Do you love me? You know I do... Do you love me? Yes, Lord, you KNOW I do. Leisa, do you love me?

Do I? Do I really? Do I love Him like I love the world? Do I love Him like I love the THINGS of this world? I've always thought the answer was "of course I do!" but I'm realizing that I didn't really have a clue what that question really meant.

Sin...Iniquity....Elisabeth Elliot in her devotional in my inbox this morning said

"Charity rejoiceth not in iniquity" (1 Cor 13:6 AV). Let us be willing to call iniquity what is really iniquity, rather than to call it weakness, temperament, failure, hangups, or to fall back on the tired excuse, "It's just the way I am."

Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a right spirit within me. (Ps 51:10 AV)

The Psalms have been speaking to me this week. First it was Psalms 5:1-3 "give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my sighing. Listen to my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray. In the morning O LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation" Expectation? Do I pray expectantly? really? This morning at the close of worship, we quoted responsively Psalm 51. "Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have a I sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge"

There's that word "iniquity" again. We try to wash over sins and excuse them away by saying we are weak, or we look around and compare ourselves to others and it's almost always easy to find someone that we can at least say is worse than us whether it's true or not and we somehow excuse away our "little" sin. The word iniquity kind of tells it like it is...no excusing, no white-washing, no efforts to diminish the seriousness of what it speaks of. Sin, iniquity, wrongdoing, whatever you call it at any given time, it is is disobedience to the God of the universe, who loves me. Why would I "want" to excuse those things away or try to see them as not so bad or maybe even justify them so that they don't look like sin at all.

This morning....it's very raw. I was weighed down with the weight of the world when I got up....just stuff...you know?...that stuff that is weighing on your mind when you wake up in the quiet of the morning and that's when you worry the most? yeah, that stuff. It was raw....really, really raw. I went into worship in the farthest thing possible from a heart full of worship. The music began and I melted into a puddle...tears flowing. I couldn't sing...only listen to the voices around me...the words to the beautiful songs. Music speaks to me....deeply. Always has and when the Lord wants my attention, He almost always uses music in there somewhere. He made me to respond to song. I love Him for that..I love music. Anyway, back to this morning....my heart raw, standing between my two youngest daughters with my husband and oldest there also. I couldn't control the tears but was trying and actually thought I was pulling off a pretty stoic look. My eyes were closed...the song was being sung..tears were welling up, spilling over, and I was doing a pretty good job, I thought, at mopping them away before they rolled down my cheeks. Like I said I had my eyes closed so I could hear the words without distraction....He loves us, oh how He loves us...oh how He loves...All of a sudden I had arms wrapped around me...not around my waist like I would have expected from my 11 year old when she wants a hug back, but up, completely around my body, arms and all...a bear hug....a hug that says I love you and you are everything to me and for a moment it was Jesus. He had me in a big huge bear hug. He was holding me at a moment when I needed holding. And then it was Anna, my wonderful tender sweet Anna...she had her arms thrown up and around my upper body (took some doing even though I'm not tall, she's still small up to me and she has never hugged me that way before) It was obvious that she had felt the need to not just show me love but to hold me. I stood there, wrapped in the love of Jesus through the arms of my 11 year old who was sensitive to His leading to be His arms and put them around me in such a way. So, I am grateful for a savior who loves me...who sees my tears even when I am trying to be stoic and wipe them before they show and then use a little girl who means the world to me to bring comfort to me. Jesus loves me, this I know...Do I love Him...oh how I want to love Him...Iniquity? Mine...remove it Lord, please, as far as the east is from the west...make me obedient...I love you enough for obedience....give me strength to resist tempation that I might show you Lord my love for you.

Turning North

Well, I have never considered myself a writer and yet as I left church this morning, I thought I couldn't get home fast enough to put some thoughts down in type. They were literally bursting at the seams to get written down. I decided that since today has been a day full of reflection that it was a good time to begin this blog. If for no other reason than to allow me the outlet to express my thoughts somewhere. I chose the name Volviendo de Norte, Turning North because as the scripture says in Deuteronomy 2:3 "You have circled this mountain long enough. Now turn north", I have been circling my own mountains long enough and it is time for me to turn north. I will get more into those mountains in coming posts but for now suffice it to define my blog at this point.