Joyful.

What does a joyful life look like? Is it free from the turbulent winds of conflict? Are the waves of adversity absent? Or is it a choice to live a joy filled life in the midst of the wind and waves? Oddly enough my journey to joy came through sacrifice. When I chose to lay EVERYTHING down at God's feet is when I truly began to live joyfully. I made some very hardline decisions and through those I discovered that joy isn't found in the areas that I lived in the gray. But the very instant that I sacrificed the gray and made choices that I knew brought honor to God is the exact moment that I discovered joy. It is completely illogical to think that by causing yourself more "pain" you will actually discover joy but there is very little that is logical in the Kingdom. I can assure you that in the midst of the wind and the waves you can be joyful. But it only comes from trusting God to turn your sacrifice, your pain, into something more beautiful than you could ever imagine. But He can't give you joy if you are holding onto bitterness, forgiveness, regrets or used-to-be's. So I encourage you, lay it all down at God's feet and trust that He will turn your sorrows into gladness, your regrets into hope, and your used-to-be's into better than you imagined. It can't be a partial decision, a well maybe I will give up a little and see if I get a little joy. It is a full fledged, reckless abandon, lay it all down and walk away move. That is where joy is found. That is where chains of bondage are broken. That is where captives are set free. In that moment is where God shows up. Maybe He hasn't shown up because you haven't let Him. What good would it do for Him to show up only to be told that you don't trust Him? He gives us the power to choose. So what will you choose, joy in midst of the storm or tossed about with the wonder and the waves?

Smile. Through. Tears.

Smile. Through. Tears.
In life you will learn that not everyone that promises "for life" or "forever" will stick around. Love them anyways. You will learn that although it will break your heart to watch them walk away, don't try to make them stay. The ones that are meant to stay will. It doesn't make them bad people it just means that their chapter in your story is over. So today I turn the page as I watch you walk away and I smile through the tears. I am able to smile both because of the days you gave me and because God is faithful to replace what I have lost.

Hurricane

Hurricane.
You just come out of a rainstorm and you're so looking forward to the sunshine. The ease that comes with a day filled with warmth. Then out of nowhere you see the swirling clouds of a hurricane on the horizon. How could this be? Wasn't this your season for sunshine and ease?

I would imagine this is what the Israelites felt as they came up to the Red Sea with the Egyptians hot on their heels. Everything closing in and no place to go and then they feel it. The winds start whipping around them. Really God something else to contend with now? Don't you think we are past our breaking point? But then something amazing happens. The hurricane creates a wall of water that allows them to walk through on dry ground.

What looks like destruction is actually the answer to your prayers. What looks like complete chaos is actually God's carefully scripted plan. The very storm you thought was going to kill you actually allows your escape.

But one better still lets not forget....the very same hurricane that rescued the Israelites swallowed the Egyptians. Allow the storm to provide your escape and demolish the enemy at the very same time. 

Father

Father

“Impossible.  Love you with the love of a Father”.  I received those words as a text from my daddy as we were playfully arguing who loves who more.  He had never before said it like this and it devastated me.  I knew by the way it made me stop dead in my tracks and bawl like a baby that God was trying to tell me something in that moment.  Those words were an end all phrase.  I mean how do you argue with THAT?  I know what a Father’s love looks like.  There isn’t anything my dad wouldn’t do for me.  He would drop everything to come to my aid.  6 a.m. or middle of the night.  Across town or across the country.  All I have to do is make a call.  Never has the thought crossed my mind that he might not be able to help me, or he might not want to hear my voice or he might be too busy to talk to me or that he might not understand.  Quite the opposite in fact, sometimes I don’t include my father because I am afraid that he will take responsibility for what really isn’t his to take responsibility for .  Now hear me out, I know that there are PLENTY of children that have no idea what a father’s love looks like.  Maybe you were abused, neglected, abandoned, pushed aside.  Maybe you were never cherished, adored or protected the way you were supposed to be.  God has a promise just for you.  Psalms 68:5 promises “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling”.  Maybe take a step out of your “hurt father box” for just a moment and discover what Father really means.  Lets not look at it for who, as a noun but lets look at it for how as a verb.  Father: to accept the responsibility for.  To be the founder, producer or author. To beget or to produce as an effect.  He is not like your earthly father that left you cold and alone, that doesn’t care when your heart breaks.  No no, you are His Responsibility.  He is the author and producer of you.  No wonder why God wants us to truly grasp the love of a Father.  No wonder why He wants us to cry out to him, Abba Father.  There is nothing He won’t do for you.  He will move Heaven and earth if you just believe.  Trust that He is never too busy or just doesn’t care, that he won’t understand what you are going through.  Make that call and trust that He loves you with a Father’s love and allow that love to seep into your soul and devastate you.  "I love you daddy"  "I love you more"  "Impossible more"  "Impossible. Love you with the love of a Father"

