Psalm 103:13–14
As
a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion
to those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are
dust.
You must carry
©10-28-15 hannah mclean
carry me
i cry to You
carry me
i cry
for i have not the strength
for the rest of the journey
my heart is too worn
and my eyes are too weary
if there’s something to gain
You’re my hope or i’m slain
You must carry
carry me
i cry to You
carry me
i cry
yes, honor and glory, Lord,
i wish to bring You
yes, praise and thanksgiving
but i strain to sing
though i can’t lift my hands
i will fall to my knees
crying “please”
carry me
i cry to You
carry me
i cry
Lord, You know my frame
as it’s falling to dust
You are my Father
the One i can trust
i find rest in compassion
that shines from Your face
eternally faithful to
Your child of grace
carry me
i sigh to You
carry me
i sigh
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
He has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you."
Yesterday I cried...a LOT.
That’s what fatigue does to me; it makes me cry, all the time and at everything.
Yesterday was hard, I am sure many factors play into it with varying complexities. But even though I was completely at the end of myself, in the evening I went downstairs to my prayer room to talk with the Lord. I talked to him like the worn out child I am, and though my questions, confusions and wonderings may have been simple, the reasons I was troubled were fueled by deeply embedded beliefs in who He is. Why did my circumstances not align with His character or promises? I found myself trying to discern between the enemy’s work and God’s hand, attempting to sort through my own heart to find if I was out of alignment...I wouldn’t recommend doing this when you’re fatigued, by the way.
I resonated with this line from Psalm 94, which rolled through my head again and again as I prayed, “If the Lord had not been my help, my soul would soon have lived in the land of silence.” I desperately needed the Lord, but where was He in my moments of need?
I remembered James 4:8, and wrote the words down on the page in front of me, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” I desperately needed to be near Him, but where was He as I tried to pull Him close?
And for the first time that I can ever remember since I began walking with Jesus, I left my posture of prayer without restored hope. I stood up, completely devastated by the Lord’s silence and absence, and walked out of the room thinking, “The enemy is not suppose to win, that’s not the way it is suppose to be.”
I found my husband in the other room.
“I’m not okay,” I told him, “I feel utterly hopeless.”
The first statement most likely didn’t surprise him because my face was all puffy and red from crying and tears were still running down my face. I don’t know what he thought about the second.
“You’re tired,” He said, “Let’s put you in bed.”
I shook my head, completely overwhelmed by utter fatigue and said emphatically, “I don’t want to go to sleep without hope.”
Eventually he did convince me to go brush my teeth and get ready for bed, he kept telling me I was tired (which I was), and I told him, “I don’t want you to tell me I’m tired, I want you to tell me the Truth.” I curled up next to him, with my squeaky-clean teeth and teary eyes and he turned out the light...and then he told me the Truth; he recited scripture after scripture as it came to his mind, speaking them over me until he fell asleep.
For two hours I lay there unable to sleep, long after the tears stopped. I heard my phone ding several times (I checked it in the morning, they were texts of people who were making sure I was ok after I had stated on Facebook that I needed prayer). As I stared up at the dark ceiling, I thought about the body of Christ; His hands and feet and voice through others who are in Him. I have been praying through the daily prayer requests from Voice of the Martyrs for my brothers and sisters in Christ in hostile nations; nations with minute numbers of believers, persecuted by the majorities of Muslims or Buddhists or Hindus for following Jesus. And I wondered what would have happened to me that night had I not been able to reach out my hand to my Christ-following husband in the other room and put out a public request for prayer to my believing friends to lift me up from the miry bog of doubt I was sinking in. I considered how very alone they must feel, hidden or locked-up in the dark places, having to rely on faith alone to carry them through their confusion, doubt and despair.
And I was so grateful that I had more than my faith (which clearly needs strengthening); I had the Body of Christ--part of it literally in the bed beside me--to ensure I didn’t have to go to sleep without hope.
Thank you, brothers and sisters, for lifting me up. When I think of the verse from James on drawing near, I think that promise played out in a very real way last night; I reached out to Jesus and He came near through you. And I think that was gracious, in a moment when my doubt was so physical, to respond with a presence to match.
That’s what fatigue does to me; it makes me cry, all the time and at everything.
