.

It is simply NOT TRUE.  Not for me.  Not for you.

No one chooses to carry excessive weight.  No one signs up to have an obsession with and an addiction to food.  No one stands in line to bear humiliation and to feel disqualified from the life they had hoped to live.  Shame, self-loathing, and self-hatred are wicked stepsisters releasing the fumes of hell.  They are aligned with the enemy’s sulphuric breath.  They are familiar partners with every addiction.  They make up the links of unyielding chains.  They are LIARS unseated by the Blood of Jesus.

Here’s something to consider…maybe your addiction, maybe mine, is not actually our fault.  Maybe the reason for it does not lie in some massive lack of self-control and failure as a human being.  Perhaps it is not related to the people in your life.  Maybe your husband has nothing to do with it.  Maybe your lack of one is completely unrelated.  Maybe your children are innocent bystanders.  Maybe you are.

Mercy.

If you are struggling now, what if the unseen enemy has targeted you from the very beginning because he knows what your destiny is and he has unleashed every weapon in his arsenal to keep you from living in it and from it.  What if he so fears you that he has tried to bind you in agony to keep you home – keep you silent – keep you from offering what you possess and see and love.  What if you are more glorious than you even dreamed?  What if it’s true that though man looks at the outward appearance, God does look at the heart and when he looks at you - you take his breath away?  What if what has been forged in you through this fiery, painful ordeal is more priceless than gold? Because even now as you read, you are glancing Jesus’ way yet again for hope, for change, for freedom, for strength, for love, for faith, for mercy, for one more day - and in so doing, you are conquering his heart.

Go ahead and ask him.  He speaks “YES” over you.

The answer is “Yes”.  It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.

And it begins on the inside.  It begins with a rejection of self-hatred and an embracing of self-love, which is simply agreeing with how Heaven feels about you.  Until we agree with what Heaven knows about us to be true, our lives will not go or flow or flourish as they are meant to.

We know from the Word of God that his mercies are new every morning.  They never run out.  He is not tired of us coming to him again.  And again.  And oh yeah, again.  He looks at us with compassion.  He understands our struggles and why we have them and the truth that THEY DO NOT DEFINE US.  Only Jesus does that, beloved.  Only Jesus.

You are your Father’s child.  You are the beloved of God.  You are the chosen and holy one who has been bought with the precious blood of Jesus and you belong to him.  Your future is assured.  Your destiny is stunning.  One day you and I will run in a depth of freedom not known since the Garden and we will look like, and be, who we truly are.

Even now, he says we are beautiful.  He is not disappointed.  He is not ashamed.  He beckons us again to come close.  To forgive him for not freeing us with a snap of his fingers but in some mysterious reckoning of eternity allowing this struggle to continue.  Maybe this is one of the ways that we are sharing in the sufferings of Christ Jesus.  Maybe.  For a little while.  

And the way that our addictions have harmed the ones we love?  Oh God, we plead your mercy.  We ask for their forgiveness.  And may what they have suffered be added to the account making up the balance for all our Jesus endured.

Because freedom is our birthright.  Again I tell you, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free.

Free from Self-Hatred.

Free from Shame.

Free from Condemnation.

Free from Accusation.

Free from Judgment.

Free from Sin.

I don’t want to be fat forever.  Not on this side.  I don’t believe I will be because I am discovering the assignments and strongholds the enemy has made and claimed and I am breaking then, rejecting them, and cutting them off in the mighty Name of our King.  Satan has lost.  He has lost me.  And fat or normal weighted, I am the beloved of Christ and so are you.

Press on.  Press in.  You are invited and welcomed into the arms of your Father.

Embracing the Gray

Like many women my age, the COVID 19 pandemic has exposed not only false comforters in my life and heart, but the roots of my hair.  Unearthing the roots of unhealthy patterns in my life for the purposes of healing and freedom is a most welcome move of God.  The revealing of my expansive gray previously hidden underneath the skill of a marvelous beauty salon technician is another matter.

I’m 60 years old.  Am I ready to be gray?  I always imagined myself as an older woman with long gray hair ignoring my mother’s exhortations to cut it once I turned 45.  But that is years away, isn’t it?

Last week, I had the privilege of laying on the bed with my daughter (in-law) who had given birth the day before to her and my son’s first son.  We had all quarantined in such a way so that my husband and I could be there, be helpful, offer care for them and our other precious granddaughter.

