Tension

As I sat with the Lord recently, I became keenly aware that my upper body was holding tension for no reason other than habit. 

It was subtle, and if I was not sitting in stillness, I likely would not have been aware of it in the slightest. I breathed deeply while instructing my body to release and let go. Immediately, the tension left. 

I have been in a season of intentionally rewiring my mind. A few years ago, my physical circumstances shifted out of chronic, daily chaos into peace; thus God's fulfillment of a word He gave to me years ago: "Then My people will dwell in a peaceful place, in safe and secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest." (Isa 32:18)  

It's been a lengthy process of regaining my physical strength, and an even lengthier process retraining my mind. Though longer than I would have imagined, the journey has been an exceedingly rewarding one. 

The present -- today -- holds the tension of space between the past and the future.  

Depending on life's circumstances, that space can be fluid and relaxed, tight and tense, and everything in between.  Much like I directed my body to release and let go, we do hold the power to do likewise over today, no matter our yesteryears. 

Will we let the tight and tense rob us of today's joy and ease?  

Or will we let the fluid and relaxed rob us of today's stewardship?  

You see, the tension of today isn't a negative unto itself.  It is simply a space holder, much like a tightrope between two points.  It's a matter of perspective, followed up by proper action.

How often do we listen to our thoughts that talk us into a sense of neutrality; where neither joy is experienced nor stewardship is achieved?   

Some are convinced that life's circumstances are less than ideal, unfair even, so they self-soothe with victimology.

Others play their days away because they have been convinced in their minds stewardship is too exhausting, so why bother.  

But neither is truth.  These are mental scripts we haven't properly weighed, sorted, and discarded as the lies they are.

The truth is we have a mighty God who has our days held in His hands; who is shaping, creating, redeeming, and enabling our life to greater and greater victories in Him and through Him IF we walk with Him, obeying His instructions.

I was reminded of Naomi from the Book of Ruth - who grieved loss - and yet, in time, God replaced her grief with great joy. She's one of many examples of God's ability to shape our faith and our victories through trying circumstances if we don't relent. 

Be mindful of today's tension, and its quality. 

Remember, we do not always possess the ability to control circumstances, but we always have the ability to control how we respond.  

Will we reign over life's circumstances through our faith in our sovereign God -- or will be allow them to reign over us, spinning our thoughts, moods, and emotions off our intended path and into the weeds?  

I encourage you to consciously celebrate today - not because of feelings nor circumstances - but because God reigns.  He sees you, He cares, and He longs to hold today's tension, redeem yesterday, and create a joy-filled tomorrow!  The question is will you walk with Him and see greater and greater victories come.... or will you succumb to a false narrative?  

Word of warning: Neutrality doesn't actually exist.  It's an illusion.  You are either progressing or regressing.

Remember, as a man THINKS, so is he.  (Prov 23:7) 

Peace 🤍

The Gift of Triage, Healing, and Recovery!

 We all know individuals who stubbornly hold onto unhealthy patterns.  The thing about those unhealthy patterns is not only do they negatively impact the individual holding to the patterns, but they also negatively impact those around them.  

While God's love is unlimited, His grace is limited, as we discover by reading Romans.  In a unique dynamic of Love, we learn that He will turn people over to their persistent, unhealthy patterns (ie their gods).

Arguably the greatest move of Love is free-will.  

YOU get to choose the life you live; likewise, so do those around you.  

I have spent the past year in triage, healing, and recovery from the results of decisions people close to me had every right to make.  

But, again, likewise, I had the choice to detach from them or continue my close walk alongside the unhealthy patterns of others.

Every day, people self destruct.  Addictions, debt, pride, fear  - to name a few destructive patterns - cripple so much of the population.  Christians and non-Christians alike. Surely, you know that transformation is a completely separate process than salvation.  Both processes are choices we make.  We can align with one or both or neither.  The decisions we make concerning both are entirely ours to make.  

While you cannot control the decisions of those around you, you can  - and greater still - are expected to control yours and choose wisely. 

I have said this time and again:  wise stewardship starts with you; monitoring your thoughts and behaviors minute by minute towards those that are honoring and pleasing to God. 

Let's carefully read God's words in Deuteronomy 30, as if we were reading them for the first time:

"See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil.  IF you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in HIS ways, and by keeping HIS commandments and HIS statutes and HIS rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.  BUT if your heart turns away, and you elect to not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods (appetites/drives)  and serve them, I declare to you , that you WILL perish.  You WILL NOT live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess.  I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse.  THEREFORE, choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying His voice and holding FAST to Him, for He is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them."

