When Our Words Come Back to Bite Us

These kids of mine are a bunch of fun.

And a bunch of work.

Somebody is almost always having a meltdown, a crisis, a secret, a lapse in judgement, a belly laugh, a fear, a concern, a practical joke (our whoopee cushion constantly changes locations) and let's not forget...a question.  Or about a thousand.

This phase of life with my kids gives me such appreciation for my parents and some of my friend's parents that allowed me to hang out at their house a lot during my teenage years.

I am learning alot as I teach my own kids about life, Jesus, consequences, responsibility, and so on...

Striking a good parenting balance between easy going and uptight is my goal.  But I usually end up being more one or the other rather than a good mix of in between.

Lately I have gotten pretty uptight about stuff left all over the house. Every day.  Multiple times a day...

A deck of cards.
Random jewelry.
Shoes.
Shoes.
Shoes.
Jackets.
Nerf guns.
Craft supplies.
Chapstick.
Books.
Shoes.
Nerf bullets.
Candy wrappers.
Blankets.
Hangers.
Shoes.

I huffed through the kitchen stomping and talking to no one in particular in a rather loud voice about how I felt more like the maid than the mom.

Shep looked at me and said, "Babe, we can give them serious consequences for this.  We need to come down harder on them and make them believe us when we say we do not want them leaving stuff all over the house."

I stopped in my tracks and said, "I know we can punish them and make them mind.  I just wish they would obey us because they love us."


And there it was.

Truth.  And my desire...for my children to obey and not be punished.

Haven't I heard that (or read that) somewhere before?

"If you love me, you will keep my commandments."  John 14:15

The Lord expects of His kids the same thing we expect from our own.

Obedience.

Not out of obligation. Not out of manipulation.  Not out of aggravation.

Obedience out of LOVE.

It hit me pretty hard.

Parenting is not as clear cut as I want it to be.
I desire for my kids to grow up and be considerate, responsible, and honest folks that love their Lord and love others.

However, just like me, they are bent to go their own way and do their own thing.

Like.......leave their junk all over our house all. the. time.

If I love them~
I will correct them.  At times with gentle reminders and mercy.  At other times with discipline and punishment that is as unpleasant for me as it is for them.


Because He loves us...He is faithful and kind to correct us.
Because we love Him...we obey Him.


And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love. 2 John 1:6

L.O.V.E.

There is an all surpassing love that can be known and experienced.

There is a love that covers any wrong.

There is a love that can pay any debt.

There is a love that most only dream of....the stuff of legends and fairy tales.

This love can melt stone and move mountains.
This love can part a sea and drive out fear.
This love resurrects dead things and brings life anew.

Past the retirement of feelings, this LOVE is steadfast and immovable.  Never shaken.

We cannot bend it.
We cannot pervert it.
We cannot purchase it.

This other-worldly love does indeed exist.

It rescues lives every single day.
It seeps into cracks where the tiniest bit of faith thrives.
It changes landscapes and makes our difficulties into stepping stones of grace.

This LOVE is patient and kind.
This LOVE is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude.
This LOVE does not even demand its own way.
This LOVE is not irritable.
This LOVE keeps zero record of wrongs.
This LOVE hates injustice.
This LOVE rejoices whenever the truth wins.
This LOVE never gives up.
This LOVE never loses faith.
This LOVE is always hopeful.
This LOVE endures through every circumstance. (1 Corinthians 13)


I honestly cannot measure up.  As much as I want to love those closest to me in this fashion I fall short.
My heart is impatient and self seeking even on its best day.
I lose heart and want to give up so easily.
My hopes can be dashed as quickly as a light turning red.

But this LOVE holds me.
This LOVE has me.
This LOVE is working inside of me.

This LOVE so astounds me that I cannot help but want to see others held in a LOVE like this.

Most days we don't acknowledge it.
Hours pass and life ticks off a day at a time without us stopping to pause over a LOVE that changed everything in our lives.

I want to relish this LOVE that was so freely given to me and so costly to the Giver.
I want to delight in it and see its boundless expression.