Anyway, there we were lying on the bed and she lifted up her nightgown exposing her motherly belly and began to speak aloud blessings to her body.  “I bless you my organs as you shift back into place.”  “I bless you my stretch marks.”  “I bless you my post-partum body.”  She went on.  It was powerful.  It was stunning.  It was needed. And it IS rare.

Her body had carried, then labored and delivered an 8 pound human being!  How miraculous!  What a wonder!  It now is entering the recovery stage.  It won’t be the same body she knew prior to becoming pregnant with her son regardless of what tabloid articles suggest.  I bless her and I bless God that she both knows that and embraces it.

Embracing the move of God in her body as it changes and functions and matures is a beautiful thing.  Embracing the move of God in any part of our lives is a beautiful thing.  He moves within us and around us.  He moves for us and through us.  The more we say “Yes’ to his moves and cooperate with him – the more beautiful we are.

There are areas in my life that I feel his invitation to say “Yes” to that aren’t easy yet my heart’s deepest desire it to follow him wherever he leads.  He is faithful and he is worthy of my trust.  He has my ultimate “Yes” over my life.

I don’t feel though, that he is overly concerned with the color of my hair.  He wants me to like it - to feel good about it regardless of what color I choose it to be.  But here and now, I am learning from my daughter and I am blessing my changing and aging body and the shifting shade of my hair.  The old has gone, the new has come!  I am 60 years old.  I have long gray hair.  I bless it.

Caregivers

One of my beloved daughters-in-law is a nurse. She’d been working one day a week and was going to leave her position as a charge nurse to be home full time with her and my son’s children at the end of March. Instead, in early March, she went from part time to full time—working on whichever floor she is needed most. 

She was made for this. To serve. To offer. To sacrifice.

In the midst of her beautiful and skilled offering, though they live close to us, we don’t get to see her, our son, or our two beloved grandchildren. They expect to get the coronavirus. She is taking Herculean steps to prevent that from happening, but still, they expect it. Even after this calms down and she leaves her position, she and their family will remain quarantined for another two weeks. We don’t know when that will be, and oh, we miss them.

We miss them and we diligently pray for them and we regularly stand against the temptation to fear for their lives.

I’ve heard from many of you who are in the medical field or whose loved ones are. I’ve heard from one nurse whose fellow nurses circled up at the beginning of this unfolding pandemic, took hands and prayed—saying together, like battle commanders say—with a holy sobriety, “for such a time as this.” This is why I became a nurse. This is why I became a doctor. This. Is. It.

Friends, can we pray together for them here?

Holy and blessed Trinity,

You who never sleep or slumber, you who never tire or fret, you who see all, know all and love all—we lift up to you the caregivers. We lift up to you [name them] and we ask for your protection over their life. We ask for you to strengthen them by your grace. We pray you give them great wisdom, patience, and guidance in their every decision and interaction.

Jesus, would you be so very close to them? Breathe on them your breath of Life. May they become even more your intimate friend by walking this road with you. You are their Champion, the one they follow; champion them, Lord, as they fight for the lives of others.

Holy Spirit, Comforter, fill them and enable them to accomplish all that you have set before them to do in union with you. May they know to the very core of their being that they are never alone. You are the very source of their life. Fill them to overflowing with every good fruit. May they bring Jesus to those they care for by their very presence.

Father, we fervently ask that you place a hedge of protection to surround them and their families that no illness or attack could pass through. We trust you to hold them close.

Jesus, we also thank you for your angels. We summon them in the name of Jesus Christ and instruct them to destroy all that is raised against our dear ones, to establish your Kingdom over them, to guard them day and night. We ask you to send forth your Spirit to raise up prayer and intercession for them. We now call forth the Kingdom of God throughout their home, their household, their work and the domain you have given them in the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving all glory and honor and thanks to him. In Jesus’ name, amen.

God bless you, friends.

Certainty

Certainty

 

“God is our refuge and strength,

    an ever-present help in trouble

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way

    and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,

 though its waters roar and foam

    and the mountains quake with their surging.” Psalm 46

Though the news changes from day to day

and I am concerned for the safety of those I love,

Though I have no idea how long the world will feel threatened,

 and the toilet paper is running out,

Though I am steadfast against hoarding,

 and still feel the pull to gather all I can,

Yet, I know…

My security rests in you God.

 

Health is not my savior.

My bank account is not my rock.

Knowing what is coming next is not my safety.

Death itself is no longer a threat.

For You oh God are my refuge.

You are my Life everlasting.

You are my promise of provision.

You are the source of my security, my hope, my peace.

You are faithful.

