Looking Through Scratched Up Lenses

Scratched up lenses!

Scratched up sunglasses!

I can't stand them! I know I should be and I really am thankful for sunglasses period...but when they get scratched it just gets on my last nerve!! And why is it that when that one first scratch appears it's right in the place where my eyeball lines up to the lense?!!! So aggravating!

I just got a new pair of sunglasses a few months ago...they were free!!! I think that's why I love them so much...Well and maybe because they are neon blue and green and have Geico written on the side AND a little gecko on the right corner of the lense. Yes, I may be crazy but they are mine and I got them free at the NC fair this year for singing karaoke with my girls... Yep, best part of the fair for me this year... we all three got a pair and if you didn't make it to the Geico truck you totally missed out!!!

But you know the best part about these shades? They are totally scratch free!!! So far, so good!! I'm doing my best to keep them that way. I love a great challenge...and believe me, keeping my glasses, whether they be these new readers I just recently began wearing or my little blue "Geico's", it's a great challenge!!

While I was in Kenya a couple months ago, I was sitting by the animal's watering hole wearing my awesome "Geico's" and began to think...I began to talk to God and I felt him begin to talk to me about seeing through scratched up lenses...Well, that was when it hit me...I realized that morning that I loved my "Geico's" so much because they were totally scratchless. I began to think how we so often keep wearing and looking through glasses that have become dirty and scratched, totally messing up the way we see things...keeping us from seeing things clearly...our vision is distorted and skewed.

Then I began to think about how sometimes we do that when we're not even wearing glasses..The "lenses of our lives" become scratched up and dirty over the years...Life somehow will throw stuff at us, unavoidable stuff, that scratches our shades...mud gets slung sometimes and some of it gets stuck to our lenses...We continue through life seeing things different, with our vision distorted, skewed, possibly blurred even. It happens. It happened to me and it's probably happened to you at some point or another...

Divorce caused a few big scratches on my so called lenses of life...distrust, fear of betrayal, bitterness, anger...
My own bad choices that later resulted from the previous scratches caused even more scratches to my lenses of life...shame, even more fear and distrust-of my own self, pain, even more anger...

I guess maybe you have some of your own...some similar...some different...loss of a loved one, loss of a job, drug addiction, etc...

So what do we do with the old shades? The old scratched up lenses??

I like to think that my God is the best lasik surgeon ever!!!! And he has unlimited free brand new sunglasses and we don't even have to sing karaoke to earn them!! How good is that?!

I had lasik surgery about 13 years ago... Coolest thing ever! No really, I sat down in the chair and 15minutes later I looked up at the clock on the wall across the room and could see perfectly what time it was! I was shocked! I mean, I had faith that the procedure was a good one, but I had no idea just how good it was. Isn't that like God sometime? We trust the procedure of him fixing our lives, but we just don't realize how good it is until we see clearly again.

So, I guess today and during this Christmas and New Year season, take time to allow God to do what he does best. Sit down in the chair and let him do the delicate surgery of fixing the way we see. I wish I could say it would be done in 15minutes, but I'm thinking it will be something he does carefully and slowly as to bring total clarity to our lives little by little. Take the shades off that may have become scratched up through the things of this life and let him give us a new pair. He will help us to stop judging others and this world  based upon our experiences and begin to see others and the things of this world through his lenses. Take his truth and paste it across our eyes and let everything we see pass through it first. Little by little, I believe we can see more clearly and judge less severely...

As we do this great exchange, give him our scratched up lenses and let him change the way we see, I pray he will be seen in us. Because we begin seeing through his lenses of grace and mercy we help others in the great exchange also. And one day, one day, instead of looking through a glass darkly we will see clearly and we will see him face to face, eye to eye... oh what a day that will be...when my Jesus I will see, and I look upon his face, the one who saved me by his grace...what a day that will be!

Because of Jesus,
Lenee

 

The day I found myself stuck in the mud...

So a little over a month ago I found myself stuck in the mud...no, really, stuck in the mud. Literally, stuck in the mud. The deep, black, thick mud of the Segera in Kenya.

It was a Monday morning and our medical mission team headed off to clinic in our bus we had named "the big green monster". The skies were so beautiful and blue. Earlier that morning I had watched the sun rise next to the peak of Mt Kenya. Stunning no doubt. Yes, I think I was the only one watching the greatest show on earth that morning. God was reiterating what I felt him saying the morning before, "You're not telling your story." I was reiterating my previous response, "I know God, you gotta help me with that. You know I don't like my story."

