Month: April 2016

God is in the Restoration Business

He breathes life into lifeless places.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a relationship, your health, your emotions, your dreams….

He brings dry bones out of the grave and wraps them in flesh once more.

He Restores the years you lost, the love you lost, the friends you lost, the faith you lost, the dreams you lost, the opportunities you lost.   Over and above what we can even think of or imagine.

He makes all things new, again.

If you let Him.

If something in your life needs total restoration, read these promises below and be encouraged.

He CAN do it.
He HAS done it for others (including me).
He WANTS to do it for you.
“Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?”  (Jeremiah 32:27, ESV)

“Be glad, O children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given the early rain for your vindication; he has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the latter rain, as before.The threshing floors shall be full of grain; the vats shall overflow with wine and oil. I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you. You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you.”  (Joel 2:23-26, ESV)

“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”  (Isaiah 43:19)

“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.”  (Psalm 51:1-2, 6-12, ESV)

“Return to your fortress, O prisoners of hope; even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you.”  (Zechariah 9:12, NIV)

GOD IS IN (2)

Deserts

philipp-apler-100282.jpg

Lately I’ve been feeling….dry.

And by “lately” I mean for like the last 6 months. And by “dry” I mean a little dead on the inside. Spiritually.

I have heard about spiritual desert seasons people go through. When they feel distant from God.

And I’ve seen the cheesy church signs that say things like:
“Feeling distant from God?
Who moved – you or Him?”

Thanks for that extra guilt and shame, church sign.  In a time when I already feel lost and confused.

The fact of the matter is, I have been marching steadily toward the purpose and the mission to which God has called me. Not away from it or Him. So why do I feel so….blah?

At the beginning, when I started, when I was writing my book and right after I finished, when I started to tell people about it, and started telling my story, every day was exciting and new!!  Filled with limitless potential! Every day was fulfilling.  I had so much to get out and I watched people’s lives change right in front of me.

But now, I struggle with the feeling that maybe I’ve given all I had to give?  Maybe now I’m all used up and empty.  Dried out.  Do I have anything left to offer people?

I feel guilty for not reading as much lately as I should be. I know my growth is directly related to how much I’m reading.  But the hunger I had the Summer before I wrote my book – the Summer I devoured sixteen other books on marriage, divorce and remarriage in four months – has waned….no, disappeared.  And I don’t know why.

I don’t even know what I would want to learn about next.
And I don’t want to only keep reading and studying marriage and relationships, I want to be able to offer more than that.  Plus, I feel like I’ve said everything I have to say about that, in my book.

…..Which still isn’t published.

And that is what makes me feel the most drained and dry.

I’ve passed all three goals and deadlines I gave myself to get it out.  I thought surely I’d be passing it on the shelf at Barnes & Noble by now.  But I’m stiiiilllll editing.  Which is not exciting, or new, or life-giving.  It sucks every ounce of energy and enthusiasm I have for my book right out of me.

It took me 3 months to write my book, and I’ve been editing for 9. And I’m not even done with the first round.

And after I get finished with that, I’ve got to learn everything there is to learn about self-publishing.  To make sure I do it right and make the best choices.

I assumed writing a book was the hardest part about writing a book. And I assumed someone else would be taking care of all this other stuff.  I just want it out, and in people’s hands, so I can be moving on. Progressing to the next step in this journey, in my ministry.

But it’s not. And I’m not. I’m stuck.

I used to hear and see God leading me and moving other people and things into place. But now I feel like He’s being silent, and I don’t know why.

Recently, I heard about the “500 years of silence” the Israelites experienced between the time the Messiah was prophesied to them and the birth of Jesus. 500 years. He didn’t speak another word to them directly, or through his prophets at all.

500…five-HUNDRED…Years.

Entire generations died, just waiting.

This is the stretch of time between where the Old Testament ends and the New Testament begins.  (Random fun fact: Alexander the Great lived in that 500 year time span, which is why, he is a real person but not recorded in the Bible.)

Were these years of silence their own fault? Disobedience?

Or, was there a greater purpose to it?

Did God just stop caring about them?

Did God stop caring about me?  Did I do something wrong?

I wrote this in December 2015, but hadn’t published it yet because I didn’t have answers to these questions – I didn’t even know what all questions to ask – and it was scary and confusing.  I have answers now.  Lots of them.  Not all of them, but lots of them.

And I’ll be sharing them with you soon.

Stay tuned.

