Pursued by His Love

I have created a new sanctuary. Wendy's old room. It has been marvelous. Jesus and I meet here every single morning and sometimes in the evenings. I have enjoyed a few hours each day before the boys wake up just growing more in love with my precious Lord. Oh, I hold back so much but I simply can't anymore. I am embracing all the ways I don't fit in. I simply can't be a casual christian. I just can't. I am too broken, too desperate, too needy.

I am discovering more of who He is. More of why He came. More of the joy of the crucified life lived in Him. Only true joy comes when I let Him live through me. This requires me to bring my heart to the alter over and over. This requires me to allow Him to pry the things I hold so tightly from my hands. This requires that I choose to spend time with Him, focusing on who He is. This requires that I daily allow Him to sift my emotions through His Truth. This requires that I choose to love Him and people, deeply, extravagantly and wildly, the way He loves me.

I was sitting here, in my little sanctuary this morning...just enjoying His Presence. I stopped writing in my journal, and just sat with Him. I was snuggled under warm blankets, sipping my coffee, listening to a worship song on my ipod while I looked out the window and marveled and the beauty of everything being covered in pure white snow. I felt so content to just be with Him...as if He and I were having a coffee date, because He is my very best friend...(and He is so much more than this).


I started thinking of women who are hurting everywhere. A group of them will gather next weekend for a night of worship and prayer. I began asking the Lord to heal their hearts. To take them from a place of sorrow to a place of hope...

I I had a thought of my friend Amy Kernal and how precious she is to God. Then I thought of some things the Lord recently showed my friend, Cristy Cash about orphans and widows and God's heart towards them. My friend Amy is a widow who God is using to love orphans in a very real way. In fact as she is loving orphans, her own life is being healed from the wounds of losing her husband. Isn't this just like Him? This is what He does. This is who He is. He is love and mercy. He alone makes all things new. (In Isaiah 58 you can read more about this mystery of God healing your life while you focus on loving the poor, the broken and the needy).

As my thoughts wandered I began thinking of my Uncle who was released from prison 2 weeks ago after 10 years. He is completely on fire for God. He is weird, like me :) (I prefer the word peculiar). He is writing out his testimony and I have been reading it. I began marvelling at how God pursued him even as a young boy. This little boy who lost his parents to prison and suffered at the hands of men who do unspeakable things to children. This little boy that the world overlooked was not overlooked by our God. When he was a young man God used and ex-stripper and a biker on the south side to invite him to church where He got saved. He then became like the prodigal son and tried running from God. BUT God never stopped pursuing him. And now, that young man is grown with children of his own. That man is not who He was. His life has been made new by the Lover of his soul!

My mammaw, my mom and uncle's mom, was trying to raise 3 children with her husband in prison. My mom found out she was pregnant when she was 15. She was still a child herself in many ways. She was young, vulnerable and hurting. She didn't turn to God to deal with the pain. Yet, He was pursuing her...never intimidated by the depth of her need.

There are little girls that live in small houses on the south side that rent from us. There was a time when my husband felt as if God was weeping through him because He was so desperate for these little girls to KNOW Him, to KNOW His love. Jerome felt as if God was also angry, with a righteous anger, that these little girls were kept from knowing Him. Jerome talked to me of the beauty of God...How He looked through out the earth and saw these little girls and had such deep compassion for them. He will not stop pursuing those precious ones, no He will not!

This morning I am reminded that my mom and I were the little girls on the south side at one time. He did not stop pursuing us with His love, no He did not! I am reminded that my uncle was the prodigal son that the Lord pursued even while he was eating with the pigs. He brought him home and is now throwing a party for him...celebrating with great joy that he is finally living the life He has always intended for him to live. Yes, he is living fully alive. He is living in Love and Love is living in him.

I think of my friend Cheryl who knew the richness of being loved by a wonderful, godly man...who knew the joy of raising their children together in the Lord, only to have him leave this earth to go be with the Lord. She can no longer experience that earthly love. Yet her love for God is deep and flows over into the lives of many because she has drawn near to Him in her suffering...because she is a woman who knows that His eternal love is all that she really needs. She knows and relies on the love of God. Many people's lives are affected because she has given her heart completely with great abandon to the One who loves perfectly.

