When Community Hurts And God Redeems ~ Day Four

~Welcome To Day Four In A 31 Day Series~

31 Days To Becoming His Pearl

The church is a hospital.

It isn't always a place where fully healed people gather every week.

It is a place where the broken bring their brokenness and God meets us there.

And there is brokenness in every, single one of us. 

Pastors and teachers and the people. All of us.

And we try and do community.

We try to do life together.

With all of our shortcomings and flaws and faults and unmet needs and unhealed hurts.

We do church.

We gather together in buildings, and gyms and schools and cafeterias and chapels all over the world and try and make His kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.

And we fall short.

We all do.

We have church hurt.

The hope is that we allow Him to minister to our wounds and needs and heartache and without the expectation that a person or pastor can fill that place.

The hope is that we can learn to trust again. Overcome our fears and push past anything inside our hearts that would try and convince us that "they" are all the same. 

The hope is that our communities and places of worship would be filled with the tangible love of Christ and with mercy and grace and with love and kindness and true friendship that would bring healing in some way to those places that ache.

I have not been a part of a small group for years. And I have some pretty good reasons.

But isolation can do more harm than good and no glory can manifest when it's just a party of one.

This I know.

So by His unimaginable grace, an opportunity presented itself in the form of a group for us recently and I'm pretty sure I went into a full fledged panic attack on the drive over on the very first night.

Like, "turn the car around, there is NO WAY I am going to put myself through this again", panic attack.

But after the first gathering, I realized that there were some people who were going to be a part of our group whom I absolutely adored.

Like, they are beautiful, living epistles of God's goodness and grace and I just want to sit at their feet and listen to their stories about life and ministry and soak up the wisdom that they carry.

Every shade of amazing.

And so I pushed past the panic and pressed on.

And I am grateful. 

It is still hard for me. I stay quiet each week for the most part.

Fear loves to silence us.

But I feel the Father working. Nudging. Leading.

And I know in due time....

He is going to redeem those places that ache by using imperfect people who worship a perfect God. 

He uses us. To buffer. To balance. To bring grace that we've never in our life experienced. To teach us about love and trust and acceptance and mercy and forgiveness and the hope of glory.....

Part of becoming His Pearl for me personally, was learning how to do community again.

I have listened to many hearts over the years, share their journey with me, about the how and the why as it relates to the declaration of never wanting to set foot in a church again....

Heaps of sorrow.

Just the way the enemy wanted it to be.

But today, I felt led to gently invite you to try again.

If you have made the same declaration because of past experiences....

I'm wondering if you would be willing to open your heart again?

There are no perfect churches or perfect leaders. But there are amazing and incredible hearts who

long to meet us right where we are and who will demonstrate His heart for you. Who will pour out an ocean of grace you never dreamed was possible. Who will love you and your family and make room for you and accept you and point you to the One who has loved you all along. There are hearts who can teach you how to learn the scriptures and bring understanding to your broken heart about how much you are forgiven and how God is no respecter of persons. He loves you and wants you connected to the body of Christ.

You have a beautiful gifting inside you and talent and ideas and wisdom that would immediately transform your church community.

You are amazing.....you truly are.

But if we withhold.... If we choose solitude as our path.

We will never know~ you and I, the gift that comes when we gather together in His name and when each believer comes together with his or her purpose.

People who walk together in purpose and destiny bring change to their communities.

I am learning to try again. To trust again. To begin again.

I would love if you would consider that too.

I know He will meet us there. Waiting to pour out. To make all things new. To redeem our past and to give us a hope and a future we never dreamed...

Please email me (pearlsandgrace@gmail.com) or leave a comment if you would like some suggestions for a place to worship and to try community again. I know lots of friends and bloggers in other cities who are connected to amazing church communities. If you are a part of a church community and would love to invite readers to join you each week, please leave your church information and a link here in the comment section. You just never know how God will send the answer to your prayers.....

Love you sweet friends. Get ready for God to redeem.....

