The Weapon of Thankfulness

It's late. Everyone has gone to bed except dear Jenny, who's in the kitchen making homemade chicken soup. The night is cold. My Christmas lights shine dimly on my wall and memories float around my mind like little orbs of light. They are all good ones.

I am so thankful for this life. For the people I am privileged to spend my days with. For a family that loves and understands me no matter what. For friends that blew past my expectation of what friends could be. For a Love that doesn't fail me, no matter what. Even the memories that used to be bitter in my mouth, the Lover has turned them sweet. It's as if all has been redeemed. I suppose it has...

It's been a very dark season these past few months. I would argue the most dark I have ever had. Sometimes darkness grabs us by the throat and tells us we do not have a voice. The Enemy comes to steal our destiny, kill us, and destroy our identity. He did not play kind. He never does.

In those moments, I felt nothing but despair. But something has begun to rise in my heart, something so much bigger than circumstance. It's thankfulness. Not for anything I have or have done, but for someone who is everything to me, who has given me treasure that no one can see. My Jesus... He is so different than I thought Him to be before. He is much more powerful, much more kind, much more full of love than I could fathom. He is past all that I can understand, and that is what is so beautiful about Him, because no matter how deep I go into who He is, I know that He is undeniably, infinitely good. He is the definition of light and love and beauty. And He loves me! How can that be? 

No matter where I go or what I do, He is always faithful. His heart holds treasures that I cannot even imagine. He is the Truth even when I cannot see it. Just to have Him close, to know Him near, to share in friendship and so much more with the One who died for me... nothing could ever mean more.

Thankfulness is more than a word we use once a year in November. It's more than a list you recite. It's an attitude of the heart. It's a sharp, fiery sword that cuts through depression and disease and darkness. It's a balm that covers your wounded heart and begins to heal. It's the substance of grace. It comes from the heart of Jesus.

Ask Him who He is today. Ask Him to give you a heart that can see what you have been given. And ask Him to show you His love. He will, every time. 

All my love,

B

Rooibos Tea

Today I woke up with dreams in my eyes and an adventure in my bones. The morning was crisp and clear and splashes of orange were on the ground as the leaves finally started to fall and die. There was fog on the road as I drove out to my parents house. The puppy, wriggling with excitement, greeted me at the door. I read George MacDonald with Dad by the fire and we both commented how rich the words came. The smell of wet earth, decaying leaves and blue sky hit my nose and it was as if I was a child again, running free against the cold and effortlessly sweeping life along with her passion. Fall was here. My heart felt like it was spring.

I home to find a box of Rooibos tea sitting on the counter. I stood there for a moment and stared at it. I knew that Sara must have seen it at the store and bought it, due to my incessant rambling about how much I adored it. I eagerly ripped open a package and smelled the teabag. Tears welled up in my eyes as memories flooded back.

Mornings at the apartment on Rose Bay, talking horses and country living and Jesus with Carla.

Late nights songwriting on the back patio at the Lane Cove house, Tyson curled up by my side.

Winter rainstorms at Grandmas, rationing the precious tea so that I could have just one more cup to remember...

As I curl up here with my steaming cup of red tea, I realize that it's been a long year. But the taste makes me remember that not all days have to rush. They can just be. And He knows what my heart longs for. It is in quiet moments like these that He whispers, "I have not forgotten." He still knows what makes me come alive. He always will.

Climbing Everest

I watched the movie "Everest" today. It was full of danger, stormy chaos and death, but it didn't leave me sad. It left me with a sense of longing for adventure, a sense that my dreams could grow again, bigger and brighter than I thought before.

I sat in bed and felt all my dreams return to me, stronger and better and more clear than before. I cried because I felt like all my dreams had been stolen, somehow, and I had lost my strength to hope for them anymore. I felt the fearlessness of living a full life, or at least the hunger for it. I felt love, real love, the extravagant kind that looks beyond the time and sees into the time beyond. If I close my eyes I can see the mountains, the mountains, and the longing seems to awaken my soul in a way that I have not felt in so long...

I long to live in the place where dreams are alive and passion for life bleeds red onto the ground where I walk. I want to live in the present but believe in what could be. I want to have an adventure, a beautiful story that's full and complete and holds nothing back. 

It's ok to dream. He loves our dreaming and He loves the dreamer's passion for what might be.

How do I embrace the season that I'm in? How do I find contentment in every season? How do I love in the midst of dullness? Only He can do it. And He will, I know now that not one dream is forgotten by Him. That's all I needed to know, really. As Amy Carmichael once said, "What a loving memory He has.."

Momma Sandy

I lived next door to her for nearly my entire life and hadn't an inkling what kind of a woman Sandy really was.

She seemed fairly normal on most accounts... spunky, fake pink nails that were a teeny bit too long, gray hair that came down to her ears, and deep wrinkles that made her face shine with the beauty of age. Her husband, Bud, had died in 2001, and she still lived alone in the house on the hill, the new house they built her since hers burnt down some years ago.

I had stopped by earlier this summer when the Lord had diverted me from my normal running route and told me to stop and wet my head with her garden hose (for the record, it was hot). I ended up praying for her and found out very quickly that she knew the Holy Spirit. I didn't realize how much the Lord had set up that encounter until today, when I walked by and again, felt the undeniable urge to stop.

All I can say is that I have forgotten the importance of having older wisdom speak into my life. To honor someone older than you and humble yourself by coming under their advice and authority is something especially wonderful when that person is as beautiful and on fire for the Lord as is Sandy.

She told me a lot of stories. About Bud's radical salvation and then baptism by the Holy Spirit. About being delivered of demonic oppression and fighting for salvation for everyone she met. About knowing Jesus more and more every day, by His goodness and His mercy. And intermingled with it all was the sound of revelation, a stumbling block for some and a rock for my weary heart. When did I stop being a hungry child? I thought, laughing in awe at the power of the rama word of God. Layers of knowledge, she said, and Holy Spirit reveals them all to us if we will wait to hear them. 

She prayed for me. I felt joy and peace as she covered my mind and heart with the blood of Jesus and rebuked the Enemy. She prayed warring angels that would go with me and guardian angels that would surround me. I felt them. I also felt the Lord rejoicing at the power of two generations agreeing, at a daughter looking to a mother and freely receiving the gifts and revelation that she has fought for over decades. It was something special I have not felt before.

In that moment, I was reminded of something the Lord had told me almost a year before.

Not many people should be able to speak into your life. Guard who you let close to your heart. I will show you who those people are.

In the Kingdom, the power of agreement is strong. If the agreement binds together two generations, that power is magnified tenfold. I am so thankful for the grace and wisdom of God to surround us with people who will speak His truth into our lives. We are always paving a way for our children and the next generation to follow in what victory we have already attained. I hope I am one of those women someday. A Momma Sandy.