Not my will, but God's

I want to run and not grow weary.
I want to mount up on the wings of eagles and soar!
I want to experience life and vitality in these dry, weary bones.
I want to live with strength that is renewed each morning.
I want to breath in air of power.
I want to conquer the highest, steepest mountains.
I want to thrive with flesh that will not fail.

But most of all, I want God.

I want God even when I can't run.
I want God when I'm worn out and weary.
I want God when I can barely stand let alone fly. 
I want God when my bones are frail.
I want God when the morning doesn't bring bodily strength.
I want God when the air I breath doesn't make me feel very powerful.
I want God when the mountains I must climb don't conform to man's idea of adventure.
I still want God most of all when my flesh is terribly weak and failing.

Countless times I have asked God to give me the health of my heart's desire. I've placed before Him my list of wants and asked that He fulfill my requests. I've asked for properly functioning digestion, increased weight and calm muscles.
Oh, how I've asked!
I've asked Him to take this cup of physical suffering out of my hands. Through tears and pain I have asked God to send me relief.
But at the end of every prayer and petition, no matter what ailments and symptoms were on the day's list, my asking always ends the same way. It must end the same way.
It has to end with His will.

As Jesus prayed to God on the eve of His betrayal and ultimate suffering He asked God to be relieved from the terrible crucifixion to come. Jesus, being fully man, knew the unspeakable pain that was set before Him and, wanting to avoid such agony, asked God for a different way. But after He put that request before the throne of God He spoke the most important words of surrender ever uttered. "Not yet my will, but yours be done." (Luke 22:42).
Jesus wasn't relieved of the rescue mission that He had to accomplish by way of the cross. To purchase eternal salvation for the world Jesus had to give every breath in His body. He had to be spent till His blood ran dry and His body went cold. The only way for God to save the world was for Jesus to suffer the ultimate pain and submit to the cruelest form of crucifixion. The cup, the cup of sacrifice, could not be taken from Jesus.
God's one and only Son, His cherished and beloved Son, was not spared. God's most precious child, His very life blood, was spent till His last breath.
But Jesus rose again.
The cross, as brutal a punishment as it was, didn't end Jesus' story. His prayer spoke to God did not return void. God took that prayer and protected it so that it could be glorified on the third day. Jesus' longing to be relieved from the darkness of death and hell was brought to life when the stone of His grave was rolled away to reveal the Savior - alive!


For God's will to be accomplished and the salvation of mankind to be purchased it took suffering; the ultimate suffering of a perfect Lamb. It was the suffering of Jesus that made way for salvation. It was His pain that ushered in perfection. God took Jesus' prayer and stored it up in Heaven where the two are seated today, giving life to weary souls and strength to failing hearts.
It is because Jesus' choose the will of God that I can have everlasting life. So Lord, not my will but Yours be done.

Heart on Fire

God,
I'm afraid. Trust me when I tell you that I don't relish being a scardey cat. It pains me to admit to you and myself that I am terribly fearful but I can't deny the truth.
And, Lord, the truth is that I am truly afraid. Downright petrified. I am scared because I fear that the fire you've set within my heart will die out. I am afraid of losing this all-consuming passion within my heart that burns for you.
Through the heat of trials and tribulations You have shown me what it is like to be made truly alive in You. With matches shaped like struggles You've started fires of faith and hope within my heart. The embers of Your grace and peace have been stoked with the tools of hardship and suffering. I have experienced true joy, unspeakable joy, that can only be found in the heat of Your flame. You, God, have blessed my life with Your soul-burning heat, a heart-transforming inferno that consumes me with your love.
God, when I am caught up in this fire all I see is You. All I want is You. All I need is You.
But what would happen to my heart if you stopped lighting matches? What if there were no fire?
I'm afraid of what my life would be without Your mighty hand lighting glorious matches. I'm fearful that without the burning embers and roaring flames the fire in me will weaken, diminish and even go cold. I'm fearful that without the heat of trials I might fail to live in the presence of Your perfect joy and peace. I'm afraid that if you cease adding new logs to the fire in my heart the inferno won't last. I fear that I could so easily fail to faithfully fan the flames of Your Spirit in me.
Oh, Lord, please help me. Please don't let this fire within me die!
God, now that I have experienced life in the middle of Your burning bush the cold world will no longer do. The only life I long to live is the one surrounded, consumed, and overtaken by your flame. The one thing I desire is to be perpetually stoked and stirred with passion for You. My most fervent prayer is to never let the inferno of my soul lose its strength.
Lord, relieve me of my fear of a fire-less life and keep me in your heat. Fan the flames of my heart with Your Spirit that I may forever burn brightly and brilliantly for Your glory.
You, God, are my King and You alone are the reason my heart is on fire.

