I have had on my heart…

no pun intended…

for quite some time to use this week to talk a little about love because…Valentines…

but it is also tempting to not be one more place you hear about it.

So I have prayed and jotted notes and even did a “brain dump” where I wrote down all the ideas that were flying around.

As you might expect, if you have followed these posts for any length of time…it looks like it’s going to be a mixed bag of things. 

God loves us so big that I could never capture it in an entire library of words.

I could never run out of ways to tell you all the large and small things He has done in my life. 

But if you think that intimidates me, think again Cupid…I will just come up with something every day and on Friday we will pack it up and move onto something new.

Because this is how we roll here on the Journey <3

As I drove and ran errands and worked around the house on Monday, I kept thinking about how we often attach to our expectations about our efforts to “love well” the idea it is our job to make everything as easy and beautiful and perfect for the object of our feelings as we could possibly do. 

Until we have children. 

And then we learn that to smooth out every bump and give in to every whim and fix every problem and navigate them to avoid every discouraging circumstance is not only impossible, it would be a living hell for the parent and would produce the most shallow, needy, selfish of human beings. 

Because it is in the very midst of the trials and the hard things, the being picked on and left out, the stubbed toes and scraped up knees…the tears and fears and falling downs…that is where we develop character, muscle, compassion and the grit to get up and move on. 

And as a loving parent, we come alongside them and guide, correct, console and encourage so the child hopefully emerges stronger, better, kinder and wiser.

God loves us with this kind of love. 

He wipes tears and takes a firm hand when we are going down in the muck. 

He binds our wounds and disciplines us when we stray. 

He takes on in a personal way the ways we are attacked. 

But He lets us do it all. 

He lets us try and fail, love and lose, feel abandoned when He is really right there, He lets us tough it out and feel the heat…He lets us because He loves us. 

One of my favorite and most reassuring verses is one that speaks of this kind of love 

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned; nor shall the flame scorch you.  Isaiah 43:2

Think about it. 

Have you ever waded in a river? 

I picture my dad fly fishing up to his waist in a river in Montana. In chest-high waders he battled the current around him as he firmly held onto the rod while balancing on the unsteady river rocks under his feet. 

He felt the waters as he passed through. 

It was a struggle.

Have you gotten too near to the campfire or opened the oven door and were leaning too close when the blast of 375 degrees hit your face and made your eyes burn?

You feel the power of that flame. 

God is telling us right up front.

Just like Jesus said. 

In this world, you will have trouble. 

In this world, you will feel the icy waters creeping up and the tug of the current threatening to pull you under.

You will feel the pressure cooker of trials. 

But in the middle of them all, take heart.

I AM is with you. 

He will hold you and your soul and your spirit…they will make it through. 

This is the love He gives His children. 

Lean into it today <3

Happy Friday! 

We are making our way through February so if you are not a fan of winter, spring is just a hop, skip and a jump from Valentine’s Day. 

Oh sure…we will have cold weather and no signs of green for several months but once the calendar says March, we will embrace Spring or at least the promise of it. 

The last few days I have had a weird pain in my knee. I kind of tweaked it a couple of times and then on one of my longer drives i realized I had held it in the same position for the whole time so I chalked it up to that. Until it woke me (and my patient and kind husband) up on Wednesday night. 

We got through it and it seems better today, but of course I googled the symptoms and came up with a ton of possible diagnoses. 

I contemplated calling our daughter who was the Nurse Practitioner for an orthopedic surgeon for a number of years to get her input. 

I have several other nurse friends and I considered checking in with them as well. I also have some friends who do a lot of research on their own with holistic health measures and they would be my next go to for medical concerns. 

*if you are a medical person or have an ounce of common sense, please hold tight…there is a point being made here….ok…back to the story…***

This is my typical method of dealing with questions regarding the various aches and pains and such that tend to crop up. 

The last thing on my radar is usually the first thing my, as formerly mentioned, patient and kind husband suggests…and repeats. Frequently.

Why don’t I go see a doctor? …he will ask and I have as many excuses as searches on my computer. 

They are stacked up in my head and here are just a few:

I don’t have the time (yes, I know…I invest large chunks of time chasing web diagnosis…don’t lecture me. I am aware of my problem)

• I am afraid of what they will tell me
• It’s probably nothing
• It might be something awful
• It will probably cost a bunch of money
• If they tell me to do this or that unpleasant thing, I won’t want to do it.

It’s embarrassing since most of the doctors and nurses in this small town are people I pass in the lobby at church, sit next to the table of when dining out, wait on them and/or their spouses at the store…you name it – they are too close to my daily life to be that intimate with what’s wrong with me. 

There you have just a few and as I ticked them off in my head today as I, yes…made my way to a doctor for not my knee, but my nose…

don’t ask…

it occurred to me that I can do the same thing with my spiritual health. 

I will have some kind of conviction about behavior that I know doesn’t line up with God’s Word. Something is amiss in my spirit and soul. 

But I don’t go to God. 

I read about it from a topical “Christian” book or article. 

I google the issue and see what advice is out there. 

I talk to friends. 

I self-talk about it trying to work it through. 

I make excuses.

Why don’t I go to God?

Well…perhaps…it’s ….

•  an investment of time I think I don’t have
• a fear of what He is going to tell me
• maybe it really isn’t that big of deal..lots of other people have the same issue and they are ok
• maybe it is way bigger than I even thought possible and I don’t want to open up the mess
• it may cost me something I don’t want to give up
• it may involve some unpleasant refining
• it’s embarrassing to be humbled ….

which is, after all the whole point right? 

I can’t get healed if I won’t take it to the Healer. 

What’s bugging you these days? 

Take time to get face to face with God and work it out with Him <3 

Isaiah 1:18-20 The Message (MSG)
Let’s Argue This Out
^18-20 “Come. Sit down. Let’s argue this out.”
    This is God’s Message:
“If your sins are blood-red,
    they’ll be snow-white.
If they’re red like crimson,
    they’ll be like wool.
If you’ll willingly obey,
    you’ll feast like kings.
But if you’re willful and stubborn,
    you’ll die like dogs.”
That’s right. God says so.
The Message (MSG)Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson