Category Archives: lamp oil

loosed by love to stand up straight and free

“a bruised reed he will not break,
 and a smoldering wick he will not quench,
until he brings justice to victory;”
                                              Matthew 12:20

It’s fascinating.

It’s my third year making this 40-day journey through the New Testament and I’m pure-T astounded at all the things I’m reading for the first time— though it’s surely not the first time.  I’m convinced more now than ever before, that this Word from God we are privileged to hold and read and live from, is always currently alive and timelessly breathing God’s meaning into our lives.

In fact, what I’m discovering this time around is that I’m not simply reading the Bible;  the Bible is reading ME…  and it’s reading God into me and shedding His light all over the place.

It’s probably why I can see her now.

Loosed by Love

Honestly, I‘d never noticed her before… not really. But there she is, in the thirteenth chapter of Luke— a woman bent over, doubled in two, crippled and tormented by an evil spirit… for 18 years.

Eight. Teen. Years.

She was bent over and unable… to stand up straight.
For 18 years, she was there, day after day… Sabbath after Sabbath — bent over and unable to stand… in the church.

How have I never seen this before?  I found myself asking questions like:

     Why did she stay?
What bent her so badly?

     What kept her from being able to stand?
What weight pulled at her so hard that her gaze never left the ground?
     Looking down for so long that maybe… she had stopped hoping to ever see the sky.

And those Pharisees and Scribes– those “Men of God”,  when did they stop noticing her?Did they ever see her at all?  Why was she so invisible to them?

Because here, it’s the Sabbath and Jesus has come to town to teach;  to open the Word of God in the temple– He’s come to BE the Word of God in their midst… in ours.

 Luke says that Jesus,  as he is teaching, notices this poor woman. He sees her. He didn’t have to ask what was wrong; he already knew. He also knew how long she had suffered— and why.

She didn’t even ask. Maybe in her mind, she had come to expect nothing would change about her condition or the way she’d been treated. She had grown used to being bent by this evil spirit and the burden she bore. She had become accustomed to not being able to stand.

Even in her own mind,  she was invisible.

Jesus is there for one day and she’s one of the first things He notices. Calling her to Himself, he touches her and instantly…

She could  STAND STRAIGHT.
Healed and whole, she stood— looking Jesus in the eyes and she praised God !

Of course, it’s a scandal and an embarrassment to the men of the temple and the leader chastises Jesus (God!) instructing the crowd that there are six other days to do this kind of work but the Sabbath isn’t one of them.

Seriously?

Because what other days are there and what better place is there to find healing and wholeness than in the church on the Sabbath? And Jesus tells them so.

Not to mention…. EIGHTEEN YEARS.

 This woman had gone un-healed, un-noticed and un-cared for– being further bent over, burdened and shamed through the negligence of the very ones who professed to know God most… and yet knew Him not at all. They had been so busy with the “work of the church”— maintaining rules and regulations, buildings and reputations, they’d lost sight of the true work of God: worship and witness… truth and mercy.

It’s easy to do.

They’d been reading God’s words, but on this day, the Word of God was coming to read THEM.  Jesus has come to teach. He’s come to set her… and me, and the bent and broken record straight,  giving us a way to stand— whole, again.

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I’ve been in the presence of many such women all gloriously touched and made whole by God. In the hills of Northern Kenya I met Rose. On the dusty streets of Nairobi, I met a former prostitute named Claire*.  Yesterday, I sat in a room with a woman once broken by addiction. And just this morning… I locked eyes with the girl in the mirror… and smiled because she knows.   Because she is known.

As one who’s spent time bent over and unable to stand  I’m here to testify, there is nothing sweeter than being called to Jesus, and hearing Him speak into my aching spirit,Woman, you are loosed…!.  Nothing better than being touched by Him and made able to stand straight again with nothing in my hand but grace upon grace to spend lavishly toward others.

Christian Artist

I don’t know for sure what that dear Woman did for the rest of that Sabbath day when her life was changed forever or what she did on the many days afterward. But I get the feeling that she never stopped praising God. I get the feeling that because she was no longer bent, because she was now able to stand, that she spent the remainder of her life in worship and witness, keenly aware of others who needed the same touch.

And standing… she could see them.
At least, this what I want to do: to see, speak and to touch others with this love of Christ.

So maybe today, you find yourself  “bent”,  doubled in two and unable to stand beneath the weight of your burden. I pray that you can clearly hear these words from Jesus now– saying  “… you are loosed from your infirmity!”  Whatever that may be and then come… stand with me.

Praising Him,Lorretta signature

Linking with Jennifer and Kelly!

Growing Up and Growing Old

Today I invite you to come with me into the back rooms of Lorretta’s mind to the file drawer labeled “Crazy Thoughts and Panicky Moments.” It’s the one right before:”Stuff I Probably Shouldn’t Say Out Loud” and right after, “Things I’d Do Differently if I Could.”

bravely growing older

I don’t know who makes the rules for these things but apparently a new car depreciates in value by nearly 30% in it’s first year off the lot. I googled it. #truestory. The same is apparently true for mobile homes although that doesn’t seem as surprising.

