A Beautiful Mess

A Clean Heart

Psalm 51:10 (AMPC)

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right, persevering, and steadfast Spirit within me.”

When David penned this psalm, he had done something awful. He had committed adultery, and then he had conspired to commit murder in order to cover it up. He has taken one awful act and compounded it with another and then another until the result was a total destruction of all he had been as a man of God. But David didn’t allow that to be the end of his story. Instead, he turned back to God, acknowledged the wrong he had done and asked for help.

David knew that his heart had become wicked, filled with all manner of thoughts and desires that weren’t in line with who God created him to be. He also knew that he was powerless to do anything about it. He needed help. He needed someone to clean that heart for him and give him the kind of spirit that desired the things that God desired.

What about you?

Are there areas in your life where you can see one bad choice has snowballed into a mountain of bad choices? Are there places in your heart where you feel like you need a fresh start? Where things look so bad that you don’t even know how to begin and you long for someone to come in and do the heavy lifting for you? That’s God’s specialty. He takes hearts in need of cleansing and hearts made of stone, and He transforms them into new, clean hearts of flesh.

The truth is that we can’t change ourselves. We can clean up our behavior for a while, but ultimately, if we don’t address that root cause of sin in our lives, we’ll end up right back where we started or worse. Lasting change has to start on the inside. Lasting change has to come from a change of heart about who we are that then pours out into what we do.

So if you’re in need of a clean heart today, ask God. He’s ready, willing, and able to do the heavy lifting for you and create in you a clean heart and a spirit that seeks His will in all it does.

Prayer: Father, thank you that you are a creator God. That’s who you ARE. You take broken things and restore them. You take a heart of stone and turn it into a heart of flesh. You took David’s sinful heart and gave him a heart that chased after you. Father, in my life right now there are places that need to be cleansed. I need a fresh start with a new heart and a spirit that longs for you and longs to follow your will. Create in ME a clean heart, God. Change me from the inside out so that who I am and what I do fall in line with all you created me to be. You did it for David, and I know you will do it for me, too! In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

A New Song

Psalm 40:3 (AMPC)

“And He has put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many shall see and fear (revere and worship) and put their trust and confidence in the Lord.”

I have always loved music. I grew up in a very musical family. My father played multiple instruments and was mostly self-taught. He also sang. My mother was in choirs in high school and sang as well. Her father was a member of a traveling gospel quartet, so from an early age my sister and I learned to incorporate music into our daily lives. We would often sing together on road trips or make up funny songs to make our work go faster.

And then one day, the music just stopped. I didn’t even realize it had happened. I was in the midst of an abusive relationship, and the world just seemed to lose all its color and wonder and joy. It didn’t happen all at once, but gradually over time. It happened so slowly that I didn’t realize it had happened at all until a friend I had known in high school saw me and asked if I still sang. It caught me off guard because in that moment I couldn’t remember the last time I had sung…..even singing along with the car radio was a thing of the past. I had left the abusive relationship behind, but this part of my soul was still not healed.

Learning to sing again was kind of like thawing out after a long winter freeze. It took time and patience. It felt awkward and unnatural. I doubted whether that part of my life would ever come fully back the way it had been before. At the same time, I was growing in my relationship with God and finding new things in His Word.

Now, hardly a day goes by where I don’t sing. I sing in the car, at church, at home. I make up silly songs for my kids that they have now passed down to their own children. I even sing at work occasionally! God fully restored that part of my life….not just restored it but made it better than ever! No one who sees me today would ever believe that there was a time in my life when the world looked grey and bleak and washed out.

That’s the wonder of knowing a miracle-working God!

So if you find yourself in a dreary place, if you feel like the day for singing has passed you by, rest in the confidence that what God did for me, He will gladly do for you! He will give you a new song, and when you begin singing the song the Lord gives you, those around you will be amazed.

Prayer: Father, I thank you that you are a miracle-working God. Lord, when you look at us, you see our full potential and who you created us to be. If we trust in you, you will restore the parts of our life that are broken and dull and not functioning to the full capacity you designed. You take our broken pieces and put them back together in new and marvelous ways. When you get to work, God, the end product is so much better than our wildest dreams. Put a new song in my heart, God. Help me to live out loud for you and to find joy in your presence every single day! In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

Psalm 30:5 (AMPC)

“For His anger is but for a moment, but His favor is for a lifetime or in His favor is life. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.”

Sometimes in life, the way gets hard. We go through trials and tribulations. A path that seemed clear just a moment before suddenly turns into an overgrown jungle where we can’t see the next step. The day that started out bright and sunny turns into a sudden storm. When we encounter times like this, it’s easy to give up. The longer that season of hardship lasts the easier it becomes to feel like we’ve failed, like we’ve put our faith into something that’s not real, like we will never again see the light of a bright sunny day.

