Tag: compassion

Coventry Carol

Karla Lees

Lullay, Thou little tiny Child,
By, by, lully, lullay.
Lullay, Thou little tiny Child.
By, by, lully, lullayb

The days in which God determines Jesus was to arrive here on earth were tremulous ones.

Great political unrest, overtaxing, long hard days forced to serve ‘landlords’ not of your choosing. Revolution was constantly simmering when it wasn’t breaking out against the oppressors.

God’s people were crying out for their Messiah.

When Herod began the slaughter of all the boy children of Israel in the hopes of destroying the newborn King, many families were suddenly grieving and wailing and grieving over the sudden loss of their children.

For you know who hoped to stop God in His tracks, in a feeble attempt to undermine His will, but a very costly one to those left with empty arms and wounded hearts.

Many likely thought all hope was lost.

And into that exact time and place, God chose to deliver His people through Jesus, soon to be delivered into the world as one of His people, as well as His Beloved son.

God did not let the madness of one fearful king halt the delivery method He was choosing to set His people free.

We know that God has always heard the cries of His people for deliverance, and mourned with them over their losses. The Bible is full of true life stories of His rescues.

If you are empty armed, missing your loved one, whether they have passed on or are on the other side of the country or world?

God hears your pain and lament.

I believe this song must have been written by someone who lost a child, and was horrified by reading the account of Herod killing an entire generation of boys.

We all should be, for God was horrified by it as well.

So full of compassion for His people, He sent His Son to us, to give us a beacon of Hope we could reach out and touch.

Because our God is the God of all comfort, justice, hope and compassion.

He couldn’t turn away from the cries of the brokenhearted. The frustrated. The poor. The exhausted. The empty armed. Those grieving. Those without hope.

This Christmas, if you hear this song of lament, be reminded of His compassion.

Each person ever in history has mattered to Him.

Those you have lost or had taken from you included.

Jesus came as one of the weakest to show us that weakness does not mean God cannot use you.

He came as one of us to show us that God understands the frailties of humanity first hand.

He came as an expression of God’s great love for each and every one of us.

And is right there beside us when we are hurting, feeling lost, wavering in our hope, and needing a God would can reach out and hold us as we lament.

So if you need to cry this Christmas, for it isn’t the holiday you thought it would be?

Allow Him to rock you in His loving arms as you lament.

God came right smack dab in the middle of turmoil to be there with us, for us, as one of us.

That same Love has not changed, and never will.
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Historical Background:

This lyrics for this piece were written in 1534 for a Christmas pageant by Robert Croo, the composer is still unknown, but believed to be in the early 1500’s.

come-passion

Karla Lees

In an interesting unexpected conversation yesterday on the bus, I touched an aspect of God in a way I had not yet done in such a way before.

As i was listening to the earnest young missionary from the Latter Day Saints speak about his church having the ‘living prophet’ and 12 apostles, I felt compassion for him rise up within my heart.

He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.

Like many sheep, he is following the wrong shepherd, and doesn’t know any better.

He hasn’t yet met the Shepherd.

What makes Jesus unique to me after this brief conversation is how much compassion He has ALL THE TIME.  Yes, He did lose His temper once or twice. but because of His passion for serving God, and wanting us free of what binds us.

He came to us because of His passion for His people.
All of them.

The ones who know, the ones who don’t yet know,and the ones may choose not to know Him.

Come, Passion.
Compassion.

Lord, may the passion that led you to choose to walk amongst us here on earth , willingly taking on the cross, sin & death?
May that passion arise anew in us and flow out from us in a wave of compassion that will draw people to discover You.

Come, Passion. Well up within us until we can’t help but burst forth in worship, praise as we shower Your love, mercy & grace wherever we go.
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long

Karla Lees

it’s hasn’t been long
since I saw You last
yet somehow
it feels
like forever

The road seems to
stretch
despite my
every step
as I wearily
attempt
to make it
back to You

The sunrise
clouded over,
no stars
nor sunset
to be seen
in the evening sky

yet a glimmer of hope
continues to spark,
this ember in my heart
which refuses to be
quenched

without words
deep calls to deep
as i long
for the One I love
longing to
see
sense
hear
touch
be with You

a smile
a loving word
a kindness shown
a welcoming purr
a thank you
a giggle
a hug
You

echoes of Your Presence
swirl all around me
drawing me
closer
to You
with each
skin on God
demonstration
of Your love

fresh wind
blows again
across my soul
peace deepens
& settles back in
as hope re-anchors
itself on You
the one I long for

You lighten
my load
every time I
leave it
in Your capable hands
which only
begs the question,
“Why
did I drag this
for so long?”

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Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore He will rise up to show you compassion.