How many parents reading this desperately want their children following God, yet they themselves serve their flesh daily?  Remember, while people are responsible for their own lives, our individual choices and their impact do not occur in a bubble. They have their impact on those around us for the good or the bad.  Today's lingo is "influencers".  The truth is we are ALL influencers to those around us, whether we want to be or not!  Our actions affect those around us. Whether they are a positive or negative influence depends on if we are actively choosing what brings life or death into our individual life.   Understand this clearly: You will NOT have a positive impact on others while making negative personal choices.  

At the core to the passage above is God's LOVE for His creation.  Who do we think we are to think we know best?  Does a toddler know what is best?  Of course not.  This is why Paul edified us to GROW UP.  A mature adult chooses what is healthy over what is not.  They put away their foolish desires for taking up what will enhance their life, and an additional by-product - enhance the lives of those around them!

Learn this core precept:  

God's desires for you come from a place of love, 

not restriction!  

If you are diligent to nurture this mental script daily, it will change your daily choices, and thus your life's outcome!

Praising Him for enveloping my life;  for His wisdom, for His leadership, for His healing!

Godspeed! 🤍

The Gift of God's Thumb

I awoke to a New Year.....2025, what will it bring my way?   

I sat with the Lord in the early morning hours and soon began sensing His thumb. 

One of my personal goals was to not bring the past into 2025.  Let me be more specific; it was to not bring the negatives from the past into 2025. 

It was an honorable goal before the Lord. As a matter of fact, this was my petition before the Lord for the entire month of December.  

It wasn't long sitting with the Lord before I realized what He was highlighting in me that aligned with this personal goal: cynicism.   

Cynicism is the propensity to distrust others and their motives. 

If the past three decades trained me in anything, it's this. 

But cynicism is a cancer in the soul.  It eats away at true faith, true hope. And it is terrifyingly subtle. 

To distrust is to inherently dislike, and if we are not careful, we will find the object of our dislike to be humanity itself; the very object that Christ came to seek and save.  

How can we walk in union with Him if we dislike what He loved unto death?  

Now, be careful here so as to not misunderstand me. I am not encouraging anyone to stay in close proximity to damaging individuals, but the caution comes when we overlay the negative experiences of one relationship upon all relationships. It is a natural tendency that must be countered in God's power and with His wisdom.  

If we are not careful, our negative experiences subtly replace our trust in God FOR life's experiential knowledge. I don't know about you, but I never want to abide in the space where life's experiences have superseded my trust in my Creator such that I lean more into them than Him!

I sat with Him, realizing the blessing of His thumb. What He applies His thumb to in our life, He heals IF we confess, acknowledge, and release into His hands, our Healer's hands.  

I acknowledged the truth of what He was pointing out, and I found myself with such overwhelming gratitude concerning the awareness that He was intent on removing cynicism from my life.  It will be a walking out of, to be certain; a decision to not be immediately suspicious of people's motives. Understand, I cannot say I trust Him, while at the same time, guarding my heart and being all but misanthropic.  

This is all apart of His command to "turtle no more", (linked here) to be restored as a fully functioning believer who is planted upon a solid, non-contradicting foundation.  

I have to acknowledge my past had led to a foundation with cracks in it; where action didn't always align with belief nor belief with action. I don't want that to be the case moving forward.   In fact, it can't be the case moving forward if I am to walk in all that God has stored up for me.  

God's thumb is indeed a gift because with it comes healing to my fractured soul and greater freedom in His spirit.  

May you, too, sit with Him. What area of your own life do you sense Him putting His thumb on? 

Resist bristling to the conviction, and understand liberation is a mere breath away in the utterance of two simple, yet powerful words: Yes, Lord.

Godspeed! 🤍

Turtling No More

Through the years, I have had this saying, "I'm turtling." 

Those two words were understood by my closest affiliations to mean, "I need to detach from my circumstances and curl up with God for a time."  

For whatever the reason, the "noise of life" had been turned up to the point where I felt retreat into my inner sanctum was my only choice.  My instincts ratcheted up to that of survival and that meant retreat....for a time.  

Well, simply put, 'for a time' turned into years.  

As has been my practice for decades, I reserve the time between Christmas and New Year's to consecrate myself to God afresh and lean into what He shares about the closing year and the new year beginning.  In raising three children, that dedicated week was both a nonnegotiable and a gift. 

Now that they are grown and married, I have expanded that week to the month of December.  