Favor

Favor.
What does favor look like?  And what does lack of favor look like?  When I envision favor, it means being smack in the middle of what makes you feel most alive.  When you know what you were born to do you know where your favor lies.  But what happens when you feel like have lost your favor or you feel like your favor has moved on.  I’ve been there and it is a horribly dark place.  Standing in a valley, no light to be seen, not even the stars to guide you.  I remember the day I woke up and didn’t even know who I was.  I didn’t know what I liked or didn’t like.  I remember thinking to myself I don’t even know what my favorite color is.  I felt like I had lost everything I ever knew.  The ministry that I had clung so tightly to, gone.  The family that was mine, split in two.  God took me down to nothing to raise me up again.  Now that I am beginning the trek back up the mountain and the sun is shining brighter than ever and I feel alive again for the very first time.  I know exactly what God made me to do.  So what happens when a person that knows her favor comes in contact with someone that doesn’t know their favor and feels like they have lost it all?  The intoxicating feeling that they feel at first becomes mad chaos.  If you heap favor on a person that is in the process of learning where they fit it creates confusion and fear.  Rather than it helping it is actually pushing their healing further off.  The best thing I can do in this situation is take my hands off you and let you discover your inheritance on your own.  Allow God to work in His timing.  To have Him show you where it fits is going to be so much more powerful than anything I could ever do or show you.  This is what love looks like.  To stand back and watch you learn. 

A Tresure

A Treasure.

What would happen if you held in your hands the treasure that could change someone’s life forever? What if the very thing you possessed was the exact thing that someone else needed for their survival?  Maybe it’s medicine, or maybe it’s as simple as a smile.  We are all standing in the dry and barren land surrounded by people that DESPERATELY need to be shown the treasure that you are holding.  Each person crying out, “Does anybody hear me, can anybody see me?”  Very rarely will you hear someone saying “I just need Jesus give me Jesus.”  But it will sound more like this “I am hurting and don’t know how to stop the pain.”  “I am confused and don’t know where to turn.” “It’s so dark and it feels like things are never going to change.”  And some people have lost their voices altogether and all you see is tears or worse yet complete emptiness.  You know the kind….where you look into their eyes and absolute nothingness stares back at you.  STOP.  Hold out your hands to the dry and weary land.  Within you is the hope for a dark and dying world.  Be Jesus to the world.  Not through slamming bible verses down their throats but simply by giving them what they are searching for.  Most of us don’t even know the value of the treasure we hold.  When you work in a diamond mine ALL day long, diamonds become second nature.  But when you have never seen a diamond before in your life, all of a sudden it becomes the most amazing treasure in the world. So now let me ask you again.  What if the very treasure you possessed could change someone’s life forever?    

Heaven Sent

 Heaven Sent.

I am convinced that every once in a rare while we are allowed to interact with heaven.  In these brief moments for me, its like time stands still.  Everything becomes perfectly crystal clear.  The colors are more crisp and each spoken word so defined. When I meet someone knew and there is a connection most of the time I want that connection to last.  I will do whatever it takes to make that connection last.  I am not shy about this at all.  If I want someone in my life I will find a way to make it happen.  But twice now I have met “people” that I knew were just there for a moment.  That I wasn’t supposed to try to chase them down or find them again.  Imagine with me that my heart as a place where people are allowed to leave their footprints.  Some footprints are left in dust and all you can see is the outline.  Changed but not impacted huge.  Then there are the normal footprints, allowed to affect our heart on a day to day basis. Then there are the defined footprints.  These are the people that you remember every little detail of your moments together.  They are hard and fast in your tender heart.  If you study closely you will discover everything you need to know all wrapped up in the footprint.  The print that happened tonite I definitely don’t know all the reasons why.  But I know that when I talked to him time stood still, everything moved in slow motion and the conversation was crisp.  And the moment that it was over I knew I wasn’t supposed to chase that connection.  But rather allow the taste to linger in my mouth and savor it while it was there.  I firmly believe that tonite was an angelic interaction.  This has happened to me twice now.  Both times with “men” that strangely do not fit into their surroundings.  You can meet a thousand people in a day and then time stands still when a messenger comes.  I don’t know what tonites message was yet.  But you can bet I am praying about it.  What I do know is that tonite my heart got a new set of footprints and my heart is now changed.  

Graveclothes

As I was praying this morning there were a few things that came to me. When a wound is healing and its time for the scab part to fall off, it doesn't hurt at that point. The scab can honestly be annoying at times cause at that point its no longer part of the wound just a covering that keeps you from truly feeling what is going on around. IF its ready to come off it comes off easily HOWEVER the new skin underneath is extremely sensitive and its feeling everything as if for the first time. Our instinct is to cover it back up but in reality the best thing for it at that point is to be exposed and allow to feel the breath of fresh air. The reason that I don't want to fix or heal you is because for the most part the healing is done. The covering just needs to come off. Right now its hindering how you move and feel the world around you. Its not comfortable but its what you have known and at least this way you can't get hurt! Its our job as the body of christ to help other remove the coverings and begin to feel what living again is all about. Its gonna feel weird and scary and you will want to cover back up, but take my hand and trust God. I don't want to fix you or help you but I do desire to do life with you! And life is all about growing, healing, changing and loving. All into the people that God wants us to be. And since God wants what's best for us it seems like a pretty good plan ;)

Change not Perfection

What if God desires change not perfection? With all the change that I have gone through in the last year I began to get extremely frustrated at the continual flow of change. And that I never seemed to be "done". Just when I thought I was done something else would come up that needed changed. What if I changed my perspective... From looking at "done" as the goal to looking at "change" as the goal. Then everytime I am faced with a new change I can welcome it with open arms. Consider it pure joy when faced with trials and tribulations of ALL KINDS. For in trials your faith will be tried and your character perfected.

