Tag Archives: hope

I Tell Myself…

07 Friday Dec 2012

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…what I want to hear…and then I tell myself I don’t want to hear it. By then, it’s already too late, and I’ve managed only to dig myself deeper into this hole I tell myself I want to come out of.

…what I don’t want to hear, and then I use it as an excuse to not do anything about it…”Oh, at least I know what the problem is”, and then I tell myself that’s progress.

…that I’m changing, perhaps finally growing up. After all, if I can perceive the lies I tell myself, it must mean I’m moving in the right direction.

…that I’ll never change, and this growing up thing is yet another doomed seed planted in the fertile soil that functions as my imagination. After all, if I can perceive the lies I tell myself, yet hold on to them, it must mean I am even more of a moron than I thought.

…to hope and dream. How else will my soul catch those much-needed breaths? Of all the things I tell myself, this is perhaps my least favourite.

…not to hope and dream. How else will my heart remain in the seclusion that guarantees my sanity? Of all the things I tell myself, this is perhaps the most dangerous…

…I love You, and then I tell myself I’m wrong.

…I don’t love You, and then I tell myself all the reasons I must be right.

…to shut up, for it is long overdue.

…to talk to You…and that just may be the best thing I tell myself.

Thus says the Lord:“The people who survived the sword Found grace in the wilderness—Israel, when I went to give him rest.”

The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying: “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.

Jeremiah 31:2, 3 (NKJV)

The Holy Bible, New King James Version Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

The Power of Weakness

03 Wednesday Oct 2012

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What do you do when you get to the end of yourself? What will it take to get you there?

It’s funny how I’ll know something is true, but spend years denying it. I know I can’t be trusted. As much as I appear to have it together on some levels, there’s just something in me that tends towards my own destruction–gleefully.

Even knowing that I can’t be trusted to do something as simple as brush my teeth every night or take a shower every day (most days, though. Teehee), I still want to get things right. I want to be strong enough to resist the things I know I should stay away from. Why? Because I know I should stay away from them. I want to not do what I know is wrong. I want to be strong, but I’m not. I’m terribly, terribly weak.

Not only am I frail beyond my own comprehension, I also delight in things I ought not to. No matter how I try to deny it, no matter how I take refuge in the illusion of improvement, this is who I am.

But, this is good news–excellent, even. I can’t make myself different. There isn’t going to come a day when my desires will suddenly line up with military precision to the standards of morally acceptable conduct. There won’t be a day when I wake up loving God above all, and hating sin (general or specific) to the point of utter repulsion. It’s just not coming.

It doesn’t need to.

See, when I stopped trying to fix myself, and just embraced the reality that I am truly wicked, I had to fall on God’s mercy. All these things I ought not to do will never fade by human effort. Only God can change me. God, who loves me as I am, just wants me to look into His eyes and give myself to Him, wretch that I am. That is where the fullness of joy comes from … from seeing God and knowing He is Love … from facing the reality of my own brokenness and the incomparable greatness of the God who makes all things new.

So, what’s your story, your “struggle”? I won’t say it doesn’t matter, but it is not the hindrance you may think it is. God knew us in advance, and He chose us. He saw that we’d fail, saw that we’d watch pornography, have sex when we shouldn’t, have homosexual desires, have abortions, kill, rape, steal, hate, lie … saw that we’d willingly and gladly worship all but Him. He saw that, and He loved us … still loves us.

He saw us, and He chose us … He delights in us through Jesus, as we are.

Let’s just be honest with ourselves. We’re not gonna beat those things, and the sooner we face it, the better. God longs to bring us to Him, to transform us as we fix our eyes on Him. He is the goal, not acceptable behaviour. Let’s be honest with God. Let’s be honest with each other. We suck, and it’s okay.

I dare you. Open up to God. Open up to someone about your struggles, someone who will pray with and for you … someone who will love on you. See where it leads.

Perhaps the first step to freedom is facing the power of our own weakness.

Leftovers…

28 Tuesday Feb 2012

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It is so unlike me to have had absolutely nothing I wished to share with my little section of this vast blogosphere…for over three months! My mind was far from blank, but the thoughts were less than comforting. When my mind runs away with me, it often goes to places too dark for comfort (and yes, some dark places are quite comfortable, thank you very much).

