Living Life for Christ Alone

The sun was shining in the window as I held our newest little blessing in my lap and fed her a bottle.  I could hear my two-year-old crying in her crib, while my three-year-old softly tried to talk sense to her from her bed across the room. (It's hilarious to overhear, but that's a whole other topic.) I looked up at the clock and my heart sank.  "Late again," I thought. "Poor girls... When will I get the timing of the morning down? No wonder Avi is so upset."  As usual, I felt like kicking myself. Two weeks of this, and I still don't have it down....  A gentle nudge from within stopped me from going any further down that path.  "Do you really expect to be mistake free?"  // The last couple of weeks have been uncomfortable for me as I learn the ropes of endless paperwork, visits, communication with people involved in the foster care system, court dates and building a relationship with the baby's biological family.  It would certainly be a lo...

“But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?” (1 John 3:17) Shuts up his heart. Makes it so that the needy person has no access to the tenderest emotions that are felt there.   In a world that encourages us to put up walls and shut people out who hurt us, Jesus lifts high a different banner. He shows us a better, more beautiful way. But it is the way of the cross; the way of true, heavenly love.   You can’t truly lay down your life with your heart shut up –walls up, roof on, windows and doors locked. If your heart is inaccessible, so are the tenderest emotions that are needed to love another human being. And if compassion and tender love are not an ingredient in laying down your life, you aren’t laying it down.   But the risk involved in opening  your heart to another human being is huge. How many would dare go to that extreme for someone?   Many have been so hurt by...

"'Has love no power to save apart from suffering? Why must love suffer at all, and why, above all else, must love suffer long?' "'It is because the very essence of love is oneness,' said the King.  "'That is why love must suffer. If the beloved creatures whom the Creator created for love's sake must suffer, then the oneness of love makes it impossible for Him to allow them to suffer anything which He is not willing to suffer with them.'"   (Mountains of Spices, Hannah Hurnard) //   "...The very essence of love is oneness..." This phrase has echoed in my mind many times this week.  It is impossible for our God to let us suffer without suffering with us. It is impossible for trials and pressures to squeeze us on every side without Him feeling those trials and pressures too.  And yet, how often do I try to handle them on my own?  Standing up under pressure without supernatural strength holding you can only last so long.  My own sou...

Love... A word that keeps surfacing in my life lately.   I see it in my children’s picture bible as I catch sight of a depiction of Jesus hanging on the cross.   I hear pleas for Love in those who speak of their pain.   “Oh, to be truly loved,” the heart cries.   I wonder just how deep love can reach and as I reach for the deepest that I can find, I realize I still have not found the depths.   Love –as limitless as God.   Love –as profound as He is.   Love –wider than the widest ocean, vaster than the heavens.   However much we open ourselves up to it, there is always more. Love – the very expression of God.   Do you really know Him?   You might say yes, but have you tasted Him if you have not yet tasted love?   For He has said, “God is love.” (1 John 4:8)   The more I peer  into its depths, the more captivated I become.   Could there be any greater, more awe-striking way for God to express Himself? Take a wal...