IN MEMORY OF THEIR NAMES

IN MEMORY OF THEIR NAMES........THEIR SMILE, THEIR LIFE..........

It comes in waves........waves of emotion out of nowhere.  Sorrow and grief.  A mother and father's worst nightmare.......

I remember seeing their names on the television screen.  Do you remember naming your baby......

It says in ISAIAH 43:1 I HAVE SUMMONED YOU BY NAME, YOU ARE MINE.

Below are the first names of the victims in the Connecticut Shooting and what their name means.

NAME                                                               MEANING

CHARLOTTE (age 6)                                           FREE

DANIEL (age 7)                                                  GOD IS MY JUDGE

OLIVIA  (age 6)                                                  BEAUTY DIGNITY

JOSEPHINE  (age 7)                                           GOD WILL INCREASE

ANA     (age 6)                                                   GRACIOUS MERCIFUL

DYLAN   (age 6)                                                 GREAT SEA

MADELEINE  (age 6)                                           HIGH TOWER

CATHERINE   (age 6)                                          PURE

CHASE  (age 7)                                                  HUNTER

JESSE   (age 6)                                                  GIFT OF GOD

JAMES   (age 6)                                                 TAKES THE PLACE OF ANOTHER

GRACE  (age 7)                                                  CHARM

EMILIE   (age 6)                                                  TO EXCEL

JACK (age 6)                                                      GOD IS GRACIOUS

NOAH   (age 6)                                                   PEACEFUL RESTFUL

CAROLINE  (age 6)                                              BEAUTIFUL

JESSICA (age 6)                                                  GOD BEHOLDS

 

AVIELLE (age 6)                                                  GOD MY FATHER

BENJAMIN (age 6)                                               SON OF MY RIGHT HAND

ALLISON   ( age 6)                                               NOBLE KIND

RACHEL  (age 29)                                                FEMALE

DAWN    (age 47)                                                 SUNRISE

ANNE     (age 52)                                                 GRACIOUS MERCIFUL

 

LAUREN  (age 29)                                                HONOR VICTORY

MARY     (age 56)                                                 WISHED FOR CHILD

VICTORIA (age 27)                                               WINNER CONQUEROR

                                                  
 
                                                   
Mary named her baby JESUS. His name means SAVIOR.

Matthew 1:23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel (which means “God with us”).

Dear God, please be with those in Connecticut who have lost the ones they love.

GOD WITH US..........

                                     Interview with Emilie Parker"s Mom and Dad
                                           Couple Feels No Anger towards Shooter

http://video.katiecouric.com/services/player/bcpid1778770226001?bckey=AQ%7E%7E%2CAAABWfWhrnk%7E%2CFtZztaNxIqTVkSb1ju2Ka7JVAY8r79nB&bctid=2041406744001

PONDER

TO THINK ABOUT

While doing some research for a lesson, I stumbled upon an interesting quote by Beth Moore..........



"The question of FAULT feeds the fury of every STORM."


God help us not to find fault and feed the storm.  Helps us to take responsibility. To be an example of your GRACE towards us. To receive your forgiveness and mercy and LET GRACE WORK..........
Thank you God for your Son, JESUS CHRIST.



Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish! We don't play the major role. If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing. Ephesians 2:8-9

I am so thankful for the gift of GRACE.......SO VERY THANKFUL

DOWNED LOG

DOWNED LOG

Walking through the forest trails with my adventurous seven year old. I came across a sign that said.........

DOWNED LOG..........

My mind grabs.......I read......

A tidy forest floor is not a healthy forest floor from the PERSPECTIVE of wildlife.  DOWNED LOGS in various stages of decay provide wildlife habitat and maintain forest hydrology which contribute to a moist and healthy forest floor.......

As I read I think of family and  friends.  Some of them.......... DOWNED LOGS  right now.  Life hits hard sometimes.  When "see you later".... turns into goodbyes forever, the doctor says, "there is nothing more we can do", out of our control circumstances, a prodigal son or daughter, the unknown, unresolved family issue's (are to name just a few).