This morning, as I sat with the Lord, I heard Him speak to my spirit, "Turtle no more." 

He went on to share.  

You see, the past three decades of life had become more like a three ringed circus.  While there had been a few blessed experiences dotted into the timeline, the timeline was consumed with nonsense. The volume from the nonsense had so increased, I found myself living the majority of my life from inside my turtle shell. I was turtling more and more as the volume of crazy-making was turned up to a deafening range.  

Now, while my turtle shell is comfortable and protective... and quiet, it is confining and limited, much like a womb - now that I think about it. 

Some five and a half years ago, He saw the effects the circus was having on me. 

I had had enough of the circus and had retreated into my shell; no longer truly living as He intended, no longer willing to risk my hearing from Him on the hopium of a rare pleasant experience. 

In the vision He showed me, He tipped my shell, sending it rolling away from the circus and down an incline, landing in a swift current of water.  It was tossed about, bobbing under the water and then back up, hitting rocks, and going over waterfalls. I was dizzy inside at the sudden external changes I felt all around me, but the shell held firm and secure. 

For two years, I rode the rapids from inside my shell. Then He showed me that the shell had arrived at an estuary.  The inside of my shell became calm and my dizziness abated, but because of the lengthy duration of the ride down the rapids, my shell stayed habitually, comfortably closed.

"Deborah, I have so much to show you; so much to experience with you. You must open your shell and venture out now."

Opening, I find my surroundings are vastly different now.  The ocean's expanse is before me, as the estuary's calm surroundings saurate my ears with quiet peace. I do not recall such a surrounding in the entirety of my life as I have now.  

I hope you'll join me here from time to time as I begin to share my love of learning and writing ...writing and learning... once again; basking in the peace He has led me to - exploring the beauty of my new environment...

...turtling no more!  

Praise Him!

Death Did Come...

 ... though for me, I know not precisely when.  

I awoke this morning, thinking about the piano.  

The piano, of all things.  

As I laid in bed, I felt God leading me back to what truly seems like another lifetime.  My mind thought, "This is nonsense."  But my spirit wanted to take the journey, so journey we did.

I could see myself back in time, sitting at the piano as a young girl, playing and singing my heart out. In my lifetime, I have had three people, who I can recall, who encouraged my musical talent. My mother, an all-encompassing stalwart of support through the years.  A church youth leader who said my voice was more beautiful than that of a song bird. (It's not, but it's striking to me how I am able to recall his exact phrase now forty years later.)  And lastly, my eighth grade chorus instructor, who said I had pipes to fill an auditorium.   

What happened to that girl?

Too much to recount here, but the most persistent wearing agent: marriage.

As morbid as it sounds, I am understanding more and more that the day I married, I began to die. 

I'm not referencing the carnal death the Word encourages, but my soul's death.  

I know I am not an isolated occurrence, but I have fought more than a day's worth of thoughts, such as "Shouldn't we have been different? Didn't we know better?  Didn't we both know we had to sow into one another?  Isn't that why we married in the first place, to become everything in Christ He intended us to be?" 

I thought so. I hoped so. 

Nevertheless, deliberate destructive patterns were upheld, even defended.  I permitted myself to become all but forgotten. I'm not speaking of values, focus, or resolve. I'm speaking of the essence of me. Dreams and unfiltered emotions were exchanged for methods of survival from what seemed to be constant conflict and disregard.  

A bitter fact of life: choices are, by and large, understood through the lens of retrospection. 

Someone once said, "It's easy to mistake sorrow for despair. It's not. Authentic hope is found in sorrow, not by avoiding it." 

I agree. I spent years, decades in fact, with despair being my bedfellow, but now I spend my days making emotional space for sorrow, and I am finding personal hope again; rediscovering my essence as God leads me down a path to collect the discarded, forsaken, forgotten pieces of me. 

It's amazing what space is discovered when one gets off another's loop. 

I'm looking forward to making friends with me again. I have apologized to her for neglecting, and at times, all out ignoring, her cries for help, for acknowledgement, for nurture, for acceptance, for love ...for looking to my marriage to give that which it elected not to give. 

Religion is a monster.  It keeps wives discounted and marginalized with erroneous theology "for the sake of another."  The enemy is a pro at using Scripture to keep the well-intentioned spouse in man-made shackles. 

My freedom came when I heard Jesus whisper, "Deborah, I am not asking you to die for this when I already did."  Even now, tears well up at such profound Love as He.  

He is God. I am not. Yet, I matter.   

I matter.

Where religion held captive, relationship in Him set free.

