5-minute Friday:Broken

Broken

To appoint to them that mourn in Zion, to give to them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified. 

(Isaiah 61:3 American King James Version)

For as long as I can remember, I have had an aversion to anything broken in my life. I have an uncontrollable urge to throw out anything with a crack, dent, stain, rip, or other imperfection. I know it doesn't make sense, but it's one of those things that is unfortunately part of my personality. I hate broken anything: dishes, knick knacks, vases, you name it. So out it goes, as fast as I can get it there before someone notices and tries to talk me into maybe gluing it, taping it, washing it, or otherwise hiding or fixing the imperfect part. Superglue, in our home, isn't used to fix cracked valuables, it is used for kids' school projects and husband's garage mishaps. As soon as I notice a broken place on something I own, I don't want to own it anymore.

The other day it occurred to me that I AM SO GLAD GOD DOESN'T THINK THE SAME WAY! What if He threw out broken things too? Like people? Like His children? Like me? What if he saw the brokenness of our lives and thought, "it's not worth fixing; it's not worth saving" ?

But he doesn't think that way. My God uses broken people in His kingdom, in His service, every day. He takes your broken self and gently lifts you up out of your well of despair and says to you, I will give you  beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." (Isaiah 61:3) And, if you let Him, He will take your despair away and give you hope. And He will bless you even further by using you to bless others in their brokenness. What a great God we serve!








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Taste

photo credit: Grace Franklin

 O taste and see that the Lord is good: 

blessed is the man that trusteth in him.

Psalm 34:8

Five Minute Friday : Remember

A Lady Named Dorothy

As my father and I were reminiscing about our old church and its members the other day, my mind went back, all the way back to an older Sunday School teacher I had in that church. Dorothy. For years, I thought it would be a good thing to write to her and tell her I'm sorry. The years passed, the letter never got written, and Dorothy went home to be with the Lord.

You see, Dorothy was one of the brave souls who dared to take a class full of giddy, self-centered, adolescent girls who were into themselves, their clothes, and their friends. It wasn't as much a learning opportunity for us as a social one. We got to see all the friends from church who didn't go to our school. We waited all week. So did Dorothy. Only she was studying and preparing her lesson, her heart, her mind to teach us and we weren't always tuned in. I am sure there were Sundays that Dorothy was convinced she was wasting her time.

So, if Dorothy were still here, I would like to say that I am:

• Sorry for all the Sundays where you were prepared and we weren't.
• Sorry for all the Bible stories you tried to tell us where we showed no interest.
• Sorry for all the times we cared more about our lip gloss and perfume than the truths of God's Word.
• Sorry for all the times we wrote notes to each other, passed the notes, read them, and then giggled and interrupted the important point you were trying to make.
• And sorry, Dorothy, for all of the talking, moving around, and disturbances about which you were eminently patient and kind. 

We pushed you, I know, but you were gracious and never showed any anger, or even mild agitation. You were kind when we weren't and cared more about our tender hearts and eternal destinies than having a class of quiet, obedient students.

And for all of the current Sunday School teachers out there, I wish you could have met Dorothy, could have watched this composed, sweet, older woman of God share what she knew with a group of kids who were so hard to teach, so hard to reach. I'll bet if Dorothy could have met you, she would tell you to be kind no matter what. I'll bet she would encourage you to look at the kids in your class as lost souls and not troublesome brats, and to keep on trying to get God's all-important plan of salvation through the talking, the movement, and the distractions until, finally, a seed is dropped into fertile ground. Because maybe, just maybe, one or more of these girls will eventually accept Christ as her Saviour and be heaven-bound and a child of God because you were there to make a difference.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

St. Patrick was responsible for bringing Christianity to much of Ireland when at the time it was almost entirely pagan. He was not Irish, but was Scottish, from a town near Glasgow. He was brought as a slave to Ireland as a teenager, and then returned on his own as an adult to bring the gospel of Christ to a lost country. He wasn't a "saint"  in the strict sense of the word, as he was never canonized. But he was a "saint" as the Bible would call him because he was a devoted follower of Jesus Christ. 

Because of his missionary journeys through Ireland and his teaching the gospel, many Irish people became Christians.

Patrick wrote a poem of his faith and trust in Christ called "The Breastplate."

"Christ be within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ inquired, Christ in danger, 

Christ in hearts of all that love me, 

Christ in mouth of friend and stranger." 

He had a ministry to Ireland that lasted 29 years, baptizing over 120,000 Irish people and planting 300 Christian churches!

Happy St. Patrick's Day to all, especially my youngest son, whose middle name is Patrick after this great missionary.  Thomas Patrick, may you one day proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ as boldly as your namesake, and that other great Scottish preacher, your Grandpa Jim Kirkwood!

Irish cross

Pray the Scripture

Some of the best advice I ever heard about prayer is to pray the Scripture.   There is something powerful in verbalizing the words God has written in His Word. His very words. His thoughts, promises, and instructions. If you don't know how to pray, and most of us don't, pray the Scripture! Find a beautiful verse or passage that means something to you and read it, think about it, and then pray it. Stand on God's Word.

Remember the song, Lean on Me? God wants us to lean on Him when we are not strong. Rely on Him. Trust Him. Lean on Him. One great way to do that is to make His verses your prayers.

