God, I'm Running for Your Heart

Soul on Fire by Third Day has been playing in my head all day. In fact, as I type this I've got my headphones on, this song cranked up and on repeat!

I woke up this morning humming this tune and simply can't get the melody and the lyrics out of my mind. In fact, the good Lord gave me an image that I'll need to figure out how to put image to paper using my art supplies to bring it to life. Until then, I wanted to share the lyrics so we can give this much needed food some thought.

God, I'm running for Your heart
I'm running for Your heart
Till I am a soul on fire
Lord, I'm longing for Your ways
I'm waiting for the day
When I am a soul on fire
Till I am a soul on fire
[x2]

Lord, restore the joy I had
I have wandered, bring me back
In this darkness, lead me through
Until all I see is You

God, I'm running for Your heart
I'm running for Your heart
Till I am a soul on fire
Lord, I'm longing for Your ways
I'm waiting for the day
When I am a soul on fire
Till I am a soul on fire

Lord, let me burn for You again
Let me return to You again
And Lord, let me burn for You again
And let me return to You again

God, I'm running for Your heart
I'm running for Your heart
Till I am a soul on fire
Lord, I'm longing for Your ways
I'm waiting for the day
When I am a soul on fire

God, I'm running for Your heart
I'm running for Your heart
Till I am a soul on fire
I wanna be
Till I am a soul on fire
Till I am a soul on fire

This Christmas season has been hard for me to focus on Christ. I'm out of my element, with decorating habits being thrown to the wind because everything I've used in the past to decorate our home sits 2,000 miles away in a storage unit. I waver between wanting to buy things to replace everything sitting in storage and knowing that it's not the “stuff” that's important, but it's hard.

I find that I'm struggling with the need to find firm footing in this unknown territory. I want this place I'm in to feel like home when at every turn I am reminded that I'm not home. Where we live is temporary and I don't know when our lives will permit permanence.

The irony of what I've just typed isn't lost on me. I know physically this is only a temporary home and the “stuff” that I'm seeking to make me feel at home here has been stripped away for a reason. God is looking to create a permanent home in me.

Being uncomfortable creates an opportunity for me to focus more clearly on God than on the “stuff”. He's right. I know that. It's been at least 6 months since I really spent time with God, focusing on Him and His will for me. Sometimes it's like that in my life. I get busy, succumb to the responsibilities of life and lose my way with Him.

But in His gracious love for us all, we are never forgotten by Him. In fact, He seeks to draw us closer to Him every minute of the day.

For me, today was the day He so gently reminded me, through a song to come back to Him. Reminding me of the hunger and joy I have when He is my focus, my guiding light, my reason for the day.

I read the words of the song and my heart hurts at their truth. I need His joy for I am spiritually lost. I feel like I'm in the dark and I know the only way to see the light is to pick up my running shoes and run back to Him. He waits for me, for you.

There's a Christ-hunger that's been dampened by the trials of this life but if I were to be honest, I want so desperately to be in a place with God that supersedes everything else, a hunger that can only be overcome with His love. I know I've been distracted, my soul is empty and my days have lost their joy.

But there is hope.

God.

Almighty, loving Father Above.

He will restore all that has been taken by this world. He will give us joy and His love. All we need to do is to run back to Him.

Until next time, I am off to recreate the image He gave me earlier in my art journal.

Blessings & Best wishes,

The heart of a mother

Hello friends,


How many of you have heard of bible art journaling? I love it. Bible art journaling combines 3 things I enjoy most: writing or journaling if you will, art and the study of God's word.


The concept of Bible art journaling is to spend time with God, studying His word and when He speaks to you through your time of mediation, you take the grain of wisdom He is giving you and allow your creative hearts to then covert His word to art. There are no rules, no mandates, no special art supplies needed. Just use what you have.


Now I will tell you that the study bible I use to spend time reading and meditating with is not the bible I use to create my bible art simply because of the types of mediums I like to use, many of which are not translucent which would prevent me from continuing to study God's word. Simply put, if I can't see it, I can't study it. Therefore I do my bible art in a secondary bible or in my mixed media tablets.

As far as I'm concerned it's not about whether you create art in a bible, journal, scratch piece of paper or a mixed media tablet. It's about the time you spend with God, what He's speaking into your life and then how you translate that conversation using the art supplies available to you.

That being stated, I'd like to share an piece that came to me based on Exodus 28. In this chapter God talks about using the colors blue, purple, scarlet and fine linen to create the priestly robes for Aaron and his sons who were to be priests for the Lord and over Israel.

There were very specific directions given on how these garments were to be made and which colors to use.  God also required that the names of the 12 tribes of Israel be engraved in onyx stones and placed on the shoulders of his garments.

Israel's 12 tribes engraved and placed on the shoulders...

Whenever I think of anything being placed on my shoulders, I think of a heavy load. In fact, when we see someone who's having a really tough time we often say to them, "You look like you're carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders," don't we?

Imagine. Everything about Aaron's garments were a reminder of who he was serving, (our God), who he was (a priestly intercessor), and who he represented, (the 12 tribes of Israel).

The whole idea that Aaron was to never forget his goal. To intercede on behalf of the 12 tribes of Israel to the Lord Almighty.

Instantly I thought of us ladies.  Isn't this who we are and what we do? We've been chosen by God to intercede in the lives of the children before us. Now, I can't say that I've ever met a mother who doesn't think of her children every single second of the day. We carry our children in our hearts and minds wherever we go. And let's face it, I would bet that it's safe to say that everything we do generally revolves around them to some degree. If we're cleaning our homes, making dinner, working a full time job, volunteering, whatever it is, they're right there with us.

