Tag: persevere

Even Rocks Cry

I have spent a great deal of my life not doing what I desire because of fear. Whether that’s fear of inadequacy or a lack of ingenuity. I remember rejecting the color pink as a young girl because that was what all of the other girls liked. The same went for the movie The Cheetah Girls. I wanted to buy the soundtrack to sing the songs at the top of my lungs and wear wild cat printed clothes to school. But then if I let myself enjoy my desires I would be grouped with the other girls. What if they rejected my attempts to be one of them? I was afraid to have something in common with them because they were prettier, smarter, more popular, and I would simply never measure up to them. That’s how I thought. So I decided to like other things, to place the word “outcast” on my forehead and pretend like I didn’t care. I chopped my own hair off and died it brown, drawing comics and playing video games instead of jamming out to High School Musical or shopping at Hollister.

With rebellion came its own pitfalls. I was lonely. I cut myself off from people because of my fear of rejection. I never really even had the chance to be rejected because I had already rejected myself. I sought out the differents, the outcasts. And we were good matches. I found a family in the weirdos. Soon I liked being different. But then being different became its own form of idolatry. I separated myself from everyone, and a certain thrill came with that. Tattoos, piercings, partying, and everything in between. I stopped caring what others thought, but not in the right way. More in a total disregard for self and fear of being hurt if I let anyone near me kind of way. Cold-hearted is the best way to put it. And it all began with fear of rejection.

Still Jesus whispered to me in those places. He told me that He accepts me, that He loves me. And slowly, I accepted His outstretched arm.

“He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”” Luke‬ ‭19:40‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Because even the rocks will cry out in praise of the Lord. Even the coldest, toughest places within myself will cry to Jesus & He will respond. Praise in the heaviness.

In this slow dance with the Lord, He has begun to spin me around. Together we dance and watch the ashes gently sift off of me as He twirls me in His arms. Simply typing that out brings on the feeling of overwhelmed. What does the beauty within my hidden heart places look like? That Lacey within me feels so sacred, so vulnerable, so precious and easily shattered. Yet I’ve left her imprisoned for some time, both hungry and parched. Slowly Jesus has come and helped me open up the rusted gate inside my heart. With a grinding groan of metal, I pull it open. There she is, wild eyed and frantic. Jesus steps slowly to her with His hands up as if trying to soothe a spooked animal. She relents and takes His hand. He guides her to me and I hesitantly embrace her-embrace myself.

Its a slow dance, but I am accepting me. All of me, just the way Jesus does. No rejection, no fear of man. No longer an outcast, merely set apart, designated for something bigger than myself. Called higher and being sent farther. Jesus and I are peeling back the layers. The beauty beneath is simply breathtaking, and all the glory goes to the Lord.

Have you embraced the inner child lost long ago within your heart, the places turned stone in malnourishment? Jesus has, and He wants a relationship with ALL of you, to bring beauty from the crystallized ashes.

Growth Spurts

Wait on God.

That is the glorious prophetic word spoken over me at the beginning of my current, new season. And my voice is just a tad sarcastic in saying that. It’s not easy to wait on the unseen. But it truly has been a glorious thing to experience.

I can’t say that I’ve valiantly taken the reigns of this patient task, riding off in my peace-filled happy sunset dream. I haven’t. It has been a tear-filled, up and down hopeless to hopeful, raging inner fire to flickering ember roller coaster ride. My time of waiting has consisted of thoughts of doubt and fear latching on to my brain, only to be ripped out like a cancerous tumor and packed with a soothing poultice of truth- but that’s not always a pleasant experience. Sometimes it hurts to discover the lie you always believed and then to feel the cauterizing of veins coming together to pump new blood to the dying areas in yourself. It doesn’t always feel good to wait because in the waiting is growth, in the waiting is revival. When a person stops breathing, resuscitation requires a sudden burst of air into the lungs and a beating on the chest. Reviving can sting painful, but the product of renewed life is well worth the process.

