The Redeemed Rose

Be weird. Be random. Be who you are. Because you never know  who would love the person you hide. —C.S. Lewis   A friend posted this on social media, and I have to admit this is a huge struggle for me! It is hard for me to be myself around others. What will they think? Will they like me? We all wonder what other people think of us; whether the person they perceive is the same as the one we see in the mirror. I believe that is normal, a part of us navigating our humanity. But I also believe that underneath, there are some fears and truths that need to be examined.   The Weirdo A church friend and I were discussing various essential oils that help with sleep and relaxation. There is one oil in particular that gives me really strange dreams when I diffuse it at night. She wondered if I was talking about nightmares. I tried to explain they weren't bad dreams so much as really messed up ones—like I was tripping on acid or something.   Freeze.   As I was ...

If you have a good marriage, and if your parents modeled a good marriage for you, BE THANKFUL!! It occurred to me last night that my parents would have been married 42 years today. Instead, they have been divorced for 22. They divorced when I was 13 (although they had been separated a couple times before that), after 20 years of marriage. It seemed crazy that people could be married for that long and then still divorce.  My mom was only 20 years old when she got married (my dad 21). I’m sure my dad must have loved her (or at least thought he did) and was filled with those early feelings of rapture and bliss as they dated. I’m sure my mom took joy in planning her wedding (even though she was never big into hair, makeup, clothes, or lavish decor) and had wonderful dreams about what her future would be like. I wonder what the first years of their marriage were like before I was born. It didn’t occur to me till last night that they were married almost 7 full years before I wa...

I am always amazed how God can reveal new layers of understanding in Scripture, even if you have read a passage many times. This is a part of what I took away from this time through the Song of Solomon: Love is powerful - It is a strong as death, has flashes of fire, and many waters cannot quench it nor floods drown it (vs. 8:6-7a) Love is precious - Even if a man offered everything he possessed for it, it would be a ludicrous offer and never enough (v. 8:7b) We all have a desire to be loved and cherished by another - We all want to be that “only one” among the hundreds that our love adores and esteems above all others. We all want to feel precious, desired, and belong to another. (vs. 6:8-9; 7:10) While romantic human love is a precious and divine gift to be highly valued and enjoyed, human love WILL disappoint if we are looking to it for our ultimate satisfaction and worth. Only the love of Christ, to be known by Him in a saving way, can perfectly fulfill our longi...

1 O LORD, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me;  2 many are saying of my soul, "There is no salvation for him in God." Selah  3 But you, O LORD, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head.  4 I cried aloud to the LORD, and he answered me from his holy hill. Selah  5 I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the LORD sustained me.  - Psalm 3:1-5 Last night, I woke up around 3:30 and couldn’t fall asleep again until 5 or 5:30. This doesn’t happen on a regular basis (like every night) but it happens more frequently than I would like. The “foes” that kept me awake were my anxious thoughts. There were “many rising against me”. I know from my experience with essential oils that I am not the only one who deals with this problem, because the issue of sleeplessness or waking up and not being able to fall back asleep because of “mind-racing” is one of the most common concerns people bring to me. My mind ran the gauntlet of all the areas...

It’s too nice of a day to stay indoors! The flowers that the kids and I planted are doing GREAT, but so are the weeds! I wish I had had the money to put down blackout tarp at the beginning. It would be a lot less work now, so if I get the money, I may still go back and do it. But in the meantime, I took the opportunity of a beautiful day to clear out the flower beds.  Whenever I am weeding, I am always reminded of how our spiritual life is like a flower bed or a garden. If we do not tend to it, weeds start to spring up. Let it go for a few days, and you may only have a few tiny sprouts. It’s nothing, right? “I’ll take care of it tomorrow”, we tell ourselves. Sin always starts small and seemingly harmless. But let it go unchecked for a little while longer, and now you’ve got big trouble! What seemed like not such a big deal is now firmly rooted and harder to dig out. We must be constantly on the alert about what we are letting grow in the garden of our hearts.   Pro...

God made a covenant promise with Abraham, that He would bless him and make him the father of many nations. When Abraham and Sarah did not see this promise being fulfilled according to their perceived timeline, or fathom how God could possibly make this happen given their circumstances, they grew weary of waiting, and decided to act.  “ Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar.  And Sarai said to Abram, "Behold now, the LORD has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her." And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. - Genesis 16:1-2 (Full story: Genesis 15-17, 21) This passage reminds me that when humans try to take a good thing into their own hands and do it their way instead of God’s way, we taint it and foul it up. We want it now; we want it our way. Our limited mind cannot comprehend how to get it any other way, so we twist and perve...