Dusty Barren Land

Rain.
It is good for my soul.
I love it.
It feels like home.
It puts a smile on my face.
Yup, even in the perpetually rainy Pacific North West.

I love the sound of rain.
I love falling asleep to it. Or waking up to it.
I love hearing it on a metal roof.
I love a glorious torrential downpour.
I love the warm rain in Uganda.
I love that magical misty rain in WA.
And puddle jumping? OH SO MUCH FUN.
Especially in my cute polka dot rain boots!
And dancing in the rain? it's the best.

See, what's fantastic is that rain brings life. You can see it in the incredible green-ness of western WA.
And thus, lack of rain brings death. As I see daily in dry, dusty, drought-ravaged east Texas.
You see, here we haven't had enough rain in a looong time. Dead trees. Dead leaves. Dead Cows.

but do you know what else is utterly amazing about rain?
God says that is what His Word is like!
"For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it." -Isaiah 55:10-11

Now, when it rains, things always get wet. Everything. The ground soaks up the water, the plants drink it, and everything turns lush and green and happy. Why? Because we need water to have life!

Do you know what else is true? We need God's word to have life! We need Him, desperately. He is our love, He is our life, He is our Lord. Without Him we are dead. And so, when I don't have enough of Him in my life, when I am not spending enough time soaking up in His word, I start to see dead patches in my heart. The leaves turn brown, the grass gets crunchy, and I start to look and feel haggard. God's word brings me life, it reveals to me more of what He is like, so I can fall more and more in love with God and know HIm better and better. Which the Bible says is life in John 17:3.

Also, God says His word is like snow.
Snow inspires wonder. It makes us giddy with delight.
We love snow. We sing songs about it. We pray for it at Christmas. We make paper cut-outs of it and tape them to our windows.
God's word is like that too.
It should inspire wonder. not just at the words, but at the Speaker, Himself.
Seeing who God is, hearing what He's done, and how much He loves us, should make us giddy with delight.
In Psalm 119:103 it is declared that God's words are sweeter than honey!
I want a love like this. I want to love God and His word this way.
It's not always easy.
Believe me, when reading the Bible is your homework, it can sometimes be difficult to engage your heart.
I want to declare that I love you, Lord, and this love is worth the work and the fight and the everyday ordinary moments.
So...
"Let it rain, let it pour, what we have is worth fighting for!"

Your Love Is Strong

This song has been on repeat in my head and through my speakers for the last couple days.

It's fantastic.

and it speaks so much to my heart right now.

So I'm sharing it with you.

Lyrics Here

Enjoy.

Remembering the Rescue... through worship

I like to remember. well, the good things. golden memories dance around my head. Pictures float through my consciousness often. And if they didn’t, I just open up the photos on my computer and walk through memory lane again. Other memories are so vivid it is as though they just happened moments ago. I get flash backs. I’ll be going through my day, and then something sparks and instantly I am once again walking through a jungle of banana forests. It’s so real, so intense I can feel the sunshine streaming through the canopy of leaves above me. but it lasts only a split second. and then, here I am, still in Whatcom County. Usually sitting at a desk in front of a computer.

One of my good friends from my days in Uganda who I spent most of my time with, is often surprised at my memory. I’ll say, “remember when.......” and he’ll laugh and reply, “how do you remember that?!” I just shrug and smile.

It’s amazing how great it is to remember where we’ve been and how far we’ve come. Nearly two years ago, I walked through the hardest and most painful time of my life. I was shattered. and devastated. my heart felt as though it had been dipped in liquid nitrogen and thrown on the floor- smashed into a thousand pieces. I was bleeding and oozing emotionally. I was awash in a sea of icy-cold fear and choking depression. I would have kept God at arms-length holding Him responsible for my current circumstances, except that He felt millions of miles away already. the Bible felt irrelevant. I was indifferent towards sermons. honestly the only thing that really kept me coming back to church were our times of worship. The time of singing somehow opened the door to my soul, and only then for those 15 or 20 minutes did I feel safe and sure that God really was who He said He was. And that He’d actually redeem the deep sorrow of my soul.

a few more moths of misery dragged by and in January ‘08 I was given the opportunity to visit some of my best friends. Incredible people who knew the deep pain I was wrestling with and a couple of whom carried the same pain themselves. Oh the joy and relief of being with people who understood! It simply cannot be put into words. At that point, I was still deeply impacted by the trauma. I wasn’t able to sleep through the night for nearly a year. I would wake up with horrible nightmares, and flashbacks so real they sent adrenaline coursing through my veins. I have a very vivid memory of a horrendous sleepless night while visiting my friends last year. when I walked into the room just a couple weeks ago, it was just as fresh as if it happened the day before. That doesn’t sound like something great to remember, but hang with me, because it gets so much better. While I was there a year ago, barely surviving emotionally, I was surrounded by deep and tender love which again reminded me of the goodness of God, that is always. Again, I had some incredible times of worship, where God was somehow once again near. That room where I get to stay, has a chalkboard wall. And on it I wrote the verse that God spoke to me, in faith. It wasn’t true for me anymore. But I needed to believe that it could be.

It is still there. And seeing it again, a year later was an incredible reminder of just how far my heart had come. Over this last year, it’s been a long, slow road to healing. but it has come. It’s been a long journey, out of a valley so deep that the sky was rarely visible. It was a pitch black winding road through icy dampness. but it has lead slowly and steadily upwards. And as I keep walking the road, I find myself out in the open meadows. The sun is bright and warm, the air fresh and warm and the mountain peaks are not only visible, but near. And I can now look at that verse and see how it is true. How the joy has returned to my life.

It is this that makes me want to remember. When I look back and truly see the depth of despair that i have been rescued from, I am amazed and in awe of my Rescuer. And that moves me to worship- to declare His worth and his glory!

there is no one like You

I love the goodness of God. Ok.. that's not true. I am learning to love the goodness of God. To be honest there are days where I hate the goodness of God- days where the million pieces my heart is smashed into just can't make any sense of a God whose goodness is like this. And then there are days, like today, where the reality of the goodness of God just hits me in the face and all I can do is get down on my face in worship or dance around with hands lifted high proclaiming His goodness. Those are the moments where all the pain is acknowledged, justified, and swept away in the tide of His love. Where I pause and look at the cross and all is right with the world. It's just insane to me how the cross is just so amazing. He loves me that much! He pursues my heart to the point where He is willing to suffer all sorts of agony to win my heart. He paid for the pain. And He payed for all the pain I caused others, and even Him. In the cross I see great love, mercy, justice, grace and forgiveness. And that's just scratching the surface.

Oh, the goodness of God in my life is displayed right now in this: that He cares more about the transformation of my character than He does about my personal happiness!