I believe in God because He makes sense. And nothing else does; not Darwin or Plato or all the Greek myths.
They all sound like stories made up by angry men— and women rarely believe that something comes out of nothing and that the future holds no hope.
And deep inside—when all is still—and no one speaks—and I can hear, Someone whispers. And I know it’s Him.
That’s why I believe in God.
I believe in God because children do.
Because babies are born with their eyes wide open.
Because dimpled little boy hands become sinewy and strong.
Because every little girl knows that all of life ends happily ever after; and because grown-up women never stop trying to remember.
I believe in God because unborn infants beat the drum of the womb in cadence to a mother’s heart and because some babies are never born and still the whole world turns.
And life goes on and children laugh.
That’s why I believe in God.
I believe in God because of beauty. Because the intricacies of deep pink peonies outside my window beckon bumbles bees to come and hide…
Because green is moss and forest and leaf and sea and hundreds of hues in between…
Because of Sequoias and Redwoods and Oaks and Cedars.
Because on the darkest night the stars shine brilliant…
I believe in God because I can see Him and hear Him and smell Him in all He has made. Singing in rain, sighing in gusts of invisible wind, whispering in softest snowfall.
Covering over everything ugly.
All around me beauty reigns, awakening my heart to see something more.
I believe in God because He has left traces of who He is for all to see.
Because I feel His skin in every embrace, and sense His breath in every face.
Because of beauty.
That’s why I believe in God.
“… when dreams come true there is life and joy.” Proverbs 13:12
Last week Phil and I left for Germany to teach INTENTIONAL: Raising Passionate Jesus Followers. We flew into Zurich, Switzerland where we were met by a delightful young couple and their two-year-old daughter. We’d known Stephanie before she met Luke, then watched their love grow and all the curious leading of God in their lives that eventually landed them at the Black Forest Academy in southern Germany. As we taught this group of missionaries and business people, pastors and teachers and leaders, I couldn’t help but be humbled by their intelligence and maturity. Their questions revealed their hearts— brimming with love for their children and a deep desire to follow fully and passionately after Jesus in every area of their lives.
A few days later we traveled by train to Salzburg, Austria, land of Sound of Music and Maria and all those Van Trapp children. Castles and Cathedrals and Cuckoo Clocks and Glockenspiels. As you read this, we’re exploring the wonders of the Christmas Market, then headed by sleeper train back to Zurich for our flight home.
(the mansion where the Sound of Music was filmed)
And all I can do is wonder…
Why in the world would God let me do this?
A simple, shy homebody. A woman characterized by average. Normal. Medium. And yet here I wander, half way around the world, doing what I couldn’t possibly have dreamed up on my own.
For years, I’ve eschewed the best sellers that claim all our dreams will come true if we’ll only believe enough. I’ve been known to scoff at the “Best Life” ideals. Shuddered at what I believe is an adulteration of the message of Jesus. Somehow diamonds and dream vacations just don’t line up with the reality of Paul’s life— or John’s or Peter’s or any of those heros listed in Hebrews 11. Early on in my walk with God, wise mentors taught me that only in laying down our lives can we hope to gain everything He has and wants for everyone of us. I have believed that a life fully surrendered, emptied of expectation, ready and willing to die to dreams is the life that is truly life.
So how did I end up here? Living this dream?
It started with a problem: How in the world would we raise our children to be full-on followers of Jesus? With no faith background, no inherent wisdom, and no idea what to do, we began to study. To read and research, to ask questions and seek mentors. And as our children grew, we dug deeper.
Having no idea what to do, we had the advantage of having no preconceived ideas about how it should be done.
Sometimes we taught others what we were learning. Mostly we just listened and took notes and begged God to give us the wisdom we needed to face the unexpected.
Some friends thought we were overdoing it. Others taught us what they knew, adding to our stockpile of accumulated answers.
We dared. We risked. We did what we thought we heard God teaching us, telling us, leading us to do.
And we made mistakes. Lots of mistakes. Which led to a lot of repenting and relearning and humbling ourselves to try again.
Somehow our four children survived all that intensity. Somewhere in there they caught hold of Jesus and held on. They saw Him and heard Him and fell in love with Him.
Amazing. Miraculous. Beyond belief. Watching them, one–by-one, catch hold of Him has been more reward than I’d ever dreamed.
But, if I’m honest, somewhere I did dream of passing these uncovered treasures along to others. Years and years ago I even wrote it all down- only to realize I still didn’t know enough— hadn’t lived enough, to have enough to offer. Someday, I thought. Maybe someday.