So, as we drove along the still muddy road from the torential rain that probably lasted only an hour or so the day before, wiping out our Sunday afternoon crusade, I said yes to God and began to share my story to the one whom I had sat beside on the back of the bus. I like the back of the bus. I always head to the back of the bus. And she just happened to be the one who decided to sit back there too that day. So, after putting up a bit of a fight in my head and heart, I stepped out and began to share my story. As I was finishing up, all of a sudden we hit a bump, a big hole... a something! I flew to the ceiling and hit my head(a week later I realized I had cut my head that morning when I thought I had a worm exiting my scalp to find it was only as scab-whew! praise God for that- the thoughts you have after some mission trips!) and landed back in my seat! Man that hurt! That was the beginning of my journey through the mud. Well, not really, just the beginning of the mud of Kenya...My mud journey had been going on for quite a while...

Once I realized we were not moving and our driver was punching the gas as good as he could with no avail, I began to think what we gonna do now? We were all asked to move to the left side of the bus when we realized the back tires on that side weren't getting much traction. That didn't work. I was at that point ready to get off and get this big green monster out of the mud. Grabbing someone else's rain boots (because mine were only ankle high) I made my way off the bus with others and began doing anything I could think of to get us out of that mess...

I began chopping down thorny bushes with a machete. Like two inch long thorny thorns. Frustration flying through every whack of that machete. We were sticking those under the tires. Then we began picking up rocks. There were not hardly any rocks!! Man what great rockless soil we discovered in the Segera that day! But what rocks we did find we put them under the tires also. And we pushed. And we pushed. And we pushed...And I fell over in the mud at some point. Yep. Now I pretty much had mud all over me. So then I began to wash myself off in the mud puddle nearby. Man, what a sight I'm sure that had to have been. But we kept on, or I kept on and encouraged, or told :(, everyone to keep on. But we kept on pushing and pushing and pushing trying to free the big green monster to no success. Sorry ladies that kept on telling all of us to keep pushing! Really, I'm sorry! I've been told I can be bossy sometimes. Guess it's true and I apologize! The green monster wasn't going anywhere!!! I was mad. I was frustrated. I was exhausted and I was spent!!! My everything had been given to freeing that monster and it wasn't enough. Did I say I was mad?

After a few more minutes we took a break and walked away. As was wondering around trying to think of another strategy, I made my way back towards the monster where Maria (our team leader and my roomie-probably the one who knows me best in the group) was looking at the issue we had on our hands. By now, an hour and a half later or more had passed and I was getting madder(is that even a word?) by the moment! And these words came out of my mouth, "I didn't come to Kenya to get stuck in the mud!" And then the tears began and I just started walking away. And walking. And crying. And walking. And crying. The team probably thought I had decided to just walk to the clinic! But me and God took a walk that day. And I finally looked to the blue skies and had my moment of surrender. I did it. I took out my white flag and waved it. And I cried and I talked to God and he talked to me. "I can't do this God! What is it?! What do you want from me? Physically I'm spent! My back is in so much pain right now! Our first day of clinic on Saturday was pure awful! Worst ever had in doing this mission stuff. I don't even know what was wrong. And now we're headed to another day of clinic, now three hours late!!! I give you everything I've got because obviously it's not my strength nor my ideas that you want or need! You and I both know the lies the enemy has been whispering in my ear...you're too old for this, you're not gonna be able to keep doing this stuff, your glory days are over, give it up, walk away...  God you know I don't want to believe his lies. You know I love this stuff! You know I want to keep on but God you gotta help me. It's gotta be your strength from now on. It's gotta be. I surrender. I surrender all. All my stubborness, all my self-sufficient ideas, all my pain, all my frustrations, all my anger. Everything. It's yours. I give it to you. If I'm gonna keep doing this, it's gotta be you. I'm done. I'm done!"

His words I felt him say went something like this, 'In your weakness, I am strong. I love you. I have always loved you and I always will. My love is not based on your performance. Let me be your strength. Let me be your everything. In me you can do all things. We are not done here and I will be with you wherever I send you and I will be your help. I will be your strength. I will be your everything. Will you let me?'

