Simplicity.

Soo….I almost couldn’t wait to get home tonight to write this blog… even now, I don’t know where to start, but I am just excited to put words to what God has done in the past 24 hours. I don’t know when it all started, but I think it was when I got a text from Sarah that her and Derek wanted to have dinner with me… (duhn, duhn DUHNNNN!!!)… really just to check in with me and see how I was! I started to feel tears welling up already… I mean, I know that they actually, really, care about my life, my heart and my relationship with the Lord…  and that alone… waterworks!!! Well… I felt like I should start to mentally prepare to have my answers for why I was crying a lot, or to try and have it all together before dinner (that is the pride part of me!!! Ahhh)—but, really… what it did was it pricked me to just clear my head, and figure out what all was going on in my heart…

So, I do what I often do when I need to talk to the Lord—I went on a walk. I am in a new neighborhood, so I am still finding where to go in order to have the privacy to move my mouth and talk to an invisible being without people thinking I am a psychopath… haha. But, I ventured out. I started by pouring out my heart to the Lord, talking to him about my life, the state of my life, the things that bothered me and the things that concerned and weighed me down. And I hit this back corner of the neighborhood, and I started to cry (SHOCKER, I know!!!)… I stopped dead in my tracks and started telling the Lord that I was unraveling. I told him that I was coming undone. I started to walk again, and within minutes it was like my thoughts drifted off and I started sensing the Lord telling me to sing to him. Ummm… I have  a horrible voice.  I mean, its awful. But, I just started going for it and thought “I mean, what do I have to lose”…very optimistic, I know! Then, before I could start doubting and complaining again, I felt like I was supposed to just allow the Lord to bring the truth of His word up in my heart, and that I was supposed to speak those truths out loud on my walk. I began… “I am the head and not the tail, I am above and not beneath, no weapon formed against me shall prosper… I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus…” and as I spoke, no part of me believed what I was saying, but I just kept on going anyway…—sometimes repeating scriptures over and over again about God’s love for me… I needed that one, bad. Well, as I spoke, my step got a little more sure… and my confidence started to grow in what I knew of Him. And, as I turned the corner to head to another part of my walk, I saw this….

As I did…  the scripture that came to my heart was... “He lights my lamp and enlightens my darkness”—Psalm 18:28. Then, the Lord started to speak back to my heart over the next few hours… and here is just a tid bit from my journal entry last night…

“…I am asking you to continue to restore me to how you created me…. before life taught me something different—restore to me the simplicity of loving you – the simplicity of knowing you—the simplicity of loving others and being loved—all before life exploded on me. I remember when I first got saved and everything was bright… and when loving you was all I wanted—and in my mind, all that I needed. Where being in your word was as natural as breathing—not because I should, or to prove that I knew you or to compete with someone else—or to be more mature…. I want to know you and the power of your resurrection and being found in you—I want to know the fullness of your truth and explore your word from a place of discovery again… “

Then, the 3 words He gave me were…1) Simplicity—of loving you first  2) Cleanness—absence of confusion and strife 3) Truth—that penetrates and brings life.

After I journaled, I picked up a book that I just bought by Amy Carmichael called “Thou Givest, They Gather” from 1959—and on p.16  and it says "God's way is to take some word in His Book and make it spirit and life. Then, relying upon that word, it is possible for us to go on from strength to strength".  And… that is what happened last night. Strength to strength happened… when His word became spirit and life. Simply… just so simply.

SO—what is the point of blogging this… well, beside the fact that I love how God speaks… it is to just remind myself (and anyone else that might read this in the next 14 years), that… 1) God is for you!!! He wants to speak to you, settle your heart, calm you fears, quiet your anxieties, show you His love, strengthen your feeble knees, pour out His grace and strengthen your faith… even more than you want Him to!!! He is soooo FOR YOU.  And 2) Loving Him is simple… it really is… and how I have complicated it!!

Just as Sarah said to me several months ago, and Derek reiterated tonight in second Sunday prayer… we don’t get rid of sin (in my case… the sin of fear, the sin of anxiety) by looking at our sin, we get rid of it by looking at Jesus!!! (Hebrews 12:1-2)…. Catching his gaze, and we will always see His loving eyes looking back at us… always. All we do is simply come to Him… simply love Him… simply believe Him… and the rest is up to Him. THAT, I am learning, is what grace is all about.

((((Listen to this message from Judah Smith (also compliments of Sarah—man, she is blowing up my blog tonight… HAHAHA! BUT, really… its because she has been such a constant in my life… reminding me of the truth of God's unconditional LOVE… and I am so thankful)… she sent this to me earlier this week, and as I listened to it tonight, I was blown away…. Enjoy… ))) -- its called "It's Complicated" and it is exactly what I just wrote about… SOOOOO goood!!!

