The Silversmith and Silver Anniversaries

Silver is a metal that as it is refined in the heat of the flame, the impurities that darken and hide it's beauty, slowly fall away. The silversmith must keep a close watch on the silver during the entire process to insure it's beauty is brought forth and not destroyed. Over and over, he carefully puts it into the center of the fire and then withdraws it, studying it closely to see if it is ready. Then, the moment comes when he knows that his work has brought forth beauty...when he sees his own reflection in it. The black, dingy piece of metal has now become valuable, because of this reflection...because of the work of the faithful silversmith. 

There is a reason that the 25th wedding anniversary is represented by silver. As my husband and I celebrate ours today, I can't help but see the parallel of the years to this process...
When we first got married, there were so many "impurities" of selfishness and pride, that it was often hard to believe there was anything of value under all those layers of dingyness. But through the years, as we have surrendered more and more of ourselves to the Silversmith and the wisdom of His plan and purpose, and as He has used the "heat" of life and marriage, we can see that His gentle hand has slowly removed and refined much "slag" or impurities from us. Refining is not an easy or overnight process and we are by no means perfect, but I am thankful that our Silversmith has always been watchful and patient over these 25 years. He has never left us to be destroyed in the heat, but has brought our marriage to a place where it can begin to become what it was intended to be by the Silversmith, from the beginning of time...a reflection of His sacrificial love to the world. 
I pray His reflection becomes ALL that can be seen over the next 25 years... Amazing grace!

A Letter to My Wounded Sisters

  My Precious Sister,

   I have wept silent tears for you. My heart aches for the burdens you have been carrying for so long...weighing you down and stealing your joy. 

 I have walked the depths of the valley you are in. I have known the long nights of crying out in the darkness.

    I see your weariness. How tired you are of trying to outrun it. Done with trying to find a mask that covers it. Worn out from striving for some accomplishment to overcome it. Yet the fear, the shame, the hurt is always with you...haunting you, whispering the lies that only you can hear...drowning you in despair and exhaustion.  

   The scars you wear are solemn reminders of your desperate attempts to hide the pain hidden deep. But no matter how many cuts you make, you can't make the dark disappear. 
    
    Please hear me sweet sister: 

YOU ARE NOT ALONE! 

   Oh, I know you believe that you are, that no one could possibly understand what you feel. And so you have retreated further inside yourself. 
 The enemy of your soul wants nothing more than this...to isolate you, to pull you away from the One Who formed you (Psalm 139:13), the One who sings over you every morning (Zephaniah 3:17).
When will you stop doubting His heart toward you? Don't you know? Haven't you heard? From the days of our sister Eve, the Enemy has been spinning the same old lies...that God isn't really for you, maybe everybody else, but not you...that He is holding out on you like some vindictive, promise breaker who can't be trusted? Satan subtly sows the seeds of doubt that bring forth despair. 

   What do I say to convince you that the love He has for you is deeper than your wounds? How do I help you know that this love He has for you is wide enough to carry all your hurts and long enough to last forever? (Eph.3:18-19)That the One Who made you knit all the parts of you so tenderly (Psalm 139:15), with every cell a stamp of His Divine Image upon you? 

So how do I make you see that you are so beautiful to Him? Not just to know it in your mind, but have it permeate your heart so completely that you see the masterpiece He made you (Eph.2:10) every time you look in the mirror?

No words of mine could match the Word that He has already given. His Answer to every doubt you have ever had. The depth of His love for you has been clearly proven. There is no more evidence that can be offered that could possibly speak more precisely and dispute more completely every lie that the enemy has ever told you. 

God answered Who He really is and how much He loves you on the Cross. 

There is only One who can truly heal your wounds because of His. And it wasn't because you were pretty enough, smart enough, good enough...it was when you were at your worst that He loved you enough to die for you. 

That is the place Truth can be found. So stop trying to find the answers from within your own mind or experiences. Look up and see the Cross, the evidence of His love  that silences the noisy lies in your head. 
 Every lie the enemy had ever spoken was refuted. 

All you have to do is believe He loves you like no other. Always has. Always will. 

   




   

Who Is This Jesus?

    Luke 22:66-71

You'd think they would have known. After all, they had spent their lives studying and teaching the Scriptures, and leading God's people. But the blind often lead the blind into darkness and no one even knows they've been going in circles, until Someone comes with a Light.

    They point blank asked Him to tell them who He was. 

"If you are the Christ," they said, "tell us."

"Are you the Son of God?" 

    Standing right there in front of them, He did just that, clearly and plainly for all to hear. 

"You are right in saying I am." 

Christ before the High Priest
about 1617, Gerrit van Honthorst
copyright National Gallery of London

    I Am. Jesus' words echoed God's first naming of Himself to Moses, "Tell them I Am sent you." The Mystery, Majesty and Magnitude was far too great to fit into an ordinary Name. Centuries later, here was the Messiah claiming that same Title...that same Mystery, that same Majesty and with that same Magnitude. How could this have been missed by the very ones who should have recognized Him? How did they not know Who He was? What caused their blindness?

