This is the day the LORD has made;

Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

 

Have you ever read this book?

Absolutely fascinating.  Just like we all have one or two primary love languages, we have a primary language of apology.

For example, if I can only hear one or two of the languages, my heart responds best to expressing regret and genuine repentance.

Dan is more of an accepting responsibility and making restitution kind of man.  That’s because we’re wired very differently.

 

If he has asked me to do something and, for one reason or another, it didn’t get done, saying I’m sorry is like white noise to him.  But if I say, “That was wrong and I should have made it a priority in my day, especially since you asked me to do that.  I will make sure to do it before I go to bed.” it just sits with him better.

 

And if I see him genuinely sorrowful that he has hurt me, combined with a clear decision to not do it again – that actually changes his behavior going forward, my heart is so warmed.

 

Of course this doesn’t just have to do with marriages.  Apologizing to friends, co-workers, children, roommates, neighbors is all necessary as we imperfect humans brush up against (smack into?) each other in daily life.

 

Speaking of children, we learned from friends to teach our kids that when someone apologizes, to not just say, “That’s okay.”   But instead to say, “I forgive you.”

 

Because it matters.

 

I think all of this reflects the heart of a very relational God.  It has been a while since I read it, so I won’t get this thought exact.  But at one point, the authors talk about how God Himself requires apologies.  First, when we confess our rebellion towards Him and our need for Him to save us.  This establishes our relationship with Him.

 

But then, all through our relationship, we apologize and confess (agree with Him) about our continued sin.  This reestablishes our fellowship with Him.

 

Although our relationship is secure and will never change (I will always be His daughter), our fellowship can be affected by my sin.  Confession and forgiveness restore our intimacy.

 

What do you think?  Ever read the book?  Ever thought of apologies in this way?  How do you best “hear” an apology?

 

I really want to know.

 

 

 

What can I do with you, Ephraim?

What can I do with you, Judah?

Your love is like the morning mist,

Like the early dew that disappears.  (Hosea 6:4 NIV)

Your declarations of love last no longer

Than morning mist and predawn dew. (The Message)

Your love for me disappears

More quickly than mist

Or dew at sunrise (CEV)

 

 

Talking and thinking a lot about love on here.  My love is like what He describes above: fleeting, like how the sun burns up the morning dew.

 

His love, on the other hand, is constant, faithful, and pure.  One thing I adore about His agape love is it “doesn’t delight in evil but rejoices in the truth.”

 

Real love doesn’t deceive.  It doesn’t manipulate.  It hates evil – not the person doing evil.

 

And it loves, loves truth.

 

That’s our beautiful God’s love.

 

What do you think this means for our communities?  For me it means to continue exploring all those self-protective strategies with my safe community, remembering growth in Him is a process.  I think it means choosing to remember all the ways that safe community has seen me mess up and they have still not withdrawn their love for me.

 

I think it also means letting down our cultural guard – the one that says we mind our own business and others mind their own.  And instead we embrace our need for each other.

 

I also think delighting in truth and hating evil means if we have something against a brother or sister, we go directly to them.  If we don’t we are violating love and our command in Scripture.

 

Because honestly?  It’s like that song Broken by Lifehouse I heard yesterday:

 

“I am damaged at best

Like you’ve already figured out”

 

Friends, that’s all of us until heaven.  We are going to hurt each other.  It’s a guarantee.

 

But as people who are commanded to love our enemies, how do we get to a place of being able to love each other well?

 

Let’s start with our Father’s heart:

For I desire mercy, not sacrifice,

And acknowledgement of God

Rather than burnt offerings.  (Hose 6:6 NIV)

I’m after love that lasts, not more religion.

I want you to know God, not go to more prayer meetings (The Message)

I’d rather for you to be faithful and to know me

Than to offer sacrifices. (CEV)

I want you to show love,
    Not offer sacrifices.
I want you to know me
    More than I want burnt offerings. (NLT)

 

God wants what any lover wants: us.  If Dan is only doing things for me but never just knowing me, I am hurt.

 

So is He.

