Today, my friend Marni gave me the opportunity to guest post on her blog... about a subject that I am very passionate about. Read the intro here and then jump over to her blog for the rest. :)

Welcome to Tune-In Tuesday! If this is your first time visiting on a Tuesday, I hope you will find this as a place to worship together. Each week, I share about a song that God is using in my life. One that is speaking to me in whatever season I may be going through. The invitation is for you to jump in and do it, too! Here are the steps:

1. Pick a song that is especially meaningful for you at this time in your life and write about it. Really think about the lyrics… and let them change you.
2. Link up here using the linky tool at the bottom of this post. Use the name of your song as the title of your link. (If you haven’t done this before, feel free to email me with questions.) If you don't have a blog, you can leave a comment sharing your song. ***Please use the permalink to your post, not your blog's main site. Because of the specialized nature of this weekly series, any links that are not specifically for Tune-In Tuesday will be deleted.***
3. Visit other people’s blogs and worship with them.
4. Spread the word. Grab the button in the left column and add it to your post. That way, others can link up, as well. Tweet about it… Try to get others in on the conversation.
5. And the main thing… worship! :) 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My song for today is Fall Apart by Josh Wilson. LOVE this song. Press play below to listen and then read on for lyrics and some thoughts.

Why in the world did I think I could
Only get to know you when my life was good
When everything just falls in place
The easiest thing is to give You praise

Now it all seems upside down

‘Cause my whole world is caving in
But I feel You now more than I did then
How can I come to the end of me
And somehow still have all I need
God, I want to know You more
Maybe this is how it starts
I find You when I fall apart

Blessed are the ones who understand
We’ve got nothing to bring but empty hands
Nothing to hide and nothing to prove
Our heartbreak brings us back to You

And it all seems upside down

‘Cause my whole world is caving in
But I feel You now more than I did then    

How can I come to the end of me
And somehow still have all I need
God, I want to know You more
Maybe this is how it starts
I find You when I fall apart

I don’t know how long this will last
I’m praying for the pain to pass
But maybe this is the best thing that
Has ever happened to me

My whole world is caving in
But I feel You now more than I did then
How can I come to the end of me
And somehow still have all I need
God, I want to know You more
Maybe this is how it starts
I find You when
You will find me when I fall apart

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Over the last several months, I have gone through a pretty significant spiritual battle. Significant life changes. Depression. Anger. Bitterness. Frustration. Hurt. Feelings of rejection in every area of my life. Heartbreaking feelings of being nudged out of some areas very dear to my heart that I was once involved in heavily. Selfishness.

It could have been a simple fix, if I had just let go and trusted. But my heartbreak didn’t bring me back to Him. Instead of drawing closer to Jesus and to those who love me, I withdrew. Went into hiding for a while. So He held me down a little longer.

Most of you probably had no idea. Most of you saw my Sunday face.

Thankfully, I can tell you that I’m starting to come out of it. I’m actually seeing the reasoning behind it all. Sometimes God has to strip us of all of the things that cause pride and ego in our lives. Often, that is the only way to get our complete attention.

And sometimes it takes breaking our hearts. But after the breaking, He is also there… just waiting for us to hand over the pieces to Him.

This song speaks to me so much. We can’t just praise Him in the good times. We have to praise Him and cling to Him in the hard times, too. And maybe, just maybe, we will find the breaking to be the "best thing that's ever happened to us."

I’m so grateful that He will find me when I fall apart.

If you haven't read about my beach worship moment with my son, I hope you will read it here: A Beach Baby's Worship. Moments like this have helped my healing.

Her face said it all. The corners of her little mouth turned down… her lower lip poking out a little further than the upper. Red blotches covering her cheeks and forehead. Tears streaming, as her eyebrows angrily formed a V above her nose. Mommy was finally putting her foot down. No more pull-ups.

For months, we have struggled with the potty. Good days and bad days. The bad days dominated by stubbornness and a need to be in control. Hmmm… Katherine is definitely my daughter. She has moments where she fights me with every bit of physical and emotional strength she’s got.

But I love her. With every bit of strength I’ve got.

I guess God often sees me as I described Katherine in the first paragraph. Still fighting  to get my way. Still holding onto my pride. My need for control. My need to have it “my way.” Becoming weaker by the minute.

