It's 11:00 p.m. on the night before everything changes...

The kids and I had a great day, and we spent a really special evening together - the last one before they leave for their summer visit with their Dad next week.  After they were in bed, I completed my Biblical allusion assessment & rubric.  Tomorrow, my first graduate school class begins at 8:30 am at Mississippi College in Clinton.  What's on my mind?

The past six years have been bad enough to be worthy of Dante or V.C. Andrews.  My life has resembled a Lifetime movie more than anything else.  There have been times over that six years that I have become depressed & discouraged and wanted to give up, but I've always just fought through it and moved on.  Now, after four years of turmoil and two years of healing that felt like stagnation, I can see the pattern when I start looking back.  I can see how all those horrible things were really just stones in the brook.  When I was standing in that moment - on the proverbial "stone" - it felt like one of the circles of hell, and I wondered if God was listening or if He was otherwise occupied. 

Now, I'm nearing the other side of that particular brook, and looking back, I can see the nasty events for what they were:  stepping stones.  As bad as they were, I could not be who I am in THIS moment had it not been for the hell that hit me in THAT one.  I don’t mean to be vulgar in using the term “hell;” I mean it literally.  I truly believe that sometimes God allows the forces of hell to attack a human being for a purpose – one that He probably isn’t going to reveal to us on this side of eternity.  (If you don’t believe that, see the book of Job.  I think it’s pretty clear there.)  In those moments when I wanted to give up, that was certainly a choice that was before me.  I COULD have given up, given in, thrown in the towel, and decided to turn my back on what I have always believed…what I’ve always been…in favor of what felt good in the moment.  After all, that’s pretty much what the OTHER people involved in those particular crises were doing…

But I didn’t.  I kept going.  Imperfectly, sure.  But I kept moving forward, as much as I could.  Now, looking at the moments – the stones in the brook – I can say I’m thankful to have been through them, and now I am thankful to be leaving them behind.   I’ve crossed this brook with God’s help, with my hand firmly held in His.  Now, I’m ready for the next step on the journey of faith.  Bring on tomorrow: as long as He’s with me, it will be okay.

*The Lifeboat* by Charlotte Rogan - A book review

I picked up The Lifeboat because I have always been fascinated by shipwreck stories; there is something in the joining of a terrible need to survive juxtaposed the vast emptiness of the ocean that intrigues me. I'd also just finished Lauren Hillenbrand's Unbroken, so I figured this would perhaps be a kindred novel, if only a second cousin, once moved, from that nonfiction masterpiece.

Having finished the novel, I can say that Ms. Rogan's prose is quite lovely, and she is skillful in her use of metaphor, simile, symbol, and motif; the language is elevated, engaging and quite interesting in its own right. Troublesomely, however, I just can't like this novel, mostly because I just don't like Grace.

I wondered as I read the novel if perhaps the protagonist was named for the hero of Margaret Atwood's novel Alias Grace - I can certainly see some similarities between the women - but I LIKED Grace, despite her somewhat shadowy (and occasionally murderous) tendencies. Rogan's Grace, however, seems to be passively watching her life pass her by, shamelessly scheming to attract the attention of her wealthy husband by stealing him from his promised fiancee, while allowing herself to be steered into the murder of Mr. Hardie. As a reader, I wanted her convicted of being a really rotten human being at the same time that I wanted her acquitted of the crime.

Maybe it's the fact that I've been required to survive when I would rather have thrown in the towel myself and run for the hills. Maybe it's the torture of seeing so many children who are living below their worth because selfish parents passively allow life to happen to them. Maybe it's constantly watching people waste the precious gift of life they've been given in favor of the latest episode of "The Bachelor..." Or maybe I just can't stand people who would rather follow the crowd and do what they know to be wrong rather than standing up for what they know to be right. Maybe it's all of that, put in a blender and chopped into a fine smoothie of distaste....

All in all, this leads to what is a perhaps slightly complex review. I appreciate this novel for its use of language & its complexity. I could teach it because it has the elements needed to make a "good' study., but I'd really prefer never to read it again because I hope never to "meet" up with Grace again. Instead, I'd rather send a letter to her attorney telling him to rescind his proposal...

