Wrestling and Walking With A Limp

We gathered this week, these brave women and me.  These women who are pulling up their chairs, opening up God’s book and questioning their theology and it’s relationship to their own dailies. This road is not easy, this asking God to show Himself.  Because He does, He delights in answering that plea…and then…what do you do with that?  God I mean?  When He reveals Himself and truth that is so real that it wrestles you to the ground?

We planted our lives in Genesis 32…

God?

He is full of loving-kindness and faithfulness.

He is the only source of true blessing.

He sometimes has to dislocate us to get us to the blessing.

He is quite big enough to handle our wrestling things out with Him.

He is the one, after all, who initiates the wrestling match.

Jacob?

After wrestling through the night and in excruciating pain from his hip being dislocated is asked to let go.  But could he?  I imagine him clinging, using God just to stay upright and saying, “No! I will not let you go until you bless me.”  What a picture to stay in a clinging position and say No, I will not let you go in the midst of great pain and complete uncertainty.  When asked, “what is your name”, what went though his mind?  His father had asked him that same question some twenty years earlier and he lied!  His name, Jacob, means supplanter, one who takes what he wants using whatever means necessary to get it, by force and or deception.  He had lived up to his name when God found him alone and cloaked in the darkness of night.  In his mind did he attach his answer to what he had done in the past or what he had become in the present?  Don’t we?  How often do I indentify myself with my past mistakes or what I do, or even successes?  Jacob was given a new name, a name that would identify him with God.  His life was preserved, snatched, delivered, and forever changed.  Ours too upon the first encounter with God and multiple days and wrestling encounters along the way. He is constantly wrestling the old out of us so that we can embrace Him and our new name. Oh teach me to live in His identification alone!  Jacob would walk the rest of his life with a limp as a result of the wrestling. A constant reminder, step by step, of what God did on that day.  What’s so wrong with a limp?  I think we are so concerned that everyone thinks we have it all together that we could never let someone see us limp.  Truth?  What we really need to see is each other walking this thing called life, this road full of joys, sorrows, pain, highs and lows, with a limp!

One step at a time.

Blessings,

Kim

Genesis 32, Isaiah 43:1, 2 Corinthians 5:17, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11

  

The Question

I don’t even remember when I was first confronted with the question.  All I remember is that it messed with my Christian box that I had everything neatly packed into, along with my expectations and my own perceptions.  There was a time that I had it on a 3X5 card and the time that I had it written on a chalkboard in our home all with the attempts to be sincere in my searching and then it would slip again out of my consciousness.  What is the question?  It is this…Does my reality match my theology?  Even typing it makes me uneasy, because all too often I know the answer.

I have the sweet privilege this fall to study God’s word with a group of ladies that are willing to ask the same question.  We are jumping into scripture together asking to see God more clearly, know Him more fully and to allow Him to form His theology in us. Desiring to not just have more knowledge about God, but to actually know God.  We looked at Genesis 22:1-18 this week, where Abraham is asked to take Isaac and sacrifice him to God.  It is such a hard and brutal story.  And yet, just like our God, beauty flows from something that is unimaginable. 

We grappled with how Abraham loved Isaac and that the word love is the same word in Deuteronomy 6:5, where we are told to love the Lord our God with all your heart and all your soul and with all your might. A love that is directed to and reserved for God, a love that says, “You have all of me”.  We rejoiced with a ram caught in the thicket by it’s horns and recognized that our redemption has been accomplished because a horn of salvation has been raised up for us…Thank You Jesus! (Luke 1:68-69) We squirmed as we wondered why Abraham’s confession that, “they would worship and return”, knowing what Hebrews 11:17-19 tells us about his faith, wasn’t enough to stop what was in play.  Why did they have to walk up the mountain, build an alter, and get to the point of a knife being positioned to plunge into Isaac’s body?   Only to admit that we too have a disconnect between what we say and think and how we respond.  So when life starts to crumble or a circumstance brings us to our knees we don’t confront it with the truth of who God is and our knowledge is passive and not active.   Then, the disconnect remains between my reality and my theology.  Life requires action and not just words.

We saw God this morning in all His glory; His desire to pull us into a closer relationship with Himself, through the harshness.  His beautiful provision, His name is Provider! His desire to rescue, which has always been His plan.  We heard the name Jesus whispered, well shouted loudly really, in an only son being offered, in a ram caught in a thicket, and in a substitute sacrifice.

