When God put it on my heart to write about this hole in our faces…the hole that words come out of. I thought really Lord,…me? I get to talk about the beauty of holding one’s tongue? You know who this is right? Your girl with the talent to still be talking when the room goes silent, um…talking to my girlfriends about a sale at our favorite store and how much I love my new pink bra! Umm…Ya, that would be me Lord! …And that would be only one example. I am the queen of trying to reign back my words in the air after they have come out of my mouth without thinking. I can see myself in slow motion reaching out for them saying, “Come back to me…come back to me…,” But NO…they go and land on the ears of the hearers leaving me with nothing but huge eyeballs starring back at me. One of my favorite BIG GULP moments is when I was pregnant with Caleb our first and my due date was Nov.5th…one of my big prayers was that he would not come early and be born on Oct. 31st. I just thought that…THAT would be horrible. Yuri my husband was invited by some friends to play electric guitar during a worship service at their church…after practice Yuri invited me up to the stage to meet everyone. Being just one month away from having our first baby everyone asked what our due date was. I started chatting with the Leader’s wife how it is Nov. 5th and I was just hoping and praying he wouldn’t come early…because I just didn’t want a Halloween baby. Then there was a moment of silence…the kind that nudges you and let’s you know you shouldn’t have been so opinionated. She graciously tells me her husband’s (the worship leader) birthday is on Oct. 31st and not only his but also the bass players birthday was on Halloween. I thought …”Oh JESUS! …oops, I did it again!…please HELP ME!!!!” We all have times we wished we had kept our mouth shut. That we would have taken just a few more moments to process the words that would come out of our mouths…and instead of recovering from another instance of verbal regret we would have played it safe at least just once.

Now this is just a silly story and embarrassing moment that might not of happened if I had stopped to consider in such a large world someone was bound to have been born on Halloween and they might just be in that room. But… what I really feel like God has put on my heart to talk about is trusting God with our words through the lack of them. So often when we go through difficult circumstances and challenges in life and we feel in some way we have been misunderstood, judged, accused, and or even rejected by or due to the prior…we want to defend ourselves (or fix it) with our words. We want to talk to other people about it…seeking validation. This kind of validation usually only lasts the length of the conversation and sometimes can border on gossip if details are still unknown or closure is looming. Guard your heart with all diligence…believe the best of all people even the ones that have hurt you…I challenge you to seek God’s validation. Only what He says about you and your situation will give you the strength to stand strong with integrity in Him. What ever you have gone through or are going through I want you to be encouraged…God vindicates…He rescues…He defends…He protects….He heals…and ultimately HE CAN BE TRUSTED!!!

Concerning this hole in our faces…I have come to learn less IS more. What do I mean by that? I mean the less we say the more God can do! I hope to be able to articulate in words all that is in my heart…I’m going to start by sharing my story and how trusting God and saying less has changed my world and given me the opportunity to see and experience the tangibility of His faithfulness. I went through a situation that touched many relationships in my life…people I loved. Relationships were tested…and the fire was there to burn up what wasn’t God. It was painful…it felt lonely at times…anger was there too…holding up her “Why me” sign and I wanted with everything in me to defend myself. I wanted to fix it and make it go away. Surely I could fix it…I could give more…I could love more…I could make allowances more. But when I would go to pick up the phone the Holy Spirit would say, “Don’t do it!”, on the inside of me. I didn’t understand…why would you not want me to fix it…if they just heard me out they would see…I could make it better. I will never forget what the Holy Spirit said to me. “Marissa …go ahead…make the phone calls and you can put a band aid on it and it will be fixed the best it can be with your efforts. I’ll let you do it and what you get is what you get and that’s it. But…if you will trust me and say nothing… I can change you, I’ll change them, I’ll change the situation and every angle of the situation will bear fruit. I was presented with a choice and I would be a liar if I didn’t say that going ahead and taking care of it myself wasn’t a strong temptation. I was desperate for the hurt to end…but I choose to let my God be my God even if this choice meant I would have to hurt a little longer while I learned to depend on Him. In His job description (found all through bible) says He’ll take care of us, He’ll fight our battles, and He’ll protect our name and us. During this period I was all up in the Psalms everyday…some days printing them out and sleeping with them. In those days I felt like King David and I were best friends, his words were as dramatic as I felt and God used them to show me His steadfast love for me. Life is not without pain…pain usually puts the pressure on our lives to bring about bitterness or change. As your reading this…choose change! I made a choice to anchor myself in love…that was my position in Christ daily to choose LOVE! I remember being in a Target parking lot and that sneaky little devil started accusing these people to me in my head and I almost didn’t catch him! I pointed my little finger (probably looking nuts) and said, “Stop accusing the people I love to me!” And with those words I dug my toes into the sands of His faithfulness. I am telling you…He IS faithful! He restores…it may not be overnight in your world it sure wasn’t in mine. I gave Him a hurting heart and He cultivated love in it…I was changed!!! He did a work in the people I love restoring even closer relationships where He is Lord! Their hearts were changed! The situation was changed! It continues to bear fruit! He said it and He DID IT! There is a faithfulness that can be felt when you walk in the fulfillment of His promises. Take courage…He sees you…He wants you to be an over comer in every area of your world! You don’t have to do it alone…He wants to fight your battles…let Him!! I hope this is an encouragement of how powerful He wants to be in our lives when we yield to Him even when it hurts. So it shall be one of the greatest testimonies of my heart …when I said less…HE DID MORE!!!

Always carrying you in my heart with GREAT Love,
~Ris