In the darkness...I shall not be moved

I will bless the Lord, who hath given me counsel: my reins also instruct me in the night seasons. I have set the Lord before me: because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. (Psalm 16:7-8)


To everyone one of us, night seasons will come - those seasons when we cannot see the best way to move, seasons when every possible path seems fraught with difficulty, confusion, and defeat. It is in those very seasons that we must cling to the knowledge that we do not walk alone.


There is an important step that can protect us in these dark seasons of the soul, but it is a step that can only be taken before we enter them: we must make sure that we are following His lead. If during the seasons when the sun is brightly shining we have developed firm "reins" in our souls, tethering us to His purpose...if we have attuned our spirits to feel the gentlest instruction from His hands as He guides those reins, we need not fear the darkness. For in the darkness, He can guide us by those gentle touches, even as our eyes are failing. This isn't something God can do to us or for us; they are "MY" reins, and therefore they must be entered into voluntarily.


For the Christian who is truly sold out to faith and who is devoted in every way to walking the paths that Christ has intended, we know ahead of time that the darkness will come, and we know even more certainly that we must count on living much of our lives without being able to "see" His plan for us. Even when we can see, it is usually the pattern of where we have been, not where we are going. That's what faith is about: forming the reins of control, trusting the steering of the spirit, and resting in the calm assurance that He who I have placed at the right hand of my soul will keep me safe. And resting in that promise, I shall not be moved.

Of Bruised Reeds, Smoking Flax, & Wounded Souls...

Ok, so I confess. It's shameful, but true. Sometimes I get bored in church. One such morning some months ago (as I listened to yet another sermon on marriage - probably the reason why my mind was wandering), I was flipping through the concordance of my trusty Thompson Chain Reference Bible when I came across an entry that spurred my poetic interest: the Bruised Reed.

Curiosity piqued, I read through the first verse listed and found it to be a beautiful commentary on the love of Christ. It's found in Isaiah 42:3 -

A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth. 

It sounded so poetic, so hopeful, and so lovely, that I just had to dig deeper into this beautiful promise...but not until after church. I reformed my bad behavior, returned my attention to the sermon on marriage, and filed this little verse away in the back of my addled brain for later reference and comment.

A few days later (though it has taken me quite a lot longer to process it and write about it), I began the process that I use to research a verse that interests me. I traced the verse, along with the concept of the reed, both bruised and not, the use of flax, why it would be smoking, and what in the world all that talk about judgment unto truth might mean. My research left me a bit unsettled at first, because the deeper I shoveled into the complex metaphor presented in this scripture (who says you don't need good literary skills to survive), the more unsure I became about the meaning - which, incidentally, is the exact opposite of what I SHOULD have been feeling at the close of my careful research. So why all the confusion? Well, look at the scriptures...

The concept of the bruised reed as presented in Isaiah is comforting to those of use who have failed, erred, or otherwise strayed from the path that God initially had in mind for us. In other words, all of humanity. It lets us know that if we mess up (get bruised), He isn't going to just chunk us out and write us off as utter and complete failures. He won't "break" us.

The picture of the bruised reed presented in II Kings 18:21 is much less comforting and conventional:

Now behind, thou trust upon the staff of this bruised reed, even upon Egypt, on which if a man lean, it will go into his hand and pierce it: so if Pharoah the king of Egypt unto all that trust in him.

Well, suddenly my hopeful little reed is compared to Egypt? That scourge of the books of history? Not only that, but the image presented is really quite violent...when you trust in a bruised reed - you LEAN ON that bruised reed - it will pierce you through the hand, damaging you! Keep in mind that a broken reed is pretty useless; it's discarded. But a bruised reed? It is an inadvertent weapon. It doesn't present itself too badly, but when you put pressure upon it in the damaged places, it splinters and can cut you through.

Another confession...I didn't know much about reeds. So using my trusty Google search engine, I looked them up. Turns out they are very useful, but not particularly sturdy. You don't want to rely on them for work that requires great strength and stability; it's not the way they are built. They aren't very flexible; they can be quite sharp. And then it dawned on me...I've known a few people who were "reeds," and more than a few of them were bruised. 

These are the people who never quite reach that point of spiritual maturity that allows them to endure suffering with joy. They view every pain as a personal punishment from God, or maybe some consequence they are paying for someone else's actions. Instead of trusting God through these bad times, they become embittered. And while the outward signs of their wounding cover over, the inner bruises remain.