To follow along with this 31 Day Series or to read all of the links to the post in this series, click here.

You Are Fully Known And Fully Loved ~ Day Three

This beautiful artwork by Juliet Jones found here

Welcome To Day Three In A 31 Day Series

"31 Days To Becoming His Pearl"

You are fully known and fully loved.

No matter what.

No matter what other people have said or done or how they may have tried to convince you otherwise.

You are fully known and fully loved by Him.

He adores you.

He has called you.

He has chosen you.

He has set you apart.

There is a beautiful phrase that I love written in a book titled "The Me I Want To Be" By John Ortberg,

that says this: "You can only be loved to the extent you are known."

Or sometimes people will phrase the same thing this way...

If they really knew me, they wouldn't love me.

Maybe this is true for the world. Because we are human and we are limited in our capacity to love.

But God.

He is unlimited in His capacity to love.

His love is not earned. It cannot be measured. It is not conditional. It is not performance based.

He does not withhold His love - or any good thing from us based on what we may or may not do.

He simply loves us. Fully.

When we begin to walk in that truth and in the magnitude of that revelation-

Our lives will change.

We can freely forgive others. 

We can freely love.

We can release all insecurities.

We can take the limitations and expectations and demands off of friends and loved ones.

We can saturate ourselves by soaking in His truth and His love and His presence every day.

From the moment of our conception the enemy of our souls works overtime to separate us from truth.

He works in and through other people and through circumstances and situations to keep us from wisdom and knowledge. To keep us from walking in the truth.

He does not want any one of us to know that we are fully known and fully loved by God.

Because in that truth there is power. There is breakthrough. There is freedom.

We no longer have to live life like we are orphans.

We are sons and we are daughters. We have an inheritance that rightfully belongs to each one of us.

There is more than enough in the kingdom. 

Ask Him to release your portion today.

He is faithful to pour out in the most beautiful ways at the appointed time.

I know from the depths of my soul how hard life can be when you become your circumstances.

When your life really and truly looks and feels like you are an orphan.

We can take on that mentality.

But that is all just smoke and mirrors.

A tactic the enemy uses to keep us from knowing Him.

To keep us from leaning in and receiving every good and perfect gift.

To keep us from knowing truth and from allowing the truth to set us free.

To keep us bound and broken and burdened with the hard things that life can sometimes bring.

His word says this...

You are daily loaded with benefits. ~ Psalm 68:19

I love this.

Our heavenly father, the God of our salvation, who fully knows and fully loves each and every one of us says that He daily loads us with benefits.

We do not have to live on last years portion.

It is a daily portion.

Daily manna.

Daily benefits.

Ask Him to release your portion today.

What do you need today?

Maybe you need an outpouring of mercy and grace and love.

Maybe you need to tangibly feel loved by Him.

Maybe you need Him to demonstrate that He sees and He knows and He hears you.

Maybe you need a financial breakthrough. A tangible hope that things are going to get better.

Ask Him.

He is a loving Father. He longs to woo us unto Himself and pour out His great love.

Just ask....

"For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”  ~ 1 Corinthians 13:12

To follow along with this 31 days series or to see all of the links to the posts, you can click here

Your Identity Is In Him {Day Two}

Welcome to day two in a 31 day series

31 Days To Becoming His Pearl

Here's the thing.

Identity is everything.

Everything.

If we do not know who we are and whose we are- we are missing the foundation that everything else in our life is built upon.

Every, single thing in our life flows out of the very core of our being.

If the core is out of order. Or broken. Or damaged. Or is even just really lacking in truth.

Every, single thing in our life will flow out of disorder, brokenness, damage or lack of truth.

Daughters tend to receive their identity from their Fathers.

Our Fathers are called to demonstrate on earth who our Father is in heaven. 

And who we are to Him.

And sometimes, this doesn't happen.

And so we are lacking in the area of identity and spend the biggest part of our life trying to gain identity in and through people, places and things.

