Hope

 This was taken from a devotional that I delivered on November 28, 2023 to our Care Night groups.

I’d like to open this evening with a true story. A friend of ours have 5 children, and this last week one of the five confessed to running up significant credit card debt to the tune of almost $10,000 on her credit cards. She’s in her 20s and making not enough money, and the economy is horrible — and the weight of this was causing her to consider some even more unhealthy choices to “make it through Christmas.” It has been on her mothers mind to ask her about it because she’s dropped hints that she has credit card bills, but this week, my friend finally just asked her point blank how much she owed. 

When my friend told me how much, it sucked the wind right out of me and reminded me that I was in a pickle seven years ago after a divorce and facing debt to the tune of $90,000. 

That was before Jesus met me. Before I picked up the Bible and used it as a sword. That was before. . . 

Last Sunday was the first Sunday of Advent — the Sunday we lit the candle of Hope, and I figured - “What better way to end this session of bettering ourselves through community by giving you the message of hope.”

See, I am an addict. I was born with a genetic predisposition to addiction, and until I was 41 years old, I was happy to say I had escaped all of it. And then Jesus humbled me and shed light on all that I needed to surrender. Today I am a recovering

• Human addict

• Food addict

• Sugar addict

• Spending addict

• Attention addict

• Pride addict

• Vanity addict . . . . Etc etc etc

But all of that is not me. Because I am a Daughter of the King first and foremost, and He has delivered me through the hope He gave me in His Son. 

Father Richard Rohr wrote a book called Breathing Underwater, Spirituality and the Twelve Steps. At the beginning of my faith journey the church community I had joined read this book as a whole church. In his introduction, Father Richard says that he wondered “whether addiction could be one very helpful metaphor for what the biblical tradition called ‘sin’”. Sin — what separates us from peace with God. Because we turn elsewhere instead of being in perfect union with Him. Yes, this began to make perfect sense to me. 

I do what I want, and I leave God standing there waiting for me to come back because my plan doesn't work. 

Tonight I want to share some insights with you from my first week of my Advent Bible study. In Genesis chapter 3, God tells the serpent who tricked Eve into eating the apple:

“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.””

‭‭Genesis‬ ‭3‬:‭15‬ ‭NIV‬‬

I don’t know about you but it kind of sounds like the serpent is going to be the loser in that fight. The father of lies and deceit will have his head crushed. I can’t wait to see it. The first message of Hope was given by God before the first Biblical account of any child even being born. Hope. 

Sometimes it’s hard to pray during difficult times in our lives, so tonight we are going to do some guided prayer. You each have a piece of paper just to jot down some things while we move through this and at the end I’m going to give you a few minutes to spend with the Lord in your own secret prayer to Him.

According to Romans 3:23, ALL have sinned. ALL have chosen our own path instead of God’s. We all still do because if I remember the last time I stood up here none of you could give me a 5 when I asked you to rate yourself on your ability to show love for God and others 100% of the time. But there’s still hope.

There was a girl who was engaged to a guy who ended up pregnant and birthing the Messiah. The Messiah. The redeemer. Boy, that was unexpected. For her and for her fiancé. But not for God. Did you know that from the time of conception until about day eight, literally the ONLY person who knows that a woman is pregnant is God??? What an amazing secret He gets to keep for over a week. God’s people had been waiting for thousands of years for the Messiah. For four hundred years, God’s people heard NOTHING from him. And then, unexpectedly, He appeared. In a barn.

Ok —

#1. Write down a situation in your life where right now you are waiting for something. Is there a need in your life that hasn’t been met? Is there healing you’re desperate for God to bring?

#2. Write down a situation in your life where you are fighting the idea of trusting in God’s plan when you just want to resolve it. This could be related to #1. 

#3. Have you forgotten or How have you forgotten (or maybe just learned today) that our God is the God of the unexpected?

#4. We believe that God’s unexpected ways can be trusted with things as important as our salvation and eternity, but not with the details and daily burdens of our lives. What part of this situation do you need to surrender to God fully? Is there anything that feels too small and insignificant? Write it down anyway.

