This body fights me sometimes in ways I can't even fight back.
My perspective has changed so radically, so drastically, so completely.
I can remember thinking constantly about what other people thought of me, of my kids, my clothes, my car....
I put Jesus in a box with a glass front painted with the words, "In Case of Emergency Break Here."
He was my plan B.
I don't like seeing that in type. I don't like admitting it. But it was true.
It WAS true...
I have seen the most devastating things build the most beautiful moments in the midst of rubble as far as the eye can see... literally.
I can't pretend that Jesus isn't GOD.
That He isn't on the throne of all Heaven.
That NOTHING HAPPENING ON EARTH will make Him get up and pace that sapphire floor....
Nothing.
Not Ebola.
Not cancer.
Not financial ruin.
Not broken relationships.
Not war or famine or death.
He has seen it all.
He knows that in the end everything will be alright.
He's already there...
He is from Age to Age the same.
From before the foundations of the Earth.....
Jesus
I have been at the end of myself on a road I didn't know with my children crying out to Him with tear stained faces in between asking me if we were going to live through that World's Largest Tornado...
...and in that moment I could say, with my heart banging like an old tractor engine, "I don't know. But if we don't we know where we will go. Jesus will never leave us. He will carry us home."
Truth.
Solid truth that you can stand on. That you can hold onto when the winds are raging, and the floods are rising, and the sky is swallowing homes and cars and people...
Stillness in the Storm, He is.
Direction in the Chaos, He is.
The Hand that reaches out, not to hold your hand, but to HOLD YOU.... He is.
There hasn't been a moment in this day that I haven't prayed for a dear family that I love that is going through a nightmare... a raging swirling nightmare of pain and suffering and love and praise and prayer and aching and hope and courage and terror..... It's their world's largest tornado.
It's a storm they can't navigate alone...
I watched as the people in the actual Tornado Alley banded together regardless of income, race, beliefs, age.... they came together because there was such great need. They sat together on half obliterated curbs and ate barbecued pork sandwiches out of foil wrappers that some college guys brought all the way from Texas.
They came together to share their strength. Their love. Their understanding.
I drove across the U.S. those times not because I wanted to be a part of something bigger than myself, but because I understand devastation. I understand desperate need. Pain and suffering are no stranger to me.
Pain and suffering are no stranger to Jesus.
I prayed yesterday over a task that I really wanted to do well at. I was feeling shaky at best and I said to the Lord, "I just really want to nail this Lord."
His reply was, "I already have."
And in that moment I saw his nail scarred hand and I remembered the truth that IT IS FINISHED.
He has already gone before me and prepared the way, for everything.
There is nothing I will face that He is not aware of, or makes Him shaky at best.
He is the Author and the Finisher.
In my heartache for my friends facing this terrifying inoperable brain tumor I have come to the place where I just say His name...
Jesus Jesus Jesus...
I know that He is with them because He is with me.
He says He will never leave us or forsake us.
Never.
Not in the wildest storm.
Not in the darkest night.
Not in the deepest pain of the body or soul or mind.
Never.
That scene of Daniel's friends in the fire there in the Old Testament has been in and out of my mind for weeks now off and on...
My husband and I are in our own fiery furnace... So many dear friends in fires of all sorts... and I am reminded time and again that the only things that were lost in those hottest flames were the things that bound them....
If Jesus is in the fire with me then I can count on only being more free on the other side of it.
Truth.
Unchanging Truth.
Those three men so long ago walked around in the fire with Jesus.
WALKED AROUND IN THE FIRE.
They were bound up and thrown in that furnace, but once they were in the flames...
They were free to move. To walk. To walk with Jesus.
Even the flames obey Him. They can only do what He allows.
And Faith says that what He allows sets me free...
Oh Lord I DO believe.... I DO.
Help my unbelief...
Watching friends and family members suffer is so hard. The temptation to ask God "Why?' at every new twist and turn in the road is sometimes like the worst itch you just can't reach.
I don't think He minds the why's. He knows who I am. He knows what I'm made of and how He made me.
I remember my little children looking up at me asking why about more things than I can count...
So inquisitive. So observant. So smart.
I didn't mind their why's either.
Oh to have faith like a child...
Sometimes the best prayer I can offer in the fire is, "I trust you Jesus. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your faithful love. Change me Lord. Change me."
I used to want for my circumstances to change so badly. I just knew I would be happy when...
I had a better smile.
I could live in a different place.
I had more time, more money, more hair...
Oh no.
No no.
It just isn't really like that.
Ever.
You are who you are wherever you are.
Not my circumstances Lord....
"Change me Lord. Change me."
There is no glass to break in case of emergency.
No glass... just His name...
Jesus.
He's with me in the fire.
He's with us in the fire.
Delivering from those things that bind...
Ever faithful.... Ever true....
Free to walk with Him
Jesus,
in the fire.
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