And now I’m getting to live that Someday.
And I’m beginning to see a place in our lives for dreaming… not scheming and pushing and assuming and expecting… but for the kind of dreaming that has hope at it’s heart. Dreaming that maybe God will take my small sack lunch— my version of a couple of dried fish and a few barley loaves and multiply it to feed many.
And so today I’ll wander the stalls of the Christmas Market, wishing strangers a Frohe Weinachten, holding Phil’s hand, pinching myself from time to time just to be certain it’s real. In a couple of days I’ll be back to my normal, less-than-extraordinary life. Later, I’ll wrestle with what I’ve believed about the place of dreams and hopes and wishes.
But for now… I’ll just delight in dreams come true.
From my heart,
Diane
P.S. Are you dreaming of what God might have for you as you follow Him fully? Dare you tell us what that dream looks like? I, for one, would love to hear what God is up to in the weaving of your story.
Dear girls, As I write these words from the other side of the world, most of you are sleeping. You’ve spent the day working hard, trying hard, wishing life wasn’t so hard.
And now you’re at rest.
Except maybe those of you who are mothers of babies… or waiting up for teenagers…or those of you who woke up worried about someone and now you’re praying, please God, won’t You intervene…
Tonight and most of the day tomorrow Phil and I will be teaching parents how to be Intentional about raising this next generation to be passionate about following Jesus. We’re in Germany, invited to the Black Forest Academy to teach teachers and parents and people who are already committed, fully-after-God servants and leaders. I am honored and humbled and more than a little in awe to be here.
Last night we had dinner with a young couple we’ve known for a long time. As we caught up on the years since we’ve seen them and talked about some decisions they’re facing and worrying through, Luke repeated one of those nuggets of wisdom that seems so simple and then echoes for a long time. He was referring to something his father said, something I believe needs to be…
Lesson #3 about worry:
You need to take yourself less seriously... and take Jesus more seriously.
This wise dad wasn’t suggesting their decisions didn’t matter. He wasn’t saying don’t plan. He didn’t even mean to minimize the pressures. He was simply taking a hard-earned, long view of life and trying to help his son see the big picture— the one where Jesus obscures all those worries.
And I wonder if those words might be for you today. And for me.
Because they sound a lot like these…
“So, I tell you, don’t worry about everyday life— whether you have enough food, drink, and clothes. Doesn’t life consist of more than food and clothing? Look at the birds. They don’t need to plant or harvest or put food in barns because your heavenly Father feeds them. And you are far more valuable to him than they are. Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?
And why worry about your clothes? Look at the lilies and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for flowers that are here today and gone tomorrow, won’t he more surely care for you? You have so little faith!
So don’t worry about having enough food or drink or clothing. Why be like the pagans who are so deeply concerned about these things?
Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs and he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern.
So don’t worry about tomorrow…
~Jesus
(in Matthew 6:25-34)
What more can I say?
From my heart,
Diane
"Prayer is not monologue, but dialogue; God's voice is its most essential part. Listening to God's voice is the secret of the assurance that He will listen to mine."
Dear girls,
It’s time I let you in on a secret I’ve kept close to my heart for a long while. As open as I try to be on these pages, there is a part of me that cringes at revealing too much.
What will you think? What if I fail?
But I have learned to trust your hearts.
You are gracious women who know about failure and yet have the courage to dream. You are women who risk, women who know their limits and choose to reach further.
So here’s my secret: I am writing a book. Or at least trying to write a book.
This has been my dream for so long I’d almost stopped trying to make it a reality. Until I got an email from a literary agent who told me his wife read my blog. Low and behold, he thought I might want to write a book. And more, he’d help me learn how.
That was well over a year ago. Since that time, Bill has become a friend to Phil and I, encouraging, pushing, patiently enduring my foot dragging perfectionism and overloaded schedule. With his help I’ve finally finished my proposal, all 50+ pages of it.
Next week he’s sending it out to real live editors. People who will flip through the pages I laboriously wrote and rewrote and agonized over. People who will make a choice to either throw it away or take it to the next step.
And I tell you because I just cannot wait alone. This does not feel like waiting for Christmas… more like that long, drawn out, stomach-clenching wait for the results from Final’s Week.
“Don’t take it personally”, my husband warns. But that, as every woman well knows, is not possible. For a woman, for me, everything is personal!