#5. Isaiah 55:8 says. ““For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.” Jot down a few notes about how you can apply this verse to your circumstance.

Now for the next 2-3 minutes, I’m going to give you time to have a conversation with God about what you just wrote down. Be honest with Him and throw it all down for Him to pick up and deal with. 

1-2 minutes

Father in your word you spoke to your people, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”” Remind us that you’re always doing hundreds of things in our lives, but we might be so underwater in our grief, anxiety, and life that we may be aware of exactly none of them. We can’t change where we are sitting in our circumstances, God, but we can change who sits with us. You give us hope. We seek a solution to our problem, but what we need is a quiet heart in the midst of this storm. Please draw us nearer to you and give us the hope that only your Son can bring us. We ask this in your Son Jesus Christ’s name. Amen

So let me end tonight with how my friend’s daughter’s situation was resolved. They had been holding a savings account with rent money in it that her daughter had been paying for about five years. God provided just the right amount of money in that savings account to pay off the debt. They worked on a budget this week and came up with a plan to pay the savings account back over the course of two years plus $300/month to continue saving each month. AND my friend got to tell her about Financial Peace University — she’s not a Christ follower currently and always declines invitations to church, but she didn’t decline this time. God is working on her. Praise Him.

The situation didn’t go away, but there is hope in His plan.

Finally, I leave you with three pieces of scripture about hope and peace:

Jesus says in John chapter 16

““I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.””

‭‭John‬ ‭16‬:‭33‬ ‭NIV‬‬

“You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.”

‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭26‬:‭3‬ ‭NIV‬‬

https://bible.com/bible/111/isa.26.3.NIV

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, 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.”

‭‭Philippians‬ ‭4‬:‭6‬-‭7‬ ‭NIV‬‬

https://bible.com/bible/111/php.4.6-7.NIV

 

Loved

 This comes from a devotional that I delivered on November 10, 2023 to our Care Night groups.

We live in a broken world. Take a look at the people around you. They’re here due to brokenness. Not one person sitting here tonight can honestly say that brokenness is NOT the reason they’re here. We are either victims of brokenness or guilty of hurting somebody, but oftentimes it’s both, and both create brokenness inside us.

Every time I sat in your seat, I was dealing with either pain I had caused others or pain that others had caused me — and sometimes pain I had caused myself by caving to the temptations of the enemy. And sometimes all three. Attending sessions like this requires bravery — admitting we need support and love from people who are willing to support and love us. I know.

Tonight I want to present the key reason we are here and to give you hope. In the New Testament, Jesus gives us a command:

Mark 12:30-31 says, after a scribe asked Jesus what the greatest commandment of all was: (take volunteers to speak this) “And you shall love the Lord you God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Take about thirty seconds and think about this. I’ll read it again. What would these look like in practice?

“And you shall love the Lord you God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.”

**30 seconds**

So? Tell somebody next to you what this would look like. (30 seconds).

So? What would this look like? (Take answers)

Ok, now I want you to give yourself a rating. From 0 to 5, 0 being I never follow these two commands and 5 being 100% of your day you follow these commands. Show me your rating on your hand. 

So we all sin . . . Brokenness. The apostle Paul struggled with this also. In Romans chapter 7 vs 19, Paul writes

“For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.”

I don’t know what y’all know about Paul, but I find him to be one of the most fascinating transformations in the Bible — a murderer of the exact people he converted to because he met Jesus. Right on the road to continuing his quest to rid the empire of Christ-followers. Jesus met him. Right where he was.

Funny — that’s where He met me too. Right where I was. In the middle of my mess. And yet look where Paul went. He went on to be a key component in the spreading of the Gospel. WHY?  I want you to listen to this song — the lyrics — because this is the hope that we have, regardless of where we have to be met.

Play “He’s Crazy About You.”

I saved this piece of scripture for last, and I wanted to share it with you in four different translations so that you can fully feel the impact of the words you are about to hear. I still struggle with repeating out loud it because the impact it has one me makes me breathless.

Read each translation.

