Wow… ever wonder what the finished product of your life will look like???  I just finished making a t-shirt quilt for one of my sons!  What an adventure.  I had never done this before so a friend came over to help me get started.  Never dreamed how much time and learning would be required for me to accomplish it!  And the expense!

Then on top of that I encountered major challenges:  such as my sewing machines not working correctly!  Now when you don’t plan on doing the quilt by hand stitching that is not a pleasant glitch.  So I ran the bobbins on one machine and sewed on the other and hand stitched anything that would show.

But the finished product!  Ahhhhh… beautiful!  There were quirks and imperfections but they only added to its beauty.

Old t-shirts put together to capture memories and seasons of life.  And so I cry out to God:  “Use all of your skill to put me together.  Take all the “T-shirts” of my life and create a memorial that will bring glory to You.  I wait to see your finished product”.

In His creation of my life quilt there will be expense, challenges, reframing , learning, all kinds of colors, cutting, ironing, sewing, ripping out… not always pleasant.  But then there are the moments that I catch a glimpse of what that finished product might look like, and my heart leaps with hope and joy… He is at work in my life with His “skill to put me together”.

Thank you God for the glimpses of the finished product… like my earthly quilt I made, may I bring you glory and honor and praise… and be “beautiful”… I wonder what “beautiful” will look like in me?

I so struggle feeling that God really loves me.  I don’t love myself.  I beat myself up because I don’t meet up to par… so I figure that God probably feels the same way about me that I do!  Well reading this verse out of Ps 103 — ( which by the way is all good so you really should read it all)  I was whammied.

“As parents feel for their children”… and I thought how I feel about my kids.  They aren’t perfect!!… but for me they are perfectly wonderful.  I love them so much.  I have compassion for them… I understand their frame, their life pains and struggles and journeys…  I forgive and forget things because I understand their frame… I watch their life journey’s with interest and I love to spend time with them or hear from them… even just a quick note brightens my day.  To hear the sound of their voice on the other end of the line makes my heart jump with joy

So God feels that way about me?  And here I am in my human state of selfishness and feel this way about my kids… so God with His huge love and compassion and mercy and grace would have an even greater capacity to feel joy towards me as His child.

When I talk to God is He not thinking:  “Brenda, you haven’t really been talking to me lately and I’m pretty upset with you.  Why can’t you get it together?”… or is it like me with my kids:  “Brenda, I love to hear your voice… thanks so much for taking the time to call and talk.”   And I say, “God, thanks so much for the sun that is shining through my window it brightens up my day… thank you for the green grass that is so vibrant and brings peace to my heart.”

Does He respond with:  “Thanks… I love making the world beautiful for you to enjoy.” ( Is that just like I love to make special foods for my guys that each one of them likes because it brings them joy?)  And He says it without expectation and responsibility… He just loves the response and the expectancy of my “call”

So with my boys I understand their frame, I’m not always judging them… but I’m rooting for them to make it!  I’m rooting for their best!  In the middle of tough times I stand with them rooting for them to walk through it and come out better on the other side.  That it won’t destroy them but that good will come.  And God does that with me … He feels those things for me.  In spite of my weaknesses ( that I see as huge), He sees it as part of my journey… and He is rooting for me to make it with love and compassion that is  beyond my understanding.

God sees me as I truly am… and He loves me.  He believes the best in me… and He looks way inside of me past the dirt and grime of life and says:  I love you Brenda Sue Satterfield Baughman.  Period!!!

How do you see God feeling about you?  He longs for us to believe that He loves us!  I long for my sons to know how much I really love them.  How much I believe in them.  How much I am for them.  Sometimes I’m not sure they’ll ever know how deep those feelings run inside of me…  I bet my Father in Heaven so wants me to know how I feel about Him more than I can ever know!

I pray that you will “feel the love” today… and that together we can walk in BELIEF of His love for each of us!

Feeling it!!