Trust. Intimacy.

I had always thought trust was supposed to be immediately bestowed on people when they entered my life. Which has left me incredibly vulnerable for all kinds messy situations. Trust has to be earned. Through time. I can give people opportunities time earn my trust but I can't give them my everything until they have worked to gain my trust. Trust without hard work is nothing more than another form of prostitution.  To give something of worth to anyone and everyone without proof that they are worthy.  So how do you provide people with opportunities to build trust without getting your heart broken but while still being transparent? I am discovering that 1. You actually can't build trust without the risk of getting your heart broken. 2. If you have complete trust in God, who mind you actually deserves our complete trust, then your heart will never be shattered beyond repair. 3. When I can relax in full trust with God and know that he loves me regardless then I can risk more to eventually trust more.
Perhaps what I thought I gave out so freely before really wasn't trust at all but was some sort of scewed counterfeit. Maybe it was me trying to earn someone's love by showing all of me rather than allowing them to work to see all of me. To prove that they were worthy. Not everyone gets all of me. Time to tighten down the trust belt and bring the close ones in closer. I can still be a glass house, transparent for all to see. But not everyone gets to come inside, walk around and trash what want there's to have. No longer with trust be given immediately. But rather earned through time. It's ok to be at step 2 rather than step 32. Because the steps In between is where true trust and true intimacy are built. I will not rush the process.

Blessings

Blessings

My mom texted me last night a list of things that I have accomplished over the last year.  “Look at how far God has brought you Naomi”.  So I paused for a few and began pouring over what all has happened in the last year.  Sometimes, it’s hard to believe it has just been a year.  I remember being in a “hopeless season” and thinking it was never going to end.  That I would never smile again.  That the only laughter I would have would be fake laughter.  I thought the tears would never end.  The long lonely nights that seemed to drag on for WAY more than 12 hours.  I vividly remember the first night that the kids and I slept in our new home.  Our miracle home, Our Place of Restoration.  I remember feeling safe for the first time in years.  I remember feeling like a bird that had been caged and finally had room to spread her wings.  The weight that was lifted off is indescribable.  The wish list that I had for my new place was so long.  Haha all my friends and family were nervous that I wasn’t going to find a place.  But God provided ABOVE and BEYOND.  He paid such close attention to detail that it still astounds me to this day.  EVERYTHING I had on my list of the perfect home I could check off.  And that was just the beginning.  As I was moving out God kept telling me over and over again…”You can take what he (the father of my children) has or you can have what I have.”  I left behind SO many possessions.  And it has been incredible to watch God replace it all.  Let me tell you, when God replaces something He gives you so much better than what you had before.  New house, new dog, new BBQ grill and that is just the beginning.  The blessings some small and some HUGE just keep coming.  But in the midst of it all there were days that seemed to last forever.  Seasons that drug on and on.  So let me encourage you, if you are in the middle of one of those hopeless seasons that you can’t see your way out of, take a deep breath.  God is right there with you and His plan is unfolding in His perfect time.  I promise you, this season won’t last forever.  The tears will stop.  The joy will come in the morning and the laughter will be unlike anything you have experienced before.  Looking back it all happened so quickly, all at once, but yet felt like it was NEVER going to end.  I thank God for the people he placed in my life along the road.  Each one a healing dispensary.  To my best friend, Scarlett and the countless hours she spent on the phone with me crying, laughing and teaching me how to communicate. To my parents for always encouraging me and making me feel like I am an incredible mom even on days when I wanted to run away from it all.  To Deborah who constantly reminds me of who I am and the promises that God has given me.  Who can listen to my dreams and never think I am too crazy. To Tisha who constantly held me when I cried, supported me when I couldn’t put into words what I needed.  Silently stood by to allow me to learn lessons on my own.  And LAVISHED love on to my children.  To Tacie who always brings just the right word at just the right time.  To Cassie who stops at nothing to make me smile, does research for me and sends me constant reminders cause she knows how forgetful I am. To Jeff, WOW the healing that you brought me.  It was truly your emails that pulled me the last few inches out of the darkness.  You gave me the hope that I needed and poured life back into something that seemed so dead.  Thank you for speaking EXACTLY the words that God gave you even though they seemed risky.  To the countless other friends that have held my hand and encouraged me along the way.    Thank you ALL for being part of the most amazingly, challenging, seemed never ending, rollercoaster ride of a year.  Love All of You!!!