Do you have kids? My husband and I do. Growth spurts are the greatest, worst thing you can experience with a child. I’ll give you the bad news first.

Growth spurts are the worst. The little one will cry, cling to you night and day, throw fits, suddenly not like foods he or she once loved, and basically be a total sour patch kid for the duration of said growth spurt. You can kiss a good night’s sleep goodbye (but who really sleeps as a parent with toddlers anyway?) I had an app on my phone with my firstborn that would tell me when the upcoming growth spurts, also known as mental leaps, were going to be. And as if we didn’t already know, these mental leaps were signified on the app’s calendar by stormy clouds lasting days or weeks.

On the contrary, growth spurts are also the greatest times in childhood. The child enduring them can suddenly do all kinds of new tricks that they couldn’t do before. Right now Isabelle, my sixteen month old, is going through one. She is so clinging and whiny, but she has also mastered a handful of words she can say at the right times. She can imagine by rocking her baby dolls to sleep. I can ask her for a particular item and she will bring it to me. Her newfound knowledge and ability is astounding. The babies/toddlers have such difficult times with these growth spurts because their little bodies have literally just grown to a new level of capacity. And with that new growth comes new knowledge and ability. The sudden flood of advancement is a lot for the little ones.

The same goes for us big ones.

Every time I go through a season or some type of trial I learn something new, I grow. And how cool is God to teach us new things, and then give us the chance to put them into action?

The old seasons teach us and stretch our capacity of knowledge and ability-all of which we will need to thrive and endure the upcoming days. If we learn nothing from the past and present then we will repeat history. Now I do not mean to say that all repetitive trials and seasons are because God is teaching you something that you aren’t grasping it. No, not always but sometimes but I am not judge of that. However I do know that in the Father-to-child relationship in which we all have with God, there is always something to learn from our Heavenly Dad.

In the waiting we are growing.

Personally, I kind of took the whole “wait on God” message and ran a twisted direction with it. Because of the way waiting went before in my life, I conjured up the word “stop” in my head. I thought I needed to close myself off from a lot of the work God has been building up in my ministry, work and even family. All in the name of waiting. Thinking that waiting meant stopping. And I can say now that those two verbs are not quite the same. For some people, maybe, but for me it was a defense mechanism. Mostly because I was completely afraid to be standing on a tight rope, balancing everything while also waiting to figure out what was on the other side of the balance. What if I fall and die? What if I lose my footing and drop the ball? Almost trying to manipulate God by stopping all that He was doing for me in hopes that He would then give me what I sought after. Because I know what is best for me, right? Wrong. Not good thinking and maneuvering for sure. If I’m waiting on God, it doesn’t have much to do with me and everything to do with God. His timing is everything, and I simply need my heart to be completely yielded to the when.

Honestly I have barely scratched the surface to what waiting on God entails. I know this:

Wisdom is needed. Tenacity is key. Endurance must be shod on. Humility is armor. And above all else, I am just the clay in the hands of the Potter.

In this truth, I will patiently endure. I will wait and stretch and grow. As I soak up the sun in the long hot days, I will dig my roots deeper and outstretch them wider tapping into the Water of Life. I will bend my stem to follow the Light wherever He goes. I will open up my petals to face the Sun more fully and allow my pollen to be given out to those in need of nourishment. I will not worry myself with how other flowers will be nourished, I will simply yield to the Holy Spirit working much like a bee that can be everywhere at once. I won’t stop pressing in and pushing through. I won’t stop loving and walking out the callings on my life. I will stay focused on the Potter being the One to bring about the finished product. All the while remembering that I wait on God because nothing is done by my works or my striving but by God’s power and purpose for my life.

In His grace and love,

Lacey

Storage Full

I dont really know where to start. My brain is very similar to my iPhone right now. When I unlock my phone, the “Storage Full” notification pops up to let me know my phone has reached its fullest capacity of retaining information. I can’t take any pictures, download new apps or even view incoming e-mails. And as annoying as that “Storage Full” message is, it’s kind of relevant to my week. My mind has reached its fullest capacity and I can’t receive anything new until I unload the unnecessary junk.