The pride fight is especially tough for me. Sometimes I think I struggle more than others. Remember The Truman Show? Somewhere in the deepest part of my soul, in the parts of me that I don’t like to examine or talk about, I feel like I am supposed to be Truman. The world is supposed to revolve around me. But that is not who I really want to be. It’s just my selfish human nature. 

My pride gets in the way of so many blessings that God has prepared for me. Somehow I get mixed up, believing that the things I WANT are the blessings God SHOULD want for me. And holding on to those wants is exactly what prevents me from receiving God’s true blessings. I can only find out what He really wants for me when I give it all over.

Sure I have (a lot of) moments where, like Katherine, I fight Him with every bit of physical and emotional strength I’ve got. And in the same way that I love Katherine with everything I’ve got, I’m thankful that…

He loves me. With every bit of strength He’s got.

Panic must have swept over my mom as the wave pummeled me from the safety of my raft. I was only about 5 years old at the time, and very independent. The mission in my oh-so-young mind was to test boundaries, and the ocean was no exception. This day was not one for venturing only to where the waves lapped over my toes. It was a day to go a little further.

All I knew was that I was spinning over and over again. I couldn’t pull myself out and I couldn’t get a foot on the ground either. With each flip, I drank in too much warm salt water and lost more breath from my body. I was scared. Petrified really. At that moment, I would have given away my independence just to hold my mom’s hand.

Then suddenly someone reached in and grabbed me. A friend pulled me out of the water just in time to catch my breath. As I sank into the sea-covered sand, I felt grateful.

32 years later… that day still comes to mind from time to time. It really hit me yesterday that my spinning wave was a cycle, one that I couldn’t pull myself out of. I needed someone to grab me and pull me out. Not the most fun realization for an I-can-do-it-myself type.

So here I am… getting close to 40. Still stuck in my pet cycle. The one that I have dealt with since I can remember. It has led to lots of little sub-cycles. One of those sub-cycles caused me to be unfaithful to my husband, and still creates struggles in my thought life. Another sub-cycle causes me to give up when I don’t feel like I’m good enough. The sub-cycles go on and on, but they all come back to the mama cycle: insecurity and doubt. Insecurity about myself. Doubt that God will take care of me. They keep me spinning.

But you know what? I’m tired of senseless effort. Only God can reach in and pull me out from under this wave. I can keep wrestling for the rest of my life, but my foot will never be able to get hold of the ground. And He doesn’t want it to. He simply wants me to stop fighting and let Him pull me out.

So what about you? Do you have a pet cycle that you’ve been fighting? Are you ready to let God pull you out?

God is connecting me with some incredible women lately, including the ladies at the Encouragement Cafe. I feel honored that they allowed me to share my heart through a devotion on their site today. It's a bit of my testimony... and I hope you will join me...

Click here to visit the Encouragement Cafe and read. After you read, I would love for you to come back here and share a comment with me.

Death is a part of life. The grief that goes along with some types of death is hard to comprehend. Miscarriage is one. For women who lose a child, even early in pregnancy, it is an incredibly painful experience.

My husband and I have had 2 miscarriages. You can read about our second one here: Still, Part 2 of 2. Since the time of that miscarriage, my heart has been burdened for hurting women. The women who went through a pregnancy loss without completely grieving… The women who are going through it now… The men beside them who are trying to be strong support while they are trying to deal with their own grief.

God has led me to this point. I am in the beginning stages of research for a new resource eBook that will help all involved to cope with the pain of pregnancy loss. I’m hoping that you all might be able to help me with this research.

Have you experienced miscarriage or another type of pregnancy loss? Do you know someone who has? If so, please let me know… by comment or email. And if you are willing, please click here and take a survey about your experiences. Your answers will be used to help others understand and work through what they are experiencing. And if you are on Twitter, Facebook, any social networking channels… please spread the word. Thanks ahead of time for helping!

