The Simplicity of True Christianity

“If we were left to ourselves with the task of taking the gospel to the world, we would immediately begin planning innovative strategies and plotting elaborate schemes. We would organize conventions, develop programs, and create foundations… But Jesus is so different from us. With the task of taking the gospel to the world, he wandered through the streets and byways…All He wanted was a few men who would think as He did, love as He did, see as He did, teach as He did and serve as He did. All He needed was to revolutionize the hearts of a few, and they would impact the world.”
― David Platt, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream

Don’t we get confused with all our programs, plotting and busyness?

It’s so simple…can we walk through life, as Jesus did, loving, serving, seeing and teaching as Jesus did, the people in front of us? Face set like flint, indifferent whether scorn or admiration, accolades or condemnation, prosperity or poverty, seeking to please only our Heavenly Father, to be about HIS business in all things.

That is the essence of true Christianity, the only one that will transform hearts and revolutionize the world.

The (Lost) Art of Being Graceful

Is “the graceful woman” lost in today’s “anything you can do, I can do better” world?

I find the study of women in society and how drastically they’ve changed over the years to be positively riveting. And I like to ask questions about it. “Why?” “Are we better for it?”

Gracefulness conjures up a number of characteristics: poise, eloquence, refinement, beauty.

I think of the Proverbs 31 woman as graceful. Not “fragile”, though gracefulness surely must contain “delicacy” in her demeanor, but a strength and dignity that exudes from her. I picture calmness, stateliness, a self-controlled form in movement and carriage. I imagine, since “the law of kindness is on her tongue” that her words come from a disciplined spirit (it’s a law that rules it!) and carry a certain weight of dignity and import because they are meaningful and not wasteful.

It is hard to find gracefulness these days. I’ve tried. And when I do see a woman who displays the rare manners that were once highly sought after and cultivated, she stands out.

I’m not talking about “putting on airs”. But I do find it perfectly acceptable to “practice” gracefulness until it becomes habit.

The Bible speaks of letting our adornment be of the “inner man”…a meek and quiet spirit. And as we seek those characteristics that Christ Himself so perfectly demonstrated, our outward demeanor will meet it.

I want to be a woman whose inner character spills into her outer deportment. A woman of grace and true beauty, not the idolatry of beauty found on the magazine stand.

What is “gracefulness” to you? Perhaps we have been so influenced by the masculine sirens of the feminist movement that we must revisit some basic etiquette. I’m thinking out loud…would love to hear your thoughts!

Brokenness Redeemed-Life Updates-YOU are in Our House!

It’s been almost a year since a tornado radically changed our lives, and we still talk about the storm like it just happened. It feels like it just happened, and we measure time in relation to it…“Was that before the storm or after?”

Sorting through the emotions of an event like this has been….interesting. The very night brought instant terror, elation and devastating heartbreak, all in a matter of minutes as we shuttered through the experience you think only happens to other people, then realized the miracle of living through it, then grieved over the news of friends snatched away from us, joined by the weight of losing everything normal in life.

And still, after all this time, all those emotions rise and fall, dance and collapse, invading in waves as one day we feel all gratitude for life, and the next just death, change and destruction.

So it is a part of life, and I’m sure all of you have walked similar paths, rejoicing and grieving all at the same time. The Lord is so good to bring us here, though, to teach us about Him, His steadfastness so starkly apparent against the backdrop of life’s uncertainties.

Life will always be uncertain. Storms can come any time, in any form, and we must hold loosely to the things, yes, even the people we love so much, and remember that things here are all “hay and stubble”, while souls and legacies survive the severest of storms.

Trees. (This is a tiny snapshot of the view behind our house. Try to imagine that the panoramic view is spread across miles…literally thousands of “tooth-pick” trees as far as one can see.) In a rural place like where we live, a tornado of the magnitude we experienced did so much damage it’s impossible to imagine the sight. And while “they’re just trees”, somehow, it feels like more. Something I’m not able to fully articulate. Someone mentioned that the ugliness “slaps you in the face” every time you drive through, reminding us of that awful night. I think that’s it. The sight jars in me actual sensory reminders of that night and again, the gamut of emotions are hard to sort through.

The heavens still declare His majesty over the mess, a visible testimony of His sovereignty and faithfulness when life around us looks upside down. Leaning against our porch rail, taking a work break, the evening’s view softens the angst. This picture was taken just a few days ago, almost a year after the storm.

So we just brought the trees inside! Every piece of wood is a “brokenness redeemed”. Walking across the very floors is a walk across a story…our story mingled with the numerous faces, hands and hearts so full of love, they spilled all over us and are etched in every board and every nail.

You! Them! There are so many! Do you know that I lie awake at night grieving for all the notes I know I didn’t write? For the addresses misplaced? For the people about whom I didn’t even know? I still think of the details…the healing words written in cards, the gifts made and sent with love, the warmth and the compassion that so surrounded us for so long…I meditate on you all daily….even now.

Do you find even the smallest joy in knowing that I am visibly reminded of your love every time I look at this house? Do you know that so many will “live here” with us? Many dear friends we know and many more we do not. Do my tears, even as I write, thank you enough?

You may remember that the fateful day began with my healthy, spry Dad brushing death in a hospital that morning. Incapable of coherent thoughts in my terror, my lips began uttering, “God is mighty to save…God is mighty to save…” all the way to the OR as I jogged behind the gurney.

You might guess which words came first, just a few hours later, sitting in a cold, dark basement that dripped with water?

So I painted the words on this barn door, a surviving artifact of my father’s. I want our home to breathe His faithfulness and His compassion.

And every visitor who enters will surely hear the story, won’t they? And I will tell them about you. You are forever a part of telling HIS story.