Let's not live like we are unloved.
His LOVE has purpose.  It saves the lost.  It frees the captive.
Shamelessly proclaim all this LOVE does for you...and watch it do the same for others!


"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.  God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it."
John 3:16-17

Auto Immune

One of the ways the Lord shows His daily faithfulness in my life is to speak through present circumstances.

This past Saturday I was struggling to move. Literally.

Fourteen years ago, shortly after Caroline was born, I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis.

The onset of this disease was fast and harsh.

Severe pain.  All over.

I was bed-ridden within a week.

A specialist was quickly able to diagnose this disease that was attacking my body.

Rheumatoid arthritis falls into the category of an auto immune disease.

Here is the gist of what that means (in non-medical Andrea terms):  my body is attacking itself.

So my immune system, which is supposed to fight invading bacteria that would make me sick, instead attacks my healthy tissue and cells.

In short, I AM MY OWN ENEMY.

And I don't even mean to do it.

(It is really pretty crappy...but we all have stuff to deal with and manage)

Thankfully there are medicines available that can help ease the symptoms of this wicked disease.

All of these medicines work together to help me...but the best medicine to fight the damage of this disease is a medicine called Enbrel.

It is an injection.  Yes.  A blasted shot.

I.  Hate. Shots.

Thankfully my husband has become the master at administering them and I hardly even feel it (yay for that)!

The Enbrel goes into my body and suppresses my immune system so it cannot attack itself.

Are you beginning to see how God is using this in my life?

Let me give you some context in God's Word~

"I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful is concerned.  No matter which way I turn, I can't make myself do right.  I want to, but I can't.  When I want to do good, I don't.  And when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway.  But if I am doing what I don't want to do, I am not really the one doing it; the sin within me is doing it.
It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitable do what is wrong.  I love God's law with all my heart.  But there is another law at work within me that is at war with my mind." Romans 7:18-23 


Just as my own immune system declares war on itself, there is a spiritual war that wages in me constantly.

My flesh (this selfish, arrogant, vain, mean, vindictive, jealous, whiny, self-righteous, doubting, foolish, angry,fear-filled person) tries to daily declare war on the person I am in Jesus Christ.

I don't even mean to.

My old nature just does what old natures do.

So I am in desperate need of something that goes into my mind to fight this old nature.

God's Word acts as the medicine that keeps my old sin nature from flaring up.

The more I stay in His Word...the more my old nature has to retreat.

If you follow Christ Jesus and live in this fallen world...you are just as auto immune as I am.

Without heavy and daily doses of the truth of the Word and prayer we are doomed to lose that internal war.

Thankfully the Lord has given us every tool to win.  Himself.  His precious Holy Spirit resides within us.  His Word changes the way we think and softens cold and critical hearts.

We DO NOT have to walk around defeated and allowing the old nature to win this internal war.

But many of us do....to the great detriment of the reputation and grace of Jesus Christ.

Rise up Christians.  Fight through means of submission.  Recognize and confess the ugly stuff that lurks in your hearts and minds.  Allow grace and conviction to do its work.

If I refused to take the prescribed medicine for my rheumatoid arthritis and yet complained constantly of debilitating pain....my guess is that I would receive very little pity.  And zero relief.

Yet we do the same thing.

We cry out in our need for peace, comfort, joy, forgiveness, mercy, provision, power, strength, and love that we must have in order to function.

And the prescription for all of the above sits on some shelf or bedside table...barely used or believed.

In this season of Christmas I am humbled to no end that my Savior would wrap Himself in this flesh to save my stubborn and self-bent soul.

When you take some real inventory of the sin that longs to eat you alive....the gift of baby Jesus will humble you as well.

A perfect, spotless Son of God came for the chief purpose to save a sinful me.


Merry Christmas my auto immune friends!

"So now there is NO condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.  For the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you through Christ Jesus from the power of sin that leads to death.  
He sent his own Son in a human body like ours, except that ours are sinful.  God destroyed sin's control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins.  He did this so that the requirement of the law would be fully accomplished for us who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit."
Romans 8:1-4

Scoffers and Skeptics

A couple of weeks ago during my morning devotion time with Jesus I read Paul's words to Timothy and found myself musing.

