My Lil' Loves

The Lord has been so gracious to me in allowing me to live close to my precious nephew and neice for a little while, after returning from the Philippines.
Children are such a joy to my heart. Any child can put a smile on my face, but none touch deep in my heart like Wyatt and Raney. I don't know if it's because they are blood, or because they are my brother's, or because they are the Lord's... either way they have my heart.
Their smiles, laughter and giggles, funny thoughts and sayings, facial expressions, head knocks, squeezer hugs, sleepy snuggle hugs, any hugs at that, asking for peanut jelly and butter, reading books with Wyatt and having him finish the last lines on each page, sliding Raney down the slide, listening to Wyatt sing, recite scripture, or answer questions about a Bible story he just heard 10 minutes ago... sitting in Wyatt's fort with him, the way Raney pops her thumb out of her mouth, crawling over Raney, watching their faces light up when I come over, the way Wyatt says "domp truck", the way Raney smiles at everything, her cute lil' outfits, and her eye brow scrunch and nose blow that could put anyone in stitches, Raney's bat wings, and Wyatt long lashes and curls... everything about those youngins bring me deep heart joy.
It will be difficult for me, them moving an hour away, but the Lord will give grace for each day. My heart will feel the loss of them not being within 5 minutes from me, but at least they will be just down the road about an hour. It will be hard to see how much they grow since I won't see them as often, yet it will make my time with them more focused, intentional, and purposeful. The Lord is good and faithful... I mean at least they are still in the state of Mississippi! :)
Sometimes I just know He orchestrates things just for me... spoiled? Naw! Just loved more than I could ever possibly deserve!!!

Known by God

What matters supremely, therefore, is not, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it -- the fact that HE KNOWS ME. I am graven on the palms of his hands. I am never out of his mind. All my knowledge of him depends on his sustained initiative in knowing me. I know him because he first knew me, and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, one who loves me; and there is no moment when his eye is off me, or his attention distracted from me, and no moment, therefore, when his care falters.

This is monumentous knowledge. There is unspeakable comfort -- the sort of comfort that energizes, be it said, no enervates -- in knowing that God is constantly taking knowledge of me in love and watching over me for my good. There is tremendous relief in knowing that his love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion him about me, in the way that I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench his determination to bless me.

There is, certainly, great cause for humility in the thought that he sees all the twisted things about me that my fellow humans do not see, and that he sees more corruption in me than that which I see in myself. There is, however, equally great incentive to worship and love God in the thought that, for some unfathomable reason, he wants me as his friend, and desires to be my friend, and has given his Son to die for me in order to realize this purpose. We cannot work these thoughts out here, but merely to mention them is enough to show how much it means to know not merely that we know God, but that he knows us.

- J.I. Packer, KNOWING GOD. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1973, Text Americanized and completely retypeset in 1993, pp. 41-42.

Snowball Circumstances or Deep Seeded Sin?

