Beauty in Chaos – Page 20

Jesus Is All.

October 3, 2013 By: Angela Parlin

God weaves themes like threads through our lives.

Through a variety of circumstances, He works similar themes in our hearts. Once in a while, I read a book and highlight half of it because I can relate, completely. I read and nod and wear out pens, because I’ve had the very same thoughts and questions and discussions. You too?

Still, it blows me away because of what is happening. God Most High is touching hearts of people and relating Himself to us personally. From Raleigh to Austin to London to Moscow, He’s weaving threads in human hearts, with this commonality–Christ Alone. It’s amazing.

When He gave me my third baby, my only girl, God began working this theme in me:

Jesus Is Everything.

Simple. Straightforward. Jesus is all.

It’s not like I had never considered it before. I knew it. But suddenly, I could feel it. I [more than] knew and believed it. I could feel it’s truth in me. Some people describe this as truth moving from your head to your heart.

It happened partly because I had to face my fear of dying.

After my girl arrived, they found a mass on my thyroid and gave me a “maybe cancer” diagnosis with a 2-week wait, so I could have a good long time to think about things. Then I had a biopsy–with a very long needle in my neck–and a couple more days to wait.

I have a strong aversion to needles. In my neck. I may have tried to put off this biopsy because for one, the needle. And for two, I just had another baby and if I did have cancer, I didn’t think I wanted to know.

Long after it wasn’t cancer, I found my journal from that time. In it I wrote:

I know one thing for sure: the key to life, to everything really, is Jesus.

Nicole Witt and Christa Wells have a soul-stirring, spirit-waking album out called More Than Rubies. I have listened to it enough to have many of their songs memorized. And I highly recommend you run to Itunes and download all of them. 🙂

While belting out the words to Live and Breathe for the eighty-third time, approximately, I finally realized the first line of the song is also the name of my blog ~ Waves of Grace. I’m quick like that.

I wanted to share it with you because it’s a prayer, that Jesus BE everything we live and breathe. Maybe He’s already been working this theme in your life. Maybe He’s beginning it now…

“The waves of grace wash over me ~ And I feel how thirsty I am ~ The truth runs deep to the heart of me ~ And I see how shallow I’ve been. Who can satisfy this cavern inside me? Jesus, come and be all I want and all I need, Be my portion and my strength forever…” –Live and Breathe (More Than Rubies album)

Listen here: Live and Breathe (Click link and press Play.)

May our spirits come alive to Him {repeatedly}.

SHE {Five-Minute Friday}

September 20, 2013 By: Angela Parlin

Today (okay, tonight) I’m linking up with Lisa-Jo Baker for Five-Minute Friday. Each week, Lisa gives a one-word writing prompt and asks writers to set a timer and write, for “pure unedited love of the written word”. I must admit there are 9 children (age 10 and under) living in my home right now. So my five minutes happened a half minute at a time today…and I may have gone a few minutes over. Please forgive. 🙂

Ready. Set. GO!

She wears purple and makes statements, and plants color with flowers each spring. She fills her home with brights, like her 9^th-grade locker stuffed with neon memories. She’s a little-kid-magnet, and longs for the day they will become her life’s work.

She loves and dreams and sings at the top of her lungs. She laughs loud and uncensored and drives in open air. She’s full of passion, and makes everything more fun. She’s in love with the idea of love, and you’ll never meet a truer friend.

But then there’s life. And it’s been real. And it’s been hard.

So now she works hard. Like she’s trying to make up for something.

Behind her, there’s a whirlwind trail–tries and fails, breaks and spills, and dream-crashes in her wake.

She hurts. It didn’t all work out.

Despite the hope she held onto, it didn’t all work out.

She’s not the only one. Oh, sometimes it feels that way. Sometimes it looks like things “worked out” for everybody else. But it didn’t work out for her, not the way she had hoped. She says she got what she deserved, and as soon as the words escape her, I think NO! That’s not the whole story.

