God made "a way" in a manger....

The question came up in my head today about why some people refuse to accept Jesus Christ.  

I know there are probably thousands of answers floating around out there... I mean seriously if we, who are believers, are honest....we all can admit that we have not been good representatives of Jesus at times.....

BUT what God laid on my heart was very relevant for the season we are now in.... CHRISTMAS....

when I asked that question... I felt God immediately answered me with this...

"because they think they are not good enough"

But actually it's true.....
WE AREN'T GOOD ENOUGH
and we won't ever be GOOD ENOUGH....
that's why Christmas came.....because JESUS was needed to be our "GOOD ENOUGH"

Growing up in the church I was taught so much of the LAW....but I never heard much about GRACE.
Don't get me wrong...the LAW is an important part of the Gospel.
Without the law we would never realize that we need a Savior....a way to be GOOD ENOUGH.

So today I am praying for those bound up in the thought of not being "GOOD ENOUGH".  Praying that they will come to the realization of the TRUE CHRISTMAS GIFT....
FROM GOD TO YOU.....

GOD SENT HIS SON TO SAVE IT.....NOT CONDEMN IT.....(John 3:17)

So my friends.....here is my prayer.....

May the 

all-surpassing

all-consuming

lavish love of Jesus,

 this Christmas,

 abolish the LIE

 that has stopped you from receiving 

HIS AMAZING GRACE 

so that you are no longer 

under the LAW 

but under HIS GRACE.

"And now all who BELIEVE in him receive that GIFT. For there is really no difference between us, for we ALL have sinned and are in need of the glory of God. Yet through his powerful declaration of acquittal, God freely gives away his righteousness. HIS GIFT OF LOVE and favor now cascades over us, all because JESUS, the Anointed One, has LIBERATED US FROM GUILT, punishment, and power of sin!" 

Romans 3:24 & 25 The Passion Translation

Gloria in excelsis Deo!

Drying Her Feet

If you live long enough in this life it's inevitable that you will bump head-on into a memory and suddenly you are transported back to that time...that place...

This happened to me last night as I stepped out of the shower.  I got to my feet and I heard it just as if the voice was there in my bathroom...."don't forget to dry my feet Lesa".  That voice inside my head was my dear mama some 11 years ago as I was giving her a bath one morning.  This feisty 68 year old lady was suffering from the effects of Pancreatic Cancer.  My sisters and sister in law (Lord bless her soul) all took turns staying with mama around the clock.  I quit my job so that I could be with her knowing fully well that she would not be here with us for very long.  So my shift was the morning shift.  I came in to get her feeding bag started....check her vitals....administer any medications....give her a hot shower....and fix her hair. (yes...mama wanted her hair fixed everyday.  She said it was "normal" for her and anything "normal" is welcomed when you are dealing with a sickness). 

One spring morning as I was drying her off I began to hum (Honestly some days it was all I could do to prevent the tears.).  My mama loved music....I remember many days as a young girl gathering around the organ or the piano to listen to mama play.  It was a common thing especially around the holidays when family and friends were over. 

So as I was drying her off I started humming the old hymn, "I Love to Tell the Story".  I didn't really know that mama was even listening to me until suddenly she started singing the song that I was humming....and low and behold the bathroom ended up being a mini concert with my singing 2nd soprano and mama harmonizing with her beautiful alto voice.
 "I love to tell the story...
will be my theme in glory....
to tell the old old story....of Jesus and His love"
It was a simple thing that day...
       just an old hymn....
                   in a bathroom....
                              after a shower....
                                     while drying her feet

Never Be Afraid of Being a Broken Thing

I stood in the Hwy 28 Feed and Seed store the other day....looking at all the seeds sitting inside their containers and I became acutely aware that if they are never planted....they REMAIN just a seed....nothing more than just a seed.  Then BOOM the Word became so alive in that moment to me "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone" John 12:24  Inside that container the seed has no purpose whatsoever.  It's ONLY when its taken out and used for its purpose that it is useful.  But to do that it has to hit the ground and become BROKEN.

Yesterday as I was reading The Broken Way by Ann Voskamp and I came across a section talking about seeds and being broken....