There has been a paragraph on a page in a book that intersected my life a couple of years ago.  I have it highlighted in bright pink and I have read it multiple times in the past year of life.  In speaking about great women theologians it reads; “They were serious about knowing Him and studied the Scriptures with that intention.  They nurtured their faith on the truth of God’s character so that, instead of starting over from scratch in each new situation, wondering if God’s goodness had expired or if He had somehow lost control, these women fixed their eyes on Him and actually put their weight down on the truth.  No matter what the challenge or the adversity their ironclad conviction was that He is always good, is always on His throne, is always working, always knows what He is doing, and that His love for them never stops.  They were not passive with their knowledge but consciously took it up and confronted life with it.  Their hearts were strong because they were sure of God.  It made a difference in their running, and what is more because their eyes were fixed on Jesus, they were better wives, mother, daughters, and friends.” From: When Life and Beliefs Collide by Carolyn Custis James

I want to be that kind of woman!

To those that I’m walking this out with….thanks for journeying with me and I’m sorry that it doesn’t always look pretty! To those who are reading this and are on the same quest….hey sister!

Learning what it means to put my weight down on truth.

Blessings,

Kim

Walking Upright

    The place had to be crowded that day! After all it was the Sabbath, the day that all devout people…religious people…came to the synagogue…the church house. Why did she come? What possessed her to be there? Did she come every week? Was she looking for relief or was she simply doing the thing that you are supposed to do? I want the inside scoop! I can’t even imagine her surprise when the man who was teaching that day, called over to her, across the crowd, to come to him. What made her different from everyone else that day? She was a woman that had been dealing with a sickness for eighteen long years. This sickness was unusual to be sure; she was bent over and unable to straighten up. Everyone must have known this woman around town; we tend to focus on oddities as human beings. This sickness, this oddity, was caused by a spirit and kept her in a position of being bent, held down, unable to stand up straight and walk erect. Jesus spoke to her that day, with the same voice that spoke the world into existence, “Woman, you are freed from your sickness”. He then laid His hands on her and immediately she was made erect!

     Jesus called her a daughter of Abraham, that was WHO she was! Because I am "in Christ", my position is secure! There is nothing that the enemy of my soul can do about my position in Christ, so his attempts are always to keep me bent over so that I can’t walk upright in the fullness of who I am in Christ. I have been this woman! Multiple times I have recognized that I was living bent over, carrying around guilt, shame, past hurts and bitterness on my back; all the while talking to myself, “just straighten up and get it together, Kim!” I was completely unable to talk or will myself into walking upright. In the past year Jesus has been lovingly showing me the things that have kept me bent over and touching those places so that I can walk upright. I have been known to do my Braveheart impression of screaming F-R-E-E-D-O-M at the top of my lungs!! I do it in the privacy of my home, but Jesus hears it and I know the full meaning of it! How often do we keep doing the things we are supposed to do, walking bent, while Jesus wants us to hear Him speak and rest in His completed action of the cross…our salvation….our redemption…our freedom.

      Even in this His Sovereignty shines through. Had I never walked bent over, I would never know the goodness of walking upright!

His truth, my good, 
Kim 

 Luke 13:10-17, Galatians 5:1

His Goodness

Life is full! We have spent the last few months transitioning from one life event to another. God's goodness to us has overwhelmed us and caused our cups to overflow. There is no way a fragile human container can hold the goodness of a God so abundant and big. And yet, He so freely pours Himself...His sweetness...His goodness, into our earthen vessel lives. His goodness.... We spent two weeks walking in Asia. Oh how I love you Asia, your lands, your people are forever knitted into my heart. We worshiped with brothers and sisters in Spirit and truth, where no interpreter was needed. We saw His light and we saw darkness that has not yet experienced the Light of the World. Once again my heart was wrecked...my cup overflows... His goodness... I watched as the son of my youth put on a cap and gown and said goodbye to college days. His walk across the stage to receive his diploma was more of a walk further into manhood. A man who is following,a man so much like his daddy, a man who desires to be a man after God's own heart. My cup overflows... His goodness... I had the privilege to intercede as our sweet daughter and the son-in-love traveled to foreign lands to seek God's direction for their lives. We played, giggled, and experienced God in running through sprinklers, tea parties, fishing, swinging on the porch swing, picking apricots and moments in a rocking chair before bedtime prayers with our two "grand-girls". My cup overflows... His goodness... We experienced a river side turned into an outdoor sanctuary as God met us and watched as Garrett and Blair said, "I Do". Entering into covenant and sealing it with a kiss. He was there and we sensed His pleasure. We delighted ourselves to His goodness under a west Texas starry sky and a canopy of lights. We tasted His goodness as we indulged in peach and cherry cobbler with homemade ice cream. His presence was known as the bride and groom looked at each other and made their promise for all time, as family and friend's laughter filled the air and as a gentle breeze drifted through, seeming almost like His approving sigh. My cup overflows... As I ponder and process, the words of David roll around in my remembrance; "Who am I, O Sovereign Lord, and what is my family that You have brought me, (us) this far?" Truly a question to ponder. There is only one answer....His goodness...ALL really is grace! My cup overflows, Kim

