So many shadows cast over our lives, big and small. But He also casts a shadow, and it's meant for my protection, for my refuge, for my hope. He IS where my help comes from, and I DO believe that He is coming. I do KNOW that He is faithful.

I love celebrating communion during Christmas.  Communion, our remembrance of why He came, the life we get to live because of the life He sacrificed.  And Christmas, the season where we remember how Jesus started that journey on earth.  How He came as an innocent, vulnerable, powerless baby to the lowliest, stinkiest, unruliest, dirtiest location.  A baby, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger…

Life has a way of carving out deep canyons in our lives, leaving gaping holes in its wake.  We are left with the jagged cuts of deep voids from the regular goings-on, but also from the work of the enemy to deepen and widen these chasms.  And it can seem that these vacant chasms will always reverberate with the echoes of life-gone-wrong…

This passage has been woven throughout the last many years of my life.  Such a beautiful description of what it’s like when the Lord fulfills the promises He’s made.  When He turns ashes to beauty, when He exchanges mourning for gladness.  It’s a promise, it’s a picture, it’s a hope, it’s the word of the Lord.

But it’s interesting how easily the enemy can turn a promise, a description of God’s goodness and intent toward our everyday lives into a threat or a taunting mockery, something that is for everyone else but not for me, something just outside my reach.

Someone asked me today how to explain discernment AND how to battle against fear to a youth (ya know, in that tween-ish age). I suppose it’s the same way I would explain discernment and how to battle fear to an adult, because probably we all need these weighty deep wonderful spiritual things brought down to a child’s level. My life has been so crazy lately, that I think I’m operating on a toddler-level brain these days… But even in the absence of craziness, His kindness brings the expanse of these understandings into manageable pieces for us.

God talks to each of us differently, doesn’t He? He talks to us how He made us to hear, how He made us to think. We’re all reflections of Him, we all can think and hear differently and still all think like He thinks, we can all hear His voice, respond to His directions. And while I am so familiar with that whisper, that still small voice, that peace that passes understanding, that “click” in my soul--I have so many doubts and worries and wonderings when it comes to hearing His voice…

Whelp. He seems to be at it again. That darn enemy, just when it felt like things were coming together in such a great way, he starts poking the bear of life and seeing what mayhem he can bring up. And let me tell you, he can create a rather impressive amount of mayhem. But somehow, in this moment I’m not overcome by the impending tsunami. I’m alert, I’m aware, but instead of turning and running the other way, I feel like Dory and I will “just keep swimming, just keep swimming…”

The last few times I have taken communion, I feel like I can hear the Lord whispering “Remember Me.” But it’s not the focus-on-His-broken-body kind of remember. It feels like it’s a way of answering my cries. Like it’s a way of HIM remembering ME. Like He’s saying remember what the broken body was for. Remember why my blood was shed. Remember what the sacrifice was for…

I have found that the hardest part of making a decision is that final moment--like Indiana Jones deciding whether or not to step out into the abyss-that-looks-like-a-death-fall. Especially spiritual decisions where you’re really trying to go where the Lord wants you to go. Sometimes we see His footprints, sometimes we see an abyss-that-looks-like-a-death-fall, sometimes we see multiple wonderful paths. Sometimes we hear His voice behind us saying this is the way, sometimes we feel peace, sometimes we got nothin’. Much of the time, the enemy of our souls is fighting to derail and distract us. But we also have to deal with our own mind. Our own flesh. Cuz it’s not like natural worry and fear and wondering need much boosting from the enemy--we’ve got enough on our own in our own little minds! Oh the humanity…

You’ve probably heard this verse before.  We have an enemy, as every bit real as the very real God we serve.  As much as the Lord is ever working to give us life upon life upon more abundant life, the enemy is working to “steal, kill, and destroy.”  OK, so…  steal what? My lunch money? My favorite shirt?  What could the enemy possibly “steal” from me?  And “kill”--that’s such a strong word.  Like not physically kill, right?  Kill the lights?  Kill my house plants?  And destroy…  Destroy… my penmanship…  my reputation?  We can accept that there is an “enemy” out there, but how he actually intersects with my actual life and actually steals and kills and destroys from me can feel a little more nebulous.  Not something we’re used to conversing about in our everyday life.  How was work? Oh great, the enemy tried to kill me today.  Oh well, glad you made it home intact…

Wanna know what’s awesome about life with the Lord? When He speaks something freshly to you, and you get to walk in it, follow it, live it, do it. It’s seriously one of the most amazing things ever. Wanna know what’s less awesome? Not knowing what in the world the Lord is saying. Not having any particular direction for the next step that you know you’re supposed to take. Not having any practical clue how to live out the spiritual instructions you have in front of you. Not knowing.

Often our life experiences tell us not to hope.  If we lean on our own experiences, our own understanding of what life has to offer, we can end up hopeless.  Hopelessness promises to protect us from disappointment, but in reality, it keeps us from life.  And it offers the biggest temptation where we have the biggest desires.  

I often find myself in the book of Deuteronomy. If you ever don’t know where to read, head for Deuteronomy (first half) or Isaiah (chapter 35 and on). So much low-hanging fruit in those books. Deuteronomy walks us alongside the children of Israel in the final stretches of their wilderness journey, when things are about to change forever, but they’re not quite inhabiting the Promise Land. It’s amazing how often passages about the “wilderness” are applicable to my life. I mean, how many wildernesses can one person go through!

Lately I find myself looking for fresh footprints to follow. I am unsettled and dare I say angst-y, feeling like something is supposed to change or a corner is coming, or maybe I’m supposed to change directions. Or perhaps I just need a fresh nod from the Lord acknowledging where I am and that it is still “good” to be where I am, however good or bad it may feel to me. I have been seeking the Lord’s direction, the Lord’s words, the Lord’s correction, the Lord’s anything! And though I don’t feel “blank” about the Lord or the Bible, I just feel… without. I feel the lack-of-answer. I feel the hunger and the thirst, but no fresh water, no daily bread for this day.