Your Beloved daughter,
Stephanie

My name is Stephanie...Not Skinny

It should have been an uneventful, simple introduction followed by an exchange of first names, concluding with a customary "nice to meet you." But not today. Not this interaction. Not this new acquaintance.
The dialogue began ordinarily. I greeted the new face before me a with hello, soon followed by the traditional trading of names, "My name is Stephanie." As expected, the woman replied by providing her name and a friendly "nice to meet."
Most introductory stories would end at this point but it was at this moment that a commonplace conversation took an unanticipated turn.
"So your name's Stephanie?" the woman said. Before I could reply she went on, "Or maybe you should be called Skinny?" I responded with a little chuckle and a vague, noncommittal response that my new acquaintance missed entirely because her soliloquy was off and running. 
"People must think you're a kid... You look like one. You probably wear kids clothes. I mean, come on, you can't weigh even 100 pounds. You don't, do you? No, you just couldn't."
In the matter of seconds every thought this woman had about my petite frame was out in the open air. Her words came out so effortlessly, without even a moment's pause. She had never laid on eyes on me before, barely knew my name but was entirely comfortable making personal commentary on the very form of my being. One quick visual inventory and this woman's thoughts and opinions were off and running - out loud and without any filter.
At one point in my life, a point not so long ago, this style of tactless bombardment would have brought a lump in my throat as I fought back tears. But not today. Not after seven years of rude, thoughtless, heartless commentary aimed in the direction of my weight and size. Not after countless sets of eyes judging my frail physique. Not after being stared at and approached by complete strangers on the street airing their thoughts and base-less opinions.
"I have MS... That's why I am so small." I paused, giving the woman time to respond, but for the first time since our conversation began she didn't have anything to say. So I continued, "You just never know what truly causes a person to be the person you see."
The rest of the exchange with my new, unfiltered acquaintance was minimal. She never offered up an apology, although she admitted that her comments probably sounded rude. I neither affirmed nor denied the analysis of her statements. I just smiled an effortless, genuine smile.
It was at that moment, when confronted with hardness and opposition, that I had a beautiful realization. This woman's words had no power over me. They didn't hurt me. They didn't rob me of peace or dampen my joy. They didn't shake my spirit. Her words didn't bring even a hint of a lump to my throat.
This woman is just one of many in a world obsessed with making criticisms and judgments for every shape and size. When given the power to do so, their harsh words can can cut to the core and cause the spirit lasting pain. 
But God tells me to pay no mind to the comments of the world. Listen only to the Lord's voice and hear His life-giving truth.
The truth is that God sees my heart, knows my size down to the ounce, and doesn't call me Skinny. He calls me Stephanie and He calls me His beloved. God doesn't look at me like the world looks at me, judging by my outward appearance. God looks exclusively at my heart.
Beloved, when you and I are fully known by God we need not fear the comments of man. United with Christ, identified with indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we can claim the freedom and peace of His acceptance and grace. By the power of God, you and I can be bombarded with the war of the world's words and smile with genuine joy because we are confident in whose we are and who we are in Christ.

Have you written your testimony?

