my newest purchase.

so good.

Death in his grave

I stole this song from a friend. It just seems timely.

Death In His Grave (Performance Video) from john mark mcmillan on Vimeo.

"Death in his grave"

Though the earth cried out for blood, satisfied her hunger was
Billows calmed on raging seas for the souls on men she craved
Sun and moon from balcony turned their head in disbelief
The precious Love would taste the sting disfigured and disdained

On Friday a thief, on Sunday a King
Laid down in grief, but awoke with the keys
To Hell on that day, first born of the slain
The Man Jesus Christ laid death in his grave

So three days in darkness slept, the Morning Sun of righteousness
But rose to shame the throes of death and overturn his rule
Now daughters and the sons of men would pay not their dues again
The debt of blood they owed was rent when the day rolled anew

On Friday a thief, on Sunday a King
Laid down in grief, but awoke with the keys
To Hell on that day, first born of the slain
The Man Jesus Christ laid death in his grave
death in his grave (3x)

He has cheated
Hell and seated
Us above the fall
In desperate places
He paid our wages
One time once and for all

On Friday a thief, on Sunday a King
Laid down in grief, but awoke with the keys
To Hell on that day, first born of the slain
The Man Jesus Christ laid death in his grave

India.

hear us

as we call on Your name, would You make this a place for Your glory to dwell?

a promise

Isaiah 42:16

I will lead the blind by ways they have not known,
along unfamiliar paths I will guide them;
I will turn the darkness into light before them
and make the rough places smooth.
These are the things I will do;
I will not forsake them.

a dear friend sent me this verse. you know how sometimes God uses people to remind you of His character and His plan and His love for you? yeah, that's this.

and then Ty turned 1 and we had a party!

a few favorites..

public speaking

I'm not a huge fan of public speaking itself, but I am a fan of how God uses it to convey and communicate His truth and vision. This morning I spoke at church about missions. every Sunday we have a "vision moment" where we talk about something that is important to us at Trinity Park and Global Missions is a huge part of our core identity so I feel so honored that I was the one who got to stand up in front of the church and talk about the passion God has given me for the healing of the nations! What a sweet privilege...here's what I said:

Last weekend I had the privilege of attending Mission to the World’s Global missions Conference in Chattanooga, TN. For those of you who don't know, MTW is the sending agency for missionaries within the PCA. There were over 2100 people at the conference hearing about The Hope of Nations, which was the theme for the conference, and I was greatly encouraged and challenged by hearing about what God is doing around the world through MTW using people like us to love and serve and share Jesus cross-culturally. Thinking off the top of my head, I heard specifically about work in China, Japan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Greece, Spain, Australia, England, Scotland, the entire continent of Africa, Central/South America, and the Caribbean. I would love to talk about everything I heard, amazing stories of people coming to know the Lord but first I want to talk a little bit about what I learned about why we care about Global Missions. Why do we at Trinity Park want missions to be part of the core of our identity instead of just a program that we add on? Because God’s heart is for the nations! One of the coolest things I’ve ever done is a word study through scripture of the word “nations.” It’s incredible how many times God talks about bringing justice and healing to the nations and how He want us to be a part of it. One of my favorite quotes is from David Bryant, He says “God has a wonderful plan to sum up all things under His Son as Lord and to glorify His name among the nations for ages to come and He loves you enough to give you a strategic place in it.” I’ll just give you a few examples from Scripture: in Num 14:17-21, God says “But indeed as I live, all the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord.” On the front of your bulletin every Sunday, is a verse from Psalm 67 that says “May God be gracious to us and bless us that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.” And there are hundreds more. As some of you know, I have been praying through going on the mission field full time and have begun the application process with MTW to join the team in South India and actually just yesterday received an official invitation to join the team, which is super exciting! But before I went to the missions conference, I was really questioning my call and one of my biggest prayers before going was that God would give me clarity. And He really confirmed over and over again His call on my life to move overseas and love on women and children in South Asia. One of the biggest things that stuck out to me was the last talk of the conference called “Remember who you are” by a pastor named Joe Novenson. He unpacked Proverbs 11:30, it says “the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life and he who wins souls is wise” He talked about our “stunning identity” as believers in Christ and the tree of life, the tree that sat in the center of Eden, the greatest tree there ever was, the one that was part of the constant state of life in Eden, more life and beauty than we can even imagine. We, as believers emanate life, our fruit is a tree of life. When people get near us, they are getting near the tree of life. Revelation 22 talks about the new heavens and the new earth and how there’s this crystal river flowing with the water of life on either side of the tree of life and God says “the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.” That hits home for me in a very real way. I love that our God is the God who heals and He lets us have a hand in his amazing plan to heal the nations. In his talk, Joe said “when people brush up against us, when they touch our leaves, they should say “there’s life here”…people are dying all over the world and we are the ones who have been entrusted with life. Joe challenged us at the end of his talk with “what will it take for you to jump in?”…So I challenge you with that as well, what is the strategic place that God has for you in His plan to heal the nations?