"The seed breaks to give us wheat.  The soil breaks to give us the crop, the sky breaks to give us the rain, the wheat breaks to give us the bread.  The bread breaks to give us the feast.  There was once even an alabaster jar that broke to give Him the glory.  Never be afraid of being a broken thing."

This short paragraph led me to ponder further of how a seed, which is not useful inside its container   can become useful once it breaks open inside the ground.  It grows and sprouts and before long it flourishes into something useful for others. The same was true at the Lord's Supper.  Jesus was demonstrating the concept of the seed when He broke the bread (representing His soon to be broken body) We read before taking the bread this scripture.... "And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me" I Cor. 11:24.  His body was broken for us so that we could live and have eternal life.  Seeds in a garden fall to the earth and break open and we get to enjoy the goodness from that seed once it produces its fruit. BUT it first has to break open.

Brokenness (suffering) in our own life is inevitable.  It's part of the plan. As Voskamp writes,

"There's absolutely no tidy pattern as to who gets pain and who gets peace.  This is the deal we ALL get...guaranteed suffering. (brokenness)"

But how can that be a good thing?  How can our brokenness lead to goodness...to "fruit"?  Although brokenness hurts and cracks us to pieces...it's those racks that allows not only for HIS LIGHT to get into us in our misery and darkness....but it's how light shines through us to others. In Japan the Japaneses use a technique for repairing broken china called Kintsugi- the art of "healing" broken pottery with gold.....it transforms brokenness into the most valuable part of the piece.  I know for me whenever I have had a broken piece of china I have tried to glue it back together so that NO ONE WOULD SEE THAT IT WAS BROKEN.  Isn't that true with us as well?  We try to hide our brokenness in order to appear "whole"  We try to be strong when we really are weak, broken people in need of repairing.  The Japanese are demonstrating the gospel (whether they realize it or not).  The gold strands become the most valuable piece of the broken pottery.  It's shattered useless pieces are HELD  together with beautiful gold lines.  Just like us....we are stronger when we allow God's beauty to be reflected through and in our brokenness.

 Ann goes on to say, "blessed-lucky are those who cry, blessed are those who are sad, who mourn, who feel the loss of what they love---because they will be HELD by the ONE who loves them.  There is a strange and aching happiness only the hurting know---FOR THEY SHALL BE HELD"

 I love that word...."HELD".  If you have ever experienced brokenness as a believer I am sure you also felt "HELD" at some point by Jesus.

Maybe our brokenness is like those seeds inside the jar at the Feed and Seed store.  Totally useless inside the jar.  Just like us....if we appear to this hurting world as "put together" with our cracks (brokenness) hidden it will never benefit anyone.  BUT, once the see is broken...it then become abundant to to others.

  Ann states, "God does great things through the greatest wounds.  God sees the broken as the "best" and He see the best in the broken and He calls the wounded to be the WORLD CHANGERS."

So through our brokenness we help others.  Through a seed's brokenness, it feeds others.

In the last paragraph of her chapter, "What to Do with Your One Broken Heart", she writes, "For a seed to come fully into it's own, it must become wholly undone.  The shell must break open, it 's insides must come out, and everything must change."

How well do you hide your brokenness?  Are you a "super-glued" person appearing to this hurting world as whole but totally messed up?  Through your brokenness, God gets to use you for His glory.  Why don't you allow yourself to be "HELD" by Him and let Him mend you with His "golden strands" of mercy and grace and......

"never
be
afraid
of
being
a
broken thing."

 

"FAITHFULNESS"

FAITHFULNESS....what does faithfulness look like? Well to me it looks like a sunrise.
Last year while we were spending a week in Charleston writing our book for the ministry entitled "The Story Matters" , several mornings we walked out onto the beach to watch the sunrise. And that is when "Faithfulness" hit me like a ton of bricks. As I watched the slender line of light appear on the waters edge against the black sky...I began to hear God say to me..."Lesa I am faithful...I am the Author of the dark of night and I am the Author of the Light of Day...Trust Me to know that I am Faithful....I won't pass you by....You do not need to fret or worry...I will always send the dawn....and with it my NEW mercies will be there for you". And as that sun appeared on the horizon along with the sun came the warmth. It was just an awesome moment for me to witness this.
I remember a time of great darkness for me in 2007....at the Hospice House. Me and my family were gathered around the bed of our precious mama watching each labored breath knowing fully well that she was slipping from this earth and from our lives. I remember the quiteness of the room as she labored; fighting between this earthly life and the spiritual life that gloriously awaited her. But then something very strange happened....and I know for a fact that this was from the Lord.
The nurse had stopped by to check on mama and on us to see how we were handling everything. In talking to her I told her that we were ready to let mama go and that we knew she would be ok. Then I made some type of comment about the morning will come (cause it was just a little past midnight by then). Suddenly out of nowhere the radio by mama's bedside turned on and a minister was preaching....the next moment was so surreal for me....cause in the darkness of that room with death looming all about us; the preacher shouted, "JOY comes in the morning". The nurse looked stunned. She said in all her years of nursing that this had never happened.

