dare to reimagine

Reimagine.
Life has a glorious, thrilling and often times hair-raising way of turning out so very differently than we imagined, doesn't it? When, as a young girl of six, I watched my parents divorce and move to separate states, I never imagined I would be walked down the isle with my arm linked in my Dad's sixteen years later. As I watched my mother marry my stepfather who I spent years loathing and being loathed in return,  I certainly never dared to imagine my Dad would return to our family and remarry my mother.  But in God's glorious providence and grace, that is exactly what happened. My life was reimagined by a good God.

Not every turn ends in what feels good. Life certainly has a way of beating us up, too. Burying my sweet Daddy after only getting him back in our life for twenty-three short years was a blow to the gut from which we are all still recovering. But in God's abundant grace, it was not before he placed his faith in Jesus and walked a fruit bearing season of life with his Savior for whom he was ready to meet face to face when called Home.

Sitting in the pew next to my dearest people one Easter Sunday, watching the artist paint the empty tomb and enormous rolled away stone, I silently begged the Lord for the salvation of my Dad. Open his eyes, oh God, to his need for you and his willingness to turn to you!

If I can move the stone from that tomb, I can move the stone from his heart, Came the response in my soul so clearly I had to look around to see if anyone else felt it.

And sure enough, two more years passed and my Daddy came home one evening to my mother with the words she had longed to hear since her own recent conversion, I placed my faith in Jesus today and surrendered my life to my Savior.

It was after supper when my phone rang with my mother's joy-filled words of eternal hope and answered prayer. Life was being reimagined by a faithful God, yet again.

Pondering the turns life has taken in 43 short years of experience, it seems to mimic a roller coaster more than a scenic stroll. But around every bend and in the midst of every plummet, my God has been so faithful just as 2 Thessalonians 3:3 promises and He will continue to be for always. We can entrust this life to His imagining and reimagining because He alone works all things for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28) So let's dare to reimagine and then dare to let Him amaze us.

rest

I step through the picket gate into the small garden and immediately feel my mind lighten. The rustle of the magnolia leaves overhead stir up stillness within my soul. The simplicity of the dirt, the plants, the growing tomatoes in the back end of the yard seem to offer a quietness from the insanity that swirls so closely.
Rest, stillness, cease striving. I can fail at that even when my body is not moving. Yet as I pick weeds and inspect veggie plants for pests, I sense the striving fall a

way. As I take my usual seat on the bench overlooking the growing garden, my heart is upturned as if the Lord is guiding my chin upwards with His own hand.

Look towards me, child.

Be still, know He is God. There is no other like Him and He holds all things well. Even in the midst of raising young adult men as their final steps of childhood are left behind. Even in the midst of the strain and struggle of being the sole caretaker of an aging parent, who is grieving the loss of her life partner. Even in the midst of riding the waves of my own grief. Even in the midst of COVID numbers, potential job losses, face masks and fears. Right there in the midst of that garden, in the midst of those swirling trials, the Lord is God and He calls my soul to stillness. Rest. Cease striving.
Where should my mind reach instead?
It is impossible to shut it off, to flip the light switch and stop the feeling, the thinking and the fears.

Know I am God. 

Know it, internalize that truth and receive its strength. If He is God, then I can sit right here in this garden and offer thanksgiving for the swaying trees, the bold blueness of the sky, the upturned leaves of these strawberries brimming with little white flowers and the hope of fruit to come. In the stillness I realize that the gratitude for His God-ness is drawing the stillness into me. I pause and let it overtake the fears, anxieties and doubts. I let Him be bigger than teenagers, finances, viruses.
Before I take the walk back towards the house, I ask Him to remind me of this and to draw me back to gratitude with each restart of the swirl. a hymn comes to mind and I am sure it is His Spirit humming it within me as I close the back door behind me.

restore

He restores my soul.
He. Restores. My. Soul. (Psalm 23:3)

He, God, the Creator of heaven and earth. Yahweh, the covenant keeping God.
The One who spoke the world into being.
The One who knows me, loves me and died for me to know Him and love Him.

Restores. Present tense. A continual action. A right now kind of restoring.
From the original "shub" meaning to turn back, return back.

My. Me with all my thoughts, complications and circumstances.

Soul. The deepest place within. My secret place where I let the enemy lie to me as I try to hide insecurities and fears. The place within me that easily wanders from the only One who can return me to Himself.

