Good morning…
“Good morning Sue,” she wrote me from Florida after yesterday’s post I Had No Friends. “Our lives share so many parallels. After a year of unexplained numbness and uncharacteristic listlessness, I reluctantly accepted an invitation to join a Bible study. I think back now and realize that was God taking me by the scruff out of my, what I believe, premenopausal/hormonal fog and recalibrating my heart. I also believe another factor was a new move after 17 years in our previous home which triggered the overdue grieving of a lost twin when I was pregnant with our son. I had dutifully stuffed those emotions as my OB encouraged me at 13 weeks pregnant to focus on the joy of discovering I had not miscarried our boy, as I simultaneously discovered a second precious life had been lost.”
“Jumbled emotions,” she continued. “God took those on that first Bible study as I tried to suppress full on sobs listening to Tim Keller say, ‘If the crucifixion doesn’t melt your heart, you don’t know what it means to be Christian.’ How blessed we are given eyes to see!! I remember learning all the ways we ‘shrink the cross’ so that two years later I responded to a completely crazy, similar nudge like yours to teach a Bible study to high school boys! Totally ill-equipped in every way!! I remember my mother’s extended pause followed by the response, ‘But what book will you use?’ I said, ‘I don’t know!! I just know I’m meant to do this!’ But I rely on this quote to this day: ‘As Jesus himself said, the seed is the Word of God, and however unworthy or muddled the one who sows it, it remains God’s Word, and it will do its work, never failing to astonish us at its abundant productivity.'”
“Eight years in and with the addition of four more weekly studies, like you, I have never lacked for inspiration,” she explained. “God’s provision is everywhere! He chose my ill-equipped, unsure self so His Word would prove even greater! Surrender and trust – the scary but better path that leads to life! So blessed to receive the fruits of your obedience! Your faith leads SO many to Christ – ‘the scars you share become lighthouses for people who are headed to the same rocks you hit.’ So grateful for your daily authentic witness! Xoxo.”
“Wow,” I wrote back astounded by our shared parallels. “I love the clarity at how our callings have intersected and blossomed abundantly. I have heard myself say many a time, ‘The life of my dreams ended in a tiny town named New Wilmington, Pennsylvania. Anything that has grown since our 2003 move to Vinings, Georgia is clearly God’s dream for me.'”
I continued: “Like my spiritual mentor Betty Skinner always reminded me, ‘Sue, the Big I must die.’ My ‘Big I’ – my childhood dreams, my hopes, my timing, my agenda – died in that small, one stoplight village in the rolling hills of Amish country. Transplanted into this fast, unfamiliar city, I needed to stay in the dark cocoon of depression with God until my wings were ready to fan out and fly. Once I heard directly from God, though the Spirit whispered crazy ideas, I had already exhausted all other options out of my loneliness. Worn thin enough to listen and obey, I had been reduced down to my broken heart and God’s gentle voice. ‘Host a Bible study in your home.’ ‘Write the words I give you.’ ‘Please pray about it.’ Host. Write. Pray. I hung my whole life on those three words. Branching from these deep roots, God’s Spirit took over, growing wildly inside and around me. Our Triune God – Creator, Savior, Spirit – continues to astonish me with the abundant expanse of one unique Dream Life handcrafted personally for little ‘ole me.”
“I love that God’s dream life for you and God’s dream life for me have intersected, overlapped, and become so mutually beneficial,” I wrote to my spiritual sister, who I have been honored to meet only once. “Only God could perform such beauty out of our broken dreams. I love you and look forward to all that God has in store for us. Might I share our email string anonymously with our written word community, casting a tangible vision of how the God of the universe expands vibrantly in and through us ordinary people?”
“Yes,” she replied. “I think of an Anne Graham podcast a lot – we lose so much as Christians when we are not willing to be vulnerable and share our authentic weaknesses. It’s the only way we can be accountable and I feel so blessed to have so many Christians friends who keep me accountable. My favorite Paul Tripp quote: ‘Truth isn’t mean and love isn’t dishonest. They are two sides of the same righteous agenda that longs for the spiritual welfare of another. Truth not spoken in love ceases to be truth because it gets bent and twisted by other human agendas, and love that abandons the truth ceases to be love because it forsakes what is best for the person when it had been corrupted by other motives.’ Such great wisdom!”
“Also, I am praying for you as you as you, Kitty, Cathy, and Dana share the life-giving wisdom of Betty Skinner in your Awake To Wholeness Retreat next weekend,” she added. “I so wish I could attend the December retreat but we have a wedding on December 4th. We will find another time though, I have no doubt. Love you Sue!”
For the Word that God speaks is alive and full of power [making it active, operative, energizing, and effective]; it is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the dividing line of the breath of life (soul) and [the immortal] spirit, and of joints and marrow [of the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and sifting and analyzing and judging the very thoughts and purposes of the heart. And not a creature exists that is concealed from His sight, but all things are open and exposed, naked and defenseless to the eyes of Him… (Hebrews 4:12-13a, AMPC).
In what way do you sense your own “Big I” dying as you live open and exposed, naked and defenseless to the loving eyes of our living LORD?
…Sue…
