Living the Life

Consider the Birds: On being an opportunistic feeder

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Have you ever noticed that when you sprinkle seed onto a bird table, in no time at all, loads of birds show up?  I always find myself wondering “How on Earth did they know?”

I know nothing at all about birds, so when I felt that God was giving me this postcard to paint for this week I was a bit stumped. But it was definitely the right picture,  so I did what any other person would do… I asked google!

It turns out that lots of other people have asked this question too, and although there’s no definitive answer, two theories seemed to emerge:

Birds have great eyesight and they’re constantly watching for food.

Birds let each other know when they find something good and plentiful.

 

So I’ve been simmering those thoughts away, and asking myself a couple of questions:

What does it mean for me as a follower of Jesus to be ‘constantly watching for food’?

‘Food’ is anything that sustains you and helps you to grow.  So it could probably be many different things: teaching; wisdom; reading the Bible; praying or worshipping with friends; or escaping to somewhere quiet to be alone with God.  You might find it at a certain times of day or at a certain place; at church services; in a person; at prayer meetings; on the internet; or in a book.

The thing I’m really hearing God say to me through this picture is that he’s calling me to be like a bird: an opportunistic feeder.

Birds will return to a place where they’ve been fed before, but will always be on the lookout for more.  They are picky about what they will eat, but eat from a variety of sources.  Ever watchful,  if an opportunity comes their way to take on board things that will give them energy and help them to grow they will take it.    This speaks to me about flexibility, alertness and also my own responsibility to seek after God’s provision for me:  For a bird, maturity is to go out there and look for your own nutrition… not to stay where you are and wait to be fed!

How can I let others know about the feast?

I was amused to read that some birds live as part of a community and let each other know where food is to be found… by tweeting. Smirking aside, there’s a message here too – It’s much easier to find out about places to eat, to grow and be strong, when we are part of a community.  And taking an active part in seeing other people in our community get ‘spiritually fed’ is an important part of what we are called to be.  This too will look different for everyone.  Sometimes it will be choosing to breathe words of life and encouragement over people; sometimes it will be sharing a link to a worship song on Facebook; it might be recommending a book, it might be writing one. Find a way that works for you.

 

‘Taste and see that the Lord is good’

Maybe for some of us this is also a challenge to call others who don’t yet know Jesus to come and join in the feast. A bit of ‘tweeting’ about how good and sweet life with Jesus can be might be in order!

 

birdsfeedingfeat

 

reflect greens

 

For your Journal:

Think about the ways and places you ‘find food’?  In what ways can you pay more attention to them, or how could you look for new ‘food sources’?

How can you let others know about the feasts you find?  Who in your life could you ‘call to”?

 

And finally…  Writing this blog is like throwing seeds onto the bird table… Thank you to every one of you who has shown up to taste it, and has called friends in to have some too.  I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.   Ellie x

Living the Life

time for a cup of something?

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Yesterday morning, at about 11:30, I got a text message from my 12 year old:

Exam finished, pick me up, Got time for a cup of something?

As ever, my first thought was “no time”.

But then I thought, “how often does my little girl ask me out for a coffee?  Wouldn’t it be lovely to say yes and to do this thing which will make her feel loved and special?”

So we stopped by at coffee shop on the way home and drank iced coffee in the sunshine while we talked about the test she’d taken.  I’m so glad I took that time. It was great coffee, great rest and great to be together. As I was enjoying that moment of togetherness and sharing with her I remembered this picture that I painted during worship on Sunday…

It’s a tray of plastic cups from the ubiquitous Swedish furniture store. We must have at least a hundred of these at our church for the kids to have water in, and it feels like nearly that many at home!  Anyone else out there prepared to admit to having bought three sets in order to avoid the argument about who gets the pink one?

I’ve only painted a few, but in the picture God showed me, there were many, many different coloured cups, all with something slightly different in them. And one of those cups is for you.

I don’t know what is in the cup God has for you today

It’s a cup of blessing, and sometimes blessing comes with laughter, sometimes with tears.  It might be comfort for your pain, it might be a lesson learned, it might be uncontrollable joy bubbling up from underneath the stone floor you’ve carefully laid in place. It might be any number of awesome, beautiful, wonderful, precious things.  I don’t know.  But I do know that it will be good.

