Whispers of Truth

God raised up the prophet Jeremiah to speak truth to His stubborn, wayward people.   When God told Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you” (1:5), He already knew that this youth would struggle in speaking the terribly hard truths that God would require of him, the truths that no one wanted to hear. Before his first assignment, God reassured Jeremiah that He had put His words in his mouth and that He had appointed him to speak His words (1:9-10) and that He was watching over His word “to perform it” (1:12).   Jeremiah’s job according to God was   “to pluck up and break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant” (1:10). How’s that for a calling? In light of that, I should have nothing to fear in God’s calling of my husband (and thus my family) to ministry, to shepherd His sheep wherever He will call us. No enemy armies will come against my people and camp at the gates of my city to destroy it (as far as I know

Recently, the ladies I meet with weekly have been working their way through the scriptures of The Gospel According to Mark. It is the shortest of the gospels, but offers details that enable the reader to feel like he/she was there. Reading it makes the disciples’ struggles to follow and understand Jesus very real, and, as usual, Peter’s struggles reach out and grab onto me because I can relate only too well. At the end of Chapter 14, the point in the gospel where Peter denies Jesus three times after His arrest after insisting vehemently that he would die before denying Jesus, stops me in my tracks each time I read it. In Peter’s mind, he was dedicated, but Jesus knew his deceitful heart. He knew his telling weakness. He knew his paralyzing fear. Peter hadn’t truly listened or believed when Jesus told the disciples that He would be struck down and that all of them would be scattered before He was killed and raised back to life (Mark 14:27-28). Peter hadn’t stayed awake to pray

Neither delusions of grandeur nor avoidance is the answer. Uninvited reality checks sometimes bring depression when the brutal mirror is turned upon me unexpectedly; nevertheless, burying my head in the sand can only happen for so long before coming up for air becomes a necessity.   How I handle the uninvited, perceived truth when it slaps me upside the head really is the question.   When I fail to see what others see in me, do I blindly accept it as my truth? What if the criticism comes from the ones I love the most? What if I don’t like what they see? I have found (and am finding) that neither receiving the arrows of criticism into the deepest places of my heart nor putting up a shield that prevents their penetration is the answer. The truth lies somewhere in between—most of the time. Recently I have had to face some hard things about myself in light of my husband’s call to the ministry. One of those things is my selfishness. I have to say I was sitting pretty comforta

If I am honest, when I do not write, it is not because I have not felt a whisper in my spirit to speak or even at times a compulsion; when I do not write it is because writing requires more effort than I want or have to expend. Today I write because it is too hard not to do so. My heart is full, and be warned that it is about to spill over onto this page. As I’ve studied Mark (particularly chapter eight this past week) and seen Jesus show his disciples clearly who He is and what He can do over and over again; as I’ve seen Jesus demonstrate His faithfulness to a faithless group of Pharisees—even a nation, a particular people He chose for His very own; as I’ve found myself at the same time reading Jeremiah in my quiet time and coming to the same verses used in Mark 8, my heart breaks, and I keep hearing a refrain from a Plumb song: “God, help me!” over and over again with a new understanding of the words. Some background might be helpful. This past week has felt a little l

Christians sometimes get the idea that they should remain undisturbed. (What I really mean is that I sometimes get the selfish idea that I should be left undisturbed.) But that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Because I need rest sometimes from the hectic pace of life, I like being undisturbed, but it shouldn’t become the focus of my life, and I should never feel like I deserve it or have earned it in any way. I thought of this because summer is almost over. I’m not saying teachers live for summer (although some probably do and I too fall guilty at times), but it is a much-needed mental and physical break. Teaching children of any age is difficult—‘nough said! So, anyway, my summer has been very restful; at the same time, it has been productive and has rejuvenated me, but I can’t live in perpetual summer as much as I sometimes think I would like to do so. As I reread one of my favorite sections of 2 Chronicles yesterday, I came across this word: undisturbed. King Asa, the

The pulling of the edges together afterwards doesn’t work— They just don’t match anymore after their jagged tearing. And I miss what I used to think was whole. It is different, this repairing in another configuration than the original. Normal used to be comfortable but now is no more. New, yes.  Necessary, absolutely.  But definitely not normal. When the mending finally occurs, I wonder why I resisted to begin with. This is better than the original version.  Better than normal. I think to myself, “Next time I will know not to resist.” But the next time comes, and still I pull back, Grasping desperately at the edges of what used to be, holding on to the old. Reluctant. Fearful.  But then I remember the last mending. And I submit to the repairing of my soul. kbp