Some bad days start with one silly mishap, pick up momentum, snowball, and turn into a Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day! No matter how hard I tried to be in a good mood on Saturday nothing worked…
Do bad days come from the outside of us; do the situations that happen day to day put us in a bad mood? Or do bad days come from the inside out; do situations bring out of us what we try to keep hidden from ourselves, God and the rest of the world?
It all started with money (truly the root of all kinds of evil) when my bank account dipped into the red on Friday. This is not a normal occurrence therefore my mood dial raced from a high 10 to a stinkin’ 1 in 3.0 seconds because my money glared red on my computer screen with a big ol minus beside it. But hey, things happen right? So I just tried to sweep it under the rug and began trying to figure out what to do. I mean after all it was Friday, the beginning of the weekend, my favorite, and I wanted to be in a good mood to enjoy my weekend.
Then, the snowball effect took off as I tried, on my own strength, to fix my rotten heart mood... I woke up earlier than desired Saturday morning to a surprise phone call and needed to take care of some business. Shook that off and thought oh well, now I have time to get more done in the day. Next was the emergency trip to Canton, about 45 minutes away which required buying gas with money that I didn’t have (once again the root of all kinds of evil). I loaded my camera into the car and off I went. I was determined to get one good thing out of this trip that would settle me, put things back in order, and set my mood straight; a picture that I had wanted to take since moving to Carthage. So I stopped, bought gas and was headed down the road. As I reached the abandoned house, I pulled off the road to take the pictures and wallered right through some cakey mud left from the rain the day before. I shrugged thinking oh well, it can’t get much worse. Ha! I walked slowly to the perfect angle for the first shot, clicked the camera on…nothing! Oh the ugly words that bounced around in my mind as I visualized my camera battery still sitting on the charger in my house twenty minutes in the other direction. Forget it I thought, I am just going to the bank to fix this problem that started all this mayhem to begin with. As I drove away from the picture site mud flew up in chunks from my tires and my nerves stood on end with each clunk under the car. After a thirty minute drive I pulled into the bank drive thru to meet blank signs where I should have seen “open” lanes; it was closed. I knew then this wasn’t just a combination of bad situations that were forcing me into a bad mood. The bad mood was coming out of me.
My little world wasn’t working the way it was supposed too. I wasn’t getting things accomplished that were on my schedule and that I wanted to do. I realized I was running my world for a few days and I had God benched, on the pine, and obviously it wasn’t working out. It seemed as though everything inside me and all of my nature welled up to rebel against Him, to shake my fist in His face, only because things weren’t going my way. As the morning and all the snowball mishaps passed I saw again what I am truly made of. I saw the ugliness of my heart come spewing out once again because my little world wasn’t functioning the way I expected. Who did I think I was? Why did I think God needed to bow down to my every wish and desire like a magical genie? Why did I think He should work on my time table? What possessed me to get so upset over such small and trivial things? Me, it was all about me…
In the course of two days, only 48 hours I had reverted back to my Israelite, stiff necked, little imposter deity, rebellious and independent self. As I drove home I listened to Hillsong; turned one particular song up and the words pierced deep and the tears started streaming. The Lord was graciously smashing my little pedestal that I had set myself up on once again. On the inside I felt that stubborn wave of self rebellion slowly subside. He was refocusing my heart; He was breaking down the stubbornness and rebellion and kicking me off His throne. I knew then that all the situations that had “just happened” over the past couple days weren’t accidents or just bad mishaps to make me have a bad day; it was the Lord’s good pleasure to bring me back to himself.
It took all of that nonsense to bring me back to His reality that He is enough for me… not money which is His anyways, not photography and hobbies that I love so much, not friends that I find so much joy in, not family that I cling to, not my time and my schedule; but Him, being with Him, loving Him, being in His presence, living daily on His time, by His will, for His glory… He was bringing me back to Him.
Praise God that He puts up with my childish games of thinking that somehow I can dethrone Him and take control of my own life. Praise God that His love is so much deeper than my sin, which is unfathomably deep. Praise the Lord that He won’t let me go, He is faithful, He will never leave nor forsake me, and He has promised to carry me on to completion! Hallelujah what a Savior, Hallelujah what a friend!
What a joy I find when I completely surrender my all to Him! But what a shame the lengths that He goes to pry my fingers off of the life that He has freely given me…
Ugh, such sin before the face of a holy God! Praise the name of Jesus, my Savior, Redeemer, Mediator, Friend, Sacrifice, Life Giver and Lover of my soul. He truly is enough!

The Cost: Death

Philippians 2: 1-11 ~
"So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, and participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count other more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

Most days this goal feels like a forever lifetime away. Will I ever resemble my Savior? It seems as though every day is a never ending saga all about me! When will I end?! I must follow His example... becoming obedient to the point of death.

"We want to die, but to die without any pain... we must give all or nothing when God asks it. If we have not the courage to give, at least let Him take." - A.B. Fenelon

Live in The Now

Tomorrow is vital to most people. To me... I bank on tomorrow, I bet everything that tomorrow will come. I live to live tomorrow. I live to make things right tomorrow. I make plans for tomorrow and even days, months, years on down the road. I think, I plan, I count on tomorrow coming.
...What if tomorrow never came?
...What if today was the last day of my life?
My heart is so rooted in this world that I can't see true reality. True reality is God reality, Kingdom reality, heaven reality, the next life reality.
...Why do I bank on tomorrow?
...Why do I pass time away day after day; waiting for the next day?
...Why do I not live for now?
...Why do I not make things right, now?
...Why do I not take every opportunity for the Lord, now?
...Why don't I deal with my indwelt sin now?
It's because I put my life and soul on the fact that I can do it tomorrow. I can make it right tomorrow, do it tomorrow, forgive tomorrow, say I'm sorry tomorrow, tell them I love them tomorrow, get my focus right tomorrow.
The condition of my soul, my relationship with the Most High God, eternal important things I keep pushing back until tomorrow, always tomorrow...when I am never promised to have another tomorrow. God never promises tomorrow; I could die tonight, right now, He could return, anything and everything could happen before tomorrow comes.
...Why put my life and my very soul in the hands of what may not even exist?
Now, now is all I have, now is the only time I have to confess sin, love those deep in my heart, share the Gospel of Christ, forgive and mend broken relationships, now, right now I need to get my focus right, stop waiting. Eventually I will spend my whole life living for tomorrow; then the last tomorrow will come and pass and it will all be too late. I'll be left wishing for more chances, another opportunity to go back and do it over again; but once again the tomorrows have passed by while I was waiting for the next.
...Why waste my life?
Whatever it is; do it now!