It was ten o’clock at night as I wrote that previous paragraph. My husband was attempting to console our baby girl and put her back to bed. I finished writing the last sentence as Brenner came rushing into our room asking for back up. Isabelle was pretty worked up so I went in to give it a try. Forty-five minutes later and she finally fell sleep. My initial plan was to immediately go to sleep myself and catch as many zzz’s as I could before she woke again. But as I closed my eyes I felt the tug on my soul from the Holy Spirit to talk to Him first.

Opening up the Word to my next chapter in the book of John, I felt another tug to instead turn to my next Psalm. Psalm 77 it is then! The first stanza was so closely connected to my present internal state that I had to literally breathe it in over and over again:

“I cried out to God with my voice— To God with my voice; And He gave ear to me. In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord; My hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing; My soul refused to be comforted. I remembered God, and was troubled; I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. Selah” (Psalms‬ ‭77:1-3‬ ‭NKJV‬‬)

God reminded me that my overwhelmed mind was in need of crying out loud to the only One who can empty my soul. So I complained to Him for a while, and He continued to meet me where I was as I read further along:

“You hold my eyelids open; I am so troubled that I cannot speak. I have considered the days of old, The years of ancient times. I call to remembrance my song in the night; I meditate within my heart, And my spirit makes diligent search.” (Psalms‬ ‭77:4-6‬ ‭NKJV)

While there wasn’t something terribly wrong with me, per se, I was still troubled in my soul. My mind was overwhelmed with previous conversations, what could’ve been or should’ve been, thoughts, images, future plans, and present tasks. We all experience these moments of “Storage Full”, and God wants to help. We don’t have to live our entire lives in a perpetual state of overwhelmed and stressed out. (And just a thought: as believers in Christ, do we point others to Jesus when we are that way?)

I believe that is what David is trying to explain in this Psalm. As his “Storage Full” notification popped up, David’s method of wiping the slate clean was remembering all the good that God did for him in the past.

There is real power in remembering God.

Moving on to Psalm 77:10-12, David continuously talks about remembering:

“but I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High. I will remember the works of the LORD; Surely I will remember Your wonders of old. I will also meditate on all Your work, And talk of Your deeds.”

Meditating on all of the miracles that God has done for us is a flipping of the switch in our brains. “Less of me and more of Him”. It might take some internal repeating of God’s works..

“God saved me from death through Jesus when I was 18 so He’s got me now.”

“God gave my son a heart beat so He’ll take care of him now.”

..but remembering God’s truth really does transform your mind and fill you with peace. Remembering God’s works is the recipe for perseverance in faith.

These final two verses pierced my heart the most because they describe my present season to a “T”:

“Your way was in the sea, Your path in the great waters, And Your footsteps were not known. You led Your people like a flock By the hand of Moses and Aaron.” (Psalms‬ ‭77:19-20‬ ‭NKJV‬‬)

God has parted the sea for me. Now here I am standing in the middle of a deep sea with two towering walls of water on either side of me. I don’t know where I’m going because God’s footsteps are unknown before me, but I do know where I’ve been. And I know if God parted this sea for me, He will surely lead me through it.

I don’t know where you’re at mentally, physically or spiritually. I don’t know what tomorrow holds for you; but I do know this, there are countless miracles God has performed, is performing, and will perform in your life right this second. Open your eyes to see Him, open your ears to here Him, open your heart to receive Him. Remember His great works so that your faith is rock solid and your endurance is infinitely lengthened. He’s got you. Press on.

Here is a link to a worship playlist I put together, filled with songs that have kept me remembering God’s good works despite my season of ‘unknown’: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3L0nMzcI59MgWYmkwQovg1kqUZ0Haz60