Home in Him

I was worshiping last night on my way home from visiting my little 5 year old kitty boy, Toby. I was listening to an old Cynthia Clawson CD. It was an awesome time of wailing my heart out. Two songs that really touched me were "Softly and Tenderly" and "I Heard About A Man." Both of these songs stress that Jesus is calling us to come home to Him and that he want to make His home with us.

My love of home, the safety, the comfortable-ness, the place where I can be completely true to who I am, this is the kind of life Jesus wants with us. He is crying from the portals for us to enter into a jolly and comfy, cozy relationship with Him ~ being in the freedom that we were originally made to live in.

He wants to have a deep conversation dinner with us over candlelight and wine. He wants to know our hearts and our struggles and to help us. His desire for us to not choose hurtful choices is not to control us but instead to free us to be hearty, healthy, and happy. 

Holiness is freedom. This is something that I have been thinking about a lot lately. Much deception has led us to believe that doing good is drab, boring. But, Jesus tells us to go and sin no more in order that we may regain our original power and Eden-joy that we were never meant to lose. Sin is the chains.

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Writing and the Call of Jesus to Bonnie

Writing..I watched The J.K. Rowling story on Lifetime the other day and was driven so deeply to write by both her struggle at survival and the satisfaction of her heart through writing. 

Writing terrifies me at times, so much so that I feel paralyzed and unable to think of anything to write about. But I have found that if I can summon one interesting thought in my mind and get a couple of sentences scratched out, then I am on a roll and it flows. 

Inspired to write cat-based chapter books for kids, I am about to start reading The Wind in the Willows and the Beatrix Potter books.

My life seems to be going from being streamlined to being stripped down so that I have time for my writing and my imagination. So often I will read a book or see a movie and want to jump in and do exactly what the characters or author was accomplishing in their story. I can't seem to just appreciate their story; I want to experience what they experienced. 

This unsettling is what deters me from my own personal calling of taking care of my husband, feeding my family & friends, writing, & managing the library and food pantry at my church. 

The call of Jesus to Bonnie is where my focus should be: no, it is not constantly trying to be like other heroic people..it is living my small life with value!

Linked at The Wellspring

image from here

Don't Throw Him Out...please

A church that my family attended when I was a kid really screwed up our perception and understanding of God...and I, from the years of 2002-2010 threw off everything about Christ...threw the Savior out with the dirty bath water, instead of clinging to the hope of Jesus and trying to decipher my way out of the muck of deception...my brothers also have been in a battle for truth ever since and one thing that I have said to them is that although they have questions and doubts and are seeking fiercely for truth, they have not done something that I did...and that is reject Jesus completely. God used the violence of the Christ-haters as a means for Jesus to die for our redemption, so thanks be to Him, He uses all things to bring about His good plan. I know that although my rejection was not His way, He is using it today in me to help others see that abandonment of Christ completely put me in the darkest, drowning well ever. If I can help others see that questioning and doubting are okay but to not ever throw he Savior out, I will perhaps be a vessel to keep others from the despair I felt...it is not His fault...He loves despite anything that happens...

Routines of Faith

This quote has grabbed at me over and over since I saw it...It is burrowing itself into my heart and I am now crying out to fulfill it. 

Ruth Bell Graham wrote a poem about waiting for her very own prodigal to come back to God...she came to realize that she was to go on with her life and know that God "would do in, and for, and with him that which she never could..." I am so prone to go to a negative place and worry about those I love...I am to be there for them and to love them unconditionally in the ways Christ shows me, but Jesus is the One who does the wooing and the capturing of hearts and I must trust in His lavishing love for everyone and know that God is God and fully capable...I love the gentleness of being a seed planter...not a lording it over the produce with a hatchet, but tenderly planting and watering and watching carefully for its full bloom...

Enjoy these links from the blog Confessions of a Martha...inspiration!!!

Saturating your kids with Jesus

Saturating yourself with Jesus