I’m sure it is a prayer we have all mustered… Lord, I’m praying for a breakthrough…Which leads me to ask… What breakthrough are you praying for right now?…A job…a miracle baby… a redeemed marriage…a child who left the faith to come back…
Maybe you have been praying so long for that breakthrough, that you are losing the hope of actually seeing it…Breakthrough…It is messy… For a breakthrough to happen something must be broken so that it can be repaired…
Maybe your breakthrough is right now… Scattered glass everywhere… The breakthrough is the brick through the window…shattering it to pieces so the repair can happen… Breakthroughs are wake up calls…We have to clean up the glass…then focus on how to rebuild…
Jesus hears every prayer, do not lose heart…Jesus has overcome it all…He loves you so much! He will answer…Honestly it will probably be messy… But after the breakthrough, Jesus collects all the pieces of glass and makes a masterpiece…Like stain glass windows in a church… Pieces of broken glass made into a masterpiece…
I hear you saying and… Well let me start by saying the sun was shining as I walked into the mall… by the time I left we had what the weather app calls snowsquall… I have lived in many places that get a lot of snow and have I never heard of this term before… It was like a blizzard in two seconds without warning…
I think life is a lot like a snow squall… One minute you are walking in sunshine loving life… then the next you are walking in your flip flops with basically a blizzard(yes, this was me today)… Not prepared for this drastic change in this thing we call life…I bet a moment came straight flying into your memory…
My first real memory of this was when I was in 5th grade… I woke up to my dad telling me my grandpa had died of a massive heart attack… I remember thinking “this can not be true… we literally just talked yesterday about where we were going for my birthday dinner…” In an instant I went from sunshine to a snowsquall out of no where… Unprepared with a chance of frost bite…
Maybe you have frostbite from your out of no where snowsquall moment… I remember being a little angry with God for taking my grandpa away… But… I watched my nana have joy among the loss of her husband… I wanted what she had… hope… The only hope we have which is Jesus… He is the light when you can not see in the dark… He is the one who brings you those boots you need when you only packed flipflops…. He is the one that will hold you as search for warmth… HE IS OUR HOPE…
Eventually the snowsquall ends and the warmth of the sun peeks out behind the clouds… Just enough so you can believe there are better tomorrows… Maybe you are in a sunshine season… May be you are in the middle of the wildest storm that came out of no where…. Each season is temporary… Jesus is permanent… HE IS THERE… If you would like to know this true hope I would love to share more… Please know I am praying you each of you in whatever season you may be in right now… You are seen by your Creator…
I remember thinking as I was taking a walk through the woods with a friend… The path was muddy and inclined… I was so worried about falling, or slipping… I even mentioned maybe we should turn around and head back… My sweet friend turned around and said, “it is worth the climb I promise…” We got up on the top and looked over the beautiful river as the sun was starting to peek out… And to think I almost missed it because I thought the path looked too scary…
Sometimes God calls us to a path that is full of mud, one that at times can seem scary… One that He is asking us to trust Him… There are many people I know right now walking this path… paths that seem like they are crawling through the mud not making much movement… One that seems the scariest of their life… One where they do not know where God is calling them to however they know He is calling them to trust Him up that scary path… I know there have been many seasons where I had to say “God I really do not understand this path you are calling me on, but I guess if you are calling me here I will follow even if it makes no sense to me or to those who are watching…”
Those seasons were where I became strong in Christ… Those are the seasons where I can look back and say look what you have done Lord… Do I wish at times God would of let me just walk on level ground… Yes… But if he had let me walk the less scary path I would of never taken His hand to climb the path that was messy so I could see His glory….
If you are on this scary path right now can I encourage you to take His hand…You may not know the ending… You may be struggling to trust God to lead you… You may be tired and sore… Remember though muscles become stronger after a hard hike… God will strengthen you….God will stay with you on this scary path… Hebrews 13:5 tells us “I will never leave you nor forsake you”… He is with you… Trust Him… He loves you… Praying for you if you are this path that may seem scary now….
