Tag: history

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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pitch black?

Karla Lees

We all have days that can be tricky to navigate.

A coworker shared with me today they believe they had been in a really dark place while at university.

A good friend is trying to hold their head up high and keep moving forward despite the darkness swirling around a legal battle. And battle it has been.

A few of us, myself included in my circle of friends are all coming out of dark places. Having each others’ support helped the climb back out easier.

Another is down in the depths struggling to find her way.

Through it all, God is still God.

That might seem trite, or casually stated, but it is anything but.

God is ruling 24/7, 365 days a year, for all time. Eternity, in fact.

He who set time, the stars, moon, sun, sky, waters, and land in their place. Who made all creatures, great & small. Who made man & woman, their home, gave them each other & their purpose.

He is still ruling over it all.
Always has, always will.

This fact is one of the bright lights I fix my eyes upon when I have been in my darkest places.

His unswerving love for me,
His constant presence,
whether I feel it or not.
His plans for me, to bless me,
to give me a bright future.

These truths twinkle as I make my way through the dark.

In fact, without the dark, they might not appear to shine as brilliantly and clearly as they do.

They are the guides to help me find my way back Home, when I struggle to see the path.

My trust is in Him, not what I see about me.

For my vision may easily be swayed, falter or dim, but His will never fail.

His light will continue to shine for all eternity.

The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn’t put it out. John 1:5 MSG

Holiness has a radiance that the deepest dark cannot squelch.

When all appears pitch black, take another look.

God is there, waiting for you to catch a glimpse of Him. To hear His whisper of loving Hope.

Never doubt, light wins in the end.
Love triumphs.

Just because you have been in a dark place, it does not mean God has abandoned you.

The fact you are still here?
Proof He has not.

I have had a few dark moments, and a few even darker periods, when i felt my heart shatter and i couldn’t keep on going. God never seemed closer than when I was completely depending on Him, and how He wanted me to see those moments.

The light He provided to help me combat the sheer dark was more than enough.

May you see His light shine through the dark you are faced with, and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that He is more than enough to help you through it.

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looking back

Karla Lees

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There were two ways to look back.

One is healthy, the other an addiction.

One acknowledges your history, looking over your past as if you were flipping through a magazine, with a few key images, major highlights and the necessary details inside.
This way acknowledges where you came from, but you have been set free from the moments that harmed you, so although they are still in your history, they aren’t in the forefront of your mind. You might go for a brief visit, but you don’t stay.

Some look back like their lives are editions of the encyclopedia, going into every detail possible, used for referencing over and over and over again.

Or a DVD, where you can pause and live certain moments over and over and over again, as often as you can.

Some also records the sounds, smells, tastes and feelings in such a way that a recall can trigger a memory or cause a relapse to another time.

One way of looking back allows you to be free. To take that freedom and help others find their new future. To truly live, work, love as a God intended you to. Living in the present, hopeful for the future.

The other? Binds you in such a way that you feel like you are stuck in a puddle of quicksand, constantly afraid of going under, never able to get out on your own. You can’t move on.

When your past seems more real than your present, you are not free.

Its time to leave the garbage, hurts, broken dreams, wounds and everything else you don’t want to keep your eyes fixed on, and bring them to God.

The one who made us knows the way to our freedom.

Find a wise counselor, and press in to leave your past behind you, once and for all. This may happen quickly, or over time. You may need to go back to school to reconnect with who you really are, and are going to be once you have tasted the freedom God has for you.

I have been set free from the major hurts in my past. It was not easy in the beginning, but becoming whole is a journey. I am still seeing a counselor to learn healthier ways to express myself and take care of me. These lessons remain with me now that the pain of my past has been laid to rest, at the foot of the cross where they belong.

Pressing onwards, keeping my eyes on the hope of the future.

Take control of your past, before it overwhelms your present and steals your future.

Freedom is calling….

interwoven

Karla Lees

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I love reading how God is moving in the lives of others.

I never stopped, until I saw the picture above, to put it all together.

We have interwoven lives.

Not just those of us who know each other.

Not just those who read your books, blogs, tweets or Facebook posts.

Not just those we encounter but never really get to know, the strangers on the bus, train, in your favorite cafe.

We are interwoven because God is the true main character of each of our stories.

Easter reveals to us that God entered each of our timelines, our history, present and future, and turned it all onto its head.

Less of me, more of You.

When God begins to write our stories, line by line, scene by scene, chapter by chapter, we begin to see just how interwoven our lives truly are.

If He is with us and in us and strengthening us, it is his story too.

And if He is in everyone’s stories, than our stories must be interwoven into His story, all of HiStory.

All of history is His Story.

We are blessed to be grafted into His story, allowing Him to shape it for His maximum glory and our maximum benefit, becoming the most us we can become with His help.

His Story, history is really about how His love has called out to all the generations.

He is wanting not only our stories to reflect HiStory, but our hearts too.

His Story was led by love.

Will you allow HiStory to interweave with your heart?