Another revelation: I've leaned on a bruised reed or two, thinking they were staffs of strength that could help me through my weak moments and difficult times. As a result of my leaning where I shouldn't have, I bear the scars. Those relationships cut me deeply, and the wounds have taken longer to heal than might have been imagined when I was looking at the reed. After all, it was tall, and if you didn't look too closely, it had the appearance of a staff...

Then there's that smoking flax that God doesn't quench...ever met those people who hover in a perpetual cloud of pain and bitterness? They've been hurt, and they have come to like the feeling they have in the smoke of grief. It permeates the atmosphere when they enter a room, "smoking" it up, so to speak. Their bitterness is like a fog that limits the vision and clarity of everyone in the room; it lingers like a haze after they leave, smoking in their unwillingness to let go of the past. Yep, I've known some people who resemble smoking flax too...

So why doesn't God just "take care" of them?  You know, either heal them or "take care" of them in slightly more Al Pacino sense of the words? Why would a LOVING GOD let a damaged unstable person - a bruised reed - continue walking around spreading the joy of their damaged psyche? Simple. His word says He won't break them. Why would a God who does NOT author confusion allow those smoking-flax-people to continue spreading their smoky contention and strife? Because He loves them, too. He loves the reed, seeing it as it was before it was broken. He loves the flax; He created it for a purpose, and He is unwilling to simply destroy it when some portion of its use could be salvaged. The long and short of it is this: He is not going to destroy those who have the potential to wound you simply to help you avoid pain. He wants you to learn to COPE with pain, not run from it. In other words, He is giving you a chance to prove that you are more than a reed; that you can survive pain without being bruised or broken...

Now, God is a just God, and after these precious moments of revelation, I didn't figure He would mind much if I asked a question or two...so I did. "God," I said, "it doesn't seem quite fair that the bruised reed over there that You left lying around and I - in good faith mind you - decided to lean on has cut me to pieces, and yet it still looks pretty much as it did when I picked it up. I'm a figuratively bloody mess with these open wounds where the bruised reed cut into my flesh, and yet it doesn't appear all that affected by our encounter."

Well, God, being that He has a sense of humor, replied to me in a typical manner: "To the first point, maybe your flesh needed a few cuts. To the second, I will judge unto truth. That which is hidden will be revealed - but that will be for my glory and the redemption of the reed, not your reputation." So there is the end of the story. God doesn't particularly mind if I look bad; He doesn't even mind the APPEARANCE of being unjust, if a soul hangs in the balance. Because ultimately, those appearances matter little. What matters is the end result, and whether I trust in His sovereign sense of justice, mercy, grace, and love...

We will encounter the bruised reeds and smoking flax among us. Over time, we may even come to recognize them, and maybe we can protect ourselves.   Maybe, just maybe, He will use our pain to equip us to help some of them... But ultimately, we must remember that our temporary wounds means little when weighted against the salvation of a soul. He will allow them to exist - to hurt us temporarily - if the ultimate goal of salvation is gained...

I Will Not Give That Which Costs Me Nothing

I finished up my journey through II Samuel again this morning, and as always, my heart & mind were attuned, looking for inspiration in the words.  I found that inspiration in verse 24, just as the chapter was ending…

II Samuel 24:24  And the king said unto Araunah, “Nay; but I will surely buy it (the threshing floor) at a price:  neither will I offer burnt offerings (the oxen Araunah has just offered to give David as a gift) unto the Lord my God of that which doth cost me nothing…”

In a rather self-centered way, I suppose, I began to think about myself and sacrifice.  What specifically came to mind was a prayer that I began to pray in earnest in the summer of 2006.  That summer, I was a happily (or, at least I thought we were happy) married mother of a four year old daughter, expecting my second child.  I was also acutely aware that I wanted something MORE – something beyond what I had attained in God.  I wanted to live up to my potential – I wanted to use the gifts He had given me.  I wanted MORE.  So, I began to pray, asking God to use me, whatever the cost.  I asked Him to strip away anything that was hindering me.  I asked Him to mold me, so that I could reach others.   I had no idea what that request would cost…

Stripping away meant the loss of the family I had wanted.   It meant the loss of my health.   It meant the loss of security.  It meant acknowledging some painful truths that God had mercifully hidden from me for a long time.  I lost my marriage, not through my own choice, but through a choice that was made for me.  I lost my health, through a series of automobile accidents & a bout with cancer.  I lost my sense of belonging, because suddenly as a “single mother,” I didn’t fit into the culture of my community quite so well anymore.  And then, when I thought I had been given a second chance at happiness & family, I lost that too.  I’ve written enough about the pain of 2010 that I don’t need to rehash the highlights, but I can say this:  Four years after praying to be used, I was sitting in a pile of ashes wondering exactly what I had left to give. 

