"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead."  I Peter 1:3

 --Living Hope--

I am holding onto that Hope.

Because, while I had WONDERFUL NEWS from my Rheumatologist:

MY RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS NUMBERS ARE VERY LOW!!  THE DISEASE IS RESPONDING TO THESE ORENCIA INJECTIONS, AND TO THE MERCIFUL TOUCH OF MY JESUS.

At the same time, the Fibromyalgia is not improving, and is in fact very active.  The Doctor wanted me to try yet another medication, but I am 

holding onto Hope.

Hope that the Grace of Jesus is always enough for everything I need.  Hope that the Resurrection of my Lord means that His Grace still lives in me.  And Hope that His Grace is what will help me traverse this maze of treatments for a disease with no cure and no cause.

Jesus said:
I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble, But take heart! I have overcome the world."  John 16:33


This world is full of trouble, and the days are dark for many.  The daily news boggles our minds with chaos that seems likely to spin out of control.  And my own body would spiral right along with it. . . . But for that moment in time . . . when the Tomb exploded and chaos lost its hold. . . And Jesus overcame any dark thought this world could ever utter.

HE IS MY LIVING HOPE,  HERE:  as I choose to listen to His Spirit directing my days, and soothing my nights, climbing into my soul.

But not only for me. He would bring His Resurrection Life into this world's chaos, one soul at a time.

Because He loves to bring LIFE into the darkest of nights. 


I am linking again with The Faith Barista for her #OneWordLent series, where the word for this week is "Living:"

http://www.faithbarista.com/ 


 

The wind was howling
And my husband was snoring
And it was one of those pain-filled-lying-awake-kind-of-nights.

But yet there was a difference this time.  Traveling along this road of brokenness, I am falling onto the comfort where Jesus has been waiting for me.  My last post shared about the truce with my body, and the surrender that required.  I have held onto anxiety about my body, and too often missed the peace that Jesus would have given. He is in the howling wind storm that swirls inside this body; Peace in the midst of the Storm.

And this broken body of mine is ready to express the growing that is birthed out of those kinds of storms.

Most of my friends have at one time or another received one of my creative offerings.  Whether it was a hand-sewn craft, or a hand-lettered verse, or a home-grown plant, you get the idea:  I loved to bless with the work of my hands.  But my hands were the first thing to be changed in this Rheumatoid Arthritis Journey.  The strength and the detail required were simply not there any longer.  And the joy in my creating was gone as well.  I missed the satisfaction that came with a job well done.  I missed the grace that was required to place a small detail in just the right way at just the right time.  And I missed the process of planning an idea from beginning to end. I tried small projects, but was disappointed that I could not fulfill the idea that was in my head.  And then the ideas stopped too,  when the fatigue and fog of this chronic disease stole my normal way of processing thoughts.

But Jesus in me did not stop expressing His ideas.  This blog is one of those expressions.  But there is another way that He has been asking me to explore the NEW.  I inherited some of my older brother's art supplies when he passed away from cancer several years ago.  Watercolors and instruction books have stared at me from the bookshelf.  "I could never paint," the old, detailed-me spoke often enough. Pen and ink lettering was my style. Not the free flowing expression of feeling that watercolor required.  But that is exactly what the Lord is requiring now:

Almost Spring
    Almost Buds
        Comfort in the growing.

This is the difference that last night proved to me.  The growing is where God's Comfort is. Flowing where I can't plan anything anymore, His Words and His Ideas express themselves nevertheless. He does not require my planning, just my willingness to let Him mold and shape and move through this howling wind that is inside of me.  Peace be still, He speaks to the storm.  And I will move with Him.

"And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm."  Mark 4:39

I am linking today with TheFaithBarista, for her #OneWordLent series, where the word today is brokenness:

http://www.faithbarista.com/

Shuffling,
re-organizing,
simplifying, 
stripping away the old.

All the right words to be passed at the table during this Spring-Cleaning-Time-Of-Year.
And, wow, was I on it!  I may not have had the energy or strength to strip the paint, but I sure cleaned out the old notebooks left over from Homeschooling Days!  (It's been a decade since the youngest graduated.  I think it's time to remove the final binder from my closet shelf!)

I am not so sure I want those Spring-Cleaning-Tasks applied to my heart.

At least not when I really allow the stripping away of the old to go all the way
to the deep-down places of my

Soul.

But I want to be HEALED.  I want to find that REMISSION word.  I want my HEART to be at Rest.

So.

Scripture tells me that Jesus was "wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities,

Surely He bore our sorrows, and by His stripes we are healed."

There can be no healing unless a wounding has happened first.

I am here, in this place of being purged,

And feeling my wounds, like never before--

Do you know the feeling?

I will go this week to sit with a  much-loved Counselor.  And I know I will see more shuffling, more re-organizing, and  more uncovering of my own woundedness.  But even there, the full healing won't be won by the words that we break open.....

No, I am only too full of those transgressions that never end.  I am only too full of my own iniquities. And I am only too full of new bruises and wounds that explode every day.  It would never end --

Except that--

Jesus was wounded. And Jesus was bruised.  And Jesus bore it all so that He could bring my healing.