Several years ago, I had to go in to the hospital and get an MRI test done. After hearing many people tell me what it was like for them to get this test, I grew afraid. What if I am claustrophobic? What if the power goes out in the hospital and I am stuck in the machine? How can I lay perfectly still for 45 minutes enclosed in this metal nightmare? What will I think about? What if I panic? These thoughts kept racing around and around in my head until I was pretty freaked out about getting this test. Oh yeah, and you can't sleep during the test, and even if you could, you wouldn't because there is a very loud clicking type noise that happens every minute or so and it would keep you awake anyway! So I was also not looking forward to hearing the loud noises.

As the test got closer, I decided I was going to have to have a plan going in that would calm me down or else I would have to cancel the test and tell the doctors to forget it.  Since that really wasn't a good option, I began thinking of ways to occupy my mind with other things and get my mind off the test. It didn't take long until I remembered what my mother always taught us.  Think of verses! When you're scared, anxious, nervous, terrified, think of Bible verses!

I chose two verses about God's peace. I was determined to recite them in my mind and to visualize the giant letters over my head. I saw them as though they were skywriting. Each letter formed slowly, then the word, then the sentence, until I saw the whole verse as if written across the sky!

"Those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength; they will mount up with wings as eagles; they will walk and not be weary, they will run and not faint." I said it over and over. I kept my eyes closed and I saw the words mentally as if they were being written just for me! I concentrated on that promise and I even focused on getting the words in their right order.

Then I said the next verse. "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and petition, let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." I kept repeating "And the peace of God which passes all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." "And the peace of God...."

And before I knew it, the test was over. The 45 minutes I had dreaded was finished and I had made it through without panicking! For me, that was a miracle! Thank you mom for the good advice, and thank you Jesus for guarding my heart and mind!

UNGLUED - A Book Review

Unglued 

Making Wise Choices in the Midst of Raw Emotions

by Lysa TerKeurst

This book is definitely NOT for you if:
- you never put your foot in your mouth
- you never leave a party or social gathering regretting what you just said or did
- you never take offense at anything anyone else says or does to you
- you never offend anyone else
- you never overreact
- you are in complete control of all of your words and actions and always respond in a godly, Christ-like manner.

If these describe you, don't read the book. It will be a waste of your time.

This book IS definitely for you if:
- you react badly to snippy emails, rudeness in others, and belligerent people in general
- you often regret what you just said, sometimes even as it is coming out of your mouth
- you wish you could control your actions and reactions much better
- you find yourself in "misunderstandings" much more than most people
- you dislike your own personality very often
- you have sent emails, voicemails, and/or letters in the heat of the moment and then wished you could "unsend" them.

One of the things I like most about this book is that Lysa is all too real. She is a genuine sinner. Not a perfect mannequin at all. She acknowledges her mistakes, sins, and self-centered tendencies on almost every page of her book, lest you think she is better than you and can't relate. There are many examples in the book about her own "unglued" moments, meltdowns, misunderstandings, lost friendships, hurt feelings, etc. This is a transparent, honest person, people! She knows about becoming unglued. She talks about the "stuffer," and the "exploder," and then quickly admits that she is both!

I am not going to go over all of the main points of the book. You can read it for yourself. Have a highlighter handy and some humility and I promise you will get some help dealing with your own raw emotions. I did.

Lysa talks about the importance of having an action plan ready, so that the next time you are on the brink of exploding or stuffing in the midst of a problem, you can react differently, better, more godly.

Lysa says that God's grace will be there for you no matter how many times you make a bad choice, come unglued, fail yourself and others. God's grace will "never run out" for you if you have made Jesus Christ your personal Saviour.

And then, she says, and this is one of my favourite quotes from the book:

"God loves you. God loves you now. God loves you when you're unglued. God loves you when you stuff. God loves you when you explode. He loves you when you exemplify soul integrity, and He loves you when you don't. He loves you. He loves you. He loves you. He loves you so much that He refuses to leave you stuck in this place. Take His hand, trust His love, and walk in the beautiful opportunity for imperfect progress."

No, we can never be perfect on earth during this life, but Lysa bids us walk with her on the journey she calls "imperfect progress." Together we can.

Unglued is available at bookstores and online at Proverbs31.org.

Never!

One of my favourite things about being a believer in Jesus Christ is His promise never to leave us. There is no person on earth who could promise you that!

As Joyce Meyer says regularly, He never promises us that we won't have problems, but He does promise us that He will hold our hand and walk through the problems with us!

Psalm 23 is a great Bible passage. It suffers from being too well-known, and is often read through so quickly that we hardly remember what it says. But thankfully, when I was very young, my dear Christian mother taught us to memorize Scripture and this is one passage I was taught. Remember verse 4? It says "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me..." Notice it doesn't say, "I will fear no evil, for thou wilt take it away." It says He will be with us through it!

Whatever you are going through today, if you are a believer in Christ and you trust Him to be your Saviour, you are not going through it alone. He is above, beside, beneath, and with you. In fact, His Holy Spirit indwells you! Never will He leave you. Never will He forsake you.

Never!

And surely I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.  --  Jesus  (Matthew 28:20)