I think of Cheryl's daughter, Deborah, who lost her dad as a young girl to cancer. I think of how she is now loving many children in West Africa who have been orphaned by a terrible war. She is being Love to them. She is being healed as she pours out her life for the One who has poured out His life for her.

I think of my friend Amanda, who is now a single mom for the second time. I picture her joy and tears and she excitedly tells me, 'I am not turning back this time." I can see her desire for Him alone as she tells me about how she gathers with those who love Him to sing worship songs to Him each week. I can picture her desperation for Him. I can picture her joy to be living fully alive in Him. I can picture her deep gratitude that He never gave up on her! His praises are on her lips every time I see her. She is living a life wholly devoted to Him.

I think of my precious friend Melinda who has literally been the love of God to several deeply wounded young women over the years. She has sang songs of His praises and faithfulness over my life. She has wept with me and prayed over me as if I were part of her family. She has reminded me over and over and over how precious to God I am. I am one life of many that has been healed by the love of God through her. She is fighting breast cancer. She is living a life of worship in the midst of her suffering. She is humbly lifting Him up as He perfects His strength in her weakness.

I think of a young man raised muslim, living in a muslim nation. God pursued Him. He walked away from his family, from everything he knew to follow the Lord. He took in orphaned children one by one in the middle of a bloddy, civil war. In the face of persecution, discouragement and great opposition he lived to do the will of God. He is now a middle-aged man that is still living to please God and not people. He is still trusting God for his daily bread. He is still seeking the Lord to provide for the children that He believes are the Nehemiah's of his nation. He is a man after God's own heart, a modern-day David.

I think of my sweet friend Crystal, who gave her baby girl up for adoption in a great sacrificial act of love. I see her relentlessly pursuing God through a brokeness that only He can fix. She is trusting Him to be enough for her in a world that requires more from her than she can give. I see her using her worldly position to glorify her heavenly Father who has put her there. She has a passion to see those the world has tossed aside succeed and beat the odds just as Christ has desired for her. I see her choosing to obey Him and not her emotions so others might have the freedom to do the same!


There are so many more I could tell you about.

I want to be like those that I have mentioned. I want to live a life that is set apart by my love for God and people. I want to live with this kind of abandon to the One I love the most! I want to hunger and thirst for Him more than food and water!

My sweet little coffee date with Jesus has turned into a wonderful time of worship and thanksgiving for who He is...for how He loves...for the beauty and mystery of how He uses the weak to lead the strong...of how He brings beauty from the ashes of our lives. We can not live in this world and not experience pain. But when we bring that pain to Him, He does what only He can do...He makes something beautiful out of it.

I do NOT want to be normal. I do NOT want to fit into our American christian culture. I do NOT want to be a casual christian. This will not do for me. It simply will not do. It is not what the world needs. The world is desperately crying out for a Love that is strong enough to heal. We were created to live in Him and have Him through us. This is where our purpose lies. This is where true life is found. This is where we will live most fully alive. This is where we will find deep, lasting joy that super cedes our circumstances.

Yes, I want to find all of my satisfaction in Him alone. I want to live to glorify Him in all I think, say and do. I do not want to be distracted from Him. I do not want to walk on the middle ground. I do not want to settle.

I want to live!

At the end of my days on this earth, my heart longs to hear Him say, "Well, done my good and faithful servant."

He has pursued me all the days of my life. May I now spend the rest of my days pursuing Him.

This is my prayer today for you. As I sit in my little sanctuary with my precious Lord...I am crying out for Him to burn like a consuming fire on the inside of each of us, so we might carry His love into all the earth, screaming His faithfulness from the mountain tops!

There is no one like Him. He alone is the only One who will satisfy the longings of our souls. To Him be all of the glory, honor and praise!!!!

Love is a choice.

This morning during my Treasure Time I decided to do a word study. I started at obedience and ended up at love. I looked up the word love in the Webster's Dictionary. Here is the definition:

Love: (noun) strong affection; warm attachment.

This is the definition that I believe the world has adopted. I believe most people think, like Webster's that love is a feeling. We all know feelings come and go. I believe the Bible's definition is the true one.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 says that love IS (verb) patient and kind. It says that love is SOMETHING (noun) that never fails. It lists all the good things that love does and all the evil things love doesn't do.

These verses tell us that love does not envy or boast. Love is not rude, self-seeking or easily angered and keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Love ALWAYS protects, trusts, hopes and perseveres. Love NEVER fails.