And I probably shouldn’t tell you because now you’ll ask… Have you heard yet? And I’ll pretend it doesn’t matter. Shrug my shoulders and act all cool and nonchalant. When inside I’ll be hoping every day that someone will want my story.
But you’re my girls, my friends, the ones who listen to my stories and tell me your own. The ones who give courage and take courage and delight together in the Father who cares.
My book is simply my story. In it I give all the details and events that led up to my diagnosis of deafness, then the miraculously beautiful rescue I didn’t deserve. In it, I try to let you see who I really am— how I felt, what I feared, why I fell, what brought me back. I’ve written details even my own daughters don’t know, dredging up memories I’d tried to push aside in order to capture the lessons learned the hard way.
My goal in writing this book is to help you and other’s like you. Because I have this crazy sense that you want intimacy with God as much as I did and do. And that you want to hear Him. That you don’t want to miss those messages He has for you everyday. That you want to know what He is saying and why. And that, like me, you have am insatiable appetite for more, something that no one but the Father can ever begin to satisfy.
So now you know. My secret’s out. I’ve dared to tell you about my dream even before it’s become a reality.
Will you pray? For me as I wait with heart in hand… for each of those editors are who will find a file in their email and decide… for Bill (my friend and agent) who will do his magic…
I promise to let you know because I love you, girls.
From my heart,
Diane
We lingered at the café, my friend and I, talking about how her life had fallen apart with her marriage and how she was learning, slowly, to trust God again. It hadn’t been easy. After all the rejection and shame and horrors of her husband’s unfaithfulness, to believe that God cared seemed a stretch. After all, hadn’t she prayed and obeyed and done everything she could to get it right?
And hadn’t God failed to do His part?
Nothing had worked out. Not the marriage, not the man, not the vice grip of addiction to sin that had strangled the life out of the once well-intentioned husband.
Who could blame her for worrying now? For hesitating to trust a God who hadn’t done what she’d been so sure He could and would and certainly should.
And that, my dear girls, is at the heart of all our worry.
That underlying knowing that God does not always do our bidding. That the platitudes aren’t true. That everything does not work out. That sometimes awful stuff happens and people don’t get healed and marriages do fall apart and we can’t do a thing to stop it.
In honest moments we wonder…
How are we supposed to trust God with the truth?
You’ve heard the platitudes too, maybe spilled them on a hurting friend, that if we’ll…
only trust… let go and God let God… drum up enough belief… then God promises to work it all out for us.
A happy ending. Amen.
But life doesn’t work that way and neither does God.
Ask Paul. And Peter and John and James… their stories tell of a different kind of worry-free faith. Before pop-theology painted a gaudy façade over the truth.
Every one of those men discovered a secret. Paul dubbed it The Secret.
I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.
I know what it is to be in need,
and I know what it is to have plenty.
I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation,
whether well fed or hungry,
whether living in plenty or in want.
I can do all this through him who gives me strength.
Philippians 4:11-13
Lesson #2 about Worry:
It’s not what I do that matters, it’s what Jesus has already done.
Here’s what I mean:
On that day a month or so ago when I melted down in a grand display of run-a-muk anxiety, at it’s root was worry.
But I’d forgotten something vital. I’d forgotten The Secret.
That whether I do right or do wrong…
Whether I am a shining example of organizational skills and stellar hard work, or a pathetic failure at anything admirable…
I am not the point.
My perfect performance is not the point. Whether my family is perfect or my job stellar or my bank balance growing, is not the point.
Because Jesus took me in all my inadequacy and placed me in His beauty. Its not about me anymore, its about Jesus. I, in all my brokenness, am hidden in Him, all tucked into His perfection.
As long as I remember that, my own less-than-perfect performance won’t destroy me.
And as long as I remember that, I don’t have to demand that God work everything out all hunky dory the way I wish it would be.
And that, my dear friends is the reason Paul and Peter and James and John and all those others whose stories weren’t perfect could be content and at rest and filled with peace and joy and hope in the midst of the messiness of real life.
But see that lovely word again, dear friends, Paul learned.
And that’s what you’re doing.
Learning.
Slowly but surely you and I are learning the how-to’s of being women at rest in Him. We are learning the Secret.
From my heart,
Diane
If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small. Proverbs 24:10 KJV
If you falter in a time of trouble, how small is your strength!
Proverbs 24:10 NLT
Dear girls,
Just a couple of weeks ago when the pressures of packing and sorting and moving collided with news of my father’s failing health, I faltered… fainted… imploded in a great revealing of the smallness of my own strength.
