My head is filled with thoughts I want to share with you. They are random thoughts and a part of me wonders why I feel they are worthy of sharing. Do you ever wish you had someone who captured them for you as they came? They sound much better as they twirl around in my head. I hope my attempt to share them reveals my heart.
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Easter Sunday “Resurrection Sunday” has come and gone. I find myself asking, Now what? How do I respond to His death and resurrection?
I walked into church on Easter Sunday with a heavy heart for I walked in without my husband beside me. My heart hurt as I watched church friends count out the number of seats needed to cover the family members joining them.
I came to church alone. No family to join me. I cried silently in my seat.
Then a young man sat beside me. He asked my name. After telling him my name, with a big smile he replied, “Hey, our names rhyme. My name is Seth.” When it came time for official church greetings I turned towards Seth and he opened up his arms and gave me a hug. His hug touched my heart deeply.
Earlier in the morning I received an email from a writing friend. At a church service she attended the night before they were singing “He overcomes” and she wrote to tell me, “Ánd the Lord brought you to mind as I was standing their singing – and I prayed for you, Beth, because you will overcome! Strongholds will be broken.”
I woke on Monday morning to an email from a writing friend who discovered we may only live a few towns apart. She asked, “Would you be interested in meeting sometime?” I responded with a resounding YES.
On Wednesday a new writing friend reached out to say, “I just wanted to take a minute to thank you for your continued encouragement through your comments on my blog!”
Then a friend nominated me for a blogging award and I won another friend's book giveaway. The book just happens to be titled Chasing God.
I see God’s hand so clearly in each act of kindness. He used friends to encourage my heart and reveal His love for me just when He knew I needed it most. It was Him saying, “Beth, I see you. I am with you. You are never alone.”
I opened up to the Book of Ephesians this morning. The book takes my breath away every time I read. His glorious grace and love for us is revealed so vividly throughout the pages. Do I walk in a manner worthy of such love? A love so graciously lavished upon me from Easter morning to right now.
He placed on my heart recently to begin a new writing series. He tugged at my heart to put love in action. It’s been only a week since I made the commitment to love my husband with God’s kind of love. But when we choose to chase after God’s kind of love something powerful happens. I’m not sure how to explain it yet, but the problem with my heart . . . He’s transforming . . . He’s healing.
How do I respond to such grace?
I remember how I have doubted Him and believed the lies of the enemy instead: You are not pretty enough. You are not thin enough. You are not smart enough. You are unworthy. You are not enough. Those thoughts lead me to destructive behaviors.
Bob Goff shared shortly after Easter, “Every time we believe the lie that we're who we used to be, we roll the stone back into place like nothing happened.”
Do I really want to roll the stone back? Is this how I choose to respond to His grace?
What amazes me; He doesn't leave me in my moments of doubt. John the Baptist doubted. Read how Jesus responded in Matthew 11. Jesus didn't turn His back on him. Instead, He sends John’s disciples back to him with a message to answer his doubts and then says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).
If I believe Jesus is who He says He is, how do I respond? My only response should be to get on my hands and knees and say, I am yours. With all of my heart I am yours. Make me anew.
And He does make all things new.
So I join Paul in his prayer from Ephesians 3:16-19. I pray this prayer for you and for me.
“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge — that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