Red Lights to Redemption

As I rounded the corner on my walk this morning, I saw her. She was one of many that I saw this morning. It is spring break this week in our town and my usually quiet, sleepy neighborhood walk has been alive with children riding bikes, boys playing army, and her. She was dressed in a pink fluffy dress and was twirling round and round in her driveway. She leaped and lunged like she was performing a dance for an unknown audience. As I got closer to her, I saw that she had a dazzling tiara on her head; you know the kind with large plastic pink stones and in her hand a scepter, also with matching pink stones. No princess is complete without matching dress, tiara and scepter! She saw me as I finally walked past her house…her stage…her private kingdom. I smiled and waved. Embarrassed that I had been a witness of her play, she shyly cocked her head, smiled and ran for her front door. I giggled and continued on my route. As I traveled, I thought that is how every little girl’s life should be. Secure, safe, so carefree that twirling around in the driveway in your princess attire is the top priority of the day.

Sadly, it is not. Many little girls and women around the world don’t know the freedom of the little girl I saw today. Their lives are anything but free. They are trapped and enslaved by those that know only how to exploit and profit off of the lives of others. In Thailand her name may be Banjit, in India, Daya, in Indonesia, Melati, in China, Jing, in America, Jenny. Their locations and names may be different but their stories are very much the same. Some are promised jobs, some are promised wealth and some are promised provision for their families. Some have no where else to turn because they have no mother or father and have to provide for themselves. They are the girls and women that are trafficked and sold into slavery in the sex trade. There is said to be 12.3 million adults and children in forced labor, bonded labor and forced prostitution around the world today. Human slavery on every level. Forced prostitution,"the sex trade business" generates 32 billion dollars world wide annually. It is so easy for us to read statistics and click off, isn’t it? My mind can’t wrap around such largeness, so it is easy for me to ignore until I see a face or hear a story of one little girl.

It is hard to look at. But aren’t we called to take notice, to consider the helpless, those that are poor, weak and oppressed? In the days that we were walking in Thailand, the reality of this depravity would often hit me square in the face when I was in the market and saw an older man, usually with a white face, holding the hand of a young 12 to 14 year old Thai girl. My stomach would turn and disgust would fill my thoughts. To my shame, I wish I could tell you that I rescued that little girl or that I interjected something into the situation that changed the outcome of what I witnessed…but I did not. God has kept this stirring in my heart. Like only God can do, He has orchestrated details with an upcoming trip, that if He wills, I may interject into the lives of some of the above described. The only thing that I have worth interjecting is Him. Until the time that my eyes see their faces, He has me pleading for their freedom before His throne. The prayer He has laid on my heart is Psalm 82:3-4, Oh God, vindicate the weak and the fatherless, do justice to the afflicted, the tired, the trapped, the sick and the destitute. Rescue the weak, the enslaved and the needy; Deliver them, snatch them out of the hand of the wicked and those that exploit and enslave for personal gain.

These girls and women who live within the shadows of red lights need advocates; People who will stand in the gap and those who will go and take the Truth of Jesus to them. Oh that those who are defined as “Red Light Girls” would no longer be so! That God’s story would be written over their lives and they would only have one defining word attached to their names….REDEEMED!

From red lights to redemption….

A serving of my heart,
Kim

Books I have been reading:
Girls Like Us by Rachel Lloyd
Rid of My Disgrace by Justin and Lindsey Holcomb
God in a Brothel by Daniel Walker
Shanghai Girls by Lisa See

Sandpaper

I once heard a preacher refer to people who rub us the wrong way as, “holy sandpaper”. It painted quite the word picture in my mind. Sandpaper is irritating, gritty and harsh. All adjectives that I have observed in others and in myself as well! I like LOOKING at the sandpaper, describing those things that I think are abrasive and offensive. But sandpaper is a substance that is to be used on an object to smooth out roughness. It’s my roughness that God is trying to smooth, it’s my cracks and scratches that He is sanding out of my life so that I can reflect something beautiful…His workmanship…Him!

