Thoughts all a jumble

My thoughts are in a jumble tonight.

I’ve been reading a book about the Holy Spirit. Much of what I am reading I agree with…but then I googled the author of the book and found that many “apologetics” consider him a heretic.

Why? Because he said that in the Scriptures, Jesus never preached the Bible. Jesus preached the Kingdom of God.

The apologetic writer asserts that it is impossible to separate the two and that when Jesus was preaching about the Kingdom of God, since the Word is God (John 1), he was also preaching the Word.

It makes me feel like I am in over my head!

I am no Bible scholar. I am a Christian woman who seeks after the heart of God. I want passion in my worship and in my life. I want to be all about pointing others towards God’s glory.

But I don’t want to accidentally lay hold of and believe a false teaching, though, being deceived by the kernel of truth in it.

How I wish I had the training to discern such things logically!

All I know tonight is that I do not want to adhere to a doctrine that limits the power of God in any way, shape or form. God is God. He is just as able to heal, to encourage, to go before and to lift up as He was in the days in which the New Testament (and OT) were penned. To say that somehow he allowed miracles to die away is actually adding something false to scripture.

No one doctrine is 100% correct…because we are people. We aren’t God. We fail in our attempts to put the God of creation in a context we can understand.

At any rate, I put the book down because I need to read for myself and investigate spiritual gifts.

I must learn to rest and know that God knows my heart and my motivations. He knows that I want to be in love with Jesus yet don’t really know the way. I love him; he knows that. But I know some people who are IN love with him. Is there a difference? I think there is, in terms of passion and drive. The people who put the Lord first in everything they do, who think about him, who talk to him in prayer conversationally throughout the day, who regularly “feed” on His word and who are passionate about loving the people around them…those are the ones who are IN love with Jesus. I’m still kicking myself for forgetting to say the blessing tonight at dinner. I am not in that league. I still sin and need His forgiveness every single day.

He has already brought me peace tonight as I write these words: God does not change. People do.

I can rest on that truth.

Singing with my mouth…but not with my soul

My fingers have been itching to write over the past couple of weeks, but carving out time to do so is just not happening on a regular basis.

It’s cold today here, at least by North Texas standards.  My spine hurts, my fingers hurt, my knees hurt, and my hips hurt.  I don’t know if there is a joint in my body that is not aching today.  Maybe the one in my little toe…

But I digress.  This cold, dreary weather is an accurate reflection of the inside of me at the moment.  My spiritual temperature is lukewarm.  I feel cluttered and dirty inside.  Just like the drawers in my kitchen, I am jumbled and confused.

Today I had one of those Mommy Meltdowns.  It was so sweet to hear my daughter try to build my spirits up:

Me: I hate my cluttered life!

Her: You hate me?

Me: Of course not! (Tears begin to flow)  I hate my cluttered drawers and cluttered closets.  I hate the clutter in the cabinets and the clutter in my heart.  I haven’t been eating right, when I bother to eat at all, and I haven’t been exercising.  (mumbling through a torrent of tears while navigating the car through forty mph winds) I hate the fact that I can’t properly teach you how to be orderly because I don’t know how to do it myself!

Her: I think you just said a cuss word?

Me: I hate the fact that I can’t teach yo how to be orderly because I don’t know how to do it myself!

Her: Mom, I think you just need to rest.  You don’t have to check email all the time. (out of the mouths of babes….)  You don’t have to stand there and do my math with me.  I am capable of doing it by myself.  I can read my history.  If you need a break, just take one!  Go read!  Go have fun!

At this point in our conversation, I realized how wonderful my daughter is and how blessed I am to have her.   I also realized something about myself — I don’t know how to play.

I am seriously deficient in the play part of life.  I do not feel fulfilled unless I am completing a task.  My free time is eaten up with email and other Classical Conversation business (I direct a local campus) or Heart for Homeschooling co-op (I am on the board) and with Facebook.  Or with downloading my photos or creating another brochure.  Or laundry.  Or dishes.  Or cooking.

The only leisure activity I really know how to do is read.  Yet the only time I have available to read is in the evenings….and this is a bad thing for family time because when I read, I really GO places.  I get lost in the story and block out everything else around me.  Too much of that is not good for my family.