I said yes that day. Yes to my God in a way like I'm not sure I've ever said it before. There have been many days since that day I've had to say yes again, and remind myself of that big yes I made that day, then say it again. I wish walking with God was one big yes and we're good, but for some reason the enemy keeps attacking, and my flesh keeps wanting to be the strong one and I have to continually remind myself, "in my weakness, he is strong... yes God, yes" It's so hard for me to come to grips with the reality of my weaknesses, but I really believe he is allowing my weakness to be revealed so his strength can be revealed too. I just have to keep answering, "yes".

So, back to the big green monster stuck in the mud... Well, you're not gonna believe this but when I finally made my way back to the team, they were treating two really sick babies. Yep. Two different moms from two different areas were making their way to the "hospital" with their babies and we happened to be stuck right in their paths. Needless to say, I was very quiet in the moments to follow. When Maria looked up with her lively Puerto Rican red lipstick smile (yes even in the Segera! don't ever take red lipstick away from a Puerto Rican woman) and said, "Look! I just sewed this little babies foot up!", "Of course you did," was my simple response as I looked at the sweet little foot wrapped in gauze... I continued to observe the situation at hand...another baby getting a shot who had already received a breathing treatment from a nebulizer that wouldn't normally had even been on the bus that day. Actually none of the supplies were supposed to be there! All the supplies we needed were there only because Andrea (head triage nurse) decided that at the end of clinic the day before to bring the triage bag back to her room to "organize it"... don't tell me my God isn't awesome and doesn't work in ways we cannot see nor understand! He has a plan. He always has a plan! And it's always good and for his glory!!

For the next few moments, I just stood in awe at what God was doing and what our team members were doing... all I could think was 'I surrender all God, I really do.'

As the team was finishing up their care of those sweet God sent babies and telling the moms goodbye as the moms strapped them on their backs for the journey home, I kid you not another big truck came up and hooked up to our big green monster and began to tug and pull and tug and pull and out of the mud came our big green monster!!! Yes, right on time...God's time that is!! His timing is perfect. His ways are good. And by then I had surrendered all....

I learned so many lessons on that day, on that trip... this will probably later become "stuck in the mud part 1" when I'm able to share part 2 :).  Our team was amazing. Our driver, Joseph, was amazing. Our Maggie and our Kate (Kenyan leaders) were amazing, Our God was amazing. It was an amazing day that day...

As we began to make our way back to the big green, now freed, monster, we circled up and prayed. We gave God thanks for many things in that moment. All I could say was, "I surrender all, God. You let me get out here in the middle of nowhere, stuck in the mud so I could see you today. I'm so thankful that your ways are higher than my ways, I surrender it all to you God."

We made our way onto the bus and headed to clinic... which was a wooden church. Dirt, grassy, roots everywhere on the ground church... where we walked in with God and served those beautiful people who had been waiting all morning long. I have no idea to this day how we did it. Well, I do know.... I know he did it!!! We were able to serve about a hundred more people than we did the first day (that really bad day I mentioned earlier) and we did it with grace, joy and peace...the atmosphere was different and it just flowed. It just got done...not in our strength, but in our weakness he became our strength and we got it done. The people of the Segera were not the ones blessed that day. I was the one so richly blessed, each person on our team was blessed.

I bless the God whom I serve and who allows me to serve him this day, because he is simply a good God, a really good God and he let a little ole nobody like me see his face that day on that muddy road in the Segera...

just journaling...