Recently, I found myself doing a bit of a mental inventory, taking stock of all the things that were within my reach and would have been mine without there needing to be a miracle. Of all the things I could have done, of all the things I (kinda) set out to do, of all the things I came close to wanting, how many of them have ticks (not the parasites) beside them? None… zero… not even one.

When I take the time to crunch those numbers, I wonder what’s the point. I’m pushing 30 (26 is almost 30, so there), and what do I have show for it? I wouldn’t say, “nothing”, but there are days it seems pretty close. I ask myself…what’s left? After all I’ve lost/thrown away/strangled to death and then stabbed for good measure, what remains of this Lori creature? That is perhaps the question of my lifetime.

My nephews were watching the first episode of “The Jetsons” the other day–the one in which they acquired Rosie (epic robot maid). There were complaints that all they had were leftovers, and Spacely (boss dude) was coming over for dinner. Rosie saved the day…with the leftovers.

One of the hardest things for me to accept is that God can and will redeem (buy back, restore value to) my life. I believe firmly that He is able to redeem anyone and anything, but I somehow manage to exclude myself from this process, if only on a subconscious level.

I do not dare to suggest that God is an epic robot maid (He’s infinitely cooler), but I dare to believe that one day, I will believe in His power to redeem from a place that transcends intellectual acceptance of God’s goodness and faithfulness…to me.

If God could make the world from nothing (which He did), if He could make the way for all mankind to be restored to Him through Jesus (which He most certainly did), then imagine what He can do with leftovers… with Lori. Imagine what He can do with you.

Honestly, I can’t picture it yet, but it’s coming…like a sunrise stealing across my soul.

Hosea 13:9, 10 (KJV [paraphrased])

O Israel, you have destroyed yourself; but in Me is your help. I will be your king: where is any other that may save you…?

But we must…

05 Saturday Nov 2011

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Sometimes, there are no words… other times, you must bleed through your fingers, turning black and white to red… depending on how normal you are, sometimes you cry, and only those saline streams form an effective outlet.

Still, sometimes, nothing works.

Nothing works, and all you can do is take one tortured breath after another. Repeat.
No pause.
No stop.
Repeat…

How do you stop your heart from becoming one huge callus? You can’t change the pain, so the answer must be to change the heart… to shut it down, so it registers no sensation, be it pain or pleasure. Life sucks… sometimes. What can we do about it, really?

I dare to suggest that maybe the point isn’t to change life, but to BE CHANGED by the tide of trials and the fires of agony… to allow the God who is with us when we pass through the fire to watch over us as He refines us into vessels that please Him. Either life is some twisted cosmic game, or God has a plan. A good plan. A plan to prosper us, and not to harm us. A plan to give us a hope and a future. A plan for us to cry out to Him, pray to Him, seek Him, find Him, and be FOUND IN HIM.

Life stinks… but we must believe. We must believe that the God who is Love has not deserted us, even when other ‘loves’ have.
Love hurts… but we must recall the goodness of the God who takes the time to number the hairs on our heads, because He’s either an obsessive compulsive or He really does care about us.
We bleed… but we must call on the mercy of the God who heals, the God who makes alive the dead.
We fail… but we must fall on the grace of the God whose strength is perfect in our weakness…we must fall on His grace, thus learning to stand.
The fire may not cease… but we must believe that God is able to deliver us, and even if He doesn’t, we must believe that He will never desert us.
There are things we will never understand this side of heaven… but we must run to God…with our tears, our sorrows, our questions, our joys…with everything.

How easy it is to forget the goodness of God in a world where life is one heartache after another… a world in which we see death, sickness, starving children, injustice, and every horror imaginable. We may not be able to change the things around us, but we must allow God’s love to change us, and we’ll find that we’re already making a difference, simply by being different.

God is good. Say it. Remember it. Believe it. We are still here. We have life in Jesus, the Christ, the Son of the Living God. We have hope. God has not forgotten us.

God is Love.

Lamentations 3 (NKJV [mostly :P])

17 You have moved my soul far from peace; I have forgotten prosperity.
18 And I said, “My strength and my hope have perished from the LORD.”
19 Remember my affliction and roaming, the wormwood and the gall.
20 My soul still remembers and sinks within me.
21 This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope.
22 It is because of the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.
24 “ The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “ Therefore I hope in Him!”
25 The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him
26 It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.