AT TIMES LIFE IS JUST PLAIN UNTIDY JUST LIKE THE FOREST FLOOR........

As I begin to pray for my family and friends.......I feel blocked......I don't know how to pray for them. How do I pray for all the sorrow and pain?  All my words seem to bounce around the room right back at me.  My prayers seem so inadequate.........

AND I FIND MYSELF IN THE FOREST TOO........A DOWNED LOG ..............

I can't fix their problems for them.  I hurt when they hurt.  I want to say the right things or give the right bible verse to ease their pain.........and mine.

Just then HIS WHISPER.........I AM.........

HIS PERSPECTIVE......Yes a DOWNED LOG from His perspective.........Jesus understood this.
When we have fallen (or we are pushed down) can we begin to see from His perspective........
He speaks.........I AM SOVEREIGN........

Sovereign in the dictionary.....superior, greatest, supreme in power and authority, ruler and independent of all others.....or simply put...... God is in control.

It is hard to see sometimes when we are DOWNED. It is hard to understand with open hands and open hearts when we are downed that God is in control.  Do I accept His Sovereignty with open hands and open heart.........Do I surrender to His Will..........Letting go of my own........

Will I find You in the tragedy?  Will I see You in sorrow and grief? Will You be there when my head is all messy and I forget who I am in the light of Your truth? Will You be there even when it hurts?

I AM........

WE like the DOWNED LOGS in our own decay, pain, sorrow and grief.......need NUTRIENTS TO LIVE.

Where do you get your SOUL FOOD and nutrients to live and be healthy. SPIRITUALLY HEALTHY THAT IS........Jesus knew where to go.  He went to His Father.

Over and over in the bible it talks of Jesus going alone to pray. He knew where His strength would come from....

Strength to face and walk towards affliction, agony, anguish, suffering.....Jesus walked towards the CROSS......

Will you go to the Garden of Gethsemane?  Is it hard to go their with Jesus?  Can you walk with Him there?  Can you hear God the Son praying to God the Father?

Matthew 26:36-39 Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane. When they got there, he told them,  "Sit here while I go over there and pray." Jesus took along Peter and the two brothers, James and John.  HE WAS VERY SAD AND TROUBLED and he said to them, "I am SO SAD that I feel as if I am DYING........

Jesus......Sweet, sweet Jesus.........

In the Amplified version Matt 26:38 Jesus says..........I am almost dying of SORROW.......

Jesus loves you so very much.  He is no stranger to your sorrow, grief and pain. And when we are DOWN......Let's hang on to him and His Word.  Hold fast to His Truth........

Psalms 34:18
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit

"Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance, but laying hold of His willingness." Martin Luther.

EVEN IF

EVEN IF.............

I am a WHAT IF PERSON........

And what if people are SCARED PEOPLE......
My biggest battle is the one that takes place in my mind.  I believe this foreboding of life began not long after my little self emerged into this world.  That is......Me and my sweet sweet sister PAM.....You see we were identical twins. We spent time together. Developing together. Sharing the same space and breathing....TOGETHER.

Twins are the only people in the world with identical DNA..........
And then she was GONE. When she was 3 months old she died.

Death........at any age is gut punching.  It leaves you gasping for air.  After she died I got very sick with pneumonia......lungs filled with tears for my lost sister....... 

It is hard to put into words that loss.  I try and fail.......
People look at me and say,  "well you were young and didn't even know her."

Who decides the age when grief is appropriate and can be felt and experienced anyway........

Fast forward to June and a lot of fear in between......

I had a trip all planned. A restoration retreat with my good friends.  My husband would watch the kids.  Or so I thought.  He informs me that he has a golf outing to attend.  Okay, I will ask my mom.  Of course she will but she has to do run some errands..........

Drive with them.......and that is all it takes for me to tumble down. And my mind begins to reel.  The WHAT IF'S begin to assult me.........
My mind begins to create......Stories...........not of life but of DEATH.