His word says this....

You live and move and have your being in me.  ( Acts 17:28)

We live and move and have our being in Him.

In Him.

In Him.

In Him.

Let that soak in for just a minute.

So let's look at that truth this way ....

Here is what His word does not say...

We do not live and move and have our being by who our earthly parents are.

Or by who other people say or think we are.

Or by the choices we've made.

Or by the mistakes we've made.

Or by who we are married to.

Or not married to.

Or by how many degrees we have hanging on the wall.

Or don't have hanging on the wall.

Or by whether or not we are accepted and embraced by others.

Or what street we live on. Or what kind of home we live in.

Or by any sickness or disease that has tried to steal, kill and destroy us.

Or by the worlds standard of beauty.

Don't even get me started on that one. I will spin out a 7 day mini series within this series.

Or by the numbers on a scale, or the tag inside a dress, or the balance in your bank account.

There isn't a stitch of identity within any of the above mentioned.

Even though the world will try its best to tell us different and prove us wrong.

If we are rooted and grounded in Him.

If our identity is rock solid and connected and tied to the living God who tells us that we 

are His and that we are accepted and beloved and called and chosen and anointed and appointed and loved and adored and that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. 

Nothing can separate us from that.

Nothing can separate us from His love.

Know the truth and the truth will set you free.

Free from what?

Free from a life of feeling less than. Free from measuring and comparing ourselves up against every

one and everything else. Free from a life of striving and trying to earn His love and His good graces. Free from a life of being tossed every which way but Sunday. Free from a life of wanting to please everybody and their Mama and attaching our worth and our value and our identity to their response- or the lack there of.

This was never part of His plan.

His plan was always for each and every single one of us to be fully known and fully loved. 

To be rooted and grounded in Him and in His word.

His word is living and breathing and sharper than any two-edged sword.

It is living and breathing.

It is life-giving.

It is alive.

We have to read it and soak in it and relish in it and apply it for it to have power in our own lives.

There are pages upon pages in His word that address identity.

I know from experience that reading the bible can feel like a daunting task.

I know.

I can remember years ago, opening the bible and reading from the beginning and reading about how He spoke everything into existence and reading about how so and so begot so and so and how Cain and Able had some issues and on and on....

And I would close it.

And I would say this....

God, I don't care. I don't care about this stuff.

I can't pay my bills and my lights have been cut off for the tenth time and I have a beautiful baby girl and no wedding ring on my left hand and this trailer we are living in makes me feel like the trash that everybody says that I am and there is an ache inside my heart that feels like the worst physical pain I have ever felt in my entire life and God, I don't even know if you are real or if a Holy God could possibly even love a girl like me. Because by the looks of my life- I'm not sure if you even are real or if  you do really, actually love me.

Identity crisis anyone?

I can relate beautiful friends.

From the deepest part of me- I know.

I know that for some of you who may be reading this, there are tears right now.

And so, what I want to gently ask you and encourage you with,  is this...

Those tears mean something.

Those tears need to be replaced with identity.

There are places and spaces inside each and everyone of us that need truth.

Places that need the living God to speak and breathe and heal with His power and love.

Places within each one of us that can never be filled with food or shopping or jewelry or friendship or marriage or babies or family or money or status or power or influence.

Nothing but Him sweet friends.

So I want to ask you today to open your bible and soak yourself with truth.

And open your journal to day two and write. 

Don't worry about order or handwriting or if it the words make sense or flow or anything like that.

Just write.

Talk with Him. Ask Him questions. Wait and listen for the answer. 

Listen for His sweet spirit to gently whisper truth.

I promise you He will. I promise you. (John 10:27) 

We serve a God who is the author of relationship. He is all about relationship. You cannot have a relationship with someone who doesn't speak. Or who doesn't communicate at all. 

He is a highly relational Father. He doesn't give us the silent treatment. He isn't emotionally absent.

He isn't unavailable or harsh or angry or counting up and keeping a list of all of our wrongs.