And ever since that day I’ve been afraid of doing it again.
The chest tightens up.
Heart speeds up.
Worries well up.
Un-oh.
And some of you know exactly what I’m talking about: fear of fear.
Once unreasonable fear has wrapped you in its grip and pulled you under to a place of panic, you will forever fear the fear.
The fear itself becomes more frightening than whatever it was that scared you.
And it leaves you weak. Small of strength. Faltering. Fainting.
Just the woman, just the way, I do not want to be.
And so I have set out on a quest for wisdom from the Wise One who promises wisdom if we’ll only ask. (James 1:5) Every morning I’ve been up early, asking for Him to show me the way out this chest tightening anxiety that is so fearsome, so weakening, so… not what I want.
I’m filling my journal with scribbles and stories of His words to me about the how and why and when and what-to-do when I worry too much.
It’s time I pass some of those lessons on to you. Because you worry too. Too much. Too often. And you’re being weakened by the worry.
Here, my girls, is
Lesson #1 About Worry:
Anxiety starts with that first socially permissible step called fretfulness.
Intense anxiety is not, as some would lead us to believe, purely biological in basis.[1] No one falls into a full-blown anxiety attack out of nowhere.
And anxiety is not some sort of guerilla tactic of the Evil One that hits us out of the blue. Instead, the enemy of our souls sneaks in to exploit our weaknesses, hoping to render us ineffective and weak.
Though the dark spiritual and the physical may need to be examined, that is not where anxiety starts.
Anxiety starts with fretting— those socially permissible comments we toss out in conversation.
What if…
I’m worried about…
I’m afraid that…
And instead of taking those first alerting signals to the Father we try them out on other people. What’s been silently brewing inside comes bubbling up and we hand the words to those who care about us, hoping they’ll make it go away.
They, in turn, often dismiss our worries and say something inane like, “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”
Which makes us go underground again. Only now that we’ve put all those jumbled thoughts into words we know what we’re worried about.
So we pray about it. After all, we’re told to pray about everything, right?
Well, sort of. But I’ve learned that there is praying… and there is praying.
How many hours have I fussed at God in the name of prayer? Gone on long rambling prayer walks where I worried out loud at Him the whole way. Telling Him what to do, how to go about doing it, when He needs to get on it.
That, my dear girls, is not praying. It is spiritual fretfulness. Just the kind of thing that shuts out His voice and shuts in the worry.
Do not fret. It leads only to evil doing.
Psalm 37:8 NASB
Fretting, we are warned, leads not to solutions, but to doings. Evil doings. Bad stuff.
The frightening, weakening, embarrassing episode of intense fear I experienced a couple of weeks ago did not start with whatever it was that tipped me over the edge.
I began that walk to the edge of the cliff with a slow meander onto the pleasant path of acceptable fretting.
And that is right where I must stop the worry if I’m going to be free of it. Fretting cannot be tolerated. Like an alcoholic who dare not take a sip, I’ve been warned now about where worry leads.
It is time for me to take that slightest tightening of my chest and turn it into a question for my Father.
“Why am I worried Abba?”
To talk to Him. To listen. To confess that… I am afraid and short on trust and taking on too much and wishing I hadn’t and what’s wrong with me?
And then to let Him do His redeeming thing on me, in me, through me, to me.
It’s just a small lesson, I know. But it’s a start. A realization that I am weak. That worry has weakened me. That it starts with fretting. That apart from Him I’m a mess.
That He loves this mess that is me enough to get to root of it so He can get rid of what weakens me.
Isn’t that just amazing grace?
From my heart,
Diane
[1] That said, a check up is wise when experiencing the physical symptoms of anxiety. All it takes is a few out of order hormones or a broken down thyroid to slip some people over the edge from ordinary worry to panic attacks.
The Lord is like a father to His children,
tender and compassionate to those who fear Him.
For He knows how weak we are;
He remembers we are only dust.
Psalm 103:13-14
Last week I fell apart.
As in out-of-breath, wild brokenness. Really bad.
I’d slept restlessly, awakened drenched with fear, right at the climax of a terrible nightmare. As I padded downstairs to brew a pot of tea, my anxiety level increased with every step. Everywhere I looked was disorder. Moving boxes half filled, papers and undone tasks crowding every visual space. By the time my tea was ready, I’d made a list long enough to keep every moment filled for a month and lashed myself a dozen times for being so disorganized.
