This past week in my newsfeed there have been many comments and posts relating to the protests and women’s march. I simply read one article containing the transcript of one of the women who spoke and it was enough to break my heart. If you do not think ministry to women, youth, and children is important then watch just a little of this and you will hopefully understand exactly how important it is.

I could cringe at these women and say how disgusting their words are, but the truth is I used to speak just like them. It’s a good thing that the Lord captured my heart before I was introduced to the world of social media or followed through on that journalism degree. I felt the sting of second class citizenry to the point that when I found out the child I was carrying within my womb was a girl, I left the ultrasound room in tears. My husband was dumbfounded.

Why was I in tears? All I could see was the statistics that 1 in 3 women would be raped or molested in their lifetime. All I could see was years of condemnation that she would endure due to the size of her waistline and the label on her clothes. All I could see was the fear on her face when she once again had to walk through the school and call her parents to come and get her because her menstrual cycle had ruined her clothes. All I could see was her not being strong enough to fight off an attacker. All I could see was the hurt she would endure simply because she was a girl. I wanted a chance to raise a boy that would protect girls… not a girl that would be hurt by them. Yet, God gave me girls.

If you have read my book Devotions From Genesis It’s Not Just Ancient History then you have heard me share how as I was reading through the Bible for the very first time I grew quite angry with this God I was trying to get to know. I struggled through Lot’s decision to throw his virgin daughters to an angry horny mob of men but when I read of the concubine in the book of Judges I closed my Bible and told God that if this is really how He viewed me as a woman I wanted nothing more to do with Him. Yet God is quite stubborn and His Spirit quite persistent and so I picked up the Bible again after a week or so and I am so glad that I did… because I found my life in Him.

As I continued to read, the Spirit of God taught me and wrapped up my heart and bound my wounds. The Word of God held me as He worked me through the Psalms and taught me of my intrinsic value and worth. He spoke words of love and adoring favor in my heart as my eyes read of His true feelings and devotion for me.  He began to teach me of the great gift of womanhood. I went from believing that being born a woman was a curse to knowing instead that it was indeed a blessing with great honor and privilege. One so much so that the serpent of old had a target on my back just because I was a woman. I began to learn that men were not the enemy… Satan was.

Today as a woman we can listen to the women shouting in the microphone of the world or we can choose instead to listen to the women praying in the Word… Today, as a woman, I choose Hannah.

“My heart exults in the Lord; my horn is exalted in the Lord, my mouth speaks boldly against my enemies, because I rejoice in Your salvation. There is no one holy like the Lord, indeed, there is no one besides You, nor is there any rock like our God. Boast no more so very proudly, do not let arrogance come out of your mouth; for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and with Him actions are weighed. The bows of the mighty are shattered, but the feeble gird on strength.”
~ Hannah (1 Samuel 2:1-2, NASB)

The Hebrew word for soul is nephesh and it means a soul, living being, life, self, person, desire, passion, appetite, emotion. The soul encompasses all that we are on the inside. The part of us that we might be able to decorate and disguise for others in intermediate intervals, but no matter how hard we try it’s brokenness reveals itself in our struggles to keep the thing under control.  May it be the kids that won’t stop fighting, the referee that can’t seem to make right the call, the traffic on the way to work, or the person that finally answers the phone at the help desk after you have pressed one at least six times and been on hold for thirty-eight minutes and forty-two seconds. The reality of our broken soul reveals itself time and time again. 

As the brokenness of our soul and our inability to control its appetite, desire, and emotions reveals itself to us we really only have three choices before us. So here lies our choices:

1) We blame others, our circumstances, and particular situations claiming that if they would change we would be fine.

2) We accept it as who we are, embrace it, feed it, and use it to get what we want regardless of who it hurts.

3) We acknowledge it, refuse to accept it, take responsibility for it and turn to the Lord, the One whose law is perfect and is able to restore our soul.

As I shared this particular verse with a group of young ladies yesterday I explained that usually when the Word of God uses “perfect” it means completes. It doesn’t mean perfect in the way that we use it as in a not-a-hair-out-of-place kind of way. I then used the illustration of a vase.

When God created us we were like a beautifully crafted vase, but then sin shattered us. Now we are fallen, broken, and scattered in pieces. However our God is able to take us and all our broken pieces and put them back together again. He is able to complete the vase. Now the once broken vase is complete, not perfect, but complete. The cracks and lines of the once broken vase remain, but it is once again complete.

We don’t yet stand before Him perfect as in not-a-hair-out-of-place as if we were never broken. One day we will, but not today beloved. Today others need to see that we once were broken but are now restored. We once were shattered and scattered but now we are complete. Others need to see this because the cracks allow the light to shine through.

When we skip ahead and we look at the last part of verse eight in Psalm 19 we see that the commandment of the Lord is pure and the result of it is that it enlightens the eyes. In Matthew 6:22-23 Jesus teaches us,

“The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”

My husband just walked down the stairs and entered the room where one of our daughters is doing her school work. The first words out of his mouth was, “Do you like sittin’ in the dark?”  Then he switches on the light. She hadn’t realized she was sitting in the dark until the light entered the room.

I’m sure you have experienced this as well. Possibly it’s a day when you did not have an overhead light on because the light from the sun streaming through the windows was more than enough for the room you were in. However, as the day went on and the sun went down your eyes began to acclimate to the darkness. It never even occurs to you to get up and turn on the light because you have slowly adjusted for the darkness. However, once you get up and walk into a lit room or someone else walks into the room and turns on the light, all of a sudden your eyes are flooded with light and you realize that you were sitting in the dark.