As long as we walk around in these bodies of flesh we will have our feelings hurt, have ample opportunities for misunderstandings and the chance to be offended will exist. What we do with those opportunities is our choice. But it is so hard…isn’t it? Especially when you think you are right? There was a woman, years ago who inflicted much pain in my life by things that she said and by her actions. I remember the day the Lord revealed the depth of unforgiveness that I was harboring toward her. I think the analogy of unforgiveness being like drinking poison but hoping the other person dies from it, is correct. The poison drained from my life that day as I open-palmed the woman and my unforgiveness to the One who can redeem any person or relationship. In the last 10 months, the Lord in His sovereignty has allowed me to put hands to my forgiveness. You see, the woman was one of my grandmothers. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s last summer, and since then I have had the pleasure on many days to comb her hair, put her socks on, give her medicine, cook her meals and pray with her. Thank you Grace Giver!

It is a constant perspective check isn’t it? Will I hold to my own perspective and be offended or will I ask to have the Father’s perspective? Recently I ran across a writing of Elisabeth Elliot’s on this subject, a perspective shift for sure! She writes, “Insofar as her treatment of me requires more kindness than I can find in my own heart, demands love of a quality I do not possess, asks of me patience that only the Spirit of God can produce in me, she is God’s messenger. God sends her in order that He may send me running to God for help.” That’s it isn’t it? Recognize it more quickly and run more swiftly to Him, my Source, the One who pours His perfect love into my imperfect heart.

Being Sanded,
Kim

Robin Ballet

As I walked today springtime robins were dancing everywhere! They were flitting on branches of budding trees and hopping in yards of emerging green. It was like a ballet. I have always been fascinated with birds. I have very early memories of being given a salt shaker as a little girl and told to go out in the backyard and try to put salt on a crow’s tail feathers. If I accomplished this great task, the crow would let me pick it up. It never happened but it wasn’t for the lack of trying. As a mother of grown children and a grandmother, I fully realize what this exercise was all about! No guilt here though… I might use it this summer when my three-year-old grand-girl comes to visit. 

Raising our children in the Ozarks gave us ample opportunity to see God’s handiwork. One year for Mother’s day, Garrett made me a large bird feeder. It was large enough for multiple birds to be on at one time. At any given moment, it was like God would paint a picture for us using colors that were only on His paint pallet, as purple, turquoise and yellow finches would land. Then Missouri blue birds sporting their blue coats and coral vests and woodpeckers with their bright red top hats would come for the fare we were serving.

Birds show up in my writing and in my home. Almost every room has a touch of them somewhere; a nest with blue eggs, a picture, and two little red birds huddled together on a dresser. My nieces have asked, “What’s all this bird stuff in your house, aunt Kim?” I’ve been called “Birdie” and likened to an old woman. That’s okay because I know….I know the picture….I know what He has told me. You see I have seen a momma hen puff herself so big you thought she would explode as she gathered her chicks under her wings for their protection and rest. So when I read words like, “He will cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you will find refuge”, I see that momma hen gather her chicks so tightly you would never know they are there and I realize my Father gathers me, hides me and protects me. And, as Ruth, I am constantly learning it is only under His wings that I can seek refuge and find rest.

As God invited Jim and me into this season of seeking, I had so many questions and no answers. I had fears and insecurities. How would we live? How would we pay the bills? What if we made a mistake? What would people think? Almost immediately after surrendering to what we believed He was asking us to do, a verse came to my mind, He was speaking to my heart, for that is His work regarding His children. Matthew 6:26 “Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?” You know when God wants to make a point, to teach, it seems like you see or hear the same thing over and over? This verse has shown up miraculously over and over in the past ten months. It has been in devotions, in sermons and written on mirrors in antique stores! Why? So that the words are no longer words written in red on a page but words that are tattooed permanently on my heart. The questions? They still come, but today as I watched my “robin ballet” I was reminded again, He has it all under control. But most of all I was reminded again, He has me covered!

Eyes to the skies….

Love,
Birdie (aka Kim)
Psalm 91, Ruth 2:13, Deuteronomy 32:11, Matthew 23:27, Matthew 6:26

The Robin and the Sparrow

Said the robin to the sparrow,
“I should really like to know,
Why these anxious human beings
Rush about and worry so.”
Said the sparrow to the robin,
“Friend I think that it must be,
That they have no Heavenly Father,
Such as cares for you and me.”
~~Unknown Author