Living Life for Christ Alone

The g rave.   The place of the dead.   The place of no going back.   Many times, this last year, I’ve voiced this very thought to God.   “I have died,” I thought. “I am not the same.”   I would look at the terrain of my soul and not recognize myself.   Trauma, the fires of difficulty, the deep pain of seeing your children struggle, the sorrow of letting go of people you love , the daily in-your-face weakness , a numbing grief ... these were enough to cause pieces of me to die.   Being “hard-pressed on every side,” as Paul put it, “yet not crushed.” And now I find myself “perplexed, yet not in despair.”   I wanted to go back for the longest time, to put pieces of me back together, to make it like it used to be, but the more I dig around in the rubble of my broken self, the more impossible it seems.   I knew it before all of this happened, that going up close to the broken –becoming a part of brokenness- means you are broken too.   But kn...

Seasons of great need - how easily we shun them like the plague.   The past several weeks have been drenched in many challenges and needs for me and my family.  Need that has had me crying out to God, “how long?”  I beg him for a time limit, some light at the end of the tunnel, but when I look for it, I just see more tunnel.  What is the purpose of a season like this?  This is the question I have found myself asking God on a near daily basis.  I won’t say I’ve found out the fullness of the answer yet, but pressing the question so much has yielded some light for me.  After all, He promises that those who seek will find.  And one thing He keeps pressing into my soul is this:  My need is my opportunity to test the limits I think God has on the amount of grace He will give me.  And oh, if I could recount to you all the ways He has already poured so much grace, you would think me a spoiled daughter of the King.  But if you saw how each d...