Kisses from Katie

I was privileged to hear Katie speak at Catalyst a few weeks ago. Hers is an amazing story of what it is like to follow God one step at a time and change the world, one life at a time.

http://www.wltx.com/video/1211539242001/0/22-year-old-is-Mother-to-13-Orphans

I just finished reading her new book, Kisses from Katie.

She says:

I want to be challenged endlessly.
I want to be taught by those I teach, 
and I want to share God's love with people who otherwise might not know it. 
I want to work so hard that I end every day filthy and too tired to move. 
I want to make some kind of difference, no matter how small, 
and I want to follow the calling God has placed on my heart.

my assignment...should I choose to accept it

Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup;
You have made my lot secure.
The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
Surely I have a delightful inheritance.


You have made known to me the path of life;
you will fill me with JOY in your presence,
with eternal pleasures in your right hand.


Psalm 16:5-6,11


Sometimes I struggle with my assignment. Sometimes my assignment seems too small. Too mundane. As if I'm making no progress in my desire to make a difference in the world. Some create mission organizations and travel the world. In this season I travel to the kids' school, the gym, church, and Wal-mart.


Other times my assignment seems too big. Eighteen minutes of choreography in the Christmas program? Five kids and only one of me to help them on a particular moment?


I'm trying to learn to rest in the boundary lines that God has given me. Each day I have a new assignment. It might be to do the same old laundry and drive the kids back to school again with fresh joy and a sense of purpose. It might be to beg him for parenting wisdom or a renewed love for my amazing spouse when life is causing distance.


At the Catalyst conference in Atlanta, I watched several artists paint during worship sets. As Hillsong United led 13,000 people in praising God, one artist worked quietly in a corner, painting his messages that would later be auctioned to support Amazima ministries in Uganda. The paintings all had a dead black bird, claws up, in common. As I wondered what message was hidden within, I later saw one that said, "Let it die"...Do you wish that the speaker's calling were your own? Let it die, so that His dream for you may live.


I don't know how many people stopped in the cattle-drive lines for lunch to take in what he was quietly saying, but it spoke to me. Let "your dream" for your life die. Give God full permission to do whatever He dreams with your life. Be it mundane and quiet, or spectacularly "significant" in everyone's eyes, including your own.


I recently had lunch with a dear friend for her birthday. We talked about how sometimes, feeling like you want to do something "big" for God is a misunderstanding. People tell us that we are smart and special when we are young, and instead of encouraging us to go and reach our potential, it places a hidden burden on our hearts of "you are not doing enough". We carry around inside of us the idea that we must do something "great for God" in order to count and fulfill the idea of what our life should be or produce.


I am forty years old and still reconciling that greatness in His eyes is completely different from what I consider to be noteworthy. He gives the assignments. If it matters too much for me to do something "big", then I need to spend some more time folding laundry.


God, I pray for your renewed perspective today. I ask to only seek you, and not influence or impact on the world. I pray that as I attend to your every direction, I will have exactly the life that pleases you most.
Help me love and attend to the ones you have placed before me. May I shepherd these well and not seek greater things.


Thank you for bringing rest to my body and my soul as I learn to release my hopes, dreams, and expectations to you.


Thank you for seeing my desire to do something (anything) that might please you. I think of Peter, James, and John who offered to build tabernacles for you on the Mount of Transfiguration after seeing your glory. (Luke 9:33)  They didn't have any clue what to say or do, but they wanted to respond to You. Take my desire to respond to You, and do with it, whatever you wish, for YOUR glory and delight alone.


Thank you for being patient with me.
Thank you for reminding me to "cease striving" and just know You.
I love you,
Taryn


Psalm 46:10 Cease striving and know that I am God.


Jeremiah 45:5 Are you seeking great things for yourself? Seek them not.

 

certain hope

Do not put your hope in 
____________________


which is so UNCERTAIN,


but put your hope in GOD,


who richly provides us


with everything for our enjoyment.


