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Room 2018

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empty-room-with-windows_1048-2924
Last year (2016) on the eve of New Year’s Eve, I was lost in worship and found myself right smack dab in a vision from the Lord. I was in the middle of an empty white room.  The Lord explained to me that each year is like a room. Each year is a room full of life experiences, struggles, persecutions, people-good, bad, and ugly, love and joy, relationships and adventures. As we step into a new room, we  step into a new room full of possibilities.
I looked around and saw the room was an empty blank space, with a solitary door leading to a hallway along one wall. I realized that the only thing in the room is what I had brought in with me and I had brought a ton of old baggage—ratty suitcases full of offense and hurt, junk that hung off my body and I wore rags of clothes that were bloodied and falling apart. I knew in that moment that if I was going to enter this new clean and pristine room I didn’t want to fill it up with the baggage and dirty junk that was hanging off of me. I knew that if I wanted to experience all that this room had in store for me that I had to leave the stuff in the past where it belonged. I turned to leave my baggage-past hurts, offenses, and grudges outside the door of this new room labeled 2017. As I set it out in the hallway I saw the open doors of years past filled to the brim with my life. Held in these rooms were all the good and bad experiences of my life
When I turned back to Room 2017, all I saw was an clean empty blank space. As I stood in the doorway, I took a deep breath and then stepped into the room with all the naive confidence one has at the beginning of a new year. I knew now that the only thing in that room would be what I took into it. So I tightened the belt of truth around my waist. I secured righteousness to my chest. I buckled the shoes of the gospel of peace to my feet. I took up my shield of faith and straightened my helmet of righteousness. My arm, made strong by the power of Almighty God within me, raised the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God and I declared to this wide open blank space of 2017 “All the earth will shout Your praise, our hearts will cry, these bones will sing: GREAT ARE YOU LORD!”
A full year later and I find myself, once again, facing the blank space of a clean, white room, this time labeled 2018. I stand at the threshold and glance down the Hallway of Life to the previous rooms….2015, 2016, 2017 and I can see the goodness of the Lord overflowing from those rooms. If I look closely, I can also see hurt, shame, and regret oozing out from under the doors, some more than others. This ooze threatens to follow me into 2018, but I am determined to face all that 2018 has for me without the oozing baggage of years gone by. I have set my heart on my Creator.
I declare to empty Room 2018: “Holy Spirit, You are welcome here. Come flood this place before I ever even step foot into it. Your glory, God, is what my heart longs for; to be overcome by Your presence, Lord. Be glorified in me.”
:::
What  have you brought with you to 2018? Go back and leave that junk in the Hallway of the Past. Step forward into your own Room 2018 with boldness and confidence that your Creator is in control and has good things planned for you this year.
Heavenly Father, We trust that Your light is already shining in the darkest corners of 2018. Our life may not be the one we would have chosen, but it is the life that you’ve given to us and we thank you for all the lessons, mistakes, blessings, and love. To You we give all glory and praise as long as we have breathe to do so. Amen.

Ordinary Days and Ways

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I’ve been reading My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers for most of my life. I’ve never started it in January and read it every.single.day through to December 31st. Until this year. My hubby got me the devotional version for Christmas this past year and I have been really good about reading and soaking in it daily. 

What. A. Life. Changer. 

It’s always on point. I mean how does that happen?! Outside of the Holy Spirit, how can something written almost 100 years ago be just for me every day year after year? God is so cool to do those kinds of things for us. 

Since I’ve been really digging into this devotional this year, I’ve found some reoccurring themes throughout my study. Now these may just be for me, for my life, for this season I’m in or they may actually have been intentional by Chambers a hundred years ago. I don’t know and I guess it doesn’t really matter, but one of those reoccurring themes for me has been finding beauty in the ordinary or as Chambers likes to call it-drudgery. 

D R U D G E R Y 

What a fun word! It’s the grubby things. The day after day after day of sameness. The times when there seems to be no great mountaintop experience, no vision given, nothing wonderful or beautiful, just the commonplace day in and day out (June 4). 

How many stay at home moms can relate to some drudgery?? I mean… Hello?! (I’m looking at you poop!!) Everyday seems to be more of the same. Wake up. Make breakfast. Fill the dishwasher. Teach children how to be good adults. Feed children food. Teach children to love their siblings. Feed them more food. Put them to bed. Get them a drink. Put them to bed. Help them go potty again. Put them to bed. Pray with them. Again. Put them to bed. Get rid of boogy monster. Put them to bed. Find them asleep on the steps. Put them to bed. Go to bed. Wake up. Do it all again.