That my pastor Zack told us he picked up during our church sermon a few weeks back…the Spirit stirred him to pick up this Doritos bag while walking on our Nation’s capital and throw it away…He stated sometimes God puts a stirring in our soul to go back and pick up a Doritos bag in obedience to our Maker…
Ok… I can hear some of you thinking…ok… and…. Can I be honest I have not been able to get this visual out of my head… Like what if our impact for the kingdom of God would be something as simple as a Doritos bag… Like can you imagine if we just stopped and listened to the small stirring in our life? Like saying hi how are you to stranger… If anything that may be able to make them be seen… The obedience in something small could lead to a huge ripple effect… Like today as I was walking in the National mall and I could not ignore the small pieces of trash…
I felt the stirring to pick it up just like Pastor Zack had shared… I walked it to the trashcan laughing to myself thinking “look to serve and not be served”.. Jesus said he had come to serve and not be served… A voice from behind said “I saw what you did… thank you…” I looked behind me, “me?” She said “yes, I normally bring a bag with me but I forgot today…” I smiled and shared with her the story my pastor shared… She smiled… We chatted a little more about God’s faithfulness and how truly blessed we are…
One small ripple… Pastor Zack if you’re reading this, your stirring has caused a small stirring in my soul to continue to look for those small moments… To talk to a stranger about God’s faithfulness…. Friends, can I challenge you to be still and listen to a stirring God maybe putting in your life… You never know what kind of Kingdom work the Lord is calling you to… We may never understand on this side of heaven why we are called to do small things… I do believe God will show us how the small things turned into big things… I think there may be a lot of Doritos bag’s stories… God sees you and loves you…. A stirring is Holy no matter how small….
Was the question I was asked as I shared with a woman how I got drunk for the first time at 15… My reply, “no I was, raised in Christian home”. “Then why did you do it?” was the follow up question… For a second the shame of my past started to suffocate me… Then I remembered it was finished at the cross…
Well…. I replied, ” I am a sinner. saved by grace… I was looking for validation… I wanted someone to just see me… I loved Jesus but my actions were not one of love for Jesus but love for self.. But God…
Fellow brothers and sisters in Christ let’s not lead with these types of questions… These questions made me almost forget what Jesus said on the cross “it is finished”… Ya’ll Christ finished it… My past is something that helped me fall even more in love with Jesus.
My poor decisions when I was young is what makes me so PASSIONATE about teaching the next generation may know the goodness of God… God is the God who give us rules and free will… This is why I look at my own daughters in the eyes and say hey this is what I did and I wish I would of truly believed what God said about me then and now…
I realize that through my past is what makes my present a testimony… maybe the question we should be leading with is, “tell me how God used that night to bring you where you are today…” Friends keep pressing forward… Keep being a light in the darkness… Keep listening to Jesus’ words on the cross “It is finished”
What comes to mind when you hear this word… I think of a toy… one that we just toss in the trash because it is no longer good to play with… I think this image in my mind can go with how we go about life. If it is broken we throw it away without trying to fix it… We think broken means done… No hope to save it… We do not even look for a way to fix it before we throw it away….
In this world we live in there is a lie that says you better not show your brokenness…you just throw that thing away what is broken in your life… We think if we throw the broken thing away then it will all be better but most of the time in my own life experience just “throwing away” my brokenness or not dealing with it has caused even more brokenness to the point where I felt hopeless… But what if…
Broken was something beautiful… What if broken is the very thing we need to become solely dependent upon something bigger than ourselves….What if broken is what leads us to the feet of Jesus… Sometimes we have to be broken so He can make something beautiful…
In my own broken seasons of life a few years a go… I remember saying to God this is hopeless, I do not think there is a way this can be healed… I would lay on my bedroom floor weeping wondering if I would be broken forever… I wrestled with God in that seasons trying to sweep up what I thought was shattered… as I collected the broken to throw away He began to rebuild the walls on the foundation that was not broken…. Him… He was the foundation… My house was torn down to the foundation so he could build a safer more dependable home.
I had to be broken down so all I could do was crawl to God.. He began to restore… Parts I thought were solid in my life I see now were just ply wood… He laid bricks on the foundation… God is safe and kind… In my brokenness I learned his character and my gaze was refocused on Him.
If you are walking in broken, crawl to our Maker…. He will carry you through… When we get through that seasons we will be able to look back eventually and say look what God did… Your walk with broken will look different than others because God is so personal with each of us… I do know this He will never leave you nor forsake you…He is someone you can always count on to show up… Praying for you friends….
Read your Bible every morning? That is what the teller at the bank asked me as I quoted something I had read that morning to encourage her. “I really need to start doing that… I am learning from you”. My reply, “I learned it from Jesus… He is the example, He woke up early before any of his disciples were awake to be with God. ” We talked a little more, said see you soon and I went to my van and my eyes welled up with tears as I thought about Jesus example…
Friends, Jesus woke up early to be alone with God… I believe Jesus did this because he knew he was going to be in the world (like we are every day) and He had to be ready for the battle… We live in the world… We can not live of it fellow Christians… Jesus walked this earth like we do… Jesus knew God’s Word… When Satan tempted Him in the desert Jesus quoted God’s truth back to defeat Satan’s lies…
Fellow Christian, how you can you live in this world and not of it if you are going into the world Spiritually hungry? God’s Word is food for our Soul… We consume the Word before the world because we can not go into battle hungry (kind of like when you walk into the grocery store hungry and end up filling your cart with everything that sounds good but you do not need.) How can we fight the lies of this world if we do not know the truth of God’s word? The world NEEDS God’s truth. We need God’s truth.God’s word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.
