BEAUTIFUL

Beautiful

by Kari Jobe

Here before your altar

I am letting go of all I've had

Of every motive, every burden

Everything that's of myself.

And I just wanna wait 

On you my God

And I just wanna dwell 

On who you are.

Beautiful, beautiful

Oh I am lost for more to say

Beautiful, beautiful

O Lord, Your beautiful to me.

Here in your presence

I am not afraid of brokenness.

To wash your feet

With humble tears

Oh I would be poured out

Till nothings left.

And I just wanna wait

On you my God

I just wanna dwell 

On who you are

Beautiful, beautiful

Oh I am lost for more to say

Beautiful, beautiful 

O Lord, Your beautiful to me

When we usually think of something that is beautiful it is a person, or maybe something in nature such as a rainbow or flower. It may even be something someone made. As a woman, I think of beauty in many ways, the most often probably being the beauty of the physical person.

Over this last weekend, I got to watch something beautiful. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. I was given the privilege to watch, and experience, dead things being given new life; souls that had wandered, again finding the path; trust in the midst of uncertainty; and love that covers the deepest of hurts. What am I talking about? I am telling you that I got to watch Christ transform lives!

THIS IS BY FAR, THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THING YOU WILL EVER EXPERIENCE!

More specifically, I was given the privilege of being used for God's great work in the life of my sister. Hallelujah! I'm just a little excited ; )  My sister and I have always been close, but now we can share in something that is a huge part of my life, and has been an area of some disconnect between the two of us. Now it is something we can share in and encourage one another. How beautiful!

Even more so, is that the work that God has done in her life is even now affecting the life of my niece who lives near her. As she has spent much time investing in our niece's life, she couldn't wait to share with her what God did over this weekend, and my niece was just so excited she wanted God to change her life too! Again, there is nothing more beautiful!

The amazing thing about all this is that they were not the only two touched by Christ's love. So many women, including myself, were able to experience and feel His presence so closely. I'm going to share some of what God taught me in another blog, but I just wanted to emphasize that this is

BEAUTIFUL!!!!!

Get Over Yourself!

Oh, this is something I should tell myself every day.

How often do you find yourself feeling sorry for yourself, or feeling guilty about not having done something, or obsessively thinking about something you wish you could do over? Well, I do this often, which means that much of the time my thoughts are full of me.

Me, me, me, what do I have to do today, what do I want to do, what do I need or want, what I wish I could do/have, how I feel about such and such, what I think about this or that, how someone is treating me, I could go on and on.

In the midst of throwing myself a mini pity party, even I became fed up and in my mind I just yelled, "Get over yourself, Barbie!" I mean seriously, how prideful can I be? Apparently very. And of course that got me thinking about just how full of pride I am.

I like to be encouraged, like anyone else, but I've realized that much of the time, I just like to hear people tell me what I am good at, or that I look nice that day. I know what you are thinking, "Who doesn't like to hear that?" And yes, we all like to hear a compliment, but I obsess over such things. In fact, I almost get depressed when I don't get a compliment about something I think I should. Even worse, when someone pays me a compliment and I take the credit instead of giving credit where it is due. This may mean not telling them about the part someone else did to make it successful, that it wasn't all my work, but ooh how the guilt really hits when I don't give credit to God.

You may be thinking that I am just being hard on myself. But wait, let me continue. People often say that during times of prosperity and peace, we neglect our need for Christ and think we can handle life on our own. That couldn't be more true with me. How often I forget my need for a Saviour, as if somehow I got to a point where I no longer need His forgiveness, strength, peace, self-control, mercy, grace! Oh I am so thankful that He doesn't let me forget for very long.

Or how many of us read our Bibles and make it all about us. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. When you look at the Bible as a though it was specifically written for your personal life. Yes, we are to apply it to our lives, but how many of us our missing the bigger picture of how it speaks to the church as a whole or the fact that the ENTIRE Bible is written to point us to Christ! It's really more about how He has revealed Himself to us. But it's so easy to read it and think, "So what does this have to do with me?" and do Bible study with that goal, finding what it has to do with you. What if we instead asked, "So what does this have to do with Christ?" and after we answer that, "Knowing that, what do I need to change to make my life reflect that?"

