Blessed are the eyes that truly see…

On New Year’s Eve we had dinner with our family.  I love going around the table and giving everyone a chance to give thanks for something from the year.

As always when it was my turn, my eyes welled up with tears, my throat became tight and my sweet girls lovingly said, “There she goes again… Mommy’s going to cry.”  We all started laughing and as I was wiping away my tears and getting ready to speak, my sweet husband quietly spoke and said, “Sarah is thankful for the wind as it blows through the trees, a leaf that falls in her path, a bird that soars past our kitchen window, a caterpillar she finds in the backyard… she is thankful for everything.”

Sweet Lord, I love the little reminders You place in our paths.  My sweet love truly sees me more than I realize and in that moment I felt so deeply understood and loved.  Oh my Lord… I am so blessed that he is mine, I am his and we are Yours!

Thank You, thank You, thank You… in every moment and in everything – Thank You sweet Jesus!

Tears of joy

I just heard the song… You Came by Jonathan and Melissa Helser  What a beautiful song!  It has been my morning meditation and prayer today as I have imaged Jesus waiting outside the tomb of Lazarus with tears still on His face.  Oh the beauty and wonder as His tears turned from sorrow to joy when He called to His friend, Lazarus, and raised him from the grave.

Dear Lord, I pray that those I know who have died are your true friends and as with Lazarus, you stand outside their graves, with tears of joy on Your face as you call for them to rise again to new life.

Oh my Lord, my Love, my All in All – let us anxiously await and yearn for the moment when we too will hear Your call and will rise from the grave to see You anxiously waiting for us with tears of joy on Your beautiful face.

Know thyself…

I have been back in the gym for four years.  I have lovingly come to call my time spent there my worshipful workout.  Today as I was climbing my never ending imaginary mountain I realized that my workout has become even more, He has helped me turn this time into a time of self reflection, of self knowledge and confession as He so gently reminds me of my mistakes, failures and sprinkles in the few triumphs when I have truly let Him work through and in me.

Over the past few years I have climbed about 2500 miles on the elliptical at the gym, but the strides He has given me the grace to take down the path of knowing thyself are infinitely more meaningful.

Sweet Lord, as I dig deeper into knowing myself the demons within surround me… You alone are my refuge and I beg you to please let every sorrow filled tear that falls be full of pure and true contrition, and every joy filled tear that falls be full of pure and true praise and gratitude for You!

Our powerful tears…

So many believe our tears are a sign of weakness, because they don’t know Your secret sweet Lord.  They don’t understand that in the moments of our tears, we are powerful as You fill us with Your Holy Spirit and He fills us with Your strength!

Lord,  thank you for all of the tears that flow so freely from my eyes in moments of both joy and sorrow. I feel so close to You in these extreme and powerful moments of my life and I long to fill these moments with gratitude and prayer.

Please soften our hard hearts sweet Lord, and release the flood gates of the tears that so many hold back in fear of what the world believes.

His tears…

We have an ornament in the shape of a cross that hangs on our Christmas tree.  It has tiny plastic jewels glued onto it in the shape of teardrops.

A few weeks ago as I was putting our Christmas tree away I found one of the teardrops on the ground.  It fell off the top of this cross as if our Lord was crying.

It made me think of His tears and the sorrow He feels when we are cruel, when we speak to each other without thinking, without consideration, and without kindness.  He cries as He sees the cruelty ripple outward and downward in a revolving cycle of hurt, anger, and gossip.  He cries as He watches His peace slip from our hearts as we lose sight of Him and begin this downward spiral.

I have hurt and been hurt with words.  Many times I have begun this cycle or been swept away by this cycle wasting minutes, hours and days obsessing over an unkindness rather than gazing at You.

Lord please let only kindness pass my lips or nothing at all, please open my ears to Your voice alone calling me out of this spiral, and please open my eyes to You alone so that I might not be a cause for Your tears of sorrow, but instead bring You tears of joy.

The blessing of tears…

The first Easter that I truly mourned for Jesus was two years ago.  I cried as I went to bed on Good Friday as I finally scratched the surface of trying to understand how His disciples must have felt that night.  My sweet husband held my hand as I cried and we fell asleep.

Last year I mourned again and I cried and prayed a lot for Judas Iscariot.  I remember going for a nature walk with my family and my sweet girls holding my hands as the tears flowed.

I am not sure why I have been so greatly blessed with so many tears during Holy Week the last two years, but I pray for tears of true sorrow for my sweet Jesus to flow again this year.  I also pray for you to join me in this great sorrow NOT because misery loves company, but because following our tears we will together rise to great heights of joy on Easter morning as we again celebrate that He is Risen, He is Risen, He is Risen Indeed, my friends.

May all of the glory for ever and ever be given to Him! Amen.