Broken reed that I am,
I come in pain and joy to Thee.
No service to offer,
no song to sing,
no question needing answers . . .
simply,
humbly,
to love Thee.

Caged bird, though I be free,
I come in pain and joy to Thee.
Nothing to confess,
nothing to profess,
no where I'd rather be . . .
simply,
humbly,
to love Thee.

Broken and caged, though I be,
my Lovely One treasures me,
and through the loneliness,
sleeplessness,
and pain . . .
comes simply,
tenderly,
to love . . . me.

inspired by Amy Carmichael - "God never wastes His children's pain."          debbie.handy1@facebook.com

Of Sand and Pearls

I went to bed last night thinking about the mountains that each of us face in our lives.  These mountains are known by many names:  trials, temptations, addictions, problems, sickness and disease, aging, mental and emotional disorders, loneliness, etc.  Regardless of the name, they are real issues that we must deal with sometimes on a daily basis.

Each one of us deals with one or more of these issues even if we deny the truth of their existence in our lives.  We are all broken somewhere.  We all hurt sometime.  We have all failed.

I would love for God to miraculously, instantaneously remove the issues I and others face, but He rarely does so.  These temptations, distractions, failures, guilt, shame, self-hatred, detrimental habits rarely go quietly or instantaneously off into the night somewhere never to rear their ugly heads again.  No, that is too easy. 

The struggle we have with our "issues" reminded me of pearls.

Mr. Oyster is minding his own business at the bottom of the ocean.  As he takes in water, a grain of sand gets lodged inside his muscles.  He begins to struggle to rid himself of this aggravating obstacle and slowly begins to secrete layer upon layer of nacre to coat the sand so that it isn't as bothersome.  Day in and day out, month after month, year after year, he continues with his struggle with this tiny grain of sand.  Then one day a fisherman catches him, opens him up, and finds a pearl, not a grain of sand.  The oyster's struggle with the grain of sand produced something valuable.

More than likely we, like others before us, will conquer our "issues" the same way they have been conquered in the past.

• Through self-discipline and persistence.
• Through community - intimate relationship with God our Maker, our Redeemer, the One who knows us better than we know ourselves and intimate relationship with a body of people who may struggle with the same struggle but who have chosen to love us unconditionally in a real, honest way
• Through prayer

Yes, God could and often does heal our issues miraculously and instantaneously, but most of the time He seems more interested in developing our character rather than making us comfortable.  So many scriptures talk about this, and so many men and women in the Bible are examples of His developing their character through the struggles they face.  We live in a broken world and are broken in areas in our lives.  The things that bring us the most discomfort are often the very tools God uses to fashion our character.

So when "issues" arise and when my expectations for life and people and myself aren't working out, I try not to get angry with God.  I humble myself before Him with empty hands and try to trust Him through the struggle into the renewal and growth He has promised.  St. Augustine said, "God gives where He finds empty hands.  Hands that are full and fists cannot receive."

Pappa knows best what will grow my character and yours.  He is present and attentive to us.  He is always thinking about us awaiting our trust. 

    











debbie.handy1@facebook.com

Bonhoefferisms

Oct. 21 - Bonhoefferisms

Recently, someone asked what ten books influenced me most.  I honestly tried to narrow my list to ten but couldn't.  So many authors have influenced me over the years; many of them seem like spiritual mentors.  Here are a few:  Amy Carmichael, Jim Elliot, George MacDonald, C. S. Lewis, A. W. Tozer, Leonard Ravenhill, John Wimber, Frances Roberts, Ann Keimel, Henri Nouwen,  Charles Sheldon, and on and on and on.   

Another author who has influenced me is Detrich Bonhoeffer.  Bonhoeffer (1906 - 1945) was a renowned and beloved German Christian/Lutheran minister, seminary professor, and theologian who was imprisoned and executed by the Nazis for his resistance to Hitler.  Over the past few months I have been rereading A Year with Detrich Bonhoeffer.  Every time I travel through this book, I am impressed with his insights.  I thought I would share a few of them with you. 

 We can be very glad when something affects us deeply and regard the accompanying pains as enrichment. High tensions produce big sparks.

  The joy of God has been through the poverty of the crib and the distress of the cross.

  In Jesus Christ the reality of God has entered into the reality of this world.

  Faith always comes before obedience. Faith is only real when there is obedience, never without it, and faith only becomes faith in the act of obedience. 

Only those who believe are obedient; only those who are obedient believe.

  I must be able to know I'm in God's hands, not in those of people. Then everything is easy, even the severest privation.

  Faithless vacillation, endless deliberation without action, refusal to take risks - these are the real dangers.

  Christ was not essentially a teacher or a lawyer but a human being, a REAL human being like us. He wants us to be real human beings before God just as He was.

 Christ did not love "the good"; He loved real people. He wasn't interested in what was "valid" but in that which serves real concrete human beings. He wasn't concerned with "maxims, principles, or laws" but with whether our actions now help our neighbors to be real human beings before God.

God did not become an idea, a principle, a program, a universally valid belief, or a law; He became a human being, a real human being.

  The exclusion of the weak and insignificant, the seemingly useless people, or the poor from everyday Christian life in community may actually mean the exclusion of Christ, for in the poor sister or brother, Christ knocks at the door.

  If we perceive the world in divisions of sacred and profane, we deceive ourselves,for we are placing ourselves in one of two realms - Christ without the world or the world without Christ. If we try to stand in both realms, we become people in eternal conflict.

  The reason we go around the bush so many times having no victory is because we are confessing to ourselves, forgiving ourselves.There is something powerful in dropping your guard and confessing to another person.We meet Christ in the other one. It's "real." The forgiveness is "felt" because flesh-and-blood is doing the speaking, the forgiving. Christ is right there in the middle of it all.

  

Those are a few of my favorite passages from Bonhoeffer's works.  His writings always make me think and serve as plumb line for my own actions in this world.  If you are looking for a good read, one that will change your posture to "on my knees" mode, then try one of his books.  He did not write many because he lived what he wrote.

 

The Cost of Discipleship          

A Year with Detrich Bonhoeffer (a devotional)

Life Together                      

Love Letters from Cell 92 (compiled by his                                                    fiance`Maria von Wedemeyer)

Christ the Center                 

Bonhoeffer (a recent biography of the man)

Ethics