This is my life verse. No matter who you are. No matter what you have done or what others have done to you — He died to save us from an eternity separated from Him. For those of you who have children — imagine somebody loving you MORE than you love your own kids. That’s God.

Let’s pray.

Father Thank you so much for sending your son Jesus to take the burden of an eternity separated from you. We enter the last four weeks of this session of Care Night on our own road, and tonight we ask you to meet us right where we are. Some of us have embraced the full meaning of what it means to be loved by you and we are leaning in hard, but some of us struggle with leaning in. Some of us keep taking the wheel from you and driving our own struggle bus down this road. Some of us have just pulled over on the side of the road and given up driving, and some of us really just want to let you drive, but the drivers seat is difficult to give up. Please allow your Holy Spirit to move tonight through this place as the healing continues. We thank you for this community of brave participants and servants. And we pray this in Jesus Christ’s name. Amen

The unworthy

This comes from a devotional I delivered and October 10, 2023 for our Care Night groups.

I don’t know if anybody here watched the show The Chosen, but I couldn’t think of anything better to reference tonight than several of my favorite characters. But first let me introduce myself to you, for those of you who don’t know me. My name is Heather Hart, and in the winter of 2016 I was sitting in the same place many of you are tonight. In fact, I actually got into my car and started driving three weeks in a row before I would finally get the guts to walk into my first Divorce Care Group. It was scary. Because walking in meant it was really happening.

Since then God has really done a healing work in my life, and in 2018 I found myself back in your place attending an anxiety and depression group for women. For those of you who don’t know, God can heal anything and change anything. But He has continued to allowed me to wrestle with anxiety and depression since. But He carries me through those valleys a lot better than I could walk through them myself. 

So anyway, back to the Chosen. There are 3 characters I would like to reference tonight.

 In Matthew 8:1-4, scripture says:

When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. 2 A man with leprosy[a] came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”

3 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy. 4 Then Jesus said to him, “See that you don’t tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”

Jesus healed the Leper, the man that everyone avoided because of his uncleanness and unworthiness. This man simply asked for healing and Jesus gave it.

***I’m going to pause for about 30 seconds and let you consider how that scripture applies to your life right now. Can you relate to this character or somebody watching? How would you fit into this story? If you’d like to speak to God about this, go ahead and do so.***

In Matthew 9:9-13, scripture says:

9 As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.

10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples.11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

12 On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’[a] For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Jesus saw the need of Matthew the tax collector and his friends. Matthew had worldly riches, but he was spiritually depleated. They knew they were unworthy, but Jesus knew they needed his love.

***I’m going to pause for about 30 seconds and let you consider how that scripture applies to your life right now. Can you related to a character in this story? And if so how? If you’d like to speak to God about this, go ahead and do so.***

In John chapter 4:5-26, scripture says:

So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a])

10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of waterwelling up to eternal life.”

15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

17 “I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband.18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

And skipped down to verses 25, 

25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

Jesus chose to speak to the woman at the well and offer her salvation, she - one who would have been his enemy, was undoubtedly a social outcast, unworthy, and one who also lived in sin. 

***I’m going to pause for about 30 seconds and let you consider how that scripture applies to your life right now. If you’d like to speak to God about this, go ahead and do so.***

***Pray —Heavenly, Father,  We know that alone we are unworthy to sit in your presence, but we also know that the death and resurrection of your son Jesus gives us a free pass to worthiness, and we thank you. Many of us walk through these doors feeling like our lives, our stories don’t matter, but we know that in your eyes, it all matters because the stories are written by the one true creator, the sovereign Lord, the great tapestry weaver. Please wrap us in your loving arms tonight as we tackle the lies the enemy continues to pelt us with so that we can come out victorieous on the other side.  We love you. In Jesus name, Amen***

Why does my enoughness matter?

There are five lies that came about this morning while I was praying -- five lies that I'm guessing many of my friends have heard somehow, somewhere before. Many of those lies literally RULE our lives, and we have no idea how to break that pattern or even that the pattern is destructive or even that there IS a pattern. God speaks to us when we listen, and this morning I was yearning to listen. Every single one of these lies I believe. Every day. 

