Ditto

I have a twin sister who looks just like me.  We even sound the same.  And we both have blogs.  I read hers almost religiously because so much of what she says echoes in me.  Her most recent entry about heart soil is still bouncing around inside me.  God prepares the soil of our hearts in different ways but His love and care are the same for each of us.

http://www.myeverydayjourney.com/

Daughter of the King

I am a slow learner sometimes but I have learned to pay attention to related things that just "pop up" in my life.  Usually God is trying to get my attention when it happens so that I can learn something or understand something.  

This past Sunday one of the kids in the Treehouse, the Kid's Church I am director of, shared his favorite verse from memory.  It was really cool that he could just rattle off a verse and I know that God smiled big when His Word was being spoken.  I couldn't help from smiling when it happened but God had more in mind.

"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might."  Ecclesiastes 9:10

He was getting my attention using the children I love so dearly.  I teach kids.  I think I pretty good at it.   But when I read the following question in my daily devotional this morning I couldn't answer it quickly.  It is a huge question.  

"If you could be as victorious and consistent as you'd like to be, what would you most like to accomplish for the kingdom?"

I am still not able to answer it fully, but I do know what God has called me to work at with all my might.  My hands have found something to do that I am good at - teaching kids.  Even if that isn't the full answer, part of the deeper answer is found in it.  I must be obedient to God and do what He gives me to do.  Right now it is being the Children's Director at my church and teaching ballet to little ones.  

Yes I want to teach kids about God but in the end their learning it isn't something I can guarantee.  I can't even guarantee a changed heart in my self much less others.  But God can.  God promises to finish this good work in me.  The good work He has allowed me to be apart of in those I teach.

So this is the most complete answer I can give...the changing of my heart is what I want to accomplish for the kingdom and while God changes me to be more like Him I will do whatever my hands find to do with all my might because that is part of the changing.  Whether that is washing dishes, cutting out paper triangles for a craft, or teaching a 3yr old how to skip for the first time.  All my  might is what God asks for, He will do the rest.

Things I do, do not change to world.  They may not even change those I am teaching.   All I can work toward is changing me.  I would like to accomplish for the kingdom a servant's heart that is teachable and humble and proud to be called a Child of God, Daughter of the King.  

New Life

God's ability and beautiful variation to create new life never ceases to astound me and leave me speechless.  The eggs have hatched and I caught a glimpse while momma was away.

I could only see two baby chicks clearly.  Hopefully all three eggs hatched!  I found out that they are Carolina Wrens.  I am sure momma is off hunting to fill those hungry mouths.

Reality Check

Recently I asked God a question.  Why am I so drawn into books?  I love to read.  And I can read almost anything and gain enjoyment out of it.  Historical Fiction.  Mystery.  Magical Realism.  Science Fiction. Even non-fiction.  But the genre that draws me in most completely, the up-till-3 am-to-finish-just-one-more-chapter type of book, is fantasy.  (I prefer the ones found in the children's section in the library no sex and more dragons.)  Why, God, am I so drawn into the unreal?  

I think this is an epidemic in our culture.  To allow the unreal to rule our lives.  To seek to live in fantasy.  I have seen it and it is a lie of Satan.  How easily we are deceived when the reality of life is so much more amazing than any book or movie or fantasy could ever be.  Our hearts are longing for the story they were created to be a part of and we are pacifying them with cheep imitations.

This morning God answered me.  Let's just sit there for a moment.  God answered me.  How amazing is my God!  I know if I am sincere in the asking and patient in the waiting He will answer!  I love Him!

The answer was tucked away in Colossians 2:2b, "I want them to have complete confidence that they understand God's mysterious plan, which is Christ himself. In Him lie hidden all treasures of wisdom and knowledge."  At first glance this verse doesn't seem to answer my question but let me share with you what God told me.

Beth Moore says it the best, "Something in each of us just loves a relationship that is both secure and mysterious all at the same time."  The best written books follow this recipe, but they are only following an earlier model - one from before the creation of the world.  I love fantasy because it warmly embraces the mysterious.  I love fantasy because it mimics God's relationship with me.  He is both mysterious and secure.  I can easily loose myself in a fantasy; God wants me to find myself in His reality where I am both the damsel in distress miraculously saved by the hero and the heroine at his side journeying to free others.

I am hardwired to desire that type of relationship, that type of story.  I think we all are.  And God is mysterious, I can never know this side of heaven all there is to know of Him.  But God is secure,  I have no shadow of a doubt who He is and what He has done for me.  He loves me despite all my flaws.  He saved me, choose me from before the creation of the world.  He is my Hero.

What is more amazing is the promise found several verses later.  The promise of what will happen when we live in God's reality.  The real story.  "Let your roots grow down into Him, and let your lives be built on Him.  Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness."  (verse 7)  When I choose to lose myself in the only Reality from before the beginning of all time my faith grows strong in TRUTH and I will overflow with thankfulness.  WOW! 

That is the reality I choose.  The fantastic story I am a part of!

The God of Fairytales

This past year the ballet studio where I teach performed Cinderella.  It is a well known story, and the ballet version only slightly differs from the version most of us know.  God reminded me of and revealed something to me during one of our rehearsals...