Board games irritate me.  I don’t know why, but they do.  I sit and try to play Scrabble or Go Fish or CatchPhrase and end up with a creepy, irritated feeling crawling over me.  It’s weird.  Ditto with video games. Yuck.  Not my idea of fun.

I used to enjoy painting.  I’d get lost for hours in a painting…which is why I don’t do paintings anymore.  I no longer have time to get lost, to abandon myself to anything, much less to the Lord!

Which brings me to another topic. Disappointment.  Restlessness.  Hope.  The Holy Spirit.

I belong to a Fellowship Bible Church that recently (within the past two years) opened a new building.  I have the most wonderful friends at this church.  The teaching is very solidly Bible-based.  Yet I’ve been feeling restless.  I’m trying to figure out if that restlessness is a product of my selfishness or if it is a stirring by God for something different…something more spirit-filled.

There is a woman who recently led the children’s worship time.  She composed beautiful motions to go along with the songs, and her heart was IN it!  There was something powerful and incredibly beautiful about the way she abandoned herself to the words and the meaning, and it came through in her motions.  I was moved to tears as she led the children in a very authentic, heart-felt prayer, and I found myself wishing that the adult worship experience could be as free as the children’s.

When I first began going to my church, I was one of a few people who raised their hands up in worship.  Even when the worship leader exhorts people to do so, most don’t.  Lately I haven’t, either, because I haven’t “felt” it.  Does that make sense?  And so I sing with my mouth but not with my soul.

Which makes me wonder…is the Lord leading me to a different church body?  Or is He prompting me to do something else within this body?  Is my inability to play somehow a product of me doing something wrong spiritually…of unconfessed sin, or unforgiveness, or incomplete understanding of the Holy Spirit?  Incomplete belief?

I have one more Sunday of teaching Sunday School, and then I am stepping down.  Even I realize I need rest.  Perhaps the extra rest will give my soul the space and time it needs to reconnect spiritually.

Worshipping in sprit is what I crave, and it is what my Jesus said I am to do:

²³Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. ²⁴God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” John 4:23-24

I deeply want to be the kind of worshiper the Father seeks.  I want to worship Him with my soul, with all that I am, and not just with my mouth.

 

Ready for Open House?

I am running around like a crazy woman preparing for tomorrow’s open house of our Classical Conversations community.

More later on my Halloween evening experiences and a missed opportunity to adequately explain my homeschooling positions.  Muddled.  That’s about all I was.  Too bad people expect me to actually use.my.voice.  I communicate so much better in writing when I have that handy DELETE key! )

Where The Shadow Falls

It’s Halloween…a day of funky costumes and spooky ghost stories about shadowy figures lurking behind hidden doorways.

Usually I scoff at Halloween superstitions.  But today my reading of Acts 5 brought to light a true supernatural story about shadows.

Supernatural happenings were popping up all over the place.  A man who had been crucified mysteriously disappeared from his tomb and then was found to be alive by at least 500 witnesses.  This same man was lifted up into the heavens, leaving behind disciples who had been touched by what are described as “tongues of flames” of the Holy Spirit.  These men then went out and spread the good news about Jesus being the Messiah to anyone who would hear it, defying the religious rulers and authorities who ordered them to stop preaching in Jesus’ name.  Everywhere they went, people were healed of diseases and came to know the Lord.

These disciples became so popular that crowds came to them.   Sick people were carried to sit or lie by the side of the roads where Peter and his disciples walked to and from the temple where they preached the truth about Jesus.

As a result of the apostles’ work, sick people were brought out into the streets on beds and mats so that Peter’s shadow might fall across some of them as he went by. Crowds came from the villages around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those possessed by evils spirits, and they were all healed.

Most of the time the word “shadow” has a negative connotation.  When I take the dog outside on a cold day, I’d rather stand in the sunshine than in the shadow of the house.  Shadows make me shiver.  On a hot day, I don’t stand in the shadow of the tree — I stand in the shade.

Yet this account tells us that there was real power in Peter’s shadow.  Multiple people were healed of their diseases simply by sitting in the shadow of one who had walked with the Lord.

It’s important to realize that Peter was not perfect — he denied Christ three times after he was arrested.  He had been an ordinary everyman whose name had been Simon until Jesus gave him the name The Rock.  I wonder if he knew that one day the Lord would use his shadow for miraculous works…

One thing is certain: the man whose shadow fell on the sick and healed them was bold for Christ.  He stood up to the ACLU of his times and pronounced the hard truth no matter what the consequences.