There are days I feel the weight of depreciation –especially when it comes to my writing and ministry. I want so badly for these offerings to hold Kingdom value and to KEEP working miracles in my life. I want them to produce healing miracles in the lives of others as well. Any edgy shard or fragment– I so desperately want God to use. Because otherwise, it seems like a big waste, you know?

Fear of depreciation sometimes keeps me from ever beginning. I get stalled on the water, stuck at the gate, too afraid to move on.  But if I have to be honest, probably my greatest place of personal wrestling has had to do with personal depreciation. Getting older.

Our culture places a ridiculously high premium on youthfulness and looks down on aging as something to be avoided.  As if only the new thoughts, new ideas, new methods or new stories hold any weight or value?!?

Seriously?!?!

Trust me, I’m not looking for the Fountain of Youth. I’m not interested in lipo-anything or the “lifting” of anything besides my Spirit or hands in worship. (Although I did buy some cream the other day……)

Because if I’m looking to hold on to “value” the shaping and shifting of my outer self isn’t where my value lies. Don’t get me wrong;  I still take care myself but I recognize there’s a fine line between “fashionable” and “foolish” and I’ve reached the age where I oughta know better!  KWIM?

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No, it’s deeper than that. See, a few years back I came to what Henry Blackaby refers to in Experiencing God,  as a “crisis of faith”.  A lot was involved in that period of time–there was no singular event to refer to–just a whole host of things got real “muddy” and even a little dirty.

It wasn’t that I doubted or stopped believing or lost my faith in God but honestly,
I just couldn’t see how to sustain it into old age.

Being a teen or young-adult Christian woman, a VBS and homeschool Mom, a “valuable worker bee” in the Kingdom hive– I knew how to do all that and the church has wide open arms in these departments. But growing older and keeping an ACTIVE faith? Not so much.

Then, honestly? I looked around  the Church and I saw very few older women I wanted to become. I saw very few older women involved in much of anything outside their comfort zones or interacting with anyone outside their own age or financial bracket. I couldn’t find many living much further beyond the “been there-done that, complainin’ about it” mentality.

Where were the older, wiser,
warrior women for Christ?

Symphony of life

I swear, I’m NOT judging. But I got …well …TERRIFIED. Because I thought, “Is this IT?!!” Once you turn the corner, round the bend and go over that hill–  then what?!?

God led me gently into that temporary place of wilderness where I learned a whole lot about His purposes for my life at any age or stage.  Among other things, God showed me that how I see this purpose and these next stages of life is a choice. There are some things I don’t get to choose but my attitude is still one of them.

Getting older is inevitable,
being old is a choice
and growing older is the goal.

He showed me something else our entire society–churched and unchurched– seems to have forgotten: aging is a privilege. Like work, getting married, owning a home, having children and a bunch of other things– aging is a privilege not afforded to everyone.  I need to be thankful for the opportunity.

God also helped me to shift my focus away from my self, and to look more lovingly and carefully for the women who could mentor and model for me what these next stages of life need to look like. Not perfectly–but faithfully.

I begged God to send older women who’d understand this need and wow… God placed several fine examples in my midst. These women  challenge my walk and my witness. They listen hard and love me well, honestly share their hearts, hard-earned wisdom and Christ-submitted struggles…and pray–they pray for me and ask me to pray for them too.

I’ve got Jane and Jan and dear Paula, who spent her life on the mission field and whose goal is simply to become a “sweet, little old lady” (emphasis on the sweet!). She doesn’t want to become anyone’s sermon example although she continues to live an active sermon before me and so many others as she tirelessly works and loves missionally right where she lives.

These women continue to inspire and encourage me, spurring me on to the next moments of my next stages of walking with Christ, however long that may be.

The challenge now is to recognize my role in this equation which is expanding in both directions. Because somewhere out there are younger women who need to see what living a real Christian life and growing older with God looks like and some may be watching me and checking my pulse for signs of life too!

I don’t want to fail them… or my Lord.

Something tells me that I won’t if it’s more about God than me. He will be my guide.

“And I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them.” Isaiah 42:16

God’s Word reminds me that as long as I keep bravely focusing on the Truth with the Word of God as my guide and His Kingdom as my goal,  He will not forsake me–even into old age.

“My mouth will tell of your righteous deeds,
of your saving acts all day long—
though I know not how to relate them all.
I will come and proclaim your mighty acts, Sovereign Lord;
I will proclaim your righteous deeds, yours alone.
Since my youth, God, you have taught me,
and to this day I declare your marvelous deeds.
Even when I am old and gray,
do not forsake me, my God,
till I declare your power to the next generation,
your mighty acts to all who are to come.” Psalm 71

I pray I’m well on my way to bravely becoming a sweet, little old lady too …an older warrior woman for Christ.