I don’t know whether you will choose to drink the cup God is offering you today

It might not be the same as yesterday’s; it might not be what he has promised for tomorrow. It might not be what you think you need right now; it might not look like an easy cup to drink.  It might look so good that you think it can’t be for you, that he can’t possibly want to pour out blessing for you after everything you’ve done.

I don’t know whether, like me, you will just think “No time”, and never make it to take the cup he is offering.

Don’t be too tired or too busy.  Don’t be so caught up in the urgent that you miss the important.  Whatever reason you have for not taking the cup God has for you today, don’t let it be “I just didn’t get around to it”.

But what I do know, beyond doubt, is that he has a cup for you.

Whether or not you call yourself a Christian: a son or daughter of the king; there is a cup of blessing from the Father with your name on it.  You can’t put in an order for the particular kind of blessing you want, and you can’t exchange it for another one.  But if you want it, it’s there. Waiting.

As I write these sentences, I’m listening to an instrumental version of the hymn ‘I surrender all’.  Sometimes… often… accepting my cup for today is an act of surrender.  I’d rather have someone else’s… A little girl inside me is still yelling “I want the pink one!” 🙂  And often I get the pink one, and sometimes I look back and realise I got something better.

If you can make time today, even a few minutes, ask the Father what cup he has for you today.  Then take time to recieve whatever he has to give you.

Make time, come, surrender, and drink… it will be good.

ikeacups feat

 

For your journal/ To think about:

How about if this week, every time you see a coloured plastic IKEA cup, you asked God “What cup do you have for me today” and then took a moment to listen to and respond to his answer?

 

 

 

Identity

The Father’s Heart

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Sometimes, a picture can speak to places so deep in our hearts that too many words might just get in the way.

This postcard is one of my all-time favourites.

I’ve been saving it – but I’m posting it now as a testimony to what God has been doing in my heart lately.  I’ve ‘known’ this a long time… finally I’m starting to ‘get’ it.

If you too, have ever struggled to call your Heavenly Father ‘Abba’ or ‘Daddy’, to accept his unconditional love and embrace, then maybe you should spend some time with this picture this week, asking him to take the truth it represents and write it deep into your heart.

 

Image

 

My child

when your heart is hurt
 don't turn your face away

when your soul is bruised
 don't break away and run

when all you have to bring is shame
 don't find a place to hide

turn to me, run to me,
 dive into my embrace
 and find your rest in your Father's arms

 

reflect white

 

 

For your Journal:

Take a while to look at this picture and write down what you feel God is saying to you through it.   Have a go at writing your own poem, or write a letter back to God to capture what it means to you to be this child; to be  welcomed and embraced by your ‘Abba’, to be unconditionally loved.

 

Dealing with Change

Emerging : about change

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Every now and again something happens in your heart or your life which is so significant, so major, that you know that nothing will ever be quite the same again.

Sometimes, in just a few days or moments, your life can become so different that for a while you find yourself out of step with the rest of the world. “How?” you ask yourself, “Can everyone else’s life still be so much the same when mine has changed so radically?”

Sitting here I can think of six moments in my life when I have felt this really powerfully:  Asking Jesus to be a part of my life; getting married; the births of my three children and then the death of my Dad.  All of these things have so profoundly affected me on the inside that I have struggled to understand why people around me can’t see or sense or be a part of the revolution that has taken place.  I’ve felt a bit detached from the rest of the world for a while, and I haven’t always understood or awarded myself the grace that I needed.

I’m kind of in that place again this week.

Last week, at a crazy-beautiful conference in England, Father God revealed to me a little bit more of who he is, and then a little bit more of who I am, and before I knew it, another revolution had taken place in my heart.  I’ll get to writing and painting about that soon (when the dust has settled) but for this week, I need to take a ‘wing-drying’ moment.

You see, I read this morning about this butterfly, a monarch, which after hatching out of its cocoon, sits for an hour or more in the sun, allowing its wings to dry and become strong.  This moment of rest, of warming, and of taking stock speaks to me really powerfully right now.

So often I experience a revolution in my life or in my heart, and I expect myself to be able to be up and out and flying straightaway.  Today I think Jesus is telling me to wait a while, to let my wings dry out, to get used to my new shape.  This picture is permission to rest in him for a moment or two before I launch out again.

 

And that’s good… There’s going to be a lot of time for flying.