See, to be used of God is not elevating to the individual.  It doesn’t make you feel like Angelina Jolie on the red carpet.  Truth is, being molded by God into a useable vessel – particularly when you have prayed to be used MIGHTILY – hurts.  Badly.  For a long time.   And trust me on this too, when people are observing your situation, they are NOT thinking, “Wow, she is really being used of the Lord!  I can’t wait to see her come through this and do something great!”  Nope, they are usually thinking something more along the lines of, “Wow, I don’t know what sin she committed that made God so angry, but I guess it just goes to show you that you reap what you sow!”

Yep, to be molded is painful, but I think (maybe, just maybe) I’m finally far enough out of the valley that I can see some landmarks, and reading that verse of scripture today inspired me to go & check out my journals from 2006-2007, written before I knew just how far I was going to fall. 

June 24, 2007:  Lord, give me the tools to help me work for you.  I want to win souls – starting with my kids & expanding to the whole world.  Give me what I need to do that. 

In 2007, I had never spoken in public beyond my classroom.  Testifying in church filled me with fear, and witnessing was something I was always a little too intimidated to do.  Four years later, I have addressed church groups & school groups, ranging from 20 people to 250, speaking about faith, endurance, the goodness of the Lord, and other topics from scripture.  Through pain, sorrow, & faith, He gave me what I needed to do what I could.

August 16, 2007: Awaken my musical gift.  Let it be restored in me.

In 2007, I was really just asking that God make me a better, more anointed singer in my local church.  In 2011, He has inspired me to write around 20 songs.  Four of them I’ve recorded to Youtube.  No, none have been professionally recorded, but they are making their way to churches in other areas.  Who knows what the next four years will bring?

September 3, 2007: Lord, deliver me from my fear of the cancer & heal me completely for Your glory.

In 2007, I was awaiting the first round of treatment for cancer.  In 2011, I am four years cancer-free, after only ONE round of treatment.  He is still a healer.

April 26, 2008:  Oh, when will we realize that we are not alone!  We are in His hands.  Take the step!  Deliverance lies just ahead.

I have learned what it is to be truly alone.  I know the joy – and the pain – of heading up a family by myself.  I know the feeling of a silent & empty home when the children are away.  And yet…I have also learned that I am never REALLY alone.  Never completely.  I know that He completed me long ago-that He has a plan to meet my every need before I ever know that need is there.  My job is simple:  to trust Him to do just that.

I know what you are wondering, dear readers.  If I knew then what I know now, would I have started praying that prayer back in 2006?  If I knew the degree of sacrifice & the depths of pain I would have to endure to be molded by Him, to be shaped by Him, to be used of Him… If I knew, would I pray it anyway?  I will give you the only answer I have:  I’m glad I didn’t know.   And I’m glad that His grace has been sufficient, in spite of the pain of sacrifice.

Childless...Waiting on a Promise

The word “childless” has a certain negative connotation all its own.  I have been revisiting II Samuel again (as I do around this time every year), and I noticed, for the first time I think, just how often the condition of childlessness appeared in these early books of the Old Testament.   Being “childless” has one inherent meaning:  waiting on a promise that has not arrived.   

Perhaps the most famous of childless couples is Abram & Sarai.  Abram had been promised that his descendants would outnumber the stars, and yet… here he was old, with no child.  Sarai was none too young herself, and though she too knew of the promise, she decided that perhaps God was waiting on her to come up with an idea to help out.  We all know the result of her brilliant plan – a conflict that rages on so many thousands of years later – but what of her childless state? When the promise finally came – in GOD’S WAY, in HIS time – it was one little boy named Laughter who fathered the nation that would change the world.

