Dragon's Skin

You all know how much I love C.S. Lewis' "The Chronicles of Narnia". Recently I've been remembering a scene from the "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader".

In the book one of the characters, Eustace, has to learn some very hard lessons about what's really important and focusing on others instead of himself. Unfortunately most of these lessons are learned after he's turned into a dragon which a pretty terrible experience for him. The part I want to focus in on though is how he turns back into a boy instead of a dragon.

Eustace is led by Aslan to this pool. Aslan, takes his claw and cuts the rough hide of Eustace's dragon skin and tells him to wash it off. This process is repeated a few times before Aslan cuts him once more, deeply, so deep that Eustace isn't sure he'll survive. Eustace describes the horror and pain of the cut but when he washes he's transformed, the pain is washed away and he turns from a dragon back into a boy.

It's that process of skin being cut and peeled back that I want to talk about today.

Change is painful. Sometimes extremely painful. Changing, submitting to God, is the most amazing experience we ever go through but that doesn't mean it's not painful. Like Eustace when we submit ourselves to God we go through a time of pain. It's only when we are washed by the blood of Christ that the pain is taken away and we are clean. Transformed.

Kind of like turning from a dragon into a boy again.

More Then a Sister

A while back I told you a story about how my brother was always finding moments to teach me important lessons that I still use in my everyday life. Today I want to tell you a different story, this time about my big sister.

Cassy and I are the only girls in the family. Now we're blessed with sisters-in-laws and of course our two beautiful nieces but growing up it was just her and Mom and I.

Cassy and I shared a room for most of our lives and there were the normal ups and downs of not listening to each other, thoughtless words and of course fights but then there were other times, moments that I still treasure. Those times when she would listen to me, encourage me, counsel me and teach me things that no one else could.

For example, I was really young when the tragedy at Columbine took place. After listening to a song that Michael W. Smith wrote about the tragedy I asked Cassy what the song was about.  My brave big sister sat me down and explained what had happened. She probably had no idea that it was conversations like that one that added to my foundation of faith that was being built. 

I looked up to my big sister (and still do). She's always been fearless. Cassy's crazy loyal and protective of the ones she loves. She's also determined. Whatever she sets her mind to she does. And she never, ever gives up. What girl wouldn't look up to a big sister like that? Besides, she had all the coolest toys. 😄

Once, when I was in sixth grade, we were given an assignment. It was a rough year for me. My granddad had died about a year before, Cassy had gone to Europe for a year to live with family and get the experience of studying abroad and our grandma had died not long after she'd gotten home. There were a lot of changes and upheaval in my life. And then this assignment came where we were told to write about a hero in our lives. I honestly don't know what the other kids wrote about, if they picked famous people or family members or friends they looked up too but I picked my big sister. I remember writing about How brave she'd been to go across the world like that and live in another country for a year. It inspired me and got me thinking about what I could do.

I believe that one of the reasons God places people in our lives is to teach us things. I've learned tons of things from all of my family but of the things that I'm still learning from my big sister is how to push myself. She always encourages me to dream big and then if I say I can't do something she challenges me and helps me figure out a way to make it work.

As kids we set up this zipline in our shop (without our parents knowledge of course) I was scared to go down it so Cassy rigged it so she could go down with me. That's just who she is. Always pushing me to follow the Lord's leading and dream big, no matter how crazy it might seem at the time.

She's more then just my big sister, she's my hero, my cheerleader and most of all, my friend.

Spiritual Growth Part 2

Close your eyes and imagine your best day. Maybe it's the day you took your wedding vows and married your best friend, or held your child in your arms for the first time. Maybe the day that you reconnected with a loved one, or found hope after too many days, weeks, months or years of the struggling in the storms of life. Whatever that day is think about it for a moment. Got it? Okay.

How easy was it to thank God that day?

Pretty easy, right? There's so much joy in your heart that you could just sing His praises from the rooftops.

Now I'm going to ask you to do something much harder. Close your eyes and think for just a moment about your worst day ever.

How easy was it to thank God that day?

At least for me it was much, much harder.

I remember my worst day ever very clearly. It started with a phone call that woke me up. I went back to sleep hoping that I would wake up to a different reality. It didn't happen. I won't go into the details today but that day started me on a downward spiral and one of the hardest times in my spiritual life.

It's really easy to praise God when things are good. It's when things are bad that it's so much harder. But it's during those hard times when your grasping to understand, when your begging God to help you, when your screaming in anger or crying in pain that He picks you up and begins putting the pieces of your shattered heart back together. Often it takes years before you can look back and see how He was using the heartbreak and pain to teach you something, to grow you in your spiritual life and bring about amazing blessings that you never expected.

There's a reason that people say that we grow more in our spiritual lows then our highs. So how do we measure spiritual growth?

My worst day started me on a dark road. I stopped speaking to God for a long time and struggled to try to understand how a loving God could allow such horrible things to happen. I think we've all been there. But when I came back to Christ I found that even though I'd walked away He used that time to teach me valuable lessons and bring me unexpected blessings.

Every time I go through something really difficult I find that if I cling to God I grow in my spiritual life by leaps and bounds. If I walk away from the Lord then He can and will still redeem me but it's a much harder road to walk.

The point is that when we're trying to measure our spiritual growth the good days, when we feel like we're incredibly close to God are a great blessing but they're not the best way to see how we're doing in our walk with Christ. It's those hard days, the times when we can barely get out of bed and how we react to those times that we find out how much faith we really have.

The good news is that even when we fall short the Lord is right there beside us, offering a hand up and teaching us lessons that will help us through the next storm in life.

Spiritual Growth Part 1

How do you measure spiritual growth?

I have to wonder, can you actually measure spiritual growth by when things are going well? It's hard to do so isn't it? After all when things are going well it's easy to believe that your walk with the Lord is all rosy and wonderful.

But the bad days, when things are really tough are when your real character starts to show.

What do your bad days show?

I know this is short this week but I really want to take some more time to think about it so I'll write more about it next week.

Snowpocaplyse 2019

We always say we need to be thankful. Even thankful for the small things.

Last Sunday it started snowing in my town. By Monday morning we had over a foot and couldn't get to work. We'd lost power and water but we hunkered down to wait out the storm.

Tuesday brought even more snow. Our town was practically shut down. We were still out of power and were running low on water. Without boots we couldn't even get out of our house hardly because the snow drifts were so high. The family of my roommates made it to us and were able to bring us extra blankets and a camping stove so we could at least make some hot water. They also took us to the store to stock up on supplies.

Wednesday brought some more snow but not nearly as much. We still couldn't get to work but at least we were able to get around some with the the help of my roommates brother driving an SUV. Plus a couple from our church graciously let us come take showers at their house And fill our water jugs. And blessedly our power came back on that afternoon. But we still had no running water.

Finally Thursday we made it to work, again someone had to drive us because our cars were still buried. Then my roommates family came to the rescue again and used their tractor to dig out our cars and plow our driveway that afternoon. And our water came back on!

Finally Friday we were able to pay forward the blessing by letting my family come over and get hot showers. Saturday will be the same thing for my roommates family.

Lights. Water. Heat. These are things we take for granted nearly every day but they are not small blessings. If there's one thing this crazy snow storm has taught us it's about kindness of others and the blessings we take for granted.