FEAR like heroin coursing through MY BODY.
Fear has been my constant companion for as long as I can remember.  Faithful

What does a fearful person do.  They blame and attack.  My husband and I have had these moments before. Intense. Fear has taken its toll. Burden....I am tired of laughing a laugh less laugh.

And as I yell my fear loudly.........It is as if God gentle puts His hands on my shoulders and speaks to me.......
IT IS NOT BOB YOU DO NOT TRUST.  IT IS NOT YOUR MOM YOU DO NOT TRUST.

YOU DO NOT TRUST ME!!!!!!!!  And I am your GOD!!!!

And I say it........out loud...... NO GOD I DON'T TRUST YOU.  My heart is hard, fearful, angry, and hurt.....Relieved that I don't have to pretend anymore.
So we wrestle........I tell God.  He listens.  How can I trust you with my kids when Pam died.  What kid of God allows kids to suffer.  Why did you ask Abraham to sacrifice Isaac? Why????????
I doubt His goodness.  Like Eve.  I listen to my mind.  The snake hissssssss.

I will go to the retreat and pretend.  I have shut down.  Within a half hour of riding with these woman I am so blessed to have as friends I am in tears,  MY FAITH IS WAVERING...........

My friend shares her fear for her son..........and instead of WHAT IF..........she tells about how God speaks EVEN IF"s to her........
EVEN IF  all my what if's happen......God is still good.  His Word speaks of life and not death.  His Word is TRUTH.  In the end we are victorious over death. It says that right there in 1 Corinthians 15:55.....“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”

My fear does not magically go away and things are not super spiritual now.  I have good days and I have bad days.  But this I know........God held me tight in my fear.  He did not throw me in the pool and say well, SWIM.......HE LOVES ME SO MUCH.

I know the strong arm of the Lord is enough to hug me, protect me, carry me.  So I press on and I press into that STRONG ARM OF HIS.........

EMPTY IS GOOD

While reading over the June suggestions by Ann Voskamp for my thankfulness journal she says to list 3 THINGS EMPTY......

My first reaction is REALLY be thankful for EMPTY.......Well I know I feel empty today.  Nothing left to give. Whats to be thankful about.....

Empty means containing nothing; not holding or having anything within, void of contents, not filled.  Producing nothing.  Having nothing to carry.

I can think of a lot of EMPTY......BUT BE THANKFUL

Empty bowl and you are hungry.....Empty womb after trying and trying....  Empty bed because they are sleeping with someone else....Empty wallet and the bills are due.....Empty as when a child longs for a father that is not in their life....Empty words as you try to explain your loss.....Empty no more breath....

Because I belong to Him.....He reminds me of His Empty..........

Jesus was EMPTIED of all of Himself for me.....Jesus bore our emptiness on the cross.  He was beaten, spit on, punched, kicked, stripped of His clothing.  Blow after blow with a whip savagely ripping the skin from His back.......

But at the cross is not the end of the story.....

I can't think of a better EMPTY than the TOMB.......

Can you see Mary Magdalene?  The stone was moved.  She loved Jesus so.  She ran to get Simon Peter and the other disciples saying, "They took the Master from the tomb!"

Neck and neck Peter and the other disciple run to the tomb.  It is EMPTY.........

Matthew 28:6  He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.

Would you like to see the place where He lay?

I am intrigued by Mary's emptiness over the empty tomb and how Jesus comforted her.  Made himself known to her in all her pain, sorrow and emptiness. He valued her.....

I think of my emptiness.  My emptiness is good because when I am empty of myself I allow God to fill me, speak to me, to guide me and to love me.Less of me more of Him. I am reminded of what it says in Ezekiel 24:11....

Then set the empty pot on the coals
till it becomes hot and its copper glows,
so that its impurities may be melted
and its deposit burned away.       Ezekiel 21:11

I am that empty pot.  Sometimes going through the fire....with Jesus... only to have the impurities melted away so I can GLOW in His glory.....people see Him and not me.....