He woke me recently, "Deborah, I want you completely unfettered."

I knew not then to the measure I know now, and greater still tomorrow, just how much my being craves this. 

We thrash about in shackles too numerous to fully identify, from the confines of religion to those of willful sin, when He deeply desires to set us free....FREE.

Through the years I have sat with Him and asked, "How do YOU take it day after day?  The betrayal, the idolatry, the wounding?"  

Though He has never answered me, I have seen Him smile that gentle smile of His, filled with compassion and understanding.  

He gets it because: "He was (is) despised and rejected, a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned (turn) our backs on Him and looked (look) the other way. He was (is) despised and we did not (do not) care."  (Isa 53:3)

I'll never know why we persist on destructive paths of indifference, even as shackles rip at our being.

Death did come...

....so too, His resurrection... 

.................and because of His, I have the hope of mine.  🤍

"Hope Maketh Not Ashamed”

Today, many will celebrate.

Today, many will grieve.

I never cease to be amazed at the human spirit's propensity to love, break, yet love again.

Thoreau wrote, “There is no remedy for love but to love more.”

Indeed both Love and love, that which is both true and pure, being derived from Love, are mysteries that leave us breathless; capitulation to what we know and what we think we know, what we feel and what we think we feel, and between it all, there abides this deep sense, a resonating awareness, we hardly know anything at all about either.

I will not belabor this post with unrequired length, yet simply say my heart and my purpose this morning is to encourage every heart, whether it be elated or downcast.

Take the time to read Jeremiah 31. (Found here)

Let it be a love letter from God Himself to His people.

If you know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, it is to you. If you do not know Him as such, may the words stir in you, drawing you ever closer to the only One who can satisfy so completely the longing of the heart, putting both soul and mind to rest.

“...hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us...” Romans 5:5

May Love find you, hold you, heal you, and fill you today. 🤍

Is God Your Alpha and Omega?

I have two scenarios I would like to share with you:

Scenario One:

“Johnny, stop antagonizing your brother!”

In scenario one, what is your very first thought?

What is your frame of reference; your perspective?

Is Johnny, in your mind, automatically guilty of doing what he is accused of doing?

Was he, in your mind when you read that simple statement, antagonizing the brother?

Was he asking for it?

Or maybe in your scenario Johnny was minding his own business, and the brother, wanting Johnny's attention, smacked him or pinched him or whacked his glasses off his nose. Johnny hollered out against the injustice, but caught both the corrective attention and the flack.

Clearly we have a ruckus going on that has garnered parental correction.

Two kids, one stimulus (the 'whatever' that sparked the disagreement), two opposing reactions.

Again: perspective.

Recognize that disagreements innately have differing perspectives.

The point is not to “die on a molehill," trying to sell my perspective to you in a disagreement, nor you to me.  

If I attempt such foolery, I will not succeed because the fact is two people cannot wear the exact same pair of glasses at the same time. In addition, even the slightest differences in the glasses (backgrounds, beliefs, wills, desires, opinions) yield different perspectives. So whatever transpired to spark the disagreement innately has two different pairs of glasses that prevent ever fully seeing eye to eye.

Regardless of who started the disagreement, chances are unless Johnny works to see why his brother did 'whatever,' he will see his brother as “the cause.” Likewise, the brother, unless he works to see why Johnny did 'whatever' he did, will see Johnny as “the cause.”

Enter the parent, who hopefully, will coach BOTH brothers to inspect where they, as individuals, strayed from the preservation of unity within the family, while not permitting nor accepting the infamous words of “Yeah, but he made me do (fill in the blank)!”

None of us are going to progress towards Christ-likeness (the goal) until we stop the bickering and the accusations, and listen to our Father, who will no doubt put HIS finger upon the SIN issues in BOTH offenders who are train-wrecking Body unity.

No one needs to know the exact details of the rift between Johnny and his brother to understand both wills were exalted to an unhealthy level where injustice finally cried out. 

And if you are a parent, you know the fact is you will NEVER know exactly the path that lead to your parental intervention, even if you ask a thousand questions because Johnny and his brother are both fallible and fixed in their perspectives.

BUT GOD.

Those two words change everything..... if we let them.

Scenario Two:

Two dogs are sitting at a glass front door. One begins to crazy bark. One silently sits. You get up to see what's going on. A passerby is walking down the sidewalk.

Clearly we have a ruckus going on that has garnered parental correction.

Two dogs, one stimulus, two different reactions.

