My Heart: House or Home?

My heart: House or Home?

I was driving to Starbucks after working out in the morning singing and responding to worship playing in my car. I love how worship can connect our hearts to God when we engage even for a moment. I began praying this prayer…”Lord I want my heart to be your home…that YOU the creator of the universe would be resident in my heart to see the truth of who I am…my strengths…my weak and frail parts…the parts that still have icky residue from my past to deal with…some I can see…some I can’t. Really live in me…be BIG inside me…BE bigger than me in me. I don’t want to be your house…I want to be your home!” And then…the download of His heart and revelation came to me. I don’t want to be a house that’s decorated and looks good…looks like it loves God…has pictures on the walls with scriptures…but His presence isn’t there. I want to be a home that might even be disheveled at times but IS lived in. I want God to live there and feel at home and others to feel at home because God lives there!

The revelation of this house and home thing really brought to light something in my heart. For so long I’ve had an idea of what my home schooling and domestication (for lack of a better word) should look like. That on any given day after home schooling my oldest son through all his subjects and had him read for twenty minutes, helped my second son through his kindergarten work, and entertained two smaller children…I should be able to get my house immaculately clean (like every other Mother does…right???) I should be able to keep it that way until my husband walks through the door. And well…I can occasionally get it that way…and it might even last a couple hours until a small tornado called my four children comes through and um…we begin again. I say ALL that to say it’s an idea I keep myself to…that I beat myself up about if I can’t get it done the way I want to get it done. It’s been a long struggle to find balance. But I’ve realized…I’ve served this idea in my head instead of serving God in this area of my life. And for a long time now I haven’t cared so much about what other people might think about me since I have a hard enough time with what I think about me …my own opinions of how I’m doing as wife and mother (most often we are our worst critic). I am not saying that I’m NOT going to clean…seriously does the cleaning ever end? No…I just want to serve God and not an idea…I want to be me…walking in Grace that is REAL…I don’t want to miss God in this moment because I’m off serving an idea of who I should be and trying desperately to arrive there instead of loving Him and being the best me I can be now! I only have today…TODAY…tomorrow’s worries will be there when I get there and when I get there…they are not too big for God! Deep breaths…I‘m finally okay with never arriving…embracing imperfection as my link to utter dependence on the ONE who made me imperfect. I was just telling my son tonight something he has heard me say since he was a baby… “ I will make you one promise about me that you can take to the bank…I will NOT be perfect, in fact I will blow it (more than once)…I will hurt your feelings…you’ll hurt mine…it’s relationships and it’s life…I won’t be perfect but I promise to lead you to the ONE that IS! He forgives…He heals…He makes new and He makes better.” He (my son) may only understand this in part now…but I know there will be a day he really gets it. It’s taken some years but I have finally got it for myself! I am just a Mom trying to walk this life out with God the best I can…aware of His amazing grace and humbled by His ever-present companionship that rises on the inside of me when I’m weak and says, “Your with Me now…we’ve got this!” I’m humbled that He chose imperfect vessels to be the place He wants to abide…that He chooses my heart…your heart to be His Home…a place His presence lives! We could all look around our hearts if we are willing to be honest and see messes…we might even think we can’t invite Him in till we get it all straightened up…but all the more I say, “Lord get comfy up in our hearts…make our hearts your home…because I know if You’re living here…the rest will surely fall into place!”

Being His home and with Great Love,

When I said less…HE DID MORE!!!

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

The 21 day challenge! Jesus and Ris take on afternoon anger!