Rachel cried out to God in her childless state, voicing her frustrations to her husband.  Her waiting finally ended with the arrival of her first son.  Joseph represented the hope of Israel, for without his journey through God’s will from the prison to the palace, Israel would have been extinguished by famine.  The birth of her second son Benjamin ended her life, and in keeping, Benjamin’s descendants proved to be agents of destruction.

In Judges 13, we learn that Manoah’s wife was barren, until God sent a special boy who carried his power in his obedience to a seemingly arbitrary rule about his hair. Samson, the child of the promise, was a man who was swayed too easily by his emotions (I see more than mere lust in his motives), but in the end, he used his death to bring about destruction upon the enemies of God.

What does all this mean?  Well, thus far, we can determine that there is something special about the birth of a child –a promise, if you will – to one who has been declared “childless.”

In I Samuel, we find the story of Hannah, broken before the Lord in a prayer that has no words, crying out to God, begging for her promise.  And then, Samuel was born.  The first child of the promise was the beginning of the bloodline.  The second child of the promise was to protect the chosen people through a time of famine.  The third child of the promise was a warrior, who through his weakness and in spite of temptation, rose up to deliver his people from their oppressors.  And now, this Samuel, another child of promise, will remind his people of their loyalty to Jehovah and will anoint the first two kings of Israel…

By all rights, the child born of two kings should have reigned, but Michal’s refusal to let go of her bitterness, her refusal to rise above the pain her life had dealt her, left her childless…II Samuel recounts her story, one of the Bible’s saddest.  How many do we know like Michal, who have allowed the bitterness of their past to blot out their futures?

Then in II Kings, we find the story of the Shunamite woman, who after waiting her whole life, received her promise by way of the prophet.  And when that promise was ripped away from her, she rose up, saddled her donkey, and rode out boldly, proclaiming, my child will NOT die!  Her refusal to give in revived the dead promise, and with the prayers of the prophet, the child lived again.

And then the blessed story of Elisabeth, who in the book of Luke, has waited so long for a child that she has given up hope…when the promise arrives.  And that promise, John the Baptist, has a very special work to do, for he will announce to the world that the promise embodied within all of scripture, the hope of all mankind, lives and walks among us, if we will only recognize Him.  He will prepare the way of Christ.

So what of all this talk of childlessness, of promises unfulfilled?  Simple enough.  Are you waiting for a promise?  Have you waited long enough that hope has started to fade?  Do you feel as hopeless as these men and women who longed for the birth of a child, seemingly in vain?  The message is there for you in scripture:  HOLD ON.  For the child that is borne out of childlessness…the promise that is borne from the ashes… is particularly blessed, for it is the very progeny of faith, and its legacy will reverberate throughout the pages of time.

Timing Is Everything...

Timing really IS everything.  I’ve always been fascinated by time.  I’ve come to believe it’s a convenience God created with us in mind, to help understand why things are as they are and how our actions have consequences.

But if timing is everything, then how do we know when the time is “right”?  I’ve been playing a waiting game with the Lord for a while.  It’s been pretty frustrating, honestly.  I hate waiting.  But looking back, I can see that God has truly used the time to heal my broken places and bind the wounds that life has inflicted.  But now that the bones are mended and the cuts have left only faint scars, my mind starts to wonder… When will it be MY time?

When is the “accepted time” to seek Him?   The verses referencing an accepted time all have one thing in common.  Trouble.  Flood waters, the mire, the pit, when people hate you… that is the time when He should be sought.  That is the time He may be found.  He knows our needs, and He knows our pain.  His divine hearing is attuned to our cries, and when we are in the proverbial flooded, miry pit, He will hear, answer and come through.  He has certainly done that for me.  Now, I’m ready for my song of deliverance.

Yesterday evening, as I was praying (and, in all honesty, maybe, just a little bit…whining to God) about time again, He sat me down for some study time.  In looking up verses on “accepted time,” I found all the references to fear and trembling, to rescue and deliverance through times of pain, and I asked God yet again… But when is MY ACCEPTED TIME? I’ve been waiting.  How long, Lord?

Patience, my child.  A few verses later, I found a gift…the only reference to an “accepted time” in the New Testament.  It was in II Corinthians 6:2: “For He saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succored thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” 

Yes, God’s timing is perfect, if you are brave enough to wait… and I believe so strongly that before too many more days have passed, He will whisper in my ear, “Now…”