On Her Birthday

Okay...so I know we just had a conversation about public declarations and all, but here...I couldn't help it.  Everyone should know that there is a person like you out there on the planet, and this is my hope offering to anyone out there who has given up on having friends...

Dear HT1,

Thank you for helping me.
Thank you for seeing me.
Thank you for good questions, even the ones that make me feel like barfing.
Thanks that you are an elbow, but that you wear pads on them for me.
Thank you for being gentle.
Thanks that you laugh at my dumb jokes, and that you think I can be funny.
Thank you for showing me how to do life better.
Thanks for being more YOU.
Thank you for your big heart.
Thank you for the sound of your voice.
Thanks for the phone...yes...  the phone, Praise God!
Thank you for my nickname.
Thank you for challenging me.
Thank you that you're beautiful.
Thank you that nobody does "secret agent" like you do.
Thank you for building an army.
Thanks for being loyal.
Thanks for working so hard for your company and for your friends.
Thanks for ultimate fears, tears, and victories.
Thanks for understanding lions and gazelles.
Thanks for putting it all out there.
Thanks for showing me how.
Thank you for being a great friend.
Thank you for being born.

Happy Birthday to my precious friend.  I wish the whole world could know you!

With love,

HT2

When You Miss Your Son

When you miss your son.

You must hold fast.

The steady mast of that old rugged cross.

And you must cling through tears and ridiculous desires to make him small again.

You must let him go.

You know...

Wind and wings and all.

Because...

He must fly or die trying.

And you, Mama, must wait it out.

On your knees, Mama.

Alone with Jesus, Mama.

Waiting desperately.

Deliberately.


When you miss your son,

Bernadette

BOWED

I must bow my life.
Kiss the feet of a Saving God.
Break the jar of everything I thought was good about me.
Pour it over His toes.
And mingle the mess of  what I think to be my moral "decency"
With tears because...
What can I offer this perfect Jesus?
What in all the world can I bring a Savior?
A Savior Who took my murdering, adulterous, idolatrous heart?
And had it nailed clean through His hands into wood?
A Savior Who said, "It is finished."
A Savior Who said, "I love you this way."
Someone tell me.
What can I bring?
What can I bring to a God Who loves His Son?
And sends His Son?
To have His precious feet hammered down?
With spikes that have my name on them?
Oh, Jesus.
Here...
I pour out myself, Lord.
I give you all my brokenness and shame and guilt and...sin.
I kiss your feet and my hair pools in the dirt.
I give you my body, and my mind, and my soul.
I bow my whole life to You, my Jesus.
I give You all this mess.
I give You all of me, and...
I love You.
Take me if You will, and use me if You can.
But let me stay in Your presence always.

Bowed,

Bernadette

The Gospel

Preach the gospel to yourself every day.

Every.  Single.  Day.  

And when your fallen heart grows numb, find a different way.  

Say it.  Write it.  Sing it.  Photograph it.

Friends, we're bad news.

We need to plunge the needle of the Gospel down into our veins, and we need a blood transfusion that will save us from ourselves.  We need some good news.

Jesus gave his blood for transfusion and transformation.  He came to pay the penalty for our sins, and He came to set us free from the jaws of death.  Jesus died so we might live by the light of His life and His love.

Jesus is the Good News, and He is our only hope for eternal life with Him.

So...

I'll preach the Word today, Friends, and you turn the pages.

Then two robbers were crucified with Him, one of the right and one on the left.
Matthew 27:38

Lord, keep us from the things that rob You of Your glory and fame.  Keep us from sin.

And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying,
"Eli, Eli, lemma sabachthani?" that is,
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Psalm 22:1
Matthew 27:46b

Lord, we forsake You continually.  Help us to live in Your presence.

But the angel said to the women,
"Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.
 He is not here, for He has risen, as He said.
 Come, see the place where He lay."
Matthew 28:5-6

Lord, You Are Alive!  
Let our lives reflect that we belong to You.

"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."
Matthew 28:19-20

Lord, Thank You that You are always with us.  
Please help us to be bold in proclaiming the Gospel to the lost.

For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
Romans 6:14

Help Your people to live by the law of Grace that saved us.

We will not forget You, Jesus.
Thank You for dying so that we might LIVE.



Bernadette

When You Need to Live Again

The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.  Song of Songs 2:12

Are you out there wondering where God is tonight, and are your heart holes spilling this dreadful feeling that maybe He's forgotten about you?  Maybe He's forgotten that your body isn't fixed, and the doctors don't know what to do now.  Maybe He's forgotten that you're carrying a burden so heavy that all you want to do is lay it right down.  Maybe He doesn't see that you're struggling to pay the bills and struggling to parent single handedly and struggling to live and breathe and move. Maybe He doesn't understand that you're only human and that you're only hurting.  Maybe... 



Friend, what can you do but trust in Jesus?  If He leads you through the valley or to the top of the mountain or...to the foot of the cross, won't you slip your hand right in His and...

follow Him?