 

And though I waver, You never do.

Though I am shaken, You never are.

Though I may fear, You have conquered fear.

 

I can breathe. 

I breathe in You.

I let go of worry.

You are my Peace.

I am not unsettled.

You are settled and have settled me.

You Lord are my certainty in uncertain times. 

You are the bedrock of my life.

 

“But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.”

Psalm 131:12

"For the mountains may be removed and the hills may shake, But My lovingkindness will not be removed from you, And My covenant of peace will not be shaken," Says the LORD who has compassion on you.”

Isaiah 54:10

A Little Girl’s Heart

I am the grandmother to two little girls who are parenthesis around the age of two at four months apart. One is blond.  One is brunette. One has straight hair, the other curls. They both have eyes and smiles that light up the sky and set off fireworks in my heart.  They are smart and curious and delightful and beautiful and the missing pieces in my life that I didn’t know I needed.  Every grandchild that has come has unlocked something in me that feels like a homecoming.

I am in love with them.

And I am learning how to be a grandmother.

On this learning curve, I really blew it last month.

I am so careful and attentive to what I give them.  If I spend a certain amount on one then I spend the same amount on the other.  Not perhaps at the same time nor on the same thing but the running tally is in my head.  My innate sense of justice vigilant against favoritism.

So when one little one needed a new pair of quality shoes which was out of reach for her parents, I knew that I had spent the same on a couple of dresses for my other granddaughter and I happily sprung for the shimmering pair of pink Mary Jane’s.

My mistake is coming.

Ok, here it is.  The new shoes were at my house the same time as both granddaughters were there and I gave them to the one without giving anything to the other.  Right, right, I know they will have to learn that sometimes that happens but may I remind you that they are TWO.  Their little hearts and minds do not/cannot fathom that yet.  It is as foreign a concept to them as “sharing”.

So my older granddaughter (by four months remember) opened her shoes, loved them and put them on.  Hooray!  My younger granddaughter saw them and wanted to put them on as well.  Telling her they belonged to her cousin set off her grief. When she finally understood, she walked to the corner of the room, disappeared behind a chair, and in hiding tried to comfort herself by repeating her name.

Cue sword piercing my heart.

I ran to Target as soon as I could the next day and found an inexpensive pair of gold shimmery shoes in her size.  Later that afternoon, my husband brought them to her house and had her open them.  At first, she thought these shoes too belonged to her cousin.  When she was made to understand that they were HER shoes, she immediately begged to put them “On!  On! On!”  She has barely taken them off since.

After putting on her new shimmery, “sparky” shoes, my husband got down on his knees and spoke to her in love, “Your heart matters.  YOUR heart.”

My husband and I get to join my granddaughter’s parents in conveying the truth they so constantly do. These little girls are going to grow up knowing that they are seen.  They are delighted in.  And that their hearts matter.

Let this story have its way with you.  Let it prick your heart in the remembrance of times when your heart was overlooked. When you didn’t get the new shoes, the new dress, the new notebook, the loving glance, the TIME.  When the message you received was not “your heart matters”.

And now, let me remind you of your Father.  The One who is fierce on your behalf.  Who is not keeping a tally of any kind because His love for you is immeasurable and His gifts of love and provision to you are boundless.  He sees you.  He delights in you.  He wants you to know it so badly that He came in person to deliver the message and He is coming still in this moment.

Hear his voice.  He holds your face in His hands.  He speaks.  “Your heart matters.”

“The same way a loving father feels toward his children – 

that’s but a sample of your tender feelings toward us,“ Psalm 103:13 

(The Passion Translation)

The Illusion of the Perfect

Scrooge was haunted by the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Future and it led to his redemption.  I am haunted by the illusion of the Perfect Christmas.  May it lead to mine.

 

How many cookies must I bake for my home to feel as sweet as a Bavarian Bakery?

 

How many rooms must I decorate with sprigs of evergreen and boughs of holly before a chorus of Fa La La La La’s lighten every heart?

 

How do I think of, select, and wrap the perfect gift that conveys, “I see you.  You matter.  I’ve been paying attention”?

 

How many twinkle lights will fill my home with the Light I am after?

 

And how do I ward off the feeling that I am failing miserably to do any of this?

 

I don’t know.  You would think that after all these years I would have given up but I haven’t.  My longing to convey love is not diminished though the number of cookies I bake is.  The number of rooms I decorate has lessened dramatically but my desire to recapture something of the holiness of Christmas this side of Paradise and make room for the tangible Presence of God has only increased.