(Oh, let me mention the crazy barker is eight months old, and the silent observer is twelve years old with both hearing and sight still fully intact.)

Maturity.

What's going on at the front door is a revelation concerning maturity. The older dog has learned a few things in his years. He's learned self-control. He's had his mind and his body trained to not respond to every stimulus that passes by. He's learned, by and large, to live and let live. If it isn't coming at him as a direct threat, he's content to enjoy the world around him for what it is. He's learned to rest in his master's leadership and correction. He's an enjoyable soul to be around. He exhibits safety, smarts, and composure.

Now, everyone loves a puppy. But we all know puppies must be trained, corrected, and encouraged towards change, towards maturity. We want them to be housebroken as soon as possible. We want them to learn to chew on what's theirs and only what is theirs. And while we correct behavior, what we really are after is internal composure.

External composure indicates internal composure, otherwise known as self-control.

Likewise, external mayhem indicates internal mayhem.

Ever see an untrained adult dog? They remain like that puppy at the door long after puppy hood departs.... still reacting to every stimulus that passes by. They are unruly on walks and generally put off an air of being unsafe. You just never know what you're going to receive from them: a lick or a bite.

We ALL have a responsibility within the Body of Christ to grow in self control; to NOT be the permanent “adult” puppy who runs around self-centeredly, crashing into the world around them, with destructive tendencies, possessing the ability to lay a hurtin' on anyone who appears to be a threat.

Understanding that no one else is responsible for our individual behavior and sin choices is the first step towards sanctification in Christ. 

Simply put, own your life.

No one, BUT YOU,  is responsible for your walk, your choices, your behavior, your sin, your moods, your internal composure. 

Finger-pointing and projecting did not work in the Garden nor at any other point in history since; it does not work now.

We, individually, are responsible for our own choices, our own actions, which are anchored in either a pure heart bent towards God or an evil heart opposing God. Period.

That said, actions do bear consequences - inescapable consequences - that for the maturing Christian registers and usually halts unwise action. But for the eternal puppies, the ones who simply refuse correction towards change and growth, well, life deals to them degrees of pain, and unfortunately Body pain – because no sin is confined to a bubble.

Ever see an old dog being harassed by a puppy? I have. Actually this second scenario is real, from inside my home currently. When our puppy bounces around, over, and under our twelve year old dog, the twelve year old, if not in the mood to play, will find me - puppy actively nipping at his heels all the way to me - and will give me the hard eye with a nonverbal stare of “Do something!” He knows me to be alpha. He knows I will intervene. He is at rest in my leadership.

Disagreements are a part of the human condition.

Simply put: they are going to happen.

BUT GOD.

Differing perspectives are a part of the human condition.

Simply put: they are a given.

BUT GOD.

Differing degrees of maturity are a part of the human condition.

Simply put: they are going to exist. 

BUT GOD.

When the two individuals, who disagree, having differing perspectives, BOTH take the disagreement into the presence of The Alpha, Omega comes. (The End.... of disagreement, disunity, disharmony, immaturity.)

Understand, in His presence, there is NO alternative.

He is the embodiment of unity.

He is the embodiment of reconciliation.

We all must ask ourselves:

1) "How important is my perspective?" Worth disunity?  Will your behavior garner His correction?

2) "Am I conducting myself in such a manner as to display maturity, regard, and  safety; or immaturity, disregard, and harm?"  Will your behavior garner His correction?

Ultimately, we are not after behavior modification, but a heart shift; and that ONLY comes from abiding in His presence. Again, He doesn't just promote unity.... He IS unity; he doesn't just promote reconciliation...He IS reconciliation.   He IS to be our very personal, very intimate Alpha who is also our very personal, very intimate Omega!

I hope these two scenarios provoke deep reflection concerning your own walk. Let there be a walk of deep introspection as you weigh what I have shared here. Ask the Lord for understanding that extends beyond your own to that of HIS!

Certainly no one is suggesting sin nor immaturity be glossed over or excused, but we are not to stoop to rants or retaliations.  Neither are we to go in the opposite direction of disengaging because we disagree or get offended or don't get our way.  These behaviors are childish and are not the marks of a maturing Christian.

No, our responsibility is to keep our eyes on JESUS, as our Alpha and our Omega, being willing to have our character turned inside out before Him so He can remove spot and blemish, as OUR part in sanctifying and preserving the unity of the Body.

Keep your eyes on your walk, and if disagreements arise – which they will – be quick to go into the Throne Room of Grace so your Alpha can also show Himself to be your Omega!  

Godspeed!