So you can see, that it is necessary for me to tell myself periodically

"GET OVER YOURSELF! Who do you think you are anyway?"

Life is not all about me. It's about Christ and what He has done in my life. Now if only I could remember that day by day, moment by moment.

What's Goin' On?

In case you've been asking this question pertaining to why I haven't written lately (don't you love how I assume you care that much), anyway I'll tell you. I could kick myself for not writing about some things, but oh well, here's an abbreviated version of the happenings in my life as of late.

One week ago I broke my toe. It was definitely a case of stupidity, I'll freely admit. However, it sparked some curiosity in me regarding my reaction to it and other people's reaction to my reaction. Have I lost you yet? What I mean is, when it happened, I moaned, groaned, whimpered, seethed through my teeth, did everything short of screaming that you can probably think of to indicate I was in pain, BUT I did not cry. The person who was with me even said, "Barbie, this is the first time I've ever seen you ALMOST cry." She has known me for about 5 years and has never seen me cry? Really? Then later I was talking to my sister about what happened and when she said something about me crying about it, I quickly replied, "I was not crying!" I had to ask myself, "Why do I feel the need to be such a tough girl?" I don't cry often, and I'm not saying that to brag it's just a reality. But this situation got me thinking, about why I have such a hard time shedding tears. I mean it is a natural way to express emotion. The worst part about it is, I think I push my tough girl attitude on my kids. The truth is God created tears, and even Jesus wept over things that burdened his soul. I'm not saying we need to be cry babies, but I truly think shedding some tears is perfectly acceptable when much physical pain is endured or even when we have truly been hurt emotionally. I'm now wondering how much my holding back the tears attitude has resulted in outbursts of anger.

I've also started trying couponing. I don't know if you would call it extreme, cuz I'm certainly not seeing savings in the range of $400-$500, of course I don't even buy that much in groceries. However, this past week, I did save a little over $200. Still savings well worth the time it took to get started, and believe me it takes time. The most time is spent the first time you try to do it, because clipping the coupons and digging through the ads just seems to take forever, not to mention organizing the coupons for use. Once you get started, it's really not that hard, but you have to find a system that works for you. I'm still learning, and I'm hoping that the more I learn the more I save. So, we'll see!

Some friends and I are starting a craft club. I'm so excited about this! I always think of things I want to make and just never make the time to do it, so it's exciting to actually be setting aside time for this.

The women's retreat is coming up! Also, very exciting! I'm mostly exciting about the fact that all three of my sisters will be coming. Yay, sisters' weekend! But it has been taking time to get stuff ready for the weekend.

The sun has been shining! Yes, this is a very important part of my life and has kept me busy playing outside with the kids. Which means less time on the computer and less time for writing. Oh well, there's always rainy days and eventually winter will come back, but let's not dwell on that thought.

Above and Beyond

I have been practically bursting at the seams with excitement to tell you how God has worked in our car situation, and it has been killing me to have had to wait to write this!

So, a brief recap: 3 weeks ago I had a car accident (no one was hurt), the van (our only vehicle) was totaled. We had been renting a van for 3 weeks as we waited for the insurance to decide on the van and then send us a check for the payout.

After learning that the van was being considered a total loss, and while waiting for some decisions to be made regarding this scenario, God gave me this verse : Ephesians 3:20 - "Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us." So I claimed it. In fact, God and I have this wonderful relationship full of humor and joy and challenging one another. So I said, "God, that's what your Word says, so I want to see it happen." Keep in mind that it says "abundantly beyond all that we can ask or think." 


I challenged God to show me up. Now He has given me an extremely wonderful, vivid imagination and this became a true source of excitement at this point. Because I would think of some way He could work in this situation that would so awesome, and then He would bring that verse back to me and I would say, "Ok God. Out do me!" And this went on for some time. Now let me tell you, God had been building up my excitement and really I was at the point where I was just wondering what He could possibly do to do better than all the scenarios that I had come up with that would have just been incredibly awesome.