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 *This post originally appeared on LiveBrave.com in April 2013. It’s a word worth repeating here today.

 

 

 

 

when the soul feels its worth

Recently, I sat on the front porch with my man, cup of coffee in hand, as together we watched the sun set on the first day of my 46th year of life.

Good and quiet, it was a simple day of serving in ways I can right now. Today, I find myself typing these words feeling thankful for all I’ve learned this past year..  especially for the good gift of perspective.

Soul Worth

Perspective is what’s always been needed to enrich these seasons and it kinda stinks that you can only gain it as you go.  As a result,  Christmas feels so much richer to me than in years past. There’s a gravity… a solidifying of sorts. I feel the weight and the wonder of it all…. owning it— not as a more colorful square on the common calendar, or a time of extra revelry, but the way of life Christmas represents and offers is so valuable for my  24-7-365. 

Perspective.

Perspective anchors me when I’m weary. When I’m standing in the middle of a moment coming completely unhinged inside as my list threatens “to-do me in” and choke life and joy from my heart. It helps me hold the difficult moments loosely enough to push through and remember…. Sometimes remembering only not to forget how this particular moment is not the end of my story —not the end of the story at all.

Perspective is what makes the litany of Christmas so precious to me. The words, the Scriptures and the stories we tell and retell about that O’ holiest of nights are part of my story—my genealogy and my family history which is deepening as the years go by.

So I’m hearing these words with sharpened senses keen to understand how it all fits together and where I fit in to that story, which began long before that little town of Bethlehem and continues on far past the empty tomb in the garden.

God's Straight Eternal Plan

The Prophet Isaiah gets a lot of air time at this time of year— almost as much as Luke does in the telling of Jesus’s birth. Rightly so, as Isaiah foretold the coming, birth and death of the Messiah in ways and details which assure us that he not only had heard from God on the matter but was pointing to Jesus of Nazareth born some 600 years later. It truly is amazing, that perspective.

One such passage of Isaiah finds it’s way into the back story of Christmas every year as we encounter the reasons why we need a Messiah in the first place. No matter how many times it’s read,  it seems odd and a bit out of place — off balance and hard to fit into the puzzle. The moment you press down on one edge, the other side pops slightly askew and you know it doesn’t quite fit…. Yet.

The very fact that it doesn’t fit— seems so odd, out of place and foreign to our understanding points to the problem we have of living in a fallen world. Points, then guides us beyond ourselves and our known reality of this life of constant struggle. Beyond, to the place of creation restored.

In this place wolves share homes with lambs while leopards rest amongst plump goats. Calves and lions share a common meal and everyone is using good table manners. No one feels threatened for fear of being devoured and there’s enough for everyone.  Defenseless babies play amongst snakes and there no fear of wounding, poisoning or exploitation.

There is peace.
There is safety.
There is communion.

And a little Child….shall lead them.

It’s weird. Unimaginable. Yet God, through the Prophet Isaiah says this is what we have to look forward to…and now, I’m beginning to get it.

Obviously, it’s more than a future filled with instinct-resistant snakes and livestock modeling a vegan lifestyle. Isaiah paints a picture of complete restoration within and without.  Natural and unnatural enemies will be restored to relationship. The ones who’d normally abuse, devour and exploit the other will have no such inclination.  Desires and hungers will be completely realigned —as in restored to their original state and reoriented with God at the center.

All because a “little Child”…born one night in the City of David and wrapped in swaddling clothes…shall be their leader.

Leading from within them.  Inside them…from inside us.  Christ, shall lead us Home.

This Child is not distracted nor does He  judge by what His eyes see or His ears hear in the world around  because the Spirit of the Lord, of wisdom, understanding, counsel and might guides Him to lead in perfect justice.

And He can guide us too.

Devastating Humility

Complete.
Restoration.
Justice.
Peace.

No matter how many times we say those words, they’re as unimaginable as the scene this passage depicts.

Because for now, we must cautiously live in the midst of prowling lions looking to feast upon lamed or fat, sleepy sheep. 

Because, cunning wolves, some masquerading as shepherds, seek lambs to exploit or devour, while others wreak havoc and violence throughout the world.

Because serpents slither in and out of every crevice wounding and poisoning hearts and minds as they go.

Nevertheless, we can be led and guided through.

Guided through this world that  Christ came to and became for, wrapping Himself  in it’s dirty flesh to dwell among us and to conquer the violence, as Ravi Zacharius says, not in spite of it — but through it. 

For, in that moment, on that night, fracturing time and space, God so loved that He turned Himself inside out to turn us right side in again with Him— for Him…and for this relationship with creation restored.

“Long lay the world in sin and error pining… til He appeared and the soul felt it’s worth.  A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!”

Do you hear?
Do you see?
Do you know?

Joy to the World!  The Lord has come! And He is coming again.

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