God is asking me to believe His truth rather than my lies. And I'm hearing Him ask me to urge you to do the same. 

To be clear - I am not fixed now that I wrote these lies on a white board in my dining room. I'm incredibly broken - about as broken as I have ever been. And I've been begging the Lord for weeks to help me out of this abyss I seem to have fallen into this Christmas season - of all seasons. But maybe this is where God wants me to be so that I can embrace the season with more urgency than ever before.

In each of the lies I wrote down this morning, a common word is found. 

1. I don't have enough (time, talent, money, stuff...).
2. My problems aren't bad enough (to talk about).
3. I'm not important enough (for people to listen).
4. I'm not good enough (at anything to matter).
5. I'm not doing enough (for people to care about me OR for people to know I care about them). 

Enough. Enough enough. I have had enough. What is this word and why is it even spelled the way it is? And why has it caused so much anguish for so many people in our culture?

I could give you a run down of truths in the Bible that tell us that the lies are false, but sometimes, even knowing that the Sword of God exists isn't enough (see what I did there?) to urge us to pick it up and believe these truths. I can tell you that there are scriptures that combat EVERY SINGLE ONE of these lies, and yet what good would it do if you didn't have enough energy to look them up or faith to really wrap your head around the meaning?

It would do zero good.

And so I am going to do none of that. But I will tell you that distractions won't work. Watching TV, scrolling Facebook, YouTube, memes, alcohol, sex, exercise, reading self-help books, listening to music -- none of it will work long term to put you in a place where you will believe God's truths 100% of the time and stop believing those lies. 

The Psalms are a very good place to park for a while. Sitting in silence with a notebook and pen in hand is also helpful. Doing things that still your soul - even exercise if you can do it for the soul purpose of connecting with God - is a good place to start. Deep breathing a prayer for five minutes, talking out loud to God and telling him you have no idea even where to start . . . . also good. Give God some space to fill your brain with truths and stop filling it with what others say.

But know this. You. Are. Not. Alone. And you do have enough. And your problems are bad enough to share with somebody. And your are important enough for others to listen to those problems. You're good enough at something to matter to somebody - because God is somebody. And you're doing enough because somebody feels cared-for by you today. And somebody loves you. Regardless of how you see people - God loves you. And he's bigger than all of it. And that, friend, stills my soul.

The sin cycle as applied to a church pianist

Last weekend our pastor delivered a message that hit me in a few different places. One thing that I’ve been sitting in for a few days has been the cycle that the Hebrews got themselves in during the Old Testament. The five steps of this cycle were 1. Disobedience 2. Oppression 3. Prayer 4. Deliverance and then 5. Peace.

Step five is an interesting step because that’s the comfortable stage (and a highly relatable stage) — where we can sometimes forget what it was like on step two, or we probably wouldn’t go back to step one.  But we do it anyway because peace produces apathy, and the cycle starts over again. Pastor Jim was speaking specifically about the Hebrews in the book of Judges, but something hit me yesterday morning as I was sitting at the piano during mass. 

I consider myself to be a fairly self-aware person — noticing when things are not how they should be, and often pinpointing correctly where something went wrong and why. This has taken a lot of therapy, prayer, and work on my part — not to mention God’s grace, but apparently it is not fool proof (by no fault of God, I must point out). I’m not a very confident pianist, mainly because my skills are inferior to my “equals” at the church, and I don’t dedicate hours of my day to practice like many do. My forte (see what I did there?) is teaching, not playing. But for some reason I got roped into staying at a sub gig that I was begged to take at a nearby Catholic Church (piano players are hard to find, apparently). 

Because I was not confident and apparently a super workable person, the music director was gracious, and he did his best to keep me happy by choosing from a group of hymns whenever I played, and he did his best to prep me in advance if we had to change the mass. Once or twice he forgot to tell me the mass was changing, and he just let me play the old mass so he didn’t push me over the edge of the cliff on which I was already playing.  I can recall sitting during quiet times in mass literally praying with fingers on the keys, playing the pieces in my head so that I could get extra practice time in while the priest was delivering his message.