Have you ever stopped and thought about your testimony? Not your pulpit-ready testimony that provides listeners with a recounting of experience or statement of belief. Don't get me wrong, I love those testimonies. I love the conversion testimony of Paul. Had I been among the church in Galatia reading it in Paul's own hand in the letter penned by the former-persecutor I would have been on the edge of my seat. I love to hear first-person accounts of being lost and then found, blind and then restored to 20/20 spiritual sight.
Years ago I wrote down my testimony. I even read it in front of my church congregation on Mother's Day. It was a duel testimony giving witness to God's ability to rescue and restore and the power of a Mother's prayers. My Mom cried (tears of joy) and I experienced the overwhelming peace of proclaiming my belief and faith in Jesus Christ.
Before I gave that testimony I thought long and hard about what I would say. I looked back at how Paul described his experience and I read his many letters attesting to the power of God. I wrote out rough drafts and crumpled up pieces of paper written with conviction until the message was just right. It was important to me that my testimony be communicated accurately, telling the whole story and the truth, nothing but the truth.
I can say with certainty that I stopped and thought about that testimony but what about that second testimony? The most important testimony I will ever write, and the one that will be of infinitely greater impact than any word I could ever say, is the testimony I tell each day with my attitude and actions. It is my unspoken witness for Christ that makes or breaks the written testimony. The testimony I tell with my tongue lives and dies by the sword of my everyday life. The person I am said to be on paper is known as fact or fiction by my behavior.
It is a daunting thought, don't you think? I can know every Bible verse and reference by heart (which I don't) and that wouldn't make my testimony great. I could have thousands of followers on this blog and books published with my name on the cover and chapters dedicated to faith and still that wouldn't write my witness. It couldn't because my witness can't be written in black and white. My testimony isn't the sum of what I say. It is in who I am when no one is looking, in the places of my heart that no one can see. My true testimony is the way I treat others and the look I wear upon my face. My testimony is who I am known as. Or, more importantly, whose I'm known as.
The only testimony that I want to tell, that is worth telling, is Christ in me. The only possible way I can tell that story and write that witness is to let the Holy Spirit have His way in my life. Total, unconditional surrender is the only way to write this witness. When I try to write it on my own by good deeds and worthy intentions the story never ends well. I'm proven to be a fraud. My witness doesn't hold up in the court of public opinion.
But when Christ has my heart He writes the story, tells the testimony and provides flawless witness. He doesn't need a pen and paper. He certainly doesn't need a pulpit. He needs my every breath. He needs the moments when no one is looking. He needs my obedience. He needs me to be fully committed to His love and a consistent giver of His grace.
Then I will have a testimony. It won't be one I will ever need to write on paper. It will transcend words. It will endure forever.
So, have you ever stopped and thought about your testimony? Your real testimony - the unspoken testimony of who has your heart.

A strange thing happened in the shower...

