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i use my words
Sitting beside the weeping willow, they talk.
Questions asked. Answers given. Hearts shared.
Amidst laughter and even tears, intimacy reborn.
Weeping willow, why do you cry?
There is peace.
Always peace.
Drooping branches dance in the gentle breeze.
Sadness subsides amidst the quiet rhythm.
Carried on the wind of tomorrow's promise.
Weeping willow, why do you cry?
There is hope.
Always hope.
There is so much power in intentionality.
I crave learning and personal growth. Crave it. I'm constantly looking for areas to improve on, books to devour, teachings to soak up. That results in lists and lists of things I want to change in my life. Which can get pretty overwhelming.
And easily forgotten.
Often I determine, with great zeal, to change this or start doing that. But then, in the hustle and bustle of my life, I honestly just forget about it. Sure, I remember at first. May even start to initiate things. But then life takes over, and my "good intentions" are pushed so far back into the crevices of my mind that I easily never think of them again.
Good intentions really mean nothing, unless I actually intend to do something with them. "It's the thought that counts" is nothing more than a cop-out for my inaction. The thought never counts. What I do with the thought is all that matters.
Herein lies the power of intentionality.
I put feet to my long list of desired changes when I tackle them one at a time. What will I be intentional about this week? When I choose one thing to focus on -- just one -- I am able to actually do it. It is like a rope that pulls me out of the mire of everything I want to change, which I so easily get bogged down in. I can focus my energy, effort, and emotional strength on just one specific thing. And I'm able to see the results of my focused intentionality, which just fuels me to do it again the next week.
So... what will you be intentional about this week?
It seems as though this is something I've been trying to improve on forever, but I'm reminded again of my need to set better boundaries. Arranging my priorities and setting limits that will enable me to do what I want to do. I so easily sacrifice what I want to do for what I think I "should do" or what people expect me to do. I have a hard time saying "no" to personal requests, for fear of hurting or disappointing people. But then the day ends with me looking back and feeling blah about how I spent my time.
I don't like that feeling. I don't like the sense that my time, energy, and attention have been hijacked.
It's time for me to start setting clearer boundaries. And to stick to them.
Have you found ways to do this in your own life?
The woman bled for 12 years straight.
Physician after physician shrugged his shoulders. She’d given up all hope of ever getting better. But then she heard about Jesus. The miracle worker. Desperate, she knew she had to get to Him.
As she clawed her way through the crowd on her hands and knees, she carried with her much more than her illness. She carried shame. As if in a bag over her shoulder, she dragged along a heavy burden of rejection and fear. She's referred to as the “woman with the issue of blood”, but her issues ran much deeper than that. Her physical ailment made her an outcast in her own culture.
Her emotional hurts and scars were far worse than her physical ones.
Finally catching up to Jesus, she reached out and frantically, yet faintly, grabbed the hem of His robe. Immediately, she was healed. Jesus turned around and faced the crowd. “Who touched Me?”
She told Him the whole truth. She told why she had touched Him and how she had been instantly healed. Jesus cared enough to listen to her story. The long version.
He just let her talk.
He was on His way to heal a dying girl. People were rushing Him. Pressing Him. Insisting He keep going before it’s too late. But He silenced them long enough for her to tell her story.
When she finished talking, He responded by calling her Daughter. It’s the only time recorded that He addressed someone that way. The love she felt in that one simple word must have been overwhelming.
After pouring out her heart, He'd responded with pure affection. Gentle yet aggressive love.
If Jesus’ aim was simply to heal her, He would have kept walking after she touched Him, for she was healed instantly. If that was all He was concerned about, He wouldn’t have stopped, turned around, asked the question. He wouldn't have looked straight at her, talked to her, listened. But He did all those things. He wanted to let her talk. To tell her story. He wanted to call her Daughter.
For that is when her heart was healed.
He wanted to heal more than her body. His aim all along was to heal her heart.
I can picture Him looking her in the eyes as He talked to her. And making her look into His. The healing began as, face-to-face, His love was visible, and it resonated within her soul. It broke down walls. Shattered barriers. Smashed through the defenses she’d lived behind for so long. His love broke through with a simple gaze, a listening ear, and undivided attention.
It wouldn’t have helped if He healed her physically, but left her to still carry the hurt from her 12 years of rejection and disgrace. Despite her physical healing, she probably would have continued to stay holed up in her house. She would have been the same cowering little girl she always was, still dragging her bag of shame behind her. But as Jesus looked into her eyes, He saw the woman He created her to be, and He wasn’t content to leave her drowning in her pain.
The greatest healing isn’t the miraculous cure of her incurable disease. It is the passionate healing of her heart.
God’s primary concern is still the condition of hearts. Physical health and a blessed life pale in comparison with a restored soul. God’s heart hurts for our hurting hearts.
He still brings love, grace, and healing through a touch of the hem of His robe.
And we are the hem of His robe.
We have been going through one of the most challenging times financially that we've ever experienced in the ministry. We need literally hundreds of thousands of dollars yesterday, and it is stretching my faith like never before.
I've been doing the support-raising thing for so long now that it's hard to remember a time when I didn't have to trust God for finances. I started raising funds for my first mission trip when I was 12 or 13. I continued to do that every summer; then it was a year-long internship; then I moved to South Africa. I have been living on support every day for the past nine-and-a-half years. Trusting God for finances became as second-nature as breathing.
And now I feel like I can't catch my breath. (Has anyone seen my inhaler?)
This should be routine to me. Same ol', same ol'. So why am I having such a hard time giving this care over to the Lord and leaving it on His lap? Why am I finding it so challenging to trust God for money this time, and not last time?
I felt myself losing heart. And while I'm not yet gaining heart (is that the opposite?), I'm somewhere in between at the moment.
God led me to read this today, and as I did, I could feel my heart being strengthened. It was an almost tangible feeling, as though I were feeling my physical heart being strengthened within my chest.
"Therefore, since through God's mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart...Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
Lord, help me to keep my eyes fixed on You and on the promises of God which are yet unseen, but soon to be revealed...