“We must obey God rather than any human authority. The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead after you killed him by hanging him on a cross.1 Then God put him in the place of honor at his right hand as Prince and Savior. He did this so the people of Israel would repent of their sins and be forgiven. We are witnesses of these things and so is the Holy Spirit, who is given by God to those who obey him.”

Does your shadow cast a power by the Holy Spirit?  I think today is a good day to think about those unseen powers in the spiritual realm…real power like Peter’s power, which comes from God above, to be used for Good, not Evil.  Now that’s a supernatural story to beat a haunted house, any day!

125 Shirts in the Closet

This morning I read in Acts 3 about the early Christians taking care of each other.  Not one of their number (and it was over 5000) was in need of anything, because they all shared what they had.  Those who had much liquified some of their holdings in order to help provide for those who had little.

It’s not a coincidence that after reading that story I had the idea to take stock of my closet. It’s the BermudaTriangle of my house and desperately needs organizing.  There are nineteen pairs of shoes and 125 shirts and sweaters.  Not including my pants and dresses.  Not including my husband’s clothing.

What in heaven’s name am I doing with 125 tops?  Yikes!  To be fair to myself, I admit that at least three quarters of them are probably ten years old or older.  But that doesn’t eliminate the fact that there they sit, collecting dust and other closet grubbies, while another Christian somewhere halfway across the world makes do with one or two shirts and one pair of shoes mended with cardboard.

I am just one person.  How can I make a difference?  How can I change my life so that I resemble those first Christians who realized that nothing they owned was really theirs and shared with each other, seemingly without a second thought?  I feel so insignificant in the face of the world’s woes.

Our nation is Lost, with a capital L.  The Muslim countries who vilify us and call us the Great Satan may only be labeling what they see as our consummate greed.  Even those of us who claim to be Christians often live sequestered lives, turning a blind eye and refusing to see, to really see, the world as our God sees it.  Instead, we think of judgmental excuses:

• That homeless man with one arm holding a sign is really just a con artist.
• That one over there is just gonna go buy some dope, so why give him anything?
• What kind of woman with three kids ends up homeless?  She must be on drugs or something.
• Why should I give money to the food bank?  Isn’t that what food stamps are for?
• Those people want to live on the streets.

In this tight economy, we find ourselves holding on to what we have with a death grip, forgetting that everything material is temporary, except the love that we show to each other.  Maybe one reason Christianity is losing ground in our country is that we have stopped taking care of our own…or, at the very least, is because the media has stopped reporting about us taking care of our own.  There is a new religion rising up in the USA.  It’s called Government.  People everywhere are turning to the Government to save them

…from foreclosure
…from unemployment
…from hunger

Why Government?  If there were no needy among us, would the government still feel compelled to step in?

The old song, They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love, rings hollow today when we spend 105 percent of what we earn (a statistic from 2007, before the recession).  How can we give to others when we are so wrapped up in ourselves?

Oh, that the Lord would just wipe the smudges off our lenses so we could see ourselves as we really are…and then so we’d do something about it.  Repent.  Turn away from materialism. Reach out a helping hand.

There are many avenues to explore, starting with our churches.  Local food banks.  Leftover food from restaurant often gets thrown out.  Discarded clothing ends up in landfills all over the country.  Homeless shelters have many needs.

One of those needs is a family headed by a single mom named Irene.  I don’t know her situation, but whatever it was, she had to leave everything behind her.  Maybe it was spousal abuse.  Maybe her husband became very ill and died, leaving immense medical expenses.  For whatever reason, Irene and her three young children found themselves without a home.  Can you imagine not having a place to lay your head at night?  Can you fathom what it is like to not know where your four year old girl will get her next meal?

A local homeless shelter took her in, and the shelter has been their only home for awhile now while Irene gets back up on her feet.  She has a good job and is about to move into the shelter’s transitional housing program with a twist: she and her children will move into the furnished apartment with the knowledge that everything they see around them: the furniture, the clothing, the food, the dishes, the beds — is now theirs.  When she graduates from the program in eighteen months, she’ll be able to secure her own apartment, or even home, based on the good credit she’s earned, without having to start over.