The Prince is standing center stage during the ballroom scene.  Cinderella enters.  All in attendance bow.  The prince goes to his knees before her.  She is beautiful.  The transformation from ash girl into the ethereal is complete.  They dance.  

We all know the story of Cinderella but that day was the first time I wanted to be her.  I mean I could not keep my eyes off her and longed with everything in me to be her.  All because Magic happened. 

The Prince was waiting.  Cinderella walks into the ballroom after being tested by the Fairy Godmother and then transformed into a princess so that her outside matches her inside.  Her true heart was revealed.

I stopped and thought why that day of all days.  I have seen this portion of the ballet many times in person and in video.  Why?  God shared with me the answer.  Because it is His Story.

God is the Fairy Godmother testing Cinderella's heart.  He sees her heart.  He transforms Cinderella stripping away the dirt and grime and everyday-ness.  He is also the Prince at the ball waiting for His princess to show up.  It is a timeless tale because it tells the tale of the timeless.  But there is more…

Human tales can only tell so much.  Analogies can only parallel so far.  The real magic is that God orchestrated the whole thing.  If we follow the analogy with us being Cinderella and Satan being the evil step-mother and Jesus being the Prince we can see God's plan for humanity.  

He allowed Cinderella to be placed with an evil step mother.  He planned for the Fairy Godmother to come disguised as a poor beggar woman to test Cinderella's heart.   He threw together a ball.  All for one purpose…so that Cinderella would fall in love with the Prince.  You see, the Prince was already in love with Cinderella.  She just needed to fall in love with Him.  That is the secret to the magic.  

She was His bride from the beginning she just didn't know it.  I want to teach that. In dance and in life.  That is what we are created for. To be His Bride.  To fall in love with The Prince that already loves us.

Wrinkled Soul

My soul has been slowly ironed out this summer.  Do you ever feel like your very soul is crumpled like last night's pajamas?  I do.  I find that feeling comes mostly after intense periods of busy-ness or service or when God is dealing with some deep rooted heart issues in me that leaves me breathless and tired. This wrinkledness seems to be a mixture of all three, this summer at least.  The crumpled feeling isn't a lack of peace.  Peace comes from the uncompromising truth of Christ Jesus and is like the constant current of deep waters.  What I am talking about is what I think the ocean feels, if indeed the ocean could feel, when there is a great storm on the surface.  The deep is constant; the surface is in turmoil.  

Everyday wrinkles are shook out on my front porch during Jesus time or cuddling with my hubby or weeding my garden or climbing trees with the kids.  The dress-shirt-right-out-of-the-packaging wrinkles require more - I would say work but it is not my work that irons out my wrinkles.  God is definitely the one doing all the work I just have to be willing to lay down on His ironing board.  

There are three places on the planet I have found so far where God irons my soul out nice and flat then gently folds it into a perfect square and hands it back to me.  (I always imagine His hands to look like my Dad's - strong and able.)  I don't think these places hold magical power or have some sort of crazy new age spiritual aura.  I do think, however, that I, for whatever reason, can get out of God's way in these places and allow Him to work.  They are:

The ocean's edge

The mountains

Ballet class

Both the ocean's edge and the mountains display God's majesty and power and greatness to such an extent that I can not help but be put in my place so to say.  It is not hard to withdraw my right to myself in the presence of His Glory and thereby placing myself on His ironing board where all things are righted, ironed flat and pressed clean.

Ballet class is complicated, even to me.  But looking at this picture above, the ballet barres lined up,  speaks to my soul in ways other things don't.  Just as God has placed eternity in my heart, He has also  placed dance there too.  And this is what I am learning,  we are God's glory.  His glory in me has found expression in dance.  

The righting that God does during a ballet class is different, more personal, more deep, more...just more.  It is an ironing that gives form and definition to what the end will be. He is speaking to me in a language that can not be spoken and that can not die.   Not just ironing me flat but putting in the creases where they belong, making me more of an expression of His glory.  And that amazes me each and every time...the God of the Universe, Creator of All, Savior of Mankind desires to express His glory in me.  In each of us.  

Practical God

This morning in my devotional God was called practical.  I am a very practical person so that spoke to me but the more I thought about it I realized that it isn't entirely true.  God in many ways is practical as the Creator of the Universe He created practicality.  He provides for us food and shelter.  He causes the sun to come up and the moon to set.  So much of what He does, however, isn't what I would call practical in my own limited human understanding of practicality which is an entirely different conversation.  The beauty of the sunrise for instance or the ring that sometimes appears around the moon.  Where is the practicality in those things?

And this nest I discovered in a hanging pot of begonias.  You can't see it in this hastily taken photo - I didn't want to upset the momma bird any more than necessary - but the eggs are exquisite.  A pale grayish blue with black speckles.  The beauty of the egg has no practical purpose.  It doesn't conceal the egg from predators or otherwise make it less noticeable.  I think God just wanted to house new life in something beautiful.  Beauty isn't practical but it is beautiful.  

That is one of the many reasons I love my God!  He is practical and beautiful in just the right amounts.