Hymn of Faith

Though the fig tree should not blossom,
   nor fruit be on the vines,

the produce of the olive fail
   and the fields yield no food,

the flock be cut off from the fold
   and there be no herd in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the LORD;
   I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

Adonai, the Lord, is my strength;
   He makes my feet like the deer's;
   He makes me tread on my high places.

Habakkuk 3:17-19

Word of God Speak

Let MY words be few...

O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;

My soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory.

Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands.

My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips, when I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night;

For you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy. My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.

Psalm 63:1-8

Back in Black...

Here I sit in bed blogging... I should be sleeping.  I am home alone tonight and really feeling it.  I haven't slept much at all in the last few days so I should be out, but tonight the "weight" of life is bearing down a little more than usual. 

I will confess that adding to what I will simply refer to as "life issues", is my mild anxiety concerning tomorrow's schedule. For those who are unaware, I am the Practice Representative for our area's BEST chiropractor.  I am doing a "screening" for a large group (150-200) of EMS personnel for the entire day. Piece-a-cake.  However,  I will be presenting a 30-45 minute talk (immediately following lunch - yeah, I get the desk droolers) for said medical professionals.  Did you catch that?  They being medically trained and educated, will be listening to me  attempt to teach them something.  It's intimidating to me and I don't get easily intimidated.  It's not the talking part that has me cranked... that is my specialty.  (I will pause for a moment allowing whatever snide remark that is running through your mind finish its course...)  The question is can I really teach them anything? 

I'd rather entertain them... would it be inappropriate to break out into chiropractic song parodies like "My Boyfriend's Back - is really out of whack" or "Jimmy Cracked Corn but my Doc can do it better", how about "I've Got Friends in Lower Lumbar Regions", maybe "Like a Virgin- adjusted for the very first time",  "I Can't Get No Subluxation (relief)"... wow, these are getting bad..."Ice Ice Baby- for at 10-20 minutes".  Yeah, maybe I better stick with the script.

Because of the occupation of these "seminarians" and their circles, I fear many may well know a good portion of my "life issues"... I HATE this.  This is the biggest reason I do not want to be there.  It is heart breaking to me, that while I have no reason to not walk in there with my head held high, I feel cloaked in shame.  How do I walk in there and be overtly me?  I already feel judged and I am not even there yet... I can feel the sizing up (or down) and no one is even laid an eye on me yet...  I know what I would say to someone if they were expressing these things to me, but somehow it doesn't seem to carry the encouragement.  It's kinda like rubbing your own feet... 

I pray that I will look out into the sea of faces and find just one person smiling back at me.  Maybe a familiar face, maybe not, but just one whose smile says, "You are not alone.  You've got this.  You can do this. I believe in you. Keep your head up and stay focused.  You are after all a Princess of the King.  Now, smile and enjoy the people you are there to serve."  Thank you friend... whoever you are.

Just a few hours until the alarm goes off... how about, "Don't Tell My Back, My Achy Breaky Back (that my doc is in Jamaica for a week!)  Yeah, I should have definitely gone to sleep before writing this post!

I better get crackin'... :)

In Goodness: LORD Gives and Takes Away

Tonight I pray as the Psalmist prayed..."The affliction You sent was good for me, for it caused me to pay attention to your principles."

Hosea 6:1         Come, let us return to the Lord. For He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bandage us.

Deuteronomy 32:39      See now that I, I am He, and there is no <’elohiym> besides Me; it is I who put to death and give life. I have wounded and it is I who heal, and there is no one who can deliver from My hand.

1 Samuel 2:6    The Lord kills and makes alive; He brings down to hell and raises up.

Isaiah 30:26b    …the Lord binds up the fracture of His people and heals the bruise He has inflicted.

Job 5:18           For He inflicts pain, and gives relief; He wounds, and His hands also heal.

Let the healing begin...

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Pharisiacal Freedom

I am a detail person...well, usually.  If I were reading this blog I would have noticed the last post was posted at 3:30 am.  I would have speculated that such a post was predictable at 3:30 AM.  We just do not cope well with much of anything when we are tired or are without much sleep.

That said, it is what it is.  Some things/seasons in life keep us up at night or wake us up.  I am in such a season.  Once again, I find myself beginning a post that has no apparent focus but in God's goodness to me I find that if I just keep writing He produces something in me and for me.  It still amazes me.  That is why I am so thankful to be back here.  I am excited to see what He will show me... how something as simple (or silly) as blogging, is a part of how He renews my mind and thereby transforms me.  It's His promise.  Wow.  Give me a minute... I am processing this even in this moment...

I have had to fight this performance/religious based "thing" in me most of my life... this pharisaical mindset.  Could it be that the transformation that I so desperately strive and long for through prayer and study, may actually come to pass by way of the gifts and desires that He has already placed in me?  Don't get me wrong. Prayer- good. Reading the Word-good.  But what if, in my religious pursuit, I am left empty? What if Holy Spirit is working within my natural desire to speak and to write and I don't have to "do" anything except that which comes naturally?  Even as I am typing these thoughts and words there is a war in my soul... 