 

He desires loyalty to the covenant He made with us in Jesus’ blood more than what we do for Him.

 

Remember the original covenant?  Genesis 15:9-10a, 12, 17-18a says:

 

“So the LORD said to [Abram],

 

‘Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.’

 

Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other…

 

As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him…

 

When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces.  On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram…”

 

To cut a covenant with someone meant laying one half of an animal carcass across from the other half.  The two parties would walk between the sliced animals saying, “May this be done to me if I don’t keep my oath.”

 

But in His beautiful covenant with Abram, God alone – our Consuming Fire, in the form of a smoking firepot and blazing torch – passes through the pieces.  Abram wasn’t even awake!  Nothing depended on him.  Everything depended on God.

 

Oh, friends, how much more the New Covenant He made with the death of His Son?  Everything depends on the sacrifice made on our behalf.  The covenant is still uniquely one-sided.

 

When we remember that, it humbles us.  We can look at each other with the enormity of what He’s forgiven and give that same grace to each other.

 

He has done all the work.  We rest in the Cross and get to know the heart behind the One Who would lay it all down for a sleeping people who will never realize the fullness of what He’s done for us until One Day we see.

 

 

So.  In the past week I have lost not only my patient husband’s iPod (ack), but the makeup bag that goes in my purse.  You know, the makeup bag that holds the things I put on while stopped at stoplights.  The important stuff.

I love when I do this.

We had a lovely weekend.  Saturday we got some stuff done around the house and I got to hang with a friend.  Then we hit Sam’s for our monthly trip and dinner out as a family. Sunday we had one of those glorious afternoons at home together, complete with a fire in the fireplace.

I stole an idea from a friend to let the boys go to town on a blank canvas, letting each color dry in between.  It needs some reds, yes?

Been doing quite a bit of Shel recently.  Some weird stuff.  I like it.

And just so I make sure not to only include happy, sweet things…the pile of laundry the boys and I need to go through tonight:

I’ve been overwhelmed lately by 1 Corinthians 13 in the Message.  I posted it yesterday, and the whole thing is intimidating.  What does it look like to love others in a way that isn’t always “Me first” or “Doesn’t fly off the handle”?  (Two of my hardest ones.)

 

The answer for me always comes back to prayer.  When I’m getting self-absorbed?  Pray for other people.  When I don’t know what to do and am choosing to worry?  Pray and give it to the One Who can actually take care of it.  When I’m about to lose my patience? Breathe Him in.  And consciously remember it’s His agape love in me and through me that matters most.

 

What are your best “love well” tips?

 

I really want to know.

 

 

I’ve been trying to figure out some things lately about my youngest.

 

What does it look like to love him well?

 

After my class today at the Y, he melted down.  We talked through a few things like getting a snack at home and water in the car.

 

Didn’t seem to help much.

 

So finally I did the walk-away trick a la Kevin Leman.

 

You know, the whole smile at everyone staring and keep moving forward.

 

Fortunately it worked.  (There’s nothing worse than publicly losing a stand-off with a preschooler.)

 

He came running after me and reached up.

 

I gladly scooped him up and held him as we walked to the car.  I asked him if he was okay and if anything happened.

 

No, nothing.

 

On the drive home he said, “A boy said shut up to another boy.  And that’s a bad word.”

 

Oh.

 

“Did that hurt your feelings?”

 

“No, but that’s a bad word.”

 

I’m always surprised what will affect my boys.  The last thing I feel led to do is completely shield them from things.  So we talked.  We played a board game this afternoon.  We will pray and discuss what to do with BIG feelings and the things we can and cannot control (like, anything anyone else does).

 

In the meantime, I’ll be looking into my own heart.  Like how I often quip shut up to my friends in fun.  Or how I’ll take out frustration on others (my way to throw a fit) versus talking through how I’m feeling with Him and safe people.

 

Raising kids more often than not means raising myself.

 

And while I cannot do it without His help and community, I am satisfied knowing He will help us one day at a time in this journey.

 

 

Love never dies.

I’ve been thinking about yesterday’s post.  And I want to make sure and say a few things.