Love is an active, willful choice (verb). God is also Love (noun).

If we are His then He lives on the inside of us. We can choose to be led by our feelings. This is what comes naturally for us. We can also choose to allow God to love through us. This is super-natural. This requires dependency on Him. This demands obedience. We can NOT live out the definition of love in 1 Corinthians 13 in our own strength. Yet through Him we can do all things.

No, love is not as much a feeling as it is a choice.

God is love.

When we choose to daily crucify our flesh, our sin-nature and allow God to love...to be love...to be who He is through us...then we are living out the true definition of love. When we practice being like God, by choosing to love, we will soon discover that super-naturally we will 'feel' more of His love. We will 'walk' in more of His love. We will do what comes natural less as He super-naturally lives His life of love through us.

Today, by the power of His Spirit within me, I choose to actively love. I choose to not obey the desires of my flesh, my sin-nature. I choose to not do what comes naturally but instead I choose to do what comes super-naturally.

His love never fails.

His love is what it will take to heal my life and the lives of all those connected to mine. His love is the only THING (noun) I can offer to my husband, children and the world that has any power, worth or eternal value.

Today I choose to love Him. Today I choose to love others, even if I don't 'feel' like it.

Thank you Jesus for being the perfect example of love while you were on the earth. Thank you for choosing to do your Father's will by laying down Your life so that we might live. I know that You cried out in anguish for Him to show you another way. I know you didn't 'feel' like going to the cross. Yet in the end you obeyed and chose to do His will because you love Him...because you love us.

Yes, You are the perfect example of Love lived out. You did not obey your feelings. You obeyed the One who is Love. And now we are the reward for your obedience. He has given us to You just as You asked. We too will be rewarded as we diligently seek You...seek to do Your will...seek to love the way You call us to...the way You do.

Lord, let our reward be more of You, therefore more of your Love. Let our reward be that we are used by You to love a lost and hurting world. Just as You asked Your Father for us, we also ask for the lives of those You love. Use us to draw people into this Love that is eternal and unending....this Love that never fails.

May we love so wildly and extravagantly that those who don't know You will want to...and those who do know you will be inspired to love You and others deeper.

May we know that Love is so much more than a feeling.

Love is not only what you do (verb) but it is also who you are (noun).

Your Love is More Commendable Than Mine

When I go away to Sierra Leone to love on orphans...the one I love the most is here in America...loving with greater sacrifice than me. I want the world to know how important his role is in my life and how incredible he is!

My Love,

Each time I go to Sierra Leone, I come back with a deeper love and appreciation for the man of God that you are…the sacrifices you make for the kingdom of God and the way you serve me day to day. Thank you for allowing me the freedom to walk in the plans the Lord has had for me before the foundations of the earth. I could not fulfill the calling on my life unless you were faithful to love and encourage me the way you do.

I am so proud of the way you love God, me, Wendy, our boys and those in Africa who you have never even met. Your love is much more commendable than mine. You are so strong in Him. You do not waiver and have taught me to trust in Him and not in man or human systems. Your mentoring has been invaluable. Your love has been life changing. You are the man of my dreams and I love spending my life with you. I love raising our children together, reaching out to others together and changing the world for His name sake, TOGETHER.

I can’t imagine life without you. I can’t imagine this world without you. You are making such an eternal difference.

I know it is difficult. I know you face many temptations. I know you want more than anything to be as close to the Lord as possible. You have so many distractions and responsibilities and yet you push through, not giving up….seeking Him with all your heart. Your example in this has spurred me on to do the same.

I want you to know that the last 11 years have been a dream come true. I am living out all I ever wanted in Christ with you….together with you.

You are precious to me. Please know that not one thing you have invested in my life has been wasted. God is using all of it…to refine me, to purify me, to draw me near, to cause me to be broken, to teach me about who He is and what I am called to.

I am honored, so honored to be your bride. I know I disappoint you at times and fail you even more…yet you keep these things to yourself and only love and encourage me. You sacrifice in so many ways. God’s love through you is still changing me all these years later.

I know people look at my life and see who I am now in Christ. I want the world to know that I am only who I am because you allowed God to use you to love me to a place of purity.

Jerome, I am able to pour love into the lives of others because you have poured it into my life. Please know that anything God does through me is connected to you…that any crown I may receive to cast at his feet on that day is because of you. My life is an extension of yours.