In the meantime, have you ever felt like you were in a dry season?  Are you in one now?  How long did it last?

You Make Me Brave

brave

Jonathan Robert Willis *Photographer snapped this shot at the ‪#‎Unpolished2015‬ conference the moment he was asking me about my book, and i was telling him and his team about how i’m in the editing process now and how editing is WAY harder and more work than writing the book ever was! and then we laughed about it.

what i love is that this expression captures so much of what 2015 was for me – that’s an overwhelmed laugh. it’s laughter lined with a layer of uncertainty because i actually had no idea what i was doing. being an author, publishing, speaking publicly…. i know it’s what I’m being called to, but it’s all new territory for me.

so 2015 was a year of DOing, MOVING forward, of OBEYing, and figuring it out as i went – even when I felt completely unqualified.

When my picture played in the slideshow during worship at the end of the conference, it was timed perfectly with these lyrics, “you make me brave. you make me brave”.
i think it was a sweet reminder from my Father that I don’t have to have it all figured out, or feel completely certain or confident, He will give me EVERYTHING I need, including bravery, for this task He has called me.

What Business AM I in??!

A few weeks ago, Facebook released a promotional tool for “business pages” housed on their site. It’s a video that starts with, “we are in the business of….” And gives a very brief overview/description of your business.  Like a 15 second mini-commercial.


I followed the link to create my own for my writer/speaker page.  Facebook did all the work for me, I just had to fill in the blanks and make my selections and it would spit out a professional marketing tool.  I picked all my favorite pictures and clicked “next”, then the tagline pops up: “We are in the business of…..”  I sat staring at the blinking cursor in the empty text box.

What business AM I in?

Why does this page exist?

What IS the point of all this?

Why am I doing this?
And how do I even begin to put that into 160 characters or less?!!

You want me to summarize my life’s purpose in less than a dozen words?!

I literally closed the window and didn’t look at it again for two weeks.
It ate at me, that I couldn’t articulate why I do what I do, and how to explain it to someone – simply. 

I started to meditate on the reasons why I write, why I share vulnerable parts of my life and my story, why building my platform on social media even matters…. I started to really think about all of it.
I thought back to a question I had asked myself about a year ago, “Rachel, what are you passionate about?”.  At that time, I made a list and that list helped me to put things into perspective.  I was able to prioritize my time/energy/focus on the things that really matter to me, and put aside things that I was mildly interested in, or that were just eating up my time.   

A few key words started to float to the surface of my mind: Hope, Inspiration, Dreams, Belief, Freedom. 

Finally, I decided on this: “We are in the business of restoring hope, igniting dreams, inspiring change, and leading people toward freedom.” 

The video turned out absolutely delightful. (if you want to watch it: My Business Video)
I wished I could have gone into more detail about each of those items on there but I certainly can here:

Restoring hope
for the hopeless.
Because I once was.

Igniting dreams
for those who have forgotten how to dream, or lost the ability to believe in them.

Because I lived in that place, the place where everything I once dreamed about seemed too far out of reach, broken, ruined, and you don’t know how or where to begin again.

Inspiring change
I realize I cannot changing anybody. Ever. Period.
But by sharing my story of how my life has changed, I can help people see that change is possible, and achievable, and desirable and inspire them to seek change in their own lives.

Leading people to freedom.
Freedom?  Freedom.
Freedom from shame, freedom from fear, freedom from guilt, freedom from bondage, freedom from entitlement, freedom from their past hurts, failures and bad decisions. 
Woah.  That’s a big one.  A pretty tall order.  And it’s the one thing I’m most passionate about.  But can I really do that? 
No, I cannot make anyone free, I cannot give anyone freedom myself.  But, I can lead them to the Source of True Freedom, where I found my own.

If I achieve all or any one of these things, in the life of even one person who visits, likes, or follows my page, then it will have been successful in its purpose.

So what business am I in? 
I’m in the business of loving and encouraging people. I’m in the business of (trying my best) to show people the character and person of Jesus in real life, even if it’s over a computer screen.  I’m in the business of making myself vulnerable so people feel less alone about their own failures and shortcomings.  I’m in the business of extending grace, ’cause God knows I need my fair share!  I’m in the business of helping people live in the fullness and wholeness they were created so that they may identify and go after their own purpose.  I’m in the business of positioning them to see and believe that it’s possible – no matter what they’ve been through, or from where they are starting.  I’m in the messy human being business. 

But that’s WAY more than 160 characters ;)What business are you in?