We may struggle with depression and anxiety. We may wonder why God doesn’t swoop in and save the day or why God allows bad things to happen to good people or why we have to suffer when everyone else seems to be going about their life blessed and without a care in the world.

Today’s Bible verse reminds us that this too will pass. Hardships and trials and struggles last for a season, but they will end. They do end. They must end. They will not go on forever, even if it feels like they will right now in the middle of them.

God promises that joy will come in the morning. On the other side of the hard thing you are walking through, there is a promise of blessing. There’s a promise of freedom. There’s the promise of something new. After all, His mercies are new every morning.

So if you’re walking through a rough season right now, remember that this too will pass. Cling to the promise that morning will come!

Prayer: Father, when I’m going through the midst of heartache and trial, it can be easy to forget all your blessings. It can be easy to forget the ways you’ve walked with me before and how you never leave me or forsake me. I am not walking through this alone. Father, I thank you for new beginnings. I thank you that you promise no matter how long the night might last or how long it feels like it will last, morning will come. Thank you that you promise on the other side of this, I will find joy again and light again and new beginnings again. This is not the end of my story! In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Finish Well

Job 8:7 (AMPC)

“Though your beginning was insignificant, yet your end will greatly increase.”

It’s January, and most of us have started the year with a list of New Year’s Resolutions. We have a plan for what we want our life to look like going into the new year. Maybe you’ve decided to exercise more or read your Bible more. Maybe you’re going to cut out sugar this year or be a better steward of your finances. Whatever it is, you’ve started the year with big plans. But the truth is that most of us will give up on our resolution within the first month of the year. Recent studies suggest as many as 75% of us give up within the first month, and only 10% of us achieve our goals. Another study suggests only 1% keep their resolutions for the entire year.

It’s easy to start out well. We gear up for the race at the running block full of optimism and a confidence that we will win the race. But then reality sets in. The race is longer than we expected and harder than we expected. There are things that come up in our lives that we didn’t plan for. There might be pain and suffering and roadblocks we encounter as we navigate through life.

It’s not how we start the race that matters. Maybe you received Jesus at a young age and you’ve grown up in the church. Maybe you came to the Lord later in life and you worry that you don’t have enough time left to make it count. How we start and when we start are insignificant. What matters is how we finish.

Paul says to run the race before us with the mindset of winning. We need to finish strong. It’s about perseverance. So whether or not you keep your New Year’s Resolutions this year or whether they fall along the wayside, follow the example of Paul: set aside everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and keep running the race. If you fall off the bandwagon, get back on. Pick up where you left off. No one is counting the number of times you have to restart. The only thing that matters is how you finish. So finish strong!

Prayer: Father, I thank you that even if I start this race late in the game and even if I fall off the path a million times, you are still there waiting for me and encouraging me to get back up and keep running. Help me to finish strong, Lord. Help me to keep my eyes on you and to pursue you no matter what. Don’t allow me to be distracted by the things the world has to offer. Help me keep going and keep moving forward so that I can finish strong. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Waiting for God

Genesis 18:14 (AMPC)

“Is anything too hard or too wonderful for the Lord? At the appointed time, when the season [for her delivery] comes around, I will return to you and Sarah shall have borne a son.”

I don’t like to wait. I’m not sure that anyone really does. Waiting is hard! Impatience is definitely something I struggle with. Oftentimes, I try to hurry things along so that I can get to that end goal as fast as possible. Sarah did the same when she gave her maidservant, Hagar, to Abraham as a second wife. Talk about trying to rush things along! Sarah was so desperate to have a child and to see the promises of God come to pass that she added Hagar to the mix.

If you’ve read the Genesis narrative of Abraham and Hagar, you know the outcome was less than desirous. Sarah was tormented by her choice, and Hagar wasn’t too happy with the situation either. Luckily, Sarah’s attempts to help God along didn’t stop God from fulfilling His promise to her. There is great comfort for all of us in that fact. We can delay the promises of God when we take matters into our own hands, but we can’t thwart them entirely. God is still sovereign over all.

But I think the lesson here is that while waiting for God to fulfill His promises to us is difficult, the end result is always worth it. So if you’re in a season of waiting, I encourage you to turn your focus onto the journey itself. Wait well. Waiting isn’t a passive thing. Waiting well is an active pursuit. Enjoy the journey, and remind yourself as often as required that God is always on time, even if it’s not on our time! The wait is well worth it in the end.