A strange thing happened on my way to cleanliness in the shower. I scratched my cornea. How the damage occurred and which wash cloth and/or bathing product is to blame is a mystery. All I know is that one minute I was basking in the heat of the shower's strongest water pressure and a moment later I was cringing from an unrelenting stabbing pain torturing my left eye.
Houston, we have a problem.
Immediately I knew something was terribly wrong. This wasn't a simple soap-sud intrusion. This pain was fierce. Out of the shower and staring in the mirror I searched my bloodshot eye for any signs of debris but came up with nothing. I tried dropping solution in my eye and winking with the enthusiasm of a flirtatious teenage girl. Nothing seemed to help.
Three hours later and the pain was still causing me grief so I decided to take drastic measures.
I called the eye doctor.
Typically I'm not one to run to the doctor or call on a Saturday and beg for an appointment but the acute attack on my delicate orb had me worried. Thankfully one patient had just canceled. Could I be there in an hour? I could have been there in five minutes.
An hour later I was sitting in the big chair and dark room of the doctor's office. She flooded my left eye with all sorts of drops. One to numb, one to flush, one to illuminate. The fluids stung and made me flinch but the doctor never let a drop miss my eyeball target.
A few minutes and "hmms.." later the kind doctor slid away from her phoropter machine with a conclusive look on her face. On a pad of paper she drew a picture of an eyeball with a cornea in the center. Then she drew little lines all over the cornea and on the edges of the eyeball. "See those lines?" she asked. "Those are abrasions. You have them all over your cornea."
The doctor went on to confirm that the many little lines on her drawing were indeed the cause of my pain. That was the bad news. The good news was that the cornea is a quick healer. So off I went with a temporarily numbed eye and a prescription for eye drops to see me through the pain of recovery.
Ever since the scratched cornea proclamation I've been racking my brain, recalling my pre-pain experience in the shower. I've been going through the lathering and rinsing in my mind, asking myself, "When did it happen?...How did it happen?" And I keep coming up with question marks. I don't have a clue yet the evidence is there. The scratches are visible and the pain is undeniable. There was a precise moment in time when the incident took place and the damage occurred but I can't explain the how of it all.
Sometime during my brain-racking a little song began to play in my mind. You'll probably remember it from the grade school playground. "This is the song that never ends...and it goes on and on my friend." I remember being so annoyed by that song as a child. Kids would sing it over and over again and if you told them to stop they'd just increase their volume and turn the refrain on repeat a few extra times. But today when the song came to mind it didn't annoy me. It made me laugh because, for the first time in seven years, I saw my life in that song. The irony of my health condition is that song come to life. This condition and the saga of my symptoms go on and on, my friend. Somehow it started, I'll never know how and I've often wondered what it was. But the saga has continued being belted out forever just because...
Just because God has allowed it. Just because God has a purpose for it. Just because God intends to take every symptom, struggle, sage and scratched cornea to strengthen my faith. This ongoing refrain that God has allowed to play on repeat in my life has baffled me from the start. For years I have been as confused by the multitude of symptoms plaguing my body as I have been about the scratches on my cornea.
And yet the song plays on. God has taken the little sing-along ditty of my youth that drove me bonkers and used it to drive me to the foot of Christ's cross. I don't know if this song will end or when but I know Who is writing it and as long as He keeps playing this refrain, I'll keep singing along.

One Special Card

To celebrate my sixth date-less Valentine's Day I came up with an idea to honor the holiday and spread God's love. I purchased stacks of blank greeting cards, stickers and heart shaped stampers and wrote on the inside of each card a scripture about love. I searched my Bible concordance and Google and filled the cards with verses revolving around accepting Christ's love, sharing God's love and living a life of love.
After writing over fifty verses on fifty blank cards I took them and my Valentine's Day card decor to church where I grabbed the old and the young, the willing and the reluctant, to add whimsical stickers and rosy colored stamped images to the front of the cards and envelopes. Personal messages were encouraged but not required.
Once completed, our decorated scripture cards were delivered to men in the local drug rehabilitation program at our city's Christian rescue mission. I delivered the cards to the receptionist at the front desk who counted them out. We had made just enough with three to spare. The receptionist thanked me for the gesture, returned the extras cards and passed out the rest during the resident's morning meeting.
Making those cards, as simple as an act as it was, made my Valentine's Day. For the rest of February fourteenth I thought about the men who would receive a personal message of hope and prayed that they would find encouragement in the truth of God's word. Little did I know that is just what one of those cards would do for me nearly a month later.
My own card delivery came on a windy afternoon standing on a city sidewalk. As I struggled to my car with a bag full of books and assorted papers a massive gust of wind came and nearly knocked me over. I caught my balance - barely - but couldn't catch all of my papers. I looked down to see that the wind was carrying away three envelopes, two red and one white. The left over Valentine's Day cards.
Before I could reach them all the two red envelopes went flying up and away. I scurried ahead to the pavement ahead just in time to catch the last envelope, a white one with two cartoon stickers. I froze when my eyes caught site of the hand writing. It was my own.
Out of fifty decorated card the only one that remained was one decorated and written by me. I clutched the card extra tightly for fear that the wind would snatch it out of my hands. Still sealed shut, I hadn't a clue which verse would be inside my special card and I couldn't recall if I had written a personal message to a mystery recipient. But I knew that whatever was inside that card was meant for me. God had preserved and protected it specially for me.
Once out of the windy city street I pulled out my card and ripped open its seal. I had decorated the blank cover with a pink stamper displaying the words, "made with LOVE." I smiled, knowing that the sentiment was true, not just an empty claim.
Inside I found the scripture that God had kept just for me. 1 Corinthians 13:7, "Love...always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."  Then I saw a message, the personal message written by my own hand, that said, "God is love!"
I folded up my card and caught the lump in my throat. Yes, He is. 
On the Sunday afternoon that I wrote that message I could never have imagined that it was penned for me, to be received on a windy street on a day when I so desperately needed the steadying hand of God, His hand of love, to encourage and sustain me. But God knew. A month ago when my hand grabbed a purple pen and a pink stamper God knew who would be opening up the white seal of that white envelope covered in stickers.
For a month God kept that card waiting till just the right moment, just the right windy day, when He would deliver it to the pavement in front of my feet. He left just enough seconds for me to grab hold of His message of love and truth. Inside He gave me just the right words to still my soul and give me peace.
God is love. He is love for me and He is love for you. The message may not always come in a wind swept card. Sometimes God sends His message of love in a rainstorm and sometimes it comes in the warm rays of the sun. In every season, on every sidewalk, God has a message of love because God is love and He always protects, always trust, always hopes. And He never, ever fails.

