Shriveled Hands

“Another time Jesus went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there.  Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath.  

Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Stand up in front of everyone.”

Then Jesus asked them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save or to kill?”  But they remained silent.”  Mark 3:1-4

This man likely learned to work with his bent hand but was never the less held back by it.  His hand couldn’t reach out fully or grasp tightly.  This mans hand represents for many of us an area of our lives that has left us wounded, unhealed, held back.  An area that we can’t fix, one that we can’t make better so we learn to live around.  Most of us live our lives this way, working around our “shriveled hands” and missing our full potential.  There are areas of our lives that are broken and seem to have no answer, no cure and we search to find a shallow, way to deal with those pains that cripple us.

“He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at the stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch our your hand.”  

He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored.”  Mark 3:5

Jesus doesn’t ask for the man’s healthy hand.  Jesus has no use in that moment for the man’s healthy hand.  He asks for the shriveled hand.  The hand that is in need of a healing from the Healer.  And it is in the stretching of the bent and crippled toward Christ that complete restoration is found.

The law of the Sabbath said he couldn’t heal that day.  The opinion of the Pharisees said he couldn’t heal that day.  But Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath.  He is the Healer who comes to us
                   any day,
                       any time,
                           absolutely any where when our hands reach out to his.  Because He is waiting for us.   He doesn’t want us cleaned up, put together and polished off because all those self-help, self-righteous ways are things he can’t work with.  If we’re already put together, already cleaned up then we don’t need him.  When we do this on our own we settle for less-than and incomplete as though it is good enough.  We figure we can manage the pain on our own or mask where we are broken.  But we can’t.  It all comes out, it all will show itself in time.

He asks us to stretch out our shriveled hand.  The hand that is bent, the hand that is beyond repair; incurable; ugly.  Not to shame us but to show us.  He wants us to witness His complete restoration.  A total restoring that only comes through One.

I have been there with that hand.  And I not only learned to work with it, I also hid it under sleeves of perfection and of good works; sleeves of shame and guilt.  I didn’t want to give Him that hand.  I wanted to give Him the hand that I thought looked good, that I thought would be pleasing to Him.  And to that hand He says:

“No… that’s not the hand I ask for.  That hand that you think is good is one that I see as self-righteous.  You’ve already done the work on your own, you’ve settled for less than what I am offering.  And what that hand has built on its own will all fall.  It can not stand.  So put it down.  Because I died for your crippled hand.  I died for that hand that you hide in shame.  I died for that hand that you feel is unworthy because I alone am worthy.  That hand that you see as a disgrace, I see as beautiful. I see that hand as redeemable because I know the cure and I have the answer, I am the Answer.  But I need you to reach that hand out to me.”

That hand slowly reached out from under the sleeves and toward our Healer.  As it did, the full weight of all the shame and guilt and pain that the shriveled hand represented came down so heavily on my heart that I thought I might suffocate.  In that moment of abandoning it to Christ and feeling the crushing weight of my sin and my wounds, He breathed life.  
                                                 Burden released,
                                                                   sin forgiven,
                                                                           mercy a new.  A breath of complete restoration.

No law or opinion made by man holds back our Father from grabbing hold of an outstretched hand of His child.  There is no distance too long or shame too much for His Love to cover.

Stand up and stretch out your shriveled hand to a Savior who has a healing glory to show you.

Love Stories

I’ve been a wreck this week.  Somehow I keep coming across the most heart-breaking, awe-inspiring stories that have simply reminded me of just how fragile this life is.  It is brief, it is uncontrollable, it is so far beyond us.  Yet it is glorious, it is beautiful and all together magnificent.  It breaks us, bends us, molds us and shapes us, all while defining us.


At the sound of His voice it began.

          “And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.” Genesis 1:3

At His breathe the seasons turn.

          “…he breathes on winter - suddenly it’s spring!”  Psalm 147:16-18 MSG

And His Love is displayed.

“O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”  Psalm 8:1,9



This week started with a YouTube video of Eric Ludy’s “The Gospel”.  It is a video that is a bold reminder of who we are and Whose we are.  It is one that, if you allow the words to sink in, will absolutely wreck your life for Him.