Perhaps when 

 Hearts are hardened by jealousy we cannot hear the whisper of His Voice.

or the 

 Fear of losing power & position put blinders on our faith,

while

 Our finite minds limit an infinite God with intellectual pride 

and 

Our selfish expectations turn into demands of who we think God should be.

Head knowledge alone doesn't melt a heart of stone. And only Jesus can transform a heart with a stone rolled away. 

    Here we sit today, with endless knowledge at our fingertips and the empty tomb open before us and who do we say this Jesus is? 

    If we say that we believe Jesus is our Savior, are we living blind and deaf to Him in our midst?  How does this Jesus change our hearts, our lives, our ways? Do we love more, do we extend mercy and grace to others even when they don't deserve it? Does it change the kind of husband/wife, parent and friend that we are? Does it make us yearn to know Him more? 

    The Mystery, Magnitude and Majesty are standing right in front of us this Holy Week...may we all have eyes to see, ears to hear and hearts that respond with the eternal joy of faith that lives out this bold claim:

He is I Am!

    

Never Say Never

  

   He said it. Everyone there heard him. When Jesus told Peter his faith was going to falter, Peter emphatically denied it. He even upped the ante with a mixture of pride and self-righteous indignation, "Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death." There it was...Peter's words, not so unlike our own, "I'd NEVER do that." 

Never say never.

"I'd never hurt a friend"...and then we gossip.

"I'd never tell a lie"...and then we give a false impression.

"I'd never kill"...and our careless words destroy someone.

"I'd never be disloyal"... then the going gets tough, and we bail.

"I'd never deny Christ"...and yet we do.

   

    The faltering comes to all of us. The moment we invest in our own abilities, we, like Peter, are vulnerable to being "sifted" by Satan. That is our first misstep. This is the subtle, yet dangerous attitude that takes us on that first step toward denial. We see in Peter's story, the next step. "Peter followed at a distance."(Luke 22:54) and then quickly after that, the third step, "Peter sat down with them."(Luke 22:55)

No longer close to Jesus' strength and protection, Peter then tries to identify himself with the crowd. 

    The stage is set and the three denials that he ever even knew Jesus come swiftly and without thought of anything other than his own self-protection. 

Faith has been replaced by fear.

And the rooster crows.

It is at this climactic point where the inevitability of human failure collides with the purpose of Christ's crucifixion. 

"The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter."(vs.61)

It was that heart penetrating look, that simultaneously spoke of truth and grace...of deep knowing and merciful forgiveness...of sorrow and of love.

It was in that moment that we see clearly the impossibility of our own ability to remain loyal to our Savior in contrast to the faithfulness of Jesus, even to His sacrificial death on a Cross 

for us. 

And just as it did for Peter, that realization should take us to our knees, in humble repentance.

As the grace of it all takes our breath away.

Fight the Good Fight

        When life has you painted into a corner, how do you respond? What weapons do you use? Do you come out swinging...flailing and fighting to defend yourself? Or perhaps you run as fast as your heart will take you...trying desperately to separate yourself from the emotional chaos of it all. 

      We often respond to life's difficulties with earthly weapons of self-defense. 

     The sword was what Jesus' disciples chose when they were confronted by the soldiers and crowd who came to arrest their Friend and Leader. Quickly and impulsively Peter cut off the ear of Malchus, the servant of the Jewish high priest. Peter's response to difficulty was instinctive and swift...and perhaps not so unlike how we often react when someone accuses, threatens, or criticizes us or someone we love. 

    But this Holy Week, Jesus shows us a radically different way...with transforming weapons of power unlike any we might have chosen on our own. 

"But Jesus answered, 'No more of this!' And He touched the man's ear and healed him."~Luke 22:51

    In one of the final acts of His earthly ministry with His disciples, Jesus teaches them (and us), a crucial lesson. When the "battle" was at a critical point, when Jesus could have used all of Heaven's power to destroy those who came with evil intent...He uses the divine instead of the deadly, the poignant instead of the poison and from His quiver of defense, He pulls these weapons:
1) THE WEAPON OF TRUST in the Father's plan to be best, even if it meant suffering and difficulty.
2) THE WEAPON OF PRAYER. Jesus had just spent the previous hours in communion with the Father, being strengthened through prayer. 
3) THE WEAPON OF LOVE. This is the most powerful of all...this is the heart of what motivated His entire life, death and resurrection. It was this love for you and me that brought Him to that night in the Garden and ultimately to the Cross. With His holy hands and heart He wielded the "weapon" that not only healed one man's ear... 

but restored the brokenness of all humanity.

May we fight the good fight in the same way as Christ...with trust, prayer and love. 