In the book she talks about the hula dance in Hawaii, that it isn’t just a dance but it is actually a responsive dance that interprets the story (“mele”) being read.   Listen:  “the hula is something that comes out of the deep place of  your heart when you listen to the poetry – the mele and then you move in a way that gracefully interprets that truth.” p161…

Later on she shares:  “Remember what Amy told us about the hula?  How the object of  the dancer is to gracefully interpret the story that’s coming through the music?… Well every life is a story… the artist simply expresses the truth and beauty of that story?” pg 268

So as I look at my current story am I  dancing gracefully to the truth of it?… I am the artist expressing the story that I have been given…  How am I interpreting it? Each story… and the story in each season… has it’s beauty and grace and truth that is to be danced out in our lives giving glory back to the Author who is weaving our story together .

I ask you what would your hula look like if you were to dance it gracefully out today?  What is the truth and beauty of the story – your own mele?

Stop and listen to the story… close your eyes and begin to feel the story… look for the truth and beauty… and begin to gracefully flow and move in the “unforced rhythms of grace”.

I’d like to hear your hula and what that might look like!…

DANCE TO THE STORY!!

(excerpts from “Sisterchicks Do The Hula”) by Robin Jones Gunn)

This passage has been challenging me to the task of taking the time to explore who I am and what work have I been given to do.

Don’t you love the simplicity of His call to BE who He created us to be… not comparing ourselves… and not being impressed with ourselves.  That sounds like such a place of rest… it sounds like a place that won’t drain our energy… a place where we allow the Spirit of Christ to be in us producing unique “flavors” out of our own life that will allow us to dance in and out of the world that we walk in.  Not you and I  trying to be someone else and using our energy for that purpose rather than producing “fruit” that is natural for our design.

We aren’t a copy of anyone else… we are an original! You and I  aren’t print #3,569!!  We’re not meant to be compared to another painting.  Nor is the person next to you — don’t make them be like you!

Take the time to explore who you are and the work you have been given to do… and be at peace with what you discover.  From that place take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your life!!  Let’s not just talk it but live it out in our lives!!

How easy it is to just hold this “as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, rather than work out its implication in every detail of our lives.  This means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse.  We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us in an original“  Gal 5: 24-26 MsgB

I encourage you to set aside “being still time” to explore who you are and what work you have been called to do.

Check out Carma’s blog and the category “Living on Purpose” for some tools to help you do this.  And Carma… what thoughts do you have to add to this work of exploring who you are?

Would love to hear any of your thoughts or journey’s in this area fellow travelers!!!

Something always defines us in our mind.  A success, a failure; a relationship, no relationship; a strength, a weakness.  What we allow to define us will affect our life responses.  Consider the following:

If a limitation defines us we will put up a wall and  attempt to prove our worth or become defensive or  withdraw for safety or become independent — “I don’t need anyone”.  Our focus becomes protecting our value/ our identity/ our purpose.

If a limitation defines us we move in comparison–destructive as we score ourselves against what isn’t us at this time… and we feel devalued.  We try to be like someone else. We want the acceptance of others that they think we are valuable, or good… and when we move out of our limitation we don’t like ourselves and often feel inadequate to do something we may actually love to do.

If a limitation defines us it become the easy spot for the enemy to take us down.  It is at this point that we are vulnerable to being wounded, feeling decreased value or “a failure”, a lack of worth … others words can devastate me because I give their words the power to score my value.

We hide behind veils to protect ourselves and our image:  I get busy to look good,  or I do things that make me look like a good person,  I move to control– ever use the question:  “Don’t you think you ought to…?”; humor to cover the real me; talkativeness so I don’t have to listen; perfectionism…

Let go of the self-protection or the self-promotion… accept your limitations as gifts that God wants to use to reveal Himself through your life.

Consider Paul’s words:  “ Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn’t get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations… At first I didn’t think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it… then he told me,  ‘My grace is enough; it’s all you need.  My strength comes into its own in your weakness.’ …. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift.  It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness.  Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size– abuse, accidents, opposition bad breaks.  I just let Christ take over?  And so the weaker I get , the stronger I become.” II Corinthians 12  The Message

What limitation can easily sneak up on you and begin to define you and cause you to go into protection mode?  Your past?  Your present? Your physical appearance or handicap?  Your weaknesses? Your current status?

I challenge you to be still and honest in God’s quietness so you can discover what beliefs you have about that limitation that gives it the power to define you… and then let Him give you the correct beliefs so you can live out of God’s defining for your life.  Then come up with a plan  to put them into your thinking… so you can live free out of your God design.