Three Gifts Empty
1.  Tomb
2    Linen cloths in the tomb.
3.   Me

EMPTY IS GOOD                                         

SKUNK

They are famous......those black and white creatures for their hard-to-remove horrible-smelling SPRAY. God made beast I might add.  I was walking with a friend one very dark morning.  5:30 am.  Darkness....... only for the light she had on her head.Yes, the light mounted on her head like the coal miners wear on their hats as they descend deeper and deeper into the earth........

I was looking at her and talking.......relishing the outside, the walking ,the talking....the connecting....

Until the intruder.........She screams and puts her arm in front of me (God bless her REALLY) to stop me from stepping on the black and white fur ball.  ........the smelly thing scurries off in the other direction sparing me hours of.......
bathing in tomato juice, spraying myself with Lemon or Fabrezing it all day....and night.

Skunks use this scent bomb as a defensive technique......it can linger for many days....HARD TO REMOVE

As I recall this funny story to my sister-in-laws, I laugh and say I wish I could spray sometimes when others annoy me.  As I speak these words the Holy Spirit informs me that I do SPRAY........

My SPRAY .........is just as horrible-smelling and hard-to-remove......harsh words spoken....building walls around myself makes for a great defensive technique....words that never come out of my mouth but are just as assaulting and judgemental.....

God like the coal miner goes deeper and deeper within me........WITH HIS LIGHT.....to extract.  He changes my SPRAY  to a sweet perfume of HIS GRACE......
I want my life and attitude to be a sweet smelling fragrance of GOD'S GRACE....

2 Corinthians 2:15-16 For we are the sweet fragrance of Christ [which exhales] unto God, [discernible alike] among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing:
     To the latter it is an aroma [wafted] from death to death [a fatal odor, the smell of doom]; to the former it is an aroma from life to life [a vital fragrance, living and fresh]. And who is qualified (fit and sufficient) for these things? [Who is able for such a ministry? We?]

THE HEART

It's the phone call.......I think it is a massive HEART attack.......And so my own HEART starts to race, beat and pound inside my chest.... not just my physical HEART but my spiritual HEART.  The very HEART that I gave to Jesus.

And I realize that I am at a juncture.......I have to choose.  It can only be mine. 

Our last conversation ended with a slamming of a phone in my ear......Not only did it slam in my ear but I felt the slam in my spirit and my HEART.   Ouch!!!!  If I had a HEART of stone that may have not hurt so bad.......but I chose JESUS.........

In Ezekiel 36:26 it says,  I will give you a new HEART and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your HEART of stone and give you a HEART of flesh.

Flesh......like the flesh that hung from the back of Jesus as he was whipped over and over again.......FOR MY HEART AND FOR MY SIN..........FLESH

I want Jesus......not matter what my human flesh is screaming at me now and how it wants its way like a defiant teenager......I want Jesus.

She is in bed 12.....The very number that the Lord gave me in the beginning of the year.  The number 12 that means PERFECT in the bible......

Really.......How can this be perfect when it is so MESSY........

The doctor talks about the HEART.............That at one point the condition was called BROKEN HEART SYNDROME........

Broken......Messy.......Perfect.......She is broken......I am broken
I want Jesus......

I want to be like the women who followed Jesus to His death. While the hours grew long and the crowd faded these women moved closer to the Cross....
Closer to suffering.......Closer to Broken.....Messy....Perfect......JESUS

He gave me His flesh, His Love, His Compassion, His HEART........Instead of being like stone I now have Flesh....to feel and to love and be loved..........Broken.....Messy.....PERFECT IN CHRIST JESUS.

WANNA TALK!

Those two words flash on my cell phone....Texted to me from a dear friend.  A friend whose personality is more reserved and mine being stoic.....

WANNA TALK... And so those words open up my heart and everything that has been buried deeply there.  Safe from the judgement of others.....and myself for that matter.