 

If it came across as a plea for anyone to say nice words to me, I would be mortified.

 

My point is He does those things for us.  He meets our deepest wounds and emotional needs.  So we can turn around and offer honest community to each other.  I have had those honest conversations with those I dearly love.  Those beautiful, healing conversations prepared me for others I would have.  They taught me more than I could ever say and I will always be grateful.

 

The other day I read Mark 14 verse 36:

 

“Abba, Father…everything is possible for you.  Take this cup from me.  Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

 

A few weeks ago a friend was honest about this verse.  She said she wasn’t sure if she genuinely could say, “This is what I want” and “Not my will, but Yours” in the same sentence.

 

I’m not a psychologist or theologian, but it seems like we can’t get to “Not what I will, but what you will” until we’ve honestly come before Him with “This is what I want.”

 

Abba, take this cup from me.

 

I’m grateful Jesus let us in on this aspect of His relationship with His Father.  Before the foundation of the world, they both knew He would come to die.  Yet in the moments before His death, He honestly asked for the cup to be taken.

 

Unless we intentionally walk through that valley with Him – instead of check out or sweep our pain under the rug or just move on to the next thing – it is possible it’s just lip service.

 

Not my will but Yours only comes after Daddy, take this cup from me.

 

 

Come, let us return to the LORD.

He has torn us to pieces

But He will heal us;

He has injured us

But He will bind up our wounds.

 

After two days He will revive us;

On the third day He will restore us,

That we may live in His presence.

 

Let us acknowledge the LORD;

Let us press on to acknowledge Him.

 

As surely as the sun rises,

He will appear;

He will come to us like the winter rains,

Like the spring rains that water the earth.

 

If you only knew what these verses mean to me.  When we were overseas, we celebrated our first Easter with our teammates in the mountains.

 

It was rough for me.  I just felt lost.  Early that morning, Dan and I sat on a bench outside the hotel cabin.  It was still dark, mountains surrounding us.

 

 

 

I was going through a time in my walk with Him when I wasn’t sure how to organize all my thoughts.  We had learned about His glory and how we are blessed to bless others.  All right, true things.  But I was beginning to feel…disconnected.

 

A few weeks before, I had been reading an intense book about His sovereignty.  At one point, I closed the book and started to cry.  I looked up at the ceiling and go,

 

“I just want to know that You like me!”

 

I wish I could explain the way He ministered to me, even in the hours following that outburst.  He knew I needed to know He was near.  That He made me like I am for a reason.  That He thinks I’m funny.  That He understands why I do what I do.  That He hurts when I hurt.  That He’s a good Father.

 

So fast forward to this Easter morning.  Those same feelings were creeping back in.  Lost and, honestly, self-pitying.

 

Dan started to pray.  I don’t remember everything He talked to God about, but I remember wishing my heart lined up with it.  But it just didn’t.  So I asked Him,

 

“Would You come to us this morning?  Would You please meet me in my sadness?  Would You show me again that You are here?”

 

There was nothing immediate.  I didn’t feel instantaneously peaceful.  We just continued to sit there.  We sang some songs.

 

Then as soon as the sun started to rise, it began to rain.  So lightly.

 

And don’t you love the way sun looks through rain?

 

I smiled, but didn’t think too much about it.

 

After a few minutes, we headed back into our teammates’ room in the hotel.  His parents were visiting from America and his dad was planning on sharing from the Word for our celebration that morning.

 

He opened right up to these verses.

 

As surely as the sun rises,

He will appear;

He will come to us like the winter rains,

Like the spring rains that water the earth.

 

And there it was.  My answer.  I felt so warmed.

 

I might have held it together, but our teammate’s dad asked us,

 

“What is your most memorable Easter?”

 

When it was my turn to speak, the tears came.

 

I told them about how I was feeling.  Missing big, corporate worship.  Missing significant relationships.  Feeling lost.

 

Then I mentioned my prayer.  And the rain as the sun rose.  The winter rain.  The spring Easter rain.

 

He was with us.

 

In a point of my deep confusion and loss and loneliness, He showed up for me.  There was nothing I could do to make it happen.