Isaiah 30:18a NIV

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touchy touchy

Karla Lees

There are moments when we don’t want to be touched.

When we want to stay entrenched in our fury, stand on our injustices and refuse to allow the pressure to  release.

When we want to be right even though a little voice may be poking us to tell us we aren’t.

When we have lost what feels like our world from beneath us, our grief emanating from the depths of who we are.

When the pain radiates so strongly that the lightest of touches feels like a bee sting.

When we are too touchy and prickly in our woundedness.

These are the very moments God came to touch us in.

I have had several car accidents (as a passenger) that have left my neck & shoulders exceptionally tight.  I can feel relaxed everywhere else, but not in those two spots.  Prayer helps with the pain management, yet the work I do typing daily doesn’t help. 

I need the strong touch of my massage therapist or physiotherapist to help get the knots out, and smooth away my tense muscles.

If I go too long in between, I feel it.

In the same way, we were not designed to be solitary creatures, keeping ourselves removed from God’s loving touch.

We were meant to reach out and touch God. Our bodies, minds, emotions & spirit need His touch in order for us to let go of what needs to be uprooted or sloughed off under His soothing gentle yet firm touch.

Let God help you release the tension….
Get rid of that knot of burden you refuse to take off your back…
Help your stiff neck turn towards Him again…
Soothe the raw nerves as only He can….
Bring deep penetrating rest into the areas you may not even consciously be aware need it…

In the Old Testament, God kept Himself apart, and required distance from direct contact with His people.

Jesus arrived, and turned this on its head!

Jesus touched people everywhere He went…
the hurting,
the diseased,
the paralyzed,
the lonely,
the beggars,
the lepers,
the outcasts,
the grieving,
the children,
the ones seeking their last hope,
the untouchables,
even the dead.

Against all traditional beliefs in how God should treat people, God in Jesus touched lives beyond what we believed possible in a holy God.

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He touched our hearts as He did.

For all the world to see, Jesus reached out and embraced the cross. That touch reverberated through out known time and space, rippling out into heaven and eternity.

When He allowed man to touch Him, wound Him over & over, and crucify Him, He knew intimately how some touches can devastate us.

When He rose from the dead, He knew how much those He had left behind, His disciples & followers would need the real touch only a loving God can bring:
compassion
forgiveness
mercy
love
grace
kindness

He still offers this to us each and every day.

Are you ready for God to collide with you right where you are at? Embrace you, holding you closer than you can dare to imagine?

God’s touch brings the hurting, broken and dead areas in us back to life again.

Reach out and touch His outstretched hand.

All it takes is one touch for your life to change.

investing

Karla Lees

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Invest.

Not a word we tend to think about apart from investing with our money.

I wouldn’t be here today without the investing that people, in God’s perfect timing, made in my life.

When I was at my lowest, love was poured into me.

God met me and pulled me out of the pit I had made of my life, reeling from what I had done in response to what had been done to me.

God got me. Accepted me as I was. Loved me as I was. Loved me for who I could become in His hands. Guided me towards help.

My life has been completely made over from His investment.

The transaction Jesus paid off to buy my freedom was an investment of love. Poured out to cover all I had done and will ever do. A love offering that keeps on loving in equal parts grace and mercy.

An investment in me, making me worthy; His.

I have had several mentors who came along side me when they saw I needed direction, and guided me as they poured into me. Helping me make wise choices, develop necessary skills, forgive as I needed, seek God’s face when at a crossroads.

Their investment of love allowed me to more fully live.

The life we live is impacted by those around us.

There will always be negative influences to block out with our shield of faith.  People who don’t like where you are headed as you follow God’s lead.

If God’s investment in me was worth His all, how can I respond with less than my all?

As a wife, mother, daughter, friend, coworker, God places people in my life for me to invest in.

To encourage, to love, to come alongside in times of need, to work together with, to share my hopes & dreams and encourage theirs.

It is in investing in love that we truly live.

Our purpose after loving God with all we are, is to love His people, all of them, with the love we have been shown.

An investing, overhauling, radical expression of love.

Love is the only thing that can change the world. 

In Jesus, it has, forever.

What better investment can we make with our lives than to follow His example.

Love the ones you are with, as He loves them.

PS.

I was inspired last week to use my words in a more unique way last week.

One of my coworkers was gearing up for a major licensing exam and a major sporting tournament this past weekend.

God laid it on my heart to social media bomb her with the following:
“You are amazing.”

I found some fun pics saying that phrase, and sent them to her regularly to show her I believed in her, and she could do it.

Everyone needs a word of encouragement sometime. And some times, yours may be the only one they get.

God is pleased when we invest in one another.

