Reckless Love

"There’s no wall You won’t kick down

Lie You won’t tear down

Coming after me


Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God

Oh, it chases me down, fights ‘til I’m found, leaves the ninety-nine

I couldn’t earn it, I don’t deserve it, still You give Yourself away

Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God"

- Bethel Music


I sang these lyrics this morning through tears. God LOVES me. There is nowhere that I can go that He won't pursue me with abandon. He wants ME to be with Him, in His presence, no matter the cost to Him, even death. 

But this amazing love which I'm so thankful that He pours out on me, isn't the reason I was in tears.
I was weeping, tears streaming down my face, because God also loves the mothers of my girls, and they don't know it. They have access to all of the heavenly power of the Almighty God, yet their eyes are set elsewhere. 

This powerful, overwhelming love that tears down lies to build me up, that kicks down walls to bring me close, they don't know that love. If you've heard this song before, you are likely one of the 99. You are HIS. That is glorious and worth celebrating. 

But then there is the ONE. I want the Church's heart to break for those people who don't understand the limitless love of God. God's love is powerful and redemptive, it is healing and restorative. And I want everyone to experience His love in a way that wrecks their world. 

I want addicts to experience God's powerful sustenance. 

I want prostitutes to experience God's family through Church community. 

I want abusers to experience God's reckless forgiveness. 

I want murderers to experience God's overwhelming grace. 

I want those broken by unimaginable pain to experience God's restoration. 

I want everyone to experience God's reckless love. Period. 

I want God's love to reach to every hurting person. To transform their lives and bring them into a place of love and joy and peace. REGARDLESS OF THEIR PAST. 

There is no wall He won't kick down, no lie He won't tear down, He's coming after THEM. He's coming after ME. He's coming after US, because at the end of the day, it is not an us and a them. We are all sinners. None of us deserve Him. NONE of us, but we are all in need of His love and forgiveness and grace every day. 

I am praying that God's reckless love reaches the ends of the earth, and that each person in the Church steps up to make that possible.

Practical Ways to Pray for Your Children

I want to be a praying parent. I want my children to be full of God's hope and promises and love. I have implemented a few practical ways to intentionally pray for our kids.

1. Choose a Bible verse for her life.
    While I was still pregnant, we decided that we wanted to have a verse from God's Word to speak over Tater's life. We chose Luke 2:40, and inserted her name:

       "Taters grew in Him and became strong in spirit, 

filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon her."

Taters' verse is painted on a pallet and hung on the wall in her room. 

 2. Making Phone Wallpapers
    Monthly, I stop and decide what I am hoping for in Tater's life that month. I then choose a verse to support that idea. I take the verse and use a photopublishing app (I personally like Photofy), and I put the verse over a picture. I then set it as my phone's wallpaper.
     Every time I turn my phone on, I get a reminder to stop and pray for her. I find that it's also a reminder to me as a parent to help encourage her in a specific area of life. When I was praying for her to be courageous (Deut 31:6), I found that I gave her more opportunities to try on her own, and pushed her to go just one step farther on her own. During the Christmas season, I found her verse (Romans 5:9) helped us to constantly remember the reason for the celebration. Such a simple idea has significantly molded and shaped our daily lives. 

4. Prayer Journals

     I keep a prayer journal for each child (I am starting them for our hopefully soon-to-be foster kids, too!). Every other month, I take 20 minutes and write in the journal. I write down my hopes and dreams for her, the verses that I have been praying over her, the things I love about her, any milestones she's reached... Anything that is on my heart! It is a way for her to be able to hold onto the foundation of prayer that was set for her, and it is a way for me to spend intentional time focusing prayer solely on her. I bought a simple composition notebook, and it sits on my end table for the nights when I am just overwhelmed with gratitude for my sweet potato.

4. Praying Aloud

     I want Tater to hear our prayers and see our faith lived out. Whether it is praying for healing over her scraped knee, or praying for her on the way to school, we look for opportunities to demonstrate prayer because we want our kids to have an daily relationship with Jesus. We thank God for his love and resurrection, and for our family and friends, and we pray that our girl grows to follow our example and develop her own personal prayer life. 

I really find that these are practical ways to be intentional about praying for my girl. Prayer is such a powerful tool in parenting. We all struggle at times, but our prayers allow God to fill the gaps. 