 

Imagine my surprise
when I emerge from the struggle
the beautiful revolution
the inner rewriting
with wings..

Still reeling
but knowing
that one day soon I will stretch out
into what I've become
and fly.

But till then
I'll sit here
in the light and the warmth of your gaze
and let you tell me again
who I am.


butterfly2

reflect greens

 

 

It’s always good to rest for a while in the warmth of the Father’s gaze.  Make sure you take a moment today to ‘sun yourself’.

 

For your Journal:

If you’re not in this place right now,  store up the thought for the future… Decide now that if and when it happens you will give yourself permission to rest and to ask God to shine his light on your wings.

If you are in this place, go easy on yourself.  Write a letter to God in your journal about the change that you’ve just been through.  Take the moment to say goodbye to what you were before and to stretch out into the new thing you’ve become.  Absorb the light of God’s presence in whatever way works best for you right now.  Be blessed x

 

Living the Life

Fuchsia and Bindweed

Image 8 Comments

 

Even after many beautiful years living in the grace of being a Christian, I often look at the piles of rubbish: stupid beliefs, insecurities, hurts, weaknesses and sin in my life and think “Come on Lord, why can’t you just deal with all this junk and sort me out quicker?”

I’m at a conference this week, and I’m going over old ground again: The heart of the father towards me, the need to forgive and to accept forgiveness…  Old and slightly painful ground. So I’m living in that place of frustration right now that there is STILL more junk to be dealt with. Still more rocks to be pulled out of my spiritual backpack.  But in the middle of that frustration God is reminding me of this picture…

 

One day a while ago, when I was berating my patient Father about his slowness in ridding me of all my junk, he reminded me of a beautiful fuchsia plant that used to grow in our front garden.   I once spent a whole afternoon sitting on the garden wall, slowly unwrapping the bindweed which had grown up around it, spiralling around every branch and stem until the whole plant was weighed down and choked by the weed.

I was desperate to save the beautiful plant, but ripping at the weed quickly would have certainly destroyed it. So I had no choice but to sit and slowly unwrap it, stem by stem.  It took a long time. And God showed me that I am like the fuschia: delicate, beautiful, cherished; and that he is like a gardener: careful, deliberate, patient and thorough.

I have no doubt that my powerful father could heal me quickly, could tear from me all the parts of me that are marred and broken, twisted up or distorted.  But his desire is not simply to get rid of the weed, but to save the plant and see it restored.

“Heal me”, I said,

“Heal me quickly LORD”

“I’ll do it carefully”, He replied

“So that all that is wonderful,

All that is beautiful,

All that I cherish so much

In you

Will remain”.

 

 

Fuschia and Bindweed

 

P.S.  At one point today, I sat with Jesus and said:

“I’m sorry Lord, I am just way too tired to deal with you taking more rocks out of my backpack today”

I’m pretty sure I heard him laugh out loud at that one!

Please don’t resist the healing, the freedom, the release from heaviness that he is offering you today.  I know it’s uncomfortable to look inside and find even more rocks in there, but the truth is that we will both walk so much better without them tomorrow…

 

Living the Life

An invitation

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“This picture is an invitation.”

I lost count of how many times I said that over this last weekend.  I was sharing postcards – pictures with a message – with the many lovely seekers-after-truth-and-comfort who visited our booth at the local Mind Body Spirit Fair.  And as I shared the pictures I’d painted, I kept hearing myself say that phrase: “this picture is an invitation”.

And I suppose that many of the pictures I paint are just that: An invitation to trust; an invitation to step out; an invitation to surrender; an invitation to love and be loved;  an invitation to ask for more…

This one is an invitation to come and ‘be’…

A bench sits in a shady part of the garden.  It’s a place of peace, rest and friendship.  It’s a place of quiet and of conversation.  It’s a place for you to meet with Jesus.

Have you been there lately?

Sometimes I get so busy with life that I forget to retreat into this place of quiet with Jesus, forget to do the one thing that restores my soul and enables me to keep up the busyness.

Sometimes I’m so ashamed that the garden that is my life has become overgrown and messy that I put off inviting Jesus into it until I’ve had a chance to tidy it up a bit.

How foolish am I, that I am so busy trying to make my garden look pretty that I forget to take the time to sit down and have a cup of tea with the master gardener that is waiting for me?  How crazy is it that I stand alone, fighting to hack back the weeds with my bare hands, while Jesus stands behind me holding a scythe?