As mothers we always carry the weight and responsibility of our children with us. Ever before us, they're in our hearts, on our minds and sometimes the responsibility even feels like a weight on our shoulders. If they're struggling in school or at work or in their marriages. If they're at home sick, fighting for their lives on the battlefield or in a cancer unit,  it really doesn't matter, whatever they are doing, we are right there in the trenches with them.  Praying for them, providing for them, teaching, guiding...the list is endless.

Now it's true that motherhood brings with it just as many, if not more blessings than one could count, but the sheer responsibility is ever before us, on our shoulders as it were, reminding us that we have the privilege just as Aaron did to present our children before the Lord.

Now as I continued reading chapter 28, verse 28 stood out: "Whenever Aaron enters the Holy Place, he will bear the names of the sons of Israel over his heart on the breastpiece of decision as a continuing memorial before the Lord." 

Bearing the names of the sons...over his heart...continual memorial before the Lord

These 3 sets of words stood out to me as I converted them to my life and into my simple piece of art: My sons, my heart, my God.

So here below is my bible art translation of God's word which places my sons names on my heart and uses the priestly colors of God as a reminder that they're interwoven specifically for a reason and that I, like Aaron have been given the blessing to intercede for my sons before our God.

I hope you will enjoy!

Tomorrow I'd like to share Part 2 of a The Heart of a Mother where I define the symbolic nature of the colors used in the priestly garments.

Until then, please know you are prayed for continually.

Blessings & best wishes,

Unplugging from Isolation

If you watched me while I worked, spent time with my family or the ladies in my bible study group you would swear I was an extrovert.

Not so.

I’m a die-hard introvert. Or maybe I’m a chameleon. Either way, I’m not as outgoing or as open as I may present myself. Now it’s not that I’m lying to the world, it’s just that what you see is only a small part of who I am.

I’m a guarded person. There’s been way too much heartache in my life for me to fee comfortable truly letting my guard down and letting others really get to know me.

But God’s not done with me yet.

In fact, as I started thinking and praying about what direction and focus God would have me concentrate on this year; I was somewhat surprised when He didn’t actually give me a single word like He had in the past, like faith and joy. This time He gave me “relational living.”

(Sigh) Seriously Lord, I thought. What exactly am I not doing that You want me to focus on relational living?

Honestly I had no clue until a couple of weeks later while I was sitting in service and the pastor mentioned the words, “unplugging from isolation" did I even consider the correlation between relational living (purposefully reaching out to those God places in our lives versus hiding away from relationships in order to self-protect).

Now we all know that our world or at least part of it, lives, breathes, eats, sleeps and thinks technology in one way shape or another. And there’ve been plenty of studies that have shown that the more our society connects electronically the more we disengage from one another.

So at first I thought, “Not me Lord, you know I barely watch tv, my phone has more gadgets unused than used on it and frankly if I didn’t live with 3 techie’s in my life to fix the computer hiccups, I’d throw the stinker in the trash and move on.”

However, that’s not quite what He meant…

Instead God, as I have started figuring out, wanted to point out that I was isolating myself from others on purpose. Ouch!

Not me Lord...really?

My past is filled with deep heartaches and betrayals that began at an early age so I learned to protect myself by keeping a smile on my face, going through the motions and never really allowing myself to engage in any sort of real relationships, with the exception of my husband and children. Everyone else is kept at bay.

So to have God push me out of my comfort zone and try to connect with those He’s placed in my life, yep, this one’s gonna be a doozy and frankly I’m not so sure about any of this.

But here’s what ’m learning. When I’m obedient to what God is calling me to do, He is with me (and you) every step of the way, and we are never alone.

When I started thinking about my walk with Christ and how, if I am going to go deeper and not just have a surface relationship, and really allow God to work in and through my life, then, my first step is obedience.

But what does that look like? How do I unplug from isolation?

First I prayed about it and asked God to show me a way to step out in faith to do what He was asking.

The first thing He had me do was take something I love to do: cooking – and serve the ladies in my bible study.

Now this may seem pretty easy and the cooking part was. But what was hard was stepping out, offering something about myself (my cooking abilities) share it with the ladies in the group.

Now for someone like me that’s HUGE! I tend to skirt into class, take the bible study, offer a little small talk and then bolt once the video is over.

Not so now. For the past few weeks, I’ve brought something to share to my group. And God bless these sweet ladies, they’ve been gracious and wonderful.

I don’t like the attention. It scares me to death. Especially when someone lengthens the conversation beyond a “Thanks for bringing this, I skipped dinner to get the kids to church on time.”

But I’m doing it anyway. Shaking in my boots, scared someone will actually talk to me or rather, want to talk to me, but I’m doing it anyway.

Why?

God asked me to. And I love Him. And I want to grow and be changed by His love. Not only for myself but so that others in my life, however few they may be at the moment :) will also be touched by His love. So while this is hard and most times I want to run and hide I have a feeling that’s not gonna happen. I'm gonna keep stepping out in faith, one tiny step at a time and allow Him to change me.

There's a saying that goes something like this: You can’t serve two masters. Do I love and serve God even though unplugging from isolation is hard and very uncomfortable or do I serve myself and my protective nature and go back home having never reached out to try and make new friends and to grow beyond the pain?

I can’t do both...

I choose God. I choose to trust Him, knowing in advance He loves me more than to leave me where I am.

And I’m thankful.

What about you? Is God calling you to unplug from isolation? Are you hiding from a hurt or a pain that you don’t want to face? I’m right there with you!  But more importantly, God is with us. He will strengthen, lead and guide us through every difficult, challenging growth opportunity if we only turn to Him and ask Him to lead the way.

I’m game…are you?  

I'll be praying for you every step of the way.

Until next time,

Blessings & best wishes,