1 Timothy 6:17

Lessons from jellyfish

Phil Vischer, creator of Veggie Tales, writes in the September 2011 issue of World magazine of the inspiration he found in observing jellyfish...after the bankruptcy:

"Jellyfish can't locomote. They can't choose their own course. They can't go from point A to point B. They can only stay in the current and trust the current to carry them where they need to be.... I was saying, "All right, God, here's what I'm going to do for you. Now you just stand back and bless it and watch me go!"

I only get my form when I stay in the current of God's will and allow Him to carry me where He wants me to be."



I'm not supposed to be pursuing impact, I'm supposed to be pursuing God. And when I pursue God I will have exactly as much impact as He wants me to have.

For lack of REVELATION the people perish.        Proverbs 29:18 
Revelation implies God speaking to us, and giving us His dreams...not blessing the things we want to do for Him.

What She Said

The ice-cream friend sent this blog to the bath salt friend who sent it on to me.


I loved her point of "yes, we prayed for this. No, we haven't changed our minds. Yes, this is the hardest thing we've ever done, and yes, we need help." Following God doesn't guarantee a life of ease.

http://jenhatmaker.com/blog/2011/09/06/after-the-airport

Weep with those who Weep

"When Jesus saw her [Mary] weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit ...





Rejoice with those who rejoice;


Weep with those who weep.


Romans 12:15b

Two tiny containers of Starbucks Java Chip ice-cream. Tiny because my friend knew that I am trying to be aware of portion control. Starbucks Java Chip because she knows that it's my very favorite.


A bucket of bath salts (sprinkled with more chocolates) from another friend who knew to come by even when I told her not to bother. Long baths are among my most favorite quiet moments.


Thank you, God, for the women friends in my life who know how to weep with those who weep. When others love deeply, but are powerless to show it in a way that I can understand, these friends show up at my door, uninvited, unannounced, and stay just long enough to let me know that they care.


Thank you for reaching out to me, Lord Jesus, through believing, loving, weeping friends.


Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.
Galatians 6:2


Let us not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions.
1 John 3:18

Hope Deferred

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a 


dream fulfilled is a tree of life.


Proverbs 13:12

The Storm on the Sea of Galilee

Rembrandt

1633

Lord Jesus,
Please help me to walk through HOPE DEFERRED with you, hand in hand. My heart is broken, but you promise that you are near to the broken-hearted.


My heart wants to close itself off to the possibility of ever having my dream fulfilled. It wants to curl up in a ball on the floor, naked and cold. It wants to shrink back.


Help me to have HOPE. Hope not in receiving the fulfillment of my dream, but HOPE IN YOU.


You confront me again and again. Psalm 25. My HOPE is to be in YOU ALONE. Not in any children. Not the love of a husband or the satisfaction of being trusted with a task that seems significant and personally fulfilling. You will not allow any competitors in my small heart.


I sit, as Job did, and wait in the ashes. Not waiting for you to change things, but waiting on you. I am your servant. You call the shots. I am to wait. Yet, I am not just your servant. I am your adopted daughter. I owe my very life to you, and yield it to your purposes in gratitude.


Jen Hatmaker's adoption blog said that they very fact that beauty comes from ashes implies that there will be some ashes. Help me sit and wait quietly before you. Utterly humbled by  my powerlessness and inability to make any difference. Be still my soul, there may yet be hope. God's hard words are never his last words.


Help me to trust your leadership through my circumstances. ALL THE WAYS OF THE LORD ARE LOVING AND FAITHFUL. You are good, whatever comes. There was a plan in heaven that was put in place long before I ever was aware of my dream for adoption. Heaven is undisturbed, even as I weep and wail. May the calm that reigns in heaven reign in my heart. May I lift my eyes to you again and again, focusing not on the wild wind and waves that threaten to sink my soul, but on you. May I hear your voice above the howl of the wind and come to you on the water of faith.


Quietly,
Taryn