Broken Pieces

For several years my son and I served as the Collection Center Coordinators for Operation Christmas Child. We received thousands of gift-filled shoeboxes from churches in the North Florida region and packaged them in shipping cartons for transport. We quickly learned the most efficient ways to arrange the boxes to get as many as possible in the cartons. We turned them this way and that and searched for small boxes to fit in small spaces. It was like a real-life game of Tetris.

We like it when things fit together well – when there is order and balance. But things in our lives don’t always fit neatly in place, do they? Like that scary diagnosis or the spouse who walked away. Losing your job didn’t fit in with your well-planned life and that hard-headed, rebellious child of yours has turned your home into chaos. Maybe depression has wrecked your tidy world. If only life cooperated with our well-thought-out plans.

When God delivered the Israelites from Egyptian bondage, He commanded them to build an altar for burnt offerings and sacrifices but “do not build it out of cut stones. If you use your chisel on it, you will defile it” (Exodus 20:25). Doesn’t that seem odd? Wouldn’t a perfect God want a perfect alter made of perfectly shaped stones? But God did not want man’s “perfection.” I believe this is because true worship – the kind that honors God – comes from imperfect lives. And isn’t that all of us?

Try as we might, we’re not going to make all the pieces fit neatly together. But when God takes the fragments of our lives, the odd shapes and sizes, and even the rubble, He makes something beautiful. Something that speaks of Him – not us – to a world full of imperfect, broken people. Real life is not neat and tidy. It’s messy and misshapen and shattered. But God can take your imperfect life and turn it into a beautiful testimony of His grace. Put all the pieces of your life – and your heart – in God’s hands Beloved, and worship at the altar of His love.

The God of the Bible

We’re New Testament Christians – why should we read the Old Testament? What good does it do me to study old laws and rituals? Why should I learn about people so far removed from my own life? Because we don’t study the Bible to learn about laws and rituals and long-dead people – we study the Bible to learn about and draw hope from God. I am in a group that is writing through the Bible, we’ve been mired in Job for months. Lots of misery and grumbling and arguing. But by slowing down the pace and paying attention to the text, we’ve come to understand Job – and God – from a whole new perspective.

Paul said, “Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope” (Romans 15:4). He’s talking about the Old Testament. When I am discouraged, I go to the stories of God’s deliverance in Exodus. When my life has fallen apart I turn to Nehemiah where God enabled His people to rebuild the broken-down walls. When I face a frightening situation Esther is my go-to book as I remember how God rescued His people. And when the world looms dark and evil, I turn to Daniel and witness God’s sovereign control over human events.

The Old Testament is filled with evidence of God’s power, purpose, love, and faithfulness. The same power, purpose, love, and faithfulness is found in the New Testament and in my life two-thousand plus years later. In the Old Testament, I find the God who delivered Israel, rebuilt Jerusalem, and rescued the Jews. In the New Testament, I see the same God who delivered mankind, broke the bonds of sin and death, and changed the world. He is the same God I call to in this present season of struggle. I know He is able to do for me today all that He did then. I put my name in those verses of rescue and promise and the God of the Hebrew people, of Nehemiah, Esther, and Daniel becomes the God of Dorcas Elizabeth. He hasn’t forgotten how to rescue and restore. His power hasn’t diminished one bit. This God is your God too if you have trusted in Jesus. Beloved, get to know the God of the whole Bible. Get to know the God of your life.

A Day of Life and Joy

Exactly four years ago today, we came back home about as low as we could get. All our worldly goods were crammed in a U-Haul and discouragement and anxiety were piled high and heavy on our shoulders. And I was seriously ill and in tremendous pain. We were both jobless with very little in the bank. My husband had become disabled. I was nearing 60 and struggling to find a job.  We didn’t know what we were going to do, how we were going to survive – or even if we were going to survive, We were broke and broken.

In a few months, God opened a door to the best job – my dream job at a small Bible college, and the opportunity to continue my education. I’m still there and I’m still studying. In the months between He provided as only He can.  We never lacked anything. He continues to do it today.

Then exactly one year to the day from the worst day of our lives came the best day of our lives when Joy De’anna Andrews stole our hearts. Today is her third birthday.  May 29^th has become the epitome of Proverbs 13:12: “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when dreams come true at last there is life and Joy.” That verse has been a lifeline to me for more than thirty years. It was the verse I clung to through seven years of infertility until our son was born. I’m holding on to it still as I pray for him to surrender to Christ. It is one of my “go-to-verses” when life gets hard. Let’s just say I go there a lot. It reminds me to never give up on God.

I say the same to you – if things are hard today, do not give up. God has been so faithful and good to us and I know with all my heart that He will do the same for you. Beloved, as long as your heart is beating – even if it’s broken – God is not done with your story. I’m living proof. He turned this once sad day on the calendar into a day of Joy! Hold onto hope. Hold onto God. Life and Joy are coming.