Balloons Part 2

For weeks I have taken my daily walks and past the big oak tree that provided me with the balloon epiphany I told you about last month (see: Eternal Balloons, Endless Hope). Yet for all of my strolls past the bare tree I haven't really taken a look at it. In fact, until this morning, I can't remember one single walk that I have scanned the leaf-less branches for a sight of my colorful bunch of balloons.
Until today. On today's walk I looked back to the tree and there they were. The balloons - my balloons.
A few weeks back, when I first spotted the balloons, they were freshly released, still in their helium-filled state. Had the inflated balloons freed themselves from the oak's arms they would have drifted beautifully up into the sky. But tangled on the bare branches of the tree, the balloons couldn't fly. It was in those trapped balloons that I saw a vision of how God has been holding my hopes and dreams in His outstretched arms. By letting go of the balloons I had inflated with my heart's desires and deepest longings I had expected them to float off into the oblivion of the sky but that wasn't their fate. God had caught them, trapped them, keeping them safe ever since. 
But today as I looked up into the tree my eyes beheld a very different scene, followed by a drastically different epiphany.
The balloons were still there alright but they were a little worse for wear to say the least. In the weeks spent in the branches of the tree the bundle of balloons had been beaten by storms and ravaged by winds. For weeks the elements took their toll on the flimsy rubber, leaving them deflated, punctured and completely flat. The words and cartoon images that once covered the colorful air-filled decorations had been washed clean. In their current depressed state the released balloons wouldn't have soared beautifully into the sky. They would fall to the ground in a heap of trash.
But somehow in those balloons I could still see my dreams. Beaten down, battered and broken, those balloons still looked like the hopes I've released to God. Like those balloons, my deepest longings have been held in His arms during fierce storms and ravaging winds. He hasn't let them go. Through temperature changes and deep freezes God has kept my dreams alive. Through every relentless, ravaging trial God has sustained me and my hopes.
Today, years after releasing my dreams and hopes into God's care, my heart's longings have changed. Like the balloons held in the grips of the oak's branches, my hopes have been deflated of the puffed up air that won't last. My dreams have been purified. The deepest longings of my heart have been cleansed and washed.
And God isn't done yet.
I need not fear what He has planned because nothing - not a wind, rain, sleet or hail storm on earth - has the power to disrupt God's will. God has a plan for me inflated with the promise of His eternal hope for the future. Despite the passage of time and the passing of storms, God has not forgotten a single one of my heart's desires. The Almighty God, the keeper of my balloons, is protecting my hopes, purifying my dreams and transforming me in the process.