He restores my soul, turning me back to intimacy with Himself. He leads me in paths of righteousness, making the next right choice before me. For the sake of His name, He puts His own character and name on the line, making Himself vulnerable to me so I might mimic His character, choices and actions once He has brought restoration, redemption, returning, healing to my weary, wandering soul.

re-membering

Two hundred thirty-four. That is how many times the Word of God mentions remembering. What is it to remember? May be a bit like the word implies. Re-membering, to member again, to put back into order. One definition for member is the constituent piece of a complex structure. Aren't our lives the complex structure to which this piece, this remembering, is needed?
The other day my youngest and I recalled our family vacation last year with laughter as we pondered the fun adventures of that trip to FL. My husband smiled last night as we reminisced about our anniversary trip to Jamaica and the bonding that the trip brought to our 20 years of marriage. A lump forms in my throat as I remember the sound of my dad's laugh or the way he held my hand on his last day on this earth.
Re-membering. Even the hard memories have a way of membering us back together. Like a puzzle that made no sense until the piece were pulled together to make a picture. It can heal pain in relationships, bond us to others in shared experiences and keep alive those we miss so much.
What will we remember from this season? This spring of 2020 filled with its uncertainties and losses. Will we look back on this season with fondness, remembering the college student now home bonding with siblings. Will we recall the late nights by the fire pit roasting marshmallows  and laughing until our stomachs hurt? Will even the fears of job instability and the grief of the many lost lives cause us to be membered again as we see the hand of God in hindsight?
Remembering matters to God. He calls His people to do it often. Asking them to call to mind His faithfulness, His compassion, His presence. He even demonstrates His own remembering, this One who is never dismembered or forgetful. Yet He re-members so we will see the example, the joy in it and the activity of redemption in even the hardest rememberings.
But the challenge is looking for Him in the moments by giving thanks to the One who never leaves us, the One worth remembering, the One who by His grace remembers you. "It is He who remembered us in our low estate, for His steadfast love endures forever" Psalm 136:23. Let's chose to see His steadfast love in our re-membering.

reaching

At five feet even, I always seem to find myself reaching. Books on the shelf, frozen veggies in the grocery store, boxes in the closet. Always reaching up, often on tippy toes.
Metaphorically, I have found myself reaching often too. Another glass of wine,  social media scrolling, texts to friends. Anything to numb, distract and fill the canyon that is all too often echoing within my soul that yearns for a continual filling.
Now here we are weeks spent at home, time unfilled, demands waning, yet giving way to anxieties that scream and tug at the corners of my mind. What do I reach for? CNN, Facebook or more carbs?
The Lord met me in Ephesians 3:14-19 this morning with an answer.
Paul prays here for other believers, that we would be strengthened with His power through His Spirit to know the unknowable and immeasurable love of Christ and he says that will bring a filling with all the fullness of God. That word, strengthened, from the Greek word meaning to have the upper hand gave me such a visual of my own hand slipping into the hand of the One who is already holding me.
Jesus reached out His hand and took hold of Peter in Matthew 14:31. This morning, He reached out His hand afresh and invited me to take hold of His. "Oh you of little faith, why did you doubt?" He asks Peter. Oh you of little faith, what are you reaching for to fill you? Right here in the boredom and anxiety of this season. Right now in the pain and the trials. Are you reaching for His filling hand or for that which will leave you empty? Continue to reach afresh today, for the upper hand that really does strengthen and fill with all the fullness of God.

a rewrite

To begin again. To stare afresh at the blank page. A fresh start with new words and fresh mercies. To rewrite the story is to boldly pick up the pen again, laying aside what was behind and starting fresh with the new. Paul gave us this charge from a prison cell.
"Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead," (Philippians 3:12-13).
Everyone's story could always stand some rewriting. There are trials we would have preferred to avoid. There are pits we have dug that we prefer to never have even held that shovel. There is pain that entangled our hearts that would have been better to skirt. But the reality is those made us who we are and the rewritten story will always have a climax, twists and gorgeous resolutions that draw praise from the hearts of redeemed sinners.
Now we stand on the cusp of a pivot, of a rewrite of sorts. Having lived in a quarantine, a season of blank calendars and cancelled plans has left us disappointed, bored, and fidgety. We hope there is a newness coming. Fresh starts with a blinking cursor that await new challenges. What awaits us in the post-Covid world? Will we, like Paul, take up the mantel of fresh mercies that compel us to "press on towards the goal for the upward call of God in Christ Jesus?" (Philippians 3:14)
For what would any other rewrite be worth? Isn't it all for His glory and His purposes anyway?
The winding up in cords of plans and demands of schedules and the pace of distraction was only tangling us up as the enemy drew us further from our families, our callings and our Master. We let distraction run the show and wondered why we were too numb to applaud, glazed over by weariness and frenzy. Time to rewrite that screenplay.
Paul goes on to challenge those who are mature in Christ to think as he does and allows the conviction to fall from God's hand into the hearts of those who are still floundering in the waves of social media, Netflix and nonsense. He punctuates the point with "only let us hold true to what we have attained." So what is it that you and I have attained over the course of this season? Will be choose to emerge with a new turn in the story, a fresh plot ahead that finds us with our eyes wide open and fixed on His face and a bold new charge to press forward in the name of Jesus our Lord.