Then one day it stopped. Going completely unnoticed, I no longer needed to pray and practice silently during mass. I ran the pieces during the week a few times after I received the list of hymns (usually on a Friday for Sunday mass), but I was so comfortable that being on top of practice and having my head in the game and on the Lord was less important that it had been. 

Then our music director resigned.

And my apathy soon produced disobedience. Somebody changed the entire mass (to one I had never played) on a Thursday to be ready by Sunday and then sent me a list of hymns which were unfamiliar. I flipped my lid. At first I refused to play the mass. Then when I received it I realized it wasn’t horrible, but I was still angry as all get out because I had so much new music to learn. Never mind it happened on Thanksgiving weekend when I had almost an entire Saturday off to learn it. I was angry. My plans for the weekend were to decorate for Christmas. But now that had to take a step back to my job as an accompanist to worship leadership. Disobedience.

Sunday morning I sat at the piano, praying and playing in my head - fingers flying across the keys as the priest delivered his message. And it was at this moment that something hit me. I had been ignorant of my apathy. Much like the Hebrews after God had given them the promised land. They still disobeyed because of apathy caused by peace in their lives and in their souls. Something about peace causes us to start to forget how we got there in the first place. How is this possible? I don’t know how or why, but sometimes God allows us to ask questions for a long time before He answers them. 

Applying this lesson to my life in other areas, including homeschooling, teaching piano, being a wife, mom and friend - will sharpen me, prune me, and fill me up. That Pastor Jim — always in tuned with what I needed to hear at that particular moment. 

Labyrinth

Today I had an experience that I didn't really want to shout to the world, but I also wanted to remember it vividly and use it to help others struggling with fear the way I am.

Recently I've been pushed to challenge my fear of anything mindfulness. For those who don't know, my previous marriage disintegrated from 2005 to its demise in 2015, and during that time, our family had really immersed itself into mindfulness, touched on mysticism, and just any alternate forms of spirituality. Although the cracks in the marriage itself aren't a direct result of mindfulness spirituality (that happened due to my lack of boundaries and selfishness), anything mindfulness (meditation, yoga, affirmations, just sitting quietly, acceptance, "flowing down river", quiet piano music, even Oprah!) scares the crumbs out of me because now that I have Jesus, I don't want ANYTHING swaying me or trying to sway me from Him. He's my rock.

So . . . . fear. Of everything pretty much.

For three and a half years (since my rebirth in Christ) I have put up great walls: refused to listen to anything other than Christian music, only watch movies with a Christian theme, read Christian books (fiction or non), leaned toward Christian friends. Some say "stuck up" or "secluded". I say "scared".

During my women's group this week we were challenged to explore the idea of a labyrinth. Now this is after the breathing exercise we did before our breakout session Tuesday night. The breathing session which took me about an hour to pull myself back from the cliff because all I could visualize was the breathing exercises that I did during times of fear, anger, grief when I had my back firmly turned on my Jesus and my feet firmly planted in mindfulness.

Labyrinth's, to me, had always had a mystic feeling to them. There was always some reason why a labyrinth felt eerie. One reason for this feeling is because I had always used the words labyrinth and maze synonymously - and maze just draws up a LOT of horrid thoughts- mainly, the idea of being lost. But after researching, I discovered the difference between the two. A true labyrinth has only one way through, with no trickery. Just a path. After more research, I also discovered that the floors of old cathedrals across Europe and the Americas often sported labyrinths for people to use to walk and pray. And yet there were also many pagan origins of labyrinths as well. And then I was lead back to the book of Romans 14, which rocked me to my core this morning.

I've READ and applied this chapter many times over, but today it spoke deeply to me. Verses five through eight read

 One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. 6 Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. 7 For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. 8 If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.

There's no rule that says you can or cannot walk a labyrinth. There's no rule that says don't meditate, affirm, or do yoga. All God wants is you to glorify him with your whole heart. The labyrinth, in Christian history, was used to walk and pray - to keep one focused on the path to the middle. To meet with God, dwell in the center, and then bask in the beauty of the experience on the way back. It meant so many other things to the pagans, but for the Christians (who often take pagan fads and make them God-glorifying, even today) it was a way to draw closer to God.

