Emmanuel—a name most often associated with Christmas, is equally appropriate for Father’s Day. It means God is with us. And that’s the kind of father he is: one who sacrificed everything to be with his children forever.
Source: With
Photo Credit: Beach, Background – Free images on Pixabay
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could always get it right on the first try? No drafts, no re-writes, no edits or overhauls. I’m talking about writing. And I’m talking about life.
Once upon a time, I believed the first draft was the best draft because it came closest to writing from the heart. Not to mention that I hated the editing process. Ugh. Talk about tedious. I believed nothing could be further from the creative process than drowning a manuscript in red ink and transforming it into something unrecognizable when compared to the original.
How I’ve changed.
Since I first started working on my novel, I’ve become a ruthless self-editor—murdering more sentences than an old west gunslinger. I’ve learned the best work takes time and revision, much like a sculptor works and re-works, chisels and refines until the unformed slab of clay becomes a thing of beauty. Art is a process, making progress in small yet significant ways until the greater masterpiece emerges.
Yes, this is about life, too. Because no life is perfect without some editing. Every day, I have to edit out impatience, selfishness, ingratitude, complacency…and more than that old gunslinger could handle in a lifetime of gun slinging. If I’m to live my best life—a life that blesses and benefits others, I’m gonna need a lot of editing.
The good news is that the God who created all the beauty that we see is the author of life. He sees and knows everything, loving us as we are yet caring enough to bring about the change we so desperately need. That our lives can be edited is beyond good news.
Lord, cover my life in red ink! Delete all my inconsistencies and any hypocrisy. Edit out all that’s unworthy of my life story, until only love remains.
The other day my son was begging for one of his toys while on a short drive. “Just be patient,” my hub told him. “I’ll give it to you when we stop the car.”
My son replied with his signature, charming pout. “I’ll be patient if you give it to me nooow.”
I often respond in the same way when waiting on something I really want. “If only I could have it now,” I think. “Then I could really be patient.”
Unfortunately, that’s not how patience works. The very nature of patience involves waiting. And ironically, it sometimes involves waiting for the very patience we need to endure the wait. Ugh.
Patience doesn’t magically emerge when we get our hearts’ desire. Instead, it’s cultivated through a long process of letting go, of releasing our desires again and again to the One who knows what we need and when we need it.
As for my son, he forgot all about that toy he so desired. When the car finally stopped, he saw that his daddy had something better in mind. A beautiful day at the park is enough to make any kid forget a whole pile of plastic toys.
Maybe once we master the art of patience, we, too, will forget what we thought we wanted. In the midst of the waiting, we’ll find our Daddy had something better in mind all along…something far more worth the wait.
Photo Credit: Madison Square – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Take time today to remember that God has remembered you first. You are not forgotten. You are wanted. And you are loved.
Source: Memorial Day
Photo Credit: File:Victoria Park bench.JPG – Wikimedia Commons
Flower petals fall like snow from the tree outside my window, and I remember. I remember a time when I didn’t have a daughter telling me these flowers have come to celebrate her birthday. I remember a Memorial Day not long ago, holding her in the hospital room, falling in love with her precious face, praying that difficult prayer—“God, I so desire this child to be your answer to my prayers. Yet not my will, but yours be done.”
I remember how God so faithfully carried me through the difficult years preceding, my life and my home ever filled with children, never my own. My hub and I spent a good fourteen years working with children in the inner city. Our lives had been so full with that ministry, it wasn’t until my health slowed me down that I felt a deep down yearning for the opportunity to be a mommy to a child who needed one.
We weren’t wealthy by any means, so we knew that heeding the call to adopt would involve much sacrifice and hard work along with the miraculous intervention of God. I could tell story after story of what we let go of to take hold of this little pearl of great price. And I could write story after story about God’s perfectly-timed provision all along the way.
But if there’s anything I think of on Memorial Day, it’s the great sacrifice God has made for me to be called his own. The price I paid to adopt my daughter (and now my son, as well!) is nothing compared to the price God the Father paid to adopt me into his family. The overwhelming love I have for them is nothing compared to the infinite love God has for me.
Do you know that God the Father, the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth, desires to adopt you as his own, as well? He has made the greatest sacrifice for this to be possible, the life of his own son that all who believe would be called his children. Take time this Memorial Day to remember that God has remembered you first. You are not forgotten. You are wanted. And you are loved.
Photo Credit: Cherry blossom – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
All we’ve done, seeming so worthy of condemnation, is written in sand, washed away by the love of God the moment we choose to turn from the lie that tells us freedom is doing whatever we please to the truth that freedom is found in a life lived for the one who created us with greater things in mind.
Photo Credit: Footprints in the Sand | Flickr – Photo Sharing!
Sometimes I feel invisible. I call my children multiple times with no response unless it involves cookies or ice cream. One time I asked my son why he wasn’t listening, and he told me, “Wait a minute Mommy. I can’t hear you. Let me get these fruit snacks out of my ears.”
Having children has made me more aware of how selective our hearing can be. Kids tend to hear what they want to hear, when they want to hear it. They tune in to those things that most interest them while lowering the volume on what they don’t want to hear.
It can be like that in our relationship with God. In a previous blog post I talked about what I termed “misunderhearing”. But sometimes we take it a step further and just don’t listen at all.
Maybe our ears are plugged up with fruit snacks, just like my son’s. We jam our ears with feel-good sweet-talk rather than the nourishing truth of God’s word. The media so consumes our senses that we can’t hear what our loving Creator really wants to say to us.
The Bible says, “A time will come when people will not listen to accurate teachings. Instead, they will follow their own desires and surround themselves with teachers who tell them what they want to hear.” How true of our day and age. We live for social media likes and follows, wanting to hear what people have to say about us while completely unconcerned with what God has to say.
As a wise man so aptly stated, “You can believe in whatsoever you like, but the truth remains the truth, no matter how sweet the lie may taste” (M.B. Johnson). Do we realize what we’re missing while our ears remain plugged up with lies? Our joy is diminished, our senses dulled, when we neglect the life-giving word of God in favor of saccharine junk food.
Photo Credit: Ear plugs | Flickr – Photo Sharing!
This Life & Beyond 
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