 “I’ll be with you in a minute Jesus, just let me deal with this first”

 

Here’s the news:   Once you’ve invited God into the garden that is your life  he is always there.  He is always ready to sit with you on this bench, to listen to what is on your heart -however ugly it might be- and to speak and to pour out forgiveness, restoration and love into your heart.  He is waiting.   And he already knows about the mess, the corners of brambles and weeds; he even brought a spade.  But his priority, his heart, is to take time to be with you.

 

So you don’t have to invite him in, and I suspect you can’t keep him out, but you can refuse to listen to his invitation to join him in this quiet corner.  You can be too busy, too distracted, too tired or too ashamed.  There might be a hundred and one things you think you need to get done first.

But hear the invitation he is speaking to you now:

 

come to me

 

I wonder if it would be even better to not wait until I am aware of how weary and burdened I am, but to come today anyway….

… and when you come and make time to sit on that bench,  I think he says something like this…

come in poem

 

bench

 

 

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If you’re reading this post, and thinking that you’ve never invited Jesus to be a part of your life, never known the closeness of a friendship with him that is like sitting on this bench in a garden with him, please find someone who knows him and ask them how.  They will be so happy to talk to you about their friendship with him.  And if you don’t know anyone to ask, drop me a line – I would LOVE to tell you more…

 

For your Journal:  (it’s great to process things with God on paper – I can heartily recommend it)

How does this picture of a bench and the idea of sitting on it with Jesus make you feel?

What things in your life distract you or hold you back from spending time alone with Jesus?

What do you find hard about making time with Jesus and what things could you do/ put in place to make it easier?

 

Living the Life

Immeasurably More

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Please, may I have some more?

There’s something quite awkward about asking for more…   And that awkwardness often stops me from asking.  Somehow the vision of a grubby little boy with an empty bowl swims into my mind.  But before I find myself humming songs from Oliver…

To be clear, I’m not talking about material wealth here,  although it may for many be quite reasonable to ask for more of that..  Today though, I’m thinking about other things I’d like more of:  faith, wisdom, passion, courage, forgiveness, healing, ability to receive God’s love, love for others, a sense of the presence of God…

But for some reason I find coming to God and saying “please, I want more” really difficult.   I feel I should stand back and let others go ahead of me.  Asking for more when I have already received so much from God feels greedy.  Worse than that it makes me feel as though I’m somehow not grateful enough for what I’ve already been given.

(Also, written on the wallpaper inside my head is a little sign that says “It’s not OK to ask for stuff” which applies in a million other situations, not just this one. – God and I are in the process of rubbing this -and some others-out, but that’s probably another postcard)

But for each of us, it is without question true that God has more for us in our relationship with Him.  More understanding, more faith, more peace, more presence, more.  And his pockets don’t hold a limited amount:  If he gives to me it doesn’t mean that someone else will miss out, if he’s already given me some faith I don’t have to say “OK thank you that will do”.   This isn’t a tea party at a little friend’s house my friends,  you don’t have to smile a polite smile and say “thank you, that was lovely, I’m full up now”.

I wonder what you hear from God when you look at this postcard of the ocean.  Every time I stand by the sea I think about this…  I scoop up as much water as I can hold in my hands and I think “this is how much of God’s presence, power and peace I have experienced so far’… and then I look up at the sea.

The difference between the water I can hold in my hands and the contents of the mediterranean… and then the atlantic is beyond my ability to comprehend.  It’s extraordinary to even to try to think about it.

That’s how much more there is to explore of God my friends, that’s how much more he has for you.

Immeasurably more.

You just need to ask.

MorePC

 

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,  may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,  and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.  Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,  to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Ephesians 3:16-21 NIV

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For your journal:  What do you want to ask God for ‘more’ of?   What stops you from asking?

Dealing with Change, Identity

Spacewalking: life in the wilderness.

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I watched the movie ‘Gravity’ last night, have you
seen it? I rather enjoyed it in a heart-in-my-mouth sort of
way. There’s a scene in it where a space-suited hero is drifting,
cut loose in the vast emptiness of space, alone and helpless.
And I suddenly thought, “I know what that feels like”.