Like the strings of twinkle lights we love to display every winter or holiday, will you allow yourself to be so intertwined with His heart that the seam connecting you together will be hard to detect?

you make me brave when feet may fail

Karla Lees

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I stand before You now
The greatness of Your renown
I have heard of the majesty and wonder of You
King of Heaven in humility, I bow

As Your love in wave after wave
Crashes over me, crashes over me
For You are for us, You are not against us Champion of Heaven
You’ve made a way For all to enter in

I have heard You call my name
I have heard the song of love that You sing
So, I will let You draw me beyond the shore Into Your grace, Your grace

As Your love
In wave after wave
Crashes over me, crashes over me
For You are for us You are not against us Champion of Heaven
You’ve made a way For all to enter in

You make me brave You make me brave You called me beyond the shore Into the waves
You make me brave You make me brave No fear can hinder now The love that made a way

You make me brave You make me brave You called me beyond the shore Into the waves
You make me brave You make me brave No fear can hinder now The promises You’ve made

As Your love In wave after wave
Crashes over me, crashes over me
For You are for us You are not against us Champion of Heaven
You’ve made a way For all to enter in
– You Make Me Brave, Bethel Music

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You call me out upon the waters
The great unknown where feet may fail
And there I find You in the mystery
In oceans deep My faith will stand

And I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise
My soul will rest in Your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine

Your grace abounds in deepest waters
Your sovereign hand Will be my guide
Where feet may fail and fear surrounds me
You’ve never failed and You won’t start now

So I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise
My soul will rest in Your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine

[6x]
Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger In the presence of my Savior

I will call upon Your name
Keep my eyes above the waves
My soul will rest in Your embrace
for I am Yours and You are mine
–Oceans (Where Feet May Fail), Hillsong United

What keeps me brave?

Wrong question.

Who keeps me brave?

It is certainly not an inner characteristic I would refer to myself as. In fact, before becoming a follower of Christ, I was a mouthy sarcastic on the offense as my defense coz i was hurting so on the inside teen. One who thought nothing of using words as a weapon to try and avoid getting hurt.

The hurting becoming the one hurting others.

The gift being used against those it was intended to bless.

Unless I was singing, or writing for an assignment, my words were not my best work.

When God found me, I was desperately afraid, deeply wounded in my heart & soul, and headed for depression. My outer actions reflected my inner turmoil. Erratic, reactive, quickly combustible, highly regrettable.

I was so not what you would call brave.

God entered my life, and everything changed.

I had to walk out onto the deep waters, keeping my eyes fixed on Him, in order for Him to reach me to be brave.

I needed many words of love, comfort, healing and wholeness spoken over me, and many words of regret, sin, bad memories, strongholds and lies released from within, cleansed in His waters.

The only way I could face all the pain of what had been was to allow the One who was, is and is to come to make me brave.

I kept calling out to Him, and He kept reaching out for me. Keeping my head above the waters, allowing me periods of rest to ease the strain of becoming whole, until the next time He called me to step out, leave more of the old behind me, and press on through the storm towards the new He has prepared for me.

These past six months have been especially healing for me. I felt stirred to begin to write again. In a way I hadn’t felt since high school writing class.

Deep calling to deep.

God made me brave to start the first day. And has keep me brave each day since as my story, His Story through me, is being laid out, word after word, grain of sand after another.

The call to express in word.

The call to express in song is now being fanned into flames again, brighter than the call to write.
Which, quite frankly, scared me more than a little.

But i know that as I follow where He is calling, He will again make me brave enough for each day as it dawns.

For He makes the way for me.
He calms the storms with His presence.
He commands the waves.
He calls me to come.
And makes me brave enough to step out into the great unknown.
Leading me to a greater dependence on His strength, equipping and presence, in His power.

My feet may fail,
But God will catch me.
I am in His grip forever.
And that makes me brave.

you can’t have one without the other

Karla Lees

Which holiday do you prefer, Christmas or Easter?

This is one of those questions I have thought deep and long about.

Christmas and Easter are not stand alone, exclusive events.

They are fantastically intertwined expressions of God’s intervention into history. HiStory as God intended.

Christmas.
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(image from: http://www.flowingfaith.com/2011/12/hunting-4-the-perfect-christmas-gift.html)

The reveal of God with us.
Among us.
Loving us as one of us.
The Presence of God overwhelming Mary to create Jesus.

Fast forward 33 years, give or take a few days.
Passover.
The criminal was passed over as Jesus was chosen to die in his place, on the cross, between two other criminals.

The reveal of God for us.
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(Image by Ann Voskamp, http://www.aholyexperience.com)

Jesus took all we could never remove from ourselves, the stain of sin started in the original garden, faced it with a willingness to follow in the garden of His betrayal, took the blows intended for us, and remained on the cross out of His great love for US.

Despite the great physical, emotional and spiritual pain.
He alone took the weight of the world, and gave Himself up to death.

God for us.
Doing what we could not-
making things right between us again.
God did it for us.

For us.
Because He knew there was no other way.
He alone is and was and will always be the way.

The pain and anguish of Good Friday, where Jesus passed over to death.

The despair of silence.
Unsure what had happened.
Knowing something amazing did.
Not seeing the point yet.
Saturday.

The triumph of Sunday.
He rose, fully God and man.
Defeated the enemy.
Paid the price for all sin,
even though He did not take part in sinning.

The gift of Christmas, God with us,
became the gift of Easter, God for us.

If Jesus had never been born, we would never have had Easter.

Easter could not have happened without God coming down and doing for us what we could not do on our own.

Jesus.

HiStory changed us all forever.

You can’t have the new life, rebirth without His death.

Unwrapping Christmas leads to Calvary.

You can’t have the one without the other, without missing the point.

God so loved every single person who has, does and ever will exist that He gave the world the gift of His son, Jesus.

God with us.

So Jesus could do the work needed to bring us to God.

God for us.

It took His presence to be the present
we desperately needed to be free.

Christmas and Easter are one in HiStory.
One ultimate seamless love story.
That leads to one Home.
God in us.
Us in God.
Forevermore.
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(Image from: http://propheticalert.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/heaven.jpg)