Yesterday was hard, I am sure many factors play into it with varying complexities. But even though I was completely at the end of myself, in the evening I went downstairs to my prayer room to talk with the Lord. I talked to him like the worn out child I am, and though my questions, confusions and wonderings may have been simple, the reasons I was troubled were fueled by deeply embedded beliefs in who He is. Why did my circumstances not align with His character or promises? I found myself trying to discern between the enemy’s work and God’s hand, attempting to sort through my own heart to find if I was out of alignment...I wouldn’t recommend doing this when you’re fatigued, by the way.
I resonated with this line from Psalm 94, which rolled through my head again and again as I prayed, “If the Lord had not been my help, my soul would soon have lived in the land of silence.” I desperately needed the Lord, but where was He in my moments of need?
I remembered James 4:8, and wrote the words down on the page in front of me, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” I desperately needed to be near Him, but where was He as I tried to pull Him close?
And for the first time that I can ever remember since I began walking with Jesus, I left my posture of prayer without restored hope. I stood up, completely devastated by the Lord’s silence and absence, and walked out of the room thinking, “The enemy is not suppose to win, that’s not the way it is suppose to be.”
I found my husband in the other room.
“I’m not okay,” I told him, “I feel utterly hopeless.”
The first statement most likely didn’t surprise him because my face was all puffy and red from crying and tears were still running down my face. I don’t know what he thought about the second.
“You’re tired,” He said, “Let’s put you in bed.”
I shook my head, completely overwhelmed by utter fatigue and said emphatically, “I don’t want to go to sleep without hope.”
Eventually he did convince me to go brush my teeth and get ready for bed, he kept telling me I was tired (which I was), and I told him, “I don’t want you to tell me I’m tired, I want you to tell me the Truth.” I curled up next to him, with my squeaky-clean teeth and teary eyes and he turned out the light...and then he told me the Truth; he recited scripture after scripture as it came to his mind, speaking them over me until he fell asleep.
For two hours I lay there unable to sleep, long after the tears stopped. I heard my phone ding several times (I checked it in the morning, they were texts of people who were making sure I was ok after I had stated on Facebook that I needed prayer). As I stared up at the dark ceiling, I thought about the body of Christ; His hands and feet and voice through others who are in Him. I have been praying through the daily prayer requests from Voice of the Martyrs for my brothers and sisters in Christ in hostile nations; nations with minute numbers of believers, persecuted by the majorities of Muslims or Buddhists or Hindus for following Jesus. And I wondered what would have happened to me that night had I not been able to reach out my hand to my Christ-following husband in the other room and put out a public request for prayer to my believing friends to lift me up from the miry bog of doubt I was sinking in. I considered how very alone they must feel, hidden or locked-up in the dark places, having to rely on faith alone to carry them through their confusion, doubt and despair.
And I was so grateful that I had more than my faith (which clearly needs strengthening); I had the Body of Christ--part of it literally in the bed beside me--to ensure I didn’t have to go to sleep without hope.
Thank you, brothers and sisters, for lifting me up. When I think of the verse from James on drawing near, I think that promise played out in a very real way last night; I reached out to Jesus and He came near through you. And I think that was gracious, in a moment when my doubt was so physical, to respond with a presence to match.
avalanche
avalanche
©10-26-15 hannah mclean
all i can do
is cry
as piece after piece
of me falls
as the days pass by
i wonder
what will be left
when this avalanche
ends
will i be able to mend?
or will i simply be lost
spread across the years
crushed beyond repair
in the descent?
©10-26-15 hannah mclean
all i can do
is cry
as piece after piece
of me falls
as the days pass by
i wonder
what will be left
when this avalanche
ends
will i be able to mend?
or will i simply be lost
spread across the years
crushed beyond repair
in the descent?
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Dignifying the Lord's house.
My health has stripped my physical body of its dignity.
It has diminished my body to a state
so painful for me to dwell upon
that years ago,
I simply separated myself from it.
I simply separated myself from it.
As though it was of no worth,
had no benefit to offer me.
Naught but a cross to bear
until I am made whole in eternity;
death seen as a welcome release
that will one day solidify the split.
My health has brought me pain;
deep wounds with great emotional collateral.
Unable to better my physical person
I chose instead to set it aside--
an amputee of sorts--
investing in the things this side of heaven
that will join me there.
Desiring instead to
“let your adornment be the hidden person of the heart
with imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit,
which is God’s sight is very precious.”
In God’s sight.
Over the years I have learned to live before the Lord alone,
perhaps first pressed by broken reasons,
but acceptable to Jesus none the less.
But there are weights that entangle,
causing our steps to trudge
and keeping us from running the race before us.
Good things that didn't begin as weights,
but that arrived there
when they began to hinder freedom.