But show me up He did. Not only were we able to get a new van for less than the payout on our old one, but the insurance is also covering the taxes and best of all Josh went and looked at it and decided on it by himself!

Now some of you are wondering why that is so exciting, so let me explain. I make a lot of the decisions for our family. In fact, I make practically all of them. I am a natural leader and Josh is not. I can be very controlling and since I am very level headed, naturally I think I am always right and just take over decisions. For some time now, God has really been working on my heart about what it means to be a submissive wife. What He has shown me is that a lot of times, I make the decision, or push Josh to make the decision I want him to make, because I don't trust him to do what I think is best. But what I am really saying is that I don't trust God to do what is best, or to even lead Josh to the decision that is best.

Ouch! Yeah, let's just take it as it is, I'm trying to be the one in control. However, on the other side of this - for me to be a submissive wife in the way God wants me to be, it also means that Josh has to step up to be the leader. Now as I said earlier, this is where it gets hard, because I like to lead and he doesn't. So for me to be submissive (trusting and supportive) and for him to lead are the complete opposites of our fleshly desires.

So back to the car situation. God worked in a way abundantly above all I could ask or think because in not one of the scenarios I could come up with did Josh make the decision all on his own, while I made the decision to trust and support whatever decision he made. That was huge! And let me just say that Josh made a great decision choosing a van that really fits our needs and even negotiated the price way down to below what we were willing to spend saving us a little money; talk about stepping out of his comfort zone!!

You know what, I think I could get used to this trust thing. Thanks God!

Spring is coming!

Today, the sun was shining, I could see grass, and my children were talking about butterflies. All signs of the coming of Spring! It is exciting!

As we rode in the car and my children were talking about butterflies, ok so they were arguing about whether they are butterflies first or caterpillars first, but that's beside the point. Naturally, I started explaining to them the process, in children's terms, of how caterpillars become butterflies. But this time, it was a little different.

This time I realized I was describing, not just the transformation of butterflies, but the transformation we go through when we come to know Christ.

I looked up the process of metamorphosis, just to get a more in-depth view of what exactly happens. When the egg hatches, the caterpillar is barely visible. All it does is eat milkweed leaves, and soon it reaches it's full grown state. It eventually leaves the milkweed plant and distances itself about 30-40 ft. away, where it begins to pupate. At this point it creates a silk-like mat and hangs there upside down, in a J shape for a full day. It then sheds it's skin to form it's chrysalis. Inside the chrysalis, the caterpillar undergoes major changes: the mouth parts go from being parts made for chewing to straw-like for sipping nectar, and a crawling insect will become a flying one. When it emerges from the chrysalis, it's wings are limp and wet, so it clings to the shell of the chrysalis (now called the hemolyph) to fill it's body and wings with blood. For about an hour after it detaches, the butterfly still cannot fly, making it most vulnerable to prey. But once it can fly, it begins feeding off flowers and looking to begin the process all over again.

We start out just like those caterpillars, filling ourselves with all this world has to offer. At some point, God pulls us away from what we know and shows us the truth of His Son who died on the cross for us (how cool that it hangs in the shape of a J for a day!!). He then covers our sins with His blood, having taken our punishment, and begins to immediately change our hearts (the Bible calls this justification). Now spiritually transformed, we enter back into the world, still needing to cling so desperately to the blood of Christ, until it has filled every aspect of our lives. Yet, here is where we are so prone to attack, because Satan sees us as weak. As we become stronger, we go out to share with others, but still need to feed from the Word of God. We are taken from being this creature that clings to the world, just slowly getting by, and are transformed into a thing of beauty ("... the many will be made righteous." Romans 5:19). We become a new creature. One that has the freedom to fly.