       

Bridge Building

Have you ever been in a check-out line and witnessed 2 people who are angrily hurling words at each other like weapons. Most of us just want to turn away or run from observing their conflict...it's uncomfortable...it's embarrassing. We might even think, "I'm glad that's not me in that argument. Maybe what I'm dealing with isn't that bad after all." 
Sadly, this illustrates the very picture we give the world when we, as Christians, publically spar and jab each other...and yes, hurl words like weapons, when we disagree on things publically~ESPECIALLY on social media and the internet. 
I have a father who is a Presbyterian minister, a brother who is an Episcopal priest and I am in a Southern Baptist seminary and a member of a non-denominational church. So, obviously I am not saying that I think all faith-filled, Christ loving believers have to agree on everything. I am very thankful that my "Heinz 57" family can be together, enjoy each other's company and even have loving, humble discussions on topics of faith privately and face to face. But that is the point: 
AS CHRISTIANS, WE NEED TO DISCUSS OUR DIFFERENCES PRIVATELY AND IF AT ALL POSSIBLE FACE TO FACE AND WE NEED TO RESPECT THE OTHER PERSONS INTERPRETATIONS EVEN IF WE CHOOSE TO HUMBLY DISAGREE. 

WE MUST STOP FEEDING EACH OTHER TO THE LIONS.

LET'S BE BRIDGE BUILDERS, NOT BRIDGE BURNERS.

Hidden behind the shield of our computor screens, we forget that every insult, every harsh word and even just the petty nature of so much of it all is weakening the power of our witness to each and every hurting and lost person who reads it. Perhaps they look at us and think, "I'm glad that's not me in that argument. Maybe what I'm dealing with isn't that bad after all." And they turn away...
And this was Christ's prayer, just before He was arrested, for all of us who call ourselves Christ followers:
"I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be ONE as we are ONE: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete UNITY to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."

Top Ten Things Our Kids Need to Know for Life

     

    From the moment we first see them, hold them, study those tiny fingers and toes, and wonder in amazement at the sheer miracle God has created...our children have our hearts. We are simultaneously in love and completely overwhelmed by the enormous responsibility. It is both a monumental task we've been given and a great privilege. Every stage is fraught with challenges, along with moments of unspeakable joy. 
    None of us get this parenting thing right all the time. There are definitely days and seasons when we've probably all  thought that maybe we should just run away and join the circus, where they could sell tickets to come and see us as "The World's Worst Parent." So please know that it is not with a prideful parenting "I have it all right and you should parent like I do" perspective that I share this post with you, but simply one of a mom who has made plenty of mistakes and will probably make plenty more. It is from a heart that, by the grace of God, is still learning how to love her children wisely, how to see them with the perspective God wants us to have for their lives...all the while knowing that they are really His and He is only giving me the privilege of teaching them Who He wants to be in their lives. 

    So here are the ten things I have found to be hugely beneficial in my children's lives...

1) Know your identity. Everyone else may be trying to figure out who they are in things like popularity, boys, academics, sports, etc. Remember that you already have the most important identity. You don't need to look anywhere else for that. You have been found. You are His daughter or son and you are loved for eternity. Nothing and no one can change that. 

2) Seeking perfection will leave you exhausted, frustrated and anxious. God sees you perfect already, because He sees you through Christ. Do your best and leave the rest to Him. There is great peace in this. 

3) Don't compare yourself to others. If you see yourself as better than they are, you will be prideful. If you see yourself as lesser, then you will be defeated and depressed. Let Christ be the only One to Whom you look for inspiration and emulation.

4) Don't copy the things of this world. Get to know Christ, so that you can live and love like Him. 

5) Happiness and joy are not the same thing. Happiness is circumstantial. Circumstances change. One day people like you, the next day they may not. Joy comes from within, it is not based on things happening around you. It is a product of a grateful life focused on Who God is and who you are in His eyes. Practice gratitude and you will find joy. 

6) You have a choice to make in the trials of life. People will betray you, there will be times you fail, your heart will be broken. Your choices will determine if these difficulties will make you better or bitter. Remember that God is just as faithful in the valley as He is on the mountaintop...choose to run toward Him, not from Him. It is not a guarantee that the circumstances will change, but YOU will be changed to be more like Christ. 

7) Remember that EVERY person is made in God's Image. Value them as God does, respect them, love them, be kind to them...treat them as you would want to be treated. 

8) All rules, from God and your parents, are given from the love they have for you. Think about what Christ did for you, because He loves you...let that inspire your own obedience.

9) All choices have consequences. The choices that reflect your desire to live like Christ will produce more love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control in you. The choices that are based on what the world would tell you or on your own selfish desires, will increase a heavy burden for you that will weigh your life down. 

10) The secret to loving others, is living loved by God. If you only love others based on whether you think that they deserve your love, you will are forgetting that "yet, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." People can be hard to love sometimes, but so can each of us. God never stops loving you. Who are you to do any less?

     As parents, our lives speak more loudly than our words...our walk must match our talk. So look at the list again. Are there any of these you may need to grow in with God's help? 
    Thankfully, God doesn't expect us to be perfect parents. He simply wants us to teach our children to know that they were created for, and are loved immeasurably by, the only perfect Parent. 

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ~Dueteronomy 6:5-7