There is not a day that goes by that I am not amazed that you chose me. I do not deserve you on my very best day. This makes me so thankful to Jesus that He gave you to me! I rejoice at the life we have together. It is a rich treasure that nothing can compare to!

I love you sweet husband. More than you know!

Me

Hope Deferred Makes the Heart Sick

I am back from Sierra Leone. By the grace of God I am settling back into my American life. This transition is always unique for me. I don’t think it is ever easy.

I am not sure where to start so I guess I will start from the beginning.

We missed our flight in London and had to stay the night at a hotel. We had to take two extra flights and go through many extra hours of travelling starting the next evening. We finally arrived two days after we were supposed to. I can now say I have walked on the land of Kenya…if walking from the airport to the airplane counts 

This whole process forced me to depend on Him. I was discouraged. I was heart sick. I did not want to be in London. I did not care about seeing Big Ben or St. Peter’s Cathedral. At that moment I didn’t care about the opportunity to learn about London’s rich history. I wanted to see Pastor Hassan’s face and hold my African sons hand on the drive to the orphanage. I wanted to walk up the familiar hill to the home. I longed to see beautiful African women with babies tied to their backs while they carried bowls of bread on top of their heads. I wanted to be greeted by 90 orphans smiling faces. I wanted to sit and hug my African sons and daughters and have them tell me about how they are doing in school, what they have been reading in the bible, how their lives have been during our 5 month separation. I wanted to spend every waking moment of the 10 days I had been planning with the ones I love. God has His own way. God has His own timing. God has His own plan. So I chose to trust Him.

In looking back I know the Lord used the extra travel and missed planes to prepare me to do His will while I was in SL. He used the extra time and the fatigue to allow me to be emptied of myself, to be weak so I could experience more of His strength. In my emotional and physical weakness I cried out to Him. Through this He revealed many things in my heart. Things I needed to let go of...ways I wasn’t trusting Him. He brought me near.

I secretly think He stretched out the days while I was there. It did not feel like we lost two days. In fact it felt as if He multiplied every day we were in country. The days were long and they were full. Full of His love, His purposes, His voice, His breath, His joy, His sorrow, His wisdom, His counsel, His will.

Like never before I felt as if this must have been the culture Jesus walked in while on the earth. I reflected on all I have learned about His life through the gospels. I am certain if He were here today He would be walking among the poorest groups of people in the world…giving the willing ones a spiritual richness...living water.

At one point we were telling Pastor Hassan we wanted to understand the culture of Sierra Leone so we could best minister to the children. He told us we only needed to read the bible to understand his culture. This has stood out in my mind. If I want to understand Jesus more…the compassion He had, I need to understand the culture He lived in, the people He walked among, the struggles they faced. What better place than Sierra Leone, Africa, the poorest, most undeveloped nation in the world.

Each time I go, I understand a little more. Each time I go, I feel a little closer to Jesus. I know God has ordained for me to live here, in America, for such a time as this. I know that He is has also purposed for me to walk among those He walked among, and to have an opportunity to pour into their lives so I can experience more of His compassion for others…even more of His compassion for me.

The first night I laid on my bed trying and write out all the ways I was grateful for finally being with those I had longed to see. My prayer of thanksgiving turned into weeping. I could not stop my tears. I was faced with my weakness, my sin, my tight grip on my own plan. I remember telling the Lord how sorry I was for all the ways I don’t trust Him, for all the ways my sin and my selfishness affect others, for all the ways I try to control and have my own way, for all the ways I rely on my own strength instead of His. I told Him I just wanted Him to have his way. I realized that I am dust and He doesn’t need me to accomplish His will. He is God. He is sovereign. He is the One in control. I told Him how humbled I was that He would use me. ME…of all people….to love and serve these precious ones. I told Him how I felt unworthy and yet loved deeply all at the same time.

I did not fully understand where the tears were coming from. I just know in that moment I was broken, and I felt His compassion for me. I felt Him comfort me, reminding me that He sympathizes with my weaknesses, and like Him, like the body of Christ in Sierra Leone, He wants me to learn obedience from the things I suffer. This is His love for me. He had given me a glorious opportunity to become like Him in my brokenness.