Tangled Prayers

There have been times in my life – even recently – when I was overwhelmed with pain and confusion and frustration. My heart was broken and when I tried to pray my mind was awhirl with a thousand thoughts going this way and that. It was like a hundred different voices all speaking at once in my head. I couldn’t shut them up long enough to get a word in edgewise. I know you’ve been there too. I’ve read your posts and we’ve had some deep conversations. When chaos surrounds us it affects our ability to think and to pray.

But that doesn’t mean that God isn’t hearing our prayers. Listen to Paul’s words: “The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will” (Romans 8:26-27)

This verse promises that the Holy Spirit is praying for us when we cannot pray for ourselves. The Greek word for “groans” finds its root in the word stenos – which means “to narrow.” The image in this passage is of the Holy Spirit sorting through the jumble of thoughts and feelings to pull out the thin, narrow strand of truth from our hearts. From that small filament, He weaves a tapestry of prayer to present to the Father. All you and I need to do is pour it all out and let the Spirit, who knows both our hearts and God’s will, sift out the prayer our lips can’t express.

Beloved, you don’t have to filter your heart when you come to God in prayer. You don’t have to have your thoughts and feelings organized – you don’t even have to know what you should pray for. That is why Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit. Let Him do the sorting and sifting – He’ll find the golden thread of your heart’s prayer and carry it to the Father.

From Broken-down to Beautiful

The white car sat forlornly on the side of the road, pushed out to the edge of the property. The tires were missing and its front end was buckled from some sort of impact. I passed it every morning on my way to work – it’s wasn’t a pretty sight. That is until one midsummer morning when I noticed that green vines were beginning to curl out from the crumpled hood and around the back end. Day by day the vines progressed taking over more and more of the broken-down car. Then came the flowers – bright blue blooms swarming over the vines and covering the car until it became a mound of morning glories. That old broken-down wreck was now a beautiful sight to behold. Every morning as I passed that spot, I looked over at the lovely mound of flowers, their faces lifted to the sun and I smiled.

Your life may feel like a wreck today. It may be a series of circumstances you couldn’t control or choices you made yourself, but there you sit – broken, pushed aside, going nowhere. Oh, my friend, God specializes in bringing beauty from ashes – (Isaiah 61:3). I know it’s true because He did it for me. He took this broken-down woman with nothing to offer but pain and foolishness and made my life “a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor” (61:3b). He took on all my sin and shame and gave me His holiness. He washed me clean, dressed me in robes of righteousness, and gave my life meaning, hope, peace, and Joy.

If you will allow Him, He will do the same for you. He will cover you with the precious, blood of His Son Jesus and His love will turn your broken-down life into a garden of splendor – a thing of beauty.  And every time you look at yourself you’ll smile at what God has done.

The God who Restores

I saw something very cool this morning as I was reading in Revelation. “To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God” (2:7). Do you recall the last time we saw the tree of life? It was way back in Genesis, chapter 3 to be exact. After the fall of Adam and Eve, God banished them from the Garden of Eden and said “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever” (3:22). Because they knew evil (notice the passage said they knew good and evil, but not good from evil) it would be a cruel thing to allow them to live forever with that burden.

Yet the Revelation verse shows that man is restored to all the good things God created for him to enjoy. The bounty of His blessing, the delight of His presence, and the promise of eternal life.

God restores. It is His nature to restore things that are broken. And not only in heaven but also here and now. I have seen broken marriages restored. Broken dreams reignited. Broke relationships knitted back together. Broken minds healed. Broken lives renewed. And broken hearts made whole. He is Elyshib – the God who restores. And He is working to restore you.

Beloved

I pray for two things every morning over my granddaughter. I pray that she will come to know Jesus as Her Savior at a young age and grow in love and knowledge every day. And I pray a verse over her from Ephesians 3:18-19:
“I pray that Joy, being rooted and established in love may have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ [for her], [that she may] know this love that surpasses knowledge and may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
I didn’t grow up “rooted and established in love.” I grew up with judgment. I grew up with scary things happening to me. I grew up believing I was a disappointment to the people I wanted so badly to love me. I was so hungry to be loved that I married a man who, after four years of abuse, told me he didn’t love me. Friends who once told me they loved me, later walked away because my emotional neediness was too heavy a burden.
I’ve been in ministry long enough to know that many of you are shaking your head, probably with tears in your eyes, in understanding
But what I didn’t know, until much later in life, was that there was a God in heaven who loved me from before I was born. He loved me even as others used “love” as an excuse for abuse. He loved me despite all the scars on my heart and body. No – check that. He loved my scars. He loved my wounded, frightened heart. He loved me and the weight of my broken past.
If you only ever grab one thing I write, take hold of this and never let go: God loves you. He loves everything about you – “the good, the bad, and the ugly.” Others may have hurt you, failed you, walked away from you, and hurled verbal darts at you. But God loves you with a pure and perfect love that will never end. Never. Receive it. Believe it. Plant yourself in it and grow. You are the Beloved of God.