I read my Bible while sipping the steaming tea, keeping that list beside me. Every couple of minutes I’d stop reading and jot down another to-do for my list. Then I’d pause and scold myself for almost forgetting. My chest tightened incrementally by the minute.
I got to work, fast and furious.
I’d get it done today.
I had to! I ought to! I’d better!
After a couple of hours of furious packing and continued scolding at myself for my inability to concentrate and stay on task, Phil came home. He’d been up early for a prayer meeting at church. He was tired. He was hungry. He was not happy. (Enough said.)
Something he said… or the way he said it… or… something unloosed my tenuous grip on sanity and I started to cry. Really cry— hard.
I just fell apart.
Great heaving sobs racked my exhausted body. Gulping for air, I started to panic. And then I started to hyperventilate. Couldn’t think. Didn’t know how to stop.
Did I mention that I fell apart?
And I almost didn’t tell you because it’s embarrassing. Horrible. Not-supposed-to-happen to a woman who writes about cleaving close to Jesus and relationships and wisdom from God’s Word.
But I just have to tell you because the very next morning, the One I keep telling you about, the One I love and worship and listen to… spoke to me. And what He said took my breath away again. In a good way.
Once again I sat surrounded by boxes, though my daughter, Elizabeth had done a commendable job the day before of helping me to get my scrambled, disordered mind back in sync. Boxes for storage in one room, boxes going to the garage of the fixer-upper in another. Boxes for the temporary place off to the side.
Tea steaming, Bible open on my lap, I asked the Father to teach me what I’d done wrong. Why I’d humiliated myself with my meltdown.
Shame filled me. Remorse. More scolding.
And that’s when my eyes fell on these words from Proverbs 9:6…
Learn to be wise.
Oh… learn.
I am learning.
Ah, relief. Freedom from condemnation.
And if you are like me, making multiple foolish mistakes that lead to falling apart and melting down and breaking into itsy bitsy pieces of shattered truth… you know what I mean by relief. Instead of scolding me for all those mistakes and summing me up as one big failure, He reminded me that I am learning.
Learning to be wise. Learning to live well. Learning to think right and be right and do right… but mostly, I am just learning to love Him. Because…
He loves me— the mess that I am.
And He loves me enough to speak to me. To speak words that bring hope and help exactly when I need hope and help.
And so I’m letting myself be embarrassed by letting you know about something that embarrasses me. Because, face it, it’s embarrassing to be broken. To act unwisely. To fall apart.
But the truth is, I’m a little wiser today because I’m learning to love Jesus and to know my brokenness. And I’m learning to recognize the Spirit’s signals that sin is crouching around the corner, ready to overwhelm my still-learning soul.
And so are you.
That’s the beauty of being part of Him together.
From my broken, but learning heart,
Diane
PS: Are you learning something about being wise? Learning to love Jesus more and more because He loves you even in your messiness? Can you tell us? Your stories help give us all hope.
We’re moving in a week. After 11 years in this big suburban house, we’re downsizing to what will eventually be a cozy cottage.
Drastically downsizing.
And as I’ve emptied storage areas and my closet, sold off furniture and knickknacks, sifted through a hodge-podge of accumulations, I’ve been learning significant and not-so-nice things about myself.
Take, for instance, the box of memories I’ve saved from Matthew’s childhood. Actually, take the multiple boxes of memories. Plastic baseball trophies (for participation! Whoopee!), two worn out teddy bears, the grungy purple cast he wore when he broke his leg- 20 years ago. Geez.
Did I think he would thank me someday? Ah Mom, how sweet, you saved this stinky cast…
Or was I just too lazy to decide?
Or the tea cups. I collected those way back when, using them for wedding showers and tea parties. And even though they’ve sat, unused, in a drawer for all the eleven years we’ve been here, it was hard to set them out for the garage sale. But there they sat, all morning long. No one even glanced at them. I couldn’t give them away!
My dear, diplomatic daughter, Elizabeth summed it up succinctly:
Creepy.
I’ve excused myself for all this saving. I’m nostalgic. These things remind me of people in my life— my children, my mom, old friends.
But here’s what I’m learning, girls…
When we hang on to stuff from the past, we’re impeded from embracing the future.
I think Jesus had something to say about that.
“And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the old skins would burst from the pressure, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine is stored in new wineskins so that both are preserved.”
Matthew 9:17
Did you catch that phrase telling us why we’ve got to let go of what we once loved but doesn’t really work so well anymore?