Even if only 1 person caught a little bit of the vision we have for the healing of the nations, me having to get up in front of a crowd and talk for 5 minutes was totally worth it. Besides, I might as well get used to it since I'll hopefully start raising support in March. Just one of the many ways that God reminds me how dependent I am on Him.

Speaking of being dependent, I'm so excited about our new sermon series...it's on the Core values of Trinity Park and we started today with Depending. Corey challenged our self-sufficiency and reminded us of God's love for us and His call for us to come to Him when we are weary and heavy laden. He reminded us that whether we feel like we are or not, we've been dependent on God for life from the very beginning and that hasn't changed. We're stubborn and prone to wander but we're dependent on Him for all things and He promises to be there when we run to Him, and to take our heavy burden and replace it with His light load. such a sweet message for a soul that is feeling heavy laden, weak, weary, and prone to wander.

a season

there are certain times that an analogy just explains a heart condition much better than anything else...

the other day, I was hanging out with Jordan, Josh, and Camille and much to our dismay, Camille dumped an entire box of purple nerds on the floor...Jordan was distraught because they were his and he thought he wasn't going to get another piece of candy...so naturally, we all got down on our knees to pick up the nerds and put them back in the box one by one...so, I said to Jordan, my 6 year old muse, that I felt like these nerds all scattered on the floor being picked up one at a time and put back in the box...to which Jordan's perplexed reaction is "You feel like a nerd?"...haha, funny story but it's a beautiful analogy for how I feel during this season of being dumped out and picked apart to the core.

As I was sitting in the waiting room at Massage envy this afternoon waiting to get an awesome massage, I was watching the tropical scene on the flat screen TV, the crystal blue waves crashing on the shore of this tropical paradise and I noticed the rocks in the sand being washed over time and time again by the beautiful water, some of the rocks staying put and some being tumbled about. If I was a rock, I'm not sure I'd be very happy about that situation. It's predictable but can't you just hear the rocks saying "brace yourself!" as the wave sweeps over them once more? or maybe they just relax and let the waves take them wherever they will. I want to learn to just relax, to not be afraid of the waves but to enjoy the steadfastness of them, to learn to trust in a God who is more constant than the waves on the shore of a tropical paradise. This, of course, made me think of a verse from Psalms "Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me. By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me—a prayer to the God of my life." Psalm 42:7-8. The Psalmist is talking about his "downcast soul" and the agony that he is feeling as he wrestles with seeing the purpose in the hard season he's in, a season that feels like being overcome by waves and breakers, but he ends the Psalm by reminding himself and us to put our hope in God despite the fact that 2 verses prior he's questioning God's very existence. What a raw and real emotional experience God paints for us in His word. It also made me think of the lyrics to a song that I love by NeedtoBreathe called "Something Beautiful"...

In your ocean, I'm ankle deep
I feel the waves crashin' on my feet
It's like I know where I need to be
But I can't figure out, yeah I can't figure out
just how much air I will need to breathe
When your tide rushes over me
There's only one way to figure out
Will you let me drown, will you let me drown?

