A Call to Us Lovers of Christ

How much of our giving is really getting?

How much of our offering is really receiving?  

And if our giving is getting and our offering is receiving, is it really counted as righteous, counted as cost?  

Us lovers of Christ are to be, should really, be a reflection of Christ.  Oh but we get it so wrong.  

We give to help the hurting yet walk away ourselves with our own hands or our own stomachs full.

Christ gave to have His very self poured out.  And the emptying of Himself did not stop Him from giving it all.  

What if all this that we are getting for giving was instead given to those hungry, hurting and those whose souls were as thirsty as their parched mouths?  What if we truly reached out as Jesus did, to touch and to heal and to give of ourselves instead of reaching out to take back?  How many lives would be turned right around?  How many souls would be satisfied?  

We hand over our portion set aside yet still have more than enough for ourselves.   We live hand in hand with the lost, the broken, the desolate and weary yet we fail to notice.  We fail to see and fail to care all while claiming to be a missionary, a minister, a Christ-lover.  Oh, we have it all wrong.

Instead of asking “What would Jesus do?” why don’t we set aside our opinion and ask “What did Jesus do?”  Because if Christ is who we claim, then Christ should be who we seek.  

Jesus didn’t love from a distance, He walked alongside the least of these.

Jesus reached out and touched the untouchable leper.  He saw the soul behind the wounds.

Jesus allowed the outcast to come right up beside Him and He healed, taught and poured out.

And when the time came to give it all, He sweat drops of blood as He cried to His Father to remove the cup.  But when the cup remained, He drank it full.  He paid the price.

In return He received nails and a crown of thorns.


When His offering was placed on the cross He didn’t walk away with….

a “free” book
a baked good
candy
soup
a filled basket
pride
a boost in ego
a tax write off.

But we do.  And we claim it as Christ-like.  


But what if when we gave and received if we’d give again?  What if that “free” book was prayed over and given to a lost soul?  What if that baked good was given to the family struggling to feed a table full?  What if that candy was placed in the hands of a child whose parents shamefully say no at the check out because they can’t afford more than the apples and ramen noodles?  What if the soup was placed in a bowl of the elderly couple whose frail hands and trembling legs can’t much stand to cook a healthy meal?  What if the basket was given as a thank you to the teller or the cashier or the waitress?  What if the pride and boost of ego was traded for the giving of more until humility sets in?  And what if the tax write off was matched to give once more?


What if we gave before there was something in return to receive?

What if we met a need before it was seen by most?


Us lovers of Christ can be used by Christ to really be like Christ.  We have the ability to reach a lost and broken world if we should set aside ourselves long enough to not get in the way.  Our God who is all-knowing has things to show us, things He needs our eyes to see.  He wants us that claim Jesus to live with eyes open, not willfully blinded.  He has hurting hearts that need His healing touch through us.  He has uncharted territory for us to walk, as His feet, to reach lost and lonely souls in need of a Savior.

What if our giving was really just that, giving?

And what if our offering was what it should be, like that of Christ’s,  a sacrifice?

“This is how we know what love is:  Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.  And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.  If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?  Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.  This then is how we know that we belong to the truth.”  1 John 3:16-19 NIV

“Christ sacrificed his life for us.  This is why we ought  to live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves.”  1 John 3:16 MSG

Why the Duck Dynasty Calendar Made Our Wall

Our family calendar is an important thing in our home.  Not only does it keep us all on track but it’s where I record everything from big events to seemingly little memories.  As I begin a new calendar, I take time to go back and reminisce through the year before.  Whatever calendar is chosen will remain year to year to look back upon for memories - it’s kind of a big deal.

Since December of last year I had my chosen calendar ready to take its new place on our door.  It had inspirational quotes and I was loving the design.  I’m one for details and mostly everything that makes a shelf or a wall in our home must match or have special meaning.

For Christmas my husband got a Duck Dynasty calendar: camouflaged and complete with the bearded men themselves.  I’m a fan of the show but not so much to the extent of hanging the calendar in the center of our home. Truthfully, I didn’t think he’d even ask but he did and the great debate began!  We jokingly went back and forth about which calendar would make the wall for the year.  I laughed until I realized he wasn’t kidding about hanging the camouflaged, bearded men photos to look at every day for the next twelve months and then reminisce on for…well the rest of our lives.  This would be the calendar that would hold many of our baby’s firsts and many of our lasts as parents to a toddler.  It would be the calendar to hold our girl’s first year of soccer and her start of school.  Milestones, moments, memories, captured for a lifetime.

One of my favorite men from the show is Uncle Si.  In an attempt to win me over, Randy turned to a page with a photo of the wild-eyed old man.  And for that reason, it made our wall.  Not because of my “old man crush” but because of what it said:

“If you’re too busy to duck hunt, you’re too busy.”

