Grace for Grace

 There is rest in the middle of tension, peace in the middle of grief.  We have been given the Holy Spirit, the Comforter!!! Maybe I wasn't meant to focus on that as intently as I do, but I have felt the gift of the Comforter over and over in my life. Honestly it's an eerie thing, that kind of rest and peace, because when I know that I should be agitated or freaking out or stressed, that peace is so steady, and it feels a little crazy.  There is a peace that comes from walking with the Holy Spirit. In John, Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will be sent to teach us all things and that He will leave Him for us. And then the next verse says that Jesus is giving us Peace. Since peace is a fruit of the Spirit, I believe that Jesus was referencing walking with the Holy Spirit. Peace that passes all understanding, that fills us even when we are in unrest. That peace, the Comforter, comes and untangles the knots.  It never comes when you would expect. I've dropped mugs of cof...

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all they heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." This year I felt the concept of wholeheartedness being more important. At the beginning of the year, I didn't super know what that meant, thought I could feel that part of it was every single piece of who I am and what I do being aligned with God. It was a vague feeling, so it wasn't super helpful, but I trusted that the Holy Spirit would bring more understanding as it was needed. We were made to be whole, not fragmented, not splintered so that parts of ourselves are at war with other parts. Sin does that, it pits parts of ourselves against each other. In the Psalms, David talks about his soul being damaged by sin, praying that God would repair his insides because sin had wrecked them. That doesn't mean that wholeheartedness looks like perfection, but it looks like total pursuit of what God values, even when we mess up: reconciliation with no shame, accepting ...

"A father of the fatherless," "God setteth the solitary in families:" Family was the original design for everything. Family is literally what this all has been about: closeness, connection, love. Being so deeply entrenched in the Trinity. Us in Him and Him in us. I don't think that we're supposed to become the 4th member of the Trinity or anything, but surrounded by the Trinity, walking in harmony and constant connection. Jesus became human so that we could see a perfect model of the Christian walk. He said that He didn't do anything apart from His father. When did we lose how we interact with each other? The family of Christ, the Body of Christ, has become such a polarized and separated people. It looks normal because it's what I'm used to, but if I stop to really think about it, it is so sad and so out of balance.  We look at other Christians as "other" instead of "brother". Humanity's origin was "Let's make som...

I had a dream a while back, and in the dream I carried my Bible with me everywhere, and there were people trying to take it from me, I don't remember all the details, but what I do remember so clearly is the feeling of urgency and conviction when I said "If I lose it, I will die." And in the dream that was literal, if I lost the Bible, I knew I would die right there, but it has become a connection that I believe to be true. I know that if I set down my Bible, I'm not going to keel over, but I also know that the Word is my hope, my way of knowing God, and seeing that He is who He says He is. Those words are life everlasting, and if I lose them, I will die. The Bible is not some dusty religious text, it is a living, preserved, and 100% accurate letter from God to His children so that they would know Him, and they would know that what He says is TRUTH. It is literally the words of God, the words of Jesus, and we get to read them and live our lives according to them. It...

When it comes to boundaries, I am completely lost. A friend recently came to me and asked for advice on how to have boundaries, and I answered the best I could albeit catered to her situation, but it made me realize that I have no idea how to have boundaries or even what they really are.  I'm not afraid to say no, so maybe that is a boundary, but I am such an open book and I would love to sit down with a stranger or a friend and read to them my journal. I think because I feel so held and cared for and known by God, none of my "innermost" thoughts and feelings seem like a big deal. And likewise, I want to hear about other's innermost fears and thoughts and stresses. I want to so completely know others, and listen, and I feel like I can do that because none of their stuff feels too heavy since I'm not taking it on. Maybe that's another boundary? I throw my heart into everything, get attached to ideas and people so quickly, but I am not emotionally fragile o...

 We are blind and limited and fallible. I don't care how old or wise or experienced or "enlightened" you are, you are still blind and still limited. As someone who is still working through my own ideas of self-worth and earning love and acceptance, those sentences are just as much for me as for anyone.  He has given us everything we need to live our life by so that we don't have to use our own understanding, and we have taken it as a suggestion, as a guideline that we get to change based on our feelings, using our own judgement.  This new wave of Christianity that touts blind love and allowance (because it isn't just acceptance, it is allowance. Acceptance is the opposite of rejection. Jesus accepted. Allowance is the opposite of restraint. It is fleshy and self-serving. Paul warned us against it.) is just as damaging as the Christianity that touted exclusivity based on arbitrary earthly measures.  We condemn legalism while remaining blind to the other side of the...

For one of the first times that I can ever recall, I actually wasn't prideful or defensive or offended in a conflict. I was clear and I was careful. This is huge for me because even if I don't act on it, I usually feel those spiteful, offended, or even self-pitying feelings.  I was hurt, but I didn't dwell on it, I didn't stew. It was a natural hurt that didn't turn into anything. It felt...healthy. And because I knew that I loved the person so much more than my self-protection or allowing bitterness to whisper sweet nothings to me, the resolution was the easiest thing in the world. I didn't try to make her feel sorry, I didn't try to "get justice" for myself. I wanted peace between us, and I knew that she was a work in progress just like I am, and I am more than okay with giving her the space she needs to figure it out with God.  Y'all, this may not be a big deal for anyone other than me, but when God said that no one was good except for Him, ...