Limitations redefined by God as gifts… our true value, identity, & purpose.

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

It is so easy in life to find our “defining” through so many different things:  maybe our accomplishments/performance, WHO our friends are, or aren’t,  maybe our jobs or a spouse or our children, our title, our health, our physical body or looks, our neighbor, etc….

But what happens when any of those things change or are removed from us???  Life doesn’t stay static!  Seasons change and with it changes come.  What happens when the “mirror” that defines you shatters?  It will depend upon what we BELIEVE “defines” us ?

In the book “The Shack”  (pg 100)I came across this statement:  “Humans are not defined by their limitations, but by intentions I (God) have for them; not by what they seem to be but by everything it means to be created in my image.”

Hmmmm….Thoughts began to flow!  Rahab the prostitute in Joshua didn’t let her “limitation” (title/reputation) define her,  but she let God’s intentions  define her – His intentions for her for this season and it so empowered her that she saved her whole family through her belief in God’s belief in her.  She never was the same again.  Over and over again I saw it in scripture in people’s lives where they let God define them in the face of great limitations.

Who/what defines you?

If  external things defines us, we are headed for losses:   of identity… of value… of feeling purpose… ( loss of our VIP-value, identity, purpose)  Because in life– age, seasons, circumstances will change our “performance” level — we will see ourselves in the light of our “limitations”.

If “Christ in you”/His intentions  defines us ,  our VIP is unchanged by our age, season, or circumstances.  When we live with this thinking it allows HIS intentions  for THIS age… THIS season…THIS circumstance to create ebb and flow in our life.  It allows us to “be”  and to express God’s intentions for this time.

The beauty of letting His intentions define us is that no matter how different we may look from any other season, age, or circumstance of our life — our value, identity, purpose   will be a  unique expression of God’s intentions for us  for this moment… our  VIP can not be altered — whether it is a secret prayer we would give or a meal to the Queen of England!  Because the basis of our definition is Christ in us– His intentions for each of us… and each moment or act is a piece of the greater story of God.

To live our life letting God’s intentions for this moment, age, season, circumstance  define us will be powerful in affecting how we see ourselves and feel about our lives… this belief will allow  us to embrace our “limitations” instead of looking at them as a  handicap.  Next time we’ll share together on how life looks when we let our limitations define us.

May His beauty shine through you as His intentions define and empower you… in His image.  You are full of His VIP!!!

At this point in your life what would you say is defining you?  How does that leave you feeling about yourself?

As I read this in Ecclesiastes 3 the other day it totally blew my mind.  We’ve all heard it but I hadn’t seen it like this before and it totally challenged my thinking:    “…a time to be born and a time to die… a time to mourn and a time to dance… a time to search and a time to give up… a time to keep and a time to throw away”.  The phrase “a time to give up” hit me.  I have searched and searched for answers to so many questions and losses.  Is it time to quit the searching for what I cannot change??  Are my current activities  for this time and season divine!!!!???   WOW!

He goes on to say:  “He has made everything beautiful in it’s time”.  Really????!!!  Have you ever been in a season of life that it is hard to live contentedly in?  It is so easy to live out of comparison to other people’s season that I’d like to have or to a great season we had before… or we can’t wait until our kids get older … or life get’s easier… or the pain of the now goes away… or maybe want a more exciting venue.

For me I have chaffed under this season!  I loved the dancing, the being born, the planting, the healing, the building , the embracing , the searching , the loving time… not the mourning, the dying, the uprooting, the war, the hating.  But here the author tells me to accept the activities in THIS season!!!  IN chapter 7, verse 8 he writes:  Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?”  For it is not wise to ask such questions.”  Hmmm… but how often have I asked that question in various forms in these last years.

The challenge becomes to accept the different activities that are a part of this time and season in my life.  In Ecclesiastics 9: 7 -10 it says, “Go, eat your food with gladness and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is NOW that God favors what you do…Enjoy life… all the days of the meaningless life that God has given you under the sun — ALL your meaningless days.  For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working, nor planning, nor knowledge, nor wisdom.”

Therefore if I am experiencing activities in my life – I am ALIVE!!   So He calls me to enjoy the NOW season in my life… and enjoy the NOW favor of God… For there is a season for EVERY activity under heaven!  What activities are in your season of life?