I have had the immense blessing of partnering with the homeless shelter in this endeavor for Irene.  I’ve used my church and homeschooling contacts to completely furnish Irene’s apartment.  I tell you this not to toot my own horn but to encourage you to follow your own nudgings.  This has all been possible because of God’s blessing and leading and design.  He planted the idea when I saw a newspaper article about the program years ago.  It took several years of desire on my part to do something before enough doors opened to allow me to act.  Words just can’t express the true joy I have experienced through this process.  I scrubbed someone else’s shower and toilet with such vigor (the job required it!) that my muscles shook from exertion.  I wanted it to be clean for Irene, you see.  As I labored, though, I sang, just from the pure joy of using my time to serve someone in need.  This is clearly a new beginning for Irene.  But it is also a new beginning for me!  I am proud of what God has done through my hands and the hands of those of my friends who have pitched in to help.  My utmost hope is that Irene will walk into her new apartment and feel the love her heavenly father has for her.

But this blog isn’t about me, or even about Irene.  It’s about you, Christian.

Somewhere you have seen something about helping others that resonates with your soul: maybe it was something in church or a direct mail advertisement.  Maybe you felt a twinge as you walked past a panhandler downtown or feel drawn to help secure clean drinking water for the millions in the world who have none.  If you are a Christian, then be assured that the Holy Spirit is gently prompting you to action, whatever that may be.

We will never reflect Christ as we should until we step out in faith and love others.  We will never reflect our Lord until we put the welfare of others above ourselves.  That kind of love is attractive.  As Toby Mac aptly puts it,

Love is in the house and the house is packed
So much so I left the back door cracked
Mama always said it’s a matter of fact
that when love is in the house the house is packed…”

I pray we will each take a moment to reflect that our lives aren’t about us.  He created each one of us for purposes beyond ourselves.  Even Jesus, the Lord we love, existed for a purpose beyond his status as God’s Only Son: he existed for God’s Glory.  He constantly looked for ways to glorify God, whether it was by restoring someone’s sight, turning water into wine, or raising a person from the dead.  He told us that we would do GREATER things than those miracles, for God’s glory.

Do you believe Him?

Like Jesus, you exist for God’s Glory.  How will you reflect the Glory this week?

The Windy City, Tall Buildings, and Conquered Fear

We had a nice long weekend in downtown Chicago.  The people were very friendly, and despite the chilly weather and the rain, we managed to do some sightseeing.  I really enjoyed meeting many of my husband’s relatives.  A wedding is a great reason to celebrate!

Another reason I had for celebrating is that I did not have any chest pain the whole trip.  Not on the plane, not during social situations (which is when it usually hits me), and not during any of the many meals we ate.  I praise God for that because the previous week I had several days when that afternoon chest pain settled in.  Sometimes I have to go to bed, prop myself up on pillows, and get lost in a book before the pain begins to abate. I can only thank the Lord for protecting me from that pain during the trip.

My husband and daughter went up to the 103rd floor of the Sears Tower (now called the Willis Building).  They stood on a glass observation deck 103 stories above the earth, and while my daughter giggled and loved the giddy experience, my husband felt, for the first time, a twinge of panic.  He told me last night that he now has perhaps a little inkling of what it is that I go through.  I went to a before-the-wedding party on the 44th floor of the hotel and gritted my teeth the entire time.  The super fast elevator messed with my inner ear and made me dizzy…but I did not let that fear conquer me.  He was proud of me.  I was glad the Lord gave me a strong man whose hand in mine gives me courage I didn’t know I possessed.

Before I met my husband, I did not take elevators.  Ever.  Seriously — I walked ten flights of stairs instead of taking the elevator. So…taking an elevator up to the very top of the hotel was a huge accomplishment for me. Growth is a good thing even when it comes hand in hand with growing pains.

The Free Lunch Culprit

I read a news story today that reported on another study about the “obesity epidemic” among children.  The culprit, according to the story, is the unhealthy school lunch paid for by the government (in other words, paid for by taxpayers) to feed children whose parents can’t afford to feed them.

Let me get this straight: these children are so poor and hungry that they are……..obese?

Is anyone else out there puzzling over this discrepancy?

