I'm a visual learner. My eyes have to see for my mind to soak in. After dark for weeks now I've been retreating to the school room table. The treasures are in bed, my Joey is fast asleep on couch (it's 7:30pm folks :). I gather up a warm cup of tea, a paper plate, a small cup of water. I find a handful of brushes in the closet, some oil crayons deep inside a drawer.
I'm not an artist by any sense of the word.
I sit down to six empty canvas' staring blank back at me.
I need His Word on my walls so that my eyes can see and my heart can remember. Where to begin? Those verses I love? The ones that I struggle to live out? The powerful simplicity of His Words? How can I choose? Where, Lord, can I begin?
I recently saw words on old metal signs down at the Hobby Lobby in town. They were His Words, in simple form read....
FOrgive Everyone Everything.
Forgiveness is with certainty a series of steps in the daily dance that I'm living. It's offered to me freely seventy times seven by the four little treasures in my home. Might I learn to forgive the way that they do... the way that He does... forgiving... everyone... everything... always?
That's where I'll start.
Forgive
Everyone
Everything...
A few nights later I'm lying in bed. It's dark and my eyes are refusing to rest. Looking around our safe-haven, it's my favorite room in the farm house, and my eyes catch a glimpse of the photo framed in wood resting on the sill. It's a captured memory of the the day we gave each other a couple of left hand rings, the day we spoke Hebrews 10:24 as a promise to one another... a promise that we would never give up in spurring one another on towards love, obedience, Him.
That's it... the next canvas...
I slip out of bed, make another cup of tea, and sit alone in the quiet hours, knowing that when the sun begins to rise, so does the volume and come morning my eyes will need to be scanning His Words, lovingly written on the wall...
Let us
Consider How
We May
Spur One Another
On
Towards Love
And
Good Deeds....
The next morning, the sun rises, the volume rises, the heat rises, my voice rises and I remember, I remember that it's His kindness that woos me, His kindness that draws me into Him, His kindness keeps on leading me into repentance.
That's it, another white canvas transformed into color, more of His Words on the wall...
DoThe
Kindest
Things
In The
Kindest
Ways
No sooner do I brush the last stroke, throw the paper plate in the trash, turn around to my Joey walking through the front door from mowing the fields.
He says words and they rub me the wrong way and my guard goes up and my heart shuts down. He gets what he needs then heads back out to his work, I'm left in the kitchen with my own girly thoughts.
Why doesn't love look like the movies and when did I ever think that true love comes without a cost? When did I start to believe that the raw, real love could possibly be fueled by selfishness and fear of the vulnerable humility? Why am I so cautious and when will I learn to accept the pain that so often leads to a greater joy?
My Joey, he has no idea that he's stung me. He's fully man, wise, yet simple-minded. In ten years of love He's never been a mind reader, what made me wake up this morning and think that all of a sudden he could see into my heart, guess my thoughts?
How does the Lord love and what did He say about how we should love?
His Love
Was Not
Cautious
But
Extravagant,
He did not love in
Order to get something
From us
But to give everything
Of Himself
To Us!
Love
Like
That!
When my Joey walks back in, hours have past and time has allowed me to push through the caution tape wrapped tightly around my soul. My Joey listens willingly as I fumble through words. Through forgiveness and a joke or two, he pulls me in close and things are made right.
I'm in the learning. It's written on my wall now. Daily reminding me to rid myself of caution when it comes to learning to love deep.
In Him, there is always deepest joy to be found after the deepest pain. Christ on the cross. The Father witnesses the horrific, humiliating death of His one and only Son, deepest pain... Only to make way for an intimate deep relationship with millions of His once lost, now found and extravagantly loved children. On the other side of the pain is the deepest of joys.
Two canvas' remain white tucked away in the corner by the tall black hutch. More life to be learned, more white transformed into color, more writing on the wall for my eyes to see and my soul to soak in...
*I'm a quiet Mama of four who spends most of her days doing laundry and washing dishes, but there's this hope that the raw and real mess that lies bare on these blog pages, will take me out my front door and into the rain of His extravagant love... To a place where I can witness His perfect love scattering all my fears.
She Speaks is a conference about 'a gathering of mentors who bend as midwives, to serve what God is birthing in your heart.' Ann Voscamp is offering a scholarship for the conference. I'm a gal most comfortable when no one is looking... Dare I step out into Him?? :)