I wonder if she grasps the way her Maker sees her.

He loves her to the cross and back.

This is difficult for a hurting girl to understand. She knows about grace, but just as quickly as she glimpses, does it slip from sight? Grace is this hard concept to hold, in a world where we all have to pay.

I want her to understand the way Jesus rejects performance—whether shiny or awful—and pursues heart.

The way He gently handles our ruins, and repairs broken walls.

That He washes over us, scoops up ashes, and forms them into beauty.

And not only for her, but for all the hurting girls.

STOP.

Throne of Lies

September 15, 2013 By: Angela Parlin

The holiday movie, Elf, is a household favorite which I think gets funnier each year. I love the scene where Buddy encounters a department store Santa, who holds a young boy in his lap and asks what he would like for Christmas.

Buddy whispers loudly a number of accusations, hoping to take out the fraud, but my favorite is: “You sit on a throne of lies!”

As believers, we have a fierce enemy who sits on a throne of lies.

It’s no secret the kingdom of God is opposed. But do we really know our enemy? Do we realize just how intently he opposes us? There are other forms of opposition, but we, the kingdom of God, are often dense to how forces of darkness work around us.

Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. 1 Peter 5:8

It would be easy to spot if all his opposition was in-your-face obvious. But much more often, the enemy is subtle. Like the snake in the garden who spoke to Eve, he didn’t rock out demonic phrases or swallow puppy dogs whole.

He acted like a friend who was just concerned.

He wanted to make sure Eve was getting everything she deserved. So he encouraged her to take his advice because it would lead to something better than what God offered.

We know how that turned out. They had to leave the beauty of Eden, for a life of hardship. One of their own sons murdered his brother. They grew old and died. Their offspring grew steadily more murderous, and God finally wiped the whole of them out and started over again through Noah’s line.

That wasn’t all though. In all Creation, we feel the consequences. And we add to it each day.

Yesterday I sat through a seminar on human trafficking. I heard story after evil story. This back-alley wickedness is happening in our own city, and in yours.

But why? Because humankind did not obey God. We thought we had a better way. Because that roaring lion is also the father of lies (John 8:44). Because the enemy lied and Eve desired to have it all, the same way we desire to have it all.

Because this is what happens when sin is full-grown. After desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. James 1:15

Now the lie has progressed in ways that make our stomachs ache.

It started subtly. But the lie yielded devastating results. His lies are always that way, if we listen.

I’m not saying the results will always be heinous or criminal. Sometimes he offers just enough deception to keep one of God’s girls down. I wrote about how the enemy held me back with his lying whisper, You’re not good enough, in this post and this post.

Today, I just want to encourage you to know your enemy. Be aware he is after you. The Bible calls him accuser, tempter, murderer, and ruler of the kingdom of the air.

He sits on a throne of lies, trying to lead the whole world astray…

May I Never Forget

September 2, 2013 By: Angela Parlin

{She Speaks, Part 2}

As I wrote in my last post, I grew up feeling forgettable.

I longed to know I was important, as important as all the beautiful people God placed around me. I strove to prove it, somehow. To take what I had and turn it into “enough”. I spent too much time worried about me. Which is right where the enemy, that liar, wanted me: held back, kept down.

And yet, I loved Jesus. How confusing to deal with identity lies when I just wanted to pull it together and be who he made me to be already.

Years passed, and decades, and then I ended up at the She Speaks conference. Where I entered a safe place and learned I had been forgotten.

The next morning, I woke early to read my Bible, and this verse caught my eye:

Be careful, then—OR YOUR HEARTS WILL BE WEIGHED DOWN—with carousing, drunkenness, and the anxieties of life and those days will close in on you like a trap.

Without realizing it , I cling to old deceits, and they weigh my heart down.

I never wanted to feel forgettable, but parts of me formed around that lie. In too many ways, it shaped who I became, like it was my truth. This would have to be a choice. I had to decide. Let it go, I wrote. Let go of these past lies, and all the pain they caused.