 

All I had to do was ask.

 

Friends, He will come for us.  On the third day, He will restore us.

 

We have all been torn to pieces.  The things we do to each other and the things done to us are real, raw wounds.

 

As a friend read the other day from a seminary textbook, when we sin we aren’t just breaking an impersonal law.  Pay a fine and move on.

 

We are damaging our connection with Him.

 

It hurts Him.  It hurts others.  It violates the Law of Love.

 

True repentance means returning to Him so He can bind up our wounds.  They’re gaping, you know.  We cannot pretend they’re not there.

 

But instead of walking around, bloody and avoiding deep connection with each other, we take them to our Abba.  Then we come to one another in humility.  Broken but together.

 

He promises He will revive us.  His coming is as sure as the sun rising and the seasons changing.  There is nothing we can do that will stop His wild love for us.

 

Will You let Him?

 

I’ve been thinking about how writing is one way I feel closer to Jesus.  It’s like a form of worship for me.  Even when I just write about little things going on, I feel His presence.  If you’re interested, here’s some recent stuff:

 

So Valentine’s Day…Dan bought me beautiful roses.  But more than that, he held our feverish boys when he could last week.  He has been speaking such big brotherly-type truth into our friend’s life.  We were looking forward to an evening out on Saturday, but he saw in my face I wasn’t feeling great and sent me to bed early. Then proceeded to hang out with my parents and still-a-bit-sickie boys.

And that, my friends, is better than commercial Valentine’s.

 

(For the record, Dan talked about how he enjoyed the evening on Saturday.  I love and am so grateful for my parents.  God has been faithful to my family of origin.  I wouldn’t trade them for anything.)

 

Our little family had some time together yesterday (yippee!).  And while my man has to do the In-Service thing today, the boys and I are hanging out.

 

They grabbed some hats on the way out the door this morning:

 

Too much, aren’t they?

 

What else?

 

I missed holiday sock pictures last week.  Our sweet class photographer emailed me the photo…

 

 

I love that group.  Today a student told me he and some of his friends regularly meet at McDonald’s.  Are you ready for this? They call themselves ROMEOS…Retired Old Men Eating Out.

 

That is awesome.

 

The hubs and I did some intensive counseling with Madly in Love ministries around this time last year and got to go to a conference of theirs on Saturday.  During it I mentioned to Dan how we aren’t going through the steps as consistently anymore.  But he reminded me we are, just more naturally.  When hashing things out, we echo back without thinking and say things like, “I can see what you’re saying.”  And while our friends can testify we still bicker, I can’t remember the last time things escalated big time.  The whole thing reminded me why training is good.

 

So it can work its way into the fabric of our lives.

 

I’ve been teaching Silver Sneakers at the Y, which is an outside certification.  If I want to teach other classes, there is an 8 week training.  I’m not gonna lie, it’s been a bit hard on the ole ego.  Don’t get me wrong. There are times when I still feel like someone’s gonna realize I don’t know all the Latin names for the muscles and often put together choreography on the spot.  But at the same time, I’ve taught for a long time and didn’t want to take 8 Monday nights relearning the basics.

 

Well, oh my word.  First, I’m getting to know some fun people.  Plus, I’m learning lots of little tricks and ways to remember stuff I always forget and new choreography ideas and will get a review of the muscle groups and joint actions.  Good stuff.

 

So, how are you?  Any fun or random or serious stuff?

 

Hope you’re having a good week!

 

Did you grow up observing Lent?  I remember a few years when I gave up pop.  (Bless my 10-year-old heart.  I would still struggle with that.)

 

 

Last year I got off social media to prepare my heart for Easter.  It was a really great time of focusing on Him and His Word.

 

But this year I’m stumped.  God and I have way reduced the amount of blogs I regularly read and the days I’m on Facebook and Pinterest.  So social media is not my conviction this year.

 

But in the same way we do an advent calendar for Christmas, I want to help build the anticipation in my heart and our children’s hearts for Easter.

 

So, seriously…any ideas?  What have you done to draw closer to Him during this season?