Worshiper of.....

God created every man to be a worshipper. He created us with a need, desire, longing, purpose, reason, and genetic makeup to worship. The question daily remains what or who am I worshipping. The created desire and purpose to worship mingled with a deceitfully wicked heart beyond cure is an extremely dangerous combination! It always leads us to become "idol making factories". We are constantly worshipping something/someone, whether intentionally, consciously, purposefully or not- It is impossible for us to worship nothing. It could be compared to breathing. I breathe unconsciously. I don't have to stop to think, "Lindsey breathe, breathe", I just do it; there is no way to stop unless I consciously kill myself. It is the exact same way with worship. It is a function of our souls that we were created with. Our souls and Spirits worship every second of the day, whether we consciously give effort to worshipping or not. So the question is; if we are not intentionally fighting daily to worship God (and it is a fight), then what or who are we worshipping?
...What consumes my thoughts hourly?

...What (do I think) I could never live without?

...If _____________ were taken away from me, my thoughts will be I'm gonna die; my world would crumble.

...Is it myself, am I consumed with my accomplishments, dreams, activities, appearance, respect, and reputation: Pride in myself, in who I am?

...Is it another human (a created being just like me)? Do they give me love that I long for, and so put my heart's beat into that person?

...Is it things? Possessions, money, clothes, cars, houses, stuff - all things that are temporary & will eventually be destroyed.

...Is it pleasure? fame, play time, self time, time in general, sexual feelings, acknowledgment, acceptance, pride in myself?

...What is it that I busy myself with daily? What do I spend all of my time trying to fill myself with?

...If we are not doing what we were created to do (worship God alone & enjoy Him forever) then we will feel empty. Because we are full of sin, wicked to the core; we are not doing what we were created for. That means when we are not dependantly, intentionally and prayerfully worshipping God; we are worshipping our idols. We are constantly looking all around, trying to find something, anything to fill this void, this cavernous hole that nothing seems to satisfy.

...Why won't I ever simply look to Christ? He is the life giving water, the blood that cleanses and fills, the bread of life.

"You will never know Jesus is all you need, unitl Jesus is all you've got."

My Two Favorite Kids

If you haven't met my two favorite kids in the whole wide world...... here they are.....

Rebekah 'Raney' Scott
Steven 'Wyatt' Scott

My neice and nephew are the best ever! They are so much fun to be around, always bring a smile to my face, sooo much fun to spoil, full of life and love, always want to play, are good snugglers, they say the funniest things, they bring joy like none other!
They make my heart smile...
I think everyone who is an aunt or uncle needs to be closely involved in their neice/nephew's life. Every child needs someone outside their parents to walk along side them through life to reinforce what their parents teach and train, and also to come along side them and love them as your own; not to mention spoil them to death and then send them home to their mom and dad!