Check out this great Podcast: http://feeds.thecity.org/tcc-sundays 

Rest…learning to rest...

SO---its been a hot minute since I wrote my last blog… I did try and had a few things that I was going to write about as God was teaching me things about His heart. But, honestly… I just didn’t have the mental space and energy to put my thoughts down and lets just be honest, I had few things going on in my little world. A new job and a new apartment… it was a bit much!

For the past 2 months my life has felt like such a worldwind at times!  I was telling a friend that I feel schitozophrenic some days… one minute I am on top of the world and the next I am really sad or just feeling overwhelmed at certain things as I (catch this) look around at my life and don’t see things that I wish for… as I look around and long for something different whether in friendships, in my family, in my job, in being married... just wanting something different. And, lets be honest again… I don’t know if anyone else struggles with this, but when I get “going” in the busyness of life, my personal, intimate, intentional time with the Lord is the first thing to go. I would think of Him often, but just feel out of touch or something like that if that makes any sense.

But, in this last 2 months… I have heard the gentle whisper of the Lord at times… just beckoning me. I have heard him say “try me”… in the midst’s of wondering what other people would do in my situation. I have heard him say “ask me what I think” when I would try and figure out what others think of me. I have heard him say “just open your hands” when I would find myself struggling and straining. I have heard him gently say “trust me” when my heart literally feels like it might burst out of my chest. And, then this morning… I sat to have one of my first non-forced, non-im-so-tired-but-im-gunna-try quiet times with him… and I heard him say to my heart...In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength…

I couldn’t remember where this was in the bible, so I looked it up and its Isaiah 30:15—I love it in the NLT…

“This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: "Only in returning to me and resting in me will you be saved. In quietness and confidence is your strength…”

It was like in just a few moments, the Lord was showing me what He was doing over the past few months in whispering to me to open my hands, to let go, to trust Him… he was teaching me to rest. I have told the Lord for the last 4 years that I have always felt like a runner in the starting blocks… all the time. Just always being pulled back and told “not yet”. And, in this season, the Lord has simply said “rest… Nandi… rest”. So simply. So gently. And always in the midst’s of heightened anxiety and tears welling up. Always in the midst’s of a million questions and crazy frustration. That is when He truly calls us to rest. And, I am not gunna lie, at the beginning of this journey the response in my heart was “but, that is not going to do anything”… and its almost like the Lord was saying back to me “exactly—you won’t do anything…I will”. Its almost like I am finally just starting to realize that just because I am inactive in my outward“DOING ACTIONS”… that doesn't mean I am inactive in the things of my spirit. In letting God do it, my role is to fight the lies with the truth of the Word… In letting God do it, my role is to guard my heart by believing what God says about me. In all actuality, nothing tangibly in my life has changed…  but, He is slowly changing me and it all started with this journey of learning to simply rest.

Hannah-Abby-Mary
(and my new VEST!)

Like… when I was moving and had so much JUNK, I was super stressed about how it was going to all get done. But, as it got closer I felt like I should just “rest” and in just a few days it all came together…Scott and Mary helped me load the truck and Angie helped me unload when I got to my new apt! Another one… my birthday was on Thursday. And for the last month, I have been kinda scared (for some dumb reason!) that maybe I would have to plan my own party or something. I love celebrating other people on their birthdays… but have always been afraid of being alone on my birthday. But, this year I just felt the Lord again asking me to rest and honestly, not think about it (which took a lot of grace!)… and then over the span of the past few days, Mary and her girls came and had lunch with me at BG (SO FUN!!!)… and the girls had a birthday dinner thingy for me at Crave… I just love each of them…oh, and we laughed a TON!!!

Kem-Kim-Beth-Carey-Tori-KK-Wendy… Sarah ran off and didn't make it into the picture! ha!

Just one more thing… rest and grace go hand in hand on this journey that I have been on. Just the past few weeks, as He has shared little nuggets with me about resting in Him… I have found myself praying “okay.. well, God give me the grace to trust you and the grace to rest”. Grace really is just the power and ability to do what in my own strength I can’t do… that is my definition at least. Grace is empowering and gives power and ability to the most broken, the most outcast, the most fragmented heart and spirit…Grace is strength. SO, I am learning to accept it and rest in it. I am so thankful for His amazing Grace… and the truth of resting in that Grace. Ahhhhh…..

I thought I would show a few of my tweets this past month… just to bring it all home.

So… Rest and Grace… constant companions. And I am thankful. So thankful.