Tears

Innocence in childhood is hard to find, hard to protect and getting only harder.

Children have such a beautiful gift in the way they experience life, in their opportunities, their energy, their small joys.  It is a pleasure to see a child live, to play with a child, to hear a child's questions and to see the delight on their faces in discovering something new.  Often, you can see personality in a child that sticks with them all throughout their life, their passions begin to show even at such a young age.

Protecting the beauty and innocence of a child's learning experience is so important in these days, crucial as the news becomes so accessible through social media and internet, as the impurities and lusts of this world threaten to overtake the internet, values are lost and even the value of simply going for a crisp walk or playing basketball in the courtyard with your friends.

Whatever happened to this type of healthy play that has been traded for video games, and going over to just sit in front of a screen to be entertained? 

Childhood innocence is so beautiful and tears fall when I think of childhood innocence lost. When we see death, war, starvation, abuse, separation, fear, all around us, how do we preserve joyful bliss of a child's discovery of life. Are we celebrating all the beauty that surrounds us as well, or do we see only the suffering?

This is a personal challenge. I want to not get overwhelmed by the sorrowful things going on, but to also remember the goodness of the Lord in the times of sorrow. To remember the crisp feeling of fall leaves as they crunch beneath your feet, to run in the crisp autumn air and feel its chill as it escapes your lungs, to see the beauty of the bright blue sky and sunshine, to play. 

God is able to take the tears and turn them into laughter, to take the sorrows of the night and bring joy in the morning. 

"Do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or clothing what you will wear. See how God takes care of the lilies of the field that they are clothed more brilliantly than King Solomon...and not one sparrow falls to the ground without His attention.  If he cares such for the flowers of the field, which are here today, and gone tomorrow, How much more, then, will He care for you?"  (Rough Joanna paraphrase)

Chasing God…A Heartcry

Truly,

My desire is after God's heart, to have His love unconditionally surround me, to know that He has purified my heart that He is pleased with me.

and SO OFTEN I FAIL.  I fail to meet His standards and then it dawns on me how ridiculous it is to think that I am going to meet His standards? ha.  I could laugh at the thought of it.  Being able to meet God's standard of holiness of purity???  NEVER POSSIBLE.  Although Impossible with man, although impossibly my heart breaks by my own inability to attain His standard of purity, He has cleansed and called me pure before the Father in Heaven.

Jesus did take it all, He is pure, He did live sinless. He did live spotless. He did what I could never do…

I confess my own limitations. My failure to meet the bar. The dreams in my heart are impossible if not for Him. I confess that I need Him so much, every hour.

Jesus, please cleanse me and make me white at snow. Make me pure before you. My desire is to glorify the Father, to please Him. I'm like an 8 yr old child, smilingly coming before her Papa with a crayon colored picture of her family and presenting it like prized possession to Him, asking him to accept the gift that I made with everything I had just for him. Papa takes this and holds it to his heart like a prized possession, pleased with my offering.

I offer you my life, Father, as it is, with all its imperfections. I give it my VERY BEST. my VERY BEST for you. I want nothing else like I want you. In everything….in everything.

Whether I come with tears or laughter, let these be tears that honor you, that were shed in the earnestness of my heart after you, or laughter due to joy in You at Your hand.

You alone are worthy Abba.