Today I'm posting another one from a couple of years ago. Why have I been re-posting so much lately? A couple of reasons. First of all, I haven't had a lot of concentrated writing time lately. And second, as I moved my blog over from Blogger to Wordpress, I looked over my posts and realized that  I learned some good lessons along the way while writing some of my older posts. So... here is today's... a lesson from Casting Crowns. I have edited this one quite a bit because of MORE lessons I've learned in this area since. You can read the original here.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Casting Crowns has a song for just about anything you may go through in life. An example of this is Stained Glass Masquerade. My friends and I have lovingly referred to this one as "the plastic people song." In thinking about the words, I make a mess of it myself.

Here are the lyrics (with special emphasis on certain parts):

"It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard... is what makes it great!" - Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own

One of my favorite quotes… one of my favorite actors… one of my favorite movies. If you are not as obsessed with baseball as I am, you may have missed “A League of Their Own.” It's Hollywood's version of the AAPGBL (All-American Girls Professional Baseball League), a women's baseball league set up during the war from the 1940s to the early 1950s. At one time in my life (about 15 years ago), I actually wanted to try out for the Colorado women’s professional baseball team. I know, crazy dream… one of many I have never chased.

Some recent things in my world have gotten me thinking more about this quote, and my mind has gone back to times in my life when I have let the “hard” keep me from going after my dreams. One in particular was during my freshman year at ECU. During the first couple of weeks of the semester, I actually went to the first day of tryouts for the tennis team. There were 6 of us trying out for 1 spot, and instead of giving it my all, I quit after the first day. Chicken.

Well, here I am again. I'm working toward something that God has called me to... and I'm scared to death. I feel like quitting... like I won't be ready in time. I'm having moments where I'm just not sure I can handle the warfare that I surely am about to face. But He keeps reminding me of the calling. Of the experiences in my life that have brought me to this moment. That I should keep pushing.

No more looking back. From this moment on, I cannot allow the "hard" of something to keep me from giving my all.

Sometimes, I feel like I just keep banging my head against the wall... 1 step forward, 2 steps back. The same mistakes. The same selfish ambitions. The same self-consuming thoughts. The same pride.

Over and over again...

This cycle seems too "hard" to break. And in my OWN strength, it is.

God never told us that His way would be easy. He only told us that He would see us through. HE alone is our strength. HE alone is our Creator and HE created each one of us with a purpose. If we are too afraid to go through the "hard," how can we really see His true purpose for our lives? This is a challenge to go forward... stop looking back... do what HE wants you to do, no matter how tough, no matter what it takes. The only way to true LIFE is to push on through the hard parts, letting HIM lead you! Don't be chicken!

"For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." - 2 Timothy 1:7 (NKJV)

"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!" - Ephesians 3:20-21 (NIV)

The image is forever etched in my memory. It was implanted there a few weeks ago, and hasn’t left my mind since.

On that day, I was sitting at Krispy Kreme eating a doughnut (chocolate-covered, creme-filled, of course), when my eyes were suddenly drawn to a scene outside the front window. Two ladies, who looked to be in their 80s, sat at a table on the front patio. They were facing away from me, just chatting away about who knows what. Life? Love? What might have been? I couldn’t pull my gaze away. It was such a beautiful picture.

My thoughts immediately went to my best friend. I set my coffee down and smiled as I was reminded of all the “gotta get out of the house” trips for coffee we have enjoyed over the years. The conversations that have spontaneously occurred over our cups of coffee. The tough times we’ve shared. The joys we’ve shared. The day they told us they were probably moving… The text that said it was official… The day they packed everything into those moving trucks and changed their address to a different city.

Maybe a year ago, her husband and I were talking about a group of women at the church who have been the best of friends through many, many years… who are so in sync that they are just fun to watch when they are all together. And he said to me, “well, you know that’s how you guys are going to be.” I smiled at the notion… at that time believing they would “just always be here.”

So there at Krispy Kreme, in my “doughnut shop ladies” moment, I realized that I was losing something extremely valuable to me. Not losing completely… she didn’t move that far away. But at least losing things “the way they were.” The way I always expected them to be. She’s just not right up the road anymore. That “comfort zone” is gone.

Change and letting go of comfort zones is something that does not come easy to me. I would dare say it is tough for all of us. However, God calls us to move out of comfort zones. Even our friendships can become places of such comfort that we miss out on missions God has for our lives. Sometimes, He takes people out of our lives (or just moves them further away) because He is calling us to draw closer to Him. If we are too reliant on any other human in this world, we cannot be totally dependent on our Savior.