Paul was indeed a real person.

He is responsible for writing much of the New Testament.

His words speak of a man on a mission.  His passion is almost visible on the written page.

This man, once a violent persecutor of Christians, now leading the charge of grace.

In 1 Timothy 1:12 Paul writes, "How thankful I am to Christ Jesus our Lord for considering me trustworthy and appointing me to serve him, even though I used to scoff at the name of Christ.  I hunted down his people, harming them in every way I could.  But God had mercy on me because I did it in ignorance and unbelief.  Oh, how kind and gracious the Lord was! He filled me completely with faith and the love of Christ Jesus."

One of my favorite character traits about our brother Paul is his shameless forthrightness.

He does not gloss over his past.
The grievous nature of what he used to be is not somehow painted in a prettier light.

Nope.

Paul plops the truth out there.

He was awful.
He harmed Christians in every way he could.

With even more eagerness he credits the unmistakable change in his life.
He speaks of mercy as a man tasting it again and again as if for the first time.

As I read his words my focus landed on a few in particular.

Paul said, "I used to scoff at the name of Christ."

I wondered about the exact meaning of that word: scoff.

It means what you probably think it does.  Scoff means to mock, dismiss, ridicule, jeer at, belittle, or make light of something.

Paul was clear with us.

He mocked, ridiculed. jeered at, belittled, dismissed and made light of the name of Jesus Christ.

Can I be completely honest here?

Without ample amounts of the Holy Word of God going into my mind...
Without a constant flow of communication of prayer between Jesus and I....
Without His praise ever on my lips.....
Without a grace filled constitution fixed on faith rather than sight......
Without fresh conviction and repentance....


I WILL and DO SCOFF at the name of Jesus.

My natural tendency is doubt.

You may have noticed that my title to this post also includes skeptics.

A skeptic is a person inclined to doubt the truth.

Yep.  That would be me.

I wonder about the Church.
I wonder about my brothers and sisters out there that faithfully attend church week after week.
I wonder about the ones that don't even bother to come anymore.
I wonder about the ones fighting the good fight of faith.
I wonder about the ones with little fight left.

How many believers of Jesus Christ sit under the weight of silent scoffing and skepticism??

When grace is stale to us~ faith no longer appeals.

When faith no longer appeals to us~ we begin to work to be loved.

And here the cycle of defeat begins.

In the midst of Paul's hideous persecution of believers Jesus loved him with unfathomable love.

In the midst of my scoffing and skepticism I am loved completely.

How quickly we forget that our God is so drawn to weakness.
He waits, ready and willing, to be called upon so that strength and grace can be dispensed.

The scoffing and skeptic nature can only been overcome by the most unnatural of trades.

I hold out my hands in surrender.

I bring him a heart bent on scoffing and skepticism.

He does not retract.  He does not recoil.  He does not refuse.

To my heart riddled with doubt and cynicism, bent on prideful arrogance and a longing to go my own way.......there is an infusion of fresh grace.

And like a soothing salve that binds and heals wounds, my heart receives fully a gift it was always meant to have.


At 9 years old I was saved by grace.

Today at 39 years old...grace still saves the day.

Not Knowing

A dear friend and I have laughed recently at how God has managed to get us ok with confessing, "I don't know."

Truthfully we were laughing to keep from crying.
Ever been there?

Questions plague us about the why's of God~ His timing, His methods, His paths AND for the life of us....we have no answer.

It honestly makes me mad.  But less mad than it used to. 

So there is some progress there....

How does God do this?

How does He take people that desperately need to know an outcome ahead of time or how long something is going to last or maybe why we have been chosen for a specific difficulty and make those people shake their heads in surrender and say, "I don't know how, why or when but I know You are faithful God and I trust You."

I have no idea.

I will use myself for an example.

The Holy Spirit has encouraged my husband and I to believe Him to heal our daughter for 14 years.