It is hard to wake up early. I get that 100%. It is a sacrifice of extra sleep or not getting as long of a workout in… I know and so does our Creator. Jesus is not asking us to do something he did not do.. He was the example of sacrifice. I know it will be hard at first however as you begin to feast on God’s word every day before the world, you will not feel defeated… You will begin to feel hope realizing earth is only a layover while we wait on the Lord. Your strength will be renewed. God’s word promises it…
You may be asking what stop… the one that is on the way or even a little out of the way on a long road trip to see an old friend… make the stop even if that means the added hour or two… it is worth it every time. We live in a world that is moving a million miles a minute… we forget to stop…we forget to see the world around us… we forget to catch up with our battle buddy friends because we do not just stop…
My girls and I drove down to Florida and we made the stop… We hugged life friends around the neck and ate the dessert. In the military community there is so much around the goodbyes… that we forget it is really only see you later if we make the stop… If we decide to reach out to those friends from old duty stations to look them in the eye to really see how they are… Making the stop means seeing and being seen… It means laughing at old stories. It means talking about the hard hills we have climbed while being part. It means hearing about how God came through once again all because we made the stop…
Satan hates when we make the stop… He knows it will be joy filled and soul filling… It will take away the loneliness you may have felt or be feeling… The enemy begins to fill your head with all the reasons why you can not make the stop… it will add too much time to the trip… they do not want to see me…
Make the stop… So what if you get there an hour later than planned… Your soul will be filled to the brim by making the stop….Your heart and soul will thank you.
There is a trend right now happening and it made my heart a little sad. There are a bunch of reels that are making it seem most moms do not want to be even around their kids. I call bull on this narrative. My gut tells me if moms say this they think it will protect them from the disappointment of high expectations they may have on this day. They want to be celebrated but maybe in years past they were let down by comparing what they got to the woman who got that crazy expensive purse.. What they got was up all night with a sick kid and some store bought flowers…
When watching these reels I laughed at first then my heart sank… What are these telling future women who want to be mom’s… Do not do it, you are better off with no kids, or hey just get ready for disappointment… Do not get me wrong I love alone time however I love family time more… Being a mom has given me new eyes to see the world around me. I see joy that I would miss in the small details of life… like raspberries on bellies get the deepest laughs, or how your teenager still runs to you with tears down her face that only a mom’s hug can fix.
I would hate for my kids to see these videos and think wow my mom wanted to be alone and not with me. My heart hurts because we can laugh we do not know the ripple effects these could cause in the future. These kiddos are going to be future parents, I want my girls to understand that parenting is hard but also so rewarding.
Motherhood is hard and rewarding. I LOVE motherhood. Yes it comes with heartache but more than that it comes with joy. The Bible talks a lot about parenthood. Psalm 127: 3 ” Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward”.
I hope all you mom’s out there know you are so loved by our Heavenly Father! I am praying for the mom who would do anything to have her children with her, I am praying for the mom who feels a lone, I am praying for the future mom who is waiting to become a mom. May we have lenses to see past the hard and see the reward. Happy Mother’s Day!
May today be a day where you feel God’s presence and His peace. Knowing he called you to this place. He is with you and loves you.
I see you… I am you… You walk into church each Sunday hoping this week will feel a little different… That maybe just maybe someone will actually look into your eyes when they ask “how are you?” and actually listen to the answer…
You serve on the welcome team, the praise team, the clean up crew, children’s church hoping to maybe find your fit… You watch those around you making friendships and you wonder to yourself why can’t I have that Lord. Is there something wrong with me?
Dear Church Member who feels a lone… I see you… I am you… I am proud of you for showing up every week for Jesus and not for man… It does not make is easier but it makes it worth it when we show up for Jesus.
Maybe the loneliness feeling is what is drawing you closer to Jesus… Maybe where you are in this season is God’s calling in your life that you will see those who may need to be seen… Maybe he is using this so you can be still and know he is good… Maybe this season is calling you to total surrender to walk the hard and keep showing up… Maybe that life friend is the new family that you do not even know yet…
Dear Church Member who feels alone… I see you… Maybe God is using this so you can be the ripple of change to make sure everyone has a friend when they walk in each Sunday… You are not a lone my friend… Jesus tells us we are never alone… He is with us… Jesus is your best friend… He listens every time you talk… Keep going… The loneliness will fade because God always shows up… YOU ARE NOT A LONE. I pray you feel his presence and that your eyes will look out to see those who are you in this moment…
cup of joanna 