And the tears, they fall, they etch there way down my freshly made up cheeks.........leaving evidence in the traces they make......

Deep sobs........sobs of failure, doubt, fear, anger and insecrurity........Wishing I were someone else....someone who had it all together........not the woman I caught a glimpse of in the mirror...PLEASE NOT HER.....

Then she prays........she dosn't know that she is praying the very same words that God had spoken to me that very morning...........

HIS WORD IS LIFE.........HIS PROMISES..........HIS LOVE..........

Sheila Walsh says in her book, THE SHELTER OF GOD'S PROMISES, "In God's hands even the things that have broken us can be used by Him to make us whole again."

I am remind of the woman in Luke 7.  All bundled up in her guilt, shame, and her sin....she went to the feet of JESUS.  The town harlot..... BROKEN.......to peceies........All she had to offer Him was her brokeness.

She may have reeked of guilt, shame and sin.  BUT JESUS reeked of LOVE, FORGIVENESS, COMPASSION, MERCY AND GRACE. And she had heard about him and was drawn to him.

So I like her cried at Jesus feet as my friend prayed for me.........and I like her was drawn to JESUS.  Drawn to His LOVE.........for ME..........

Good-bye

In Hebrew hello and good-bye mean the same thing......... SHALOM.   But some how that feels all wrong. 

While visiting my father in law in North Carolina my husband and kids went to a church.  Toward the end of the service they had a young man come up for prayer.  He would soon be saying good-bye to his new bride........He was military......

On that same stage was another military man.  He had just came home.  His new baby girl was being dedicated to God.  He said good-by to his unit.....

I began to consider all the good-bye's that we go through in our lives.....

See you later I love you....Good-bye's. The easiest good-bye's are the planned ones.  Yes, they warm our hearts and propel us forward in life too connection..


Then there are the good-bye's that are never said......but we hear loud and clear.....

Moments in life when good-bye is the best thing too do but the hardest to achieve....ask an addict....

Let's not forget the good-bye's that burn like a hot iron in your soul.  They are unplanned and deliver a blow on impact and leave you needing air...... a death of a loved one.....a betrayal....a father's love.....a sister you can never have time with...

I will soon say good bye to a friend...tonight we will have dinner together....just the 4 of us. 
He will leave.....he is military.....and I am not good at good-bye's.

Last supper.  How did the disciples feel saying good-bye to Jesus?  A brutal pain I am sure.  They shared meals,life, good times, bad times, and LOVE. It would be a good-bye to their earthy relationship...

JESUS

Jesus says to them in John 14:18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. That is what He does for us if we invite him.

In the hodgepodge of good-byes .......

Jesus is there....

Maybe there is Hello in Good-bye........Shalom

The Donut Man

Funny.....How I can sit in church and listen to my pastor talk about how loving others is important. And how this is the second greatest commandment Jesus gives us.........

Easy too......when the person you love is loving you back......When they hear you, see you, validate you....

But what if.....

One of my favorite places to visit everyday is Dunkin Donuts. I usually go in the mornings after I drop my kids off at school.  I listen to K-Love on the radio.  Nothing beats K-Love and a cup of hot coffee.....

Right...

That is unless you go at night. Which I did.  And the donut man was there.  I have seen him and heard him.  I have seen his eyes roll and heard his sighs of irritability as I place my order........

Well, this night his sighs threw me and HURT me....so I SIGHED LOUDER and said in my Indignant voice......NEVER MIND and I drove away.....

And then everything was cold.   My heart cold........

Yes it is easy to love when we are being loved back.  But I was not loving.  Real Love is not trying to press someone to response to you the way YOU need them to.  Loving is beautifully hard sometimes and a gently reminder of how Jesus loves us.  His love  flows freely......lavished on us.......endless......its captivating and we don't deserve it.  Jesus was pressed..to the cross.... with nails for ME because he loves me......

Yes, the Donut Man and Me have a lot in common.  We are both broken....but brokenness does not escape GOD'S LOVE