An Encouragement?

His mercies are new every morning.  His precious thoughts toward us out number the grains of sand on the shores of the ocean.  He casts our sins as far as the east is from the west.  He BENDS DOWN to listen to our prayers!  He sings songs over us.  The Lord SINGS!  He is our good shepard, leading us to still water, and making us lie down in deep grass.  He's so confident that He even sets the table for us right there in front of our enemies.

He is close when our hearts are breaking.

He makes a pact with us that only He can keep.  That's right.  He makes the promise.  He keeps the promise.  He even knows that we can't and He holds things like that right in His hands.  The ones with the holes. So beautiful.

He is our King. but He also came to serve.  He is exalted above all things but He made Himself low.  He was hated and killed, but He loves and gives life.  He was sinless, but He came to rescue the sinner.  Me.  And oh now, aren't we in love?

Today.  He is making a place for us in His Father's house.  Someday soon He is going to return.  He's going to come for us, His dearly loved children, and take us home.  HOME!  And there, we will never be frustrated to sing His praise, and we will never run out of energy to serve Him.  We will never be lost for words to express our love for all this....this AMAZING that He so lavishes on us.  We will never be sick.  Or sad.  Or disappointed.  Or hurt.  In our Father's house, there will be no tears.  No more fear, and I'll say "Amen" to that! :)

Keep running, keep your eyes on the prize.  Don't grow weary in doing good.  Keep on fighting that good fight of faith.  Persevere to the end, even if it kills you to get there.  You can do this!  I'm just one fallen vessel cheering you on, but remember that great cloud?  Come on!  Lace your feet in tight.  We're in this. Together.  For the long haul.

Grace to your feet,

Bernadette

ALWAYS

He in no longer the eleven year old.  Twelve years ago today, he broke his collar bone trying to get out into the world.  A metaphor?  Some days, I think that bone between the shoulders and the heart symbolizes this son and his father...and me.  Always trying to heal the broken.  Always trying to stabilize the fractured connection between us...and him.  Always falling and failing.  Jesus always taking our hands.  Always saying, "Come.  Follow Me.", when there is no strength left in our parenting books to stand.

Always laying in bed at night wondering what else can we do?  Always coming up with something that empties us out the next day, and always coming back to those same sheets.  Torn.  Some nights bloodied.  Always wondering where God is in all this.  Wondering when He'll show up.  Can't help wondering IF He'll show up, and can a child enter the world a prodigal?   Always wondering why in this life God would pair us up, then daily pare us down.

Always hoping in His divine plans.  Always reaching for higher, better, more.  More holiness.  Which always means less of me.  At least that much always makes sense.

Right now he sits next to me ready to talk, and I am leaving the comfort of words and quiet.  It is his birthday! I want to put him on my lap and hold him always.  Tell him that for all time, I will love him.  Always.  I reach to comfort him that I am trusting Jesus too...

And all His ways,

Bernadette

Cyber Note to Ann Voskamp

If you've not read Ann Voskamp's book ONE THOUSAND GIFTS, put it at the top of your "what's left of summer already" reading list.  I cried for three days.  Straight.  Sitting in my chair letting all the dishes pile and the laundry mount.  An attack.

Wendy gave it to me.  As I read the pages, glued, I could hardly believe what I was reading.  Actually, the first time through, I could only hear her heart...I couldn't really get to the words yet.  I heard my own voice in those pages, and she helped me find something that I had lost.  She helped me find a buried piece of my heart.  Crying hard.  Wondering how this woman got hold of my journals, read my emails and walked around in this soul crying out for more.   Finding out that I'm not really alone in this big old world.  That there are some.  Like me.  And you might think that sounds arrogant, but I think it's actually pretty sad.  That I would get to be 42 years old before finding out that God has made others to live in the deep, soul places.

I wonder if anyone called Ann weird.  I wonder if anyone said she was too sensitive. I wonder how she survived those wounds that rip right through.  Soul shrapnel.  How did she climb those deep gashes in the mountain?

For about a month after reading the book, I don't think my feet touched the ground.  I know that Jesus is ALWAYS with me, but to know that I am not alone...on the human planet where everything is fallen and everybody is getting along broken.  Limping lives.  Just to know that somehow, I am connected to another in this way has lightened my load.  HUGE.  Her words not only touched my soul, but held it.  My hands reach to catch this one woman, just to cradle her back.  For a moment.  An unknown woman, who lets herself become known.  And who calls us all to do the same because, as Jesus lovers, we have the story that everyone needs to read.  His life, the scripted holy, written on our hands, on our work, on the way we love each other.

Ann, you are out there somewhere, and you will never read these lines.  You have made a difference in this life.  While I would never bow down to you,  dear lady, I do bow to the One Who gives you words that sing and paint heaven somehow.  I am grateful.  You are one thousand gifts.

Thank You, God, for Ann,

Bernadette

Getting Ready

Oh, God, You are good.
Worthy of Praise.
Lover of all souls.
This soul.  Mine.
Trace your face, Lord.
With my fingers.
Washed whiter by You.
Your blood.
Your promise that You will never leave.
Never forsake.
Me.
Ever.
Makes me...not brave.
But wanting to do brave things.
Your love spurs me on, Oh God.
To action.  To love.  To change.
To repentance.
With all that I am.
I need the Potter's hands.
On me.  On my life.
Your hands, Jesus.
Shaping.  Even in all that smashing.
Remaking.  Making me something useful.
My heart in Your hands, Lord.
So uncomfortable sometimes.
Reaching for You.
Give me grace to trust You more.
Even as You say,
"MOVE OUT!"
Strap my armour on.
Hold fast to that one weapon.
Your Word.
My Only Hope.