 

How about you?

 

Here’s an idea.  Let’s take the pressure off.  Pressure kills.  It kills relationships.  It kills joy.  It kills our ability to enjoy the partial that we are given to relish.  It’ll kill our Christmas celebrations.  Pressure even numbs our awareness of the glory of Emmanuel – Christ with us.  Pressure takes us out.  And we want to be present – to offer the gift of our presence to those around us is actually the greatest gift we can give them.  The loved ones in our lives don’t want a marvelous gift from a harried and pressured giver.  They want us.  They want our love given with a free hand that is an alluring fragrance of our Jesus.

 

Holidays – Holy Days - are not given to us to rise to the mandate of perfection but to rest and remember – to enjoy the gifts our holy God has given to us by his free hand and to receive his gifts with humbled awe and gratefulness.  We can’t wrap enough presents to respond in this way, we can only ask for the grace to wrap our hearts around this truth.  God wants our hearts open and ready.  He invites us to live from a place of trust and rest, not a place of pressure and demand.

 

We can demand so much of ourselves, can’t we? 

 

So let’s just get it out in the open.  No one’s Christmas is going to be perfect.    But perfection IS COMING.  On that day our longings and desires will be met with a filling that is currently incomprehensible.

 

Our Christmas on this side will not be perfect but it can be holy.  It can be glorious.  It can be good.  I’m being invited to lay down the illusion that I can pull this thing off.  Instead of that pressure, I’m being invited to rest in the love of God and remember that he alone is perfect and he loves perfectly.  This babe in a manger, this Lamb of God, this Lion of Judah, this God of angel armies, this Savior of the World has come.  He is coming today.   

 

And when he comes in all his glory, every dream will come true for the richest among us and the poorest.  For the most healthy and the most infirm.  For the most seemingly blessed and the most horrifically oppressed.  Jesus is coming again. Justice is coming.  Love has already won and on that final and first day of Ultimate Triumph no illusion will shadow our hearts.  And so we wait eagerly as we hope earnestly.

 

We welcome you, Jesus.  Into the depths of who we are.  Into our celebrations.  Into our Christmas day and into all our days.  Into our hearts, our homes and our world.  Oh come, oh come Emmanuel.

 

 

(This was originally posted in 2015 but is still true for today!)

 

Coming Soon

The whole creation waits breathless with anticipation for the revelation of God's sons and daughters.  Romans 8:19

My friend is pregnant.  She is beyond ripe with child – her due date was a week ago and the little one inside is snug as a bug in a rug and seems to be in no hurry to leave his or her cozy home. My friend’s tiny frame is unbalanced to say the least.

She is w a i t i n g.  She can do nothing but wait.  (OK, yes, there are a few things she can try in order to encourage her little one to make his/her entrance but really she has no control.)

All of creation is waiting too.  It is as if it is pregnant with longing – desiring to be freed from the bonds chaining it to a broken world.

And we are waiting.  In this Season of Advent, we honor and remember that we are waiting for our Jesus to come again and set all things right.  We remember that He promised to come into our world and that He did come.  He is faithful.  He has promised that He will come again.  And so we wait eagerly, with hope for His ultimate return when we too will be freed from the affect of living in a fallen world – our natures still somewhat bound to a groaning earth.

Our hearts are made new in Christ and one day our bodies will be as well.  We will see our Jesus glorified and His splendor face to face and while we wait, there are some days where waiting for His return feels as painful as the first pangs of childbirth.

We are expanded in our waiting even as my pregnant friend expands.  We are in the waiting room of the world, eyes alight and alert for the signs of the culmination of all creation.

Or at least we are meant to be.  

We get distracted from this hope that is meant to be the anchor of our souls.  These days I am distracted by my Christmas To Do List.  This season that is meant to highlight the celebration of our King who came and is coming again, can swallow me in the day to day “requirements”.  The tree in our living room stands naked and I feel a wee bit accused by its empty branches.  Someone asked me yesterday if I was “all ready for Christmas” and I almost laughed at the absurd question.  Ready? Say what?

I love Christmas lights and Christmas music.  I love the world all dressed up with ribbons and bows and wreaths and candy canes.  I even love my now plain home even more when it is all dressed up as well.  But ready?  Ummmm, no.

I look forward to having checked off all my boxes of things to get done.  I want to enjoy them as I go through the list.  But what I want to be most ready for is Christ’s return.  What I want to be expectant of is the sound of a trumpet heralding His second arrival.