I pray that makes you as happy as it makes me.

Update:

We are working furiously to finish our house to be able to move. My husband is working day and night (sometimes a “real” job during the day), and the older children and I are taking turns assisting. We still have a few volunteers pulling late, late nights as well. (Wave to Kyle and Ben!) We are doing well just busy, busy!

Several of you have inquired about the Lees, our dear friends and neighbors whose father went home the night of the storm. They have found a quiet place a few hours from here and we are so happy for them, yet grieving for yet another change. They are doing well, it seems, but this valley will never be the same without them.

Wisdom to Understand Grace Brings Humility

As a woman desperately seeking to be more transformed to the image of Christ, and to grow in wisdom, grace and humility, I realize those three qualities are intricately tied together.

For I must have the wisdom to understand grace…that unexplainable, free gift of the transference of righteousness to me, a sinner, solely because of the shame, death and life of Christ, and ONLY then does true humility flood in, knowing that I bring nothing, am nothing, but He is all.

Soak that in. How easily we forget!

“Is it any wonder that the Christian life is so often weak and fruitless, when the very root of the Christian life is neglected or unknown?Is it any wonder that the joy of salvation is so little felt, when that by which Christ brings it is so seldom sought? Until a humility that rests in nothing less than the end and death of self, and which gives up all the honor of men as Jesus did to seek the honor that comes from God alone that God may be all, that the Lord alone may be exalted–until such a humility is what we seek in Christ above our chief joy, and welcome at any price, there is very little hope of a faith that will conquer the world.” -Andrew Murray, Humility

The Three “Keys” of the Christian Woman

This year, I am committed to deliberate growth. To unlock the joy of salvation and revel in its deepest blessings.

My heart’s desire as a woman is to grow in grace, wisdom and humility. To study, cultivate and pursue these qualities, yes, and consequently raise girls who grow into these virtues as they become women.

As I think about the “average” woman–in the media, in public, I notice these virtues missing. And why?

I sorely lack. I want to study and meditate on these attributes until they become familiar friends, the adornments that make beautiful in the eyes of the Lord. Will you join me?

As women of God, could we better spend our time than searching ‘like a treasure” for “the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit”?

Grace

By “grace” I mean two things: that air of femininity that has a subtle effect on her movement, her voice, her speech and demeanor. And secondly, exercising grace in the way I see others, at all times, no matter where a person is.

Wisdom

Because “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”, the pursuit of wisdom must begin with the fear of the Lord. Modern Christianity has all but ignored (rejected?) this clear counsel of Scripture, and His people have paid dearly for it. The fear of the Lord is good for us and essential to please Him.

“No one can know the true grace of God who has not first known the fear of God.” -A. W. Tozer

Humility

Reading Humility, by Andrew Murray, has been life-changing. He poignantly communicates that the great error of most Christians is failure to pursue humility first, before any other Christian virtues. It is the trait that embodied the whole life of our Lord, and it is the one that most contends with our prideful flesh. We would do well to be continually, proverbially prostrate, begging for our pride to be crushed, our selves to be emptied, so we can be filled only with Him.

“Humility is perfect quietness of heart. It is to expect nothing, to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing done against me. It is to be at rest when nobody praises me, and when I am blamed or despised. It is to have a blessed home in the Lord, where I can go in and shut the door, and kneel to my Father in secret, and am at peace as in a deep sea of calmness, when all around and above is trouble.” ― Andrew Murray

“Pride must die in you, or nothing of heaven can live in you.” ― Andrew Murray, Humility

“Lord, make us women of grace, wisdom and humility, noble among women, shining as lights in darkness, a beacon of hope to the hurting and lost.”

Motherhood, Fear & Resolving to Fight

I have had to read my own eBook lately, which I think is sort of funny, but it proves that so often what we know to be true is not as easy to live out as to talk about. I have found that THE SECRET, in almost any area of life where improvement is desired, is simply staying reminded.

That’s why we devour article after article on saving money, being a better wife and mother, “how-tos” of all genres, though most of what we read isn’t new; it’s just inspiring–and it reminds us how to live.

As a mother desperately fighting for my children in a culture that is largely against them, I. need. reminded. Today God used a dear friend to remind.

Since last year’s storm, I have battled a number of emotions, the greatest of which is fear. I didn’t know how much so until last week, when storms and tornadoes ripped through our area again. Our family, along with two of the same families that endured the tornado with us in 2011, met again, in the same room in the basement of the house we are rebuilding, to wait out the storms.

I didn’t know how anxious I would be. And I certainly wasn’t prepared for what was coming.

As the storm approached, with all of us downstairs, the men ran up to secure our doors, not yet sealed. Because there are absolutely no trees anywhere around us now (the storm took them all for miles), it can be violently windy in the slightest weather.

But this storm brought 60 mph winds, exacerbated by the barren land. As we waited anxiously downstairs, we suddenly heard crashes from above, and then all the men running–literally–down the stairs. At the very same time the violent wind pushed through the only opening in the house–the doors–making a fierce, whistling sound I had forgotten until I heard it again. It was the same sound we heard just before the tornado took our house last year. The. same. sound. Running men. Crashing sounds. And for a brief moment, I…we all thought we were being hit again.

There are no words for the fear I felt, or that of my children. Hearts raced for hours, headaches pounded from the adrenaline, and the night held us in constant alarm as storms continued until morning.

But my friend…she spoke what was true. She reminded. I am a mother ushering children into this great big life, teaching them how to respond, how to love, how to trust, and how to know God. Despite my fears, I am obligated to point them to the one Who holds the storm in His hand.

I have to push through, conquer, immerse myself in the Word and fight, until at last, my heart is at peace with the God who gives and the God who takes away.

Thank you, Robin.

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