Yes, Sir!

Bernadette

Give Me Courage

So when I really need to let it rip with the Lord, I get in the car and drive.  Drive.  Drive.  Drive. Talk to Him; people around me think I'm crazy.  Just let it all hang out there with Him.  So we can work things out together.  So I don't have to worry about what my kids are going to think or what my husband is going to say.  You've heard me say it before.  Mini vans can be holy rolling sanctuaries.

Something lodged there in my heart for a long, long time.  Sometimes I am okay walking around with the thing, but lately, I feel like I just can't function any longer with that big log sticking there.  What to do.  Talk to Jesus.  Let Him help me work it out.  Love the way He does that.

Today I told Him that I feel like a kid whose arm has been broken.  I remember when Boy Blue did that.  He was messing around on the trampoline when he fell off and fractured his arm.  He knew he was guilty of playing in an unsafe way.  I forgave him immedietly.  Of course. Held him and loved him through the initial pain and shock.  Then.  I took him to the ER where they gave him an xray and a Sprite.  He loved going to the ER.  Later, a cast was put on, and the bone slowly healed.  He asked me when we could go back there again.

Thinking about that.  Telling Jesus that I know I've been forgiven, and that I know He is loving me through it, but I need some ER time.  I need the broken thing fixed.  Cried and cried in the car.  Gasping tears just like when I was a little girl.  Not too sure I can trust Him here.  Do you ever get to the point where you love the Emergency Room with Jesus?

The Eternal speaks.

"The only way out is through, Child.  I AM here.  I will help you.  I will heal this."

Can anyone say "PANIC?"  I know what He has in mind, and I can't do it.   And why  in the world does He keep asking me to do things that I can't?  God is crazy!

I've already made the decision to obey Him.  How could I not?  But will I always be terrified when I take His hand?  Heed His voice?  When do I get to not be afraid anymore?

One more step.  Eyes closed tight.  (of course!)  Stepping out in faith.  Asking for your prayers...you crazy few who read these words typed out into space.  If I can get through this, I believe I can get though anything.

God is good.  He is mine.  He is yours.  Is He asking you today?

To be brave?

Bernadette

Service With A Smile

Luggage stacked in the mudroom obstacle course with piles of filthy laundry and shoes scattered.  Everyone still.  Little one whining until she finally falls asleep playing with her toys under a laundry basket on the living room floor.  Everyone a bit sunburned.  Burned.  Resting.  Home from serving kids for a week at camp.

"There is another act of service."  My Shoulder's announces this, and I go instantly to complaining.  The children are exhausted,  I've got mountains of laundry, and he is injured.  Can't someone else do it this time?  He catches my eyes.  I look away.  Ashamed.  I remember telling him years ago that the right thing and the easy thing rarely catch hands.  Hold.  I stand in the kitchen.  I think I can actually feel my flesh burning as I nod to him.  Shoulders are so strong, and they call us to higher ground, don't they? "If not us, who?"  "If not now, when?"  Oh, God, be strong in all this weakness.  Mine.  Ours.  As this one little seed falls to the ground and dies, let it bear much fruit.  And help me to serve You, Lord.

With a smile,

Bernadette

Pottery Class at Kid's Camp

Girls eight, nine, ten competing for their needs to be touched.  Reached.  Loved.  Screaming for someone to notice them.  Look them in the face.  Does anyone think their lives are important?  Heart in throat all week.  I am weak.  I wonder what in the world I am doing here.  Kid's camp.  Climbing wall.  Zip line.  Ropes course bringing out all that is coarse in them.  In me.

Oh, God, what to do with all the brokenness in these lovely little girls?  What of their futures?  Why would You put me here?  With them?  Can they not see right through to my own cuts, some still bleeding?  I see their hearts, and mine is exposed.  Oh, give me running shoes!

Coming home to myself.  And, ugh!  I hate it!  I wonder why in the world I feel so much,  wonder why it's so hard  on the Potter's wheel.  Why I am reeling from all that spinning, and sick to my stomach at all the wet slimy mud of me.  He throws and smashes and presses.  THIS is the evolution of man.  From THIS sludge.  HIS.  I am created.  And recreated.  I close my eyes tight.  Wait for Him.  Trying hard to see what He sees.  Trying to believe that He can make something beautiful.  And wondering why He still keeps this up.  Why He pursues me so.  You.  Us.  Why He keeps taking our hands and saying, "Come.  Follow Me.".  God is scary sometimes.

Home from camp, but not.  Experiencing Jesus reach His rescuing hand to three little girls leaves me trembling as I type this.  I was there.  I was there!  And so the wheel goes 'round, and I hold my head, even as Jesus holds my feet.  To the wheel.  To the line.  To His life.  How He holds all things in the power of His hands.  Me.  My girls at camp.  Taking us and shaping us.

Into His image,

Bernadette