That was the end of the great calendar debate.  He won.  Because those words pierced my heart.  You see, these are men who stay rooted regardless of fame or fortune.  They have been known to turn down interviews simply because it was duck season.  They have been known for their open belief in and outspoken stand for God.  God, family and ducks come first just as it always has.  And this heart needed that kind of reminder.

The past year had added a lot to our schedule and I had strayed from the roots in which my foundation was laid.  There wasn’t enough time for the things that mattered most.  There was much coming before the hearts in our home, before family and some things even before God.  I may not duck hunt (yet…I do have my request in to my husband!) but I was too busy for my foundation which means I was too busy.

“You shall have no other Gods before me”

Exodus 20:3

“Let your roots grow down into Him, and let your lives be built on Him.  

Then your faith will grow strong in the Truth…”   

 Colossians 2:7

The calendar hangs on our wall and is a continual reminder of the simple things in life.  Reminders to be “Happy, Happy, Happy” and that family always comes first.  Along with a few quotes about squirrels and rednecks which I’m claiming as reminders to not take life so seriously and laugh a little.  Or a lot.

Transitioning from staying busy to staying simple is not as easy as it may seem.  There are habits to change and forgiveness to be received.  There are changes to routines and filtering out of things that became expected.  There are lessons for this home schooling mama to teach as well as lessons for this mama to learn.  There is a lot of humility and even more grace.  But it is all well worth it.  I love more deeply, laugh harder and see God more.  Even our dog found a new home by my side.

When we stretch ourselves too thin, there isn’t much room for us to fill.  

Keep it simple, stay grounded, grow your roots down deep and you will find more life and love than you ever imagined.  

If you’re too busy for that, you’re too busy!

“He fills my life with good things!”

Psalm 103:5

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

This I Am Sure

There was a time when all this that I have wasn’t a sure thing.  Having a husband who loved me and who stayed, who meant what he said when “until death do us part” left his lips.  A husband to build a home and raise a family with.  The five kids I spoke of weren’t a reality but just a time of imagining for this girl who held less than a handful of babies before they placed my firstborn in my arms.  A time when actually seeing those five babies ever as mine was out of my imagination and right into the hands of my Sovereign God.  None of it was a sure thing.

Handwritten letters over the stretched miles, my heart written right down on those papers, stickered and sealed and sent for three long years.  A dress and a dance and a spark of a dream becoming a reality, a real, tangible God answer right there by my side.  Months later came two tests with two lines and the overwhelming shock and fear and anticipation of life changed.  And a life that was expected to grow full term was gone before we could catch our breath.  Right there in the depth of it we found a God who held us when we couldn’t hold him, because His Goodness was and is a sure thing when all that we hope for is unsure.  And I realized that the husband I prayed for was the man whose blue eyes met mine at the end of the aisle with my Daddy by my side.  Because His Graciousness of raising a man who seeks hard after Him is a sure thing when this world tells a different story.  So those other four babies we now dreamed of together were placed right into the hands of a God
Who.
Had.
A.
Plan.

Now I find myself looking at a roll of cardboard charred from the sunlight through a magnifying glass, a pile of snow clothes thrown through out a room I want all to much to just stay clean, a boy duck taping his sister which quickly turns from fun to tears, a baby boy discovering his ability to destroy all his mama’s hard work and fingerprints in leftover strawberry jam.  And there’s clothes and coats and shoes and projects and kisses and hugs and needs and wants and not enough me to go around or to keep up.  That girl who dreamed of this all those years ago didn’t ask for or dream of any of what it really meant.  Yet it was given and it is loved and it is wanted and I.  Am.  Blessed.  And in the background of this messy, beautiful, ordinary life I hear it play to music the words that my heart sings each and every moment:

“Christ is enough for me.”  

He is enough.  For every moment of it being too much and not enough.  For every prayer that has passed my expectations and every one that’s answer came with a stinging pain.  He is enough for every time my heart has broken and He is enough for every time my heart is healed and made whole.

He has been enough through the five I asked.  Enough for the two that my womb was blessed to carry and my heart filled to love.  Enough for the ache of my empty arms and my emptied self.  He has been enough for the three that bring this weary mama to the foot of the cross begging for wisdom to raise them up in Him. He is enough to know that there is a season for all the joys and sorrows of parenting, that there is strength to raise and strength to let go.

He is enough to keep my hand planted firmly within the rough hands of a man whose love is tried and proven.  Enough when the fairy tale failed us, enough when it all fell through, enough when we failed one another.  He is enough when we fall so disturbingly short.  For every moment we want to build a wall, his love is enough to keep the bricks on the ground.  Grounded in Him so this love of ours can grow up rooted and founded in Him.  For every time heart ache pierces right through, His forgiveness is enough to extend our arms tight around the other and pull us in close.