11/28/2015
I just want to be home today.
I do. I'm a little or a lot homesick for my family today.
Why did I stay here 10 years ago when I could've packed it all up and moved back home? For my girls. I did it for my girls. I didn't want them to be fatherless. I didn't want them to grow up not knowing their daddy. So I stayed. I kept them here within 10 miles of their daddy. I realize his presence and having a relationship with him was more important than my comfort zone.
So today I'm homesick for my mama who's trimming shrubs at a lady's house back home who's husband has been diagnosed with cancer.
I wish I could see pregnant Hannah and touch her belly holding that baby inside.
I wish I could hug my brother who's probably in the back yard tinkering .
I would sit with my daddy and watch some TV. probably antique roadshow.
I'd ride down to mama D's and visit with her a while and pick up my care package.
I'd go over to my sissy's and just walk around her beautiful homeplace and probably sit on the deck over the pond and breathe deeply for a while. share a few moments with her...
I'd go see Kar-Kar!!! She's the bomb!! She's so much like Abby when she was a baby. So full of energy and totally entertaining!!! Such an awesome personality.
I'd just tell Corbin she's a beautiful mama and give Court Court a hug and tell her she's just simply beautiful too and Bug better know by now that she's to be treated like a queen and if not, then well...
I'd go to the Bowman cemetery and watch a little bumble bee spin its wings over Bigmama's grave and remind myself of what an awesome legacy I have to be thankful for. Thank God once again for the 94 years and 11months she lived here... the awesome strength and also awesome dependence on Him she always showed me. God, I just miss a lot of stuff today!
I would walk over to Popeye's and stand there looking at the gravel and remind myself what an awesome man and second dad he was to me. This Thanksgiving day he would've been 73! Man, I miss him like crazy...the talks, the advice, the simple love...I miss it all! I'd be sure the John Deer tractor was still there and if it wasn't I'd go to the Dollar General and get another one...
I'd drop by my brother Scott's and check out all his Christmas decorations I've heard he's already got out and I'm sure it looks fabulous.
And I'd just be home. Where today my heart is. I'd just enjoy being with my family and hearing their loudness and being in the midst of the crazy for a while.
Hug my family for me today God, I'm a little homesick...

A Day of thanks...

Today we Americans celebrate Thanksgiving...the coming together of pilgrims looking for religious freedom and native americans already living in the land of the free...

I am thankful... I am thankful for the things we so often never as Americans give a second thought to. I haven't always been thankful for these things I'm about to mention, but if life has taught me anything it has taught me above all else, be thankful...

I had nothing to do with the fact that I was born here with the many blessings I sit here enjoying today. It's called grace=unmerited favor.

I saw a picture this morning that reminded me of love that gives sacrificially...I can hear the one boy saying to the other even now, "I'll wear the left one, you wear the right one, that way we each have at least one and together we will always make a pair."

My goodness, if that isn't love! When I say those words, "if that isn't love", I'm reminded of my favorite hymn we sang as a choir in that baptist church growing up by that title. It talks about how Jesus left the splendor of heaven knowing his destiny was the lonely hill of Golgotha, there to lay down his life for me...If that isn't love, the ocean is dry, if that isn't love, there's no stars in the sky... I still love that song! If you know it, you'll now be humming it all day thanks to me ;-)... if you don't google it!

You and I may have never had to share a pair of shoes and probably never will, but we can be thankful, so thankful for love like that and first and foremost for a savior who really did leave an amazing place called heaven where I believe the streets really are paved with gold, or something even better we've never seen, and he really did lay his life down for me and you to live a beautiful life of purpose. I believe he really did get up out of that grave on the third day so that me and you could get up out of any death causing thing of this life.

So today, I'm most thankful for Jesus my Redeemer, the one who gave me a second chance and third chance and... you get the point, but he gave me the opportunity to live again. He's so good!

I'm thankful for two amazing, beautiful-inside and outside- daughters...
I'm thankful for a family who loves and supports me and each other. We're tight and that's the way I like it...
I'm thankful for the sun that shines down on my deck today...it's almost 60 already!!
I'm thankful for Wal-mart who has employed me for 18 years on Dec 1! and so thankful for a very understanding manager when it comes to this single mom shared custody scheduling stuff!!!
I'm thankful for a toilet...that flushes, that gets dirty and gets clogged, but most of the time it flushes...so thankful!
I'm thankful for a bed, a warm cozy bed and Elizabeth's stuffed animal bear that she left behind for me to snuggle with over the next few days.
I'm thankful for a home, a washer and dryer, a dishwasher even, running water-good drinkable running water...
Food, Stop Hunger Now who gives food to those without, greenhouses behind the school in the Segera that provide food and funding for the teachers there. Electricity, lights I can cut on and cut off...heat when it's cold and ac when it's hot...
Coffee...Coffee...Coffee!!!! God bless the coffee farmers all over the world! I love the fruit of you labor!
Firepits, fireplaces, bondfires, campfires...I love the look, smell and sound of a good fire.
A car...
My healing...my healing that has taken place and is taking place...
Shoes on my feet, both my feet...
I really could sit here all day. I'm sure you could too. We are blessed. We are both so very blessed not just for the material things we have been given, but also for the eternal things. The things we can't see here on earth...
I'm reminded that today I enjoy my blessings because of a God who says, "My ways are not your ways and my thoughts are not your thoughts" so there's possibly a reason, I may not always think of, as to why I have been so blessed. Why you have been so blessed...Could it possibly be that today, this Thanksgiving Day 2015 you and I begin to think deeply, think a little higher, ponder for a moment as we give thanks that we, maybe we have been blessed to be a blessing to someone else...What would our good God have us to pass on...Peace, love, kindness, a pair of shoes, a coat, a turkey...whatever it is pass it on...be a blessing. It's not about me being blessed. It's not about you being blessed. It's about using what we have to be a blessing...