There is no doubt that the Lord calls us to feed those who are hungry, but I think His definition of “hungry” might differ from our government’s definition of hungry.  I’m thinking of the children in Africa who are literally skin and bones, whose bellies poke out not from too many twinkies and cokes but from malnutrition.  These children might get one bowl of rice a day, period.  No strawberries or apples or bananas.  No carrots or green beans or salad.  Just rice.  Those are the kids who truly need $2.92 a meal, which is what a typical school meal costs.

Our government nannies at the Department of Agriculture dictate that our US kids need more fruit and vegetables and whole grains, and they require schools districts who get federal lunch money (taxpayer lunch money) to provide meals that adhere to the food pyramid guidelines.  I’m okay with that — I’d much rather my tax dollars pay for homemade bread than pop tarts — but there’s a catch (of course).  The government (again, that means we the taxpayers) only pays out $2.68 per lunch.  According to the School Nutrition Association, each “free” lunch costs about $2.92 each.  Who makes up the difference?  We do.  To cover the cost differential, schools increase the cost of lunch for everyone else.

What does this twenty-four cent difference mean for the average taxpayer who does not qualify for the free lunch program?

In 2007, 5.1 Billion free lunches were served.  At a twenty-four cent shortfall per lunch, that means there were $1.2 million between what those lunches cost and what taxpayers paid.  Those of you whose children eat school lunches paid extra, on top of what you already pay in income tax, to cover the difference.

During the general election I wrote a blog about Michelle Obama’s comments regarding making sure that everyone “gets a piece of the pie.”

Hmmm.  What kind of pie was she referring to?  The School Lunch pie?  The Medicaid pie?  How about that Social Security pie?

What kind of pie do you deserve?

Me?

I’d rather serve it than eat it.

¹²When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them.¹³“You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. ¹⁴Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. ¹⁵I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. ¹⁶I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. ¹⁷Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.
John 13

Looking out for rainbows

I know those God-colored glasses are around here somewhere…

I had a call today from the oncology nurse.  The CT scan showed “borderline enlarged” supraclavical lymph nodes.  The doctor wants me to have a repeat chest CT scan in 3 months to see if there has been any change in their sizes.

I very politely and sweetly spoke with the nurse, but the moment I hung up the phone, I fell apart.  I cried buckets of tears…called my husband.  Called my mother-in-law.  Cried some more.

Not another CT scan!  I lost four pounds in one day the last time I had to endure the xray tube.  The anxiety is just too much to handle, and I feel bruised and broken all over.

Then I came across a mommy devotion by Lisa Welchel.  The title?  ”Where is God in all of this?”

Lisa quotes a devotion from Oswald Chambers:

Behold, He cometh with clouds.  -Revelation 1:7

In the Bible clouds are always connected with God. Clouds are those sorrows or sufferings or providences, within or without our personal lives, which seem to dispute the rule of God. It is by those very clouds that the Spirit of God is teaching us how to walk by faith.

Cloudy is an apt description of the state of my thoughts and my faith.  I do take comfort, though, in knowing that hidden within those clouds is a rainbow.

Again, I need special glasses to see it.

Until then, a song keeps running through my head.  I share it with you here:

Saying “Blessed be the name of the LORD,” while walking in the wilderness, is a CHOICE.  It is not easy, especially for someone like me who likes very much to be in control, to let go.  To bless the name of the Lord…because…

• HE is holy
• HE is the light
• HE is my Creator
• HE is my Salvation
• HE is my hope
• HE is my strength
• HE includes me in his family
• HE collects all my tears in a bottle
• HE cares for me
• HE knows me…and loves me anyway.

So I will praise Him through these clouds until I catch a glimpse of the rainbows hidden inside.

God-colored glasses

Today’s blog is a confession.  I have been battling writer’s block.  Carpal tunnel is making my writing jaunts fewer and far between, but I compose blogs in my head all day long!  I read something in the newspaper….or hear something in a sermon….or read something in the Bible…or observe something beautiful and want to share it.  But then when I sit down to write, all words stop.  I think this has a lot to do with the state of my relationship with my God.  You see, I am walking in the desert place.  I have unresolved health issues and am striving with a medical culture that thinks nothing of over-testing and under-reporting and that places no credence of the Power and Reality of God.  I have real struggles with phobias that pull me down in the quagmire, leaving me physically exhausted and emotionally drained.  My Bible reading seems forced.  My worship — which used to be bubbly and joyful with outstretched arms — now feels subdued.