Voice 1: "It can't possibly be THAT easy... of course, you have to DO something.  You must be disciplined and focused."

Voice 2: "Maybe it is THAT easy... that natural.  Wouldn't that feel like freedom?"

I posted on Twitter something I heard Kris Valloton (Bethel Church, Redding, California) say in a message he shared.  The Law of Liberty -the Bible/Holy Spirit mixer- doesn't give me freedom to do what I want to do, it allows me to do what love requires.  What if love requires me to do just that- love.  Maybe love (or a dimension of love) looks like doing what comes naturally to me, allowing Him to work and move through me.  Am I making any sense?  If what I understand in this moment, while maybe not clearly articulating, is true, then I may on the verge of experiencing an incredible new level of freedom. Didn't Jesus come for freedom?  It is for freedom that He set me free... free to be ME in Him and through Him... exclusively Steffanie... overtly Steffanie... (I am sensing you’re getting a little nervous). 

I SO long for it to be OK to not be structured or organized or HAVE to have every i dotted and every t crossed... if I am growing in the things of Christ, if I am being transformed by the renewing of my mind, does it really matter "how" that is being done?

Romans 8 says there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.  I see where I have lived in a state of all that I am NOT- condemnation. No wonder there is no freedom or change... it's not of God! 

Verse 4 of that same chapter says "He did this so that the requirement of the law would be fully accomplished by us who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit."  Could it be that my sinful nature has been following the law?  Still?? 

What if following the Spirit actually can feel natural, easy? Verse 9 "But you are NOT controlled by your sinful nature.  You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you...{on to verse 12}...you have NO obligation whatsoever to do what your sinful nature urges you to do."  For real?? 

My sinful nature is pharisaical... it wants to follow the law.  Verse 6 "If your sinful nature {to follow the law} controls your mind {you should do this and you shouldn't do that}, there is death.  But if the Holy Spirit controls your mind, there is life and peace."  Whoa!  No wonder I always feel like I am dying...maybe because I am!  I want life and peace...duh (sorry, little old school).

No one else, or anything else,  gets to decide or dictate what my life needs to look like.  I can walk in the freedom of how Jesus made me, doing the things that He has gifted me to do, (even things I enjoy doing) and in it discover the freedom of a natural relationship with Him. HE does the transforming in that place of freedom. Maybe He transforms me, not when I am striving to be transformed, but when I am simply being and doing ME in the manner in which He created me... overtly me.  This Beloved, blows me away. 

I GET to do what love requires... that's it...it always comes back to Love.

It's Still Raining...

PRAISE YOU IN THIS STORM
Casting Crowns

I was sure by now that You would have reached down
wiped our tears away,
stepped in and saved the day.
But once again, I say amen
and it's still raining
as the thunder rolls
I barely hear You whisper through the rain,
"I'm with you"
and as Your mercy falls
I raise my hands and praise
the God who gives and takes away.

And I'll praise you in this storm
and I will lift my hands
for You are who You are
no matter where I am
and every tear I've cried
You hold in your hand
You never left my side
and though my heart is torn
I will praise You in this storm

I remember when I stumbled in the wind
You heard my cry to You
and raised me up again
my strength is almost gone how can I carry on
if I can't find You
and as the thunder rolls
I barely hear You whisper through the rain
"I'm with you"
and as Your mercy falls
I raise my hands and praise
the God who gives and takes away

I lift my eyes onto the hills
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth
I lift my eyes onto the hills
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth

And I'll praise you in this storm
and I will lift my hands
for You are who You are
no matter where I am
and every tear I've cried
You hold in your hand
You never left my side
and though my heart is torn
I will praise You in this storm.

I praise You Lord...

I'm Back

I miss blogging... I am utterly amazed at how different, and exactly the same, my life is in comparison to my last post. I reread my entire blog and oddly enough, if the posts weren't dated, I would have cause for concern that I was somehow blogging in a nocturnal stupor regarding my current condition.

I am not on Facebook (I confess, I would be a creeper) but I am on Twitter. I love twitter. I have told other "mockers of the tweet" that if you can't say what needs to be said in 140 characters or less than it probably doesn't need to be said... ok, what I really mean is, I probably don't want to hear it. :) Yet, here I am blogging away with nothing really meaningful to say other than reintroducing myself to my blog.

I have come to realize, in more ways than I will confess here, I have a need to be heard... oddly enough, one of the very things that Lord has been transforming in me is the need to say less. So I ponder... is my need/call to say less stirring a greater need to be heard? I have always had plenty to say (pausing for the snide remarks) but I wonder in my sea of words how much has actually been heard.

I will be working to come here often... to think out loud. You don't have to listen. That may be actually more than either of us can handle. But I have determined that this blog is much more cost efficient than therapy for me! So I will write... think... speak... process... grow... heal... transform. Come along for the ride if you'd like, but I can almost promise a road with numerous turns, bumps and detours.

It's good to be back...again.