It’s kind of funny because I never thought I was an angry person until I got married and had kids. Jesus never said we wouldn’t get angry…because…umm…we WILL get angry…it’s just a matter of how we deal with our anger. I got permission from my husband Yuri to open a window into the raw realness of our lives to share a recent journey I went on with the Lord. I get a lot of comments like, “Wow how do you do all that you do with four kids…AND home school…AND spend time with the Lord…you are like Super Mom!” …Um …no I am just a daughter of the King just like you trying my best to pursue God in the mundane and the great! Just this weekend I would have been the Mom you saw at Subway with her bottom up high noon trying with one hand to hold her britches above her panties and with the other wiping up spilled lemonade from her two year old…all while holding my breath and chanting the mantra we all know, “I think I can…I think I can,”…endure all the starring! I’m just like you…I am in the journey of BECOMING! Becoming the woman after His heart, the wife who honors her husband, and the nurturing steward of the children I must release back into His care. So in this ever-evolving process of becoming…I had begun talking to Lord about how I felt about the anger I would feel almost everyday that my husband wouldn’t walk in the door between a certain time. I would get angry at him for not coming home on time…for surely this reflected how much he loved me…not true. I would get angry at circumstances…especially the ones that would come up fifteen minutes before he left work…because surely this reflected how he picked circumstances over me….not true. Can you begin to see the lies I had allowed my heart to believe? Can you see how those lies fueled and kindled anger in my heart? The journey to freedom and truth in this area began with acknowledging how ugly the anger made me feel. How the enemy was right there to accuse me when I would indulge in it. You know as woman and men we are so different…our perspectives are so diverse. I am a minute counter…I can tell you how many minutes it takes to do almost anything. My husband on the other hand is very optimistic in his generalization of time. Example… Can you conquer the world in three minutes?…and just like Bob the Bulider…”Yes I can!”, would be his response. And I love him for his optimism…I just wasn’t loving it at five pm when I thought I needed him home…just his presence was soothing after a long day of home-schooling and domestic greatness;) So, when I would get the calls that things were NOT going according to my by-the-minute plan….there was the awkward silence followed by the stressed wordless ”mmm…hmmm…” I’m sure he dreaded it.
My heart would be disappointed and withdrawal. When I would get off the phone the devil would begin to accuse my husband to me. Some days I would be the warrior princess Jesus has called me to be combating the lies of the enemy with my numchuck skills of worship and reliance. Other days I would fail in this area of my heart giving way to fatigue and discouragement. Aren’t you glad that it’s not in the falling but in the getting back up that defines a man of perseverance and character…I sure am! We may fall…life in God is not without it’s falls and failures but even in ALL THIS we cling to Jesus and the process of becoming His princess…His bride!
So, as I began to talk to Jesus about my afternoon anger problem and lift it to him. I could hear Him reminding me of a saying I’ve heard many times….”It only takes 21 days to break or make a habit.” This got me thinking and as I meditated on this…I could feel Him calling me to a fast like challenge. Because I was so done with the ugliness this anger would make me feel I responded to the Lord, “Let’s take it to the mattresses! What do you want me to do?…Jesus let’s do this thang!” And then it was like He gave me the download…aka…the God plan. Which involved not calling, texting, or emailing my husband after four pm until he got home and then not asking why he was or was not home by a certain time for 21 days! Now I just had to obey and be diligent to give this gift to the Lord and my husband with a good attitude and joyful heart. Remember God loves a cheerful giver…I may not have been giving him money but I was giving Him the sacrifice of my heart to be more like Him. I was giving Him place to be Lord of my anger. There were days over the 21 day challenge when I had made plans to be places at a certain time and I had to trust God to apprehend my husband and remind him to be home. And you know what?.. HE DID IT! Every time without fail the Lord took my sacrifice and blessed me with His faithfulness. The kind of faithfulness that IS tangible. I knew from the minute the Lord spoke this challenge to me it wasn’t to change my husband…it was to change me! The question was…would I be willing to be the only one changed? Would I change even if my husband didn’t? Would I be willing to take on the perspective of maybe he really didn’t even need to be changed. Ladies… it’s just all about BECOMING…it may not be anger for you…there may be other areas the Lord wants to give you His beauty for your ashes….Let Him have it…I promise you…He can be trusted! If you find any encouragement at all from this rendering of my heart let be that…we are not perfect and…um…He kind of gets that because He made us human and fallible. But as we give him our shortcomings and failures He perfects our faith…He perfects our spirit to grow in the likeness of Christ. So as our spiritual man is BEING perfected doesn’t mean our fleshly man doesn’t have falls (don’t get me wrong the falls become less) but the falls DO NOT disqualify the work of our spirits BEING perfected…we DON’T start over…we simply get up…wipe our hands off…lift our heads to focus on the Son and continue on this journey of knowing Him!!!!

You are LOVED and carried in my heart!
With the GREATEST love,
~Ris