He is El Roi. The God who sees you. (Genesis 16:13) 

Put words to the tears. Put words to the ache. Put words to the places that you've never shared with a single soul.

Words have power.

Words have life.

Choose life.

The enemy wants to silence you.

But the living God wants to speak to you and through you today.

And He wants to uproot every, single thing that has tried to rob you of your true identity.

And He longs to replace it with what has belonged to you all along.

Your identity is in Him alone.

Walk in that truth today......

If you want to follow along with this series, all links will be posted on the landing page. Found here. 

The Beauty Is In The Process {Day One}

Welcome to Day One in a 31 Day Part Series

Becoming His Pearl

"They shall become mine says the Lord of hosts, on the day that I make them my jewels. And I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves Him. " Malachi 3:17

Today I want to share about the process.

We know about process, don't we?

We know about being formed and even transformed.

We know about beauty breaking forth after a few seasons of suffering.

We know that in the kingdom- to lose is to gain.

We know that there is a dying that has to happen, in order to truly live.

We know we must be willing to lose our life, in order to find it.

All of these things are part of His process.

And so it is with a pearl.

A pearl is the only gemstone that is actually formed.

A pearl must be born.

It is born out of suffering.

Did you know that a parasite burrows into the side of an oyster shell and that the oyster

releases nacre as a defense mechanism to protect itself from the intruder.

It coats and covers the parasite again and again and again.

And during this process of protecting itself and fighting the enemy and trying to defend

home base....

Something beautiful begins to form inside the oyster.

Something with tremendous worth. 

Something with great value.

Something with a high price.

Something very beautiful and very significant.

A pearl.

Unlike diamonds that already exist and must be mined....

A pearl must go through a process before its beauty can be revealed.

It can take up to eight years for a single pearl to fully develop.

Seasons upon seasons.

A season of suffering. A season of being hidden. A season of being alone. 

I know you can relate....

The hope is that during our seasons of being refined, we learn how to allow His perfect work. We learn how to worship. We learn how to magnify. We learn how to offer up a sacrifice of praise. We learn how to leave things alone. We learn how to humble ourselves and allow the Father to have His way.

Because His ways are always best.

"But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light." 1 Peter 2:9

Once a pearl is formed and brought forth "into His marvelous light" it does not return to the oyster shell again. Once it is brought forth, it is used for the displaying of His splendor.
It doesn't return to its shell. It doesn't return to the pit.

It is used for purpose. 

I want to encourage you not to despise the process.  If we attempt to cut the process short, by insisting and pushing and pressing our own way, we are ultimately telling God that we know what is best. That we know how to do things. That we've got this thing figured out. 

Despising the process is a form of unbelief.

If we can train our hearts and minds to be patient in affliction. To be grateful in all things.

To be still and know. To simply trust and obey and to believe that God is good- no matter what.

In His timing, He will bring forth a beauty that cannot be compared.

But we must submit to the process sweet friends.....

My hope is that you will read this post and feel encouraged and that you will lean into Him a little more when life hurts, as it sometimes does.

I want to recommend that you begin a 31 day journal and that you just begin to write.

Write your heart and your worries and your concerns and share those places and spaces with Him that could possibly be holding you back.

Areas of offense and wounds that never seem to heal.

Spaces inside where we may even be disappointed or angry with others or even with Him.

Places that want to keep us bound up so that we can never fulfill purpose.

Get it out and onto paper. 

Then just be still and listen.

Write down whatever you feel He may be speaking to you.

A scripture. A promise. A few words. An idea. A revelation. A truth.

Anything. 

He is always speaking....

You will be astounded at how much growth can happen in just a month of journaling and studying His word.

When we bring things into His marvelous light~ healing can take place.

And then we are positioning ourselves for purpose and for His glory to be revealed in each and every one of us.

"For the suffering of this present time is not worthy to be compared to the glory which shall be revealed in you."  Romans 8:18