Life isn’t an emergency. Christ is in charge of every moment of the day; nothing catches Him off guard.
I don’t think of myself as an author. But simply as a grateful child of God. John 3:27 has long been a life verse: “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven.” Any more words will only be solely a gift from Him. I can only faithfully wait.
How my eyes see, perspective, is my key to enter into His gates. I can only do so with thanksgiving. If my inner eye has God seeping up through all things, then can’t I give thanks for anything? And if I can give thanks for the good things, the hard things, the absolute everything, I can enter the gates to glory. Living in His presence is fullness of joy- and seeing shows the way in.
Who knows why God allows heartbreak, but the answer must be important enough because God allows His heart to break too.
Please hear me, Girl: The world has enough women who know how to do their hair. It needs women who know how to do hard and holy things.
When the church isn’t for the suffering and broken, then the church isn’t for Christ. Because Jesus, with His pierced side, is always on the side of the broken.
You are whatever you love. You are, at your very essence, not what you think, but what you love... We are all compelled not by what we believe is right, but by what we love the most. You are not driven by duties, you are not driven by doctrines; you are driven by what you ultimately desire – and maybe you don’t actually really love whatever you think you love.
Maybe grieving over plans changed is part of the plan to change us.
So God throws open the door of this world – and enters as a baby. As the most vulnerable imaginable. Because He wants unimaginable intimacy with you. What religion ever had a god that wanted such intimacy with us that He came with such vulnerability to us? What God ever came so tender we could touch Him? So fragile that we could break Him? So vulnerable that His bare, beating heart could be hurt? Only the One who loves you to death.
You may believe in God, but never forget – it’s God who believes in you. Every morning that the sun rises and you get to rise? That’s God saying He believes in you, that He believes in the story He’s writing through you. He believes in you as a gift the world needs.
No certain place can give you abundant life like a certain purpose can. Like purpose and meaning and connection can. I.
The only way to live a truly remarkable life is not to get everyone to notice you, but to leave noticeable marks of His love everywhere you go.
Eucharisteo means ‘to give thanks,’ and give is a verb, something that we do. God calls me to do thanks. to give the thanks away. That thanks-giving might literally become thanks-living. That our lives become the very blessings we have received. I am blessed. I can bless. Imagine! I could let Him make me the gift! I could be the joy!
A day is a pocket of possibility and it’s always there, waiting for your willing hand.
What matters most is not if our love makes other people change, but that in loving, we change. What matters is that in the sacrificing to love someone, we become more like Someone. Regardless of anything or anyone else changing, the success of loving is in how we change because we kept on loving.
You only begin to change your life when you begin to change the way you see.
The brave baring of all the broken in their brokenness can offer the miracle of communion. Never be afraid of being a broken thing.
But in all His relationships, God reaches for man. Reaches for you who have fallen and scraped your heart raw, for you who feel the shame of words that have snaked off your tongue and poisoned corners of your life, for you who keep trying to cover up pain with perfectionism.
Trust is the bridge from yesterday to tomorrow, built with planks of thanks.
Counting one thousand gifts means counting the hard things – otherwise I’ve miscounted.