At She Speaks, God allowed me to enter back into this wound, so I could be healed. My way is to pretend certain feelings don’t matter. Which is likely why I’m a thirty-something Mama of four who could still feel the depth of that ache. In His grace, God allowed me to feel forgettable, in a safe place. But He didn’t leave me alone there. He closed up the wound.

I went to our morning session at 8:30 AM. {This is not like me.} I am the girl who chooses to sleep in (or read-in) after a long, exhausting day. But for some reason, this time I didn’t. Karen Ehman spoke that morning, and what she said was straight up confirmation:

“God might want you to LET GO of the pain of your past…Let go of the desire to fast-forward through life’s hard lessons, so He can use them.”

I had just written it that morning, in the quiet of my room.

Later, some of my new friends asked if I found my name in the Prayer Room.

I had found every one of their names, but not mine. But I found something else for me there. And it was exactly what I needed, right then.

The weekend was full of highs, such as running into MANDISA, meeting some of my favorite authors, and staying up late laughing-to-tears with a group of new friends. But on my drive home, I was overwhelmed because the Lord had such a personal message for me there, one that had little to do with my conference.

Let all that I am praise the Lord; may I never FORGET the good things He does for me. Psalm 103:2, NLT

Forgotten In a Safe Place

September 1, 2013 By: Angela Parlin

{She Speaks, Part 1}

In the heat of July, I headed down the road to Charlotte for the She Speaks Conference. I was beyond excited. I would be meeting up with a bunch of online friends (who turned out to be such a gift!). I would listen to inspiring speakers, take time out for a massage, meet favorite authors, and hear myself think.

I also looked forward to the Prayer Room–a small, quiet, spa-like space where conference organizers place each woman’s name near one of 21 names of God ~ wherever the Spirit leads.

Each woman who attends She Speaks should find her name there and know she’s been prayed for. But this year, my name was not there.

You might think I simply didn’t find it, in the midst of 700 names. But with editor’s eyes, I read every name 4 times. My name was not there.

I don’t understand, Lord…I know You’re here…why would you let them forget me?

I sat down and wrote about being overlooked. Familiar words.

Words about a shy middle child sandwiched between sisters who were Unforgettable and Amazing. About not being chosen when all of my friends were. About people forgetting my name or being left off the invitation list. In the grand scheme of my life, it may not have been true. But there was a definite whisper through my days, that I was just forgettable.

Years ago, I filled out a Bible study, and this question came up about labels. I didn’t have to think, it just came: Forgettable. I quickly “handed it over to God”. Who wants to linger longer in that yuck? I like to speed past, be done with it. But apparently I wasn’t.

Because I entered this safe place as a grown-up, and it validated the old whispers. I sat there, writing fragments, and when I had no more words, I stopped to listen.

Every one of these names of God are yours. EVERY ONE, meant for you.

I hesitated to write it down. Because my personal experience said something else. And yet, this whisper was louder, and it was true.

God had not forgotten me.

God has never forgotten me.

When the enemy whispered, You are forgettable, he was really saying this–If people love you, if they remember you, then you are good. But if they don’t? Then you are just forgettable, not good enough. You are not like all these friends and sisters of yours.

The enemy wanted me wounded, stuck in the world of forgettable little girls, wondering why God made me this way, wondering if I could really trust God.

He wanted me worried about me. Because then who was I thinking about? Me. And then I would strive to prove my worthiness, somehow. Then, I would take my eyes off the gospel of Jesus completely.

So I didn’t find my name there this year, in the Prayer Room at She Speaks. But something far better happened. The Lord made me aware of debris left behind, a lie I believed and a label I accepted.

In my next post, I’ll tell you what happened the next day.

But for now, what labels were you given as a child? Or a teenager? Or a grown-up? Did they make you want to strive, to prove you could be more?

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Jesus Is All.

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SHE {Five-Minute Friday}

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Throne of Lies

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May I Never Forget

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Forgotten In a Safe Place

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