I don't have a labyrinth. I wish I did because I so desperately want to try one now (A trip to a Chicago cathedral is in my future this winter). But I do have a bike, and we have a trail. My plan was to ride about 2 1/2 miles into a neighborhood, stop and rest and pray and then ride back.

God had other plans.

I have a history with this trail. I used to ride this trail about fifteen miles daily in the summer of 2015. Part of my ride would be crying, listening to very loud music that was meant to empower me, and then listening to books on my phone. The last book I read on my phone was Fifty Shades of Gray. Yep, while I was biking. I think I read the first two books before I was discovered meeting my boyfriend on the trail on my way out.

Then my bike rides . . . and my life . . . stopped.

Today I rode my bike out, intent on taking a left turn onto the trail that would lead me into neighborhoods across Orchard Road, but the Spirit kept nudging me and then literally kicked me right. And off I went. Down the trail I haven't ridden in four years.

Today I wasn't wearing headphones, so I was free to be mindful of the sounds of the trail, including the birds, wind in the trees, pounding footsteps of runners in front of and behind me. Because my mind was not distracted by a story plot or a song to empower me, I was also free to be mindful to watch carefully where I was riding - in fact it was safer that way because the trail was wet, and there were acorns and apples I had to avoid. That caused me to feel the water hitting my back or being thrown up from my front tire and hitting my shirt. I was being mindful, and I knew my goal was to get to about two-and-a-half miles and turn back.

As I was riding, I wondered if God would stop me at the top of the bridge over Galena. I thought it would have been pretty poetic if He had because it was the top of the bridge - like climbing a mountain or jumping a hurdle. But no - he kept me going, past the church and a set of teenage boys walking the trail. Past walkers with dogs and a runner . . . and then I realized where He was taking me.

He was taking me to a bridge. I hated this bridge - even when I WAS in great shape, I hated it. The bridge between Aurora and Sugar Grove, pretty much - over Route 56. And after looking at my watch I realized I would hit two-and-a-half miles at the top of this bridge. God is such a good God.

And up I went.

And there I stopped. And there I met God. He reminded me that I was forgiven. That this trail was just a trail - not a scarlet letter walk. That my struggle with fear is going to have to stop. That it was time to GIVE IT UP. That I was trustworthy because I was a child of God. I expressed how scared I was of messing my life up again. How badly I wanted my husband to continue to trust me - even thought he knows how badly I messed up my first marriage. And even though he's NEVER expressed that he didn't trust me. I believe in my whole heart that he does. I am afraid. But God said that his perfect love has been waiting to wash away that fear. Why won't I let Him?


Up there I gave it up. And his love washed over me and I felt empowered without my music. And I felt tingly and loved without reading love stories. And I felt released from anxiety - even if just for five minutes. And somebody driving under the bridge honked and waved at me. Maybe that driver knew what I was experiencing and wanted to give me a spiritual high five.

And then I got on my bike, thanked God for his grace, love, and mercy, and started back.

Will I fear again? Yes, of course I will. I am human. I am broken. Will I read Romans 14 more often? Yes, in fact now it's on my list of scriptures to memorize so that I won't have to look it up each time. Will I remember today as a step in my growth? Oh yes. Will I ride that trail again? You bet. Will I meet up with Jesus on that bridge? You bet I will. That's our bridge now.

My Armor

When I’m under attack I know it’s not what I see -
It’s what I don’t see - the powers that be.
I have tools to put on, armor to don
to ensure the defeat of the enemy.

He gave me the belt of truth
to ward off all abuse.
And due due His unrelenting mercy
the breastplate of righteousness makes me worthy.
And on my feet I wear the shoes of salvation
that keep me from the fires of eternal damnation.
Faith is my shield as it blocks off the darts
of satan himself, distracting my heart.
And in my hand I carry my sword,
The Word of God, my Savior and Lord.

So bring it on, you bringers of chaos.
My God has my back and my armor is on.
Look at me, and you see nothing but me,
but come at me, and see just who’s really won.