A Parents' Shadow of Love

It is not very often that you come across parents that love in all senses of the word. There are many forms of love: tough love, godly love, patient love, unconditional love, teaching love, rebuking love, accepting love, selfless love, etc... There are many types of love, and as we go through seasons in our lives we love in different ways.
What really amazes me is that children get their first images of God from their parents and the way they are loved by their parents. When a child is little, the parents are the image, reflection, and representation of God to them. Children watch parents' every action, hear their every word, imitate their every movement, and when they grow up reflect exactly what they have been taught.
WOW! What responsibility!!!!
Just in the recent months I have become aware of how grateful I am for my parents. They have loved me through many seasons in my life, not perfectly, but hey, They aren't God. Now even more so as I am out of their home, I am so thankful for how they have expressed their love to me over the years. I have not made it easy for them, that is for sure! Yet through each stage of my life whether rebellion, submission, growing, changing, straying from God, walking the straight and narrow, in relationships with guys, dealing with school challenges, on mission field, whether leaving the nest; each stage of my life they have loved me in different ways, but with a love that consistently points me to the Lord.
Isn't that what love is about? Isn't that why love, because Christ first loved us? Isn't that why we have children and train them up in the way they should go, in order to be disciples of God, to continue the covenant mandate, to train up missionaries and laborers for His kingdom?
Looking back over the years, I can say without a shadow of a doubt my parents have loved me well. No one can ever love perfectly, other than God himself. But He does infuse His children with the love that comes from His heart, and that is what I have been shown for 26 years now. I am so thankful for the love that was showered on me at every juncture in life. And looking back I can see now that it was a symbolic love, a shadow love, a mirror love, a reflection of the love of my God who created me and loves me more than anyone on this earth possibly could!
My heart is so thankful for the consistent, stable, faithful, unwavering, serving, tough and godly love that my parents have lavished on me as I have grown. I can honestly thank God for giving them that love for me which pointed me straight back to Him. None was to take His place, or to take credit from Him, none of their love was to boast about themselves, it was all about loving me to the Cross.
Shouldn't that be our reason for loving.....
As I desire to have children one day, I cringe to see how sinful I am and how awful I am at loving people. I have a long way to go, but I know that God will continue to grow me and fill me with His love in order for me to pour it out, not just on my kids but on those that He brings into my life.
Oh, I pray that He will love through me in every way and that one day my children will be able to look back as they walk day by day with the Lord, the God of their salvation and say my parents have loved me well with the love that has only pointed me to Christ.
I am so in need of grace daily in order to live and love in that manner. As I sit here and think of who I am at the core, I realize that I cannot love in that way, I am not capable. But I then have to realize that He who lives in me is! He is capable of loving selflessly and compassionately through me. It has to be Him!
Talk about needing Hime every hour, maybe that song should say "I need you every second"!
Not one minute can go by that I need to be left alone by the God of the universe.... that would be dreadful! Praise God that He is always with us, always working in us, and always looking on us with love because of His love for us that saved us from our wretched sin.
He really is the only true reason to love others, and the only possibility that we can truly love others!
Praise God for first loving us!

Sewage/Sin Stench

About two weeks ago we noticed that our pipes weren't flowing freely. It was after a toilet overflowed and the kitchen sink stopped up for hours that we figured something was seriously wrong. So for about two weeks we have been washing dishes, and using the bathroom with bated breath as the water seemed to just barely seep through the pipes and into the sewer. The city came out and determined that it was not their problem to fix and so we called a plumber. Everything was all set up for him to come, and then scheduling became a problem. So for about a week and a half we have been piling up clothes and have been mindful that every drain, toilet, and water outlet in our home is connected to this plugged pipe.
Praise the Lord that our shower is not connected to this pipe or we would be really yuk!
So last night after eating pizza, we were busy washing some clothes, as we had run out of clothes to wear to work. ha! So after we finished the first load and as the second load was starting, Lexi (the guard dog) started barking down our dark hallway. We both cautiously eased toward the hallway and flipped the light switch on real quick. Then we caught the stench, and we were horrified as black, liquid, tissue riddled, stinky, raw, chemical polluted sewage was flowing out of our front bathroom and into Laini's bedroom.
After a quick moment of astonishment we got to work, calling the plumber again, lighting fragrant candles, and then mopping up the muck and mess. It took a while, but we finally got the wood floors back to their pristine condition, wreaking of the wonderful mixture of lemon Pine Sol and Woodwick candles! The Lord took care of us again, because this morning the plumber came after our clog catastophe and began digging up our front yard in order to fix our pipes. He said that roots had grown into the pipe and blocked the water flow, and he would need to dig up the whole pipe and replace the entire thing. He also said with a smile, "I'll put a clean out cap at the house just in case something like this happens again, then it won't come flooding into your house."
Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, Hallelujah, Praise the Lord!!!!!
As I stood and watched some of the fiasco... I was amazed at the process of having to clean out around the pipe, then cyphening all the water out from around it, then digging up the whole front yard, then replacing it, I mean we are basically getting a clean, new start!
I couldn't help but relate the whole ordeal back to our lives... we go through life thinking everything is good, we are good people, and have done nothing wrong. We don't have any sin to confess, "God I did pretty good today", while all along our hearts are slowly hardening with the blockage of the sin that sits and is left unconfessed, sometimes unnoticed. In fact most of the time we let it go so long that our hearts get so hardened to sin that we can't even feel the Holy Spirit's nudge anymore showing us what is sin and what is not. It seems as though His leading and guiding and consuming influence in our lives has slowly made its way to just barely seeping through. Better yet we are so stubborn that most likely we won't confess any of that until it comes boiling up and out into the open, just as the sewage went from the ugly yucky pipes that it's supposed to stay in to flowing through our nice pretty house. Our sin comes oozing out and is seen on the outside; only then is when we are bothered by our sins and forced to do something about them. Then we hesitantly take our sin mess before the Lord and He graciously digs around in the muck and the mire and saves us from the pit that we love to live in, just like that big hole in my front yard.
What's amazing is that we don't just need a cleaning out; We need much more than a snake run through our heart to break away the blockages of sin. We need a transplant. Just as the plumber is in the process of digging up our pipes and laying down new ones.... we also need God to remove our hearts of stone and replace them with hearts of flesh that seek and desire Him.
We need a new start, and by His grace we can have one! Praise the Lord for His grace, compassion, and mercy that are new every morning.
It's funny how the little, ok, or not so little things in life (like a blocked sewage line flowing into your house) can remind us of the salvation of our Lord! Oh that we would be able to look at all of life through lenses that have Jesus Christ before us always, always living before His face.
Coram Deo...