“I’m sending you out to be a victor.  My children will not lose…I will come in and make my home, I will take those hands of yours and make them my hands, I will take those feet of yours and make them my feet, I will take that mouth of yours and it will speak my words, I will take those eyes of yours and  they can now see what I need you to be seeing in this world.  And I will take your heart of stone and make it a heart of flesh so that it will beat with my burdens and you will care for the very things that I care about.  And your prayers would become my prayers.  And your life and your attitude and your behavior, every minute of every day will become the very behavior of God.  

Will you allow Me to overtake your life?  Cause then we go into this world as little lambs with the faces of lions because the living God Almighty, the Consuming Almighty Sovereign God dwells within His children

…His lambs beat the wolf packs.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPIOkdNL-QQ

Later in the week I read a story of a Canadian father whose wife was declared brain dead when she was 22 weeks pregnant with their first child.  Through life support, the baby was able to remain in the womb and Dylan Benson welcomed his sweet boy into the world as he said goodbye to his wife.

http://www.lifesitenews.com/she-will-live-on-forever-within-iver-canadian-brain-dead-woman-gives-birth.html

“Every beat of your heart was a measure of love…” is what this Mama said to her newborn son who, being expected to never make it outside the womb, survived 10 days wrapped in the love of his family.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/02/03/zion-isaiah-blick-never-uttered-a-word-during-his-10-days-on-earth-but-those-10-days-will-speak-to-you-for-a-very-long-time/

And a friend shared this video with the words “Meditate on that for awhile…The Uncreated One…”  It’s one worth thinking long and hard about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjmt-0Zvwro&feature=share

And just this morning I read a story about Noelle Pikus-Pace, a skeleton athlete who is in the position to earn a medal in Sochi, whose commitment to her family and ability to turn tragedy into triumph is incredible.

http://www.nbcolympics.com/wnbc/video/noelle-pikus-pace-goes-tragedy-triumph?ctx=olympic-journey

So there I sat across our dining room table sharing my heart with my husband.  My heart that resembles our table - that’s scarred and worn and filled with memories of tragedy and triumph too and grace and love and will.  I shared the stories I had heard, I shared the story of my now, we shared our stories of our past.  Stories that wreck and stories that inspire.  My heart that was trying to understand all the pain and all the joy and how it can all live right here together on this earth, in our lives, in our hearts.

And he looked at my tear stained face with just a few words he  turned every wandering thought into complete adoration of our King:

We don’t get it.  Jesus died on the cross for us and nothing compares to that.  

We can’t understand it. 

So I go back to the beginning.  Because I was condemned.  I was separated.  I was guilty.

And I now I am justified.  
                             Forgiven.  
                                    Redeemed. 
                                             Set free.  

Because of Christ’s blood.  

Because of His Love.  

And there is no greater love story than that of our King.  

How are you measuring love this Valentines Day?  Because He is pouring it out, even in the darkest of places.   His love brings light and His light brings life.  His life overcomes the grave because He is the Uncreated One whose love is unfailing and whose promise is eternal.  His Righteous Hand writes our stories and they are stories worth telling.  Because in the end, they all lead back to our beginning.  They all lead back to Him.  And He.defines.us.

Defining Our Lives

Every moment of our lives has the chance to define our lives.  Every decision we make, every stand we take is a reflection of who we really believe God is.  If what we say is what we live as true.  If what we claim is where our hearts find rest.  Or if we run afraid in the other direction.  If our hearts take flight at glimpse of falling.  We pray against the cliff, we shake our fists at an Almighty God petitioning Him to make a road when the edge is coming straight to our feet.  Because underneath all the pretty crosses, do we really trust in His Sovereignty?

Do we trust Him when the cliff’s edge is where we stand?

Do we trust Him to catch us when our petitions didn’t build a road and we’re falling?

…when the healing doesn’t come?
…when the expected answer isn’t given in our earth-bound terms?
…when life unravels at the very seams?
…while facing the death of our dreams, our hopes, our loved ones, our selves?
…when the diagnosis doesn’t have a cure?
…for the walking away?
…when all we once knew is spilled out?

Who is our God to us then?

Because who He is to us then, is who He really is to us.


Her text came after months of an emotional and spiritual battle.  When all she knew for 18 years was about to change.  Drastically.  And finally, finally there was relief.  Her praise has been all along, all through the worst of it, but this time, thank God, her praise came with relief.