To me this was a gift from God. Cause He knew that in 4 1/2 hours mama would no longer be with us but with Him. And He wanted to assure us that JOY would come. And even though the sun did appear that next spring morning after Mothers Day 2007, I was still dark with sadness...of lost...but His FAITHFULNESS continued....and about six months later JOY returned. My "morning" had finally dawned after my "mourning". He was there....I could sense His warmth and His new mercies again.
Just like that sunrise...the cold of the night was ending and the dawn of a new light was on the horizon. He was there...reminding me....
"I am faithful.....
I am here....
I never left you... even in the dark....
"See here is my sunrise to remind you of just that....I am faithful....I am here....I never left you....no, not even for one moment"

My Christmas Miracle

Twenty three years ago today I laid eyes for the first time on our son and welcomed him into the world....but instead of getting to hold him...I stared at him through an incubator transport cart which was taking him by emergency transport to another hospital.  I was uncertain at that time if my "hello's and goodbye's" would be my last.  Born with severe birth defects we were not sure that he would make it through the first night, let alone the multiple surgeries that would take place over the span of a few years.  But God was merciful and He miraculously healed my little boy at times doing so by His own divine intervention instead of the medical team.  Through his birth I have grown closer and more intimate with the Lord.  He has taught both me and Grayson so much through our little Christmas baby's birth. 
Thank you God for sending us this special gift early Christmas morning 23 years ago today.  Even though that day was filled with so much uncertainty and pain.....You turned it around for our good and for Your honor.
We love you Drew and we are so proud of the man that you have become....
Happy Birthday & Merry Christmas!

"by Grace"

At the age of 50 most people my age are trying to cover up their tattoo's from their younger years of error and mistakes. However for my 50th birthday I went and got my very first tattoo, a well-thought-out tattoo.

For years I thought that tattoos were wrong, but a few years ago I came into the full revelation of grace....God's grace. I can explain this but Pastor Chuck Gerwig does it better from Santa Cruz Bible Church.http://www.sacredink.net/tattoo_and_the_bible/ With this revelation I pondered on what I would want permanently etched on my body and the word "Grace" kept coming to me. See I am the only person in the entire Universe that knows exactly what His grace means to me personally. I know the depth of His grace in my life. So this is why I chose the tattoo, "by Grace". And since the Old Testament forbade the practice of tattooing your body (see the above link for clarity of these laws) I chose the New Testament verse in Romans 6:14 which states, "I am no longer under law; but under grace".

The words, "by Grace" is open ended, which means I can add what comes after "by Grace". "by Grace"...I am free, "by Grace...I can love the way Christ loves me, "by Grace....I can forgive, the way Christ forgave me, "by Grace"....I am His child, "by Grace"..I am an heir of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, "by Grace"...when He sees me, He sees His righteousness, "by Grace"...He sees beauty instead of my old ashes of a regretted past, "by Grace"...His undeserved pardon for me!

Another aspect of this design was the fact that the "G" was a cojoined "J" and "C" which stands for Jesus Christ....He was the one that paid the price for my grace.

I didnt do this tattoo to be controversial. Instead I did it to hopefully be able to share with others that this same grace is also available to them just like it was for me.

And....for the young people that may be reading this blog, the link above has some very important information listed in it about when a tattoo is wrong, especially when you are under age and still under your parent's authority. (i.e. living in their home and putting your feet under their table no matter how old you are )

"by Grace"....

Jesus Loves Me...

this....I .....KNOW!

Peace & Blessings

L

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