Dreary Days

As I look out my window at work and watch the rain my heart seems to reflec the same. Why, I wonder? It always seems to take me a long time to process and figure out what is going on in my head and heart. Although a long time is better than not at all.
It's amazing how we can look back on our lives and see the hand of God at work constantly and consistently. I remember when I lived and worked in the Philippines and did not thoughtfully and purposefully process my feelings, thoughts, situations, and heart emotions at all. It was almost as if the bombardment of me, myself, my sin, my humanity, along with the poverty stricken, lost, and hurt people of the Philippines was too much. I could not take it in, as it came at me from all sides, 24/7 each day. Therefore, I just began to block things out, I guess to store them in a place in my mind to where they wouldn't bother me, wouldn't affect my mood or day. As time went by good things that I wanted to process and feel were as a result blocked out as well. There came a point in time, around this time last year when my fortified concrete dam holding all of those reserved (blocked out) emotions, situations, feelings, thoughts, etc... shattered into a million pieces and I was flooded with me and all of that which I had stored away.
As I look back I am so thankful that the Lord broke through that fortified wall that I was trying so hard to sustain. I am so thankful that now He works and moves me by His grace, and although it might take a couple of days or even a week, things will become clear in my head and my heart. He, in His Holy Spirit that lives in me works and moves in mysterious ways; The Comforter of my heart and soul teaching, convicting, leading, guiding, rebuking, etc.... day to day.
As I look back I am dumbfounded at my blind and stubborn ignorance of trying to live a life apart from Him just a year ago. The humanity of my heart not wanting to feel the pain of a lost child that I loved so dearly not wanting to accept the love of the Lord. The depth of compassion not wanting to see all of those young children on the street begging for food, asking for money, needing, needing, needing just to survive. The frailness of my being not able to stand under such deep despair that was before my eyes. The natural mother in me wanting to love all of those helpless children to the best of my ability and falling so so short. The tender heart that I have to give to those in need, and yet my giving didn't satisfy a tenth of the starving and dying in the Philippines. And to top it off the depth of sin in me that oozed from my every pore and affected me every single day, every single hour, minute, second..... it was all inescapable.
How could anyone stand under the weight of this kind of hopelessness without having a hope inside to uphold and sustain?
As I look back now and continue to process even things that I experienced two years ago. I can see now that I cannot do anything alone! I cannot process and make sense of anything in this life without the comfort and truth of Jesus. How could I look in the face of poverty and process the need that was before me without realizing that the child's heavenly Father loves him much more than I do. Obviously I couldn't.
It is sickening to be able to see clearly now, that then I was trying to be a creature without depending on the Creator who made me. I can't process things in my head and my heart without first falling on my knees before the throne of God, my Father, Creator, Comforter, Savior, wise King, Redeemer, Friend, Shepherd....
How do I make sense of things now, and of things past? I discuss them and bring them before the God who made me, who knows me better than I know myself; The God who can give joy when there is sorrow, who can heal sickness, who can make glad the broken hearted, who can forgive sins, who relates in every way with humanity, who can change a heart of stone into a heart of flesh, the God who can basically do anything.
What an awesome God! Why would I live a minute apart from His compassionate and comforting gaze? That is what "coram deo" means: before the face of God.
Now that He has given me a saving, loving, dependant, life giving and sustaining heart knowledge of Him, I don't want to be, live, or process this journey anywhere else other than before His face...... coram deo.