Prayer: Father, I thank you that you fulfill all Your promises to us. I thank you that even when we try to get involved and end up messing things up, You are still faithful to Your Word. You always come through! I know that You are always on time. You are never early. You are never late. In this season of waiting, help me to wait well. Open my eyes to the wonders along the way while I wait for the appointed time that You have set for my promise to be fulfilled. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Too Good To Be True

Genesis 18:13

“And the Lord asked Abraham, Why did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I really bear a child when I am so old?”

Have you ever come across one of the promises of God and thought it was too good to be true? Perhaps you’ve read a verse about God healing someone or blessing someone and thought, “it must be nice for them, but that’s not going to happen for me.” Sarah felt the same way. The only thing Sarah wanted in life was to have a baby. For years, she had dreamed of having a child. She had prayed. She had begged. She had cried. And now at 99, she had made her peace with the fact that children just weren’t in the cards for her. And then along comes God and makes this outrageous statement that Sarah will have a child within the year.

What?! What kind of cruel joke is this? Take my hopes and dreams….the ones I know are dead and buried….the ones I’ve already grieved over….the ones I have already given up on and breathe new life into them?! Nope! No way!

This was a grief-filled laugh. This was the kind of laugh you make when you know you’re the butt of the joke, and you feel nothing but awkwardness so you laugh because you don’t want them to see you cry.

But God doesn’t see things the way we see them. With God all things are possible! Those dreams you put on a shelf for “someday,” those dreams that just have no way they’re going to come true now, those dreams that you’ve grown too old for but were the sole focus of your heart for so very, very long…..God wants to breathe new life into them. God wants to pick them up and dust them off and tell you to go ahead and dream big again!

God came through for Sarah with the birth of her son, Isaac. A year later, Sarah was laughing with joy and not with sorrow and shame.

As we step into a new year, we need to remember that God is a God of life and life abundantly! He doesn’t want you just muddling through. He isn’t looking to punish you. You haven’t gone too far or done too much (or not enough). You aren’t too young or too old. In fact, God wants you to remove the word “too” from your vocabulary! Remember just a few chapters ago in Genesis, we read that we were handcrafted by God! We are perfectly created to fulfill the plans that God has for us.

So what dreams have you let die along the way? Is it time to resurrect them again? Is it time to dust them off and breathe some hope upon them? You may just find yourself laughing with joy in the near future, just like Sarah.

Prayer: Father, Today I come to you with the dreams I’ve let go, the plans I thought I was incapable of realizing, and all the hopes I thought had passed me by long ago. Are there any that you want to breathe new life into? What, in my life, would you like to resurrect today? I know with you all things are possible. Grant me, Father, the same miracle you gave to Sarah: the miracle of a new beginning. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

A Work Of Art

Genesis 1:2

“The earth was formless and void or a waste and emptiness, and darkness was upon the face of the deep [primeval ocean that covered the unformed earth]. The Spirit of God was moving (hovering, brooding) over the face of the waters.” (AMPC)

Do you ever wonder if life is just a game of chance? Do you fall into the trap of thinking that God exists but He doesn’t really care about what is going on in your life? Look again at this verse. When all was in chaos with no clear plan or direction, the Spirit of God moved over the face of the waters. The Amplified version says He brooded. Now that’s a very interesting word. Brooded.

You may be picturing the Spirit of God scowling over the unformed planet, but I want you to picture a mother hen. See how carefully she lays the eggs in her nest and sits on the them, watchful of danger, carefully tending to them until they hatch. That’s the picture used here for what God was doing at the point of creation. He was tender. He was watchful. He was lovingly considering His future family that He was about to create.

It’s not all just a game of chance. God was very intentional when He created the world and everything in it, and that includes YOU! You aren’t a mistake. You aren’t an afterthought. You were fearfully and wonderfully made, lovingly crafted by a master artisan who took time and paid attention to the smallest of details that when in to creating you. Who you are at the very core of your being is an incredibly priceless work of art!

Prayer: Father, thank you for taking the time to make me. Thank you for lovingly crafting every aspect of my spirit and personality. Help me to see in myself, and in those around me, the loving details you added. Help me to treat myself with grace when I need it, and help me to treat others with compassion as well. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

When Things Get Difficult

Photo by Aniruddha Bhattacharya on Unsplash

Do you ever feel like the same struggles come up over and over again? If you’re anything like me, you have this inner critic that seems to keep the same phrases on repeat. Listening to that inner critic usually makes you feel more discouraged and like you just can’t seem to learn whatever lesson you’re supposed to learn and move on with your life! That has been the story of my life for longer than I care to remember. But in the last weeks of 2024, I felt like God was shifting my viewpoint a bit.