… for the old skins would burst from the pressure…
Whether its tea cups or teddy bears…
or the role we once played in our family…
or the way we once did church…
or the relationship that is so very comfortable but is holding us back from fully following Jesus’ call on our life…
Some stuff has to go, or I’ll never be free to soar.
And so I am sorting. Making hard decisions. Asking myself uncomfortable questions.
Why would I keep this? Is it useful? Do I need it? Am I sure?
And then I’m probing deeper.
Will this crowd up and clutter my new little house? Will storing this cost me more money than it’s worth? Is it worth the aching backs to move it again?
All questions we need to be asking ourselves about how we live our lives.
Maybe you’re like me. You’ve gotten so busy that you’ve not had the time or the energy to free up space to dream.
Maybe we all should ponder Jesus’ words about the importance of letting go.
The context, by the way, has to do with a good thing. A disciple of John the Baptist was put off by the fact that the disciples of Jesus didn’t seem spiritual enough. Unlike other devoted followers of Yahweh, they didn’t fast.
That made them suspect. Less-than-committed. What he’d failed to see was the original intent of fasting and the current purpose assigned to Jesus’ disciples.
Sound familiar?
And so, I’m back to packing and sorting and yet another trip to Goodwill. Getting rid of good things so I have room to create something new.
Even tossing the tea cups.
From my heart,
Diane
And you? Do you have a vision for something new? Might you ponder Jesus’ words and how His wisdom relates to your habits?
Please tell us about it! This is scary stuff, this letting go.
Do not let your hearts be troubled (distressed, agitated).
You believe in and adhere to and trust in and rely on God;
believe in and adhere to and trust in and rely also on Me.
In My Father’s house there are many dwelling places (homes).
If it were not so, I would have told you;
for I am going away to prepare a place for you.
John 14:1-2
Amplified Bible
I sit, like I have on so many days, overlooking the roofs of my near neighbors to the countryside a few miles away. A line of trees marks the Tualatin River in the distance where fog rises from the dampness of the marshes and rich planting fields that follow it’s winding way.
My mornings on the back deck are numbered now. Summer is burning itself out in a final blaze of over-heated days. Rain is coming.
And we’re moving.
We have lived in this home for 11 years. Through Matt’s teenage years and my daughter’s weddings. It’s the longest I’ve ever lived anywhere. We chose this particular house because of its basement— light filled and spacious, it seemed the perfect place for Phil’s widowed mom to come live with us.
But that didn’t last all that long. After several months she decided to move back to California, her home of half a century. And now she’s gone, waiting in the presence of Jesus for when He comes back with that perfect city and all the houses He’s been preparing for each of us.
We’ve rattled around in this big house, just the two of us, for the past year, talking about moving, wondering where and how in the world to pack two decades of stuff and too many decades of memories saved. With all the nooks and crannies and extra rooms in this behemoth I’ve simply boxed everything neatly and not thrown much of anything away.
My day of reckoning is here.
We’ve bought what is nicely named a “fixer-upper” in a quaint suburban town on the outskirts of the city. One-third the size of this house… but with a big backyard and the small town feel I long for. It’s a cottage- or will be when we get through changing and rearranging and adding charm to what actually is an ugly house with not much built-in potential.
And girls, I keep comparing myself to that house. It’s ugly and so am I. Run down, with no inherent charm. Tight and cramped, dark and plain.
And then Jesus bought us back from the owner who’d treated us badly. And He stepped back and saw beauty in us— saw how our contrariness could be turned into something quaint and cozy… saw what no one else could see.
So He got out His toolbox and went to work.
Changing us.
Sometimes hammering hard, other times sawing off areas that stick out too far and hurt innocent people passing by. He sands and smoothes, rearranges and repaints. Making a beautiful place to come home to, a place of welcome and respite.
And we don’t much like the process, do we? We complain and worry and wonder what in the world He’s doing. We don’t like our ugly places but we’ve grown used to them. We’re comfortable in our cramped quarters, threatened by change.
But dear girls, just like I see something possible in this ugly little house we’re buying, He sees beauty in who He knows you almost are.
He sees a welcoming cottage He can use to welcome weary souls, a place of refuge and delight. He sees the beauty of who you could be, of who He can make you.
In the months ahead I’ll send you pictures of our new/old home. I’ll invite you in for tea once the smells of cat food and over-use go away. This is a project, for sure, but so are you and I. And though part of me dreads the hard work, there’s this other part of me that sees potential… in the house… and in each of us as well.
From my heart,
Diane