Happy Thanksgiving as we find ways to pass it on!
Lenee

Hello, my name is Lenee, I am a self-sufficient, bull-headed, stubborn, strongwilled, independent woman...

"Hello, Lenee," You respond....

And so we begin this support group...

I just have to say, I don't know what God is up to in this heart, head and life of mine. He is good though, I  do know that. He's been showing me so much over the past few weeks.

Just the other day, I felt him ask me why I won't just let him take care of me. Isn't that what every wife wants? Just to be taken care of by her husband? And if he's my husband like I say he is then  why can't I just let go and let him take care of me....My response was, hmmm that's such an awesome question God...why we gotta have this conversation today? The prodding continued and the question continued to linger in my head until I was able to say, ok why don't I just let you take care of me? What is it that hinders me from letting go and letting you take it?... I finally came up with a few things...

Over the past ten years of my single mom life I have become a self-sufficient, bull-headed, stubborn, strongwilled, independent woman!! I lack the ability to trust and I choose to do it myself with the fear of somebody else (even God) doing it for me and not getting it right... Yes, I said it. I am a control freak in many ways and a protector and shielder of my girls above many things. I hear the first step to recovery is recognition and admission...so, I begin here with you hearing my confession and waiting on God to show me steps two through twelve.

I don't want to be this same person a year from now or even a day from now...

When we would do spring cleaning growing up (which I hated mind you) we would have the house so messed up and I would be like, "mama, it looks so much worse now!" She would say, "sometimes you gotta mess it all up to clean up." Well, the only way I think I can put into words what I'm feeling right now is that I'm messed up (in a good way-I think) and I'm gonna choose to trust my good God to clean this mess up...oh and can I say I still hate spring cleaning!!!!

So, I just invite you this morning to ride this thing out with me. It's time for me to get raw, real and vulnerable under theses palm trees and allow my God to do what he is so good at doing... reworking and making me what I ought to be.... and just maybe some of the things he does in me will be some of the things he wants to do in you. There's a song we used to sing growing up in my little Baptist church in Ga and it's called "He's still working on me". I've been singing and humming it ever since a muddy, really muddy, day in Kenya a couple of Mondays ago... I'll be sharing about that day soon, but for now let's just sing, "it took him just a week to make the moon and the stars, the sun and the earth and Jupiter and Mars, how loving and patient he must be....

he's still working on me",
Lenee

To trust or not to trust...that is the question

To trust...

Recently I was given the opportunity to share about trust at a Kenya planning retreat. I wanted to share my thoughts on my blog also in hopes someone who struggles with the issue of trust like myself may find it encouraging. 

Let me just say I like to talk more than I like to type but here goes trying to put my words on this keyboard.... :)

Trust...
What does it truly mean to trust?
What is trust?
How do we trust? How do we truly trust our God?

Trust="To believe that someone or something is reliable, good, honest, effective; To have confidence in; To believe something is true or correct; To hope or expect that something is true or will happen."

So, if trust has to with belief then how do we believe:

Things that I think affect the way we believe:

-Perception-the way we see things, our perspective from where we are in our own journey of faith, our view...I never get on a plane when I'm not reminded of our great God and His perspective on our lives and this world we live in! The thought that He sees it all, knows it all yet takes time and wants to know and be with me blows me away...so think about that for a few moments the next time you hit those friendly skies, let Him come close and listen for His voice to speak tenderly to you along the way...

-Experiences-past experiences alter our perspective, perception and view...Whether good or bad they play a huge part in choosing to trust

-Knowledge- of God's Word, the Bible; Of who He is, our creator, the great craftman He is and His character

-Foundation- Is it secure and solid or shifting like the sand on the seashore, that washes away with every wave?