Don’t get the wrong idea, I don’t have a secret previous life as an astronaut (!) but I have had a ‘spaceman’ time in my life,
a time when all the things I did, all the things I knew, all the
things that made me feel ‘me’ were emptied out and I felt as
adrift and powerless as the untethered spacewalker in my
picture.

I often think and write about the seasons of life. Seasons of light
and darkness, seasons of celebration and of grieving, seasons of
work and seasons of rest. I love this from Ecclesiastes 3:1-5
(NIV)

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to plant and a time to uproot,

a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance,

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them

It tells me that this change from one season to another is a normal part of life.

My spaceman season was one of the hardest I’ve walked (or floated!)
through. In fact, it was less of a season and more of a space
between seasons – a wilderness.

I live in Nicosia, Cyprus, a city that has been divided for more than 40 years. The South is part of the Greek-speaking Republic of Cyprus and the Northern half is in the area occupied by Turkey since 1974. The city’s two halves now have very different peoples, cultures
and languages. It is possible to walk through from one
side to another (with your passport), but to do so you have to
leave one ‘side’ and walk through the ‘buffer zone’- a gap of
about a hundred metres of emptiness between the two sides:
abandoned streets and buildings, layered with 40 years of
dust. No one lives there and no one goes there. Nothing happens
there.

My ‘walk’ from being a ‘normal’ person living in the UK
to being an expat person living in Cyprus felt very much like
a walk from one half of this city into the other. Eventually
I ended up in another place, with new friends and a new
understanding of what God is calling me to do. But for a while
there I was trapped in the emptiness of the buffer zone; in a
nowhere-space between places.

If you’ve been there, you’ll know how hard it is. There are lots of things that can happen to cause an emptying, a time where God strips away roles, tasks or relationships that have filled your time and given you a sense of purpose. There is a sense of grieving for the ‘place’ you
have left behind and uncertainty about what the place that lies
ahead will look like, and about how long it might take to get
there!

I’d like to tell you about how marvellously I pressed into God when I was floating in space… but honestly?

I spent most of my first year in the wilderness confused,
frightened and very, very angry. It took me a long time to
turn and lean on Jesus.   When (about 14 months in) I eventually
calmed down enough and was able to ask God about the blank
sheet of emptiness, he showed me something very beautiful.
wildernessRight down in the corner of the blank sheet, I saw a tiny seedling. Something growing, something completely new. And I realised that the clearing, the emptying of my life had made space for new things
that there would never have been room for before.

Eventually I learned to look at the emptiness of
my wilderness and see it differently.

Instead of endless, terrifying nothingness (like my spaceman picture above), I began to see it as a blank sheet of artist’s paper on which God could ‘start again’ and paint something entirely new. The
emptying, painful though it is, makes room for a re-filling.
As my perspective changed I saw that emptiness is full of
potential, of endless possibilities. When you start to see it
that way, it’s just about possible to surrender to it, and maybe
even to embrace it.

 

This is something I wrote which sums up some of the things I learned in my wilderness. I wonder what you’ve learned in yours?

wildernesspoem small
wilderness
reflect greens
For your journal: If you’re in a wilderness of some kind or another, write God a letter… tell him what it feels like to be in your wilderness. When we’re angry we often’punish’ God by not speaking to him. Break the silence!

Song of songs 8:5 asks “Who is this coming up from the
wilderness leaning on her beloved?”

What can you do in your wilderness to lean more on Jesus, so that when you come up out of it you will still be leaning?

Surviving Tough Times

More than you can Handle?

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“God will never give you more than you can handle”

This well-meant little piece of not-actually-scripture is, I’ll admit, one of my ‘pet peeves’.  It annoys me because it seems to be saying that whatever difficult or awful circumstance you might be walking through you ought to be able to stoically bear it alone.  It also suggests that strength is to be rewarded with pain, more strength with more pain – Rubbish!

Pain and suffering is a part of life.  Jesus never said that it wouldn’t be (rather the opposite).  But I know many people who, even as I’m writing this are in the middle of circumstances: financial, physical, emotional that no-one should be expected to be able to ‘handle’.   I know that some of them desperately need to have permission to ‘not handle it’ alone so that they can be free to cry, shout, rest, lean on others and above all lean on the God who loves them.