Prayers gives hope. 

It gives peace.

Prayer gives abundant life. (John 10:10)

Moments in Ministry: Brandon

     We had a new group of boys show up in kids' church one Sunday. They were 11, the oldest allowed, and they were tough looking guys. No smiles, arms folded across their chests... but they made it, seemingly on their own, to church, so let's do this!
     By the time I got to the rec room after signing all of the kids in, it was worship time. The three boys had the same posture: arms folded, scowls, no attempt to participate.  So I worship my way over to them, start jumping, singing, worshiping with them, engaging them... Sorta. Brandon cracked a smile, looked at his friends and quickly got back to scowling. But it was too late! I had seen a glimmer.
      As the day went on, the boys went to the small group lesson for the older kids. They were learning about having grateful hearts. Their leaders talked to them about being givers and not takers.
    At the end of service Brandon, my smile cracker, walked up, smiled, and gave me a big hug. And then he went home. Who knows if he'll be back, but for that moment, he made what we do worth it. 

    We pray that kids' church becomes a safe place for these kids. I don't know what their home lives are like, and I won't speculate about why they looked so hardened. I can tell you, though, that God cares about each one of them, and He has a plan for Brandon, and all of the other kids we encounter. I am beyond blessed to be able to share a small glimpse of what God sees when we receive His love. 

Christmas Cards with a Purpose

The Christmas season is over, and you find yourself with a stack of beautiful, carefully designed Christmas cards from family and friends. If you are anything like me, you have a hard time just throwing them in the trash. I used to store them in a special container, and they might get glanced at the following year when I put a fresh batch in. It felt like such a waste. 

  Last year, a friend suggested punching a hole in each card and using a ring clip to keep them together. This at least helped to keep the years sorted, and made me feel like it was more of a memento than just "stuff" I was keeping. Somewhere along the line, though, it took on a new meaning.

  These were some of our closest family and friends. They are the people we choose to do life with, those who are closest to us. Shouldn't they mean more to us than just being thrown into a box? So, I hung the ring clip up near the calendar in our kitchen. Every week, I would flip to a new Christmas card, and then I spend time each week praying for that family. It became a great way to be intentional in praying for all of our family and friends throughout the year, and not just when there was a specific prayer request. I sometimes send a message to the friend that week, and do you know what always happens?

   God showed off. When I randomly stuck that family's card on the clip, He knew exactly what would be going on in their life the week I prayed for them. Whether they needed to know that they were not alone, or if they just needed a vote of encouragement, God used the prayer.

   Putting the cards on the rings costs virtually nothing (I think I got 5 rings for $2 at Walmart), and prayer is the most powerful thing we can offer our family and friends. Why not extend the giving of  the Christmas season to the rest of the year? 

Pale Pink Pedal Pushers

                    

  

This week, I wore my precious pale pink pedal pushers for the first time. Big deal, right? Well, it kinda was...
   I fell in love with them on a pre- birthday shopping trip with my mom two years ago. I hate shopping, and rarely find things I like, so to love these pants was a big deal. But alas, they were out of my size. Go figure.
   They said that they could have the right size shipped from another store, so that's what we did! Yay! And then my pants got delayed. Somehow, they weren't going to make it until summer was over.
   The disappointment was completely overshadowed when I found out that I was pregnant! I wouldn't need fit into the pants anyway! Unfortunately, our first sweet baby went to meet Jesus before ever meeting us. It was devastating. Not long after, I got a phone call letting me know that the pale pink pedal pushers were no longer available, and I'd be getting a refund.
   Y'all, it was just a pair of pants. I could probably make them if I really wanted to. But it felt like they represented the story of my journey.
    One day in early fall, a package arrived. It was the pale pink pedal pushers! By this time, I was pregnant with Taters, and they were out of season, so I tucked them away in my closet. The following summer, my sweet girl was born and my body wasn't quite ready for the flat-fronted goodness of my pants. So July 3, 2014, I wore them for the first time... Exactly two years after our sweet baby passed on to heaven.
   Through the journey, these pink linen pants have cone to represent hope even when the reports are against you. They will always remind me of the sweet baby I will one day hold, and of the blessing it is to hold the one I have.