-The fear vs faith factor- we will find ourselves on one side or the other

So in order to illustrate what I feel God showing me about trust I will use a chair... picture a chair, possibly a chair you may be sitting in now...or will sit in...you just sat down didn't you? You didn't question it's ability to hold you or to remain stable and secure...you just sat down. Possibly because you've sat down in it before, it has held you in the past, you may have bought the chair and thought it to be of good craftsmanship and fully capable to do what it was made to do....hold you...

Now, picture a chair that looks somewhat like a small hammock with a wooden bar at the top, a big silver ring and cloth tied to it and to top it all off, I'm standing here holding it with my own two hands... Will you come sit in it??? Come on, sit down, I got it, I got this.....Ok probably not and for several reasons...One being, you probably doubt I can hold you up; two, you may not have ever seen a chair like it before; three, you have no idea who made the chair nor their experience or worthiness of craftsmanship.

So when it comes to trusting our good God, I just want to encourage each of us, myself especially, to think of several things so that we can make the choice to trust...He has held me in the past, He's a strong enough God, His Word is true and His promises will be fulfilled, I know the Creator is good at what He does, and there is a solid foundation on which He stands.

Now, back to the hammock chair... if it were bolted to a sturdy wooden plank and you new it was crafted with precision and made to hold you...wouldn't you give it a try? wouldn't you even think, man this is pretty cool and have a little fun sitting in it? Something new, something different and something even a bit exciting...

God is able to hold us! He is anchored and not gonna let us down. He is made to hold everything, every weight we carry around weighing us down and wearing us out. We just have to choose to sit down, sit in His lap and choose to trust in Him. In His Word, God says that to each He has given a level of faith. We take that level of faith, choose to believe His promises, Get in His Word to know Him more so that we know who our Creator is and we begin to believe it...As we begin to believe, we are able to make the choice to trust. 

I keep saying we make the choice to trust, because from my experience there are many times when trust is not a feeling or a thing that just comes natural to me. I have come to think the number one thing the enemy of our souls is out to accomplish is to destroy our ability or desire to trust-others, ourselves and our God...I hate to say he is good at it too. That's why it's so important that we make the choice and not rely on our feelings, past hurts or bad experiences we've suffered in this life and know that we serve a God who is good! Real good! This world is bad and we go through bad stuff, stuff I'll never understand, but our God is good. His sovereignty can be trusted. Romans 8:28 says, "And we know that God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purposes for them." He can and will hold us, tight!

Proverbs 3:5&6 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart (mind,will and emotions); do not depend on your own understanding (past experiences in this world, perceptions, knowledge). Seek his will (not my own) in all you do (the light stuff and the heavy stuff), and he will direct your paths (he will even go before us, behind us and stay right beside us along that path)".

Choose to trust Him like never before. Know that He is strong enough, He is loving enough, He is worthy enough to take us along this path we call life...

Going with Jesus wherever he leads,

Lenee

In the Desert He Becomes 'My Husband' instead of 'My Master'

"But then I will win her back once again. I will lead her out into the desert and speak tenderly to her there. I will return her vineyards to her and transform the Valley of Trouble into a gateway of hope. She will give herself to me there, as she did long ago when she was young, when I freed her from her captivity in Egypt. 
"In that coming day," says the LORD, "you will call me 'my husband' instead of 'my master.'  Hosea 2:14-16 NLT

It just got real for me all over again...

I just have to be real when I pour myself over these words that follow. I'll become vulnerable in hopes that His Words will be light to someone else's darkness. The Light always, always takes over the darkness.

You see, I sit here with tears streaming down my face because for over a week now, the words you just read from Hosea have been turning in my mind and spirit and have felt they would be what I would blog about next. I now know why the enemy has distracted me and tried to put this off yet another day. As I sat down to begin typing the verses, not fully knowing how to convey this passage I glanced to see when God first showed me these words in Hosea. I'm a bit overwhelmed right now because one of the dates, the earliest,  I had noted by this passage was the day my divorce became final almost ten years ago. And yes, after ten years I need to be reminded of these words. My God has been amazingly faithful over the past ten years and my story didn't begin there, nor does it end there... in the desert...

As I ran this morning, I began to ask myself and ponder yet again, 'what is it about the desert?...what is it that makes the change from 'master' to 'husband'?... why do we ever need the desert experiences of life? ... what's so life changing? what makes the difference?...'