 

Here’s what I think is true:

Sometimes it’s OK to say to God your Father “I can’t handle this – I need you to step in with a miracle here”   And this picture of a falling doll being caught is meant to show something of what I think our Father replies to us…

handlewords

I pray that today you will receive permission from God to lean into him.  To fall, and be caught.

reflect white

For your journal:

What things are there in your life that are hard to handle?  What keeps you from letting go of your need to handle them alone?

 

 

 

Identity

Little Flowers : : my messy beautiful : : Postcards from Heaven

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A while ago Glennon Melton of Momastery.com posted a challenge.  -If we believe that sometimes what’s messy about us is also what’s beautiful about us, then we should write about it… Here’s mine:

I went for a walk this morning to have some time to ask God about what I should paint and write. The one thing I noticed was that the orange trees in my neighbourhood are just bursting with hundreds of insignificant little white flowers.  Now, when God draws my attention to something like that it’s usually because He has something to say to me through it.  And today He said: “that’s your messy-beautiful:  You’re an orange blossom… but on the inside you really want to be a rose:  a huge, red, eye-catching rose, that is perfect and unblemished and beautiful and that everyone notices.

Hmmmm.

OK, I admit it.   I’m an orange blossom: small, a bit damaged, no shelf-life unless stuck to the tree and in the middle of a wonderful community of a million other flowers just like me.  And God is OK with that… but I struggle with it!

The bit of me that wants to be a rose is called something like, “I need to be significant”.  It’s not small.  It’s like a deep, deep hole that’s been there forever and grows every time someone forgets to copy me on an email, or ask my opinion about something.  A huge gaping unfillable bucket of a hole in the middle of my heart.  Now that’s messy.

I’ve been walking with Jesus for a while now, so I know that I’m very important and significant to Him.  I also know that only He is able to fill my need-to-be-important bucket.

But here’s the thing- every time something comes along that I could use to measure my ‘significance’, I look away from Jesus and I try to fill the bucket again myself.  And IT NEVER, EVER WORKS…

bucketI can confirm that it is impossible to fill up that bucket with nice facebook comments or website hit stats or well-behaved children or good grades or a shiny car (that was a while ago) or a trim waistline (that might have been a previous life ) or ANYTHING other than Jesus.

I’m a slow learner.

So I often ask myself why Jesus would ask me, with my gaping wound of an importance-hole, to put myself out there on a website or in a book or anywhere where I could so easily fall into the trap of trying to fill my own bucket with reviews or stats or happy comments…  Or where I could be destroyed by bad ones!  Why would He ask me to follow Him into a place where I know I’m always going to be limping?

… It’s a good question.  But I think I got a hint of an answer the other day when someone sent me this verse:

Who is this coming up from the wilderness leaning on her beloved? 

Songs 8:5 NIV 

Do you see it?

God chooses wounded people because those who limp, lean.

Don’t discount yourself because you’re wounded and limping.  Do lean on Jesus.  And in the words of Glennon:  Do show up anyway.

There’s a world out there that needs changing… and it’s only going to be changed if limping, messy people with mixed motives and scared hearts lean on Jesus and show up and start changing things.

 

blossom detailAnyway, back to the orange blossom…

I picked one off the tree and brought it home to paint and to ponder on.  On the kitchen table when I got in, abandoned by my five year old chaos-generator, was a beautiful red rose.

“That’s really not fair” I said to God.

But I walked over and picked it up anyway.  It was a fake! – made of plastic and silk.  It looked great from a distance, but close to it felt rough to touch, and it smelled of… nothing.  In that moment I looked down at the little orange blossom flower in my hand – soft, small and already wilting from being taken out of the tree, and it smelled AMAZING.

So that’s it.  I’m not going to pretend to be a rose and smell of nothing.  I’m going to be an orange blossom, working together with lots of others like me to fill the streets with the sweet fragrance of Jesus.  Who is with me?

 

 

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For your journal:  Ask God about the messiness and beauty inside of you and see what He shows you.  You might ask Him whether you have a ‘bucket’ of your own, and what you do to try and fill it.  What would it take for you to hand it over to Jesus and let Him fill it?

 

This ‘bonus’ postcard is a part of the Messy, Beautiful Warrior Project — To learn more and join us, CLICK HERE! And to learn about the amazing, beautiful, grace filled book that is Carry On Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life, just released in paperback, CLICK HERE!

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Words and Pictures to help you hear from God