Seasons...

So, what a crazy crazy winter we have had, and I'm thrilled that spring is coming early! Seasons are changing in more ways than one. We've worked a lot on our house, and when spring comes, there are more projects to do outside. Pictures to come! Also, over the winter the CD was finished, and if you haven't seen the Facebook invite, please consider this your personal invitation to come to the CD Release Party on March 25th. It's at the Nexus Building (where the Bridge Community meets) on 6746 S. Wilson Rd., Etown, from 2-4 p.m. I will be doing some songs from the CD and sharing some history behind them...plus we'll just be eating and having fun. I'm planning to have some coloring tables and stuff for the kids, so everyone is very welcome. The songs should be available online in various places like iTunes in the next month as well, or you could order a "real" copy from www.cdbaby.com.

So I'm the worst blogger ever because it has been a long time since I've really written. My journal feels neglected, too. I think I'm coming into a new season of my life, and I'm coming into it excited but also...I'm not nervous, not tentative, and not skeptical...I'm just coming into it cautiously. In the past I have been a "doer". A runner, a worker, a crazy goal oriented girl for Jesus. I was missing His sweet face while I tried to get stuff done for Him, not realizing that "serving" Him and others was not equivalent to knowing Him, really. He rescued me from that misunderstanding that was sucking the life out of me, but that rescue took a long transformation period. The main factor in this period of time--that was really wonderful once I surrendered--was that I wasn't allowed to "do" anything that I thought of as being something purposeful or noble for God, especially anything that someone else would give me recognition for. How awesome! I got to shake all kinds of junk off of me through this period--the fear of man, the praise of man, worrying about being judged, judging others, activities and "good" things that God never specifically told me to involve myself in--gone.

So, that long period of fasting, you could say, from these things made some stuff in me suffer a nice long slow death. Those things that used to make up who I thought I was were starved to death! My surrender sounded like this: "God, it's your life anyway. It's not mine. I was just trying to live it for you, but if you'd rather me just stay home or just be in my bed sick, or just raise these kids and not do anything else, that's YOUR BUSINESS! I will do that! Cool! I'm off the hook for all that other stuff because You aren't providing the strength, resources, ability, time, etc, to do any of it, plus You're forbidding me to do it anyway!"

Okay, why am I going into all this detail?

Because NOW, and only now, after going through this period of God killing me and then raising me back up a new creature, I have a good story to tell. Now I have a bolder voice and something to say about knowing Him and making knowing Him our everything...no exceptions, nothing tying for first place. I have learned this because I have now lived this: When we make knowing Him our only goal and priority, in our heart of hearts forsaking all other reasons to live, an internal miracle happens. The only things that can hurt in us are the things that are still alive! If they are crucified--all we wanted out of life, even all we hoped to do for His glory--then when things don't go "well", we don't suffer. Our only suffering is when we are losing sight of His face. Priorities get in order, confusion and what others think disappears, and we begin to really embrace this Colossians 3 "life hidden in Christ." Intimacy with Him happens and puts every worldly thing in its proper place. I want to live this and I want to share it! It's fine with me if I do not have opportunities but I sense them coming. And I can get freaked out about it, or I can just relax and know that God has prepared me, that the very point of my testimony is what I have to rely on RIGHT NOW as He gives opportunities to share!

Also, and this is the part I'm cautious about, just as God clearly and tenderly led me AWAY from church services (never the Body, just the building) now He is clearly and tenderly leading me back. It took so long to unwind myself from the old thoughts and feelings I had wrapped around my position/standing/reputation/talents/gifts/service in the church. I never want to go back to that kind of stuff even being on my radar! Martha Kilpatrick says she wants to be unaware and uninterested in regard to God using her or not. Exactly. Because I don't have TIME and ATTENTION to put on myself and what difference I may or may not be making. I only have time and attention and eyes for Jesus! And that's what I know He has raised me up for, to live to know Him: in my home and out of my home, on a stage or sitting in the nursery with other moms, cleaning the toilet or speaking at a conference. It's all the same. It's all the same! And I'm terrified that I will forget that. I know I am a nobody. I know that I have no reason to be afraid that some kind of public attention will go to my head. It's embarrassing to even share that I have this fear, but that is a practice God told me to put into place--look for opportunities to share something truthful about myself with others that is embarrassing. That's an opportunity to go low, and I need those! Pride has to be dismantled even in people who don't think they're all that great...because there's that secret place in most of us that would like to be great. And there is only One who is Great.

Whew. So I go forever without a blog, then I come back with that. But this is the season I'm walking into it, and I guess that's what a blog is for! Thanks for reading, and I would appreciate your prayers!