Hey now, this is my desire
Consume me like a fire, 'cause I just want something beautiful
To touch me, I know that I'm in reach
'Cause I am down on my knees.
I'm waiting for something beautiful
Oh, something beautiful

And the water is rising quick
And for years I was scared of it
We can't be sure when it will subside
So I won't leave your side, no I can't leave your side.

Yeah, I know where I need to be but I can't figure out just how much air I need to breathe before the waves crash over me. The water is rising quick and I used to be scared of it and sometimes I still am, but since I can't be sure when it will subside, I just can't leave His side. I need to cling to his hand like a little girl who's terrified of and overwhelmed by the giant ocean but is willing to go in because her Dad is holding her hand and He says it's a good idea and she trusts Him.

my sweet boy

one of my kids is really sick, just praying for a miracle.

19 and counting..

I've been going through old journals. There are only 19 for the past 6 years, not counting the current one that I'm halfway through. no sweat, just some light reading. ha! But I came across an entry from 12/23/04 where I wrote out some things that I learned during the hardest semester of college. pretty much stream of consciousness..

"Christmas is in 2 days and it just doesn't feel like it. I'm not ready for another year to have flown by. This was by far the hardest semester of my life but I learned so much, I was floored by truth so much and I learned how to believe you. I learned that relationships change--some good, some bad, but all different and none can satisfy my apart from the Lord. He has to satisfy me because He is it, He's the only one capable. I learned that honesty is hard but good and freeing and necessary in relationships with people. I learned that grades are not eternal but that God works even in school. I learned that discipline is an entirely different lifestyle and a lifestyle change would be in order for me to be disciplined but more than that, I learned that it's about obedience. It's about following Christ and being obedient regardless of the cost. It's not about how much you know...it really is about this man named Jesus, the cross He died on, and the grace and freedom that ensued. I learned that I just love people and talking to them about things that matter. and I learned that you don't always get to talk about things that matter and that has to be ok. I learned that true friendship and accountability is priceless and truly a gift from the Lord. I learned that my heart is weak by itself but strong with Jesus and apparently I have some amount of pride that joins envy in rearing its ugly head quite often. I also learned what it's like to know a certain amount of freedom in these things because of Christ and because I have no desire to have a yoke if it's not necessary. I learned that planned time is sometimes better than spontaneous time and vice versa. We need both. I learned that there are people who think like me and understand my thought process, and people that just don't. I learned that CO is not the end all, Christ is the end all. I learned that leadership is hard, really hard but really good. I learned that I need sleep to survive. I learned that I love scripture and I love knowing it. I learned that I love hugs and wrestling. I like to be close. I learned how easily we sink into habit and cease to engage the Lord. I became obsessed with Hosea and fell in love with 2 Corinthians. I learned the cleansing power of crying yourself to sleep or driving down a long road in silence or yelling. I laid flat on my face for most of the semester as I attempted to lay what I cling to at His feet, as I longed to grasp grace rather than forfeit it. I learned what it's like to be broken and then be scooped up and put back together, somehow ready to wake up yet another morning. I learned that hugs help but they don't fix the hurt and they don't change the fear. I learned how easy it is for good things to become bad when the Lord is second to them and I learned that no matter how hard you try to be something you're not, you'll always be you and you'll always be loved. I've grown to love email. I've learned a lot about me, a lot about why I do things, and why I think things. I've learned about my insecurities and how they hinder my walk with the Lord. I've learned that I love being real and hate being fake. I've come to adore the starry host blanket and my green pea coat. I love pictures more. I run away less. I like to hide because it's much easier than explaining but I always want to be found and found out. I've grown to love hard questions from both ends and crave being challenged. I've learned that God is constant and faithful when I'm a nervous wreck and unfaithful and disloyal and disobedient. He calls me back and offers me life. I learned that believing Him isn't safe but it's worth it."

that semester was hard. really hard. and it's crazy how many of those things I've been re-learning since and will probably be re-learning for the rest of my life. praise God that He pursues us even in our mess. our God is a Healer.