Casting all your anxieties on Him because He cares for you.  1 Peter5:7 

He cares...
FOR YOU.

He cares so much that He went all the way to the cross...

FOR YOU.

And He died...

FOR YOU.

And He said it was enough, and that it was finished, and that your works stink to high heaven and so...

Why in the world are you trying to earn your way?  

If Jesus had Himself nailed to a tree...

FOR YOU.

Why do you keep running away...

from Him?

He paid a decent price to be your friend, and to win your love, and to...SAVE YOUR LIFE.

He rose from the dead, and He wants to raise you too.

Don't you believe that?

Don't you remember your first love?  (Revelation 2:4)

Aren't you tired of pulling alone and...

Don't you want to start living for God?

You don't have to prove anything to Jesus.  You can sit with Him like the oldest and best friend you'll ever have, and...

You.  
     Can.  
          Talk.  
               To.  
                    God.

And if you think you've got nothing to offer?  Believe me, I understand, but...consider the lilies of the field.  
(Matthew 6:28)  See what they bring to the table?

It's not about easter, see?
It's about a God Who came to earth to die...
so you might live.

It's about RESURRECTION.

Don't.  You.  Want.  Your.  Life.  Raised?



Bernadette


And those who know Your Name put their trust in You, for You, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek you.
Psalm 9:10

Springing to Life

When hope springs and the celebration of the Resurrection draws near.
What has the power of the Risen Christ wrought in you?
What has spent the winter dying and...
What, with spring, is being reborn?

What has been the sacrifice, the cutting-away cost of you pushing through the old onto something gloriously new?
Something alive?
Something fresh out of the grave?
And what has the Lord been up to, Friend?

And what are the things that lie buried still?
The things beneath cold and snow and frost and...
Pain?
Are you hanging in there?

What dead fruit hangs on lifeless vines and...

Can you bravely ask the Lord to help you prune and cut until it falls away?
You want to lay that down now?

HE says, "I am the way, the truth and the life." so...
Are you listening for directions?
Are you in the Word reading the truth?
Are you looking for life in this Christ?

The rope swing hangs silent on what looks like a dead tree now,
but here comes spring and life and the laughter of  all these children.
We begin to come out of the buried winter and turn our faces to spring and the Son...
The Giver of Life.  The Originator of Love.

Song of Solomon 2:11-12
"For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come,
 and the voice of the turtle dove is heard in our land."

        

 

Better Together

I spent a lot of years protecting my kids from friends.

Yea, you read that right, but if you knew the whole story, I know you'd understand.

When my daughter, Little Sister, comes in off the ski hill with her smiling, blue eyed beauty-friend, my heart melts clean, and that sad grave stone rolls away, leaving something new...something resurrected.  This friend of hers...just busting the buttons off her coat at how well Little Sister is doing out there.   'Coaching and encouraging her through each run, and staying with her the live-long day when she could have been skiing the hard stuff.

I thought only her mama was like that...the way she wooed me into our friendship by teaching me how to trust authenticity.  The way she encouraged and coached me through the hard runs.  The way she said, "Lazarus, honey, take off your grave clothes." in the way she loved me.

Little Sister's friend smiles at the camera, and her eyes light up, and my world lights up and these two girls... they love each other, and I find myself staring at this dear friend who is changing my daughter, and...

Changing me.

I thought only her mama could do that.  The way her eyes light up, and the way her mouth utters truth, and the way she changes the way I think about things.  The way she reminds me that it's never too late for God to redeem the lost, the broken, the scared out their minds,  and us two women...we love each other.  My life is being raised, and He is using His very own daughters to manifest His power here on earth.  It's taken a lot of years and a whole lot of Jesus for me to gather a handful of the dearest friends in the whole wide world.  I plan on living the second half of my life more deeply, more joyfully and more truthfully...because of them.  I plan to live the truth:  I have been raised with Christ, and I am alive in Christ, and I am in love with Christ.

Little Sister's friend tells me, "I prayed, 'Lord, please don't let her get hurt.'" when she got going too fast and she thought she was going down a black diamond.  Little Sister disappeared, and her friend got scared.  So she prayed.

  I thought only her mama did that, and thank you, Friend, and  the rest of you who know who you are, for all the times you've been on your knees for me and this family of mine.  Thank you for doing life together which means practicing this holy experiment of living and trusting Christ with all that we are.  It means that I choose to live with the story of my life, even the dark chapters, laid open on your lap, and it means that you actually turn the pages and keep reading.  It means that I find more of myself and  more of life in the reading of your story too, and it's called choosing love.

Life together is better.

On the drive home, I keep checking on them in the rear view mirror sitting side by side.  Little Sister is out like the lights in Georgia, and the blue eyed beauty-friend, the real hero of the day, stares out the window.    I wonder if there's any chance she can see the reflection of her own face in that window, and if so...

Does she see God?



Bernadette

All photos on this page are taken by the talented, artistic, beautiful, and amazing young lady mentioned in this post.  She is not only a great friend to Little Sister, but she's a great friend to me.  I love you, girl!