Take the time today to call, email, post or tweet your appreciation to someone who has invested in you.

The hash tags #YouAreAmazing & #youareamazingmarathon are available for you to use.

Imagine His smile if we set social media on fire with blessing and honoring one another with speaking the truth He speaks over us every day: “You are amazing, My child. You are a handcrafted unique one of a kind expression of My love. And I adore you!”

It doesn’t have to cost a lot to show your love. A batch of cookies, a card, flowers, cutting a neighbor’s lawn, a kind word…

As you invest in love, watch & see what God will do with it!

Care and compassion will always be on fashion.

A line…

Karla Lees

We spend a great deal of time in a line.

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Image from:
http://www.640toronto.com/files/2014/07/lineUp1.jpg

At the grocery store, bank, registration, movie theater or fast food place… like sheep, we automatically join the cue and wait our turn.

In Old Testament days, this even happened in the temple: lining up to enter, especially on holy days.
Lining up to buy your offering.
Lining up for your turn to offer your offering.
And if you were a priest, you lined up to receive the offering, burn the offering, or receive your assigned portion of the offering.

God’s presence resided in the Holy of Holies, and was only approached once a year by special choosing. 

But God wanted more.

And then there was a line written in the sands of time for all to see, spelling out the Name above All Names, Jesus.

The Word became human, and walked among us.

God with us.

Jesus.

And turned traditional lines on their heads.

People didn’t just line up to see Jesus, like well behaved sheep.
but flocked, sometimes to the point where Jesus was overwhelmed with compassion for the crowds. (Matthew 9:39, Mark 6:34, Matthew 14:14) They could sense He loved His life in a way they had never imagined possible.

With the Living Word came a new way to live.

Align.

Align ourselves with His Kingdom.
Follow His ways, His leading.
Love with His heart.
Offer His hope.
All in.

When we accept Jesus for who He is, Holy Spirit moves in and takes up permanence residence inside of us. The Presence of God moves into the temple again.

When we try to do things in our own strength, drawn back into the old way of living mindset, or in sheep talk, baaaaaaaaad ways 🙂 we need to realign ourselves with God:

Come back into His Presence, and worship Him.

Lay our burdens down at His feet.

Speak out our wrongdoings, and ask Him to cleanse us again.

Invite Him to speak to us anew, and ask Him to teach us to hear His voice loudly, over the other voices vying for our attention.

Tired of lining up?

I am.

Jesus erased the barriers in worship keeping us from God directly.

You can go to Him at any time now.

No lining up, just aligning required.

Aligning with the God of everything will change your life, both here on earth and eternity to come.

It will be costly, aligning yourself up to a Holy God, for you will see how much you don’t line up.

His grace, mercy, and love will be waiting to minister to you through the process.

Align to His design.

The rewards will be so worth it.

For eternity.

kind

Karla Lees

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Everyone needs more kindness in their lives.

Aim to deliver.

Jesus showed us how to do this, while He was with us, and which was recorded in black, white and sometimes red in our bibles.

The red reminds us of His ultimate act of kindness, dying in our place on the cross. The blood that flowed was filled with kindness.

Jesus showed His kind heart in many acts….

The man with the crippled hand He healed on the Sabbath:

Is there a person here who finding one of your lambs fallen into a ravine, wouldn’t, even though it was a sabbath, pull it out? Surely kindness to people is as legal as kindness to animals!

Matthew 12:11-12

The woman who had hemorrhaged for 12 years, likely physically exhausted, broke and desperate, who took the risk to touch Him despite all cultural barriers of the time, and was healed by touching His hem.
His public acknowledgement of her would have freed her not only by her physical healing, but restored her in the community again as now not to be shunned (unclean). That is a wonderful showing of kindness…
Matthew 9:20-22

Jesus taught, shared the Kingdom and healed everywhere He went…

When He looked out over the crowds, His heart broke. So confused and aimless they were, like sheep with no shepherd.

Matthew 9:36

These passages are no more than a few lines each, but they reveal in minimal words the character of the God we serve.

Kind.
Loving.
Compassionate.
Giving.
Present.

With the new start we all have, knowing God believes in us, loves us, and daily showers us with grace & mercy…how can we not share this good news with those around us?

We can.

Be kind.

To everyone.

We don’t know what is really under the surface in each other…and how much a timely kind word can change someone’s day for the better.

You might be the only one speaking a kind word to them that day, week….

I can recall brief sentences spoken to me over the years that made a huge difference between giving up and pressing on.

Just as God’s kindness gave you a spark of hope, aim to share that same spark every chance you can.

Be kind.
Repeat.

unfixed

Karla Lees

I’m unfixed. And the truth is, that’s where God meets me – in the mess of my life, in the unfixedness, in the brokenness.