Yep.  Fourteen years.

I thought by now she would be running, talking, sitting, standing, and eating on her own.  I thought she would be doing the normal 14 year old girl things....

But she isn't.

And she is far from it.

Not only do I wonder why. 
I daily wonder when.
And more often than that I wonder how.

But this may be the coolest miracle of this whole process....BIGGER even than my daughter getting out of her wheelchair....I still believe God.

How is that possible???

I don't know.

Somehow my Lord has equipped me with daily grace to persevere in faith.

That sentence seems to trivialize these past 14 years.

Each day of each passing year has met me head on with a choice.

Do I believe or do I quit?

If my feelings were talking I would confess that I have quit believing at some point on every single one of those days.
My flesh can not do this.

But my flesh and my feelings fail me.
They bail on me all the time.
They lead me down destructive paths.

Truth remains.

Even when the thoughts of quitting take aim at my mind.....I am reminded of the One that spoke faith to me.

He has authority over time.
He has authority over impossibilities.
He has gotten me through each moment of each day since her birth and He will continue to do so....


My task is not about knowing anything other than Jesus.

As offensive and unfair and tragic as that seems....I am not entitled to any information about my life that God does not want me to know.

He demands that I know Him.

Knowing Him equips me for what He knows lies ahead of me.

He loves me.
He gives me faith.
He covers me in grace.

The why's may remain until heaven....but He stands with me in the meantime.

"I don't know" is an acceptable answer.

I don't have to know.

His pursuit of us is not that we would know more about our lives.
His pursuit of us gives us access to the One that gives us life.

He is the goal.

This life offers us a choice each day:  believe or not.  


When I demand to know the details I remind myself of Eve.

Genesis 3 opens up with Eve arguing with the serpent over what she could and could not know.

Her need to know led to her to sin.

God had provided a boundary to what she could and could not know.

One day she chose to not believe His way was best.

Not knowing what God has chosen to withhold from us is FOR us.

We must simply believe this on faith.

God is not withholding the best of Himself.

He lets Himself be known.  Fully.  By us.

Instead of allowing the enemy to tempt me with what is being kept from me...

I want to choose to flourish in all that is being lavished upon me.

More love than I can stand.
Faith that can move mountains.
Mercy that defies logic.
And grace that has no end.....

This is Jesus.

This is what He offers.

May we pursue Him.

He is the prize.

An Odd Comfort

I sit here with a heavy heart.

A tired heart.

People I love are hurting.
I am hurting.

Life is hard.  And sometimes, truthfully, it only gets harder.

There is a hope that rises within me to meet the hard things head on.

Jesus Christ is the hope of glory.  He is within me. (Col.1:27)

Now more than ever this realization has become my reality.

When I rise....He alone is my hope.
When I sleep....He alone is my hope.

No unknown can shake it.
No diagnosis can take it.
No situation can diminish it.

Hope. 
The word.
The thought.
The possibility brings comfort.

There is a passage that has tendered my heart recently.

I don't know about you but when hurt and heartache seem to loom over me...I want to somehow make myself stop feeling any of it.  I want to be calloused to it.

This word in 2 Corinthians gives us no such permission.

We must feel the hurt to receive a heavenly comfort.

"All praise to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  He is the source of every mercy and the God who comforts us.  He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others.  When others are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.  You can be sure that the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ.  So when we are weighed down with troubles, it is for your benefit and salvation! For when God comforts us, it is so that we, in turn, can be an encouragement to you.  Then  you can patiently endure the same things we suffer.  We are confident that as you share in suffering, you will also share in God's comfort." 2 Corinthians 1:3-7

This passage does not sugar coat the reality of suffering.

Troubles will come.
Suffering is a by product of life on this earth.

But there is a double return.

I know.  I wish there was no pain.  I wish there was no suffering.
But we messed that up a long time ago.
That was God's original plan as well.
Now we need mercy....

And he made a way.

Comfort will come.

God. Will. Comfort.

He uses His Holy Spirit.
He uses His Word. Music. Prayer. Rest. Nature. Food.