Today’s sermon, in part, dealt with having joy in all circumstances.

Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, Rejoice. (Phil 4:4)

I think the preposition “in the Lord” must be the key to being able to have joy while walking through the wilderness.  Truthfully, as I sit and write here today, there is no joy in me.  Joy is not to be mistaken with happiness.  Happiness is fleeting — but joy is much bigger.  It is a framework through which we can look at life…like God-colored glasses.  When I am trudging through this desert, how do I perceive the sand swirling around me?

Have I been blinded?  Or do I use my God-colored glasses to see the true reality in the spiritual realm — that the Lord himself is watching over me?

I sobbed my way through the song Amazing Love today because I really can’t get my mind around the fact that God wants me.

Amazing love, how can it be? That you my King would die for me?  Amazing love, I know it’s true…and it’s my joy to honor you…

The Lord redeemed me…so why do I still feel like damaged goods?  Why do I feel worthless and unlovable?

Cause I took off my God-colored glasses and have been wallowing in the sand, that’s why!

A joyful response to the desert in my spiritual life would be…what?  To keep walking.  To stand firm.  To refuse to allow the enemy to convince me that I am beyond saving and worthless.  To focus my inward eyes on the Lord who takes me by the hand and guides me, trusting that these words still hold true, over 2000 years since they were first written:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Phil 4)

Now if only I could remember where I put those glasses….

Battling the CT machine

I went in today for a CT Scan.  For most people, such a test would be no big deal.  Just drink the stuff they give you, present your arm for the IV, and wham bam get the scans done and leave.

I wish with all my strength that I could have been such a person.

Instead, I battled Fear.  I went in unprepared spiritually for such a battle.  Oh, I’d read my scriptures this morning, but that old Anxiety monster reared its ugly head.  Seven hours later, I’m still feeling the effects of the panic attack.

The first battle was trying to drink the “dye.”  It was flavored like lemonade, but I had an empty stomach (I’d been fasting) and  I have never been able to “gulp” down any drink.  Too afraid it would come back up!  So I sat and sipped a miniscule amount.

The next battle was deciding to let the technician put the contrast agent in my IV.  I was shaking uncontrollably at this point.  He rattled off sensations I might feel, and I panicked when he said I’d have a metallic taste in my mouth.  There’s a backstory to this one — way back when I was pregnant with my second baby who is now in heaven, the doctors treated me with all kinds of meds to try to get the nausea at bay.  One of the meds gave me a metallic taste in my mouth just prior to an attack of nausea.  Maybe that’s why I was so stricken.  I’m not sure.  I can’t explain it.

I started to cry and told him I couldn’t do it.  After a few false starts, I thought of my daughter and went ahead with the procedure.

I’ve been emotional ever since. Tears of disappointment in myself.  I just about fell apart in that radiation room, and I am not even facing the same things the other patients there are probably facing!  Where was my faith?  It was gone.  I was in the boat in the middle of the storm, terrified of the wind.  The Lord was right there but still I cried and trembled and wished desperately that I could control these panic reactions.  I did not feel his presence with me in that room.  I wish I could say that I did.

I feel His presence now.  I know he never left me.  And ultimately it was HIS strength that got me to go through with it at all, because I was a millisecond away from jumping off the table.

I came across another familiar verse yesterday that is sticking with me for some reason.  Jesus quoted the scripture about the cornerstone in Luke 20:

The stone the builders rejected
has become the capstone
Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed.”

I used to pass over that verse thinking that it didn’t apply to me, but now I’m not so sure.  I looked up the Greek word for “falls” — and one of its meanings is to fall prostrate before someone.  Perhaps it means that those of us who follow Jesus, who fall at his feet, are the ones who will be broken to pieces.  Perhaps we have to be broken to pieces so He can remake us again.

If that’s the case, he has a regular Humpty Dumpty on his hands with me today, because I feel broken and bruised, physically (from the anxiety attack earlier — sore neck, weak, shaky legs, extreme fatigue) and emotionally (why didn’t I feel Him?)

Fortunately, the fact that I didn’t perceive Him is irrelevant.  He was there.  My King WILL put me back together again.  Someday.