Mike Yaconelli

I am broken.
and I know it.

I need putting back together again
from my long fall off the wall
I hid behind for so long.

Parts of me have shattered
almost completely.

It is a major undertaking to proceed
with my reconstruction,
renovation,
being put back together again.

But God, He is up for the task.

You see,
much of what was broken
needed to be smashed
so He can replace the faulty parts
(the old movie reels, the self sufficiency, pride, the desire to be in control)
with updated top of the line ones, that depend on His strength
to fuel them (faith, hope, joy, love, grace, mercy, kindness, forgiveness, patience)

There was some faulty wiring
needing to be ripped out
so He could reconnect the proper
thought processes
and reattach me to His Spirit
for instant notifications.
They may require quiet and concentration to hear them,
but this part of the rebuild
is critical before the next step.

A new heart.
One that will beat with His heart.
In tune with how He is feeling,
sensing His compassion for those around me,
His love for them, and me.

Open heart surgery that cuts away into our very soul.
Enabling the spirit within, that eternal precious spark in each of His children, to shine through us once again.

This season of brokenness
has been very humbling,
deeply painful,
yet
tremendously hope building
at the same time.

You see,
God isn’t finished with me yet.

His goal is to make me,
shape me,
build me,
put me back together
to be the me He designed me to be.

My goal is to not get in His way,
and give Him free reign.

There is a beauty to be found in allowing God to touch us in these places of brokenness.

Somehow His glory is revealed more clearly when we are broken for His purposes.

The enemy may try to play havoc with your life.

Stop listening to his depressing lies.

God IS in control,
even when you can’t see it.
He will restore,
even when you can’t feel it.
He will never leave you,
even when you can’t sense Him.

If you, like me, are in this period of brokenness beyond anything you can imagine, take comfort in knowing God knows what the end result is He desires to see us become.

He will fix us up,
put us back together again,
and be with us
every step of the way.

We don’t need to fear being broken
when we know God is in control.
His plans will come to pass
in our lives
when we allow Him to be our
strength & guide.

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the hues that matter

Karla Lees

Today I was struck anew at God’s creation.

I went downtown, and people observed every step of the way.

Not only do people come in all shapes and sizes, they come in many different hues.

Like me, you may be thinking Hugh Jackman, Hugh Laurie or Hugh Dancy (three of my favorite Hugh’s)…but that is not what I meant.

People were adorned in every color possible. Some with brights (neons, multi textured patterns), some in neutrals (white, beiges, grays & darks).

But the colors they wore don’t reflect their hues.

A crazy person, I know, but I like to smile at the bulk of the people I walk by.

Many gave off vibes of stress, anger and frustration.

A rare minority smiled back.

The majority avoided eye contact, content to look down or at their phones.

Others were yelling or talking loudly into even more phones.

A few were bopping along to the beat of their own personal music mix.

Each one giving off a hue of what is going on within.

Most not realizing that today was a gift.
And some may not have another one tomorrow.

The people who smiled and made eye contact, or offered their seats on the subway or train?

Their true hues of compassion, sensitive to the needs of others.
Listening to the leading whispers of the Spirit, responding with kindness when prompted.

Those are the kinds of hues that truly matter.

Not what ethnicity, hair or eye color, height or weight, wardrobe or style choices we have made, rather what we choose to color ourselves with from the inside out:

So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.

Colossians 3:12-14

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Image from: http://erikadawson.com/heartfelt-compassion-verses-pray-kids/

hope as you step out

Karla Lees

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Took a huge leap outside my comfort zone today.

I trusted God to show up & reveal whatever He wanted to in a few conversations this afternoon.

Now, it may seem strange to you that a writer, blogger & singer can get tongue tied, but its true.

I am not really comfortable sharing deep stuff with complete strangers, without the inevitable warm up period between strangers & acquaintances (what you are once you know each other’s name).

In a worship sing.
Using pen & paper.
On a keyboard.
With close friends or people i feel safe with.
Those are my comfort zones for sharing my faith.

I took a deep breath these past few weeks and offered to help with a prayer & share the Word booth today.
Hoping God would show up.
Hoping He would say something through me that would bless the receiver.

And it was scary jumping, but God caught me, gave me a few insights to share, and a heart to care for those who came while I sat there.

Very thankfully not alone.

What I realized is there are people just like me out there.

And they stepped out of their comfort zones today as well, and approached to ask complete strangers, relying on God, questions about stuff that is very important to them. Wanting to be heard, needing clarity and encouragement. (As much as I do!)

May your hope rise as you leap too, knowing if God is going to get the credit, He will be there!

Photo by Ann Voskamp, http://www.a holy experience.com