I’d say that pretty much sums up drudgery, wouldn’t you? Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe for you drudgery is punching the clock at the same job every.single.day and you hate it. Or maybe it’s month after month of a negative pregnancy test. Or maybe it’s that the one thing you thought you were made to do in the life isn’t happening or didn’t happen the way you thought it would. Or maybe you have no clue what you’re doing in life and you feel a bit like a zombie wandering aimlessly through life. Whatever it is, day after day after day of the same is drudgery and its grubby. 

But Chambers says that drudgery is one of the finest touchstones of character there is (February 19). It will show you real fast what you’re made of. 

We have the idea that God is going to do some exceptional thing- that He is preparing and equipping us for some extraordinary work in the future. But as we grow in His grace we find that God is glorifying Himself here and now, at this very moment. If we have God’s assurance behind us, the most amazing strength becomes ours, and we learn to sing, glorifying Him even in the ordinary days and ways of life. (June 4)

I mean isn’t that just where it’s at? Those ordinary days and ways may just be the very drudgery that we think is killing us ooooorrrrrr it just might be the very thing that God is using to shape and mold us in preparation for that exceptional thing to come. 

Ooooooorrrrrrrrr.. what if this day in and day out just might be the exceptional thing God has for us???

When we learn to sing in the midst of our days and ways we will find that His grace is sufficient and every day has the potential to be a great mountaintop experience. You can find that vision is given. The commonplace day in and day out is wonderful and beautiful. 

Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord shines over you. (‭Isaiah‬ ‭60‬:‭1‬ HCSB)

If we will arise and shine, drudgery becomes divinely transfigured. 

So thanks Mr. Ozzy. Through you God has challenged my perception of this season of life I’m in and I’m pretty sure that when the next season comes I’ll be thankful for this attitude adjustment. 

Moving on up…

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  This space used to be an online scrapbook of my life. My own little corner of the internets. Then along comes life and I was too busy living life to post about life. But now, life is different for me. We’ve moved to a new part of the country. I left behind my baby crib and diapers. I found a(n almost) teenager living in my new house. Everything is new. Everything is changing. 

I find myself wanting to stop time just so I can linger in these moments before they become vapors. All my adult life, I’ve been told “it goes so fast!” Thankfully, that was never news to me. I did savor the moments. I treasured the baby snuggles. I didn’t get swept up in the to-dos that I missed out on the play times. But Time didn’t seem to care about that and slipped away anyway.  I sit here now wondering where it all went. 

This new season is like turning the pages of a book to the next part–not just a new chapter, but a whole new part. Ya know like Part One: Childhood and each year of life a chapter. Then there’s Part Two: Falling in Love and more chapters chronicling that season. Along comes Part Three: The Birth of Mamacita, Finding my way in the forest of babies and nursing and potty-training and homeschool and repeat. 

Here comes Part Four. I don’t even know what its title is yet. I won’t know for quite some time. You really have to live life out to its fullest before you can look back to see how far you’ve come. It’s at that point that you can title each part and give the chapters their parametes. Life is constantly shifting and changing. Its a living organism that grows and adapts. 

I have dreams and visions and goals for this part of my life and I have dreams and visions and goals for the parts of my life to come. In time, I know I will see the fulfillment of many of these dreams and I know I will make new dreams. But for now I’m happy to steal moments out of the crazies to find some peace and quiet to think on these things. 

I hope to take more time to think back on the parts of my life and the chapters held within each part. It’s good to think back and reflect on where you’ve been. Where you’ve been will tell you a whole lot about where you’re going. The past shapes our future. It doesn’t write our future, but it shapes it. 

I look forward to this new part, these new chapters, this new season of life. So far I have loved every second of this wild ride of life I’m on. Through heartache and sorrow have come some of my greatest triumphs and accomplishments. And through those highest of highs have come some of my lowest of lows. But put it all together and it is never a dull moment. 

There is an occasion for everything, and a time for every activity under heaven: a time to give birth and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot; a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to tear down and a time to build; a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance; a time to throw stones and a time to gather stones; a time to embrace and a time to avoid embracing; a time to search and a time to count as lost; a time to keep and a time to throw away; a time to tear and a time to sew; a time to be silent and a time to speak; a time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace. What does the worker gain from his struggles? I have seen the task that God has given people to keep them occupied. He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also put eternity in their hearts, but man cannot discover the work God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and enjoy the good life. It is also the gift of God whenever anyone eats, drinks, and enjoys all his efforts. I know that all God does will last forever; there is no adding to it or taking from it. God works so that people will be in awe of Him. Whatever is, has already been, and whatever will be, already is. God repeats what has passed. (‭Ecclesiastes‬ ‭3‬:‭1-15‬ HCSB)