My healing.

Your healing.

He purges and He cleanses and His Words tear down my Walls

And then He climbs right into my Soul.

All the other cleaning?  It's necessary, for sure.  But it's only part of the process.

The process that's meant to show me how He covers me with HIS heart

That already won the full.

Full Hearted Healing.

I'm linking up with the Faith Barista for her #OneWordLent series, and my oneword this week is "Wounded"   http://www.faithbarista.com/

 

"Love divine has seen and counted

Every tear it caused to fall

And the storm which love appointed

Was its choicest gift of all"

                     --Anonymous

When I delight in the day, when I take joy in my moments, I can see His hand in everything. Love brought me here. 

So when the future stretches before me down a path I would not willingly choose, where does the Hand of Love belong in my thinking then?  Is that future still planned by Him?  Where will my voice fall in the speaking of it?

Years ago, I woke up my Homeschooling-Mom-Days by listening to Elisabeth Elliot's radio show, "Gateway to Joy."  I eagerly read her monthly newsletters; sought out her books at our library.  And a phrase still echoes in my memory, I can hear her voice speaking it still:

"Will I let the cross cut through ....?"

Yes, the Cross that Jesus bore cuts through every moment in Time.

Jagged,

It tears a hole in the world that man would make.

But that same Cross,

Where Jesus died,

Built the bridge

Where I may see the Hand of God

Stretched out to me.

And so I press on to know Him more.  I choose the path He lays out for me, trusting that neither Fibromyalgia nor Rheumatoid Arthritis, nor any other thing can separate me from the Love of God that is in Christ Jesus. 

LOVE appoints the storm

And LOVE carries the cross

Because LOVE will bring me where I belong

To the Heart of my Jesus.

I am linking today over at the Faith Barista for her #OnewordLent series:
http://www.faithbarista.com/
 



Journey is the word for today over at "The Faith Barista."  And I am sharing again during her
#OneWordLent  invitation over at her Blog.

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted
And saves those who are crushed in spirit.~ Psalm 34:4-7, 18

As "TheFaithBarista" shared this Scripture Passage and that one word, "Journey," my heart was stirred again to think that Jesus chose to Journey from Heaven to save me from my brokenhearted place.

How many crushed-in-spirit times have I cried out to Him on this Journey of my own?  How many times have I considered His Journey and the pain He walked thru?  How many? 

The years roll by.

And still, He never once turns me away.  He never once says my Journey is too small.  He never once fails to save me from my brokenhearted place.

Because He is SAVIOR. 

I want to cry out, "Save me from this place, Jesus!  I am tired of Doctor visits.  I am tired of pain that returns.  I am tired of waiting for that REMISSION word."

But my Savior invites me on this Journey.  ....  His Journey ...   To walk with Him and feel His Heart.  To persevere and see His eyes.   To Look above this soil and find the blue. 

Heaven is my Home.   Jesus invites me there.  

Walking this path?  Only for a while.  Only for the days that He asks me to share and bring along and pray along and sing along with Him, for those who are also walking their way to Him.  We Journey Together.  Because Jesus saves those who are crushed in spirit.

Do you hear Him calling?

Here is the link for today:
http://www.faithbarista.com/

 

"Remember" . . .

This is the word prompt chosen by "The Faith Barista" over on her blog, inviting anyone who wishes, to join her on a #OneWordLent  journey to learn to dwell.  To dwell as Christ's Beloved.  To be still in His Presence.  Which is pretty amazing, because that's the very thing that I have been hearing from Him. Every night. Wide awake. Mind racing. Pain inflicted.  "Come and Dwell."

But just how does the word Remember fit into this whole Dwell thing for me? Well, that's also pretty amazing, because as Jesus has asked me to learn to Dwell, He has also been asking me to look back at my Physical Dwelling Places, and to Remember the ways that He dwelt with me in those homes.  And, the next pretty amazing thing that has happened, is that as I've remembered, somehow He has brought a new perspective to me about this current Place of Dwelling.

As I type, it's a Tuesday night, and my Dwelling Place includes a shelf in the refrigerator reserved for my weekly Orencia Injections.  I never thought I would be able to give myself an injection. (And I still don't like to do it! So, Thank You! to those who pray for me faithfully every Tuesday: shot day.)  But here, in this RA Season of injections and disease, an amazing shift in my perspective has happened:  I am the Temple: Dwelling Place of Jesus.  Here.  

"Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?"   --1 Corinthians 6:19

He dwelt in my homes in the past, because I was His Temple then also.  He's not moving out simply because I must squeeze the skin on my leg and shove a needle full of crazy wild medication into my body.  HE ALREADY KNEW WHAT THIS DWELLING PLACE WOULD LOOK LIKE.  And still He speaks:

"Look! I am standing at the door and knocking. If anyone listens to my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he will eat with me."  --Revelation 3:20

I don't know about you, but I am pretty hungry for more of Jesus.

Here's the link to the Faith Barista's Blog:

http://www.faithbarista.com/

http://www.faithbarista.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/OneWordCoffee5_Badge5-300x300.jpg