For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves;  we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing;  persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;  always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.  For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.  So death works in us, but life in you.

2 Corinthians 4:6-12

Yes, Psalm 19:7-8 gives us a beautiful pathway to life. It introduces us to the law, testimony, precepts, and commandment of the Lord. Through them and in Him we both realize our brokenness and receive our restoration. We both discover we are sittin’ in the dark and have the light flipped on.

We also come to realize that if we didn’t know we were sitting in the dark until the light came through, then others do not either. Jesus tells us that if our eyes our clear then we will be filled with light, but if our eyes are bad we will be filled with darkness, and if the light that you do have is actually darkness then how great is that darkness.

If we are looking through darkness then what we see is distorted versions of reality, but it IS our reality and it will remain our reality until the light allows us to see clearly. Sometimes that light flips on and it blinds us and we close and cover our eyes and blink like crazy until we can see and quickly adjust, but sometimes it takes just as long for our eyes to adjust to the light as it did for them to adjust to the dark.

I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, putting me into service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief; and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus. It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all.  Yet for this reason I found mercy, so that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life.

1 Timothy 1:12-16

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To learn more about God’s Word and how it restores our soul, makes wise the simple, rejoices the heart, and enlightens our eyes, order your own copy of Finding True Joy Through a Study of Psalm 119…

The last several years my family has learned some hard lessons. One is that before you express your opinion on a matter it is best to learn the whole story from the mouths of those actually involved. Before you accuse someone of doing wrong it is probably best to actually know what really happened. Simply accepting one persons perspective of the event is not wise. Even Jesus gave us His three years of ministry from four different perspectives. It takes gathering the information from all four to gain the best understanding  of His teachings while here in the flesh.

We seem to have a tendency to receive information, process it through our own experiences, and come to a firm conclusion that we are willing to take to the mattresses with no other considerations as an option. In doing so we hurt friendships. We might even ruin them, simply because we accepted our first hearing of the matter as the truth instead of a reason to simply search for the truth. We come to the defense of the perceived victim before we take the time to discover that perhaps the perceived victim is actually the one who is causing the most pain. My husband has a saying, “There are always two sides to a story and the truth is usually somewhere in between the two.”

I have been burned because I was only listening to one side of a story and I have also been deeply wounded by others who chose to only listen to one side of a story. We live in a day where the availability and opportunity for communication is limitless yet our ability to actually communicate seems to be worse than it has ever been. I believe it is mainly because we have quit listening. We speak, but we refuse to hear. We throw our two cents in on the lives of people we have never even met, much less walked a day in their shoes.

I’ll be the first to admit that in the privacy of my own home my husband and I will try to hash out what we are hearing and seeing and what our initial responses are at the information we currently have, but we have learned that there is ALWAYS more to the story. We know this because we both are the type that are not afraid to send a private message, make a private phone call, or plan a private meeting to find out what is really going on. If we do not know them well enough to do this, then no matter what it is, it is NOT OUR BUSINESS to publicly share our two cents.

In 1 Samuel 1:1-18 we learn of a man named Elkanah who had two wives. One was named Peninnah and the other Hannah. Peninnah had given Elkanah children, but Hannah remained childless.

Hannah lived every day of her life being ridiculed and mocked by Peninnah along with the internal struggle of inadequacy and most likely fear that she was not loved by God, with her barrenness as her confirmation that her fear was true.  In 1 Samuel 1:10 she goes to the temple of the Lord and there she is weeping and pouring her heart out before HIm. There we meet Eli, the current priest and judge of Israel, who sees her and from his perspective she looks like a crazy drunk woman.

Eli sees her and approaches her accusing her of being that crazy drunk woman.  She quickly addresses him to let him know that she is not a crazy drunk woman. She is broken, and oppressed, and is pouring her heart out to the only One who can help her. When Eli recognizes his initial perspective was way off he blesses Hannah and sends her on her way. When she leaves the scripture reads…

“and her face was no longer sad.”

1 Samuel 1:18

What if Eli had accepted his initial perspective as fact and shunned Hannah? What if he would of had her thrown out without finding out her side of the story? Do you think she would have left with a face that was no longer sad? Or would she have received that as even more confirmation that God did not love her and did not even want her in His house?

To Eli’s credit, even with the wrong perspective, at least he approached HER, and he was willing to LISTEN to her. By doing so he gave her the opportunity to change his initial reaction. Then he chose to believe her. Thus she left that day, affirmed in God’s love instead of confirmed in her fear that He loved her not.

Oh church when the world chooses to jump on the first perspective and react as fact to the initial information, let us be willing to step back and pause before we respond. Let us instead choose to practice wisdom…

The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.

Proverbs 18:17

2017 has come with a big ole dose of writer’s block. I’ve started and deleted at least half a dozen blog post. I have struggled over what I wanted to write about and if I wanted to actually put into black and white the wrestlings of my heart… especially when the wrestling continues.

That is probably the root of the writer’s block.

I wrestle with hurtful words and accusations from those I called friend.

I wrestle with hopeful expectation that I could probably help a lot of other hurting hearts if I chose to share how mine has been wounded over and over again and yet I keep stepping back into the ring for more.

I wrestle with my God as to why He has allowed those hurts to pass through His sovereign hands and I wonder what in the world He is trying to toughen me up for in the future.

I wrestle with the fear that instead of becoming wise and strong I will instead become critical and hard.

I wrestle and the writer’s block is the result…