Pondering this prayer during Lent. Pastor Brian shared it during our Ash Wednesday service at Crossroads Church.
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Plans to Give You Hope!
I’ve read this passage so many times.
I memorized it as a child.
It was given to me in cards and notes over and over again after Leisha died.
God has plans to prosper me- not harm me
God has plans to give me hope and a future.
But I today I read the verse in context of chapter 29.
This is the text of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders among the exiles and to the priests, the prophets and all the other people Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.
First thing I notice is to be in exile is the condition of someone being sent or kept away from their own country, village, home, etc. CAMBRIDGE ENGLISH DICTIONARY
The Lord tells them through Jeremiah to:
Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce.6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. 7 Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.
Hmmm? Sounds like God is saying make the most of the situation you are in – whether it is good or not, whether it is where you want to be or not.
Then in verse 10 the Lord says; ”
When seventy years are completed in Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place.
And that is where Jeremiah 29:11 comes in.
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
SEVENTY YEARS????
Moment on my Porch- not!
JoAnn Fore, the HOPE Coach, challenged me this week to share a porch story. You know! Those times you develop a listening ear and something beautiful comes from your time in the quiet.
The porch I imagined as I read the challenge was the large front porch at a favorite bed & breakfast we love to go to in Holmes County, Ohio. I have sat on that porch and I have met God there. I have wept there, pleaded and cried there. I have celebrated, dreamed and worshipped on that porch.
But we don’t have a porch like that at our house.
Yet often this summer, I have heard the invitation to “come to the tree!”
The big old tree in it front yard is one of my favorite places to sit. Not only do the branches stretch long to provide shade and protection, but at the base of the tree is a wide, porch like bench built by a friend who has a spiritual gift of service. Out on one limb hangs a swing that reminds me of the precious moments our girls used to spend here. Every thing about this spot says “sweet”!
But today, I went out with Lisa Terkuerst’s book, The Best Yes. I had just sat down to read and was struck with these words.
If we want the Lord’s direction for our decisions, the great cravings of our soul must not only be the big moments ofassignment. They must also be seemingly small instructions in the most ordinary of moments when God points his finger and says, Go there. In doing that, we are companions of God with eyes and ears more open, more about, more in time with Him.
I barely read those words when I sensed I was being eaten alive by the swarm of mosquitoes that we have been blessed with because of the intense rains we have had this spring. I was forced to go inside.
To be perfectly honest, I was a little miffed that I had intentionally set time aside to read, listen, & worship out at my sweet spot and the Lord had seen it unnecessary to call off the insect population. ( I know, it sounded foolish as I wrote it too!)
Now I had to go in the house where I was surrounded by a myriad of duties that needed to be performed; dishes to be washed, table to be cleared of clutter, bills to be paid, shelves to be dusted, etc., etc., etc.!
I
sat in my front room looking at my sweet spot from the window. The place I knew God called me to often. The place I could often hear him best, when I finally quit making lists in my head and let Him quiet my heart.
Once again I had to sit inside and not be free to do the important heart work God called me to!
Then I read Lisa’s paragraph again.
If we want the Lord’s direction for our decisions, the great cravings of our soul must not only be the big moments ofassignment. They must also be seemingly small instructions in the most ordinary of moments when God points his finger and says, Go there. In doing that, we are companions of God with eyes and ears more open, more about, more in time with Him.
God had brought me into the middle of my ordinary moments, to see that even here he is present with me. In the middle of the laundry, the dusting and the bills, He is teaching me once again, He is part of these things too!
So now I’m off to worship as I prepare supper for my “working hard all week” hubby who just called to say he’s on his way home.
I embrace this place of worship and service too.
Thanks to a fresh perspective from my view of my porch like tree!
Happy Birthday Leisha!
Twenty-four years ago, our daughter Leisha appeared in our world. She messed up all of our plans that day.
Rennie was supposed to be leading a huge dedication service of the new worship center at our church in Pennsylvania. She was being born just as they ended the service with a dedication of the new generation that would grow up in this place. Others had to fill in for Rennie!
She messed up lots of days since then too! Just like every baby does when they grow up in our family. Days become messy and nights interrupted. Plans get changed and that is expected! You know, or at least you realize quickly when you bring a child into your life they will forever change you. All three of ours have left a mark on us so significant that we know we are better, stronger, even holier as we have spent many more hours on our knees. You have too if you are a parent. It is what we do when we come to the end of ourselves and want more for our child.