He is enough when my whole world is shifted and when the road ahead is uncertain.  He makes a way because He knows The Way.  When the time for change comes and the time of second chances is given, He says “follow me” and it is in Him I trust because He has been faithful every time before.

Christ is enough for me.  He bled for my sins, and although I feel so unworthy, one drop was enough.  He came for my heart, and although it’s scarred and emptied and poured out, He is enough to fill it and make it whole.  He came for my life, and when I mess up and get it all wrong, He is enough to make my life new.  

And all this that I have is a sure thing, because Christ is what I’m sure of.  I’m sure of His Goodness, His Sovereignty and His Unending Love.  I’m sure of His Grace, His Mercy and His Healing. I am sure that He renews, restores, redeems and sets free.    I am sure that I am His and He is Mine.  And I am sure that His plan for me is good when I know and feel it and also when I don’t.

Christ is enough because Christ covered it all.  We can be sure.

“People with their minds set on you, you keep completely whole, steady on their feet, because they keep at it and don’t quit.  Depend on God and keep at it because in the LORD God you have a sure thing.”  Isaiah 26:3-4 MSG

“Imagine the breathtaking recovery life makes, sovereign life, in those who grasp with both hands this wildly extravagant life-gift, this grand setting-everything-right, that the one man Jesus Christ provides.”  Romans 5:17 MSG

Three Words: It's Your Fault

“It’s YOUR fault.”

I watched from a distance as my two children wrestled on the couch.  It was a fun, sibling match full of giggles and grins.  Until Jayden began to fall, her face and Peyton’s foot colliding.  She burst out in tears and immediately Peyton turned and shouted “It’s YOUR fault.”

Three words that have the power to penetrate through the depths of our hearts.  

I called my son over to me and he hurried to explain to me that he hadn’t hurt his sister.  He was quick to dismiss all responsibility in the matter and even quicker to pass it on.  But neither of them were at fault.  As she sat there, hurt and crying, he had the opportunity to comfort her.  Instead he chose to make her feel guilty.

The passing on of guilt and shame.  When one broken heart is left unhealed by a Savior, it continues the pattern.  Breaking one heart after another.

“Amnon became frustrated to the point of illness on account of his sister Tamar, for she was a virgin and it seemed impossible for him to do anything to her.”  2 Samuel 13:2 NIV

Amnon was around 22 and Tamar, 15.  At that time, the daughters were kept in strict seclusion and this frustrated Amnon.  His problem was lust.  The same problem that caused his father to devise a plan to sleep with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11).  Amnon made himself sick, lay in bed and requested Tamar to cook for him.   Verses 6-14 tell us how the story that tragically ends.

“But he refused to listen to her, and since he was stronger that she, he raped her.”  2 Samuel 13:14

Read on to what it says next.

“Them Amnon hated her exceedingly (he blamed her for what he had done)…” vs. 15 (The Expositors Study Bible)

None of us would blame this innocent girl who was simply caring for her brother.  But I wonder what her heart went through after leaving with the door being “bolted after her.” (vs. 18)  What disgrace did she allow in?  What shame did she carry?

What disgrace have you allowed in?
What shame have you carried?

“Tamar put ashes on her head and tore the ornamented robe she was wearing.  She put her hand on her head and went away, weeping aloud as she went…And Tamar lived…a desolate woman.”  vs. 19,20

She carried so much shame, embarrassment and grief that she became desolate.

Desolate: empty, joyless, without hope, abandoned, depressed, devastated place

For you feeling like you are broken and used.
For you who weep aloud.
For you Tamar’s who carry burdens of shame, disgrace, embarrassment and grief.  
For you empty, joyless, without hope.  Feeling abandoned, depressed and whose hearts are devastated.

“(You) will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; (you) will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations…Instead of (your) shame my people will receive a double portion, and instead of disgrace (you) will rejoice in your inheritance…and everlasting joy will be (yours).”  Isaiah 61:4,7

He has come to remove our ashes - those reminders that mark us as used, abused, unworthy, unloved - and in place give us beauty (Isaiah 61:3).  

He has come to take our hearts, tossed by the storms of life and left wounded, uncomforted, and rebuild us in beauty, splendor and with preciousness (Isaiah 54:11).  

Know today that it is not your fault.
You are not guilty.  
Chose today to turn your ashes over to His Healing touch.  Allow His nail-scarred hand to press into your wound and bring Healing that only He can.  No longer carry the bags of regret and shame, choose to break the pattern.   Because those three words have penetrated our hearts, some way and some how, but His Truth tells a different story - His Truth tells us we are redeemed and we are free.