There will always be people with whom we relate the most… those like-minded kindred spirit type people who don’t come along every day. Those friends we love to “do ministry” and “do life” with. But sometimes God lets us share with and learn from each other for a time, so that He can then separate us and use us in different places. He never wants us to stay TOO comfortable. God wants us to rely completely on Him. And difficult as it may be, sometimes He has to pull our strongest comfort zones completely out from under us to accomplish His greater purposes.

Got a comfort zone in your life that you’re scared of losing? A person? A job? A place? Ask God to make you completely reliant on Him. Ask Him to pull your heart so close to Him, that NOTHING in this world can pull you away from His great purpose for your life!

Some days, Katherine goes to bed singing… then she wakes up singing. Definitely a music lover to the core. (I have NO idea where she gets that from!!) :o)

One day last week, in her cute little way, she couldn’t stop singing these lyrics… “Christ is risen from the dead. We are one with Him again. Come awake, come awake, come and rise up from the grave.” If you haven’t heard Christ Is Risen by Matt Maher… listen to it below. In fact, play it while you’re reading the rest of this post. Awesome!



So back to Katherine. After she sang the same lyrics several times, I decided to play the whole song for her on my iPhone. For the rest of the day, she would ask for it again and again with a big smile… “Play Come Awake, Mommy!” “I want to hear Come Awake!” You know what's funny? Come Awake is not the title of the song. Sometimes I think we should let the kids name the songs.

Think about what the lyrics are saying to us. So often, we remain in our guilt and shame. We take up residence. We dwell on the past. We dwell on the regrets. Yes, I do it, too. (By the way, if you missed my testimony as shared about a week ago, you can read it here on my friend Karen’s blog.)

This song has taught me that if I choose to stay in my guilt and shame, I am not doing what God has called me to do. Christ died and rose again so that we would “come awake” and live in the risen mindset. He doesn’t want us to stay dead in our sin… in our shame… in our regret. If we have truly repented, then He is calling us to wake up. To let go of the past and reach FORWARD! In the RISEN life! In Philippians 3:14, Paul calls us to “…press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

If we live defeated lives, we are useless for the kingdom.

How are you doing in the regret area? Have you realized that all of your past sin can now be turned around and used in others’ lives? Do you seek out opportunities for God to use you to help others move out of sinful patterns and lifestyles? Or are you still dwelling on the sin? If we try to forgive ourselves in our own strength, we will just stay in a defeated cycle. But with Christ in control, we can put the sin behind us so that we can come awake and live again. A new life! A new day! A new song!

Oh church! Come stand in the light!
The glory of God has defeated the night!
Our God is not dead! HE’S ALIVE! HE’S ALIVE! 

We can learn a lot from our kiddos. When I keep my eyes open, our little ones teach me something every day. They view life from an innocent perspective. A point-of-view that we grown-ups sometimes miss because of the doubt, regret, and fear in our lives. I'm thankful that God used our little girl to remind me to come awake!

I'm guest posting again... Today at my friend Karen's blog: The Couch. Today I'm opening myself up and letting God use my testimony as He will.
----
Purity and personal holiness begin on the inside. Who we become ultimately begins with what we allow ourselves to think and “feel.” My passion for talking about purity stems from years of mistakes and struggles within my own life. You see, about eleven years ago, I almost destroyed my marriage. Almost. I did everything I could to destroy it… but God had other plans…  Click here to continue reading at The Couch.

I hope you will join me... then come back and leave a comment. Have a wonderful Memorial Day!

I'm guest posting at my friend Marni's blog today! I hope you will read this little introduction and then head over to her blog for the rest of the post.
------
 When Jeffrey was about a year old, he would play a game with us. We bought him a little plastic basketball set that he could play with for hours. When he first started playing with it, our sharp little boy learned quickly that all he had to do was put the little plastic ball in the little plastic hole… and Mommy, Daddy, MeMaw, or whoever else may be watching would clap loudly, cheer, and smile!

... Continue reading here: Relevant Brokenness. Then come back and leave me a comment! Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!