What was then is now.....

What was then is now...........for those of you who knew us earlier in our lives, the five little Averys have grown up. Not a lot has changed and yes, a lot has changed. The children are sitting in order of birth from right to left on the top row with Grant, Troy, Brad, with Jenna and Chad between Dane and me. The lives God has planned for our children have given us much opportunity to live large and wild. We have had many special opportunities to travel the journey with each of our children. There were the typical sports games when the children were young, the dance recitals and band and chorus concerts, lots of music lessons and performances, long hours of homework, wrestling, squabbling, differences of opinion, choices to be made, hard lessons to be learned, christian camps and retreats, busy schedules and all the things that go with raising a large family.

Now as adults, our children continue to offer us lots of opportunity to experience life with anticipation of what God will do next with all of us and through each of us. Even when life brings the struggles God allows to grow each of our children, we live in hope and faith and deeply connected to one another. I remember a time of the three older boys "skating" in our kitchen, having dumped oil, peanut butter and cereal all over the floor and sliding in the goop. I was exasperated at the time and wondered what these busy little boys would become as adults. We are proud of what they have become and will continue to be as they journey on. We are humbled at what God is creating through each of them. We are honored that God chose us to parent the five and enjoy the journey with them.

Morning is being birthed once again

I have been silent for a while. My silence has been deliberate to take time to reassess some areas of my life. I am once again in the north woods taking a sabbatical from the heat and busy schedules of back home in the south.

As a part of my time of rest I am reading Dan Allender’s Sabbath. Dan encourages us to revisit the true meaning of Sabbath and how to observe it. Dan says, “One must stand before creation in awe and with gratitude if one is to seek, taste, smell and touch God”. I long to touch and be touched more intimately by God.

I sit in the quietness of the early morning dawning over the water. The sky is breathtaking as the photo shows. In the still of the winds, morning is being birthed creating yet another day. What will this day offer? How will I be deliberate in living this day to the fullest? The routine of daily life is on hold as I rest and recreate emotional energy for the busy fall ahead. How will I use these 24 hours? Must I “do” or will I just “be.”

The quiet of the morning is broken by two loons calling in their unique and mysterious voice to one another just off my dock. God knows I love the call of the loons. I’ll accept this as His early morning “touch” to me, a reminder that whatever the day holds, God wants to walk it beside me in a wild adventure. I’m anticipating the journey with faith and hope.

What wild adventure does God want to take you on? Are you willing to be His journey partner?

Resuscitation or Resurrection

Someone shared these words with me yesterday and I’ve been thinking about them in my own life. There are places in my life where I have continued to resuscitate things -- unhealthy relationships and eating patterns, fears, poor survival dance tactics………………… I could go on but that’s not where I want to focus today.

What does resurrection of new look like? Jesus wasn’t resuscitated in the tomb. He was resurrected. Jesus and His message offered hope prior to the cross. He did good things, healing, casting out demons, caring well for multitudes and loved ones and teaching truth. These were good! After Jesus resurrected from his death, His good became Glorious, Grandiose, and Grace.

What does resurrection look like for me? It is an honoring of what has died or needs to die, and it’s a focus on keeping what’s good and bringing it to a greater life, a new life, new beginnings. Not dressing up the old, but embracing the new, offering God’s intended beauty with it.

Tomorrow I embark on "The Journey". It’s our new title for what has been called S.A.L.T.S. in the past. You can check out SALTS at our web site www.ohmin.org.

There will be need to honor what has caused emotional harm and death, and not resuscitate it, but move toward resurrection of new. New truths to replace old lies, also new ways of living and coping to replace unhealthy patterns of hiding shame and controlling life.

As I ponder those places in my life, my heart is tender to those God will place under my care next week. There will be moments to grieve with them and moments to rejoice the victories of hard fought battles to bring to new life to what was lost in the past.

Wish you were coming along – it’s going to be quite a week of Resurrection! You can journey with us by praying over me and the team. I’d love that! There have been many changes in the recent months at Open Hearts Ministry and we are embarking on lots of “new”. Evil has noticed. Would you join "The Journey" with your prayers for us, both the team and the participants coming to experience the “new” God has for all of us?