“Take my yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest (relief and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet) for your souls.”  
Matthew 11:28 AMP emphasis added

Relief because she could see it now and she was about to see even more, God’s glory in an abundant outpouring of love and grace:

“I had no idea what was to come out of it but God did…he knew all along.  I remember looking up at the heavens and talking to and sometimes even yelling at God on my way home from work as the time grew near….Asking Him what I’m supposed to do now?!  I felt ripped apart inside!  But I tell you what…never, ever would I take back any part of this experience for a second!!  So many blessings I have had through it all.  My heart has not been this close to God for such a long time and I absolutely love it!!  God is so very good!”

And as I read them over my heart extended across the miles because I knew.   I drove the same road with a different story but the same question.  And don’t we all?  Don’t we all find ourselves wrestling with a God who, in His love, doesn’t work it out our way?  A God who doesn’t always build roads but who lets us fall?  Something deep within us breaks and we are vulnerable and on the edge of the very cliff we shook our fists against.  We cry out in our desert asking for the rains to flood our needy souls.  Moments that linger all the more longer and feel anything but momentary.    And where do we go from here?  What do we do now?

What did Jesus do?  He begged and pleaded, sweat until he bled while asking for His cup to be removed, but still choosing His Father’s Sovereign will for his life.  He chose the cross.  He chose to fall.  Would it take the same from us?  That He would ask us to die to ourselves, to our own wants, our own ways, in order to find the full life that He offers?  “I have came that they may have life, and have it to the full.“  John 10:10  Jesus trusted His Father enough to catch Him.  And in the greatest act of Love ever to grace this earth, He did. He caught Him.  And He will catch us.


“God is a safe place to hide, ready to help when we need him.  We stand fearless at the cliff-edge of doom, courageous in sea storm and earthquake.  Before the rush and roar of oceans, the tremors that shift mountains.  Jacob-wrestling God fights for us, God of Angel Armies protects us.”  
Psalm 46:1-3 MSG emphasis added


Every desert we find ourselves in holds a river if we are wise to find it.  But we must look with different eyes, because it can not be found as long as we look with eyes bound to this world.  And those who are in the desert, who understand the scorching heat of the sun, those are the ones who see His glory displayed when the river is found.  Those are the ones who allow these times to bring them closer still to the heart of our Amazing God. “Your life is a journey you must travel with a deep consciousness of God.”  1 Peter 1:18 MSG  

I go back to the old gray man whose eyes glisten with Christ and whose hands tell the story of a life well lived, a life lived full.  A life that has surely plowed fields with fists raised at His Heavenly Father.  A life that has seen the harvest time and time again as our Lord answered.  A life that has broken itself, came to the very end of itself and died to itself so that it would be more like its Savior.  And when you live a life like that, other’s find Him through you.  So it seems fitting that right in the midst of all the falling, this man’s prayer said:


                               “…that we would have strength to live as a testimony, thank You 
                                                                                              for sending Your Son.  Amen”


Our deserts seem dry of much else this life offers but He is a Fountain that never runs dry.  He offers full life, life that conquered death.  When we’re in the wilderness or falling hard off the edge we must lean in to Him.  He is a safe place to be.  And when we choose Him, when we choose to trust beyond the moment, beyond the circumstance, beyond our selves, then our lives testify to His Goodness, His Mercy, His Grace and His Faithfulness.

“Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.  The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs.”  Isaiah 35:6-7 emphasis added

Every moment of our lives has the chance to define our lives.  May we have the strength to live our lives as a testimony to a God who is Worthy of our selves.


“Be careful, keep calm, and do not be afraid.  Do not lose heart…”  Isaiah 7:4

"I was right on the cliff-edge ready to fall, when God grabbed and held me.  God's my strength, he's also my song, and now he's my salvation.  Hear the shouts, hear the triumph songs in the camp of the saved?...I didn't die.  I lived!  And now I'm telling the world what God did...This is the very day God acted - let's celebrate and be festive!  Oh yes, God - a free and full life!... You're my God, and I thank you.  O my God, I life your praise on high.  Thank God - he's so good.  His love never quits!" 

from Psalm 118 MSG 

“Who would have thought a path that began so poorly would take 

me to a place that radiated so much life and beauty, hidden 

deep in the forest, unseen by most.” 

 Streams by Pura