Leisha also messed up our lives the day she died. That was eight and a half years ago. Another mark on all of us that have forced us to look at all of life from a new, yet broken perspective.
It is out of that perspective that I write today and ask for your prayers.
Days after Leisha died, we gathered every picture we could find of her and discovered her tapes and journals. It was in her most recent journal that we found ‘her book’. If you flipped it over and upside down and opened the cover she had begun to write her own story.
Chapter One
Once Upon A Time…
By Leisha D. Burrus
How many stories do you know that begin with ‘once upon a time”? Well this is one of them, or so I thought. I was born April twenty-eighth, nineteen ninety one. But wait! I am getting ahead of myself. I guess I should start where it all began.
My parents met in high school. … she begins to tell the love story of her dad & I.
As I sat there reading it for the first time, I could imagine this book was to be full of adventure and relationships and truth. Such truth! Because even in the short chapter that was written, she had spoken much truth to my heart. But just as Leisha had penned these few words to begin writing her story, she died. Not only was her story unwritten, but her life unlived.
However her words “I should start where it all began” was a telling of my story and of the journey of her mother and father and all that was her heritage because she was born into this family.
I knew the moment I read her words that it was meant for me to finish. Her story started mine. It was as if she knew I would need a jump start. Earlier that morning I had picked up my Bible to continue reading where I had left off the day before. I read these words from Revelation 1:
17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as if I were dead. But he laid his right hand on me and said, “Don’t be afraid! I am the First and the Last. 18 I am the living one. I died, but look—I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the grave.
19 “Write down what you have seen—both the things that are now happening and the things that will happen.
I felt as if Leisha was writing these words to me.
“Mom! When I saw him, I fell at his feet…and He put His hand on me and said…! Now Mom you’ve got to write! Write down what you have seen- what’s happening right now and all the things are that going to happen. You can do it Mom!”
So I am!
Yes, I’m writing to finish the story Leisha started; her story and mine. I don’t know how this story will impact yours, but it is my prayer that it will give you hope. Because my primary goal is to write about the many ways this Living One who died showed up in our story. Click To Tweet
That’s the real story- in my life and yours!
So this birthday, I am asking for your prayers as I do just that! Will you pray as I finish the story! I have set my heart to finish writing, and publishing it by Leisha’s 25th birthday on April 28, 2016. I have much to process, record and learn before that time. But it is a thing I must do next.
Would you be willing to be on the prayer team for Lovely Traces of Hope! That’s her name for her book! Whether or not it is the final title, I don’t know yet. But it seems fitting.
If you will join me, please sign up here.
I will add you to the group and send out periodic emails with updates and requests.
Whether you sign up or not, will you pray right now that I see this to completion. My heart needs it done.
Thank you from a fledging author!
Kathy
Happy Birthday Leisha!
Living Open Handed: Dear Grief
I was challenged by my story partner friend to take Kate Motaung’s challenge to write a letter to grief. Since it ties in with my recent series on Living Open Handed, I choose to share this here also.
Dear Grief,
I don’t think I want to talk to you!
I’ve spent so many years struggling to survive your choke hold on my life!
I’ve crawled through your tunnel
Filled with muck- dark and slimy
So deep that with each step I sunk farther
O
Until it began to paralyze my legs
Then my torso and my arms
Finally my face
Silencing my voice
Blind folding my sight
Dulling my ability to hear as you filled my ears with your lies.
I could barely find my next breath
OH
let alone move.
Living Open Handed: Express Honestly
This is the third in a series on LIVING OPEN HANDED. If you missed them, it might be helpful to go back so you understand how we got to this post.
1. LIVING OPEN HANDED: Do Not Fear
2. LIVING OPEN HANDED: I have a Need
Recognizing our fear and acknowledging we have a need leads us to
open up our ring finger for E: EXPRESS HONESTLY———-
Broken… to Whole
Just the day before I said to my client, “well, I’m broken, and I can’t be 
fixed. Somehow God will just have to use me broken.”
But this day a woman I barely knew sat across the table in my leaders huddle. She spoke, hesitant of sharing such an intimate story with a group of strangers. Her parents had both died in an accident when she was young. Life had been hard. But now, so many years later she heard God saying to her, “I want to make you whole again.”
In my heart I whispered, “I’ll never be whole. I’ll always live broken.” Leisha’s death left me broken- heart is too ripped, too many pieces have been lost. Some Doctors say I can’t be healed. I can’t be fixed.
But the rest of the day those words rumbled around in my brain. Continue reading Broken… to Whole