One of the areas that I struggle with a lot around the holidays in this season of my life is being alone. Since my husband left unexpectedly in 2020, the holidays have lost a bit of the magic they used to have. I struggle with seasonal depression and this overwhelming sense that what I do in life doesn’t really matter all that much. What a lie straight from the pit of hell!

The past few years I’ve muddled through the holidays trying to recapture that magic. In 2020, I was able to have time with the kids for the holidays. If you’ve followed my journey, you know that the children were placed in foster care, and the holidays in 2020 was the first time I was allowed to have them overnight and actually get back into our family’s specific traditions surrounding Thanksgiving and Christmas. In 2021, the kids were finally home for good, and we spent that first year surrounding ourselves with family and friends and just being open to new possibilities for what the holidays would look like now that I was a single mom again. In 2022, my husband showed up on my doorstep unexpectedly on Christmas Eve with his newest girlfriend (now his wife) in tow. It was a bittersweet moment of rejoicing that he had decided to re-initiate contact with our sons and that God was clearly moving in his life in response to my prayers and also having this person who I loved so deeply replace me so easily with someone else. In 2023, we began our current parenting time schedule with rotated holidays and time split between both houses. He had the boys for Thanksgiving that year since we rotated that holiday. I have the boys with me for Christmas Day while he has them for Christmas Eve. It was a year of frustration and anger and learning that forgiveness is sometimes an hourly necessity!

Which brings us to this year: 2024. 2024 was an interesting year for me. God had given me the word “WAIT” for my prophetic word of the year (more on that in a different post), and I had spent the year in a sort of relational limbo. I just felt like I drifted through 2024. In the early part of the year, I felt all this possibility and expectation. What was God going to do? What was I waiting for? How long would I be waiting? And that feeling that it must be something really big if God asked me to wait.

Around October of each year I begin looking for my prophetic word for the upcoming year. This is when I purchase my new planner and start to look back at the places I have been in the current year–the ways God has manifested that prophetic word for the current year in my life and the things I still want to accomplish to wrap up–and to look forward to the upcoming year and dreaming about that future. I felt the Lord gave me the word “NEW” for 2025, and that was both exciting and daunting. Exciting because who doesn’t like new?! But daunting because shortly after I heard this word from the Lord, everything–and I mean everything–started to change. Work, routines, friendships, it was all in a state of flux, and suddenly “new” didn’t feel like such a great thing. (I am a creature of habit, and change is really hard for me.)

Anyway, as the holidays approached I found myself reaching out to friends and trying to figure out how to navigate the changes and the struggles that the holidays seem to have right now in this season, and the more I reached out, the less response I got. It felt like I was invisible. It felt like I was living on an isolated, remote island with no community around to help. And I felt myself kind of going along with that and isolating myself even more. I felt triggered. I didn’t want to reach out because that awful silence afterward felt so much like rejection that I wanted to avoid it at all costs. And that inner critic began working overtime with the negative talk about how I didn’t really matter to people I really wanted to matter to.

I went to God with all this and began asking what was going on. Why did I feel this way? What was I supposed to do with these feelings? Was there a lie I was believing somewhere? About God? About myself? What was the Truth in all of this? Was this a part of “new” because if so I didn’t like it….etc etc.

But I still tried to be faithful in reaching out when I felt like God put someone on my heart. I told myself I was sowing seeds, if nothing else, and that God values obedience, maybe especially obedience when we don’t have a clue what He’s doing! And the silence continued. Not just from the people in my life, but from God as well.

And then, I had this thought…. unconditional love doesn’t look for a response. It doesn’t limit itself on whether or not it’s reciprocated. Unconditional, agape love just loves.

Maybe people weren’t responding the way I thought I needed them to, but was I doing this out of a motivation to try to manipulate someone else to meet my needs or was I reaching out from a place of unconditional love? And my answer was that I was reaching out from a place of unconditional love, so I needed to just love…no matter what.

And then the negative inner voice started talking to me about that…

“You look like an idiot! These people don’t want what you have to offer.”

“You look desperate! Don’t you have any self respect?”

“You’re going to reach out to your ex? He’s remarried. He’s moved on. When are you going to let go?”

On and on….

But that reminded me of something I had heard the Lord speak to me before. Satan doesn’t attack us in an area of our lives that isn’t important. He doesn’t enter empty houses. Satan attacks us at the point of our gifting. Satan comes after the treasure that God has placed within us in an attempt to stop whatever it is God is doing through us. So why was Satan attacking my love? Must be because God wants to use that in a powerful way!