But I have been blown away by people. 

Here is that double return part.

In addition to a holy God comforting me, He sends others to comfort me as well.

People comfort me.

People that have suffered and hurt somehow dig down into the reservoir of Hope that dwells within them and they offer it to me.

This is the cycle.

Odd isn't it?

Pain produces comfort.

Comfort comes from pain.

Only God.

He created a world free of sin.
We sinned anyway.

He provided a way to heaven at the cost of His One and Only Son, Jesus.

His pain.....brought our comfort.
His loss....our gain.

This scripture speaks to the fruitfulness of pain.

Certain circumstances almost kill us.
Life can change in a moment and leave us reeling....

We think we might never be the same again.

Once I can get past my selfishness and think clearly, it helps me so much to know that any pain I endure CAN bring fruit.

Those people that have endured heartache become so tender to others enduring the same.

And then there we are....people helping other people.
Giving the very same comfort that they once received.

Can you imagine God the Father watching His children comfort each other?

His ways are truly wonderful.
His ways are truly odd.

2 people coming together with suffering and pain and offering each other a comfort that surpasses all understanding.

This is God's way.

"So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and steady, always enthusiastic about the Lord's work, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless." 1 Corinthians 15:58

the Blend

Today I introduced my kids to a show that used to mesmerize me as a child.

I am not sure how the gentle and soft-spoken tones of Bob Ross captured my complete attention.  I can remember sitting at my grandmother's house and all else would fade away as I watched this man with very frizzy hair create a masterpiece of nature on canvas.

Now this show is on Netflix.

And guess what?

Those old episodes still draw you in.

We were fixated on the television like we were watching some brilliant magic show.

My kids even said things like, "How does he do that" and "I can't believe the trees look so real."

It does seem magical.

The artist can see in advance what we (the audience) cannot see.

He has already envisioned it.

He takes a plain canvas and brings life.  Literally a scene comes into view that delights everything about what the eye is seeing.

At one point today he began painting the sky over an ocean at sunset.

He mixed colors that one would never dream to use in a sunset.

If I told you to picture a sunset in your mind's eye you would think warm colors....oranges, yellows, reds, pinks and purples.

Those colors were present just as you would imagine.

But then he blended in some darkness.

Blunt bruising type colors.

He would take his paint brush and merge those warm colors with hints of black, dark blue, and deep purple.

The contrast was stark at moments and you would almost think he had ruined the picture.

But blending those colors brought the depth that made it look completely real.

The dark ominous colors made the light colors richer somehow.


Immediately the Lord spoke to me.....

There are so  many times that I seem to follow the picture He is painting in the story of my life.  I enjoy it even.  Some times it is the cool colors of refreshing and encouragement.  Other times I enjoy the warm colors that seem to let me bask in love, mercy, and grace.
Its the moments when he jabs the canvas with darkness that my view of the masterpiece become jaded.

The dark colors represent fear, doubt, uncertainty and the unknown to me.

And yet....it is the blending of dark colors that adds the depth and realness like nothing else.

Nothing shook up my faith in the Lord Jesus until my world went black.

My Savior saw the picture in advance.

He added deliberate darkness to my life.

And the blending began.

Today I see shades and hues of beauty that would have never existed without the brutality of that darkness.

For almost 14 years He has been painting a masterpiece of redemption and faith in my life.

Real faith.
The faith that has to work when nothing else will.

Once upon a time my faith was built upon predictability.

THAT is no faith at all.

Jesus loved me enough to help me shed a false faith.

He knew true satisfaction would come with trust.

And trust only happens when we get to know Him.


Scratching the surface of Jesus was no longer enough.

I had to know Him.
I wanted all of Him.
I needed Him more than my next breath.

The darkness did that.  


With a brilliancy that confounds me....my Maker knew that despair would drive me to desperation and desperation would give me depth.


How deep the Father's love for us.
How vast beyond all measure.
That He would give his only Son;
To make a wretch His treasure.


If I say,  "Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night." Even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness is as light to You...
Psalm 139:11-12