In God’s sight.
I live before Him now for other reasons;
reasons that allow me to look into the pain
and reclaim the dignity my health has stripped me of.
I have become vividly convicted of the fact
that God made me
a soul, a spirit AND a body.
My body is a third of who I am;
and while it is but dust,
it bears the image and likeness of my Creator
and holds within its walls
the Spirit of the living God.
It is not just a body,
it is a temple.
And not just a temple,
but a temple of the living God.
Until I reach heaven,
where I get to physically worship
in His physical house,
He has chosen to enter into me
and make me
the physical dwelling place of the most High.
1 Corinthians 6:19 “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?”
Armed with such a declaration,
I look upon this broken piece of flesh,
one I have averted my eyes from again and again.
Undignified by earthly standards.
I look upon this temple
laid in ruin for many years.
And carefully
I set aside the words
I have spoken to it again and again.
I set aside the expectation
of what it is suppose to be to be acceptable.
And instead
I let it stand just as it is,
accepted by the One who made it His own;
accepted by the One who made it His own;
a pile of bricks strewn upon a strong foundation
ready to be built back up.
And I place around my neck a cross
as upon a steeple
declaring to the world that
this is a house of the Lord.
Psalm 84:1 “How lovely is Your dwelling place, O Lord of Hosts!”
I marvel as these words You gave me years ago
flow through my mind,
“You restore to me
dignity.”
Monday, October 5, 2015
PICTURE: The wall of stones
This is the picture the Lord gave me during a time of prayer surrounding the verse from Matthew 16:18, “I will build My Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
In the picture, there was a wall of a building made of many stone bricks. The stones were in rows, one atop of another. As I looked closer, I saw that many of the stones were out of place; some were slightly askew, while others were mostly dislodged.
----
1 Peter 2:4–6
“As you come to Him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
----
The wall was part of the “physical” Church we who believe are being built into. As stones, we are to align with our “cornerstone” (Christ). As I prayed, about this picture, the Lord pressed upon me how the stones would realign (and/or remain aligned) with their foundational first stone: Scripture.
As a whole in this country, those who profess Christ have neglected the Bible. Why is that? The Word is where God is revealed; His heart, His desires, His Truth. We are to align our lives with Him; if we are separated from scripture (His revealed Word), how can we do that accurately? We can’t; without the knowledge of Him revealed through Scripture, we won’t really know WHO He is, what He is like, what He desires, how He loves, etc....we can only guess or assume, and when we do that, we end up worshiping a god we have created instead of the one true, living Yahweh. As I was reminded in a sermon recently, “If your spiritual experiences aren’t pushing you into the Word, there is a disconnect.” This should be a red flag for us; if we “want Jesus” but aren’t growing in our desire for the Word of God, we need to question if the former is actually true of us.
Read the Word of God, know the Word of God, align with the Word of God. Because without scripture to guide us, we as stones will become “slightly askew;” and if already slightly askew, we will become “mostly dislodged;” and if already mostly dislodged, we will become completely separated from Jesus.
In the picture, there was a wall of a building made of many stone bricks. The stones were in rows, one atop of another. As I looked closer, I saw that many of the stones were out of place; some were slightly askew, while others were mostly dislodged.
----
1 Peter 2:4–6
“As you come to Him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
----
The wall was part of the “physical” Church we who believe are being built into. As stones, we are to align with our “cornerstone” (Christ). As I prayed, about this picture, the Lord pressed upon me how the stones would realign (and/or remain aligned) with their foundational first stone: Scripture.
As a whole in this country, those who profess Christ have neglected the Bible. Why is that? The Word is where God is revealed; His heart, His desires, His Truth. We are to align our lives with Him; if we are separated from scripture (His revealed Word), how can we do that accurately? We can’t; without the knowledge of Him revealed through Scripture, we won’t really know WHO He is, what He is like, what He desires, how He loves, etc....we can only guess or assume, and when we do that, we end up worshiping a god we have created instead of the one true, living Yahweh. As I was reminded in a sermon recently, “If your spiritual experiences aren’t pushing you into the Word, there is a disconnect.” This should be a red flag for us; if we “want Jesus” but aren’t growing in our desire for the Word of God, we need to question if the former is actually true of us.
Read the Word of God, know the Word of God, align with the Word of God. Because without scripture to guide us, we as stones will become “slightly askew;” and if already slightly askew, we will become “mostly dislodged;” and if already mostly dislodged, we will become completely separated from Jesus.
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