So I made a decision: I am going to love! Not because others are going to receive it. Not because others are going to reciprocate it and pour it back into me. But because I want to be known as a person who loves. In the very core of my being, in the very deepest places of my heart, I want my identity to be that I am a woman who loves really, really well. I want to be a woman who loves like God loves!

And the beautiful bow on this gift of revelation that God gave me about my desire to love well came on New Year’s Eve. I had reached out to my now ex husband with a “Merry Christmas,” and his response was not very encouraging. But even beyond that his response didn’t make sense, so I decided to ask a mutual friend who has known both of us for almost 30 years just to see if I could find some sense in it all or some meaning to it. And in the course of our discussion over my reaching out and the response I received, that dear friend said this:

“There are four women in my life who I was serious about. Four women who taught me really important lessons. You were the first. You taught me what love was.”

“You taught me what love was.”

How very precious those words were to me! Because they showed me that God saw what I was trying to do. They showed me that God had placed that desire to love well in my heart and that He was seeing it through. When I couldn’t see it in myself, when it all felt like a struggle without purpose, God was using it to show others His agape love!

How awesome is that!

So I am entering 2025 with my eyes open to the areas where I struggle most because I know that is an area where God wants to do amazing things in and through me. And I am entering 2025 with a mission to love. I want this year to be full of love….so full it overflows! After all, I serve a God of abundance!

So if you find yourself struggling right now, or if in the days ahead you feel like you’re going around the mountain again, take it to the Lord. Look to see if Satan is attacking you at the point of your greatest treasure or if he has gotten you to agree with a a lie–about yourself or about God, and remember that others will see the fruit in your life much sooner than you will!

New Beginnings

Genesis 1:1

“In the beginning, God [Elohim] created [out of nothingness] the heavens and the earth.” (AMPC)

In the beginning God created. Ponder that for a moment with me. God created. Sometimes in life we can find ourselves in a whirlwind of activity and chaos. Life can feel very randomized. It can feel very out of control. Maybe that whirlwind is a result of our emotions. Maybe it’s the pace of this modern-day world which moves so much more quickly than it used to. We are constantly connected, constantly on the move, constantly doing, doing, doing.

But in the beginning, God created. Before the hustle and bustle. Before life became whatever it is for each of us in this moment. God created. There was a plan and a purpose here. God didn’t randomly put you on the planet. You aren’t a mistake or an act of evolutionary random selection. No! This world was created by God. And not just the world, but everything in it. Everything that exists began in that burst of creative energy in the beginning with God.

So if today feels a bit overwhelming…if the thought of another year fills you with more trepidation than it does hope…remember that in the beginning, God was in control and He is in control even now. The chaos of life, the whirlwind of life, it is not outside the control of God. Today, rest in the moment of beginning and let God created in you something new and wonderful!

Prayer: Father, as I come before you today at the start of this New Year, I place before you all my plans, all my hopes, and all my dreams. I put all of them in your capable hands. No matter how I feel in this moment, I know that You, God, are in control of my life. In this moment of new beginnings, create in me and in my life something truly wonderful! In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Living Beyond Fear

Psalm 27:1 ”The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid?“

Fear comes in many shapes and sizes. Sometimes fear is loud, in-your-face, and obvious. But sometimes fear comes in disguise. It masquerades as other things. Good thing. Things that sound nothing like fear.

This month as we focus on Overcoming Fear, pay attention to your response to circumstances around you. A strong response may be an indicator that the root cause of your discomfort is fear. When we put our faith in God, we have no reason to fear. God loves us! He really, really loves us. And love like that–perfect love….. well, perfect love casts out all fear.

Why? Because we know that someone who loves us perfectly has only our best in mind. They desire our good. They seek to protect and guide and nurture. That’s the kind of love that God has for us. We are His Beloved. And nothing–no circumstance, no matter how dark–will ever get in the way of that love for us! We can trust that God will protect us. We can trust that He will guide us. We can trust that He will provide for us. We can trust that with God all things are possible!

So today, peel back the layers and see where fear might be hiding in your life, and make a resolution to live beyond fear, walking by faith.

Father, for all the ways I have allowed fear to control my life and my decisions, I repent. I know that when I peel back the layers, the root of my fear is a lack of trust in you. Sometimes, Lord, I doubt that you are good. I doubt that you can do what I need you to do in my life. But, God, putting that into words makes it clear that those thoughts are ridiculous! Of course, you are bigger than my circumstances! Of course, nothing is too difficult for you! So, God, today, I break agreement with fear, and I declare that my hope and my trust and my full confidence are in you alone! Help me to uncover the places in my life where fear is hiding, and shine your spotlight of perfect love there so that I can walk forward in freedom from fear. In Jesus Name, Amen.

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