This was the foundation He laid for the trip. He built on that foundation for the next 8 days. Pray I can put into words all He wants me to share. There was so much. At the end of each day I would marvel at ALL He had done. It was miraculous. It was as much a miracle as giving sight to the blind or turning water into wine.

I see Him a little more clearly now. Pray that I will ponder all these things in my heart. Pray every ounce of love He poured into me there I would pour back out here. Pray I would seek Him more than ever because I have seen His love and compassion in a new way. Pray I would live only to do His will!

Over the next few posts may you enjoy hearing about the beautiful people of Sierra Leone and may you hear God speak to you through their lives as He has to me.

Eternal Investments

I arrived home from Africa Saturday evening and assumed my first blog post of the new year would most definitely be about those precious ones I love so much in Sierra Leone.

However, I spent time at the hospital last night with the Bruss family and woke up throughout the night with them on my heart and mind. I am certain they are on the heart and mind of God. I am compelled to share with you what the Lord taught me through the few hours I spent with this godly family.

Some of Jerome and I’s best friends for years have been Brian and Angi bruss. (They are siblings). When I first met Jerome, he affectionately called Brian and Angi’s parents Mom and Dad and they joyfully accepted this strange addition to their sweet family 

Brian’s dad, Dwight went into the hospital December 23rd with severe headaches. Other than that he was healthy and happy. He went on to have 4 brain surgeries in 4 days. He is now in a coma.

Dwight and Ann have been married for over 30 years. They have sought the Lord with their whole hearts. They have rooted themselves in a local church. They have raised their children in the Lord. They have invested in the lives of others. They have faithfully cultivated godly friendships. They are now reaping a harvest of love and righteousness because they have not given up. They have fought the good fight and are finishing the race.

I was praying on the way to the hospital that the Lord would give me something to give this family…that I might offer them His love and encouragement. I left that place feeling as if God had called me there for me much more than for them.

I watched as this precious momma was given the support of her children. They discussed difficult issues with grace, respect and dignity. Her children offered counsel, love and laughter during a difficult time. They are rising to call her blessed. I couldn’t help but think that when Proverbs 31 was written, the Lord had Ann in mind.

Shortly after I arrived some of Dwight and Ann’s best friends for 27 years came to bring her dinner. They have faithfully been by her side the last few weeks. I heard of many answered prayers from pillows and tooth brushes being provided to signs of Dwights improvements when all hope seemed to be lost. This couple has been suffering and rejoicing with Ann as she has walked through this difficult time. She is not alone. She has a community of believers that are surrounding her with love and prayer.

Ann told me of how the Lord has been reminding her in many ways that He is with her…working in every detail…that she is to trust Him moment by moment not worrying about the ultimate outcome. She has the faith of those in Hebrews Chapter 11. Her faith is not based on whether God heals her husband on this earth. Instead, her faith is in who He is no matter what He chooses to do. The Lord may leave Dwight here for another 10 years or another week. She trusts Him either way.

As Ann is walking through this trial with her children and her friends her light and momentary afflictions are achieving for her a glory that far outweighs them all. He is being glorified and lifted up for every person connected to her life to see. I think she is too busy focusing on the Lord to realize just how much she is impacting the lives of others through her confidence in Him.

As I woke up throughout the night the Lord was speaking to my heart. I was at the hospital last night to observe many things so the Lord could teach me this:

My life is not my own. It was bought with a price. We have been appointed a certain of number of days on this earth. We are all appointed a time to die. Our lives are a mist and a vapor…even if we live to be 100 years old. I must make good use of my time on this earth. I must continue to invest in my relationship with the Lord and the lives of others. I must honor and serve my husband at all times. I must raise my children in the Lord and not grow weary in doing this. I must cultivate godly friendships. I have heard this message from the Lord with increasing importance over the last several years. I know last night He allowed me to see the fruit that will come when I obey Him in these things without giving up. Eventually the relational, eternal investments I make will reap a harvest of righteousness that has eternal value if I continue seeking Him with my whole heart.

It is easy to grow weary or become deceived when we are trying to serve God in a world that gives such spiritual opposition. Last night I saw the reward for being steadfast in the things He has called me to.

Thank you Ann for loving Jesus, Dwight, your children, your friends and me with an everlasting, eternal love. You are one of my heroes. Your life is a great encouragement to me and to many! May you know that He is perfecting His strength through your weakness. You are an oak of righteousness and a display of His splendor for the world to see!