"For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse." Romans 1:20

I am always amazed when I see how intricately detailed all of Creation is to tell of Christ! As spring comes and we begin to see new life growing all around us,  I hope you are reminded that like the dead of winter, you were dead in sin, but have new life through Christ alone. The coming of spring also means the coming of Easter. Let us not forget what He has done for us, but rather look for Him everywhere!

Total Loss - Salvaged

Yesterday, I was told that due to the accident I wrote about in my last post, that my van is a total loss.

Total loss.

These are the words used to describe a vehicle that has damages above the value of the vehicle. It means, it can be salvaged, but it may not be worth it.

This is not how I would describe total loss. Total loss is what millions of people in Japan experienced just days ago as earthquakes rocked the ground and waters swept over houses, cars, businesses, everything. Entire cities were completely devastated. People lost everything they owned. They even lost people close to them who are missing or died during these tragedies!

But even worse than that, there are people who are living without true joy that comes only with knowing Christ personally. They are experiencing life - happiness and tragedies - as though that's all there is. They are missing out on real purpose and meaning. They are missing out on the promise of eternity with our Creator. And they don't even know what they are missing.

That's total loss.

I lost a van. There's just no comparison.

But just like my van, it doesn't have to be a complete loss. Christ came to die so that our lives don't have to be a total loss. When we admit that we are sinners, believe that He is the Son of God who came to save us, and give Him our lives - we are no longer considered a total loss. In fact, even better than a vehicle or the houses and buildings and cities that will need replaced in Japan, we're not just redeemed with the hopes of being worth it, we are renewed to a state that is even better than how we started! Our lives can be salvaged to a state of righteousness. God picks up the scraps left over after we have been tattered and beaten down by this world. He puts them back together, but when it is all completed, we are not just a refitting of our old pieces; nor our we a mixture of some new and some old. We are made brand new, our mileage has been reset, and we get put back on the road with a new beginning!

Yesterday morning I was in a car accident. It was my fault and thankfully I was the only involved and the only one in the car at the time. I was driving home from work when all of a sudden my van started swerving to the lane to the right of me, I pulled back into my lane (the far left lane) but hit the snow buildup in the left burm which pulled me in toward the wall. My van hit the wall on the driver side and then spun around finally stopping with the tail end of my passenger side in the divider wall facing traffic.

I know what you are thinking, "Wow, I bet that was pretty scary." To be honest, I was afraid before it even happened. I used to be deathly afraid of something like this happening to me, because I did not want to go through the fear and panic that we all assume comes with it.

However, I gave you the general story, but now I want to tell it from my experience of what happened. I was driving. Being in the car by myself, I decided it was a perfect time to practice my rap of the Psalms of Ascents, "... in my distress I cried out to the Lord..." Whoa! My mind literally blanked out as I watched my car swerve one way than the other. Then time slowed, as my car was spinning around I remember thinking, "I should be panicking right now, but I'm not. Lord, please keep me safe and tell me what to do." And then very clearly I heard, "Barbie, hit the brake." So I did. Hitting the break slowed the van enough to keep the airbags from deploying, which would have caused injuries. When I finally realized the van had stopped, I thanked God for keeping me safe, turned the car off, turned on my hazard lights, called the police and started looking for my glasses that had flown off my face.

As much as I had dreaded this very thing happening, it was not as scary as I thought it would be. Of course, I learned something incredible, that I think I could only have learned through an experience like this: When you are focused on God before trouble comes, it is easier to focus on Him through the trouble and after as well.

This coincides with something I learned just last week, and those of you who are in the Beth Moore study, Stepping Up, will know what I am talking about.

Where I look -> What I hear -> What I feel -> What I expect

I looked to God -> I heard His voice -> I felt peace -> I expected to be kept safe

You know, I can't help but relating this to my last post about dancing. I got to experience the dance of my life with my Father. Together we moved this way and that way across the asphalt dance floor leading up to a dramatically beautiful spin and finally ending in a deep dip low to the ground. Breathlessly, I stared Him in the face as He led me. I followed His steps, floating in the air as I was swept off my feet and carried in His strong arms. And when it was finally over, all I could say is, "Oh, how He loves me!"