He said to be ready.  To be expectant.  He really is going to come again.  It’s true.  We forget.  I forget. But this season, let us remember that He who has promised is faithful.  The Babe in a manger is returning as the King.  He who slipped into the world quietly is coming again with the blast of a trumpet that will rip wide the sky.  The One who entered into a broken world to seek and save all that was lost is coming back to complete His task and make all things new.

Breathless. Expectant.  May every twinkle light remind us of the twinkle in God’s eye, as He knows what we must remember.  The day is near.

Growing Your Capacity for Joy

God drops things in our laps at just the right time.

He puts barriers in our paths that look like roadblocks, but are really gifts in disguise, beckoning us to take a closer look at what’s going on inside. We can either step over them, or choose to pick them up and examine them for the potential they may hold. Failure is actually ripe with goodness. The longing to run away or escape our lives for some greener grass may be the opportunity to seek God in the midst of it, to learn something deeper about both us, and Him. Exhaustion and sadness often hold the door to a more restful and joyful life.

If we will let it, these doors open to remind us of the person we wanted to be, but have left behind in the chaos and disappointments of life.

When the sadness refuses to be silenced and the feelings arise that this is not the life I signed up for, we can either go to shame, or go to God. Is it a sin to want to be happy? Is it wrong to want an inner peace that is not subject to the whims and torrents of the world? I don’t think so. God doesn’t think so either. We are made for bliss. We are made for inner peace. If it were not so, why would all humanity throughout history seek it with such a driven and frenetic passion?

I need a refuge; I need rest.

Sometimes, not knowing what to do with the overwhelming need that rises in me to simply be left alone by the clamoring within and without, I run away to a movie. Sitting in the dark and eating popcorn provides a little respite. I have a momentary flash of happiness when the opening credits and trademark soundtrack begin to roll. There’s the woman holding a torch! There’s the world turning with an engulfing light! Yay! But then, after a couple hours, I come out of the movie, and all that I left in the car still awaits me. Too often this temporary escape thing doesn’t work out the way I’d hoped.

Not that I’m opposed to temporary escapes. Look at my life, and you’ll know that. It’s just that sometimes the motive behind them isn’t a search for joy or laughter or a shared experience. Rather, it is born out of a refusal—I run away from my own heart out of a refusal to engage it. It takes energy and space to become present to the truth of my inner world, and when I’m overwhelmed, the thought is, well, overwhelming.

Until it can no longer be ignored, because God places a roadblock in my path that forces me to face the fact that I need a Savior.

When I reach the place where I’m pressed to accept my own weakness, it causes me to hold my life and heart open before the merciful eyes of a loving Father. In short, it draws me up short—to see where I fall short in my own strivings. So that I may once again discover the source of my identity, which is found smack dab in the middle of God’s loving gaze.

God calls us to run away to Him, not from Him.

He invites us to not fix our gaze on other people’s lives (and compare them to our own), but to look to Him for the source of our worthy life. He asks us to find our rest in Him. He is our resting place.

When I’m exhausted, the temptation is to turn from God, thinking He requires more from me than I have to give. I believe I need to muster some passion from a dry well and focus on improving my performance. I think I need to pull myself up from my bootstraps when I’m too tired to put my shoes on. Not so. We are called to be honest, and to bring to God our authentic selves. He asks us to come before him in the state we find ourselves in. Look at David—the Psalms are filled with his passion. He comes before God when he is desperate, and when he is rejoicing, when he is overcome and distraught, and when he is exultant and victorious. We are invited to do the same.

In every moment, God does not ask us to share life with Him as anyone other than the person we are. We are not meant to be anyone else. We are invited to come to Him with childlike trust that He will not turn His face away. He invites us to tend our hearts in His loving gaze. His arms are open wide. He is the greener grass in which we will find solace, soothing, refuge, and joy.

And as we choose to draw near to Him, to rest in the safety of his gaze, the redemptive work of God gains ground. Joy begins to bubble up, and the Kingdom of God advances in our lives, spilling over into others as well.

Open your heart to Him—to life, to vitality, to the power of God moving within and through you. Ask God to grow your capacity for joy. He can do it!

If you want more on how to find a rich, “defiant joy” in your life today, I hope you’ll order a copy of my new book, Defiant Joy—Taking Hold of Hope, Beauty and Life in a Hurting World. I also invite you to listen to four new Ransomed Heart podcasts this month, where I share how to maintain a posture of holy defiance that neither denies nor diminishes our pain but dares to live with expectant, unwavering hope.

Offered in love,

Stasi

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