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!!!!