Precarious

The recent weeks have been precarious for me. Webster defines precarious as “dependent upon the will or favor of another person”. Another description is “dependent upon circumstances; uncertain, insecure”.

Some of the words don’t resonate well with me – some because they aren’t true for me and some because they are.

I have caught myself being dependent upon the will or favor of another to the point of performing in ways I hope will make others find good favor in me, to treat me with kindness, and to desire to be in community with me. This performance mode allows little space for the real me to emerge. When I am not treated with kindness and I continue to allow it, I’m exposing at a deep level what I believe my value is – not much if I allow my value to continually be challenged by the harshness of others.

Dependent upon circumstances; uncertain and insecure? As long as I’m manipulating life to have the outcome I want, I’m not exercising much trust in God to show up and write the story as He knows best.

Today is a rememberance of the death of Christ on the cross. He went there so I could live with impact and with authenticity. He took my sins with Him. But I’ve held on to some in selfishness and fear.

The person I am desiring to be dependent upon is God. I know I have His favor, even when I screw up. I don’t have to perform to receive His acceptance. He longs to be in community with me.

The circumstances swirling around me are at times uncertain and certainly insecure. What I’ve done to hide and cover that pain is a sin I need to take to the cross and leave there. My security is not found here in people or circumstances. And the hope of my future is secure. I may not yet see the title of the coming chapters of my life, but I can stop trying to flip to the last pages of the book to read the ending. I can stop dressing up my reality or manipulating circumstances to change the way the outcome appears.

I can instead live in trust that the ending will be glorious because that’s what God says I am – GLORIOUS!

As I ponder Christ’s sacrifice for me on the Cross today – my way of honoring that sacrifice is to purpose to live today and the days coming with faith and trust. God is my author and finisher and in Him I place my trust. Precarious yes, uncertain, yes, insecure – NOPE!

Sand dollars, star fish and disappointment

Lately I have been considering the disappointments in my life and how I live in hope or demand control and change.

I’ve come to God as a victim child, begging, pleading, throwing a variety of emotional tantrums and then sulking, demanding that God rewrite the chapters of my life to my satisfaction. My longings haven’t been wrong, but my demands to God and attempts at control to contain the pain of disappointment have been ugly. Instead of dancing through my disappointments wearing my pink ballet slippers and trusting God, I’ve stomped around in combat boots covered with manure, stinking in my contempt.

When I glide softly in my pink ballet slippers, God offers sweet moments of grace and hope. There have been moments in the recent months of my life when God has given me more than I asked for or dreamed could be for me. Are some of my present circumstances what I long for? No. But God has offered me grace, hope and opportunities to be fulfilled elsewhere.

As I travel, I gather whatever nature has to offer. I have heart shaped rocks from Normandy Beach, stones from Paris, beach glass from Switzerland, shells from the North Sea in Amsterdan, and drift wood and shells from the beaches here in the US. Two of my prize shells are a sand dollar and star fish. I have found a few sand dollars and only one tiny star fish. As I walked the Florida beach this past March, several people stopped me to say I wouldn’t find any nice shells. I kept walking, asking God to speak to me about the disappointments in my life.

I hadn’t gone far when I picked up broken sand dollar. I continued to find many broken pieces of sand dollars. OK – God I’ve get it. You are using these sand dollars to represent the broken places of my life. Then you will help me find a whole sand dollar, totally intact to represent the places in my story where you have taken my broken pieces of disappointment and made them whole.

I continued to find broken pieces of sand dollars but not a whole one. I was beginning to wonder if I had misunderstood the conclusion to this story God was showing me.

Then my eyes caught something in the water. Could it be? Yes – a starfish. I scooped it up, put in my bucket and smiled. God had something even better in mind for me than I had hoped. Not a whole sand dollar, but a prized star fish, only the second one I’ve ever found. But wait, was that? Yes, another star fish. God was blessing me beyond what I could have asked for and my smile turned to a chuckle. As I walked along basking in how God had written the ending of this story, I looked down and there was yet another star fish! I had asked God for a whole sand dollar and He answered with three star fish.

As I continue to walk this earthly story for God, I purpose to live in my reality, believing that the exact circumstances and disappointments I have today are the ones God has planned for me and that through them He is growing me to be the woman He has called for the purposes He has planned just for me. Today I will live with hope and faith.