As I asked those questions, I decided I could best try to figure it out by looking at the desert...what makes a desert a desert?  What did my desert look like?

Dry, dusty, windy, hot, scorching hot, uncomfortable, barren, lonely, not much food, even less water, prickly things, painful things....

But not alone, there was someone with me...I still don't understand this part, but the word says, 'He leads us out into the desert', so that must mean He's there with me too.

I believe sometimes, or should I say for me, it was then that I was able to give Him my attention. Yes, there were still times in my desert that I went looking for companionship, food, and rest in places my God never intended... It's called "the flesh" and yet I still am sitting here covered in it today, but today I realized this flesh also has a second covering over it called "grace" and that's why I am able to sit here and say how faithful my good God is because I am in Christ Jesus and what he has done for me.

When we are lead to the desert places, it somehow gets our attention. I don't know if it's because we finally get thirsty for God or because we finally are able to remove all the distractions. But what I do know is in the desert we do get thirsty, we do get hot and tired, we do get hungry and there's one person who's there no matter what and that's our God and His Word. For that, I am forever grateful.

But what else is it about the desert that changes us? I love the next thing the one who leads us into the desert does... He speaks tenderly to us there. He begins to say, 'I got you, we got this. I really am enough, just trust me. I have brought enough food and I have enough water to sustain you through this desert. Just trust me, I am your Source.' He speaks tenderly because everything else in the world is shouting to get our attention and get us sidetracked and distracted. He speaks tenderly as if in an intimate voice of unconditional love. He speaks tenderly because that's his heart for his beloved. He loves us so much that he tenderly whispers instead of barking out orders demanding things of us.

He then returns our vineyards. That's good to me... See as he lead us out into the desert we sometimes have to leave a lot of stuff behind... stuff... relationships, our old identity, jobs, material things...our vineyards, the things we thought brought us sustanance and provision...Vineyards back then were a source of life, provision and blessings. When we arrive in our deserts we may think all that has been taken away, but I love that God's word says he RETURNS our vineyards! He gives back and I believe since it is from Him it's even better than before. The vineyards he returns are our source of life, provision and blessing greater than anything we could've previously experienced. Is the desert sometimes still painful? Yes. Is it sometimes hard work? Yes. Anyone who owns a vineyard will tell you it's hardwork, oh but it's so worth it!! It's so worth the pruning, the picking, the crushing and the time spent in the lonely barrel fermenting. It's so worth allowing God to produce the New Wine in us.

Then there's a transformation that takes place. The Valley of Trouble is transformed into a gateway of hope. A door of hope in the middle of a desert!!! That's so good to me. So when I find myself in a "valley of trouble" I now begin to look for the door of hope!! He promises it is there somewhere. The transformation process makes something totally different out of what there was before. Begin looking for the door of hope instead of wandering aimlessly in those valleys of trouble we find ourselves in sometimes.

Then, eventhough we may still be in the desert, we finally give ourselves to him, our LORD. We give ourselves to him once again like we did in the beginning, when we were young, maybe when our marriage first begun, when we knew we had been rescued from Egypt. Sometimes in the desert we have to still remind ourselves of what God has done already. Remind ourselves of the times he came through and provided time and time again, remind ourselves of his promises and how he will not leave us nor forsake us. Remind ourselves of the love and passion we had for our God when we first came into relationship with him. If you don't have that relationship, you can, right now, just say 'I want it, God, I want you, I want you and me. I'm tired of this desert and trying to fend for myself and find food and water on my own. I want what you have. I want my vineyards returned, the ones you have for me, I want to see and walk through my door of hope.'  Oh, my friend, he will meet you there. You will feel his loving arms around you and hear him speaking tenderly to you there. He loves you and me more than we can ever imagine.

That's when it happens, we throw ourselves on our God in such a way that we feel his loving embrace, we let go of what we've been so desperately holding onto and we allow him to give us new vineyards, new passion and new hope. We see him and hear him speaking tenderly like never before, and that's when we know it, that's when we realize his love is greater than anything. We choose to trust him. We choose to believe in Him...We choose Jesus and realize he has chosen us to be his very own. We realize we are in relationship based on love, pure love and not demands and laws. We realize Jesus fulfilled the law and has given us love, so much love... and that's when it happens, that's we call him 'my husband' instead of 'my master'.

Be blessed today in the grace of our Savior, our Redeemer who lives, I call him my Husband.